Unlike the stuck-up practitioners of sport archery with their pretentious etiquette, George, longbow archers resemble an unruly medieval mob. They don’t take themselves too seriously at tournaments and will do all in their power to distract ones aim, by jeering and jibing. Not unlike the treatment which a pitcher might receive at a baseball game. All in all, great fun.
The best bow-yew to be had these days, is imported from Oregon, check out Richard head’s link, below.
Unlike the stuck-up practitioners of sport archery with their pretentious etiquette, George, longbow archers resemble an unruly medieval mob. They don’t take themselves too seriously at tournaments and will do all in their power to distract ones aim, by jeering and jibing. Not unlike the treatment which a pitcher might receive at a baseball game. All in all, great fun.
The best bow-yew to be had these days, is imported from Oregon, check out Richard head’s link, below.
Thanks 32Bravo for the fascinating links relating to the English Longbow and archers,
Sounds like a pretty down-to-earth group of folks.
I can see that a lot of skill and craftsmanship goes into making the bows and their accoutrements.
Looks like the low supply of Yew and Osage Orange Bows and the amount of craftsmanship required to make them have contributed to their hefty price. Although other bows seem to cost somewhat less.
Interesting quote - “Osage Orange is indigenous to the southern part of the USA, is a very tough wood, one old timer even made a set of false teeth out of it. Considered by many people to be at least the equal if not better than Yew.” I didn’t know that.
It is amazing how many different types of arrow heads are available for both hunting and warfare. Not to mention the range of other accoutrements as well.
That is quite an absorbing hobby you have. Very rich in history.
I had a classmate in college who was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Heh, and the MG42 fired a maximum of 25 rounds per second…
Possibly 750 per 30 seconds if the gunner did not take a pause…
(Barrel would have been melted…LOL)
I believe that’s 1500 rounds per minute… but still the .30 caliber was a great weapon to have in the field. Same for the BAR, which also fired a .30 caliber round - but constantly jammed and held a small clip.
Man of Stoat might like to expand on this as he’s more knowledgeable on arms, but for those who who think cyclic rate of fire is the effective, or actual, rate of fire, get a weapon with a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rpm which comes with a 30 round magazine and see how many rounds you can put through it in a minute. It needs 20 magazines in a minute, or one every three seconds. So, if the gunner can always change a mag in two seconds, which would be brilliant, he’s wasted forty seconds changing mags giving him twenty seconds of fire or 200 rounds. In that case, the effective, or actual, rate of fire is 200 rpm. Of course, now he needs only 6.6 mags to fire 200 rounds so he can fire more rounds, but you get the picture on how there’s more to it than just the cyclic rate of fire.
Add in issues like identifying and aiming at targets; firing in short bursts to stop overheating the barrel; stoppages; and so on, and the effective rate of fire might be 50 to 100 rpm for a weapon with a 600 rpm cyclic rate.
If a lot of automatic weapons were fired at their cyclic rate of fire for a minute or more with the same barrel, depending on how good they are, they would get a range of problems because of barrel droop from overheating, along with other problems from overheating such as ‘cook off’ where the heat in the breech will ignite rounds and continue firing the weapon after the trigger is released.
Anyway, cyclic rates don’t matter all that much. Another 50 or 100 rpm doesn’t make the weapon much more effective, such as 600 versus 550 rpm. Fully automatiic weapons tend to have cyclic rates around 500 to 600 rpm. They can all put a lot of rounds into a small space in a very short time. If you’re in that space, you will get hit regardless of whether the interval between rounds is about one eighth or one tenth of a second, unless you can disappear in less than one fifth of a second.
There was an experiment done where a specially modified M60 did actually manage to fire for a whole minute without pause. This was exceptional, and I’m amazed it actually survived.
Practical rates of fire are limited by ammunition supply, belt length, tactical considerations, and the necessity of changing barrels. If I remember correctly, MG 42 barrels would normally be changed after 250 rounds of firing at a high rate, Bren barrels after 300 rounds.
Cook off is only a consideration in air cooled weapons firing from a closed bolt, which represents a small minority of machine guns, since normally the bolt is held back until the trigger is pulled, and is held to the rear again when the trigger is released. The biggest issue with Cook off is actually if you get a stoppage with a round partially chambered. Nasty!
The Queen of all watercooled machine guns, the Vickers, when used in indirect fire, would be fired as close to the cyclic rate as possible, only stopping every 250 rounds to insert a new belt (or to clear stoppages). In a post-war test, a single Vickers gun fired 5 million rounds stopping only to insert new belts, and a new barrel every 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Now that is sustained fire!
I stumbled on this quote in Wikipedia a while back. As it’s from an external source it’s undoubtedly more reliable than a lot of Wikipedia entries.
Hogg, Ian V.; Batchelor, John (1976). Weapons & War Machines. London: Phoebus, p. 62. ISBN 0-7026-0008-3.
"The Vickers gun accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, and in the years that followed proved itself to be the most reliable weapon on the battlefield, some of its feats of endurance entering military mythology. Perhaps the most incredible was the action by the 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps at High Wood on August 24, 1916. This company had ten Vickers guns, and it was ordered to give sustained covering fire for 12 hours onto a selected area 2,000 yards away in order to prevent German troops forming up there for a counter-attack while a British attack was in progress. Two whole companies of infantrymen were allocated as carriers of ammunition, rations and water for the machine-gunners. Two men worked a belt-filling machine non-stop for 12 hours keeping up a supply of 250-round belts. One hundred new barrels were used up, and every drop of water in the neighbourhood, including the men’s drinking water and contents of the latrine buckets, went up in steam to keep the guns cool. And in that 12-hour period the ten guns fired a million rounds between them. One team fired 120,000 from one gun to win a five-franc prize offered to the highest-scoring gun. And at the end of that 12 hours every gun was working perfectly and not one gun had broken down during the whole period. It was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one. It never broke down; it just kept on firing and came back for more. And that was why the Mark 1 Vickers gun was to remain the standard medium machine-gun from 1912 to 1968. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_machine_gun
Following on from your comment about cook off being nasty, it reminds me that one unlucky Australian soldier in Vietnam was killed when he or someone else slung an M60 belt across his shoulder and somehow succeeded in hitting the primer of another round on the M60 belt he was already wearing with the point of a projectile on the second belt. The round fired. Obviously not a lot of force compared with a chambered round coming out of a barrel but apparently enough to put the round into his body and kill him. I wish I could remember the source. I think it was either an Army safety bulletin or something on the Australian War Memorial site but I can’t find it. It’s one of those odd events that stuck in my mind.
Dude, what are talking about calm down. The only reason I posted Not France is because I did not want someone to get confused on the picture. So I think you over exaggerating on your calm down post.
Well I believe it was used for infantry support and to transport troops to different areas with the support of the 50 cal. on the vehicle. I do not believe it was used for shooting down aircraft. That is the job for other heavy anti machine guns. I could not see why the 50 cal. could be used for a anti machine gun? How did you come up with the 50 cal. shooting aircraft. It is at a slant because it is not being used. You could easily pick up the gun and move it all around the machine guns position. (only in the front that is)
my bad i need to look and answer better but I seen pictures of some 50 cals being used as AAs and yes I should of put down that it does transport troops I was just stupid not to think of an obvios thing oh the the half track can also be fitted with quads
