Reversed bullets

[TonyE]

I agree Mik. I merely mentioned H-P as an example of contemporary documentation that it was done in the field, in reply to the doubters who say it would be too difficult.

That was the piece of film I was talking about. I hope, although I cannot promise, that the piece of plate is still there when I visit that facility the week after next so that I can get some close up photographs.

Regards

TonyE

[Piorun]

Are these in the right order? If not, what order should they be viewed in? Antony

[Old Tom]

This has been a somewhat tangled web but the evidence of the film strip posted by John Reed, albeit without definition of the type of steel used for the target, seems conclusive. Pride goeth before a fall but I am tempted to repeat part of my post which started this thread.

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.

Old Tom

[johnreed]

Reference my photographs, there are three distintive groups

Group 1 comprising (1,2,3,4 & 5) pictures 1 & 2 should be reversed

Group 2 comprising (6 & 7)

Group 3 Comprising (8,9,10, 1 & 12)

Order of photographs

1, 2, 3

4, 5, 6

7, 8, 9

10, 11, 12

John

[MikB]

If flat end first it would resist deformation and its energy would be available for penetration.

Old Tom

I'd prefer to say it would resist deformation more (than one arriving point-first). Plainly it disintegrates, but it delivers its energy to the plate over a period several times shorter, more than offsetting a percentage difference in the actual energy available.

Regards,

MikB

[Gunner Bailey]

It would be interesting to find out the velocity of the plug punched out by the bullet as it hits the plate. I would expect a significant reduction on that of the bullet but it would probably still be enough to cause a serious injury.

Great thread!

John

[Piorun]

John: I'm still puzzled by the order. There are six rows. If we are reading 1 - 2 as left - right first row, then 3 - 4 as left - right second row, the pictures in the last three rows appear to be out of order. 3R, 4R, 6R, 5L and 6L appears to be more logical. Antony

[MikB]

It would be interesting to find out the velocity of the plug punched out by the bullet as it hits the plate. I would expect a significant reduction on that of the bullet but it would probably still be enough to cause a serious injury.

Great thread!

John

Even if it only has 10% of the bullet's energy, it'll still be roughly equal to a .38 revolver round.

Regards,

MikB

[johnreed]

I am redoing the frame sequence with captions, I will post tomorrow.

John

[Piorun]

Thanks, John. Your edited post 77 is still (sorry ) out of order. Look forward to correct sequence. Antony

[johnreed]

I have deleted the post with pictures see new set of photos.

John

Set One

[johnreed]

Set Three

[johnreed]

Set Two

[Rockdoc]

This is somewhat off-topic but may provide an insight, I hope. I did some work for a chap doing his PhD about the same time as me who was investigating the use of a bullet to shatter quartz pebbles, for reasons we don't need to go into. For one of his test matrices, he obtained a series of rounds of the same calibre that had different weights of charge and had them fired against blocks of fine-grained sandstone. The effect was fascinating. If the impact-speed was under a threshold level the bullet simply stopped and damage to the block was minimal. As the speed increased, the effect changed and an increasingly large piece of the sandstone was blown out of the impact face. This was the result of the shock wave from the impact reflecting from the back of the block and interacting with the compression zone. Once the speed reached another threshold the bullet drilled a neat hole in the sandstone and decelerated without expanding significantly.

Impacts cause shock waves in both the moving and static parts that reflect from open faces. The waves traveling in opposite directions interact with each other and will reinforce or reduce the energy at points along the interface, depending on the phase of the waves. In a relatively short length, like the plate used in John's clip, the reflections would be bouncing from the front and back faces of the plate very rapidly so the reinforcement could - and obviously did - reach very high levels. I would say that the initial rate of energy transfer from the bullet to the plate would be considerably lower when the bullet was the right way round, due to the tapering nose crushing and absorbing some of the energy to do that, so the peak reinforcement would lower, even if the total energy involved was the same - which it obviously is with a reversed round travelling at the same speed.

Keith

[SiegeGunner]

That's not 'off topic', Keith, it's a very cogent and enlightening scientific contribution to the discussion. But, however interesting and persuasive the physics may be, I have translated numbers of German 'lessons learnt' reports on early encounters with tanks and have never yet seen a reference to the use of reversed bullets.

German tactics focused on disabling or destroying 'the machine', not on attacking the crew (although firing at the vision slits was advocated 'faute de mieux'). Firing at the front face of a tank with conventional 'S' rifle rounds is generally described as 'useless' (many references to tanks pock-marked with indentations caused by 'S' rifle bullets that did not penetrate), and riflemen (even those equipped with SmK ammunition) were advised to keep their heads down and prepare themselves to engage the infantry following the tanks.

