The Unappreciated SLR

The origins of the FN49 rifle go back to 1936, prior to WWII. The chief engineer at FN, Mr. Dieudonné Saive, designed a gas-operated semi-auto that used a tilting bolt method to lock the breech during firing. However, with the FN factory in Belgium captured by Nazi Germany early in WWII, the design that would become the FN49 would have to wait.

This book chronicles the development of this under-appreciated rifle in great detail, from the earliest attempts at self-loading rifles, to the end of production. Surprisingly, there was interest in self-loading battle rifles as far back as the early 1900s. In fact, in 1907, FN approached a German-born arms designer, Karl Brauning (no relation to John M. Browning). At the time, Mr. Brauning was working for the Dutch arsenal at Zandaam, Netherlands. He had recently patented a self-loading rifle that functioned by barrel recoil and locked the bolt by a pair of pivoting lugs that fit into recesses in the receiver. This rifle, as well as several other designs, took part in various arms trials in the following years. However, the start of WWI in 1914 interrupted this.

Following the end of WWI, work resumed in several countries regarding the adoption of a self-loading rifle. The U.S. chose the M1 Garand early enough to equip her army prior to entering WWII. Most other nations did not and had to go to war with bolt action guns.
The book takes a detailed look at the early military trials that featured the Brauning design, including a brief mention of the 1929 U.S. Trials at Aberdeen Proving Ground. An interesting photo from that time shows several inventors, including John Pedersen and John Garand with their respective designs.

Chapter 2 covers Saive’s time in England, during which he continued to work on his design. (He had escaped to England during the hostilities.)

Although Great Britain was in no position to completely rearm and retrain her entire military during the heat of battle, the experimenting and research continued. When Saive got to Britain, he offered his design and talent to the British war effort. Soon, he was working on a 7.92mm version named the Self-Loading Experimental Model, or SLEM. Apparently, 50 of these were hand-built, so-called tool room rifles. A good percentage of these first 50 SLEMs have survived, and several are shown. While they differ somewhat from the production versions of the FN49, the lineage is clear to see.

At the end of WWII, Saive returned to the FN factory and resumed work on his design. Eventually, Venezuela became the first country to make a major purchase of the FN49.

After a very detailed study of the path to completion, the book then covers the different versions of the FN49 adopted by various countries. As noted above, Venezuela was the first to place a major order. (Several countries bought one or two rifles to test before the Venezuelan contract.) Each purchasing country is given a separate chapter (chapters 6 through 15). The minor differences between each version are detailed by text and photographs.

Following the country by country review, chapter 17 then covers various official manuals and pamphlets produced over the years. Selected pages are reproduced that show disassembly steps, etc.

Chapter 18 examines Instructional Cutaway rifles. These are training aids that were modified to allow the troops to see into the trigger and sear area and the chamber and gas port areas.

Chapter 19 looks at a wide range of accessories available, such as bayonets, cleaning kits, scopes, slings and even grenade launchers that attach to the muzzle.

As with other books from Collector Grade, this title is high quality, with many clear, crisp photographs and drawings.

The FN49–The Rifle That Ran out of Time
Author: R. Blake Stevens
Publisher: Collector Grade Publications Inc., Canada
Copyright 2011
ISBN: 0-88935-526-6
Hardcover: 8.5” x 11,” 256 pages, 361 illustrations, 141 in color

The FN49–The Rifle That Ran out of Time

The AAI ACR, a modified version of the previous AAI SBR rifle, as it appeared in the ACR field experiment. This rifle fired a 5.56x45mm subcaliber flechette round at 4,600 fps, at a cyclic rate of 1,800 rpm in the three-round burst mode. (U.S. Army)

By R. Blake Stevens

“Reorienting” the SPIW and Adopting the XM16E1

Again, as had been the case in 1964, the most charitable conclusion after the second generation SPIW trials was that neither of the “weapon concepts” was acceptable in its present state. The AAI SPIW was chosen as the better of the two: hardly a choice at all in view of the enforced termination of the Springfield program and the lack of any immediate civilian interest in its continuance.

Early in the fittingly gray month of November, 1966, the Infantry Board formally recommended to the Chief of Staff of the Army that the whole SPIW program be radically pruned back and relegated to the status of an exploratory program at AAI.

On November 7, the Office of the Chief of Staff accordingly directed that the SPIW program be “reoriented” from full-scale engineering development back to exploratory development, becoming in the process just one facet of a broadened, long-term small arms R&D program for the future. The same memorandum announced the formal intention to adopt the Colt XM16E1 rifle as standard for the U.S. Army everywhere but in the European theater.

With the Army having thus come full circle and now solidly behind the M16, the pressing need for the SPIW simply vanished. For the SPIW itself, the collapse of the second generation program marked the end of the lavishly-funded grande époque, the likes of which would never be seen again.

The AAI XM19 Serial Flechette Rifle (SFR)

Nevertheless, development continued at AAI over the next few years, funded largely from within the company. This led to a heady but temporary resurgence of interest in the flechette-firing SPIW.

The Army had seized on the limited but encouraging success of AAI’s 1967 nominal-fee contract modifications, authorizing an additional $500,000 in fiscal 1968 to step up produceability studies on flechette ammunition.

The Army’s new four-phase serial flechette rifle (SFR) contract with AAI became a reality in October, 1968. A field experiment had already been tentatively scheduled for April, 1970, wherein the new SPIW would be compared with the M16A1 under simulated combat conditions.

HQ Army Weapons Command (now called WECOM) publicly confirmed the awarding of the letter contract to AAI on January 21, 1969, “for continued development of the Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) and its associated ammunition.” A scant six months later in June, WECOM announced that the phase-two prototypes, now officially called the “XM19 Rifle, 5.6mm, Primer Activated, Flechette Firing,” were under construction. This first bestowal of an official “XM” number on a SPIW candidate was an important and long-awaited honor: it signified formal recognition that the SPIW had advanced one indispensable step closer to becoming the Army’s next rifle system.

Calling the SPIW to Account

If anything could have saved the SPIW program it was AAI’s improved XM19 rifle and its later, short-lived follow-on, the XM70, which fired from the open bolt. However, to an increasing number of observers, both in and outside the program, the curious and continued determination to ignore the fundamental gulf between the SFR (SPIW) requirements and the real world needed to be addressed. On July 30, 1969, Congressman Richard L. Ottinger of the House of Representatives wrote a formal letter to the Comptroller General of the United States. By this time, some aspects of the Future Rifle Program were already under investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). An excerpt from Mr. Ottinger’s letter reads as follows:

… I am writing in regard to the Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) currently being developed by the AAI Corporation for the Department of the Army… It is my understanding that after seven years of research and development and the expenditure of some $20 million, the SPIW is still not ready for production and use. I further understand that some five different engineering deficiencies have been identified and that it is anticipated that some additional 12 to 18 months will be necessary to correct these deficiencies.

I would appreciate your advising me as to how much more it will cost to correct the five present deficiencies and whether any additional research and development funds will be spent; why is this weapon being developed in the first place, [and] when will the SPIW be ready for use by our Armed Forces personnel?

The XM19 is Snatched from Near Perfection

Ironically, it appears that by this time the AAI weapon was virtually at the point of perfection, and yet as the XM19 neared this tantalizing goal its detractors gained in voice and power, and the mood of good fortune, which had begun in 1967, began to slip away, never to return.

