Month: November 2022
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Shotgun vs HEADS
Luck. Now that’s a difficult concept to get your head around. Even this deep into the Information Age when most modern folks worship at the exalted altar of science, you can still find people who refuse to walk under a ladder, won’t open an umbrella indoors, or say “Bless you” when someone nearby sneezes. We humans are pretty darn strange.
However, what do you expect? Random chance is indeed a fickle mistress. In the superb book Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab, two SAS operators are sitting side by side in a stolen car stopped at a roadblock on a black rainy night in the Iraqi desert during the First Gulf War. The two men are oriented shoulder-to-shoulder, and the car is stopped in a long line of vehicles rendered immobile by an Iraqi checkpoint.
When discovery was inevitable the two men bailed out of the car, one on the left and the other on the right. One man escaped to freedom, while the other was killed. They began in the same spot, yet each man’s ultimate fate was driven by the side of the car he exited. It’s hard not to get a little weirded out over stuff like that.
Personally, I attribute such stuff to Divine Providence. My faith that an all-powerful God loves and watches over me is a source of great comfort when life is going pear-shaped. God and I have gotten through some remarkable scrapes together. However, in the case of SSG Alan Magee, we find a tale that strains credulity. His story would be impossible to believe had it not been reliably verified.
The Man
Alan Eugene Magee was born on January 13, 1919, the youngest of six children. He grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. When the war broke out Magee enlisted in the US Army Air Corps and trained to be a gunner on a heavy bomber. The heavies—the B17 Flying Fortress and the B24 Liberator—promised to revolutionize warfare. Through these expensive strategic assets, the Allies hoped to break the will of the German people to fight. Victory, however, would come at a terrible cost.
SSG Magee’s mount, a B17F christened “Snap! Crackle Pop!,” carried a crew of ten. WW2-era fliers had a good deal more latitude to personalize their aircraft than we did when I flew for Uncle Sam. Part of that was because so many of these old planes were destroyed so quickly. Tactical aircraft fighting in WW2 frequently did not survive very long in combat. By contrast, our mounts operating without anybody actively shooting at us were expected to last essentially indefinitely.
For a time I flew an entirely different Boeing product. In my day the flight engineer and crew chief owned the airplane. It was their names that rightfully got stenciled on the sides. The pilots just borrowed them from time to time. We typically drew specific tail numbers for specific missions at the whim of the maintenance officers. When we deployed to some austere spaces we’d typically personalize our aircraft with chalk intending to wash it off when we got home.
One of my flight engineers returned from a desert deployment with something quite risqué scrawled on the belly of his aircraft. I never crawled underneath them, so I had no idea it was there. Apparently his pornographic expression was intended to entertain the infantry guys with whom we operated. That was all fine until we got back to home station and did a demo for the local press. The belly of his airplane replete with graphic anatomical references made the front page of the local newspaper. Steve, I bet you thought I had forgotten that. Those were some epically great times.
The Plane
The B17G was the definitive late-war Fortress. The G-model included such upgrades as a motorized chin turret up front to help dissuade attacking enemy fighters from trying nose-on attacks. SSG Magee’s B17F lacked this particular system in favor of a brace of free fifties in ball mounts in the front Plexiglas.
“Snap! Crackle! Pop!” was one of 12,726 of the heavy bombers that rolled out of two plants during World War 2. These planes were powered by four Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone supercharged radial engines each producing 1,200 horsepower. The Wright Cyclone was an iconic design also used in the P36 Hawk, the Douglas DC-3, the SBD Dauntless dive bomber, the Sikorsky H34 helicopter, and, in slightly modified form, certain variants of the M4 Sherman tank.
The B17’s bomb load ranged from 4,500 to 8,000 pounds depending upon the required range and environmental conditions. The maximum takeoff weight was a whopping 65,500 pounds, and the plane cruised at 158 knots or 182 miles per hour. The B17’s service ceiling was 35,600 feet.
