Tag Archives: germany

Backpacking around Europe

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Sorry about the slight disruption in programming lately, especially when it comes to Warship Wednesdays. I’ve been traveling for the past couple of weeks in Europe for work. One of the cooler things I did for a few days was attend the IWA Outdoor Classics in Nuremberg.

Like Europe’s version of SHOT Show, the Internationale Waffen Ausstellung (International Weapons Exhibition), is an annual trade fair held since 1974, making this year the event’s 50th anniversary. In that half-century, over 1 million have attended an IWA show. This year’s event saw more than 40,000 visitors from 120 countries trekking through halls filled with 1,072 exhibitors.

My favorite thing about IWA: I got to catch up with Dan Shea for an hour or so which felt like a minute or so.

I had an extended visit with Czech firearms designer Jan Lysak and got the details and history behind his Creapeiron company, which has spent the past eight years developing the Elysium and System pistols.

Some of the cooler things I saw, including more on the Elysium, after the jump. 

Scraping horses

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Found this interesting for anyone curious about U.S. Army Great War-era veterinary and farrier services for transport, cavalry, and artillery horses.

22 January 1919, U.S. Army of Occupation in Montabaur, Rhineland, Germany (official caption):

Horses from 1-7th Field Artillery [part of the 1st Infantry Division at the time] being led to “Dipping Vat” constructed by 1st Engineers for the Veterinary Dept. The animals take a plunge in a bath composed of sulfur, lime, carbolic acid, and creosote. The bath is kept at a temperature of 100 degrees fahr. After the plunge, the animals are “scraped.” This is the method of treating these animals for the mange [probably rain rot] and cooties. Horses are bathed at a rate of one a minute.

U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-51250 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

“Ready to Plunge.” 111-SC-51252 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

“Scraping Horses.” 111-SC-51251 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

Frohe Weihnachten!

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With the holidays coming up and the loss of my mother who hailed from the Harz Mountains this year, it fell to me to make the standard-issue Pfeffernüsse to the old family recipe just as it fell to her some 30 years ago on the passing of my oma. To keep it as throw-back as possible, I made sure to drink a nice Doppel Bock out of my grandfather’s stein while wearing a surplus Einheitsmütze (the Pickelhaube is too heavy!) as my GSDs watched from afar.

I’m digging it. All they needed after this was the powdered sugar before they were packed up for my two adult kids and my brother in Pittsburgh. Made with black pepper (hence the name) anise, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and nutmeg, they are spicy and really do smell and taste like no other cookie. They have always meant Christmas to me.

With all this being said, here are two 101-year-old German Red Cross posters from WWI. The first, drawn by Walter Püttner, shows a Christmas angel (Christkind) pulling a sleigh loaded with bundles and delivering one to a German soldier.

Text: Christmas collection by the Bavarian Red Cross for the armed forces. Rehse Archiv für Zeitgeschichte und Publizistik. Via the Library of Congress

The second, by Adolf Franz Theodor Münzer, has a Christmas tree (Weihnachtsbaum) decorated with candles in front of a red cross.

Text: Christmas in the field! 1917. Contribute money and gift packages for our warriors! Via LOC

Sorry, though, no Pfeffernüsse left to share.

Meet Target Sprint, a game that needs to be brought over to the States

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The International Shooting Sport Federation held the first world championship summer biathlon event last month, combining running and rifle target shooting.

The event, held in Suhl, Germany, and referred to officially by the ISSF as Target Sprint, makes competitors run a 400m track, then take their rifle from a storage rack and shoot at five falling targets from a 10m standing position with a time penalty for each missed shot. The athlete then repeats the lap and shoots again, followed by another lap to the finish line.

The Germans swept the event, which is aimed at more physically active competitors and getting youth into the shooting discipline. There were no American entries. In my opinion, the NSSF, CMP, 4-H, JROTC, Boy Scouts, and every other youth shooting sports organization needs to start howling for this is the States.

Get these kids off the couch.