BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Aberdeen -- U.S. Army Ordinance Museum -- Main

MD -- Aberdeen -- U.S. Army Ordinance Museum -- Main:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. USAOM_060814_006.JPG: "Davy Crockett" -- Recoilless Gun, 155mm: Davy Crockett was the smallest and lightest nuclear weapon ever made for the U.S. Army. It was to give nuclear fire support to front line enemy troops. But, when fired at its maximum range, the crew was well within the blast radius of the warhead and they could receive a huge dose of radiation. This makes it a really bad weapon! Would you want to fire it? Trivia: Davy Crockett appeared in the 1960's sci-fi movie, "King Kong Vs. Godzilla".
2. USAOM_060814_022.JPG: The Gatling Gun: First successful machine-gun: Creating a weapon so horrible to make war unthinkable was the goal of Richard Jordan Gatling. Ironically, his invention made war more efficient and changed the face of the world forever. As the Vulcan Gun, the old Gatling has come full circle, after a century, from a mule-drawn carriage to a bulge on the hip of a supersonic jet fighter. The multi-barreled Gatling principle has been revived in the Minigun using electric power to produce an aircraft or anti-aircraft machine gun with a very high rate of fire -- up to 10,000 rounds per minute.
3. USAOM_060814_054.JPG: 3 inch Gun: This is an example of the U.S. contribution to the regimental artillery of the turn of the century. It follows the Krupp design of 1896 and was used for training in WWI. It is believed this weapon was the first to be fired at Aberdeen Proving Ground when it opened in 1918.
4. USAOM_060814_068.JPG: 75mm Field Gun: M1897: The 75mm, Model 1897, the standard French field gun during World War I, was used extensively by American forces as well. When first introduced in 1897, the famous "French 75" was the most modern field gun of its time, possessing the first truly effective recoil system and an innovative breech mechanism allowing for rapid fire. By war's outbreak in 1914, the British 18-pounder and German 77mm field guns were slightly superior, firing a heavier projectile to a greater range, by the French 75 nevertheless served the French and American armies well, with 17,000 guns produced by war's end.
5. USAOM_060814_074.JPG: Minnie, Great Britain, 18pdr Gun Q.F.: This gun appeared in 1904 as a result of combat experience in South Africa during the Boer War. By 1914, it was the standard gun of the British and Commonwealth armies. This particular piece is a modified 18pdr. It was produced in the U.S, for the Canadian Army using 75mm shells rather than the more standard 18 pound shells.
6. USAOM_060814_081.JPG: El Emulo: A 12 pounder Spanish cannon of the 18th century guards the entrance to the museum's gift shop. The name of the cannon is El Emulo and the Latin inscription says "To Throw the King's Fire."
7. USAOM_060814_089.JPG: Muzzle Loading: Muzzle loaders are quite simply loaded by ramming down the charge in the barrel of the weapon.
8. USAOM_060814_093.JPG: Breech-Loading Revolvers: A major design development occurred in the second half of the 19th century with the replacement of front loading pistols with breech loaders. The picture shows a break-open method of opening a revolver. All of the cases are pushed out at once by a star shaped extractor which rises as the revolver is opened.
9. USAOM_060814_117.JPG: Viet Cong Anti-Disturbance Device (homemade): This simply constructed device consists of a flashlight battery, a bulb, two wires, and a sensing device. When disturbed, the V ball bearing in the sensing device rolls down to the opposite end, completing the electrical circuit and lights the bulb. The anti-disturbance device was used for initiating action for mines and booby traps.
10. USAOM_060814_120.JPG: Cigarette Anti-personnel Bomb: A metal container is placed inside a cigarette pack and filled with TNT and ball bearings. Acid is poured into the top of a fuse and dissolves a membrane which detonates the initial component, causing the TNT charge to detonate.
11. USAOM_060814_124.JPG: Viet Cong "Toe Popper" Mine: These mines are fabricated of cartridge cases or pieces of pipe or various lengths and sizes, loaded with homemade primers and a charge of black powder. When the victim steps on a mine, the primer will be driven into a nail, thus exploding the charge and expelling the "buckshot" projectiles with considerable force.
12. USAOM_060814_149.JPG: German: Granatwerter 50mm Model 36: This mortar was typical of the pre-WWII German Army: well designed, made of the best materials, and superbly finished. It was part of the equipment of every German rifle platoon at the start of WWII. Handled by a three-man squad, the tube, baseplate, and bi-pod are one unit.
13. USAOM_060814_154.JPG: Japanese, 50mm M98: Known popularly as the "knee mortar," it was thought to be fired from the knee because of the shape of the base plate. Not true. Doing so resulted in a broken leg! Simple in design, it fired a fused projectile resembling an aerosol spray can to a maximum range of 700 yards.
14. USAOM_060814_158.JPG: United States, 24-pounder Coehorn Mortar: This type of mortar was developed by Baron Menno Von Coehorn in 1692 on an earlier design that appeared in Germany during the second half of the 16th century. It fired an explosive 24 pound projectile called a "bomb" and evolved into an important weapon in the United States service during the Mexican War. During the U.S. Civil War, both sides used it in siege operations.
