“They” should consider that if “they” manage to strip us of all those things “they” h8, like cars, trucks, the internal combustion engine, and of course “guuunnnss”, there are other, older methods.
The Welsh longbow, to name only one.
A clothyard shaft is no respecter of “status”, as the French nobility found out at Agincourt on St. Crispin’s Day.
We’ll never be forced back to the longbow. Guns, powder, and primers are too easily artisan crafted. Even without modern materials or manufacturing methods, which alone they won’t be able to strip from us without their entire worlds collapsing.
Vietcong were copying Thompson guns in grass huts. The Khyber Pass is famous as a center of manufacture where illiterate, 2-digit IQ goat herders with neither modern tools nor shoes have been making automatic weapons for over 100 years.
It takes years to properly train a longbowman. You can train a child to accurately fire a rifle in less than an hour.
I was making zip guns in high school with no more than a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a pocket knife. A zip gun and some ingenuity will get you a service weapon. A service weapon and a little ingenuity will get you a military vehicle. And on down the line.
Remember the “Liberator” one-shot zip guns we dropped to the French Resistance before D-Day! Including the Joe-Palooka-like cartoon instructions on how to use it to get a Schmeisser or Mauser for the big day!
I can’t remember off hand who wrote it, but I read a time travel novel once where a person went back to the civil war and built modern machine guns for the confederacy using the equipment available in 1860. Changed the course of the war. It might be Philip Jose Farmer, but I can’t say for sure (it’s been a decades ago)
August 11, 2024 at 10:24 am
Rickn8or
When things go all pear-shaped, with a zip gun, every armed .gov employee becomes a point of supply.
August 11, 2024 at 2:22 pm
GR8RDave
In response to Brent’s reply below:
The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. It was the first of the dozens of his books that I’ve read.
“Guns of the South” by Master of Alternate History Harry Turtledove. Great novel. I’ve worn out two paperback copies, while the hardback sits in a place of honor in my bookcase. Also available from Audible.
Zar Belk, Ya’ll!
August 11, 2024 at 8:53 pm
MadCat
The precursor of today’s.50 BMG (another product of j Browning’s genius).
Apparently, some people have made certain inflammatory comments concerning the Stabbing in Southport at a Dance club or school having a Taylor Swift Event;
3 girls age nine and under, were killed, some nine others were critically injured, along with 2-4 adults. Some people (In England) Posted false information, stating that the person arrested was an Illegal resident or ‘Asylum seeker,’ which led to Far Right Extremists marching on the foreign quarters of several cities including Southport.
The Metro Officer in the Twitter/X clip, is speaking of going after people in other countries whose language in their posts could be construed as ‘Inciting Violence.’
I have seen several such posts in the last week, in Baen’s Bar. I have thus far resisted the urge to burn down the residences of illegal aliens or asylum seekers here in the US…
There’s also Janissaries and a few others, the title of another one escapes me at the moment but it was a modern company/battalion sized unit mysteriously transported to Roman times with superior weapons but limited ammunition for them. I kind of remember supply trucks and at least one helicopter but there’s only so much you can carry and resupply has been the bane of warfare since the beginning.
The problem with modern weapons is that once you run out of ammo, even if you can make black powder it turns gas operated weapons into single shot ones pretty quick and reliable primers are another thing entirely.
I wish I could remember the name of the novel, it was a very good read as I recall.
Cartridge cases are another issue. Primers are fairly easy as long as you have strike-anywhere matches.
There’s still a lot to be said for lever-action rifles and single-action revolvers, as any member of SASS knows.
Hint; clean black-powder arms with boiling hot soapy water, and lubricate with vegetable oil. BP residue and modern cleaning and lubricating agents do not work and play well together.
Another novel could be by Harry Turledove. I remember one where a time traveler taught southerners how to make Bren sub-machine guns with their existing technology. The scene in the white house is interesting with Abe Lincoln.
Also, I wish someone would ask the Brits why would we help them fight the NAZIS when they are now becoming them.
Even as a freshman engineering student it was driven home to me that “In order to Master Nature one must first be a slave to it.”
