Category Archives: DARPA

Quiet Glock use by the U.S. military

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Increasingly, various model Glocks are showing up overseas in the hands of the country’s elite forces, which could have interesting implications for the upcoming Army handgun contract.

Widespread adoption around the world

Its should be mentioned that the entire reason Glock handguns exist is that in the late 1970s Gaston Glock went vying for the Austrian Army contract to replace their 1950s era Steyr pistols with something more modern. The result, adopted as the Pistole 80 in Austria, was modified ever so slightly and sold on the world market as the first generation G17.

Since then the company has gone on to win contracts to supply the militaries of some of our closest allies to include France, Israel, Holland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden with various model Glocks.

In 2013, the British Army announced they were replacing their standard sidearm, the John Browning-designed Hi Power with the Glock 17. In all, the Queen decided to purchase some 25,000 new fourth Generation Glock 17s at a price of $14.5-million. This breaks down to about $580 per new pistol, which is slightly less than the MSRP of a new Glock 17. However, you can be sure that Gaston is probably throwing in a few extra magazines and spare parts as value added.

For law enforcement use in the U.S., the Glock is the weapon of choice more often than not. A recent survey of some 6,000 law enforcement officers from across the country conducted by a police website found that some 68 percent of all respondents carried Glocks and, further, an impressive 61 percent would choose the gun if given an option. This validates the company’s often-cited claim that approximately “65 percent of police departments in America already put a Glock police pistol in between them and the problem.”

Further, the Federal government loves Glocks, with most of the Department of Justice (FBI, DEA, ATF, etc.) issuing the .40S&W Glock 22 in various models over the past decades.

This likely led to the decision by the U.S. to buy over 100,000 Glocks for the new police forces of Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.

And, very quietly, they have been popping up in service with Leathernecks and Joes at the sharp end.

Iraqi Police Academy marksmanship competition

Read the rest in my column in Glock Forum

You would have no idea where it was coming from…

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Boeing showed off their portable Compact Laser Weapons System (CLWS) last month in a test,

flaming out a radio controlled aircraft is less time than it takes to heat a pop tart. These lasers have been around for a minute but they weigh a few thousand pounds and are about the size of a VW Bus.

This one looks like it packs up in a couple saxophone cases.

Glomar Explorer headed to the scrap heap

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With global oil prices falling to $40 a barrel in the wake of oil sands fracking and Iran coming back online, TransOcean is scrapping some 20 of their older deepwater oil drilling ships. One of these, the MV Glomar Explorer, is kinda famous.

On March 1, 1968, a Soviet Golf-II ballistic missile sub (basically a Zulu-class diesel attack sub modified to carry three Scud missiles), the K-129 (pennant 722), carrying three advanced SS-N-4 R-21 Sark nukes, sailed from Petropavlovsk to take up its peacetime patrol station 1,600 miles northeast of Hawaii.

Well something went bad fast and K-129 went down with all hands sometime around March 8th or so. The Navy’s SOSUS underwater sonar system got close enough to the wreck for government work and, after the Soviet effort to find their lost boat died down (reported by USS Barb, SSN-596, who was reportedly trailing K-129) , the USN pinpointed the wreck with deep diving research submarines and forwarded the info to Langley.

That’s when the CIA decided they wanted a ship that could lift a 1,750-ton submarine off the seafloor from a depth of 16,500 feet– 3 miles– back to the surface.

So they called Howard Hughes and opened the pocketbook (she cost over $1.6 billion in today’s money) for an immense custom built deepwater salvage ship, the 50,500-ton, 619-foot long GSF Hughes Glomar Explorer. In all, she was a big girl, the size of a WWII aircraft carrier and is today capable of reaching down to 30,000 feet to conduct exploratory oil field drilling and mining.

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But back in 1973 her mission was veiled in secrecy. Operated by the Suma Corporation under the cover of harvesting manganese nodules from the ocean floor, she was semi-secretly added to the Navy as USNS Glomar Explorer (AG-193) in July and soon headed out to literally pick up K-129 and bring it home as part of a secret operation named Project Azorian.

glomar1The story of the salvage was tense (detailed here in this really interesting 50-page redacted intelligence brief) , with two different Soviet naval auxiliaries approaching danger close.