Withdrawal from Vietnam Pulls the Plug on the SPIW

In the midst of all these acrimonious thrusts and investigations, the 1973 end of the American military presence in Vietnam effectively “pulled the plug” on any urgent, large-scale development plan for a new U.S. individual weapon. Small arms research, development and engineering (RD&E) money dried up abruptly, adding an indisputable air of finality to the last SPIW developments. As stated in the Research, Development and Engineering (RD&E) Laboratory Posture Report for fiscal 1974, prepared by Army Armament Command at Rock Island:

… In December 1973, the decision was made to remove flechette ammunition from immediate consideration within the FRS (Future Rifle Systems) Program because of technical problems which may not be correctable in the time frame of the future rifle…

Summing Up the Failed SPIW Program

The point target portion of the AAI SPIW was designed to fire controlled bursts of 10-grain flechettes at 2,400 rpm, thus taking advantage of the flechette’s minimal recoil to achieve a deadly, ultra-tight mean burst spread. As regards the crucial characteristic of recoil impulse, the 10-grain flechette still reigns supreme, far superior to the M16 on full-automatic fire. As recorded in The Black Rifle, a comparison prepared by the Human Engineering Labs (HEL) at Frankford Arsenal showing the typical recoil impulse of several standard weapons reads as follows:

7.62mm NATO M14: 2.65 lb. sec.
.30 M2 Carbine: 1.18 lb. sec.
5.56mm M16 (w/muzzle brake): 1.16 lb. sec.
AAI SPIW (no muzzle brake): 0.65 lb. sec.
AAI SPIW (w/muzzle brake): 0.39 lb. sec.

For such a light projectile to be lethal, however, a muzzle velocity in the order of 4,800 fps was required. This in turn necessitated a chamber pressure approaching 70,000 psi.

In the frantic attempt to perfect weapons capable of attaining these pressures and velocities, many frontiers of knowledge had to be pushed back, all at the same time. This in turn uncovered a veritable host of new technological problems that could not possibly have been foreseen and which, ironically, were misconstrued as poor engineering. It was the previously unheard-of magnitude of these new problems – heat; erosion; muzzle blast; component overstressing and flechette cartridge complexity – which ultimately proved insurmountable within the overall timing and funding constraints set for the program.

A Brief Reprieve – in the ACR Program

The following is excerpted from the Collector Grade title Black Rifle II, written by Christopher R. Bartocci and published in 2004 as a follow-on to The Black Rifle, which had covered the early history of the M16 up to the time of its publication in 1987.

We begin with an overview of, and rationale for, the Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) program from Black Rifle II, as follows:

Throughout the last half of the twentieth century, the U.S. Department of Defense initiated several programs aimed at replacing the M16 series rifles altogether with a new design.

When the AR-15/M16 was first adopted during the early 1960s, it was considered merely an interim weapon while development of the futuristic, flechette- and grenade-firing Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) was under way. At that time it was confidently predicted that the SPIW would be classified “Standard A” by June of 1965. Despite a great deal of costly effort, however, the SPIW concept was never perfected.

Twenty years later, during the period 1986 to 1990, the Department of the Army tried again, by funding the Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) program.

It had been a hard but valuable lesson to learn that, due to the high levels of stress, fatigue and fear experienced during actual combat engagements, soldiers will not shoot as well as they were trained to shoot. The objective of the ACR program was to replace the M16A1, and the then newly-adopted M16A2, with a new rifle, which would increase both hit probability and combat effectiveness by 100%.

Excerpts from a voluminous retrospective prepared by the Army Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal titled ACR Program Summary read as follows:

“The ACR Operational and Organizational Plan (O&O) was approved in January, 1985 [which] caused weapon concepts to be developed under contract and prototype hardware to be produced and evaluated with troops in a field experiment.

“In September 1982 contracts were awarded to AAI Corporation and Heckler & Koch, Inc.
“In 1984 – 1985, industry conferences were held at ARDEC and Fort Benning. Shortly thereafter, contracts were competitively awarded to AAI, ARES, Colt, McDonnell Douglas, and Steyr [calling] for the development and fabrication of the proposed rifle systems for evaluation in government tests. Both the ARES and McDonnell Douglas contracts were terminated before the final ACR field experiment took place, due to “lack of maturity” of their systems.”

The AAI ACR

“AAI was the repository of the equipment necessary to produce the flechettes needed for both their contract and the Steyr-Mannlicher contract. The production of flechettes was a cost, time and quality problem throughout the entire development effort. There is some controversy as to whether the flechette round is inherently less accurate and whether any amount of future development effort would result in equal accuracy to a standard bulleted round. The pace of technology today is such that it is unlikely that further development work on small-caliber flechettes will be funded for rifles.

“The AAI weapon is a 5.56mm modified version of the previously developed Serial Bullet Rifle (SBR) using a reciprocating bolt mechanism.

“The AAI round uses the standard 5.56mm M855 brass case with M41 primer. The projectile is a 10.2 grain sub-caliber flechette. The sabot is a liquid crystal polymeric compound (plastic), which is designed in four segments held together by a neoprene “O” ring at the rearmost point of the sabot segments.”

The Steyr ACR

“The Steyr system was similar to the ARES system in that it fired using a rising chamber mechanism. However the Steyr ACR fired a single flechette from a plastic case using a radial ring primer. Initiation of the ring primer was from the side of the case near the base.

“The Steyr gun is a true open-bolt mechanism in that there is a spent case normally in the chamber in the out-of-battery condition. A live round only enters the chamber after the trigger has been pulled.

An inherent drawback to the Steyr system lies in sabot hazard to friendly troops. This is a safety concern that exists in the AAI system as well.

The Colt ACR

The Colt ACR was essentially a product-improved M16A2, painstakingly modified to meet the criteria of increased hit probability and combat effectiveness. It was fitted with a new hydraulic buffer, a modified pistol grip, a flat-top receiver with an integrated rail, capable of accepting a detachable carrying handle embodying the A2-style adjustable rear iron sight or the ELCAN (Ernst Leitz, Canada) optical sight, plus a heightened sighting rib proposed by the Army HEL (Human Engineering Laboratory) mounted on a semi-beavertail handguard, and a proprietary muzzle brake/compensator designed by Knight’s Armament Co.

Conclusions of the ACR Program -Reaffirming the M16A2

None of the ACR contenders emerged as a replacement for the existing arsenal of conventional rifles. However, the unprecedentedly sophisticated data collection systems developed for the program, which included the ability to not only record hits but to actually measure the amount by which a shot missed the target as well, led to some highly encouraging conclusions regarding the ACR contenders, plus an upwardly revised opinion of both the M16A2 and the soldiers who participated in the program. The following is a further excerpt from the ACR Program Summary:

… The baseline performance of the M16A2 rifle was better than anticipated in terms of hit probability… No rifles showed a n increase in probability of hit over the M16A2 under the stressed conditions of the test.

The feasibility of caseless and lightweight plastic-cased ammunition has more than been demonstrated in this program. Few problems were experienced with the [H&K] caseless rifles in the test. The past technical barriers of cook-off and vulnerability have now been overcome…

The End of the Road (So Far) for the Serial Flechette

A final excerpt from the ARDEC ACR Program Summary reads as follows:

… Many advances in high-performance rifle flechette technology have been made during this effort. New engineering plastics and sabot designs have solved previous launch reliability problems.
Although significant advances were made in reducing flechette round-to-round dispersion, the dispersion of flechettes is still greater than that of bullets. It is unlikely that the round-to-round dispersion will be reduced further, which would likely preclude flechettes from further consideration as single shot rifle projectiles.