The people driving DEI simply don’t understand what builds and preserves the technological cocoon for a life support system we’ve built for ourselves.
The Socialist Savages quite literally believe it’s magic, and it is by Arthur C. Clarke’s definition.
BTW, we’d have to fall an awfully long way to deny ourselves our slug throwers. Even the Lewis and Clarke expedition was armed with an air rifle, and when it comes to plain old power for our machine shops try looking up something called a Minto Engine.
Which is one reason many towns sprung up along rivers they could divert into millponds and many villages sprung up here beside natural or manmade waterfalls. There’s a nicely preserved water powered grist mill near here which still produces and you can tour it when it’s operating plus a steam powered sawmill/millwright shop fairly close by.
Before the 1700’s or so, waterpower was the only real dependable source of energy suitable for industry and up until the 20th century was still a major factor in choosing production sites, maybe a few more should start up and cash in on the ‘green dollars’ except that money is only for approved international companies that kickback the right amount to the right politicians.
It took awhile for steam power to become useable effectively, but when it did then heavy industry moved to the cities and that kickstarted the industrial revolution given that now a sufficient workforce was available closeby to not only ramp up production substantially but buy the products too.
There are some interesting designs dating back to Roman times of steam being used to turn a wheel as any kid who’s ever held a pinwheel near a kettle spout knows, but they weren’t really efficient enough for large scale use.
August 11, 2024 at 10:46 am
PCChaos
Atlas Shrugged. Walk away from stupid and watch it fall apart. Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland to name a few. They made it the way it is now so let them fester in their own swill. The DEI ang gender studies dipshits can reap what they were allowed to destroy. Keep your, our own little corners safe.
Is anyone else old enough to remember the Mau Mau rebellion? I believe some of Barack Obozo’s Masai ancestors were involved in that little dustup. It seems that improvised weapons barreled with a length of half inch water pipe and firing “liberated” .303 British ammo weren’t terribly accurate, but they were deadly enough for a rebel to use to upgrade his arsenal. The cartridge case just looked a little funny afterwards. Even a piece of PVC plastic pipe from the local big box hardware store, reinforced with several layers of electric fence wire, will fire a few rounds of 9MM ammo “borrowed” from a local LEO who abandons it and flees in terror of the local BLM activists before it blows up. “Molon Labe!”
A short length of broomhandle, 1/4″ drill and a hammer will make a .22 good for a couple of shots.
One of our major concerns was ‘homemade’ weapons, including firearms and IED’s among other things.
One of the slickest ones I saw had a barrel made from pop cans cut and wrapped around a pen, with several ‘cartridges’ made from pieces of mylar chip bags cut to shape and ‘heatsealed’ then filled with ground up match heads and either a piece of toaster wire or lightbulb filament with a 9V battery hooked up to a trigger. The projectiles were AAA batteries and one went through a piece of sheet metal ventilator duct from a remarkable distance.
In another case, a small can filled with matchheads and rigged to a microswitch from a ‘boombox’ pretty much turned a steel locker inside out when triggered.
In yet another incident a functioning cannon was manufactured and it would have worked, quite well, if it hadn’t been found early.
All this in an area where weapons of any kind are strictly prohibited, but if you can kill a man with a pork chop bone then anything’s possible.
I’m surprised the Soviets weren’t supplying them with weapons. Later “Revolutionary” movements always had plenty of Russian arms. (Of course, nearly everything from the Soviets older than the AK-47 was inferior to western weapons, and it’s always easier to capture ammunition for captured weapons than to smuggle in a different cartridge.)
28 Comments
“They” should consider that if “they” manage to strip us of all those things “they” h8, like cars, trucks, the internal combustion engine, and of course “guuunnnss”, there are other, older methods.
The Welsh longbow, to name only one.
A clothyard shaft is no respecter of “status”, as the French nobility found out at Agincourt on St. Crispin’s Day.
clear ether
eon
We’ll never be forced back to the longbow. Guns, powder, and primers are too easily artisan crafted. Even without modern materials or manufacturing methods, which alone they won’t be able to strip from us without their entire worlds collapsing.