SSG Magee’s B17F packed eleven AN/M2 .50-caliber machineguns in a variety of handheld and powered mountings. These weapons and mounts were meticulously designed to provide optimal coverage all around the plane, particularly when flown as part of an extensive and coordinated formation with multiple aircraft. SSG Magee was a relatively short man, so he got tagged for the ball turret.
The Sperry Ball Turret
Sperry and Emerson Electric both developed examples of powered ball turrets for use in ventral mounts on combat aircraft during World War 2. The Sperry design was deemed superior and placed into mass production. While the mounts were radically different, both the B17 and the B24 used the same gun turret.
The tricycle landing gear design of the B24 necessitated a retractable mount for the ball turret. Were it not for the retractable mount the turret would strike the ground when the pilot rotated the aircraft for takeoff. By contrast, the conventional landing gear layout of the B17 allowed the ball turret to remain in place through all modes of flight.
The ball turret was unimaginably cramped. As a result, this position was typically relegated to the smallest member of the crew. To enter the turret the guns were swiveled straight down, and the gunner entered through a small metal hatch in the back. Once in place, the gunner sat in the fetal position flanked on each side by the ample breaches of his twin Browning fifty-caliber machineguns. There was an electronic reflex sight mounted between the gunner’s feet. Charging these weapons and clearing stoppages were incredible chores within the cramped confines of the ball turret. Ammunition fed from the belly of the plane through a pair of articulated feed chutes.
Because of the dearth of usable space, ball turret gunners flew without parachutes. Their chutes were stowed in the crew compartment nearby. However, to bail out, the ball turret gunner had to swivel the guns straight down, unlock and open the access panel, crawl backward out of the turret, attach the parachute, and exit the aircraft. As you might imagine, in a plane that might be gyrating wildly or on fire this could be quite the impressive feat.
The Event
On January 3, 1943, SSG Magee strapped into “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” for his seventh combat mission while assigned to the 350th Bomb Squadron of the 303d Bomb Group. Their objective this fateful day was a daylight run over Saint-Nazaire, France. The submarines that sortied out of Saint-Nazaire caused no end of frustration to trans-Atlantic convoys. As a result, Allied planners invested tremendous effort in trying to take out the sub pens that housed and serviced them.
Once near the target, SSG Magee’s aircraft encountered murderously thick flak. A nearby shell burst from a high-velocity 88mm flak gun disabled his ball turret and liberally ventilated both the fuselage of the airplane as well as SSG Magee. SSG Magee clambered out of the turret with difficulty only to find that his parachute had been shredded by the flak hit. As he tried to get his head around that revelation a second shell tore off part of the right-wing. Now uncontrollable, “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” entered a vicious spin.
SSG Magee’s plane was at cruising altitude, and his quick egress from the ball turret left him without access to the plane’s oxygen supply. He somehow made it to the radio compartment before losing consciousness due to hypoxia. Soon thereafter his B17 disintegrated.
SSG Magee was miraculously thrown free of the crippled airplane and fell some four miles toward the French ground below. He ultimately ended up crashing through the glass roof of the Saint-Nazaire train station. Passersby found him unconscious but alive on the floor of the terminal.
SSG Magee had 28 different shrapnel wounds from the original flak attack. In addition, he suffered multiple broken bones, severe facial trauma, and damage to both his lungs and kidneys. His right arm was also nearly severed from tearing through the glass of the train station. However, he was inexplicably still alive.
The Rest of the Story
Terminal velocity for a limp human is about 120 miles per hour. Nothing about SSG Magee’s ordeal should have been survivable. However, he was taken prisoner by the Germans and eventually recovered after some decent medical care. He spent more than two years in a German POW camp before being liberated in May of 1945. Once he was repatriated he was awarded the Air Medal along with a well-deserved Purple Heart.
After the war, Alan Magee earned his pilot’s license and worked in the airline industry. He retired in 1979 and moved to New Mexico. SSG Magee died in January of 2003 of a stroke and kidney failure at the ripe age of 84, arguably the luckiest man alive.
