Buck and Ball Reprised

[pcrum]

Good Points, on both parts.

Paul, I remember when I was fighting in panama, we had some guys in a warehouse that kept sniping at us. We couldn't seem to get them with our small arms, so we called in some CAS, they brought in an AC-130 and it leveled the building. That's how you clear a house!! :grin:

Best Regards!
Pat

 

[Tman]

Good Points, on both parts.

Paul, I remember when I was fighting in panama, we had some guys in a warehouse that kept sniping at us. We couldn't seem to get them with our small arms, so we called in some CAS, they brought in an AC-130 and it leveled the building. That's how you clear a house!! :grin:

Best Regards!
Pat

Nice! FWIW, I was down after you boys cleaning up your mess' with the Guard :thumbsup:

 

[pcrum]

:grin:
Yea, us paratroopers were usually much better at making messes than cleaning them up!

Cheers,
Pat

 

[paulvallandigham]

Pat: No doubt when you have the right support equipment and manpower, wonderful things can happen. I have always been a civilian, and have only rarely had the luxury of being with anyone would could provide back-up to me. Even as a tracker, its hard to find anyone else to help with the tracking.

So, my solutions tend to be those you can do by yourself. A single person can carry a flare pistol with 12 gauge flares, along with his .45 and possibly a rifle, without overburdening himself. Those white phosphorus balls of fire scare the poop out of bad guys.

But, again, this is today, and buck and ball loads happened to be the right mix for the battlefield tactics of their day.

Even in the French and Indian war, Roger's Rangers and other troops used buck and ball loads because of the nasty close fighting and Indian's propensity to use cover. With Buck and Ball, you had half a chance of hitting an Indian with something, crippling him, or at least slowing him down so he was no longer effective in pressing an attack on your own forces. With the lack of medicines, any kind of hit would be more likely to result in death, sooner or later, as the result of infections.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I seems to me that no matter what war you are in, a wounded enemy soldier can still kill you, but a dead one can't.

 

[paulvallandigham]

You are correct, but back in those days, it was considered uncivilized to shoot officers, and for the wounded to continue to fire or fight with the enemy combatants. In return, enemy officers were suppose to order their troops NOT to kill the wounded battlefield casualties. It also was considered honorable for any wounded soldier to withdraw from the fight, to seek attention to his wounds, no matter how slight, or serious.

Different times; different " rules".

 

[dgold]

By the time the Revolutionary war got to South Carolina in 1780 there are many recorded uses of buckshot by both sides. We are talking close range
and ambush warfare.
At Blackstock's farm the American militia flanked the British Legion ( While the riflemen had the ground troops pinned down in the center of the field ) and gave them a buckshot volley to spur them out into the open with the rifle fire.
The last action of this battle, General Sumter rode too close to the British rear guard and was hit by a wall of buckshot. Buckshot alone patterns better when it dosent have a big musket ball pushing behind it. It's hard to beat in close up action. :thumbsup:

Just out of curio, is General Sumter the guy they named the fort after or is it different spelling? Very interesting post.

 

[Elnathan]

Same guy, I think. He was a militia leader in the South after the fall of Charleston. Vain, egotistical, and tactically dense, but he stepped up to the plate when all seemed lost and inspired others to follow him at a very critical point in the war.

OT, but I believe the problem with the M-16 seems to be the bullet, which is designed to penetrate a helmet at 800 yards but blows right through an insugent at 20. This is especially a problem with the M-4, which has too short a barrel to generate the necessary velocity to compensate for the small bullet. Earlier bullets keyholed on impact, tearing a great big hole in the target, the new one does not. Since the new bullet required a change in twist rates, we can't just go back to the old bullet, unfortunately. For all the criticism that the M-16 system draws, as my brother points out, the Special Forces, who could carry any weapons they like, tend to use the M-16, which says something...

 

[dgold]

Same guy, I think. He was a militia leader in the South after the fall of Charleston. Vain, egotistical, and tactically dense, but he stepped up to the plate when all seemed lost and inspired others to follow him at a very critical point in the war.

Thanks, it was interesting. I guess a lot of history gets written by people who just happen to have been in the right spot at the right time, eh!

 

[tg]

" I guess a lot of history gets written by people who just happen to have been in the right spot at the right time, eh!"

Much of it has been written by the winners in many eras.