WWII cast boolit history lesson in Herter's reloading manual ? LOL

[N4AUD]

Patton was no coward. He didn't carry .38's and his handguns didn't have pearl handles. He also wasn't in the Italian Campaign unless we count Sicily, so perhaps the article is talking about someone else?

[Kraschenbirn]

I saw quite a few military-issue .38 revolvers in Viet Nam, mostly S&W M10s but also a few parkerized Colts marked "USN". I was a Huey crewchief with 1st Cav and all our flight crews...pilots, crewchiefs, and gunners...were issued S&Ws and our ammo was 130 gr. FMJs. As soon as I managed to snag onto a 1911, that Smith got cleaned, oiled and packed away until it was turned in at the end of my tour.

Bill

[dondiego]

I didn't read it as being about Patton either.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I didn't read it as being about Patton either.

I think it is pretty clear that he shifted from Patton to some less distinguished officer of his acquaintance, or of his hearsay. No doubt one coloured his opinion of the other, but I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg.

[paul edward]

I thought that the shotgun warning was from WWl. They were efficient at clearing trenches.

Those shotguns were still in use when I was issued one in 1971. The weapon issued for the ambulance driver in my unit was an 1897 Winchester. It was a much better weapon than the M-79 I normally carried.

[Bent Ramrod]

George L. thought he was a master at heaping innuendo on people and giving just enough description of them so those "in the know" would know who he was talking about but not, perhaps, enough to be legally actionable.

He went on in one of his books about a dapper Captain who cruised the front lines with jeep and driver looking for unusual weapons. He had, according to Herter, written a loading manual that was "dangerously obsolete." The hard-boiled, combat line troops (of which George L. was one) told him he'd better get out of there before somebody used him for target practice. The dapper Captain turned pale, drove off, and was never seen again.

It isn't beyond the limits of probability that he was referring to Ordnance Captain Philip B. Sharpe.

Jack O'Connor wrote in his autobiography of a "backwoods tycoon" who, when rebuffed upon offering his loading tools to O'Connor for a fulsome review, went after a "certain gun writer and .270 enthusiast" who was giving false and dangerous advice to inquiries in his national magazine. Jack said he called the "backwoods tycoon" (anybody wanna guess?) up and explained to him that one doesn't have to identify somebody by name and social security number to be open to a libel suit. According to Jack, the "tycoon" wilted like frozen lettuce and didn't broach the subject again.

[Lonegun1894]

Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! I will Guess Keith, since the two of them seemed to have a ongoing feud. Am I right? What do I win?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

George L. thought he was a master at heaping innuendo on people and giving just enough description of them so those "in the know" would know who he was talking about but not, perhaps, enough to be legally actionable.

He went on in one of his books about a dapper Captain who cruised the front lines with jeep and driver looking for unusual weapons. He had, according to Herter, written a loading manual that was "dangerously obsolete." The hard-boiled, combat line troops (of which George L. was one) told him he'd better get out of there before somebody used him for target practice. The dapper Captain turned pale, drove off, and was never seen again.

It isn't beyond the limits of probability that he was referring to Ordnance Captain Philip B. Sharpe.

Jack O'Connor wrote in his autobiography of a "backwoods tycoon" who, when rebuffed upon offering his loading tools to O'Connor for a fulsome review, went after a "certain gun writer and .270 enthusiast" who was giving false and dangerous advice to inquiries in his national magazine. Jack said he called the "backwoods tycoon" (anybody wanna guess?) up and explained to him that one doesn't have to identify somebody by name and social security number to be open to a libel suit. According to Jack, the "tycoon" wilted like frozen lettuce and didn't broach the subject again.

Ex-PFC Hitler had a perfectly sincere objection to poison gas, the atomic bomb and cruelty to animals, but campaigners against those things would feel pretty gloomy at seeing him lending a hand with the cause. Herter doesn't appear quite the person to condemn anyone for being a self-seeking prima donna.