The first the 459-foot missile range instrumentation ship Chazhma, approached and hung around for a couple days, with her helicopter buzzing the ship several times taking pictures while sending a series of signals asking just WTF Glomar Explorer was up to.

The second, SB-10, a 155-foot submarine support ship/salvage tug, remained on station for 13 days and 16 hours, closing to within 75 yards at times and having to be repeatedly warned off.

Unarmed and capable of just 10 knots when wide open, the Hughes ship was a sitting duck.

In the end, Glomar Explorer picked up a 145-foot section of the sub with its giant central claw and brought it back to the states.

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While the intelligence community hasn’t really broke down the contents of the section– which was reportedly radioactive– it was thought to include a couple of nuclear-tipped torpedoes but no missiles or code books in the 24 vans of material removed from the wreckage.

What is known is that it contained the bodies of six lost Soviet Red Banner Fleet sailors, who were buried at sea with full military honors in Sept. 1974 as seen in the CIA video below.

DCI Robert Gates presented a film of the burial ceremony to Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992.

However, before Glomar Explorer could sail back and pick up the rest of the stricken sub, a Feb. 1975 leak in the LA Times relating the involvement of Hughes, CIA and the operation itself (incorrectly termed Project Jennifer) blew the cover on the whole op, ending it (as far as we know).

Glomar Explorer was soon shuffled over to the National Defense Reserve Fleet, Suisun Bay, Benecia, California where she sat until 5 November 1996, when she was leased out for $1 million per year to a string of oil companies, the last of which is TransOcean, who purchased the ship from the Navy for $15 million in 2010.

Currently under the flag of Vanuatu, she is set to be scrapped in coming months.

Navy gets in some Hellfire action

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Tests in adding a 24-pack of Hellfire missiles, guided by the Army’s Apache Longbow system, to thier LCS fleet seems to be moving forward rather well. Now don’t freak out, LCS is also supposed to get a real anti-shipping missile such as Harpoon or the really neat new Norwegian Naval Strike Missile (NSM) and the Hellfire is just supposed to batter small boat swarm attacks that are just aren’t worth wasting a 13 foot long over-the-horizon missile on. But we’ll see I guess

From the Navy’s presser

Integration of the Longbow Hellfire missile system, designated the Surface-to-Surface Missile Module (SSMM), will increase the lethality of the Navy’s fleet of littoral combat ships. The SSMM is expected to be fully integrated and ready to deploy on LCS missions in late 2017.

“This test was very successful and overall represents a big step forward in SSMM development for LCS,” said Capt. Casey Moton, LCS Mission Modules program manager.

Termed Guided Test Vehicle-1, the event was designed to specifically test the Longbow Hellfire launcher, the missile, and its seeker versus high speed maneuvering surface targets (HSMSTs). The HSMSTs served as surrogates for fast inshore attack craft that are a potential threat to Navy ships worldwide.

During the mid-June tests off the coast of Virginia, the modified Longbow Hellfire missiles successfully destroyed a series of maneuvering small boat targets. The system “hit” seven of eight targets engaged, with the lone miss attributed to a target issue not related to the missile’s capability. The shots were launched from the Navy’s research vessel Relentless.

The test scenarios included hitting targets at both maximum and minimum missile ranges. After a stationary target was engaged, subsequent targets, conducting serpentine maneuvers were engaged. The tests culminated in a three-target “raid” scenario. During this scenario all missiles from a three-shot “ripple fire” response struck their individual targets.

Integration of the “fire-and-forget” Longbow Hellfire missile on LCS represents the next evolution in capability being developed for inclusion in the Increment 3 version of the surface warfare mission package for LCS. When fully integrated and tested, each 24-shot missile module will bring added firepower to complement the LCS’s existing 57mm gun, SEARAM missiles and armed MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter.

The print-a-drone aircraft carriers of the future?

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HMS Mersey is not an impressive warship. The 261-foot River-class OPV is slow, armed with just three guns all under 20mm in caliber, and is tasked primarily with coast guard style missions. However, last week she pulled off something that could revolutionize how drones are used at sea in the next generation.

You see she launched a UAV that was made from 3D printed parts.

