Reversed bullets

[Old Tom]

I hope I may be excused for raising this topic again - third or fourth time according to search. I am reading John Glandfield's The Devils Chariots which deals with the ideas behind the development of tanks and includes an account of the early deployment of armoured cars. It seems first class!. I came across the statement 'the first cars were plated with a special 8.5 mm nickel chrome alloy developed by Beardmore's. It stopped an ordinary German bullet at 10 yd, but if the bullet was removed from the cartridge and reinserted point first, only a 10 mm plate would resist the reversed round, as the Germans were discovering. My reaction to earlier threads was, while accepting that reversed bullets would cause serious wounds their armour piercing ability seemed questionable.

If John Glandfield is correct, (he does not cite a reference for the statement) I would have to think again.

The piercing of armour depends on the energy of the projectile, either kinetic or chemical. In the case of a bullet only kinetic is available and a reversed bullet would experience more drag and hence be slower with less energy. However, if German bullets had a metal skin over a softer, heavy core a forward facing bullet would deform on impact disapating some of its energy. If flat end first it would resist deformation and its energy would be available for penetration.

Does this make sense? If it does not; at least, on the basis of the first few chapters, I would recommend the book.

Old Tom

[MikB]

Does this make sense? If it does not; at least, on the basis of the first few chapters, I would recommend the book.

Old Tom

I think it does. The strength of steel is measured (for Imperialists at any rate! ) in tons per square inch of fracture zone. A piercing punch on a press tool works by applying heavy force to a circular area uniformly, whilst the die supports the surrounding material against the force and prevents it moving away in the direction of the force.

A pointed but structurally soft bullet arriving at a steel surface will start by applying its force to a small area which will spread as the point collapses, and that collapse will also spread the period over which the force develops. Whereas a flat-faced projectile will apply force over the whole area of impact more-or-less uniformly and more-or-less instantaneously, producing a better prospect of punching out a slug of material with the very high temporary forces generated even if the kinetic energy is lower.

The function of the die is fulfilled by the inertia of the plate and the supporting structure.

I wouldn't expect this to work at more than a hundred yards or so - all the other undesirable side-effects of shooting base-first would soon start to make themselves felt. Also the angle of impact would need to be reasonably square to the surface - the advantage would probably disappear at more than maybe 10 - 15 degrees

Regards,

MikB

[centurion]

I have quoted this in one of the previous threads on the topic. Glanfield appears to take the information from Stern's Summary of British Tank Development. Stern certainly mentions something similar in a number of places.

[Jack Sheldon]

I know that we have been round the buoy several times on this subject but, in all the discussion (unless I have missed or forgotten something), nobody seems have stopped and wondered why the Germans would go to all this trouble when they had access to the SmK armour piercing round. Originally introduced to deal with the issue of piercing sniper shields and the like, it is the only round which is mentioned whenever the German infantry was having to counter tanks and that is the one which should have been concerning British experts. Once the armoured threat was real and inescapable, production of this round rocketed. So, for example, all the discussion on the eve of Cambrai within 54th Infantry Division concerned the shortage or lack of SmK rounds to load into MGs and, at a pinch, rifles. You will, I assure you, search the German literature in vain for any remarks such as, 'We found that we had no/insufficient SmK ammunition, so we rushed around reversing bullets'. Furthermore, if anybody can provide me with a German reference to the use of reversed rounds in this manner, I shall send you a virtual chocolate frog.

Jack

[centurion]

Indeed as I've mentioned (ad nauseam) German troops were issued with SmK rounds prior to Flers as some form of armoured attack was expected (from French armoured tractors). I've also pointed out that test of these bullets were caried out in Britain to determine the thickness of armoured plate needed to resist them. They could piece the original tank armoured plate on the Mk 1s provided the impact was square on and the firer was pretty close. The thicker improved plate on the Mk IV could handle it. The real killer available to infantry was the machine gun as repeated blows on the same small area would heat the plate to red heat whereupon it became very plastic.

[Retlaw]

. You will, I assure you, search the German literature in vain for any remarks such as, 'We found that we had no/insufficient SmK ammunition, so we rushed around reversing bullets'. Furthermore, if anybody can provide me with a German reference to the use of reversed rounds in this manner, I shall send you a virtual chocolate frog.

Jack

Well said Jack. I would also like to add where did they get the reloading tools to remove and reload the reversed bullets.

The .303 bullet is supposed to rquire a force of 60 lbs to extract the bullet, one would expect the 7.92 to have similar requirements.

Retlaw.

