Dum Dum Bullets

[susan kitchen]

Just read a reference to Dum Dum Bullets. What were they.?

Susan

[4thGordons]

Just read a reference to Dum Dum Bullets. What were they.?

Susan

In general usage: Bullets with flat, hollow or cut points designed so the projectile deforms (expands)on striking/passing through tissue causing much larger wound channels and therefore damaging injury.

I believe the name may originate with the Dumdum Arsenal in India. (TonyE will know the answer to this)

IIRC These were outlawed by international agreement prior to WWI (Hague)

Chris

[centurion]

Generically any bullet modified to spread or mushroom on impact this increasing the severity of the wound. Specifically British jacketed rounds in which the tip has been removed so that on impact the lead core explodes into the wound making it very nasty indeed. Produced by the arsenal at Dum Dum - hence the name. Banned by the time of WW1

[NigelS]

...Banned by the time of WW1

Needless to say, that didn't stop claims and counter-claims, particularly during the early months,that they were in use by both sides.

NigelS

[4thGordons]

Needless to say, that didn't stop claims and counter-claims, particularly during the early months,that they were in use by both sides.

NigelS

Actually I would have thought that it was the fact that they were banned that gave rise to, and a basis for, the claims/complaints. If DumDums were not illicit then the claims would have carried little moral weight and there would have been few grounds (apart from the obvious nastiness) upon which to complain.

There have been lots of previous threads (including the infamous reversed bullets threads) which have examined these claims of expanding / exploding bullets, with little by way of firm conclusions.

Chris

[NigelS]

Actually I would have thought that it was the fact that they were banned that gave rise to, and a basis for, the claims/complaints. If DumDums were not illicit then the claims would have carried little moral weight and there would have been few grounds (apart from the obvious nastiness) upon which to complain.

You're quite correct Chris, poor wording on my part

NigelS

[susan kitchen]

I came across the bit about Dum Dum Bullets when reading of a massacre at the Village of Nazareth in 1914 when 300 German soldiers had taken 26 Belgian military policemen. They shot them at close range with Dum Dum Bullets and then bashed their heads in.

Thanks for the explainations, as alway's much appreciated.

Susan.

[centurion]

Needless to say, that didn't stop claims and counter-claims, particularly during the early months,that they were in use by both sides.

NigelS

In fact claims about bullet tampering were extant long before dum dum. George Washington and Lord Howe had an exchange of letters about same - both sides complaining that each other were cutting crosses in musket balls so they'd expand on impact. Napoleon claimed that the Royal Navy were using illicit weapons at the Nile and examples of such produced (only to turn out to be of French Calibre - collapse of Gallic Party). Other claims arose out of misunderstandings - boxes of perfectly ordinary rounds manufactured at Dum Dum, with the name on the side gave rise to accusations that the British were using dum dums.

That nice Mr Maxim designed a machine gun with cutters at the muzzle that could be used to turn a regular round into sections of lead that would produce the effect of multiple tampered bullets.

[TonyE]

If you search using "Dum Dum" you will find many threads (and arguments) about these rounds.

Chris is quite correct as they are named after the eponymous arsenal in India. In the 1890s troops on the north west frontier complained that their "new" Mark II .303 bullets were not as effective against fanatical tribesmen as the old .45 inch lead Martini Henry bullets had been.

Dum Dum developed a round, the Mark II Special, in which the cupro-nickel envelope was open at the nose to expose the tip of the lead core. These were claimed to work well and led indirectly to the Mark III, IV and V hollow nosed rounds in British service between 1897 and 1900.

Although there is evidence of use of these rounds in South Africa, they were banned by the St.Petersburg Agreement and Britain reverted to use of the solid nosed Mark II bullet. This of course only applied as we were fighting a white Christian enemy; it was still considered acceptable to use these bullets against a savage enemy and the last occassion they were issued was for a punative expedition in Somalia in 1905.