Vietcong were copying Thompson guns in grass huts. The Khyber Pass is famous as a center of manufacture where illiterate, 2-digit IQ goat herders with neither modern tools nor shoes have been making automatic weapons for over 100 years.
It takes years to properly train a longbowman. You can train a child to accurately fire a rifle in less than an hour.
I was making zip guns in high school with no more than a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a pocket knife. A zip gun and some ingenuity will get you a service weapon. A service weapon and a little ingenuity will get you a military vehicle. And on down the line.
Remember the “Liberator” one-shot zip guns we dropped to the French Resistance before D-Day! Including the Joe-Palooka-like cartoon instructions on how to use it to get a Schmeisser or Mauser for the big day!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator
Zar Belk!
I can’t remember off hand who wrote it, but I read a time travel novel once where a person went back to the civil war and built modern machine guns for the confederacy using the equipment available in 1860. Changed the course of the war. It might be Philip Jose Farmer, but I can’t say for sure (it’s been a decades ago)
When things go all pear-shaped, with a zip gun, every armed .gov employee becomes a point of supply.
In response to Brent’s reply below:
The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. It was the first of the dozens of his books that I’ve read.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345384687?tag=bravesoftwa04-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1&language=en_US
How many bowhunters are there in each state?
A deer and a tango are about equal sized targets.
Oh BTW MD, AFAIK no FP45s were dropped in the ETO. They went to the PTO and CBI. See Clandestine Operations by Pierre Lorain;
https://www.amazon.com/Clandestine-operations-techniques-Resistance-1941-1944/dp/0025752006
or this;
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/vintage-saturday-liberator/
cheers
eon
“Guns of the South” by Master of Alternate History Harry Turtledove. Great novel. I’ve worn out two paperback copies, while the hardback sits in a place of honor in my bookcase. Also available from Audible.
Zar Belk, Ya’ll!
The precursor of today’s.50 BMG (another product of j Browning’s genius).
What the situation/context is;
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1821934374675206485
Apparently, some people have made certain inflammatory comments concerning the Stabbing in Southport at a Dance club or school having a Taylor Swift Event;
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/01/southport-uk-stabbings-arrests-london-protests
3 girls age nine and under, were killed, some nine others were critically injured, along with 2-4 adults. Some people (In England) Posted false information, stating that the person arrested was an Illegal resident or ‘Asylum seeker,’ which led to Far Right Extremists marching on the foreign quarters of several cities including Southport.
The Metro Officer in the Twitter/X clip, is speaking of going after people in other countries whose language in their posts could be construed as ‘Inciting Violence.’
I have seen several such posts in the last week, in Baen’s Bar. I have thus far resisted the urge to burn down the residences of illegal aliens or asylum seekers here in the US…
Found it; It was “Rebel in Time” by Harry Harrison. Printed in 1980. Mine was a paperback so say mid 1980s when I read it.
There’s also Janissaries and a few others, the title of another one escapes me at the moment but it was a modern company/battalion sized unit mysteriously transported to Roman times with superior weapons but limited ammunition for them. I kind of remember supply trucks and at least one helicopter but there’s only so much you can carry and resupply has been the bane of warfare since the beginning.
The problem with modern weapons is that once you run out of ammo, even if you can make black powder it turns gas operated weapons into single shot ones pretty quick and reliable primers are another thing entirely.
I wish I could remember the name of the novel, it was a very good read as I recall.
Michael z. Williamson time travel books
Cartridge cases are another issue. Primers are fairly easy as long as you have strike-anywhere matches.
There’s still a lot to be said for lever-action rifles and single-action revolvers, as any member of SASS knows.
Hint; clean black-powder arms with boiling hot soapy water, and lubricate with vegetable oil. BP residue and modern cleaning and lubricating agents do not work and play well together.
cheers
eon
Also in ‘Time Cop’ with Van Damme.
Oh, now I’ve got another entry for my to read list!
Another novel could be by Harry Turledove. I remember one where a time traveler taught southerners how to make Bren sub-machine guns with their existing technology. The scene in the white house is interesting with Abe Lincoln.
