303 Projectiles reversed to cause greater impact damage

[SiegeGunner]

In fact, like the reversed bullet, the thread has no point ...

[ian turner]

In fact, like the reversed bullet, the thread has no point ...

Really? Well the reversed round topic is penetrating my thick skull and putting a little sense into it. No need for such arrogance, we are not all "experts" reading this.

[SiegeGunner]

Not arrogance – just a play on words.

[centurion]

Getting back to the original inquiry which was about 303s the following may be of interest

Extract from a letter written by Major H M Hance, former OC of 179 Tunnelling Company RE to the Official Historian in 1930 (National Archives CAB45/134

In March 1915, just after Neuve Chapelle, I obtained a clip of cartridges taken from the body of a German sniper, whose bandolier contained about 10 such clips. In every case the bullets in the clips had been reversed, exposing the lead base, making them in effect into explosive bullets. I saw the affect of one fired at close range, which hit the man next to me in the face and blew the back of his head off. I have often tried to see if a British bullet could be reversed in the field, i.e. by means of wire cutters, scissors, &c, or gripping it in the jamb of a door, but never succeeded, whilst it was easy to reverse a German bullet.

I found this info on the forum it was posted 4 years ago in a thread on censorship!

Reinforces the point (or lack of one!) that the 303 was very difficult to tamper with.

[SiegeGunner]

No-one has suggested that the British wanted to reverse .303 bullets to obtain a destructive dum-dum effect against human targets, but it's clear that they were aware of some useful qualities of reversed German bullets against hard targets like parapets and sniper shields, and equally aware of the difficulty of reversing their own ammunition. In those circumstances, would it not have been easier for them to get hold of a German rifle and reversed ammunition for it than to obtain an Express rifle? I wonder whether there is any evidence of that happening?

[Piorun]

What is supposed to be at issue in this thread is the technique's use in 303.

MikB: you've made a very nice point (no pun intended ) and I concede it. I had lost focus on the .303 and was becoming enveloped in the fog surrounding the proven effects of reversed German bullets. I have no hard evidence of a reversed .303 - indeed, the success of the "official" dum-dum, of the Mark 7, and of the armour-piercing in 1915 would appear to have made it somewhat pointless (sorry! can't avoid it). I apologise for losing track and becoming ratty. Yours, Antony.

[Aurel Sercu]

My apologies too, for smuggling a French cartridge into the topic. I should have read the opening topic and page more carefully.

Just this : I do not recall finding Lee Enfield cartridges with reversed bullets on the Boezinge battlefield. But that isn't of any help, I know.

Aurel

[MikB]

Hey, Piorun and Aurel, don't apologise!

I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone's comments, just come back to the question of 303s.

I don't believe the soldiers of either side were infected with the modern cynicism that would lead them to reverse bullets so as to cause more horrific wounds. If they reversed them, it would be for a more legitimate purpose such as piercing armour (whether on a tank or on a loophole) or breaking up sandbag cover.

I think we've all learned more than we knew before as a result of the sharing of knowledge these threads provoked.

I would still be interested if there's any real evidence that a practical method of reversing 303s was in circulation - and if so, how the hell it was done without defeating any chance of firing it with enough accuracy to engage, say, a loophole 100 yards or so away.

Regards,

MikB

[ian turner]

I don't believe the soldiers of either side were infected with the modern cynicism that would lead them to reverse bullets so as to cause more horrific wounds. If they reversed them, it would be for a more legitimate purpose such as piercing armour (whether on a tank or on a loophole) or breaking up sandbag cover.

I do remember my grandfather telling me about dum-dums and the practice of cuting off the bullet tips and also cutting a cross into the resulting blunt top to facilitate the round's distortion/fragmentation on impact.

I think it was frowned on amongst the men, and probably more to the point (no pun, please...) that the enemy would give short shrift if you were captured carrying such rounds. But I think the desire was there to use them. Probably not reversed rounds though I admit, but the use against human targets of deliberately altered rounds was certainly there. After loosing pals next to you, the civilized veneer began to melt away.....