[However,] their high cross-sectional energy density and large length-to-diameter ratio make them very effective against all small arms targets. This, together with their flat trajectory and short time of flight, make them attractive for consideration in crew-served and area-fire applications…

Right side of the Phase I SPIW from Springfield Armory with the full complement of equipment for firing 60 rounds of point-target XM144 flechettes plus 3 rounds of area-fire 40mm grenades, with biped and bayonet. The ingenious double box magazine, featuring two 30-round stacks one behind the other, is described in the text.

By R. Blake Stevens

The APHHW Becomes the SPIW: Point and Area Fire Now Specified

By January of 1962, a set of formal military specifications for a flechette-firing weapon had been prepared and submitted to the Office, Chief of Ordnance (OCO) for approval. The specifications superseded the short-lived APHHW nomenclature with a new name for the project: the Special Purpose Individual Weapon; the SPIW.

In these specifications one important main addition was made to the original burst-fire flechette weapon concept: the new SPIW was to combine the point-fire characteristics of the flechette-firing APHHW with the area-fire potential of a weapon like the recently introduced M79 grenade launcher.

On March 22, 1962, the OCO approved the detailed forecast for the development of the SPIW. The object was to, “provide the individual soldier with a weapon system possessing the capability to engage point and area targets to a range of 400 meters.” The forecast ended by confidently predicting that the SPIW would be type classified “Standard A” by June of 1966.

Terminating the M14 Program: An “Acceptable” Risk

Scant months later all M14 rifle production was abruptly halted, and contracts with the three hapless civilian M14 producers, Winchester, H&R and TRW, were brusquely abrogated. As stated in U.S. Rifle M14,

… [M14] Production at Springfield Armory was scheduled to be phased out first, by September, 1963. All three commercial producers wound down in the first quarter of 1964, amid very bitter and acrimonious comment to the effect that the immense amount of time, energy and money invested in good faith in the M14-manufacturing “learning curve” had all been wasted.

Meanwhile, as America’s military involvement in Vietnam escalated dramatically in the middle sixties, a worried U.S. Senate Subcommittee again queried the Secretary of the Army, Cyrus Vance, about America’s shoulder rifle policy for the immediate future. With implicit reliance in the forecasts of his systems analysts and theoreticians, Mr. Vance testified: “Termination of production of the M14 prior to the availability of SPIW involved certain risks which, after consideration by the Army, are deemed acceptable.”

All the tests by all the agencies over the preceding two years had concurred that the SPIW concept was technically feasible, and that the approach to its development was logistically sound. Heartened by this response, the Army confidently accelerated the SPIW’s adoption date by a full year, to June of 1965.

Choosing the Four Contractors

By December 1962, ten formal written SPIW development proposals had been received from industry. Each posited a completely different design, but all ten promised an on-time and reliable hand-held point-and-area-target weapon which would meet the specifications. In February, 1963, contracts were awarded to two soon-to-be former M14 rifle producers, the Harrington & Richardson Arms Co., and Olin’s Winchester-Western Division. The third and fourth designs that were chosen already had head starts at both the soon-to-be-renamed AAI Corporation (formerly Aircraft Armaments Inc.), and at Springfield Armory.

What the “SPIW Must Do”
Some salient characteristics excerpted from the carefully prepared SPIW Technical Data Package (TDP), which was supplied to each potential contractor to govern their manufacture, read as follows:

The weapon shall:
… Be of minimum weight… the loaded weight including a minimum of three (3) area type rounds and sixty (60) point type cartridges excluding other accessories shall not exceed ten pounds.
… Be capable of shoulder firing without undue discomfort from recoil or blast.
… [Produce] no hazard from ejected particles to personnel…

Reading over just the few characteristics quoted above, one can begin to understand the enormity of the gulf that has historically separated weapons designers from those who think up the specifications. Those searching for the SPIW project’s Achilles’ heel need look no further: the mutually-exclusive requirements of great complexity within stringent weight and size limits effectively locked each competing contractor into an arcane series of trade-offs and compromises, virtually insuring the ultimate failure of the program right from the outset.

In an interview with the author, retired Springfield Armory engineer Fred Reed summed this up bluntly as follows: “The SPIW was the first of the programs to be doomed from the start by ridiculous specifications.”

The Four First-Generation Firing Models

Difficulties notwithstanding, firing models of each of the four competitors’ first-generation SPIWs were duly delivered for examination and trial in March of 1964, only one month behind schedule. Three of the four were subjected to a variety of tests throughout the summer. The fourth design never even made it to the firing trials; it was rejected almost immediately as being far too heavy, and unsafe.

The H&R SPIW and the Dardick Triple-Bore Tround

The H&R SPIW earned the dubious distinction of being the only contender of the four to be rejected out of hand as “dangerous to shoot.. It was built around an exceedingly ill-conceived refinement of the revolving open chamber principle, which had previously been unsuccessfully offered on the commercial market in pistol form by its inventor, Mr. David A. Dardick. Working for H&R on the initial phases of that firm’s SPIW project, Mr. Dardick adapted the special triangular plastic cartridges his pistol had utilized, called Trounds, to contain three of the standardized AAI flechette-and-sabot projectiles, grouped around a central primer and powder charge. The result was called the “5.6x57mm triple-bore Tround.”

In the Dardick/H&R SPIW, the only reciprocating part was a top-mounted gas piston, which cammed a revolving cylinder 1200 (a third of a turn) with each fired shot. The three open-sided chambers in the cylinder thus successively picked up the leading round of a belt of the taped-together Trounds from a drum magazine suspended below the standing breech, positioned it for firing, and then released the spent case, still in its plastic belt, down the other side of the weapon. When the chamber containing a live Tround was in the firing position, all three of its flechettes were automatically lined up with a triangular cluster of three smooth bores, which had been drilled in the weapon’s ponderously front-heavy steel barrel.

In the open chamber concept, the body of each plastic Tround itself plays a much more crucial part in containing the forces of the explosion than does a conventional cartridge case, completely supported in a normal chamber. Initial function firings of the H&R SPIW had produced excess bulging and splitting in the Trounds due to variations of only a few thousandths of an inch in the plastic tape which surrounded each Tround.

Another immediate and fundamental problem concerned the three-shots-at-once theory. The three “barrels” were in fact one common space: every time the H&R was fired, gas leakage began as soon as the flechettes left their Tround. The first flechette exiting the muzzle triggered a further dramatic drop in pressure. At best, this reduced the muzzle velocity and consequently the range and accuracy of the other two flechettes. At worst, the pressure drop just might leave one or both of the remaining flechettes stuck in their respective bores, waiting to act as a serious obstruction when the next shot was fired.

In any event, the H&R SPIW package weighed in loaded at a ludicrous 23.9 pounds: the specification, it will be remembered, read a maximum of ten. Examining officers at Aberdeen’s Development & Proof Services promptly turned thumbs down on any further testing of any part of the H&R SPIW design.

The Olin (Winchester) Soft Recoil SPIW

Firing the conventionally-primed Springfield XM144 5.6x44mm flechette cartridge, the recorded muzzle velocity from the Winchester’s 20-inch, non-chromed smoothbore barrel was 4,585 fps. The weapon weighed twelve-and-a-half pounds fully loaded. The rate of fire was around 700 rpm for both full-auto and burst modes of fire.

The innovative blow-forward grenade launcher was the only feature of the Winchester design to survive the phase 1 selection process. The point fire portion of the weapon was judged unsatisfactory. Indeed, it was discovered that the very advantages claimed for the “soft recoil” concept were difficult if not impossible to obtain when teamed with the Winchester’s low rate of fire: a recoil housing many times longer than that provided would have been necessary in order that a three-shot burst could be fired at 700 rpm before the recoiling parts abutted the rear of their housing and transmitted the recoil impulse to the shooter.