Also, I wish someone would ask the Brits why would we help them fight the NAZIS when they are now becoming them.
I believe the Turtledove novel you’re talking about was called “Guns of the South”.
I believe it was “The Guns of the South.” A really good read . . .
Even as a freshman engineering student it was driven home to me that “In order to Master Nature one must first be a slave to it.”
The people driving DEI simply don’t understand what builds and preserves the technological cocoon for a life support system we’ve built for ourselves.
The Socialist Savages quite literally believe it’s magic, and it is by Arthur C. Clarke’s definition.
BTW, we’d have to fall an awfully long way to deny ourselves our slug throwers. Even the Lewis and Clarke expedition was armed with an air rifle, and when it comes to plain old power for our machine shops try looking up something called a Minto Engine.
Water power works, too.
A water mill can run all types of equipment if it is tied in with belts, etcetera.
There were ways to obtain power before steam or internal combustion.
Which is one reason many towns sprung up along rivers they could divert into millponds and many villages sprung up here beside natural or manmade waterfalls. There’s a nicely preserved water powered grist mill near here which still produces and you can tour it when it’s operating plus a steam powered sawmill/millwright shop fairly close by.
Before the 1700’s or so, waterpower was the only real dependable source of energy suitable for industry and up until the 20th century was still a major factor in choosing production sites, maybe a few more should start up and cash in on the ‘green dollars’ except that money is only for approved international companies that kickback the right amount to the right politicians.
It took awhile for steam power to become useable effectively, but when it did then heavy industry moved to the cities and that kickstarted the industrial revolution given that now a sufficient workforce was available closeby to not only ramp up production substantially but buy the products too.
There are some interesting designs dating back to Roman times of steam being used to turn a wheel as any kid who’s ever held a pinwheel near a kettle spout knows, but they weren’t really efficient enough for large scale use.
Atlas Shrugged. Walk away from stupid and watch it fall apart. Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland to name a few. They made it the way it is now so let them fester in their own swill. The DEI ang gender studies dipshits can reap what they were allowed to destroy. Keep your, our own little corners safe.
Anybody found Galt’s Gulch yet?
Has to be founded before it can be found.
Just a matter of time now, just as it was then.
Is anyone else old enough to remember the Mau Mau rebellion? I believe some of Barack Obozo’s Masai ancestors were involved in that little dustup. It seems that improvised weapons barreled with a length of half inch water pipe and firing “liberated” .303 British ammo weren’t terribly accurate, but they were deadly enough for a rebel to use to upgrade his arsenal. The cartridge case just looked a little funny afterwards. Even a piece of PVC plastic pipe from the local big box hardware store, reinforced with several layers of electric fence wire, will fire a few rounds of 9MM ammo “borrowed” from a local LEO who abandons it and flees in terror of the local BLM activists before it blows up. “Molon Labe!”
A short length of broomhandle, 1/4″ drill and a hammer will make a .22 good for a couple of shots.
One of our major concerns was ‘homemade’ weapons, including firearms and IED’s among other things.
One of the slickest ones I saw had a barrel made from pop cans cut and wrapped around a pen, with several ‘cartridges’ made from pieces of mylar chip bags cut to shape and ‘heatsealed’ then filled with ground up match heads and either a piece of toaster wire or lightbulb filament with a 9V battery hooked up to a trigger. The projectiles were AAA batteries and one went through a piece of sheet metal ventilator duct from a remarkable distance.
In another case, a small can filled with matchheads and rigged to a microswitch from a ‘boombox’ pretty much turned a steel locker inside out when triggered.
In yet another incident a functioning cannon was manufactured and it would have worked, quite well, if it hadn’t been found early.
All this in an area where weapons of any kind are strictly prohibited, but if you can kill a man with a pork chop bone then anything’s possible.
I’m surprised the Soviets weren’t supplying them with weapons. Later “Revolutionary” movements always had plenty of Russian arms. (Of course, nearly everything from the Soviets older than the AK-47 was inferior to western weapons, and it’s always easier to capture ammunition for captured weapons than to smuggle in a different cartridge.)