Django

            Another movie moment for today’s post, but this time a more credible one that shows the filmmakers were actually familiar with their subject.

            Last night I was looking for something to watch when I found a channel showing the original  Django film from 1966. In the final scene Django has had both his hands broken and we see him trying to remove the trigger guard of his Colt so he can rest it on a gravestone. To really appreciate what is happening her one needs to have some understanding of how guns of this type work.



 
           Like many American handguns of the time, the Colt that Django is using is Single-action. What Single-action means is that the hammer needs to be manually cocked before each shot. You pull back the hammer, pull the trigger and it fires. While this may seem a relatively slow system it was not long before inventive humans were finding ways to work around this.

            What, for example, would happen if the trigger has already been pulled when the hammer is pulled back. With no catch to hold it back the hammer will fly forward and fire the round as soon as it is released. Some gunfighters realized you did not need to hold the trigger back with your finger and instead permanently wired back the trigger so that the gun would fire as soon as the hammer was pulled back and released. In the movie the “Wild Bunch” I believe Ernest Borgnine’s character comments about William Holden’s character having a revolver with a wired back trigger. In Rio Bravo Stumpy wires back the triggers of his hammer shotgun, holds back the hammers and warns his prisoner that should he get shot the gun is going to fire.

            It was also realized that the hammer of the gun did not need to be cocked with the thumb of the shooting hand. One hand could hold and aim the pistol while the other hand slapped the hammer back in a technique that became known as “Fanning”. Fanning allowed a single-action revolver to be fired rapidly. The young Clint Eastwood was genuinely proficient with firearms, competing in fast draw competitions. Clint’s characters give some fine examples of fanning. One of my favourites is when he takes out a room full of French officers in “Two Mules for Sister Sarah”. I couldn’t find that clip, so here is another one. The gunplay starts at the two minute mark.

            From the above, it should become apparent what Django was doing. By removing the trigger guard he can press the trigger back against the grave marker. Then he just needs to use his ruined hand to fan the hammer.

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Mortar vs Fighter

            Movies sometimes test our credibility. Sometimes this is because the makers do not know better. Other times it is dramatic licence were inconvenient reality is ignored in favour of the story. We are all used to six guns and double barrelled shotguns firing a dozen times without reloading. The other night I saw an example of this that was just jaw dropping.

            The movie was called Reign of Gargoyles. It was a World War Two story where Nazis bring gargoyles to life and they run amok, attacking B-17s and anything else. That storyline is not the incredible bit!

            There is a scene when the heroes are being strafed by a German fighter aircraft. The young hero runs out to lure the fighter in close and his comrades then shoot the fighter down. With a mortar! Better still, one character is asked beforehand if he can shoot the plane down with a mortar and answers he can if it is drawn down low.

For those of you not familiar with heavier weapons, a mortar of the type shown would have had a muzzle velocity of about 150 m/s. Actual flight speed would be lower and mortars have a very slow, curved trajectory. Flying at low level, the German fighter might not be moving at maximum speed, but probably be traveling at least 150 m/s itself. Add into this the firer’s reaction time and the delay while the mortar bomb drops down the tube to fire, and you will see that it would actually be easier to hit the aircraft with a thrown baseball.

The odd thing is, a couple of weeks back I did come across an anti-aircraft mortar round from World War 2. (the movie uses a standard HE bomb)

This round ejects an aerial mine consisting of an explosive charge on a long cord suspended from a parachute.

http://www.lonesentry.com/ordnance/81-mm-antiaircraft-mortar-projectile.html

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Water Caltrops

            I came across this image the other day. I had heard of the Water Chestnut (Genus Trapa .) and that it could be used as a caltrop but had not seen them in such detail.

It is a pretty fearsome looking object and it is perhaps no surprise that one of the alternate common names is “Devil Pod”.

            I remarked to a friend that they looked like something from Aliens and his comment was that they were not sexual enough for that. I pointed out that they do look a little like the uterus and fallopian tubes diagrams in biology textbooks.

 
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Turbanator

                A friend (Dean) sent me this interesting article on how Al Qaida are attempting to evade drones.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_THE_AL_QAIDA_PAPERS_DRONES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-02-21-14-34-55

            I forwarded it to my friend Nate, and he sent back this amusing skit:

"It's the first time someone has bought such a large amount," said the mat seller, Leitny Cisse al-Djoumat. "They didn't explain why they wanted so many."

“The large elephant grass mat.”
“That’s Somali. You can use that as an area rug or a tablecloth.”
“The bundle of sticks."

"These are brand new, we just got them in. You can use them to prop up a rug and make an awning. You can't miss. Anything else?”

“Yucca weave mat with watertight weave.”
“Hey, just what you see, pal.”
“The square grass mat.”
“You know your grass mats, buddy. Any one of these is ideal for beautifying your home. So, uh, which will it be?”
“All.”
“I’m gonna close early today. There’s a 15-day wait for me to weave the big rugs but the small ones you can take right now. ...And you have these to fill out too.”
(begins strapping mats to his car)
“You can’t do that.”
“WRONG.”
BLAM

 

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The Books