" Debate over effectiveness of cavalry weapons Map of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, 1876. This map was created by Capt. Robert E. Johnston, acting Indian Agent at the Standing Rock Agency, based on Kill Eagle's interview about the famous battle. Courtesy National Archives.
In defense of Custer, some historians claim that some of the Indians were armed with repeating Spencer, Winchester and Henry rifles, while the 7th Cavalry carried single-shot Springfield Model 1873 carbines, caliber .45–70.[38]:212–26 These rifles had a slower rate of fire than the repeating rifles and tended to jam when overheated. The carbines had been issued with copper cartridges. Troopers soon discovered that the copper expanded in the breech when heated upon firing; the ejector would then cut through the copper and leave the case behind, thus jamming the rifle. Troopers were forced to extract the cartridges manually with knife blades; thus, the carbines were nearly useless in combat except as clubs. During Reno's fight, Captain French was reported to have sat in the open, completely exposed to native American gunfire, extracting jammed shells from guns, reloading, and then passing them back to troopers in exchange for other jammed weapons to clear.[85] " which is here ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn
As well as there and everywhere -this following my defective memories triggered web search for " defective copper jacketed ammunition battle of the little big horn "
And then there's my equally defective memory of the reports of defective ammunition for the colt AR15 during the early years of the USAs involvement in their phase of the Indo Chinese Wars... “Bounces off wet leaves " couldn't possibly be true! No it must be an erroneous factoid, so I shan't dig around for more in web space.
Not that we in the UK haven’t had our own problems. We had to buy a German Arms Co - Heckler and Kotch -to solve our design problems with our standard bull pup design rifle ..
" n 1999, Heckler & Koch is owned by BAE Systems as a result of a merger between BAe and MES.
In 2000, Heckler & Koch was contracted to refurbish the SA80 rifle for the British Army.[4] This contract entailed a modification programme to the SA80 series of rifles to address a number of reliability issues with the SA80. "
Oh, dear, Oh Dear ..Still, apparently the modified version works quite well.
]]>"I've recently gone off bees, for the obvious reason." "Nahh, the[y']re brilliant! [...] = basilisk gun"! This looks a lot like trying to convince me I should go back to liking bees ... because they're (potentially) clever enough to kill me with their brains.
Well, maybe. But they're a bit limited on the smart targeting front. Now cats, dogs -- and yes -- horses: now we're talking!
Sure, I'm impressed by them, and respect them greatly. But not in a way that makes me want to spend more time with them. More like the way I am impressed by and respect hurricanes and volcanoes.
Don't be such a wuss. The only job I've ever had which had a company car was temporary wasp contractor with Rentokil out of Baldock one summer vac. Hornets, well, they were a slightly worrying encounter new Welwyn viaduct.
]]>Which I can definitely see as a problem in the Laundry, and in a way it has happened already what with Bob's erstwhile time sharing managers coming to various sticky ends. I can imagine a war like clear out amongst the top brass, as the unlucky, incompetent or just not up to the job get killed or retired due to failure. Eventually they'll be left with the lucky and the competent, and maybe the war will be over then...
]]>Balinares #43 - those of us who know much about horses through such stories as those of James Herriot, already think that My Little Pony is a bit of a horror show. Let alone the bill for such an animal.
]]>Adding Peter Watts to a Stross idea is more or less like squirting extra kerosene on a BBQ. Explosions may result and onlookers may be singed.
One thing about the unicorns that I noted is that the non-fertile females reminded me a lot of Gene Wolfe's "destriers," down to Bob's calculation of how fast they could run: carnivorous, fast, mean... No horns though.
]]>It's not going to stop me from riding though, I'm afraid. ; )
]]>http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html
]]>Oh, apparently you got the rail-route-layout wrong …(or so someone said) – you did this in the first Laundry novel IIRC .. if it isn’t too late to correct proofs it might be a good idea ?? Look up the releveant TOC website HERE Or the London map from National rail, for a wider picture … though you have to find the pdf, though & download – on-line direct doesn’t seem to be available.
Various correspondents on Bees. Bumbles are cuddly. I often see them, pissed out of their tiny (I nearly said “skulls” there!) brains, crawling around flowers of globe artichoke, or Teazle or the Marjorams. You can stroke them, with one finger, & they will raise one leg, go “bzzz” & carry on nectarising. Very valuable for crop fertilisation, of course, especially for plants with closed flowers, like peas & beans….
Bellighman @ 6 Well there are also many accounts of the Great Tit Parus major turning carnivore … See here & here, too … So, be careful when putting out the bird-feeder …
]]>I really wish this were true, but alas it appears to have been entirely made up by one of the authors of a spurious Necronomicon and perpetuated by another. It's a pity.
OTOH, that's probably good enough for the Laundry-verse to make it canon, should Charlie care for the connection, and then you could drag in a Fuller connection via the A.A. (However, I've noticed that Charlie has studiously avoided any mention of Crowley, probably for understandable reasons.)
]]>Hornets can definitely be worrying: Giant Hornet Attacks Kill 28 in Southern Shaanxi.
OK, not the same as our hornets, but ours are bad enough.
]]>You know the bit where Bob goes to his meeting with a bunch of people from other government departments, and everyone has to introduce themselves and say where they work and what they hope to get from the meeting and all that jazz? Well anyway, within the part of the UK Civil Service that I have the rather ambiguous privilege to work for (which, as per our Code of Conduct, will have to remain nameless)this particular procedure has the rather gloriously apposite nickname (for the purposes of The Laundry anyway); we call it "The Creeping Death".
I am aware that those of us toiling in at least one of the other agencies refer to it this way. I'd hazard a guess that it's a pretty common parlance amongst we minor functionaries. So yeah, make of that what you will. I guess when you give a bunch of people some thankless and (figuratively, at least - I hope) soul-destroying jobs, they work out some pretty strange ways of amusing themselves.
]]>