I value Sharpe's "The Rifle in America", although it isn't the reloading manual. But how does a reloading manual become dangerously obsolete? If you can only get the wrong components, above all the powders, the user bears the responsibility for finding his own danger in what would still be an interesting source. I think Sharpe had a mischievous eye for human failings, and may have touched Herter on the raw at times. Good as his technology was, there was quite a bit of raw to be touched on.

All of those people wrote at a time of great innovation in the firearms and reloading industry. People were putting together science and technology nobody was teaching them. You couldn't go out and get college credits in firearms technology. The controllers of spies know that second-stringers will obey all the rules, all the time, but they have to tolerate the best ones playing their own hands, blowing their own trumpets, carrying water to their own wells, and that sort of thing.

[varmint243]

My statement was more generic than specific
Patton and MacArthur were both cowards that were perfectly willing without remorse (psychopathic) to send masses of young men to their death while facing no danger to themselves.
In many cases this was not strategically significant or done with good cause.

I am inclined to believe that Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf would have brought every serviceperson home without a scratch if possible.

[OS OK]

varmint243...
In WWII they didn't have 'smart bombs' and 'drones' to do the nasty work of annihilating a frenzied and fanatical enemy. They actually had to root them out and dispatch them face to face. Comparing McArthur and Patton's tactics is comparing apples to oranges, two completely different theaters of war. Same weapons different applications. Military leaders are trained to lead from the rear, how else would they survive and apply their hard learned tactics, some of which had to be developed to meet the circumstances in the field…Both of these Generals did their share of leading from the front and were reprimanded either from Congress or the President for doing so. Hedgerows in the E.T. and jungle in the P.T., two entirely different theaters, it took brave men to charge into combat, still does…there are no cowards in combat troops that follow orders without running away…some orders are harder than others and men die in war…that is the 'hell of it'. Perhaps if more people like yourself and our politicians had more first hand experience with war…maybe it would stop forever.
Cowards…?…you have a skewed point of view at least.

OS OK

[varmint243]

>>>Perhaps if more people like yourself and our politicians had more first hand experience with war…maybe it would stop forever<<<

Please be careful making such a statement without knowing anything about someone

While I was fortunate to have served in peacetime,
I did see surely some stuff, the most notable being the collision at sea between the USS Jason and USS Willamette.
I was on the com in Repair 5 for the incident, fire, flooding, fatalities, and a totally botched damaged control effort.
I also was in a serious flooding on the USS Brewton in a severe tropical storm, (I discovered and reported it it while on watch)
as well as another incident of an 800 gallon lube oil spill in the mail engine room.
(oil isn't particularly flammable until it gets heated up, like when sprayed all over an engine room)

On the plus side I was very fortunate to have served aboard the ship that brought the Vietnam Unknown Serviceman from Hawaii to California in 1984.

So was it combat, no, but it was a good solid 7.5 on the no-fun-o-meter for sure

I hold to my statement of Patton and MacArthur being cowards that were portrayed by media and government propaganda to have been heroes

[6622729]

I'm lost at this point.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

All generals have to behave like cowards, by the standards they learned in youth and would mostly feel better for continuing. Remember General Lee saying that to be a soldier a man must love the army, but to be a commander he must be prepared to destroy the thing he loves. We would have to see inside the minds of men well used to acting, to know how far remorse affected them. I don't believe listening to the various people who have given vent to their own prejudices over the last few decades, in print or electrons, is much help.

[Bent Ramrod]

Capt. Sharpe was charged with gathering up specimens of any advanced or unusual German weapons advances or developments for study by the Ordnance Department, and so was doing his assigned duty the same as George L. Sneering at him as a well-dressed and groomed rear echelon gun collector and writer of "dangerously obsolete" handloading information was pretty much in character for Herter. I wonder sometimes how the exchange really turned out. Somehow I see the denouement as being more realistic if George L. got a week's KP for mouthing off to an officer.