[MikB]

The .303 bullet is supposed to rquire a force of 60 lbs to extract the bullet, one would expect the 7.92 to have similar requirements.

Retlaw.

No. Bullet stem length, crimping and sealing arrangements were significantly different, and the 7.92 much easier to extract and replace ar$e-about-face with primitive tools. Read the other threads.

Fritz knew about the Hague Convention as well as Tommy. No way would he put it down in writing that he'd reversed bullets. Even if the purpose was not to cause especially severe wounds, but to fight weapons he couldn't otherwise combat, the propaganda Tommy would make of it would be obvious. If the recorded discussion was of shortage of SmK rounds, that makes it more rather than less reasonable to suppose that less formal workrounds were put in place.

I claim my chocolate frog...

Regards,

MikB

[Robert Dunlop]

Given that others have been reminding us of points made earlier ...

Originally introduced to deal with the issue of piercing sniper shields and the like...

Thanks, Jack. Armour-piercing capabilities were needed before the introduction of the tank.

I too doubt the idea that German unit histories would mention the urgent need for, and rapid production of, reversed bullets in emergency situations. The effort needed to reverse bullets would have precluded this action in the midst of a battle. More problematic is the reports of clips of reversed bullets being found during an attack. These would have had to be created before a battle, IMHO, not during. But this doesn't square with Jack's deep knowledge of German unit histories as, presumably, there is no such mention of this process being performed in the cold light of day.

Methinks the virtual chocolate frog may never be claimable. The fact that the prize is virtual, however, leads me to believe that Jack may not be wholly confident on this one

Robert

[Jack Sheldon]

Ever the cautious one me, Robert. It would be wrong to say this was never done, but I feel sure that if such a thing had ever been done systematically, some trace of the practice would show up somewhere. As part of my preparation for the writing of Cambrai, I searched the literature for references to anti-tank techniques and tactics then, armed with that knowledge, went through all the histories I could find to see how it applied in practice. There is not one reference to reversing bullets; in fact men who had to resort to firing with standard ammunition against tanks generally reported that the rounds just bounced off and left them feeling defenceless.

In the process I built up a complete file of original documents on the subject. The earliest I could find is dated 17 November 1916 and the latest 4 October 1918. These cover tank intelligence, technical reports, test firing of various weapons against captured tanks, role of anti-tank mines and ditches, evaluations of the contributions various suitable weapons in the inventory could make and how each could best be deployed and employed etc. etc.

Study of these documents makes it clear that, from the very beginning, it was recognised that the artillery had the primary tank killing role. This was further sub divided into long and close range defence and tactics were devised to optimise the use of various types of gun to this end. It was also clear that there would be occasions when tanks got in amongst German infantry, but the methods and tactics used for most of the war were emergency measures, at best to complement the efforts of the guns; at worst to provide the infantry psychologically with some sort of means of standing firm in the event of serious tank attack. Flat trajectory mounted grenade launchers were found to be quite effective, but the SmK round was recognised from the start as offering the best chance of keeping tanks at arm's length, provided that they could be hit where they were vulnerable and masses of paper was taken up with describing where to aim. The recommendations ultimately, were that each MG was to have 6-8 belts of SmK ammo and the individual 30 rounds, to be reserved for use in a tank emergency.

After action reports and careful tests and trials underlined the necessity for the angle of incidence of rounds to be 90 degrees and that the primary target should be the side of the tank: males to be hit just fore and aft of the gun turret; females directly in the centre. The rear of the tank offered a number of vulnerabilites. An SmK round at 100 meters impacting at right angles could be expected to have a 50% chance of piercing. Best results were obtained by massing 6-8 MG and have them all fire together at a single target. Not easy to achieve on the battlefield of course.

Once tanks closed right in then the primary infantry weapon was the geballte Ladung; i.e three or more hand grenades bundled together and thrown for preference on top of the tank. Failing that, under the tank from the rear, but not the front where the armour was thicker, was recommended. Charges of this size would not split a track, by the way.

From the point of view of this discussion, it is interesting to note that the use of massed fire with standard ammunition crops up in after-action reports. These rounds would not penetrate, but they could slow, occasionally stop and sometimes cause tanks to turn away. The effect was believed to be caused by a small proprotion of rounds passing through viewing slits, but it is at least likely that some of these hits caused 'scabbing' inside the plates and small pieces of hot metal to fly around inside. Infantrymen were taught where the slits were and to fire at them, so this usage in action is not far fetched.