15. USAOM_060814_161.JPG: Goliath B1. This World War II remote controlled German demolition charge carrier, was intended to destroy fortified positions and clear minefields. Named for the biblical giant, but slow and easily stopped by small arms fire, it received the less glorious American nicknames of "Beetle," "Doodlebug," and "Minedog." It proved unsuccessful.
16. USAOM_060814_176.JPG: An Eniac circuit board
17. USAOM_060814_179.JPG: M-16
18. USAOM_060814_183.JPG: SPIW: Special Purpose Individual Weapon: The deadliest gun that never was: The Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) was a unique, multi-purpose weapon introduced in the early 1960s that was capable of firing bursts of tiny, lethal darts (flechettes) and three 40-mm high-explosive grenades. This particular experimental weapon represents only one of sixteen different prototypes. This specimen is the Springfield Armory Bullpup magazine SPIW. The bullpup design (meaning the magazine was behind the trigger) provided enough space to mount a large box-like magazine. The original concept called for a 60-round magazine. To hold 60 rounds in a typical single, staggered row would have made the magazine unmanageable. The solution was to combine two 30-round stacks one behind the other. The SPIW program came to an end when several problems could not be overcome. Most were engineering problems dealing with the ammunition. The expensive flechette round had to be fired in burst because the single-hit probability was very low (a 40 percent chance of a hit at 300 meters). Also, when fired, the fiberglass sabot that held the flechette in place as it traveled down the barrel would shred. In troop tests, soldiers suffered eye injuries when microscopic particles of fiberglass blew back into their eyes. The final blow came in 1973 in the post-Vietnam days of tight budgets when Congress "pulled the plug" on this problem-beset program.
19. USAOM_060814_194.JPG: M-1 Garand
20. USAOM_060814_199.JPG: Enfield
21. USAOM_060814_213.JPG: German 7.5cm Recoilless Gun: The 7.5cm was one of the first recoilless guns developed. It was the basis for all future recoilless weapon development. This weapon was designed to be lightweight and mobile. It was first issued to German paratroops during WWII. This piece was captured at El Alemain during World War II.
22. USAOM_060814_217.JPG: Nordenfeldt Machine Gun
23. USAOM_060814_222.JPG: 37mm gun. This model 1916 Puteaux was of French origin and its design was copied by the U.S. Army. It was standard for many years and sometimes was referred to as a one pounder. The main purpose of this weapon was to snipe machine gun nests. The troops affectionately referred to it as the "Pound Wonder."
24. USAOM_060814_229.JPG: World War I Machine Guns: Hiram Stevens Maxim, an America who moved to England and established a company bearing his name, produced the first fully automatic machine gun in 1884. His revolutionary design harnessed some of the energy of the burning gases (used to propel the bullet), to power the operating cycle of the gun. Although the importance of machine guns was apparent in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa in 1899-1901 and the Russo-Japanese War waged mainly in China during 1904-05, only the Germans fully appreciated the lessons learned, and equipped its army with numerous Maxim guns by 1914. Th Allies were slower to appreciate the weapon's effectiveness, particularly in an entrenched defensive role, but eventually realized the wisdom of the United States Secretary of War Newton Baker's comment: "Perhaps, no invention has more profoundly modified the art of war than the machine gun." Largely as a result of the effectiveness of the Machine Gun and barbed wire used in the defense, World War I remained a stalemate from 1914 until the German Army was exhausted in 1918. Late in the war, technology (in the form of the tank and innovations in tactics), overcame its early effectiveness.
25. USAOM_060814_233.JPG: Machine Guns: Since the first single-shot muzzle loading firearms appeared in Europe in the late Middle Ages, military thinkers tried to devise a weapon that would fire many times in quick succession. The principal obstacle was the limitation of muzzle loading. Devices were made to produce a volley or ripple of fire, but the rate could not be maintained because of the slowness of reloading. The invention of the metallic cartridge in the mid-19th century permitted machine feeding, self-ignition, and breech sealing against the escape of hot propellant gases. By the 1860s, manually operated designs were in use, but it was not until 1884 that Hiram Maxim produced the first fully automatic machine gun. Maxim's concept was to harness a portion of the energy of the exploding charge to power the operating cycle. Examples of manually operated guns were the Ager "Coffee Mill", Gatling, French Mitrailleuse, and Nordenfelt. Such weapons usually employed either a lever or a crank. The rate of fire depended on how quickly the operator turned the handle, and some devices were faster than others.