[centurion]

I would still be interested if there's any real evidence that a practical method of reversing 303s was in circulation - and if so, how the hell it was done without defeating any chance of firing it with enough accuracy to engage, say, a loophole 100 yards or so away.

Regards,

MikB

The evidence from various tests (see thread on resistance of armour plate) indicated that if effective at all reversed rounds were only so at very reduced range - much less than 100 yards. Probably under 30 and if the tests Stern mentioned are valid possibly under 10. Interestingly all the tests appear to have been made using the German reversed round.

[Gunner Bailey]

Getting back to the original inquiry which was about 303s the following may be of interest

Extract from a letter written by Major H M Hance, former OC of 179 Tunnelling Company RE to the Official Historian in 1930 (National Archives CAB45/134

In March 1915, just after Neuve Chapelle, I obtained a clip of cartridges taken from the body of a German sniper, whose bandolier contained about 10 such clips. In every case the bullets in the clips had been reversed, exposing the lead base, making them in effect into explosive bullets. I saw the affect of one fired at close range, which hit the man next to me in the face and blew the back of his head off. I have often tried to see if a British bullet could be reversed in the field, i.e. by means of wire cutters, scissors, &c, or gripping it in the jamb of a door, but never succeeded, whilst it was easy to reverse a German bullet.

I found this info on the forum it was posted 4 years ago in a thread on censorship!

Reinforces the point (or lack of one!) that the 303 was very difficult to tamper with.

Centurion

The extract you have posted has two major flaws. i) How did the witness know the bullet had been reversed? It would be mpossible to tell. ii) A high velocity bullet will blow the back off a head anyway.

Conclusion: He just saw a normal sniper hit.

[ian turner]

Yes, and I think it has been mentioned on the forum over the years, that often the result of a normal bullet's strike and exit has lead the observer to think the enemy was using dum-dums or explosive bullets. In fact the deformed-after-initial-impact bullet causes grievous injury on punching its way out.

[centurion]

Centurion

The extract you have posted has two major flaws. i) How did the witness know the bullet had been reversed? It would be mpossible to tell. ii) A high velocity bullet will blow the back off a head anyway.

Conclusion: He just saw a normal sniper hit.

The man had been serving in the front line for some time (indeed he served right through the war). He must have seen countless head shots and been able to distinguish between 'normal' damage and something more extreme. You might say an expert witness.

The main point of the extract was to show that reversed bullets were in use very early in the war. Early in 1915 at least from the clip he describes being taken from a German sniper. And how dificult it was to reverse a 303 round in the field. (the topic is about 303 rounds!)

[truthergw]

I have been following this thread with interest. I happily confess to almost no knowledge of the subject and am always interested to look over the experts' shoulders. Am i right in summing up the thread so far as

a, it was very difficult for a soldier in the trenches to reverse a .303 round and still have a round he could hope to fire accurately.

b, the effective range was very short, a maximum of about 50 metres?

c, it would be impossible to definitely decide whether any wound was caused by a reversed round.

[centurion]

b, the effective range was very short, a maximum of about 50 metres?

c, it would be impossible to definitely decide whether any wound was caused by a reversed round.

Plenty of WW1 serving medics who claimed to be able to do so, plenty of posters to this forum who say it isn't

[Gunner Bailey]

The man had been serving in the front line for some time (indeed he served right through the war). He must have seen countless head shots and been able to distinguish between 'normal' damage and something more extreme. You might say an expert witness.

The main point of the extract was to show that reversed bullets were in use very early in the war. Early in 1915 at least from the clip he describes being taken from a German sniper. And how dificult it was to reverse a 303 round in the field. (the topic is about 303 rounds!)

There is no basis to your conclusion that he was an expert witness Centurion. It is just conjecture about how many head shots this man saw.

If someone is hit by a HV bullet at anything under 1000 yards they will have a small hole in the front of the head and a 3 to 4 inch one in the back. It may be marginally worse with a reversed bullet but I doubt if it was that visible. Reversed bullets were aimed at armour not soft tissue. The aim being to knock a scab off the back of the shield and injure someone sheltering behind it.

If the topic is about .303 rounds why introduce this extract about a German sniper?