1st Guards Res Div Reported after their experience in Cambrai on 26 Nov 17 (i.e. in the midst of the battle) [1. Garde-Reserve-Division Ia Nr. 6804 26.11.17 Erfahrungen im Kampf gegen Tanks (Kriegsarchiv Muenchen 1 R.Korps 169)]: '3rd Bn 1st Guards Reserve Regiment had given six of its MGs to each of its flanking companies ... This distribution proved itself to be excellent, because these MGs were able to engage the tanks side on. The anti-tank engagements began with massed machine gun fire and it was observed that as soon as the entire side of a tank was being hit simultaneously, it was halted immediately ... The'K' ammunition soon ran out, so fire continued with 'S' ammunition with good observable effect -probably against the viewing slits, because the concentrated massed fire, including that of riflemen, must without doubt have gone through them and the consequent fragmentation must have made the interior of the tanks noticeably unpleasant. At any rate, some of the tanks turned about and drove back.'

Note that the SmK rounds were best fired from machine guns in concentrated patterns. Note that standard ammunition was made to be effective on occasion if it was massed against targets. A few reversed bullets, assuming that there were any, would have been lost in the inferno of fire and, if a tank closed up enough for such a round to have any chance at all of penetrating the armour, another infantryman was probably closing in on the tank to throw grenades onto it.

Reversed bullets as a standard tactic? - fiddlesticks. Reversed bullets fired by the odd bored individual with nothing better to do than turn them round? - possible but pointless as a contribution to a layered anti-tank defence.

Jack

[centurion]

Somewhere in those previous threads I posted details of a German report of the use at unit level of reversed bullets l against enemy wire and sandbags. The regiment involved was clearly identifiable. The regimental armourer called a halt horrified at the damage to the rifles. Elsewhere I've also included accounts of German soldiers captured carrying reversed rounds saying that they were for use against wire (but as a certain witness once said "well they would wouldn't they" - hardly going to say "its a fair cop - I'll go and stand against that wall now shall I?") The point (or at least the blunt end) is that there are enough reports of the German use of reversed bullets to show that this was not that uncommon before the introduction of the tank but there is no indication that the purpose was anti armour. It was likely to be either anti personnel or a means of destroying wire and sandbagged defences (or both). Possibly fired against armoured loopholes but to destroy the bags in which they were embedded thus exposing the sniper.

To be fair the design of the German round made it much easier for their soldiers to use a reversed bullet, difficult to say what the British approach would have been if it was as easy to extract and reverse their bullets.

[Robert Dunlop]

Thanks for the extra details, Jack. FWIIW, I agree with your last point.

AARs from tankers frequently refer to the effects of the metal flakes flying around the inside of tanks hit by MG and rifle fire. As you suggest, it may have been difficult to co-ordinate multiple MGs onto tanks in battlefield conditions. Alternatively, tanks generated such concerns in defenders that anyone in proximity would aim at the nearest tank. The collective effect, as described by tankers, was that tanks often came under fire from multiple directions. So same outcome but perhaps for a different reason.

I have often speculated on this aspect of tank warfare. The fact that tanks acted as magnets for fire was recognised by General Harper, who made the (subsequently deemed) 'mistake' of separating his infantry from their tank support. But there is good evidence that tanks took some pressure off their infantry colleagues in some actions.

Robert

[centurion]

Thanks for the extra details, Jack. FWIIW, I agree with your last point.

AARs from tankers frequently refer to the effects of the metal flakes flying around the inside of tanks hit by MG and rifle fire. As you suggest, it may have been difficult to co-ordinate multiple MGs onto tanks in battlefield conditions.

Extracts from German documents of 1918 on anti tank measures to be followed

"As a rule all heavy machine guns, even those held in reserve, will be supplied with armour piercing cartridges. The primary mission of each heavy machine gun is to combat tanks which penetrate into their zone, and it must be fully aware of this responsibility. Machine guns at points especially favourable to penetration must know that they have a vey special respnsibility. For this reason they will be designated by the name 'Anti Tank machine guns'"

Machine guns in anti tank redoubts were to be clumped in twos or threes and in cricular emplacements.

There are eyewitness accounts from British tank crews of mg fire causing sections of armour to glow red and soften allowing bullets to penetrate.

[egbert]

I had never come across any German literature I read so far, the useage of reversed bullets against tanks. From my own experience with infantery weapons I say that even one single shot of a reversed bullet may have destroyed the rifle and even endangered the life of the shooter himself. You do not risk the loss of your rifle in the heat of an infantery battle (supported by tanks).