The Olin (Winchester) SPIW was consequently abandoned, but the blow-forward launcher was developed further under contract for the Springfield SPIW team, in favor of the Armory’s own initial launcher design.

The Springfield Armory Bullpup SPIW

If the first two candidates mentioned above were quick disappointments, the remaining two were not. Indeed, it is ironic in the extreme to consider that the Phase I weapons fielded by AAI and especially Springfield were prototype designs, which sprang in their complexity virtually from nowhere in terms of predecessors, and yet in some ways their performance was never surpassed or even matched in the following six, expensive years.

Aberdeen described the 1964 Springfield bullpup SPIW as “a conventional gas operated system which fires the XM144 cartridge. Main portions of the mechanism are housed in the butt stock.” The rifle fired from a 60-round double-box magazine and was gas-operated (conventional gas piston), with a front-locking, rotary bolt.

The Springfield point target magazine serves very well to illustrate the ingenuity of design born of sheer desperation that was to become the rule rather than the exception during the SPIW program. Springfield’s solution to the 60-round capacity specification combined two thirty-round, double-column stacks, one behind the other. (It was here that the bullpup concept came to the rescue, providing the least awkward place to mount such a box-like device.. In firing, the reciprocating bolt stripped rounds off the leading stack until it was empty and the follower appeared. This freed a device that had been depressing the rear stack of cartridges, allowing them to rise into the path of the bolt. The rear magazine had no feed lips as such: the bolt first slid the top round from the rear magazine forward onto the follower of the empty front one, and then fed it up into the chamber.

The designer in charge of development of the 1964 Springfield bullpup SPIW was Mr. Richard Colby. He had not chosen the unique double magazine design frivolously. Feeding sixty rounds of even the small, lightweight XM144 flechette cartridges from a single double-column stack had proven to be an impossible task: no magazine spring that could be reloaded by hand would provide enough lift fast enough to have the next round of a full magazine ready for feeding during 1,700 rpm burst fire. This is not to mention the fact that calculations for such a magazine revealed that it would be so long and unwieldy as to make shooting from the prone position impossible.

Both Winchester and, as we shall see, AAI answered the first-generation 60-round point target capacity requirement by using drum-type magazines, but in so doing both firms encountered many new and serious frictional forces inherent in a rotary feed system. This led to chronic feeding problems and consequent unreliability, which in Olin’s case contributed to the demise of the whole Winchester SPIW program. It is noteworthy that the point target ammunition capacity specification was eventually relaxed to a more realistic fifty rounds, but not until the perfection of the sixty-round magazine had eluded a further two years’ expensive development.

The AAI Corporation Primer-Actuated SPIW

The 1964 AAI SPIW was 39.9 inches long overall and weighed eleven pounds unloaded, or 13.3 pounds fully loaded with the required sixty XM110 flechettes and three 40mm grenades. Muzzle velocity from the AAI’s 18-inch barrel-and-stripper was 4,820 fps, with an actual measured cyclic rate of 2,400 rpm on three-round burst fire.

A Note on Rates of Fire

It is worth commenting that both the Springfield and AAI SPIWs had answered the “salvo” requirement by featuring blisteringly high rates of burst fire. The rate of fire for the Winchester, which was by far the slowest of the first-generation SPIW submissions, was 700 rpm, which is just over eleven rounds a second. Burst and full-auto fire from the 1964 Springfield SPIW was measured at 1,700 rpm, which translates to over 28 rounds a second; while the AAI burst fire rate was 2,400 rounds per minute, or an astonishing 40 rounds per second.

Phase I Results

The results of the phase I Aberdeen D&PS examinations and that summer’s firing trials, which had taken place at Fort Benning from April to the middle of August, 1964, led to a curiously mixed reaction. Army Weapons Command remained solidly behind the SPIW as a concept, and the SPIW designers themselves had long since recognized and accepted most of the erratic, not to say startling, behavior of their brainchildren as necessary trade-offs in the desperate attempt to meet the specifications. Nevertheless, a bewildering array of problems in almost every conceivable area of the endeavor was documented by the test teams.

By November of 1964, when all the results were in, one thing was certain: the carefully-planned scenario leading to the adoption of a successful SPIW by the following June was out the window completely. Even phase II of the initial TDP, which had confidently envisaged a short period of full-scale engineering development for the successful phase I candidate followed by its limited manufacture for final troop trials, was itself now out of the question.

Regarding the summer’s simulated mass production runs of XM110 and XM144 cartridges, no economical way had been devised to fabricate a satisfactory flechette round in quantity. The contractors complained that every component required extraordinary care in manufacture and assembly in order to ensure a reliable round. This meant a great deal of costly and difficult-to-inspect hand-work on each cartridge.

In general, reported user dissatisfaction with the two finalist SPIW designs (Springfield and AAI) as weapons was lumped into three basic categories: poor reliability, poor durability, and excessive weight.

As for system durability, the exasperated designers grew weary of trying to explain to adamant AWC test officers that every conceivable ounce had been shaved from these complex weapons in an attempt to meet the weight requirement.

As it turned out, no SPIW ever came within the ten-pound-loaded, point- and area-fire weight limit. As the program continued, this official weight requirement was ignored as much as possible, with weights for the two halves of the SPIW system thenceforth discussed separately.

The Second Generation SPIW Plan

Many of the SPIW’s initially startling idiosyncrasies, which had been abruptly user discovered in the first generation trials, were already the subject of much AAI research. The AAI engineers felt strongly that effective remedies were not only feasible but just a matter of a little more time and R&D money. This attitude was at length adopted by AWC.

In a move that coincided with the March, 1965 deployment of American troops into the combat zones of South Vietnam, AWC approved a re-orchestrated, 35-month, two-phase SPIW development plan under which AAI and Springfield were both to develop and fabricate ten complete second generation weapon systems. There was one difference: “Standard A” status for the successful second-generation SPIW was rescheduled for March of 1968, a postponement of almost three full years.

Another interesting difference in the new plan was that the Army had turned thumbs down on any further development of the bullpup concept, which Springfield had emulated in 1964, or even a rifle with a separate pistol grip like the early AAI models. From now on, all SPIWs submitted were to feature what AWC considered to be the increased pointability of conventional rifles, like the M14, or, to give it its due, the 1964 Winchester SPIW.

The busy program at AAI contrasted sharply with the mood at Springfield, where following the 1964 trials the Armory engineers had received virtually no feedback regarding their first generation design. Reasons for this brusque treatment were not long in surfacing: in a further reorganization disguised as cost cutting, Defense Secretary McNamara had already announced the termination of Springfield Armory as an official agency, to be effective by April of 1968.

Improvements in Flechette Cartridges The Fatter Springfield / Frankford XM216

Springfield in particular had experienced difficulty meeting the velocity requirement with their XM144 cartridge; in fact the unofficial word is that they never quite did. Be that as it may, both contenders redesigned their cartridge cases for more powder capacity before entering the second generation competition. Thus, Springfield’s XM144 was presently superseded by a completely new round, the somewhat fatter XM216. Both the XM144 and the XM216 were fitted with the “Primer, Miniature, FA T186E1.”

The AAI XM645, with One-Piece “Anvilless” Piston Primer

AAI’s XM110 had already left its dimples behind, to become the slightly longer XM645. Both new rounds were loaded with AAI’s still-standard flechette-and-sabot package for the upcoming second generation trials.

