But not seeing any cite showing them in the 20thC, or price lists vs drawn.
PC: Mass SMG use in 1914?
- Thread starter dandan_noodles
- Start date
But not seeing any cite showing them in the 20thC, or price lists vs drawn.
I don't own the Eley catalogues myself (although I have seen 577/450 in there well into the 1920's) but here is the 1902 and an even later example of Snider drawn and coil foil cases in the catalogue in https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/pick-your-unsung-zeros-weapons.412012/page-6 item 116.
JFI this is the 577/450 Boxer coil case components. Hand copied by bazaar mechanics from Persia to Tibet also.
If it was so much cheaper, other companies all over the world would have continued multi-piece case construction, and not gone for hundreds of times of output for the same labor input with drawing machines
Makes sort of sense to give workhouse inmates something to do after picking rope or making pins by hand wasn't needed anymore, or you're in a place where the industrial revolution really hadn't really arrived-- and the end result being a case weaker than the worst made copper balloon head cartridge with Benet primers
Now this was the future, in the 1870s, drawn cases with Berdan, then Boxer primers
Makes sort of sense to give workhouse inmates something to do after picking rope or making pins by hand wasn't needed anymore, or you're in a place where the industrial revolution really hadn't really arrived-- and the end result being a case weaker than the worst made copper balloon head cartridge with Benet primers
Now this was the future, in the 1870s, drawn cases with Berdan, then Boxer primers
I think it’s worth noting that even though it was a POS, the Chauchat was exactly a stamped metal weapon designed pre-war and made by bicycle manufacturers in huge numbers when France was desperate for arms.
If they could make it sorta-work with long recoil (!) in the horrendous 8mm Lebel(!!) then a simple burp gun shouldn’t have been much trouble.
Assuming anyone wanted a simple burp gun, that is.
Certainly coiled cases (not peculiar only to the Snider and Martini) went out of favour with a move to drawn cases which are superior but Eley was selling coiled cases significantly cheaper than drawn for the existing relatively low pressure ex black powder guns. Essentially, once one has the kit, it is just hand assembled sets of simple die cut and stamped parts. As I mentioned, a clever smith can make them by hand in the back end of nowhere to at least work. Later rifles for smokeless powders worked at significantly higher peak pressures which were beyond the ability of the coiled case to manage. At the instant they were first introduced they were an excellent choice from what was then in hand.
Not that I am suggesting they were fit for the OP SMGs but merely defending their use in their own time period. The British military were too slow to then change to drawn brass which was soon being made for the more affluent civilian market and the first 'emergency' purchases were from the trade. Just as a curiosity eley did try marketing coiled cases in tinned steel instead of brass and also made all types in smokeless and well as black powder loads.
Not that I am suggesting they were fit for the OP SMGs but merely defending their use in their own time period. The British military were too slow to then change to drawn brass which was soon being made for the more affluent civilian market and the first 'emergency' purchases were from the trade. Just as a curiosity eley did try marketing coiled cases in tinned steel instead of brass and also made all types in smokeless and well as black powder loads.
SwampTiger
Banned
The Ribeyrolles 1918 Automatic Carbine used the same stamped construction. Instead of the French Army requesting the 8X35 cartridge, have them request a cartridge based on the 9mm Mauser or 7.63 Mauser. If they balk at a German round, go for the .35 WSL/8.9X29 or 9X23.
Returning to the OP’s question about earlier introduction of SMGs in 1914.
Technological change sometimes is imposed from top-down, but more often necessity is the mother of invention.
Top-down introduction of SMGs could have started with Kaiser Wilhelm’s affinity for his hunting carbine based on a Mauser 96 pistol with a long barrel, etc. Whilhelm favoured the Mauser carbine because of his withered left arm (damaged at birth).
This POD starts with Prussian officers demonstrating their loyalty to the Kaiser by privately purchasing Mauser carbines. After a few especially his viscious fights in somebody else's House, they start issuing Mauser carbines to NCOs and specialist troops.
As “gun Jesus” .... er .... Ian McCollum over at www.forgottenweapkns.com has repeated observed - clamping on a butt stock dramatically improves accuracy!
ATL In a necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention, speculate on some internicide squabble within the Austrian-Hungarian Empire: Sebs versus Croats, Bulgarians versus Lutherans, whatever ..... with Budapest and Vienna severely restricting arms imports to rifles and hand guns. Vienna cheerfully ignores local squabbles as long as they don’t involve artillery or MGs, because it easier to ignore feuding when no buildings fall. “I see nothing.”
After observing the effectiveness of the few Mauser 96 carbines available, some Albanian (?) garage mechanic starts hammering together simplified pistol-caliber carbines. After a few miss-fire on full-automatic, troops deliberately modify triggers to fire full-automatic.
Bonus points if most of the feuding occurs at short ranges within towns.
Technological change sometimes is imposed from top-down, but more often necessity is the mother of invention.
Top-down introduction of SMGs could have started with Kaiser Wilhelm’s affinity for his hunting carbine based on a Mauser 96 pistol with a long barrel, etc. Whilhelm favoured the Mauser carbine because of his withered left arm (damaged at birth).
This POD starts with Prussian officers demonstrating their loyalty to the Kaiser by privately purchasing Mauser carbines. After a few especially his viscious fights in somebody else's House, they start issuing Mauser carbines to NCOs and specialist troops.
As “gun Jesus” .... er .... Ian McCollum over at www.forgottenweapkns.com has repeated observed - clamping on a butt stock dramatically improves accuracy!
ATL In a necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention, speculate on some internicide squabble within the Austrian-Hungarian Empire: Sebs versus Croats, Bulgarians versus Lutherans, whatever ..... with Budapest and Vienna severely restricting arms imports to rifles and hand guns. Vienna cheerfully ignores local squabbles as long as they don’t involve artillery or MGs, because it easier to ignore feuding when no buildings fall. “I see nothing.”
After observing the effectiveness of the few Mauser 96 carbines available, some Albanian (?) garage mechanic starts hammering together simplified pistol-caliber carbines. After a few miss-fire on full-automatic, troops deliberately modify triggers to fire full-automatic.
Bonus points if most of the feuding occurs at short ranges within towns.