World War I saw a great number of “firsts” in combat that needed to be addressed because conventional warfare had never dealt with such things before. Namely, this includes poison gas, tanks, airplanes, etc.
Trench warfare was not new, but it certainly came of age during the “War to End All Wars.” Periscopes served a vital role in allowing soldiers to see above their trench out into “No Man’s Land” without sticking their head up and making them vulnerable to sniper fire.
This worked to see the field of battle, but it didn’t provide a way to fire at the enemy from the safe confines of the trench and actually be able to see where you were shooting.
That’s where Charles John Cooke comes on the scene. Cooke was a British subject residing in Hong Kong during the war and he invented a contraption that remedied the problem of being able to see and being able to shoot, but not being able to do both.
In the spring of 1916, he patented a device that acted as a monopod, anchoring a pistol to the floor of the trench. Attached horizontally was another brace that stuck into the wall of the trench on one side and was braced against the shooter’s shoulder on the other side. Rising from the monopod was an exceptionally long extended magazine inserted into a pistol that would rise just above the top of the trench.
Attached to the magazine was a traditional periscope that rose up behind the pistol and allowed the shooter to look down the sights on the slide of the gun. A pulley attached to the trigger with a ring extending down to the shooter allowed the soldier to fire the pistol while still concealed in the trench.
I’ve never seen one of these devices or even heard of one being used in the trenches, but it’s certainly an interesting design that proves necessity to be the mother of invention.
Logan Metesh is a firearms historian and consultant who runs High Caliber History LLC. Click here for a free 3-page download with tips about caring for your antique and collectible firearms.
I absolutely love the history of WW1. If anyone has the chance to go to the National WW1 museum in Kansas City, you won’t be disappointed. And please listen to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast, Blueprint for Armageddon.
The Spanish military have a pretty good war museum in Sevilla. Among other things they have a Mauser rifle rigged up to a periscope with a remote firing mechanism. Pretty neat. They also have a gas mask made for a horse. That one kind of caught me off guard as I didn’t think such a thing existed.
They also have a gas mask made for a horse.
Much more common than what most would think.
They’re all fucking Brit sheep….. They lost the right to tell us what to do 236 years ago…
Our enemies watch CNN and they are seeing the reaction to Parkland.
It seems I’m the only one who is planning to become a teacher. I ccw already. Anyone who attacks my students will get as many holes put into them as necessary to stop the threat. If I have to go to Ohio for FASTER training on my own, I will.
the shootings are rare, but the communist media hype up the coverage so they can get more stupid people to believe them ( Trump got it right- fake news, now let us just hope he does not cave in to them). this is how communist countries get started. they bend the truth and lie.
Get your children OUT of these government indoctrination camps!
The rest of the story behind the coward “cop.” And other criminals involved.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/966854507744374784.html
What I stumbled upon was a Broward County law enforcement system in a state of conflict. The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent, entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.
5. The motive was simple. The school system administrators wanted to “improve their statistics” and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.
6. So police officials, the very highest officials of law enforcement (Sheriff and Police Chiefs), entered into a plan.
Since that quote made absolutely no sense at all, I went ahead and read the ‘opinion’ piece and have to say the author must be high on jenkem. He posits that since they banned smoking in bars (in Ireland) people have stopped smoking in bars. This didn’t happen because the smokers were afraid of getting a small fine but because non smokers were emboldened to complain. Therefore, even if a ban on semi-automatic weapons wouldn’t take the the millions already in private ownership out of circulation, it would change the culture.
The problem with this hypothesis is that I don’t think that if the students in Parkland, Florida had felt emboldened to complain about being shot, it would have made much difference. The problem isn’t the people who politely take their cigarettes outside to smoke them, it’s with the people who will blow smoke in your face if you complain. Attempting to shame responsible law abiding gu n owners isn’t going to change the behavior of criminals. In fact it could embolden them due to the perceived lack of potential armed resistance.
From my POV, this is further argument *for* armed teachers.
There is no question about whether to get in the fight if the fight is already shooting at you.
Frankly, I think many teachers would be braver than many cops (and that isn’t a dis on cops) because of their personal relationship with the young lives they would be protecting.
We haven’t really lost anything yet, and won’t if some of our ace gun people around here will get off this site, go shave and put on some clean clothes and go out in an up-beat and civilized manner among the general public and stand up for yourselves rather than blame Trump(!!!) or a raft of other ridiculous theories. I accept no blame, I didn’t ignore the 39 cop calls to Cruz’s residence, I didn’t ignore the several specific warnings to the FBI concerning him, nor the other red flags that are still emerging as I write. I also don’t support Gun-Free Zones, I didn’t hunker behind my squad cars waiting for backup while my Coral Springs brothers finally arrived and went inside, I didn’t fail to enter info into NICS and there’s no way I feel any need to apologize to anyone for the deliberate actions of Cruz and non-actions of authorities, local, county, state and federal.
Get out there and spread the real word to those who need to hear it- quit griping around this place, it does no good other than to let some people vent or puff themselves up. One of the things we certainly should capitalize on here is what we did following Columbine- this act had so many red flags shown to the authorities and Cruz was so obviously nuts that most people outside of NRA’s benefit business alliance can see it should have never happened and that it was government that failed, not some loophole in firearms ownership. And there are a hell of a lot of people out there that’d love to hear that from us if we can present it in an honest, non-threatening manner that doesn’t promote the left’s notion that all gun folk are crazies. Stand up for yourselves!