As far as the front line was concerned, engaging tanks at close range was a job for the machine guns, and whether or not supplied with SmK ammunition, they were urged to bring concentric fire to bear on the most vulnerable parts of the machine, in particular the petrol tank. The flatter the impact on the vulnerable flanks of the tank, the better, and MG crews were encouraged to move position, if necessary to get the requisite angle. MGs firing SmK could expect individual 'hits' to penetrate, and those firing conventional 'S' ammunition could expect concentrated fire to batter its way through if sustained on the same spot for long enough.

In the early days, everything that could be brought to bear was thrown in, but it quickly became apparent that by the time a tank reached the German front line, conventional artillery and Minenwerfer could not be used for fear of hitting their own men. This eventually led to the emplacement of small trench guns and light Minenwerfer on flat-firing mounts in the front line positions (often in the support line, immediately behind the front line trench).

[Pete1052]

I continue to believe the reversed bullet phenomenon existed more in the sphere of soldier gossip and the rumor mill rather than in actual practice. If the British Ministry of Munitions tested the idea during the war, as Old Tom suggested, I suspect it was because the soldier stories traveled up the chain of command, rather than its having been a serious idea that percolated downwards from the top. Had I been in a leadership position during the Great War (or since then) I would have discouraged the practice of tampering with small arms ammunition. There probably was a bit of this going on during the war but I think it was an exception to what most guys did. The main value of this thread is in how it describes one of the minor flukes of the war, not in how it was something that was a widespread practice.

[johnreed]

The test was conducted on a piece of armour plate of Vickers 600 hardness 6 mm thickness which was a replica of armour plate found on the dig. Andy Robertshaw gave me these details.

John

[Piorun]

Sorry we can't convince you, Pete, despite ample physical and written evidence. The German lads used them as and when it suited the individual soldier to deem it useful (not often in the greater scheme of things but often enough to have been noteworthy). The Brits didn't for reasons of simple practicality as already explained. One cannot readily reverse a British .303 bullet because of the way it is seated. The three crimps and the rim made it impossible for the soldier to pull the bullet in an immediately tactical situation. The German amminuition was not seated that way and simple hand tools could do the job readily. Cheers, Antony

PS Keith and Mike: excellent info. Thanks.

[Old Tom]

It may be interesting to reflect that concern as to the power of reversed bullets seems to have started with the efforts of the RNAS armoured car enthusiasts to find a suitable steel alloy sheet for their vehicles. A little later attention was paid to body armour for soldiers and the main outcome was the steel helmet. Not surprisingly the design of helmets did not consider reversed bullets but was concerned with shrapnel. The first helmets were French and which resisted shrapnel balls at 41 to the lb (as 13 and 18 pounders) at 400 ft per sec. The final British helmet (Oct 15) was in a manganese steel which resisted shrapnel at 750 ft per sec. One might assume that light weight armour had not received much attention since the the 15th centuary when the long bow arrow was the problem. Perhaps in 1914/15 this was a new field and reversed bullets received more attention than the deserved.

Old Tom

.

[Piorun]

Interesting point, Old Tom. There's many an invention that had two parents - necessity and chance. Cheers, Antony

[SiegeGunner]

I have translated numbers of German 'lessons learnt' reports on early encounters with tanks and have never yet seen a reference to the use of reversed bullets.

Just to clarify the above, I mean that I have never yet seen a reference to the use of reversed bullets against tanks.

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

I have come across several references to the Germans using a reversed bullet against tanks and if I recall an armoured observation plate several years back during research for another project. These were mainly used against tanks in 1917-1918 period. If I can locate them I will post the sources here.

Ralph

[egbert]

Just to clarify the above, I mean that I have never yet seen a reference to the use of reversed bullets against tanks.

Well Mick you got to translate the "right" stuff : I read some 3 German books on WW1 recently and in one of them I recall having read about the use of reversed bullets. It was crystalclear described as a useful method against tank attacks before they got sufficient SMK ammo. It creates a shock wave inside the tank that could kill or disable crew members by splinters whizzing around. I believe it was the Sept 2010 published book Kriegstagebuch 1914-1918 by E. Jünger

[Rockdoc]

I'm reading "The Soldier's War", by Richard van Emden, and on page 134, relating to the year 1915, there are two conflicting accounts. Maj Henry Hance, 179 Tunnelling Coy says that clips were recovered from a German sniper's pouches and all the bullets contained in them were reversed. He records trying to reverse British .303 rounds with no success but says that with German ammunition it was easy to do. Capt Henry Kaye, 43rd Field Ambulance, records that a great many clips with reversed bullets had been found at Sanctuary Wood but all of them that had been opened contained no powder. He wonders whether these really were German-modified and that the percussion cap was sufficient to do damage at close range, whether they were a joke by British troops that had held the ground for a while or whether they were a bad lot that had been discarded.

I know this isn't anything to do with tanks but it shows the differences of opinion back then so it's no wonder we can't agree today.

Keith

[SiegeGunner]

I did say that I have 'never yet seen a reference'

I have Jünger's Kriegstagebuch, Egbert — can you give me a page reference, please.