AAI had in the meantime also developed an ingenious one-piece piston primer to replace the more complex and prohibitively expensive first-generation multi-piece design. The AAI one-piece piston primer was yet another remarkable product of the SPIW program, in that it was designed to function without an anvil. In other primers, whether Boxer, Bloehm or Berdan, it is the action of crushing the priming compound against the anvil that causes ignition. No such anvil was present in the new one-piece AAI primer design.

Interestingly enough, no one was really sure just how the AAI anvilless primer worked. Some thought the priming pellet, which contained about three times more primer mix than usual, slid a bit when the piston was pushed in, thereby striking itself alight like a kitchen match. (As part of the manufacturing process the priming mix was very heavily compressed: a note on the drawing reads “Primer mix is to be compressed within a compaction pressure range of 129,000 psi to 172,000 psi. Piston-primer size must not be altered as a result of the compaction operation.”)

Others felt that the restricting front collar acted like an anvil. Still others pointed to the roughened, or finely threaded, internal sides of the primer cup itself, positing that the specially-compounded priming pellet set itself alight as contact here was abruptly broken by the firing pin blow.

In addition to remodeling their SPIW along more conventional lines, AAI was to set up a simulated mass-production assembly line to produce 130,000 rounds of its new improved XM645 piston-primed cartridge. Production contracts for AAI’s second generation cartridge case, and for new one-piece piston primers, were first let at this time to the Canadian government ammunition facility Dominion Arsenals in Quebec (initial headstamp DA 65).

The Last SPIW from Springfield Armory

The 1966 Springfield SPIW was exactly 40” long and was chambered for Frankford’s new, fatter XM216 cartridge. The 60-round point target ammunition capacity specification was still in effect, and due to the conventional nature of the new rifle the longish, front-and-rear double magazine of 1964 had been reconfigured. It was now made of clear Lexan plastic and, in a further burst of desperate ingenuity, featured two thirty-round stacks side-by-side. Springfield’s Preliminary Operating and Maintenance Manual (POMM 1005-251-12) for their 1966 SPIW described the functioning of this novel magazine as follows:

The left cartridge stack is depressed by the stack release mechanism when the magazine is seated in the magazine well, while the right stack remains elevated in the stripping position. When the last round is stripped from the right stack, its spring actuated follower raises the cartridge retainer actuator into the path of the operating rod. After the operating rod moves rearward after [the chambered] round is fired, it cams the actuator and retainer to [the] left side, releasing the left cartridge stack to stripping position.

All in all it appeared that, although the Armory SPIW team had taken the project to heart and made it a labor of love, the very tight timing and funding constraints of Secretary McNamara’s termination order were very evident in this second generation Springfield design.

The AAI Second Generation SPIW

AAI’s SPIW program had by far the longest pedigree of any of the four original contenders, due to that company having originated the flechette concept in the first place. The mood at AAI was therefore one of determination and conviction: while a number of features on Springfield’s second generation gun were brand new and born of desperation, AAI’s were mostly refinements of early ideas, which already had a comparatively lengthy firing record.

A parallel program of redesign had resulted in a very well-conceived new plastic-stocked AAI SPIW prototype, which soon emerged fully engineered for second-generation production. The drum magazine and action stroke were both slightly longer in AAI’s 1966 model SPIW, due to the extra 4mm in the length of the new XM645 cartridge case.

Results of the Second Generation SPIW Trials

A second generation engineering design test was conducted by the Infantry Board at Fort Benning from August 26 to October 31, 1966. These trials, or more accurately, comparative evaluations, were in a word disastrous.

The one supreme flaw in the SPIW program still, which AWC had steadfastly refused to face or even consider right from the outset, was the gulf separating the specifications from what was humanly possible to design and construct. The Board’s report on the 1966 comparative SPIW evaluations contained clear indications that this gulf had again proven too wide and deep to bridge.

A Frank Assessment by Colt’s Robert E. Roy

Meanwhile, AWC was trying to find a civilian firm willing to continue the development of the Springfield SPIW, which was to receive no further funding at the Armory regardless of the outcome of the second generation trials: that bastion was being adamantly wound down in response to Secretary McNamara’s termination order. A meeting was therefore set up at Fort Benning in October, while the 1966 evaluations were still in progress, to demonstrate the second generation SPIWs to representatives of a selected few companies who had expressed interest in taking the Springfield project over.

The real if inadvertent importance of this AWC demonstration was that it provided some highly qualified but uncommitted outsiders with their first real look at the SPIW in action. Among those attending was Mr. Robert E. Roy, then the Engineering Project Manager for Colt’s Inc. Colt’s had purchased the rights to the AR-15 from ArmaLite back in 1959, and had since shrewdly piloted the “little black rifle” all the way to quasi-adoption in the U.S. Armed Forces. With America’s massive buildup in Vietnam went more and more Colt-made M16 rifles: Colt’s had more at stake than virtually anyone should the SPIW be successful. They therefore took a very sharp and direct interest in these proceedings. A saboted flechette load in the regular 5.56mm case already existed, for example, as did experimental smoothbored M16s.

The Infantry Board was necessarily constrained to report its findings exclusively in terms of the requirements, but Colt’s was not so restricted: Mr. Roy wanted to know how the SPIWs looked and functioned in a real-world sense. The bottom line was, how long did Colt’s have until the SPIW put the M16 out of business. Mr. Roy’s confidential report to his superiors, excerpted as follows, soon calmed any fears on that score:

… It appears to me that the SPIW system is still far from fruition as an operational weapons system. The “all things to all people” approach that has been used in setting requirements for this weapon has resulted in many problems that appear almost insurmountable, since many of the requirements are at odds with each other.

… The normal tendency when [the flechette] strikes flesh or bone is for the shaft to bend slightly and then to tumble. It is this property that makes such a small, light projectile lethal. When the flechette tumbles, it has lethality comparable with the 7.62 NATO. The flechette does not always tumble, however, and if it does not tumble, it has very little stopping power and a person might hardly know he is shot…

In order to keep SPIW ammunition as light as possible, cartridge cases have been made to the minimum size possible. This makes it necessary to use relatively slow-burning powders in order to get the necessary energy for full velocity. The result is very high pressures at bullet exit. I would estimate bullet exit pressures are in the order of 25,000 psi.

The noise and flash produced by these weapons is far in excess of the M14 or M16 and at least the equal of our M16 Commando submachine gun without the noise-flash suppressor. I have fired the AAI weapon, and it is definitely uncomfortable to fire without ear plugs.

Present plans call for design finalization by early 1968 and initial production by 1969. After looking at the hardware available, witnessing the firing, and firing the weapon myself, I can’t see how this schedule can possibly be met. SPIW is still an R&D effort and will require at least one more complete redesign, and the solving of several basic problems before it can be seriously considered as a military weapon.

What Was the SPIW?

SPIW was to be a hand-held weapon holding sixty rounds of “point target” ammunition (deliverable in the form of controlled bursts of tiny, lethal darts or “flechettes”), plus three 40mm “area target” grenades in a piggyback launcher, all in a package weighing less than a loaded .30 caliber M1 rifle.

SPIW promised dramatic increases over the performance of the Army’s existing small arms, both in point-target hit and kill probability, plus devastating area-fire potential. Irresistibly, these fantastic advances in combat lethality touched a responsive chord in everyone.