I wish I was shooting one of these right now! Grumpy
Bill Clinton wants Congress to renew the ’94 ban on so-called “assault weapons,” which expired in 2004.
Clinton made his case this week in a short video published by the media company ATTN.
“We must act now,” says Clinton. “Enough is enough.”
The former president leaned on his relationship with gun culture when he was a youth in an attempt to add credence to his plea.
“I grew up in this culture. … Most of those people would never do anything to endanger an innocent life,” Clinton says.
“They have been terrified into thinking that if they agree to the most simple, straightforward, obvious, noninterfering mechanisms, somehow it’s the beginning of a slippery slope that will rob them of their Second Amendment rights. It’s not true,” he adds.
This wouldn’t be the first time Clinton’s told a bald-faced lie to the American people.
A sweeping ban on America’s best-selling centerfire rifle is a slippery slope that only leads to more draconian gun control.
This is because gun control is wholly ineffective at reducing crime. When a ban on black rifles fails to stop the next mass killing, anti-gun zealots will seek to further restrict 2A rights on the premise that we still haven’t done enough to tackle the “gun violence epidemic.”
We’ve seen this in action in New York, New Jersey, and California.
Politicians in these states didn’t call it quits after they banned so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines.”
They doubled down with measures to prohibit concealed carriers from bringing firearms into “sensitive locations,” require gun owner liability insurance, mandate background checks for ammo purchases, increase fees for gun permits, and allow lawsuits against gun makers for the criminal acts of third parties, among many others.
Anyone who is remotely paying attention can see that the gun prohibition lobby is never satisfied. The slope is indeed very steep and very slippery despite what Clinton maintains.
A national “assault weapons” ban, therefore, would only be the beginning. The next step would be the registration of prohibited firearms in circulation that were possessed prior to the rollout of the ban.
This is something that the Biden administration has explicitly voiced support for. From president Joe Biden’s website:
Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act. Currently, the National Firearms Act requires individuals possessing machine-guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles to undergo a background check and register those weapons with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Due to these requirements, such weapons are rarely used in crimes. As president, Biden will pursue legislation to regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.
What follows registration is also obvious to those of us who’ve been paying attention: confiscation.
Look no further than to our neighbors to the North for proof! The Canadian government is now in the process of using taxpayer dollars to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens under the guise of a “buyback” program.
While one may say, “Well, that’s Canada, that’ll never happen here.” The truth is it is happening here! Delaware, of all places, is forcing responsible gun owners to turn in their magazines with a capacity of over 17 rounds.
Delawareans who refuse to comply could face felony charges and may end up losing their 2A rights permanently.
So yes, Clinton, Biden and the rest of the Democrats are trying to rob us of our rights. Their recent actions in Democratically-controlled states on this issue speak much louder than their words.
Categories
Jersey
The Ward-Burton was America’s first true bolt-action military rifle. The stubby bolt rotated 90 degrees to unlock the two sets of threads on either side of the bolt body, which mated to corresponding recesses machined inside the receiver. The mechanism is easily understood by viewing the sectioned drawing from the U.S. Army manual on the rifle.
NRA Museums
For almost a half-century, the bolt-action rifle reigned supreme in America’s military small-arms arsenal. The long-lived use of the bolt-action was, by no means, unique to the United States. Almost without exception, the bolt-action military rifle was a staple in the arsenals of most industrialized nations from the late 1800s through the Second World War.