The early infantery tactics (other than artillery) to counter a tank was the firing of the Spitzgeschoß mit Kern (SmK) which promised success when hitting the tank armour at 90 degrees , piercing steelplates of 11mm thickness at 100m firing range and 9mm steel plates at 200m.

In his reply, Jack used excellent information from the dissertation of Dr A.Fasse who scientifically tackled the subject, see this link

[Old Tom]

This topic seems to be a bit of an enigma. My only source is Glandfield's book, however from that it appears that the experiments in UK were made in the context of the early armoured cars used by the RNAS, although he also refers to the requirement to resist bullets reversed as being included in the first army statements of features for a tank written somewhat later. (I like that phrase 'bullets reversed' and can envisage a drill movement; on the command 'squad will reverse bullets' the right hand man takes a pace forward and draws pliers etc etc, enough of frivolity!) Thus one might deduce that reverved bullets had been used in the early days of the war against armoured cars. If that was the case one might also suppose that the technique had been known before the war, as it seems unlikely that on the spur of the moment a soldier would start taking his ammunition to pieces.

Is there any evidence for knowledge of the arour piercing cabaility of reversed bullets before the war? 0r was it only known that reversed bullets would cause dreadful wounds, I suppose something like the wounds caused by a soft 0.5" round used in the previous century. On reading the thread this is almost what Centurion said, but the question the origin of the idea remains.

Old Tom

[Robert Dunlop]

Egbert, thanks very much for posting the link.

Robert

[Old Tom]

My German is not up to reading the link. Does it have anything to say about the first use of reversed bullets?

Old Tom

[egbert]

No Tom it elaborates about artillery being THE anti tank weaponry and infantery-wise only the use of SmK bullets (besides the Tankgewehr, flame thrower and handgrenade-clusters). Taking into consideration the wealth of links in the dissertation paper, both British and German (to include extensive studies in the German BA archives), I doubt any useful reverse bullet tactics against tanks. Again, have you fired a rifle with reversed bullet in the chamber lately? I guess you would not post here anymore

[truthergw]

I am only an interested( fascinated) onlooker in this thread but I can supply a personal comment. Like quite a few other forum members, I have fired a .303. If I had been asked to load a round with reversed bullet into my rifle and fire it at a tank, I think I would have remembered an urgent need to return my library book. It goes against all the training and warnings that I received in the care of weapons. That is simply a personal opinion and absolutely valueless as evidence but it makes me personally, require very substantial evidence for the practice.

[centurion]

I am only an interested( fascinated) onlooker in this thread but I can supply a personal comment. Like quite a few other forum members, I have fired a .303. If I had been asked to load a round with reversed bullet into my rifle and fire it at a tank, I think I would have remembered an urgent need to return my library book. It goes against all the training and warnings that I received in the care of weapons. That is simply a personal opinion and absolutely valueless as evidence but it makes me personally, require very substantial evidence for the practice.

In that situation I think I would have found the pages from my library book extremely useful

[MikB]

I am only an interested( fascinated) onlooker in this thread but I can supply a personal comment. Like quite a few other forum members, I have fired a .303. If I had been asked to load a round with reversed bullet into my rifle and fire it at a tank, I think I would have remembered an urgent need to return my library book. It goes against all the training and warnings that I received in the care of weapons. That is simply a personal opinion and absolutely valueless as evidence but it makes me personally, require very substantial evidence for the practice.

I don't know if it would've been a case of being asked, and I don't know how much your suddenly-discovered bibliophily would've counted for beside your duty to Kaiser and Fatherland.

If you were required to hold your trench against the tank you knew would come, and you had seen or heard of an armour-piercing effect in a reversed bullet, and knew of soldiers using them with no more serious consequence than a bo110cking from the armourer for ring-bulging a barrel - itself not necessarily disabling the weapon - and you had an easy familiarity with firearms and ammunition common in the trenches but very much less so in our more peaceful times - well, it might more be the case that you would choose the method yourself as your best hope of survival.

The evidence is as substantial as it can be - very many British writers describe the finding of reversed bullets on German soldiers or in positions they recently occupied. I would rather believe they were carrying them for a more-or-less legitimate purpose like shredding sandbags or piercing armour than for producing eviscerating wounds - I don't believe today's bloody-minded cynicism was common among the soldiers of WW1.

Regards,

MikB

[centurion]

The evidence is as substantial as it can be - very many British writers describe the finding of reversed bullets on German soldiers or in positions they recently occupied. I would rather believe they were carrying them for a more-or-less legitimate purpose like shredding sandbags or piercing armour than for producing eviscerating wounds - I don't believe today's bloody-minded cynicism was common among the soldiers of WW1.