George L. had a low opinion of all rival writers on hunting, fishing, shooting, handloading and outdoor topics, manufacturers of items for same and their products, restauranteurs, cooks, professional hunters, and his own customers and readers. In the last two cases at least, he was graciously willing to educate us boneheads in the Right Way to go about things. The instructions in his cookbooks typically start with "Only five people in North America know how to boil an egg properly," and it goes on from there. The cumulative effect of this peeved, injured annoyance at all our failings, and the pedantic but sincere attempts to lead us back from our strayed condition is, at least for me, a lot of hilarious amusement. It's a red-letter day when I can enhance my small collection of Herter's books by another specimen.

To his credit, his books are better written and more grammatical than a lot of modern publications, even though the new stuff is backed by Spell-Check and all the computerized assists. And the books do contain a lot of sound advice in addition to the crack-brained editorializing and Inside Info. It appears, for instance, that he got a real professional taxidermist to ghostwrite his Professional Taxidermy book, but, of course, the Herter's interpolations are in there too and immediately recognizable. There is a picture of a Shrunken Head somewhere along in there, with a short discourse on how the contents of the head are removed, hot sand put into it to shrink it, sewing up the eye and mouth holes, etc. And then Herter's advice to the aspiring professional taxidermist: "Always refuse work of this kind."

[M-Tecs]

The EX's great uncle served directly under Patton an enlisted aide. I only talked to him about Patton once 30 years ago. He thought Patton was a GOD and the greatest man he ever met.

How he went from a tank commander with extensive frontline combat to one of Patton's aides is unclear, but, his view of Patton is good enough for me.

Herter on the other hand was full of himself and fully of BS most of the time. Herter had a habit of screwing over his suppliers.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It was quite unselfish of Herter to teach those other four people how to boil an egg. If he hadn't, he would have been the only one. Practically all, if not all, privately owned shrunken heads are faked, and I can't see that a monkey minds being stuffed more or less than anybody else.

Nobody can fault his products, or judgment of the market, in a time when handloading etc. was in a state of rapid development. But it stops there... and would be better if he had.

[N4AUD]

I hold to my statement of Patton and MacArthur being cowards that were portrayed by media and government propaganda to have been heroes

Patton was no coward. In the Mexican Expedition before WWI, Patton and his small squad (in the first motorized combat) engaged in a firefight with Mexican bandits. Patton accounted for at least a couple of the enemy that were killed in that action. It's well documented.
In WWI he was in command of the US's first tank unit. The tanks IIRC were Renaults and were not reliable. When the tanks quit Patton led his men on foot and was wounded.
Patton was reprimanded more than once by Ike in WWII for exposing himself to danger.
He wasn't a coward. All of this is well documented and can be found online with a couple of keystrokes, or is available in one of the many biographies about Gen. Patton.

[Kraschenbirn]

In November of 1941, one of my uncles was a freshly-minted Second Lieutenant newly assigned to 2nd Armored. He spent the entire war serving under Patton... North Africa, Sicily, then going ashore at Normandy on D+3...and was commanding a scout company of M24 light tanks when he was wounded (and evacuated to England) in March of 1945. I don't believe he really 'liked' Patton but he respected him as a leader and I recall him saying that Patton was "a commander you could follow because he always had a plan and always fought to win."

Bill

[OS OK]

In November of 1941, one of my uncles was a freshly-minted Second Lieutenant newly assigned to 2nd Armored. He spent the entire war serving under Patton... North Africa, Sicily, then going ashore at Normandy on D+3...and was commanding a scout company of M24 light tanks when he was wounded (and evacuated to England) in March of 1945. I don't believe he really 'liked' Patton but he respected him as a leader and I recall him saying that Patton was "a commander you could follow because he always had a plan and always fought to win."

Bill

Well…there you go again, straight from the horses mouth, someone who 'actually' knew and served under him!
Let's hear about the accounts where Patton acted a coward…documented accounts from someone other than a 'pseudo hearsay artist'.
I think these Patton haters just have a 'burr in their panties'! They don't like much of nuttin, aim to be controversial bellyachers.

OS OK