Flintlocks in WWI? What?

The bigger the object, the harder to get real stuff.

Saving Pvt. Ryan had a decent mock up of the Tiger I and it's better than the M-47 Pattons used to fill the role of the King Tiger in The Battle of the Bulge.

The British flick about the pursuit of the Graf Spee had something like an American Baltimore Class heavy cruiser play the role of the Graf Spee.

Thankfully for the Battle of Britain the producers managed to get those Hispano-Suiza Messerschmitts and He-111 (albeit with the wrong engines) and some real Spitfires and Hurricanes. Note though that in the "Repeat please" scene the trailing "Vic" of fighters aren't Hurricanes but Messerschmitts. They have tail struts. :p
 
4V50 Gary said:
The British flick about the pursuit of the Graf Spee had something like an American Baltimore Class heavy cruiser play the role of the Graf Spee.
Click to expand...
The Graf Spee was a "pocket" battleship, which was in reality not much bigger, heavier, or more heavily armed than a heavy cruiser of the day. It was much smaller and lighter than American battleships of the era. Germany was subject to restrictions regarding the number and size of military ships they could build, so the Graf Spee (and a sister ship, whose name I don't remember) were built to nominally conform to the restrictions (although the Germans cheated a bit -- surprise, surprise).

The Commander of the British task force that pursued the Graf Spee was, I've been told, a distant relative on my father's side of the family. That makes it a bit more interesting to me.

The Wikipedia article on the Admiral Graf Spee, in fact, calls it a "heavy cruiser (originally termed Panzerschiff or armoured ship, sometimes referred to as "pocket battleship")." Specs:

LWL = 610 feet
Beam = 71 feet
Displacement = 16,410 tons
Main guns = (6) 11-inch (2 each in three turrets)


By contrast, the specs on the American battlehip Missouri were:

LWL = 887 feet
Beam = 108 feet
Displacement = 45,000 tons
Main guns = (9) 16-inch (3 each in three turrets)


The Graf Spee clearly wasn't in the same league as a "real" battleship.
 
More in line with the original post......... Somewhere around 1980, I recall seeing news reports of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that showed some mujahadeen fighters armed with what looked like flintlock rifles. The reports (pictures) that I recall seeing indicate that there were some of these old rifles still floating around in tribal areas, until modern Russian small arms could be captured for use.
 
Those Afghanis were using the homemade jezail, a real prize when captured by US troops today, and probably some British muskets and Sniders. Lots of Lee-Enfields, too. It's mostly replaced by Russian and Chinese weapons, now, for those who engage modern forces.

I saw footage of some Muj with Martini-Henry and Lee-Enfield rifles, while part of their group fired a surface-to-air missile at a Russian helo, got to be one of the more anachronistic news clips ever.
 
The Graf Spee was a "pocket" battleship, which was in reality not much bigger, heavier, or more heavily armed than a heavy cruiser of the day. It was much smaller and lighter than American battleships of the era. Germany was subject to restrictions regarding the number and size of military ships they could build, so the Graf Spee (and a sister ship, whose name I don't remember) were built to nominally conform to the restrictions (although the Germans cheated a bit -- surprise, surprise).

....

The Graf Spee clearly wasn't in the same league as a "real" battleship.
Click to expand...

No, it wasn't a "real" battleship and the Germans didn't call it or consider it to be a "real" battleship. They were Deutschland class Panzerschiffs (aka "armored ships" or cruisers). It was the Brits that gave Graf Spee and her two sisters the name of "pocket battleships."

The use of the Baltimore Class cruiser for the Graf Spee was actually an very good match.
 
thallup, you are very right. I looked into it. The African-American soldiers who served in France were still denied the acclaim they earned and were not allowed to be a part of the US portion of the big Bastille Day victory parade in 1919.

What I must have slightly dis-remembered was that the US troops were given the lead in the parade, over all other non-French troops, appearing right behind the French army units. And the French did include their black colonial troops in the parade.

I am sure that nobody was marching with flintlocks :D

But were any French troops carrying the Fusil Automatique Modèle 1917 semi-auto rifles? One wonders . . .

Bart Noir
 
"The use of the Baltimore Class cruiser for the Graf Spee was actually an very good match."

Until you start counting turrets... :D
 
Off topic:

My Dad had a friend named Jack who was a WW1 vet. i often deer hunted with Jack. Jack was a platoon leader and later company commander of a machinegun company. After arriving in France Jacks unit was issued Vickers machine guns and Chauchat automatic rifles. They loved the Vickers: The Chauchat not so much. The Chauchat was soon replaced by the Lewis gun.

Just before the war ended Jacks unit was issued model 1917 Browning machine guns and Browning automatic rifles.

Some where in my junk are the indirect firing tables for the Vickers.
 
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