The United States’ first standardized bolt-action service rifle was the .30-40 Krag-Jorgenson, adopted in 1892 and put into production at the Springfield Armory two years later. The Krag was followed by the legendary Model of 1903 Springfield, which saw widespread service in both World Wars. The ’03 was augmented during World War I by another bolt-action rifle, the U.S. Model of 1917 “American Enfield.” Even after adoption of the semi-automatic M1 Garand rifle in 1936, the U.S. military relied heavily on bolt-action rifles throughout World War II. And today, bolt-action rifles remain in use by the American military as sniping arms in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although the Krag was America’s first standardized bolt-action service rifle, it was not the first bolt-action utilized by our armed forces. From the late 1870s through the late 1880s, several types of bolt-action rifles were procured for testing, evaluation and limited issue by the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. These arms were the Hotchkiss, Remington-Lee, Remington-Keene and Chaffee-Reese, which were chambered for the same blackpowder .45-70 Gov’t cartridge used by the Model of 1873 “Trapdoor” Springfield. The Model of 1895 Winchester 6 mm U.S. Navy (Lee-Navy) rifle, which featured an unusual straight-pull bolt and clip-loading capability, was adopted in 1895. It was employed during the Spanish-American War and for a couple of years afterward.
Although these early repeating, bolt-action American military rifles may not be extremely well-known today, they were preceded by an even lesser-known bolt-action, the Model of 1871 Ward-Burton.
The genesis of the Ward-Burton occurred during the first few years following the conclusion of the War Between the States. After Appomattox, the U.S. Army had a large number of serviceable, but obsolete, muzzleloading rifle-muskets in its inventory. Since funds were tight in the immediate post-war period, the Ordnance Department chose to convert some of these surplus muzzleloaders into breechloaders. A conversion devised by Springfield Armory Master Armorer Erskine S. Allin was used to convert the leftover rifle-muskets. This was accomplished by milling out the top rear portion of the muzzleloader’s barrel and attaching a hinged breechblock. The altered arms were dubbed “Allin Conversions.” The Model of 1865 utilized a .58-cal., rimfire metallic cartridge and was the first of the so-called “Trapdoor Springfields.” The Model of 1865 was soon superseded by the much-improved Model of 1866, which featured a simpler breech mechanism and a greatly superior cartridge, the .50-70 Gov’t. The Model of 1866 was followed by another .50-70 Trapdoor Springfield, the Model of 1868, which utilized a newly made receiver rather than one fabricated from surplus muzzleloaders as were the previous two Allin Conversions.
Although a quantum leap forward as compared to the ponderous muzzleloaders, the Allin-designed Trapdoor was intended to be an interim arm until an improved breechloading system could be developed. The period of 1870 to 1872 was a time of experimentation and uncertainty for the U.S. Army Ordnance Department. It was clear that the muzzleloader was woefully out-of-date and that the breechloader was the future of military rifles. It was not certain, however, exactly what would be the optimum breechloading mechanism with which to arm the U.S. military.
To this end, the Ordnance Department encouraged submission of various designs so that the most promising could be field tested and evaluated for possible adoption as an improved breechloading service rifle. Four basic breechloading mechanisms were eventually selected for limited production and evaluation. Funds were appropriated by Congress for these designs to be manufactured by the Springfield Armory for trial and field testing. All were chambered for the standard .50-70 rifle cartridge (or its carbine equivalent), while the barrels and most of the furniture were finished in “National Armory Bright.” These arms were:
(1.) The Model of 1870 “Trapdoor” Springfield—Springfield Armory manufactured 11,533 M1870 rifles and 341 M1870 carbines. The Model of 1870 was a slightly modified version of the Model of 1868 Trapdoor Springfield rifle.
(2.) The Model of 1870 “Rolling Block”—Springfield manufactured 1,008 rifles and 314 carbines of this design for trial by the U.S. Army. Patent rights to the
Rolling Block mechanism were held by the Remington Arms Co. Shortly after production of the Model of 1870 trial arms ceased, Springfield Armory manufactured 10,001 Model of 1871 Rolling Block rifles. The Model of 1871 rifle featured an improved “locking action” mechanism, which automatically brought the hammer to half-cock when the breechblock was closed. The U.S. Navy issued some Springfield-made .50-70 Rolling Block rifles, also designated as the “Model of 1870,” during this period. Although differing in some relatively minor details from the U.S. Army Model of 1870 (including blued barrels and bayonet lugs), these were considered as issue arms by the Navy rather than trial arms.