[centurion]

Because gives a date the finding of clips of reversed bullets of any type as I thought would be obvious and as I have already explained once. I think that this is the earliest British report although the French reported capturing clips as early as Oct 1914.

Its relevant when one considers that neither the Germans or the French were using sniper shields this early (although the Germans appear to have had a viable design) and the British were possibly just introducing them. Nobody appears to have used them in any number until well after the date of this report. This would tend to suggest that whatever the reason for reversing bullets by anyone it wasn't for anti armour purposes.

[ian turner]

It is perhaps logical to assume that the reversal idea preceded the need to penetrate or damage armour plate. The reversal achieves a dum-dum effect without the need to damage the bullet. Its use against armour plate may have thereafter been discovered as a consequence of their use but not the origin? Just my speculation, but based on the early dates of Centurion's article I would have imagined armour plating was not widely used (except perhaps on fieldgun shields).

[MikB]

Its use against armour plate may have thereafter been discovered as a consequence of their use but not the origin?

I doubt that. Both sides' armies contained plenty of skilled shopfloor craftsmen, who could well have thought about how blanking punches work.

The potential damage to the rifle bore was made clear in the German account of shredding sandbags posted in the earlier thread on this subject. This technique, though it could be implemented in 7,92x57 by practically any man in the field, was costly in weapon damage. Nobody with common sense would consume rifles doing this if they could bring down the enemy with an unmodified round - and both 7,92x57 and 303 proved themselves eminently capable of doing that - and still have a rifle in good condition to deal with the next attack.

Regards,

MikB

[SiegeGunner]

Thinking laterally again, is there any evidence of the use of reversed bullets in any conflict prior to the Great War? What, for example, did the Boers fire at British armoured trains? Would an earlier round-nosed .303 bullet have been less aerodynamically unstable in the reversed mode? Were tests carried out by manufacturers with factory-made cylindrical bullets with an 'open' nose like the base of a reversed bullet - perhaps a modification of the bullets made for hunting purposes. Point being that if there was already an existing body of knowledge, or even anecdotal evidence, of advantageous effects of such bullets against any kind of target other than the human body, it would perhaps not be surprising if they were found in use almost from the very beginning of the war, even before the advent of sniper plates.

And did the Germans use reversed bullets in their operations against the Herero in the Namib?

[ian turner]

Don't have an answer to that, but again, logically thinking, if there had been previous experience of reversed bullets and their usefulness, would that not have been put into factory production, rather than left to field-expedient modification?

[SiegeGunner]

My suspicion would be that the effect was known, but that such bullets could not be put into factory production for any military use because of their dum-dum effect on a human target, which would mean they were outlawed under the relevant conventions. Hence the field expedient solution.

[ian turner]

Ha- this is a great one... well, in that case would it not have been sensible to have produced .303 rounds capable of easy, albeit 'unofficial' reversal? Alternatively more blunt rounds with differing cores, suitable for this purpose but still short of a real dum-dum appearance, and with a tip that was particlarly soft to allow for the 'sabot' style impact. It would have been more accurate, and longer range-suitable than a purely reversed round.

I still feel that at the outset of the war, any tampering of bullets by troops in the line was for dum-dum purposes and not armour piercing. That need would have arisen once stalemate had set in and armoured loophole protection, etc became a requirement. Centurion's witness was commenting on March 1915, quite an early date still.

[centurion]

Certainly all the early accounts of the finding (sometimes on prisoners) of reversed rounds assume that the purpose was dum dum. Eventually (as quoted in an earlier thread) there was a British order that any prisoner found with them was to be shot on the spot unless they could convince an officer that the rounds had been issued to them officially (in which case they would be an important witness of war crimes).

How their use against armour was discovered is unclear. The various tests where reversed rounds were fired against armour plate show that any advantage over conventional bullets was relatively minor and at very close range only. Proper AP rounds were much much more effective. The tests that Stern refers to show that the armour on a Mk I tank could resist reversed bullets at ten yards.

[Mk VII]

would it not have been sensible to have produced .303 rounds capable of easy, albeit 'unofficial' reversal?

easy bullet pull means they are more likely to come out under hard service - in particular under the stresses of automatic weapon cycling. If it gets left in the barrel you have a ruined barrel.