In actual manufacture, however, the enthusiastic all-things-to-all-people SPIW specifications translated into extreme weapon complexity and high multiple-ammunition capacity within ultra-light weight. These characteristics were soon found to be mutually exclusive, yet were stubbornly insisted upon by the Army. Unfortunately, the SPIW never materialized as an actual, combat-ready weapons system, and the program was eventually abandoned as a very expensive and embarrassing flop.

A Fatal Blurring of the Line Between Fact and Fantasy

As the program progressed into the ‘Sixties despite its deep-rooted problems, there was an increasingly political need for SPIW to figure meaningfully against other weapons, such as the M14 and M16. In order that the SPIW might participate, in theory at least, against its vastly more fully-developed conventional rivals, first- and second-generation SPIW performance at its best was projected and extended, using computer models of actual combat scenarios. The results of these biased studies, which pitted the SPIW’s theoretical best against actual simulated-combat data from competing conventional weapons, showed the SPIW as being clearly superior to the best existing weapons in the world. The heavily slanted nature of these comparative standings led to the fatal temptation to confuse potentiality with reality.

Ed Ezell to the Rescue

While attending the U.S. Army Show in Washington in 1984, I remember mentioning my fascination with the SPIW to Dan Musgrave, a very knowledgeable and respected author with a prestigious military career behind him. Dan shook his head and remarked, “You will never find out anything about the SPIW. It was so embarrassing it has all been buried so deeply it will never be found.” However, thanks to the efforts of the late Edward C. Ezell, Ph.D., then the Curator of Military History at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, the story was indeed unearthed in voluminous detail, and became the subject of the Collector Grade title The SPIW – The Deadliest Weapon that Never Was, which was co-authored by myself and Dr. Ezell and published in 1985. The following copyrighted material is largely excerpted directly from this long-out-of-print book.

Origins of the SPIW Program

As described in Chapter One of The SPIW, the origins of the program go back to the early postwar period, during the dawn of the computer age.

The Hall Study

The Ballistic Research Laboratories (BRL) had been formed at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1938, with an ongoing mandate to conduct basic ballistic research for the Army. The official reason behind the ground-breaking BRL study into combat rifle effectiveness was to address the unsettling fact that, despite the Army’s doctrinal insistence on accurate, long-range aimed rifle fire, an estimated 50,000 rounds of ammunition had been expended per enemy casualty during World War II. The results of the study by Mr. Donald L. Hall were released in BRL Memorandum Report No. 593, dated March 1952, entitled An Effectiveness Study of the Infantry Rifle.

The Hall Study was the first real, authenticating publicity for the fledgling small caliber, high velocity (SCHV) concept, a new and cooperative research effort involving Aberdeen’s Development and Proof Services (D&PS) and the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). Mr. Hall blended the initial SCHV results with his own theoretical studies to produce history’s first serious espousal of the small caliber concept:

The theoretical consideration of a family of rifles indicates that smaller caliber rifles than the .30 have a greater single-shot kill probability than the cal. .30 M1. This is obtained by increasing the muzzle velocity and thereby obtaining a flatter trajectory, so that the adverse effect of range estimation errors is reduced.

When the combined weight of gun and ammunition is held constant at fifteen pounds, the overall expected number of kills for the cal. .21 rifle is approximately 21/2 times that of the present standard cal. .30 rifle. If the number of rounds is fixed at 96, the total load carried by a soldier with a cal. .21 rifle and ammunition with 6/10 the charge in the M2 cartridge will be 3.6 lbs. less than that carried by a soldier with a cal. .30 rifle. This is a 25% reduction in load.

Furthermore, if it were necessary for a soldier with the M1 to carry the rounds required for the same expected number of kills at 500 yards as a soldier with 15 lbs. of cal. .21 6/10 charge rifle and ammunition, it would be necessary for him to carry 10 lbs. more ammunition, or a total load of 25 lbs.

The Hitchman Report

In September, 1948 the Army General Staff created the civilian Operations Research Office (ORO), whose initial mandate was to supply the Army with scientific advice about the conduct of nuclear war.

The second important study under discussion here complemented but greatly expanded on the Hall Study. It was presented by the head of ORO’s Infantry Division, Norman A. Hitchman, on June 19, 1952. Originally classified SECRET, ORO’s Technical Memorandum ORO-T-160 was entitled Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon.

The Hitchman Report began where the Hall Study had left off, taking as its gospel that “it is desirable to increase in both number and rate the hits which may be inflicted on the enemy by aimed small arms in the hands of the infantry.” ORO summed up these opening remarks by stressing that the “severity of weapons as measured by their lethality has not changed, at least in the past century.”

There was stubborn Army opposition, especially among Ordnance officials, to this ORO attempt to quantify certain parameters as they truly existed, as opposed to how they had traditionally been perceived, regarding the infantry rifle and its effectiveness in combat.

Out of all the combined British and American research available, 80% of the effective rifle and LMG fire had been reported at ranges under 200 yards, with a full 90% under 300 yards. This substantiated the Hall Study, wherein hit probability from small arms fire at ranges exceeding 300 yards rapidly descended into the “negligible.”

Origins of Project SALVO

The Hitchman report’s suggested solution to low combat effectiveness was to compensate intentionally for the soldier’s inherent aiming errors by developing a new type of automatic arm capable of projecting missiles either in a burst or salvo:

…either a simultaneous [salvo], or a high cyclic rate burst, with the number of rounds per burst automatically set rather than dependent upon trigger release. In the (salvo), the scatter would be obtained and controlled by multiple barrels, a mother-daughter type of projectile, or projection of missiles in the manner of a shotgun.

The State of Affairs in the “Lightweight” Rifle Program

Consider the unfortunate state of affairs as they then existed in Col. Studler’s vaunted “lightweight” rifle program, wherein his original favorite, the T25, had evolved briefly into the T47 only to be ignominiously terminated in favor of what was basically nothing more than a “product-improved” M1 Garand. This arm, the selective-fire, 20-shot T44, had been in its initial stages of development at Springfield Armory when the Hall Study and the Hitchman Report were released in 1952. The controversial ORO/BRL results stood in direct opposition to nearly every single feature the Army had approved in the T44.

Nevertheless, the luckless M14 rifle, the final embodiment of the T44, was to be adamantly adopted as the standard U.S. service rifle in May, 1957 after five more years of snail’s-paced refinement. During this time the privately-developed .223-caliber ArmaLite AR-15 had appeared; a direct result of ORO/BRL research and the resulting SALVO studies. Ultimately, it was to render both the M14 and the 7.62mm NATO cartridge obsolete.

The Three Branches of Project SALVO

Meanwhile, the multi-agency SALVO project was initiated in November, 1952, and immediately diverged into the three main areas of experimentation already introduced above.

The Multiple-Bullet, Single-Barrel Concept

ORO became a strong proponent of the nested multiple-bullet, single-barrel salvo weapon concept, testing Duplex and Triplex loadings in a number of experimental cartridges, all based on the standard .30 caliber case.

A version of the ORO Duplex loading of the 7.62mm NATO cartridge was subsequently adopted – ORO later termed the green-tipped M198 Duplex round, with considerable justification, a “low-cost, low-risk, high-payoff innovation.” Curiously, the M198 cartridge was never made in significant numbers, nor was it ever issued in any but token quantities.

Two- and Three-Barrel SALVO Weapons

Springfield Armory and Olin (Winchester) drew up plans for several complex and unwieldy prototypes of two- and three-barreled salvo weapons, designed to fire near-simultaneous bursts of small caliber projectiles. Valuable research into the nature of burst fire was gleaned from each of these studies, but as a design for a combat shoulder rifle, the sheer and dismaying forward imbalance of their weighty multiple barrels proved utterly impracticable.