I have posted this picture before, but here it is again showing an Dum Dum made Mark II Special (left) and a British Mark V (right).

I very much doubt that the Germans used anything other than normal 7.92mm S Patronen in the incident mentioned. One of the problems was that high velocity modern bullets caused so much tissue damage that medical staff thought Dum Dum bullets had been used.

Regards

TonyE

[truthergw]

I came across the bit about Dum Dum Bullets when reading of a massacre at the Village of Nazareth in 1914 when 300 German soldiers had taken 26 Belgian military policemen. They shot them at close range with Dum Dum Bullets and then bashed their heads in.

Thanks for the explainations, as alway's much appreciated.

Susan.

Tony has already dealt with this post but it is such a classic case of propaganda that I couldn't resist a comment or two. Dum dums would be superfluous. If 300 soldiers were available to shoot the victims that ought to do it. I am surprised that there was any head to bash after that. That is ten rounds per victim, more than would normally result from being caught by machine gun. Atrocities were committed on the march through Belgium but nonsense like this did not help the cause of bringing it to international notice or recording the deeds for posterity. In fact, this kind of thing provides a neat escape hatch for the real villains. When it comes to Dum Dums or any other alleged atrocity it never hurts to apply Occam's Razor.

[4thGordons]

IIRC - there were some complaints from British troops regarding the "illegal" ammunition used by the rebels during the Dublin Easter Rising, I think I recall seeing pictures of captured examples being displayed. In this case the situation was that the Irish Volunteers had been supplied with antiquated single shot Mausers M1871/84 which fired the earlier (and by then outlawed) exposed lead bullets. I think there are pictures of this and the landing of the rifles at Howth in Tim Pat Coogan & George Morrison's book on the Irish Civil War.

Chris

[Pete1052]

It was the Declaration of St. Petersburg in 1868 which was the first attempt to outlaw the use of explosive bullets. It was inspired by their occasional use during the American Civil War. That agreement was later incorporated into The Hague Convention of 1899.

[michaeldr]

The foll ref may also be of interest

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=127718&st=0&p=1218164&hl=len%20sellers&fromsearch=1entry1218164

[susan kitchen]

Tony has already dealt with this post but it is such a classic case of propaganda that I couldn't resist a comment or two. Dum dums would be superfluous. If 300 soldiers were available to shoot the victims that ought to do it. I am surprised that there was any head to bash after that. That is ten rounds per victim, more than would normally result from being caught by machine gun. Atrocities were committed on the march through Belgium but nonsense like this did not help the cause of bringing it to international notice or recording the deeds for posterity. In fact, this kind of thing provides a neat escape hatch for the real villains. When it comes to Dum Dums or any other alleged atrocity it never hurts to apply Occam's Razor.

I have to say that i found it hard to believe that 300 soldiers were used for 26 Military police. However this was from a diary written at the time.. And as i've said before i don't kknow much about guns etc. but with all your information. i'm learning. At least coming across that diary entry i know something about the Dum Dum Bullet.

Thanks

Susan.

[Gunner Bailey]

I think Tony made the key point at the end of his post. Most people were unaware of the terrible wounds a modern High Velocity bullet can inflict and assumed that Dum Dum style bullets had been used. If you were standing next to someone as a sniper shot them in the head and saw the exit wound was 4-6 inches across, it would be easy to assume that such a bullet had been used.

I expect a few people in every army tried to be clever and cut the tips off a few rounds but I doubt if any army in WW1 deliberately supplied Dum Dum bullets.

John

[centurion]

I expect a few people in every army tried to be clever and cut the tips off a few rounds but I doubt if any army in WW1 deliberately supplied Dum Dum bullets.

Actually not every army as only those using the "full metal jacket" would have any effect other than spoiling the ballistic characteristics of the round. It would be pointless (no pun intended) to tamper so with the French rounds.