(3) The Model of 1870 Springfield/Sharps—The Sharps was a popular civilian arm that had previously seen military use in the Civil War. A number of Civil
War-era percussion Sharps were modified after the war to chamber the .50-70 center-fire metallic cartridge, and a fair number, mainly Model of 1867 Carbines, were already in service with the U.S. Army. Most of the M1870 trial arms utilized modified Sharps percussion receivers, but 300 newly made actions were used by Springfield Armory to assemble some of the later trial rifles. With the exception of the basic Sharps action, Springfield produced the balance of the components. Total production of the M1870 Springfield/Sharps trial guns amounted to 1,300 rifles and 308 carbines.
(4) The Model of 1871 Ward-Burton Bolt-Action—The U.S. Springfield Armory produced 1,011 rifles and 316 carbines of the Ward-Burton pattern.
The above arms were each entirely different breechloading designs that enabled the Ordnance Department to evaluate the attributes—positive and negative—of the various mechanisms. The Trapdoor Springfield, Sharps and Rolling Block were, in varying degrees, familiar due to their prior U.S. military and civilian use. On the other hand, the bolt-action Ward-Burton was something of an unknown to the soldiers charged with its testing.
For the record, there were two “quasi bolt-action” U.S. military arms that predated the Ward-Burton. The Greene breechloading percussion rifle, made in very limited numbers from about 1859 into the early 1860s, featured a unique under-hammer action with a rudimentary bolt-operated mechanism. The Palmer carbine of the Civil War era utilized a bolt to open the chamber, but it was fired by means of a separate, side-mounted hammer. Neither were designed with what can be accurately characterized as a true bolt-action mechanism. Like virtually all subsequent modern bolt-action rifles, the Ward-Burton had the striker, ejector and extractor self-contained in the bolt body. While the norm for bolt-action designs today, this was a novel, if not radical, mechanism in the early 1870s.
The Ward-Burton was invented and patented by two Americans, Gen. W.G. Ward and Bethel Burton. The Ward-Burton rifle was a single-shot design that featured a bolt with two sets of threads on either side of the body that locked into corresponding threads machined into the inside of the receiver. The stubby bolt handle rotated downward to lock the action and rotated upward to disengage.
When the bolt was drawn to the rear, the empty cartridge case was automatically ejected, and the rifle was ready for a fresh cartridge to be inserted. It was cocked when the bolt was pushed forward. There was a small, spring-loaded bolt lock on the right rear of the receiver that functioned as a safety.
The Model of 1871 Ward-Burton was in production at Springfield Armory in 1871 and 1872. The receiver was case-hardened, and the left side was marked “WARD BURTON PATENT, DEC.20,1859, FEB.21.1871” with a “spread eagle” over “U.S. SPRINGFIELD 1871.” They were not serially numbered. The barrel and most of the furniture were finished in “National Armory Bright,” as were the other trial arms of the period. The Ward-Burton rifle had a 32 1⁄8″ barrel secured to the full-length stock by two barrel bands and was fitted with a folding-leaf rear sight. It had the same type of cleaning rod as the Model of 1868 Trapdoor Springfield rifle. The Ward-Burton rifle was issued with the Model of 1855 socket bayonet and also used the same type of leather sling as the .50-70 Trapdoor Springfield rifles.
The Model of 1871 Ward-Burton carbine had a 22″ barrel secured by a single barrel band to an appropriately shortened stock. It was fitted with a ring-and-bar attachment on the left side of the stock similar to the other Springfield Armory carbines of the era. The stocks of both the Ward-Burton rifle and carbine were typically marked with two different inspection stamps: “ESA” (Erskine S. Allin) and “JWK” (John W. Keene). Ward-Burton rifles and carbines were stamped “US’ on their buttplate tangs. With the obvious exception of the bolt-action mechanism, the Ward-Burton shared many of the same features as the Model of 1870 Trapdoor Springfield.
