Arsenal headache!

B

Bob Wright

New member
Up until WW I Frankford Arsenal produced the bulk of the ammunition issued to the US Military units. Following the Civil War, the number of variation of handguns in use, trial or otherwise, produced a seemingly nightmare to supply handgun cartridges to the correct units. A sampling of cartridges:



And:



I'm not sure about the .46 R.F. used in Remington cartridge conversions whether they were issued or not.

The guns in use over this period: Smith & Wesson No.3 in .44 S&W American, .44 Colt cartridge conversions, Remington 1871 Army .50 caliber, Colt Single Action Army, and Smith & Wesson Schofield.

Pretty frustrating for old supply sergeants!

Bob Wright
 
That really could be frustrating. Send the wrong ammo and what's a unit to do? Send a telegraph message back to supply so they put the correct ammo on the next mule train to your unit?

Thanks for the information. Also, nice photos!
 
Well, I seem to remember that during Desert Storm, some units had the new M16s and others had the older ones and the ammunition being supplied was terrible in the older models with a older rifle twist.

And then, IRRC, a lot of reserve units arrived with 1911s but of course the ammunition being supplied was for the 9 mm M9. I read a call to Israeli Military Industries (IMI) brought forth the correct .45 ACP.

NOTHING NEW!
 
That .46 rimfire is very scarce today; like other rimfires, cases could not be reloaded and were simply discarded, plus not many were made in the first place. In spite of the name (which was the bullet diameter), the straight case was .458" with a .530" rim and a case length of .836" This contrasts with .45 Colt, which has a case diameter of .480", a rim diameter of .512", and a 1.285 length. (The figures vary for actual specimens of both calibers.)

FWIW, that poor supply sergeant wasn't that bad off. The cartridges for the conversions were made in limited numbers and most soldiers probably never saw any. The .45 Colt was issued for only about a year before the short .45 Schofield superseded it for both the Colt and S&W; the .45 Colt was never issued in the service after that.

Jim
 
That really could be frustrating. Send the wrong ammo and what's a unit to do? Send a telegraph message back to supply so they put the correct ammo on the next mule train to your unit?
Click to expand...

By the time of the Civil War, there were railroad depots in many towns and cities. The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, and together with the network of depots already in existence freight delivery in the second half of the 19th Century was much quicker and more efficient than many people realize.
 
"I'm not sure about the .46 R.F. used in Remington cartridge conversions whether they were issued or not."

I certainly hope .46 Rimfire was being issued, considering that Remington conversion revolvers were issued to the 9th and 10th US Cavalry regiments...

Those were the Buffalo Soldier regiments.
 
Actually, the situation was a LOT easier after the Civil War than it had been during the war...

At one point in the war the Union Quartermaster's Corps was responsible for procuring and supplying to troops over 100 different types of small arms ammunition.

In the years following the war most of the non-standard weapons that had been adopted out of war time necessity were quickly dropped (Smith, Gallagher, Morse, etc., carbines, for example) with an emphasis on getting the quickly contracting army down to a manageable number of arms and ammunition types.





"By the time of the Civil War, there were railroad depots in many towns and cities. The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, and together with the network of depots already in existence freight delivery in the second half of the 19th Century was much quicker and more efficient than many people realize."

Exactly. By 1870 most military posts in the United States were no more than 3 to 5 days away from a railhead or spur.

One or more major supply centers, served by rail, were established in each of the military divisions to serve the various military departments and districts (names changed over the years) in that division.

With the telegraph and rail system very effectively connecting virtually all of the military, and the lessons of the Civil War still fresh, military supply was actually a pretty well oiled machine.
 
Mike Irwin quoth:
Hey Bob,

That .50, is that a Navy or Army round? I can't tell whether the case is bottlenecked or straight.
Click to expand...

By virtue of its being centerfire, I assume its Army. I thought all Navy cartridges were rimfire?

Bob Wright
 
Incidentally, during the Civil War, disrupting railroad traffic was one of the objectives of Southern forces.

Rails were take up and heated in fires until softened then wrapped around telegraph poles. And capturing stations was the goal in many conflicts. The Battle of Shiloh was fought to protect the railroad between Memphis and Corinth, Mississippi.

Bob Wright
 
Makes people like myself appreciate what's available today. My cartridge/shell selection is such that a mix up generally will not cause a stuck in barrel issue, I think.

Just checked, the 22LR should not get stuck in a 30 caliber barrel. The rim of the 22 has a diameter of 0.278" while the 30 caliber is 0.308" or a bit larger for the AK type rifle.
 
The Southern forces were FAR more interested in preserving access to railroads than they were in destroying it, which they avoided at all costs, if possible.

The twisted rails are generally called "Sherman's Bowties," and were almost exclusively used by Northern forces in areas where they wanted to hinder the Southern war effort as much as possible.

The South had comparatively few track miles compared to the north. Worse, they only had one mill capable of rolling rails -- the Tredager Iron Works in Richmond.

It wasn't uncommon at all for Southern troops, if they had time when leaving an area to Northern occupation, to tear up the rails and send them south.

In 1861, Confederate forces built the first strictly military railroad in the world, the Centreville Military Railroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centreville_Military_Railroad), which was in part built with rails confiscated from the Baltimore and Ohio.

After the war passed the area by, the B&O submitted a claim to recover the rails from the Union army, as the Confederates withdrew too quickly to take the rails with them (although they tore up the tracks and destroyed the bridge across Bull Run).

Friends of mine live near the site of the Centreville Military Railroad. The raised trackbed is still visible in places.
 
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