[Pete1052]

Incidentally, it was the St. Petersburg Declaration's outlawing of explosive projectiles of less than 400 grams in weight which led the American arms inventor Benjamin Hotchkiss to develop the first 35mm round.

[truthergw]

I have an old book on inventions of the 19th Century and in the section on weapons it mentions a surveyor in the Himalayas using explosive bullets for gauging heights and distance. It lauds this peaceful use of a terrible weapon which makes one wonder what the terrible weapon was going to be used for before some bright spark thought this up.

[MikB]

If DumDums were not illicit then the claims would have carried little moral weight and there would have been few grounds (apart from the obvious nastiness) upon which to complain.

Chris

Yes, but the obvious nastiness is quite a substantial ground, and the reason they were illicit.

There's also the very practical objection that Dumdums' penetration is generally inferior to hardball, making it less likely they'll reach an enemy behind cover - and at many tens or hundreds of yards, instantaneous stopping power is less important than when fighting with handguns at a few feet, so the nasty properties are actually not as desirable.

Regards,

MikB

[Radlad]

I don't know how true it is but I was always told that Britain did not need 'Dum Dum' bullets because at usual battle ranges (not long range shooting) the MkVII round was so unstable that it acted as a mini circular saw when it hit flesh with an exit site that could be totally unrelated to the point hit,

I know it's a simple test and using later MkVII rounds but This link is interesting http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot37.htm

[Pete1052]

... which makes one wonder what the terrible weapon was going to be used for before some bright spark thought this up.

The book Civil War Guns by William B. Edwards states that a British officer in India experimented with explosive bullets in the 1850s as a way of blowing up artillery caissons. A few of them may apparently have been mingled with the regular Enfield .577 ball ammo exported to North America in 1861-65. As Tony alluded to earlier, the standard .58 and .577 caliber conical bullets of Civil War rifles were much more damaging than the old round "rounds" (hence the name) from the earlier smoothbore muskets, which led to exaggerated rumors of "explosive" bullets being used by the enemy. The few actual uses of exploding rounds gave credence to the wild tales of their widespread use.

Come to think of it, the term "ball" ammunition probably began long ago when rounds were round. The modern connotation means a cartridge with a standard jacketed metal bullet that is not tracer, armor-piercing, gallery practice, dummy or training, soft-point, or any of the other variations. Today bullets on ball ammo are mainly conical in shape.

[Radlad]

The book Civil War Guns by William B. Edwards states that a British officer in India experimented with explosive bullets in the 1850s as a way of blowing up artillery caissons.

Many works mention that Colonel John Jacobs exploding rifle bullets were developed for that purpose and are reputed to have been successfull during the Indian mutiny. There was another officer in India working on similar lines but I can't remember his name. There are American Civil War reports of Jacobs Rifles being Used by Confederate troops . An internet search should provide many references

[Piorun]

I don't know how true it is but I was always told that Britain did not need 'Dum Dum' bullets because at usual battle ranges (not long range shooting) the MkVII round was so unstable that it acted as a mini circular saw when it hit flesh with an exit site that could be totally unrelated to the point hit,

I know it's a simple test and using later MkVII rounds but This link is interesting http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot37.htm

The "standard" British .303 round of WW1 was rear-weighted due to the composition of the head and did, indeed, perform much as you describe (although I wouldn't describe it as "unstable" - it was a deadly accurate projectile in the SMLR); yawing upon deceleration and producing a wound much as an old dum-dum would have done. Antony

[Pete1052]

As long as I'm on the subject of the origin of words, the English word cartridge came from the French word "cartouche," meaning something which surrounds or encloses something else. The term goes back to when black powder and ball cartouches / cartridges were wrapped in combustible paper. Today cartouche jewelry usually means a medallion of some sort which has a box or border surrounding the image in the center.

[auchonvillerssomme]

It was almost as big a discussion in Parliament as on this forum

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/dum%20dum%20bullets

Mick