FIRST LAUNCH OF 3D PRINTED UMANED AERIAL VEHICLE - 21/7/15 Today, 21st July 2015, a 3D printed Umaned Aerial Vehicle was launched from a Royal Navy warship for the first time. HMS Mersey provided the perfect platform for the University of Southampton to test out their SULSA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Weighing 3kg and measuring 1.5m the airframe was created on a 3D printer using laser sintered nylon and catapulted off HMS Mersey into the Wyke Regis Training Facility in Weymouth, before landing on Chesil Beach. The flight, which covered roughly 500 metres, lasted less than few minutes but demonstrated the potential use of small lightweight UAVs, which can be easily launched at sea, in a maritime environment. The aircraft carried a small video camera to record its flight and Southampton researchers monitored the flight from their UAV control van with its on-board video-cameras. Known as Project Triangle the capability demonstration was led by Southampton researchers, making use of the coastal patrol and fisheries protection ship. With a wingspan of nearly 1.5 metres, the UAV being trialled has a cruise speed of 50kts (58mph) but can fly almost silently. The aircraft is printed in four major parts and can be assembled without the use of any tools. MOD Crown Copyright

FIRST LAUNCH OF 3D PRINTED UMANED AERIAL VEHICLE – 21/7/15 Today, 21st July 2015, a 3D printed Umaned Aerial Vehicle was launched from a Royal Navy warship for the first time. HMS Mersey provided the perfect platform for the University of Southampton to test out their SULSA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Weighing 3kg and measuring 1.5m the airframe was created on a 3D printer using laser sintered nylon and catapulted off HMS Mersey into the Wyke Regis Training Facility in Weymouth, before landing on Chesil Beach.The flight, which covered roughly 500 metres, lasted less than few minutes but demonstrated the potential use of small lightweight UAVs, which can be easily launched at sea, in a maritime environment. The aircraft carried a small video camera to record its flight and Southampton researchers monitored the flight from their UAV control van with its on-board video-cameras.Known as Project Triangle the capability demonstration was led by Southampton researchers, making use of the coastal patrol and fisheries protection ship.With a wingspan of nearly 1.5 metres, the UAV being trialled has a cruise speed of 50kts (58mph) but can fly almost silently.The aircraft is printed in four major parts and can be assembled without the use of any tools. MOD Crown Copyright

The 7-pound Sulsa with its 5-foot wingspan can make 100 knots and was assembled on the ship with its body and wings made via 3D desktop printer and a prepackaged battery, control electronics, propeller, and motor.

The Sulsa can be printed for just a few thousand dollars, says Jim Scanlan, a professor at Southampton who works on the craft design. He concedes that it can fly for only 40 minutes. But that could be enough for missions such as responding to reports of piracy, where being able to easily check out a vessel from a distance of 10 miles or so is valuable. “If they shoot at it, who cares? You send another one up,” says Scanlan.

He envisages ships putting out to sea carrying printed parts to make up to 50 drones as well as a 3-D printer and the powder feedstock needed to print spares or bespoke vehicles for different missions, which might require different sensors. However, work remains to be done to prove that printing planes at sea makes sense. Printing the parts for a Sulsa takes hours, and existing printers would need to be modified so they could stay level at sea.

More here

The Army goes for a lighter machine gun, and you won’t believe what it shoots

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Ever since the first cave dweller was handed a rock by his war chief and told to go smash on “the others,” grunts on the sharp end of things have wanted to carry lighter weapons into battle– and the soldiers of the U.S. Army are no exception to this rule. Well, it looks like the latest weapon in the Joe’s arsenal to potentially get light-sized is the hard serving M249 Minmi squad automatic weapon, otherwise known as the SAW.

The U.S. light machinegun concept

Back around 1909, the Army realized that, with the German Spandau, the British Vickers, and Russian Maxim machineguns out there in ever-growing numbers, Big Green was going to need something more mobile and effective than its Civil War-technology Gatling guns. This led them to adopt the French Hotchkiss gun as the M1909 Benét–Mercié machine gun.

Isnt it cute?

Isnt it cute?

This 26.5-pound gas operated weapon, with a cyclic rate of about 600 rounds per minute, seemed just the thing, and was put into production by Springfield Armory in 30.06. While it proved better than a pointy stick in places like Columbus, New Mexico (where a team of 13th Cavalry troopers with four of the guns fired in excess of 20,000 combined rounds in some 90-minutes against raiders from Pancho Villa’s legions), the gun, with its 181 moving parts and cranky 30-round feeding strips just wasn’t all that good.