The AAI 32-Flechette Shotshell

On another tack, the Office of Naval Research had initiated a contract in 1952 with Aircraft Armaments, Inc., of Cockeysville, Maryland, to supply for test a quantity of 12-gauge shotgun shells, each loaded with 32 small nested steel “flechettes,” or arrows. Impressive preliminary tests showed that these tiny, 8-grain flechettes were capable of penetrating nearly six inches of wood at 100 yards.

Results of the Project SALVO Field Experiments

1956 was an eventful year for U.S. Army Ordnance developments. The ArmaLite AR-10 rifle had been introduced to the Infantry Board and other officers, and many thought it an admirable attempt to create a truly modern and controllable light rifle firing the 7.62mm NATO cartridge. The latest developmental model of the T44, the nine-pound T44E4, was meanwhile still nearly a full year away from adoption as the M14.

This then was the backdrop for what became known as the “SALVO I Field Experiment.” Within this framework of innovative combat simulation, three different SALVO concepts were tested during June and July of 1956, alongside the M1 rifle firing the standard M2 AP cartridge as control.

General conclusions made after the trial were that typical combat aiming errors were in fact even greater than had previously been allowed for. Automatic fire was again proven inferior to aimed single shots on point-fire targets.

The results were somewhat disappointing for Aberdeen’s SCHV concept, as the .22 test barrels tended to “walk” badly when heated by rapid burst fire, rendering the weapons extremely inaccurate and thus denying BRL’s high theoretical hit probability forecasts any conclusive, practical proof.

Regarding ORO’s “long-necked” Duplex and Triplex .30 M2 loadings, the results were extremely encouraging and substantiated the Hitchman Report’s findings that bullets fired in a simultaneous salvo are independently potentially lethal, and therefore for each shot fired a sum of lethal probabilities existed, which increased the statistical kill probability dramatically over that of single-bullet firings.

Meanwhile, the shotgun-launched clusters of flechettes were found to have a distinctive value in the short-range area-fire role, especially in darkness. In a dispersion trial, however, only fifty-two percent impacted into a 30-inch circle at 40 yards. Nevertheless, even when launched in a cluster from the relatively low-pressure shotshell, the .087-inch diameter flechettes would often pass cleanly through one side of an M1 helmet and liner at 300 yards, and would sometimes even make a hole in both at 500 yards.

The Evolution of the Serial Flechette

To the SALVO teams, there was now no question as to the effectiveness of multiple projectiles being delivered with each trigger pull. As noted, ORO had devised the Duplex bullet in the 7.62mm NATO case as the most expedient method of adopting this controlled dispersion theory. Soon, however, ORO switched allegiance to even more exciting and dramatic advances in hit probability, by marrying BRL’s concept of high velocity and consequent flat trajectory to the almost imperceptibly low recoil impulse of a lightweight, single flechette. ORO recommended that by following this path, a controlled-dispersion burst weapon could become a reality for every American combat soldier. This new weapon would be devastatingly lethal, regardless of his individual marksmanship abilities.

Sabot Refinements – from “Pusher” to “Puller”

Irwin R. Barr, one of the seven founders in 1950 of Aircraft Armaments, Inc. (AAI), was by all accounts the “father” and leading proponent of the flechette concept. He had already seen his ideas become reality in the U.S. Naval Research contract for the 32-flechette shotshell, but felt that the concept had even more to offer:

…The large dispersion of these [shotshell] projectiles and the resulting short range limitations… caused us to feel that another radically opposite approach was required to achieve the high ‘Salvo’ hit capability of a rifle at long ranges by using a short burst of serial-fired flechettes.

For several years AAI experimented with the single flechette idea without any outside assistance or funding, gambling on the eventual recognition of the flechette’s innate advantages of minimal recoil, high penetrating power, and light weight.

Two initial considerations when firing single flechettes were to guide the reduced diameter of the body of the arrow-like flechette on its short and speedy trip to the muzzle, and also to provide an adequate gas seal around it. Enter the sabot: a sort of segmented, bore-sized plug which would either sit behind the flechette and push it, or grip the body of the flechette firmly and pull it down the bore:

…All previous work by AAI on single projectiles utilized a pusher type of sabot. However, this configuration would make a cartridge too long to be satisfactory, as the propellant had to be packed behind the long, thin, needle projectile and sabot.

…The basic [AAI] idea… required a new concept. The projectile must be pulled by the sabot, which would surround the forward part of the projectile… using the gas that propels the round to push inward on the sabot of constrictable material and so generating a friction force to transmit the pull of the sabot to the projectile…

The AAI “.22 Arrow” Cartridge, with Piston Primer

Aircraft Armaments, Inc. responded to two further Ordnance R&D contracts in 1959 with a finalized first version of its “.22 caliber, Single Flechette Ammunition.” An interesting and integral feature of the slim, belted cartridge case was its unique piston primer.

In assembly, the piston primer was inserted down through the neck of the case and held securely against forward movement by means of a crimp, which showed as four distinctive dimples in the outside circumference of the case. It was intentionally positioned slightly forward inside the primer pocket, and was designed to be fired by a blow from the weapon’s flat-faced firing pin. This would collapse the whole piston forward, whereupon the internal, frontal point of the piston itself detonated the priming compound, thus igniting the powder charge. The resulting pressure inside the case not only pushed the saboted flechette down the bore, but at a certain point forced the collapsed piston backward a short distance, cushioned by the flat-faced firing pin. When the piston protruded about two millimeters (0.80”) beyond the base of the case, primer movement was halted by the flared front section of the primer body contacting the inner base of the cartridge case. The heavy-bodied firing pin continued to the rear, transmitting the energy needed through a camming action to rotate and unlock the bolt and thus begin the action cycle of the weapon.

The .22 Versus the .30 Caliber Debate: Testing Three .22 Rifles

All of this of course did not go on in a vacuum; indeed the events which by this time surrounded our story were so remarkably fraught with acrimony that probably even without the flechette program’s strictly “SECRET” classification, it would have generated little interest. By the beginning of 1959, the .22 versus the .30 caliber debate had reached a positively feverish pitch. Both the Army Infantry Board and Aberdeen’s Development & Proof Services (D&PS) had the year before held comparative trials of three contending small caliber rifles: the .223 cal. ArmaLite AR-15; Winchester’s short-lived M1 Carbine-like “Light Weight Military Rifle” in caliber .224; and an even shorter-lived Springfield light rifle design, chambered for another similarly named but non-interchangeable .224 cartridge.

The Infantry Board Favors the AR-15

The Infantry Board was initially quite enthusiastic about the AR-15, recommending in its September, 1958 report that a few deficiencies be corrected and that the modified AR-15 be summarily adopted as their ideal follow-on to the aging M1 Garand. Aberdeen, an Ordnance Corps agency, demurred. There, the small calibers were deemed inferior to the 7.62mm with regard to penetration and brush-bucking, while the AR-15’s high line of sight was seen as objectionable in that it exposed too much of the firer’s position.

These developments themselves took place in waters already muddied by the Ordnance Corps’ beleaguered M14 procurement program, which by this time was under way at Springfield Armory with an initial order for over fifteen thousand rifles.

Vetoing Further Purchases of the AR-15

In February, 1959, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Maxwell Taylor, vetoed any further purchases of the AR-15 in favor of continued procurement of the 7.62 NATO-caliber M14. By February 17th, the first civilian M14 procurement contract was in place at the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation’s Winchester-Western Division, where 35,000 M14 rifles were to be fabricated at $69.75 apiece.