26. USAOM_060814_247.JPG: Since time began, man has used weapons to protect himself. The first weapons were clubs, rocks, spears, and arrows. With these arms, early man waged war as he began to organize armies, archers, and slingers fired flights of arrows and showers of stone in preparation for the assault. Engines of war for throwing missiles beyond the range of hand weapons were in use eight centuries before Christ. Most were variants of the catapult and ballista, which utilized the elasticity of twisted ropes of hair, hide, and animal sinews for the energy of propulsion. The ammunition used was darts, arrows and stones. The Romans made extensive use of catapults and ballistas. In 57 BC, Julius Caesar protected the landing in Britain with fire from these weapons.
27. USAOM_060814_249.JPG: Records indicate the use of gunpowder in the Moorish War in Spain as early as 1247 AD, at the siege of Seville. The first definite description of a gun dates from 1313. The first projectiles fired were iron darts, which were wrapped in leather to prevent "windage," meaning the leaking of propelling gas past the projectile.
28. USAOM_060814_251.JPG: A headlong race proceeded in the direction of fire power. Guns were manufactured in larger sizes until monsters were created far exceeding in caliber anything used in modern times. The largest caliber gun on record was the Great Mortar of Moscow built about 1525. It had a caliber of 36 inches, was 18 feet long and fired a stone projectile weighing 2000 pounds. It is especially interesting that catapults still were being used a century after the appearance of cannons. They were employed principally to hurl rotting carcasses and other filth into the castle confines in the hope of causing disease and breaking morale.
29. USAOM_060814_254.JPG: It is recorded in the Hussite Siege of Bohemia, 1420-1436, that the Hussites had to raise the siege after firing 10,930 cannon balls, 932 stone fragments, 13 fire barrels, and 1822 tons of filth. About 1500, the first successful infantry firearm appeared which was known as the Matchlock Arquebus. Rifling of the bore was experimental within these weapons, the grooves being straight.
30. USAOM_060814_257.JPG: A German known only as Zimmerman in 1573 invented "hail-shot," a form of case shot with a bursting charge and complete with a primitive fuse ignited by the propellant. By 1586, small arms had vastly improved, for example, Musketeers were using composite cartridges that consisted of a spherical bullet and a powder charge wrapped in paper. In charging his piece, the musketeer would tear or bite the cartridge and pour the powder down the muzzle of the barrel and then ram the paper and the bullet into place. It is interesting to note that as late as the U.S. Civil War, the same type of cartridge was still in use.
31. USAOM_060814_260.JPG: The ammunition of the time--1600 to 1860s--consisted of: (1) Solid cast-iron ball, (2) Shell, a hollow iron sphere filled with powder and exploded by a slow-burning fuse, (3) Case shot or canister, a container filled with lead musket balls. (4) Grape shot, similar to canister, but with larger and fewer balls.
32. USAOM_060814_267.JPG: Important ballistic discoveries were announced in 1742 by the Englishman Robins. He was the first to determine the effect of drag or wind resistance on a projectile. He further recommended the advantage f the elongated form of projectile with the center of gravity near the front. He also recommended the rifling of cannon. In 1784, Lt. Harry Shrapnel, later a general in the British Army, invented a successful spherical case shot complete with a time fuse. Shrapnel was influenced by the "hail-shot" concept originally formulated by Zimmerman in 1573. Spherical shells designated by Lt. Shrapnel contain shot and a black powder charge ignited by a reasonably reliable time fuse. This development in spherical shells complimented the then existing artillery and for the first time allowed air bursting case shot to be indirectly fired at an opposing force.
33. USAOM_060814_268.JPG: Although military men had appreciated for over a century the ballistical inefficiency of spherical shells, it was not until the middle of the 19th century that serious development took place in the area of elongated projectiles and the accompanying rifling of the bore of cannon.
34. USAOM_060814_280.JPG: The Rise of Black Powder: Black powder technology arrived in Europe by the mid-13th century AD. Roger Bacon, an English Franciscan monk, recorded a formula for black powder in 1249. The three main ingredients -- 75% saltpeter (potassium nitrate), 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur -- were pounded in a mortar with a wooden pestle for twenty-four hours to make a fine powder. This early black powder called Serpentine was unevenly powdered, so it burned irregularly and it was prone to absorbing moisture. An early improvement was "Corned" black powder that clumped the powder into tiny granules. Corned black powder was much better than Serpentine, especially for small arms, since there was space between the grains, allowing the powder to burn more rapidly and powerfully.
35. USAOM_060814_284.JPG: The Origins of Gunpowder: Gunpowder was invented in China around 800 AD, where the "firedrug" was used in fireworks and crude weapons. Black powder was the dominant form of explosive for guns and bombs until the end of the 19th century.