This led the Army to adopt the thoroughly detested 20-pound Chauchat light machine gun during World War One before finally going American in 1919 with the Browning Light Machine Gun. The former weapon, although chunky at 31-pounds, remained in service due to its utter reliability until as late as the 1970s when it was finally replaced by the 7.62x51mm NATO M60 machine gun.

The M1919A6 was 32.5 to 35 pounds depending on setup...but it was better than either the Benet Mercie or the Chauchat

The M1919A6 was 32.5 to 35 pounds depending on setup…but it was better than either the Benet Mercie or the Chauchat

Known as “the Pig,” the M60 was unforgiving to those not well versed in its use, and worst of all, was heavy to boot, with Vietnam-era models hitting the scales at nearly 25-pounds unloaded, which wasn’t all that much lighter than the guns used against Villa back in 1916.

M60 machine gunner of the 25th Infantry Division, 1968

M60 machine gunner of the 25th Infantry Division, 1968

Well, fast forward until 1984, when the U.S. Army went shopping around and stumbled over the Belgian-made Minimi, a light machine gun manufactured by FN Herstal (FN). This neat little 17.5-pound LMG only weighed 2/3rds that of the Pig and, even though it was chambered in 5.56x45mm rather than the bigger 7.62, a gunner could carry more of the smaller round per pound, meaning there would be more love to give on the modern battlefield. While this gun, adopted as the M249 or SAW, has seen mucho combat in Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, many argue it could still be lighter and, while it was at it, shoot a bigger round.

Enter the LSAT CT LMG…

 

The Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) Cased Telescoped Light Machine Gun, or CT LMG, weighs just 9.2 pounds...

The Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) Cased Telescoped Light Machine Gun, or CT LMG, weighs just 9.2 pounds…

And shoots a caseless polymer telescoping round inside polymer links that weigh about half as much as a normal round

And shoots a caseless polymer telescoping round inside polymer links that weigh about half as much as a normal round

Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk

Why throw it away?

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Until the Iowa-class battleships joined the fleet during World War II with their powerful Mark 7 guns, the 16″/45 (40.6 cm) Mark 6 was the biggest and best that the U.S. Navy had to offer. An improvement of the 1920s era 16-inchers used on the Colorado-class battleships, they were used (9 per ship in 3×3 mounts) in the six ships of the North Carolina and South Dakota-class dreadnoughts to heavy service in the war, being credited with knocking out at least two Axis battleships in surface combat and countless instances of naval gunfire support.

Bow turrets of USS North Carolina BB-55 Note CXAM-1 radar above the main battery director, which dates this photograph as being sometime shortly after 27 August 1941 U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # 80-G-K-13971 via Navweaps

Bow turrets of USS North Carolina BB-55. Note CXAM-1 radar above the main battery director, which dates this photograph as being sometime shortly after 27 August 1941 U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # 80-G-K-13971 via Navweaps

A good number of these tubes still exist as North Carolina (BB-55), Massachusetts (BB-59), and Alabama (BB-60) all still exist as museum ships, mounting no less than 27 of these guns between them.

And you can add at least one more tube, recently discovered still at work for Uncle Sam.

From a February report by the Naval Heritage Command:

Bob Fish, author and USS Hornet Museum trustee, recently visited NASA’s AMES Research Center in Sunnyvale, CA, to investigate the possibility of cooperation and collaboration of STEM-related programming. While there, Bob visited the Hypervelocity Flight Test Facility with their engineers.He was then guided into the original 1960’s era hyper-velocity test lab which consisted of an old projectile acceleration tube that is now rarely used.

To his surprise, Bob noticed the inscription on the breach of the barrel read “US Navy.” It was in fact a Mark 6 16-inch battleship gun!

ARC-BB-16-inch-gun-1-1024x768

The rest here

Combat Gallery Sunday : The (Secret) Martial art of Edward L. Cooper

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Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The (Secret) Martial art of Edward L. Cooper

During the darkest days of the Cold War, from about the Cuban Missile Crisis until the Berlin Wall came down, the Defense Intelligence Agency was the go-to analytical group of the U.S. Intelligence Community that specialized in the nuts and bolts of a coming war. They came up with the specs and databases on foreign weapons and deployments. For instance, how many Backfire bombers the Soviet 22nd Air Regiment had and what was the range of the cruise missiles they likely carried.