The Model of 1871 Ward-Burton rifles and carbines were issued to a number of U.S. Army units for field testing, along with the other .50-70 breechloading trial designs. The U.S. Army’s 13th Infantry was one of the units that tested Ward-Burton rifles. While made in very limited numbers, Ward-Burton carbines saw a surprising amount of use by several Army units, including the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th 6th, 7th and 9th U.S. Cavalry companies. Most of these cavalry units were also concurrently issued Model of 1870 Trapdoor Springfield, Model of 1870 Rolling Block and Model of 1870 Sharps trial carbines.
While nominally trial arms, some of the Ward-Burtons—especially the carbines—saw at least a modicum of combat use. Ward-Burton carbines are known to have seen service during the Yellowstone Expedition, and they were issued to cavalry units stationed in Nebraska, Texas, Colorado and Kansas.
The various trial arms, including the Ward-Burton, were subjected to grueling and rigorous use. In the majority of the subsequent test reports, the Ward-Burton did not fare well in the estimation of the reporting officers. For example, an officer of the 6th U.S. Cavalry succinctly stated that the Ward-Burton carbine was “ … unfit for cavalry service … .” The Ward-Burton rifle did not perform any better than the carbine. As an illustration, an officer of the 13th Infantry opined that the Ward-Burton rifle had caused too many accidents, and “ … the men are afraid of it … .” Another officer of the same unit initially found favor with the arm in his early reports in the summer of 1872, but by the winter of the same year, his opinion had totally changed. He proclaimed the Ward-Burton rifle as “ … a dangerous and inferior musket.” Ultimately, not one of the 95 final reports of field testing recommended the Ward-Burton for adoption.
There were several reasons for the near universal dislike of the Ward-Burton. Undoubtedly, the unusual (for its day) bolt-action was distrusted by many of its users. Unlike the Trapdoor Springfield, Sharps and Rolling Blocks, all of which had large outside hammers that could be readily observed, it was difficult to ascertain whether the Ward-Burton’s action was cocked and/or loaded. A number of accidents occurred because troops unfamiliar with the design discharged guns they assumed were unloaded. Several design flaws contributed to the Ward-Burton’s problems, including a screw that could shear off during recoil. Improper heat treatment of the bolt also caused some failures, which led to further distrust.
As the results of the field trials were reviewed and evaluated, it became apparent that the Ward-Burton was not suitable for continued production or widespread issue, and it was dropped from further consideration. Ward and Burton developed a repeating, magazine-fed version, but the design didn’t even get into the trial stage due, in large measure, to the negative reputation of the Model of 1871 rifle and carbine.
The Model of 1870 Trapdoor Springfield was eventually selected as the best trial breechloader. A slightly modified version, the Model of 1873 chambered for the new .45-70 Gov’t cartridge, became the Army’s standardized shoulder arm. The .45-70 Trapdoor remained in production until shortly after adoption of the Krag in 1892.
Despite its shortcomings in the field trials and subsequent rejection by the Army, the Model of 1871 Ward-Burton rifle and carbine are popular with collectors today. A Ward-Burton rifle or carbine in excellent condition is among the most attractive U.S. martial arms of the Indian War period. When compared to its contemporaries, the Ward-Burton has a surprisingly modern appearance. Many saw hard use during the infantry and cavalry field trials, and most surviving specimens are well-worn. The Ward-Burton is significant as the first true bolt-action produced for the U.S. military. It is an example of an interesting—if ultimately unsuccessful—martial arm. Surviving examples, particularly carbines, are increasingly harder to find on the collector market today, especially in excellent condition.
While often overlooked alongside its better-known contemporaries, such as the Trapdoor Springfields, Rolling Blocks and Sharps, the Ward-Burton represents a significant milestone in the evolution of U.S. military arms. Whatever flaws it may have possessed, the Ward-Burton has the distinction of being the first U.S. military bolt-action rifle, and as such, is one of the more interesting, and historically significant, firearms of the Indian War era.