No its not many of these instances occur before the introduction of the tank - perhaps these soldiers carried a little crystal ball as part of their kit!

[SiegeGunner]

If unused chargers of reversed rounds were found on Germans captured within their own lines, or in positions that had been overrun, and there were no reports of men suffering 'abnormal' wounds, that would surely tend to suggest that such rounds were reserved for some other purpose.

[Herekawe]

At the risk of being corrected I don't know if actually firing a properly reversed bullet would be that dangerous to the firer or rifle. As long as you got the leade (I think that is the technical term for what I call the jump between the bullet and where it hits the rifling) correct, which rifle reloaders do it all the time, the reversed bullet is really just an unusually shaped flat nose bullet. The other thing is the bullet needs to hit the rifling square on so the neck of the case neck cannot be damaged during extraction the bullet must be aligned with the rifling.

I have heard of people doing this in the distant past, but they were doing it in the mistaken belief that the reversed bullet would be more like a soft nosed hunting bullet. Personally I would be absolutely against this sort of tinkering with ammunition, I like .303 rifles but am first to say for all its good points its not a real strong action and slightly too much pressure can damage or destroy them.

I read on the internet (maybe the GWF) in the past that someone tried this and when they opened the chamber without firing, the bullet stayed in the rifling - that is not good as it means the bullet is seated too far out and is wedged into the rifling at the moment of firing, it doesn't get pushed into the rifling at speed for a millisecond by the firing gas and pressure goes up as a result.

Removing projectiles from army ball ammunition and replacing with modern soft point hunting projectiles is not difficult, Hornady make a nice .303 174gr Soft Nose hunting bullet which has often been used for this.

I am sure a properly equipped modern reloader can easily reverse a .303 bullet, but I doubt that an armourer in the Great War would be carrying the necessary equipment (I stand to be corrected) to produce a significant quantity of quality reversed .303 ammo. His job would mainly be with the weapons themselves. In the trench I guess projectiles could be removed with a pair of pliers (possibly distorting the projectile slightly, and bending the case neck) and then the projectile could be hammered back into the case chokka with cordite. But if it won't shoot straight what is the use of it?

So I think that as far as widespread use by the British it is probably a fallacy, maybe a few bored soldiers mucking around with their ammo. Can't speak for the Germans though.

James

[MikB]

No its not many of these instances occur before the introduction of the tank - perhaps these soldiers carried a little crystal ball as part of their kit!

Now you're being silly. There were plenty of situations where they would want to destroy sandbag cover or pierce armoured loopholes before tanks appeared. This was a significant element of sniping and countersniping work. The British, under advice from Hesketh Pritchard, tended to use privately-owned big-game rifles loaded with solids - IIRC a .470 Express would pierce 5/8" tool steel - whereas this course of action was not really available to Fritz.

All of this has been said before - we're going in circles again here. If you want to believe that reversed bullets are evidence of disregard for the laws and rules of war at the private soldier level, we'll just have to agree to differ. It would take a written celebration of the effects of reversed bullets on flesh to convince me that they modified them for this purpose.

Regards,

MikB

[centurion]

If unused chargers of reversed rounds were found on Germans captured within their own lines, or in positions that had been overrun, and there were no reports of men suffering 'abnormal' wounds, that would surely tend to suggest that such rounds were reserved for some other purpose.

Plenty of medical reports and diary entries from British, Canadian and French doctors reporting the horrible effects of reversed bullets. The problem is that there will always be those who say that these wounds could have been caused by tumbling bullets and without current access to the patient its impossible to say. Until someone develops a time machine or discovers a handy worm hole I'd put my belief in those doctors who must have seen a huge variety of bullet wounds (including those caused by tumbling rounds) and still reported wounds caused by reversed bullets - after all they were the experts with practical experience in the field.

One question - if reversing bullets were supposed to be an anti tank measure - how did anyone on the German side know what the effect was? In one of the earlier threads there is a link to a photo of an armoured steel plate that had been subjected to ordinary German bullets, reversed German bullets and Armour piercing German bullets . The effect of the reversed bullet wasn't worth the effort. The Germans didn't get their hands on any British tanks until Arras (and were mislead by the boiler plated Mk IIs into believing that British tanks were penetrable by ordinary rifle rounds.) The error was discovered at 3rd Ypres which is probably why German accounts of actions against tanks at Cambrai describe the use of armour piercing rounds.