The thing was, most available imagery of these systems was rather like pictures of bigfoot and UFOs as they were either captured by operatives with very small pocket cameras or at great distances from the deck of a moving ship or submarine. To really capture the imagination of the admirals, generals and privy lawmakers/cabinet members who needed to know, the DIA commissioned extremely well vetted in-house artists to take what was known about these weapons and turn them into a depiction of what (they believed at the time) looked like.

In these thirty years, highly skilled but shadowy artists such as Ronald C. Wittmann, Richard J. Terry and Brian W. McMullin, produced amazing art of things most westerners had very little if any idea of. Over 1,000 paintings all told. These would be used in both classified and unclassified (annual editions of Soviet Military Power and later the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China) produced by the Pentagon and distributed to those in Congress and elsewhere.

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One of the more prolific and multi-talented of these was Edward L. Cooper.

Soviet Mobile Laser in Afghanistan by Edward L Cooper

Soviet Mobile Laser in Afghanistan by Edward L Cooper. Click to big up

Soviet Kiev class aircraft carrier in a floating drydowck

Soviet Kiev class aircraft carrier in a floating drydock. Cick to big up

SOVIET BLACKJACK LOADING AS-16 MISSILES - Edward L. Cooper, 1987.

SOVIET BLACKJACK LOADING AS-16 MISSILES – Edward L. Cooper, 1987. Click to big up

Soviet Mike class attack submarine. Courtesy of Soviet Military Power, 1984. Photo 64, page 61.

Soviet Mike class attack submarine. Courtesy of Soviet Military Power, 1984. Photo 64, page 61. big up

SOVIET 203-MM 2S7 SELF-PROPELLED GUN - Edward L. Cooper, 1987

SOVIET 203-MM 2S7 SELF-PROPELLED GUN – Edward L. Cooper, 1987 big up

SOVIET MI-24 HIND DELIVERING CHEMICAL SPRAY - Edward L. Cooper, 1986

SOVIET MI-24 HIND DELIVERING CHEMICAL SPRAY – Edward L. Cooper, 1986 big up

TYPHOON Replenishing in the Arctic cooper

TYPHOON Replenishing in the Arctic cooper. big up

SOVIET 280-MM MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER - Edward L. Cooper, 1988

SOVIET 280-MM MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER – Edward L. Cooper, 1988. big up

SOVIET GROUND-BASED LASER - Edward L. Cooper, 1986

SOVIET GROUND-BASED LASER – Edward L. Cooper, 1986. big up

DELTA Class SSBN Firing ballistic missile from the safety of the Arctic bastion, Edward L Cooper DIA 1985

DELTA Class SSBN Firing ballistic missile from the safety of the Arctic bastion, Edward L Cooper DIA 1985 big up

SOVIET BM-27 MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER - Edward L. Cooper, 1986

SOVIET BM-27 MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER – Edward L. Cooper, 1986. big up

Tu-22M_Backfire_loads_AS-16_Kickback

Tu-22M_Backfire_loads_AS-16_Kickback

YANKEE Class SSGN firing SS-NX-24 Cruise Missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1986

YANKEE Class SSGN firing SS-NX-24 Cruise Missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1986. Big up

ZSU anti-aircraft guns Edward L. Cooper, 1987

ZSU anti-aircraft guns Edward L. Cooper, 1987. Big up

SOVIET RAIL-MOBILE SS-24 MOD 1 INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE - Edward L. Cooper, 1988

SOVIET RAIL-MOBILE SS-24 MOD 1 INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE – Edward L. Cooper, 1988. big up

DELTA-III Class SSBN firing SS-N-18 missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1987

DELTA-III Class SSBN firing SS-N-18 missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1987

In 1996 the agency released a bunch of the artwork publicly and even sold a number as prints, but since then has taken down the galleries. But hey, the art is still out there in a number of places including Global Security, Wiki  the Federation of American Scientists and elsewhere.

According to FAS, “Edward Cooper is the only one of the original visual information specialists still employed at the Agency. He’s still working at the graphics office. He switched his drawing table with a computer. Cooper and some of his colleagues still keep on working in their free time even after retirement.”