36. USAOM_060814_287.JPG: The Decline and Fall of Black Powder: Black powder's nine-hundred-year reign as a gun propellant and as a high explosive ended in the 19th century. One of the first alternatives to black powder was nitrocellulose, or guncotton. Christian Friedrich Schonbein invented guncotton in 1846 by treating cotton wool with concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid. Guncotton was an improvement over black powder because it exploded without creating smoke or leaving behind residue. However, deadly explosions at several plants led to the end of its commercial production until 1863. In that year, Frederick Abel developed a safer means of producing guncotton. Wet guncotton could be shaped by tools safely and inserted in mines, torpedoes, and other explosive ordnance.
37. USAOM_060814_299.JPG: The Introduction of Smokeless Powder: When guncotton was mixed with collodion and hardened with ether and alcohol, it could be formed into small grains. This improved smokeless powder, invented in 1886, was about three times as powerful as black powder. Ammunition made from smokeless powder was not only lighter; it was also more effective at longer ranges than traditional black powder ammo.
38. USAOM_060814_305.JPG: Dynamite: In 1847, Italian Ascanio Sobrero invented nitroglycerine by mixing glycerin, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid. As a powerful high explosive, nitroglycerine is not suitable as a propellant in guns. In its liquid form, nitroglycerine is hazardous to store and to transport. In 1867, Alfred Nobel turned nitroglycerine into a useful explosive for mining and ordnance by mixing the liquid in diatomaceous earth, a dirt cheap solution. Nobel named his invention dynamite.
39. USAOM_060814_309.JPG: The Lethality of Small Arms Ammunition at Gettysburg: At the Battle of Gettysburg, the Union Army of the Potomac expended about 5,400,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, composed of 193 tons of lead and twenty-three tons of black powder. Confederate killed and wounded amounted to 15,301. Despite the widespread use of rifle muskets by Union soldiers at Gettysburg, approximately three hundred shots were fired for every man hit.
40. USAOM_060814_315.JPG: The next sequence is a revolving display showing two bullets that collided with each other at Petersburg, VA in October 1864.
41. USAOM_060814_334.JPG: Flechettes (on the right): Flechette comes from the French word for small arrow. These small, fin-stabilized missiles are made of hardened steel. Flechettes penetrate extremely well, but since they do not cause extensive tissue damage, they have a low lethality. Flechettes are mostly effective when fired en masse. Experimental flechette-firing small arms have not been successful. M580 90mm APERS-T warhead, c. 1976: Modern antipersonnel projectiles known as "beehive" rounds are loaded with thousands of flechettes. They were given the name "beehive" because the flechettes make a sound similar to a swarm of bees when they are fired. This particular warhead is loaded with 4,200 flechettes, each of which is 1-1/8 inches long and 8 grams in weight. The time fuse allows the gunner to select when the flechettes will scatter -- when the round leaves the muzzle or as far as 300 meters from the muzzle. A tracer charge and a yellow dye charge help the gunner track the dispersion cone of the flechettes.
42. USAOM_060814_339.JPG: Xm400 105mm HE cartridge, c. 1960s: This ICM (improved conventional munitions) howitzer cartridge delivered 18 fragmentary airburst grenades to a target area. After the projectile has been fired, a time fuse detonates the expulsion charge which scatters the M36 grenades from the rear of the projectile. The M36 grenade contains 21.25 grams of Comp AS explosive in a steel ball. Upon expulsion from the projectile, the vanes open and orient the grenade in a vertical position and stabilize the grenade. When the grenade impacts the target surface, the yoke drives the firing pin into the detonator which initiates the ejection charge. The ejection charge forces the grenade 4 to 6 feet above the impacted surface, when they delay detonator explodes the grenade, causing the steel ball to fragment.
43. USAOM_060814_360.JPG: Bomb disposal suit
44. USAOM_060814_364.JPG: Camera used to record bomb disposal efforts
45. USAOM_060814_368.JPG: Bomb disposal manual
46. USAOM_060814_383.JPG: Bathroom sign: Army -- Latrine -- from the Latin Latrina -- to wash --: a room in a military building used for defecation and urination. Navy -- The Head -- originally the front or foremost part of a ship where the latrines were located. Today -- a ship's or naval installation's toilet. Coffee tastes better if the latrines are dug downstream from an encampment. -- U.S. Army Field Regulations, 1861. All animals defecate and urinate. Only humans can flush!
47. USAOM_060814_402.JPG: "Earthquake bomb" -- T-12 General Purpose Bomb: Two of these "earthquake" bombs were carried aloft in a B-36 bomber. The bomb was designed to pierce 10 meters (33 feet) of reinforced concrete which covered German U-Boat pens in occupied France. It is patterned after a 22,000-pound British bomb called "Grand Slam." During Desert Storm in 1991, the Air Force renewed its interest in this bomb but the lack of a bomber to deliver it frustrated their efforts.
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Wikipedia Description: United States Army Ordnance Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The U.S. Army Ordnance Museum is a museum located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Aberdeen, Maryland, USA.