Thank you for your work, sir.

Russian Robotroops (hold your breath)

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Matt Damon (left) and Sharlto Copley in Columbia Pictures' ELYSIUM.

According to TASS (oh shit, here it goes), the Russians Army expect to have exoskeletons controlled by the power of the mind in 5 years

“I think that in about five years we will get a neural interface to control exoskeletons and prostheses,” said Alexander Kulish, who is in charge with the designing and production of medical equipment.

He said that such exoskeletons would help soldiers carry loads of up to 200-300 kilograms and “make incredible jumps, move and throw heavy objects.”

Doughboy tactical lights of a century ago

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In the World War One era, the U.S. Army did a number of low key experiments in attaching lights to small arms for various purposes. Here are two rather steampunk examples that I stumbled across in the Springfield Armory Museum Collection.

This US Model 1911, SN 58237, was made in 1913 and shipped to SA the next year. It was modified as a training pistol complete with a SIRT-gun style light.

This was the SIRT gun of the 1900s-- if only the bulbs didnt keep breaking!

This was the SIRT gun of the 1900s– if only the bulbs didn’t keep breaking!

light 1911 sa

The construction of this pistol is as follows: The lamp itself is a small tungsten bulb, such as is used in small Ever-Ready pocket flashlights….this lamp is mounted on an empty cartridge case, one terminal being grounded to the case, the other terminal is carried to the insulated base of the cartridge from which a small wire leads to a switch in the upper part of the magazine, which is operated by pressing on the trigger pistol. From this switch, another wire leads to the to the top terminal of battery concealed in lower part of the magazine, the other terminal or battery is grounded to the receiver through the follower and magazine.

In front of the lamp a tube carrying a lens is inserted in the barrel being held there by friction between its outer surface and the lands of the barrel. This tube can be moved in or out to change the focus….

It is necessary to remove the extractor to prevent its short circuiting the lamp as well as to prevent it extracting the lamp when the slide is pulled back. It is also necessary to remove the forward end of the firing pin to prevent its traveling far enough forward under its own momentum to damage the lamp.

“This Colt M1911 is the only “Flashlight Pistol” ever made. This training pistol would project a light onto a target to show where the bullet would hit. The lens on the tip of the barrel projected a light from inside that was powered by a battery concealed in the magazine. While the Flashlight Pistol did work, it was determined not to be sturdy enough for use and rejected by the Secretary of War.”

Then there was the Neary Springfield 1903…

This 1909-made Model 1903 bolt-action rifle equipped with Thomas E. Neary’s sight illuminating device powered by three Ever Ready cells in the stock.

neary 1903 3 neary 1903 2

Oh yeah, you know this is what you came here for

Oh yeah, you know this is what you came here for

Close up of the Neary sight light

Close up of the Neary sight light

It had three Every Ready batteries

It had three Every Ready batteries that dont look that bad for being from the 1900s!

This Model 1903 contains batteries in the butt stock that powers light bulbs on both sides of the sight. Tested at Rock Island Arsenal, problems were found with the light beam obscuring the front sight, making the gun difficult to aim. This design was determined to be impractical. Later, during conservation work, the rifle was x-rayed showing the battery design hidden in the stock.

This is a very unusual and very rare gun. It features tiny lights to illuminate the front and rear sights. They are powered by three dry cell batteries which are housed inside the butt. Wires run from this power source through the stock – terminating inside the trigger-guard cavity and also at the nose-end of the forestock. The batteries were swollen and only the outermost one was initially removed. This was accomplished by tapping the butt end repeatedly with a leather hammer until the outermost battery was eventually backed out. The next battery followed the first part-way out and then was stuck. The was confirmed by X-radiography a (see photo) which showed the innermost battery pushed fully outward by its spring. The middle battery was removed by drilling through its lead end and then grabbing it with a strong dental pick followed by long-nosed pliers. The third battery came right out.” – David Arnold, NPS Conservator

Guess they figured tracers were an easier and more effective way of firing in the dark at the time or to pop a flare.

Of note, SA also mentions that, “President Theodore Roosevelt was given a M1903 rifle with a Neary front sight illuminating device. This rifle was threaded at the muzzle for a Maxim silencer and fitted with a Warner & Swasey musket sight.”

Now THAT would be a find!

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