History:

The mission of the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum is to acquire, preserve, and exhibit historically significant equipment, armaments and materiel that relates to the history of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps. And, to document and present the evolution and development of U.S. military ordnance material dating from the American Colonial Period to present day.

Established in 1919, and officially opened to the public in 1924, to exhibit captured enemy equipment and materiel, the Museum was located in Building 314 of the Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) and operated by the U.S. Army until 1967. Co-location with APG provided convenient access to the equipment being delivered to APG for testing after World War I. In 1965, local citizens formed the tax-free Ordnance Museum Foundation, Inc. to establish and operate a museum of these military artifacts. The Foundation is not affiliated with the U.S. Army, nor the Department of Defense. The Foundation began operation of the Museum in the early 1970s, upon opening at its current location in Building 2601 on the Aberdeen Proving Ground and operates the Ordnance Museum until this day.

The museum consists of two parts: a large outdoor collection of field military equipment and weaponry, covering a 25-acre park, and an indoor museum displaying firearms and explosives from numerous of the world's militaries, along with histories of their development.

The museum is open to visitors seven days a week, from 9:00am to 4:45pm, excluding most federal holidays.

Museum Foundation

A Ordnance Museum Foundation has been established with future plans to improve the museum through the construction of a 300,000 square foot indoor exhibition area and maintenance facilities.

The Ordnance Museum Foundation, Inc. was formally incorporated in the St ...More...
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (MD -- Aberdeen -- U.S. Army Ordinance Museum) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2006_MD_USAOMT: MD -- Aberdeen -- U.S. Army Ordinance Museum -- Yard -- Tanks (104 photos from 2006)
- 2006_MD_USAOMA: MD -- Aberdeen -- U.S. Army Ordinance Museum -- Yard -- Artillery (41 photos from 2006)
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2006 photos: Trips this year: Florida (two separate trips including Lotusphere and taking care of mom), three weeks out west (including Yellowstone), Williamsburg, San Diego (comic book convention), and Georgia. Equipment this year: I was using all six Fuji cameras at various times -- an S602Zoom, two S7000s,a S5200, an S9000, and an S9100. The majority of pictures this year were taken with the S9000. I have to say, the S7000s was the best camera I've used up to this point.. Number of photos taken this year: 183,000.
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Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].