Colt’s Takes Over the ArmaLite AR-15

As stated in The Black Rifle, another Collector Grade title co-authored by myself and Dr. Ezell,

…An initial, 20-year “letter of understanding” was put on paper as early as September 22, 1958 regarding “the ArmaLite matter,” but it was some months before any actual money could be put together.

…Ironically, the final signing of the arrangement between Colt’s new directors and the newly-formed Fairchild-Stratos Corporation coincided almost to the day with General Taylor’s formal veto of further .22 caliber rifle purchases by the Army.

The All-Purpose Hand-Held Weapon (APHHW)

Returning to the text of The SPIW, one other Ordnance recommendation had been enthusiastically endorsed by General Taylor, which paved the way for the development of a completely new light, flat-shooting weapon that would truly qualify as the successor to the M14. It would fire patterned bursts of the ten-grain flechettes developed by Aircraft Armaments, Inc., and would be called the All-Purpose Hand-Held Weapon (APHHW).

The Infantry Board Tests the “Cartridge, .22 Caliber, Arrow”

With the M14 finally locked securely into a production program and the ArmaLite proponents temporarily stunned into disarray by General Taylor’s adamant veto of the AR-15, the spotlight slowly swung onto the flechette cartridge and the concept of the All-Purpose Hand-Held Weapon.

With the future at stake, the AAI engineers held their breath as lots of the single flechette cartridge they now dubbed the “AAI Arrow” were examined and fired in a crucial 1960 Army Infantry Board trial. The Infantry Board trial report, dated March 18, 1960, contained a list of perceived deficiencies of the flechette cartridge, which included the following:

• cartridge case lacks rigidity and hardness;
• accuracy in semiautomatic fire is not satisfactory;
• weapon appears to lose accuracy as it heats;
• danger zone for sabot particles is excessive;
• muzzle flash is excessive.

Nevertheless, the report’s overall conclusions were very encouraging. The United States Army Infantry Board concludes that:

• The single flechette has sufficient military value under temperate weather conditions to warrant further development.
• The single flechette has more potential than… 7.62mm NATO ammunition for meeting the proposed direct fire ammunition requirements of the All-Purpose Hand-Held Weapon.

The “Cartridge, 5.6mm, XM110” in Arctic Trials

By May, 1960, the first-generation AAI flechette cartridge’s short-lived proprietary designation had been superseded: the “Arrow” was now officially the “Cartridge, 5.6mm, XM110.”

Results of trials of several cartridges under Arctic conditions, including 1,000 rounds of the newly-named XM110 single-flechette round along with several lots of 7.62mm M59 and M80 ball and the Winchester .224, appeared in a report prepared by the Arctic Test Board, dated May 7, 1960.

Again, the single-round accuracy of the XM110 flechette cartridge was criticized, even though the stated purpose of the APHHW program was to provide the combat soldier with the means to fire controlled bursts, intentionally spread around the point of aim. A perfected weapon capable of firing bursts of flechettes did not yet exist, however, and so there was little the Army could do except continue to record the results of single-round firings, which were often inexplicably erratic.

However, the overall consensus was again favorable with the Army being particularly excited about the XM110 flechette cartridge. Two salient paragraphs from the Accuracy Test Results section of the Fort Greely report read as follows:

…Due to the flat trajectory of the single flechette, it was unnecessary to make elevation adjustments on the sight when firing at 300 and 500 yards.

…Three rounds of single flechette were fired into eight inches of solid ice at 500 yards range. All flechettes perforated the target.

Overall, the promised APHHW was deemed definitely worthy of further development.

Competition for AAI

A parallel Defense Department flechette weapon-and-ammunition development program was set up, under which Springfield Armory was tasked to come up with an alternative proposal for a flechette-firing weapon, and Frankford Arsenal was ordered to develop the best possible competitor to the piston-primed XM110 cartridge.

One important area of commonality was stipulated from the outset: AAI’s flechettes and rubber-obdurated, fiberglass “puller” sabots were deemed satisfactory, and were to be loaded as an AAI-supplied “package” into both the XM110 cartridge and the new Frankford/Springfield round.

Thus there soon existed a new, shorter, conventionally-primed version of the single flechette cartridge, called the XM144. Design studies for two types of flechette-firing shoulder rifles were begun at Springfield.

Note: There is a significant amount of documentation, manuals, reports and photos regarding the SPIW program on www.smallarmsoftheworld.com website.

The Jarrett Legacy

Until I was fortunate enough to be loaned the material which forms the bulk of the preceding parts of this series, I was unaware of the actual details of Colonel Jarrett’s life and eventful career, and the main reason I wanted to write about him was in order to speak of the legacy he left in those arms experts and writers who got their start by working with and for him at the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen.

In Part I, I mentioned that when I first became interested in guns and gun lore in the 1950s, an early edition of Small Arms of the World was “just about the height of specialization in the field of arms literature.” Thinking back I realize that this was not entirely true, for I vividly recall the impression made on me when I first became aware of the existence of “vertical” gun books, and marvelling that an entire book could be devoted to the history of a single firearm!

The first of this audacious new breed to come my way were The Book of the Garand by retired U.S. Army Major General Julian S. Hatcher, first published in 1948, and Fred A. Datig’s original 1955 edition of The Luger Pistol.

As we have read in Part II, Hatcher, while still a colonel, had recognized the value of Jarrett’s accumulated knowledge and expertise, and had specifically selected him to join the staff of the Ordnance School at Aberdeen in the summer of 1939. As we shall see below, Fred Datig was later one of Col. Jarrett’s staffers at the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum.

Others in the wide Jarrett circle, including some who emerged from under his wing at the Museum, make up a veritable Who’s Who of arms experts and writers who went on to produce many of the most influential arms books written in English over the last fifty years. These men, most of whom are no longer with us, are recalled in alphabetical order as follows:

Donald B. Bady

Donald Bady was the editor of the four-volume Handbook of Small Arms, prepared while working for Col. Jarrett at the D&PS, Library & Museum Division, Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1954.

While in this post he also catalogued the collection of Col. Jarrett’s “Foreign Materiel Museum” – no mean feat considering the size and complexity of the collection. Harold Johnson recalls that when the Museum was closed the contents were meticulously catalogued, by Bady, Val Forgett and Charles Yust, mentioned below, and an Index of all the exhibits was prepared, and then hidden away from the eyes of those who may have been inclined to “cherry pick” the collection.

Donald Bady is the author of Colt Automatic Pistols 1896 – 1955, first published in 1956.

Fred A. Datig

Fred Datig is the author of The Luger Pistol, one of the very first “vertical” gun books, first published in 1955, which is still a respected reference source on these famous pistols.

An inveterate cartridge collector, Datig then wrote a series of cartridge identification books titled Cartridges for Collectors. The series began with Volume I (Centerfire), published in 1956; then Volume II (Centerfire – Rimfire – Patent Ignition), published in 1958; Volume III (Centerfire – Rimfire – Plastic), published in 1967; and Volume IV, (a supplement on Centerfire – Rimfire – Patent Ignition) published in 1983.

Later, his “magnum opus” – a grand new series of books on Russian small arms to be titled The History and Development of Imperial and Soviet Russian Military Small Arms and Ammunition, 1700 – 1986, projected to run to a total of eighteen volumes, was for various reasons cut short with the publication in 1988 of a single thin book – Volume Sixteen – titled Soviet Russian Postwar Military Pistols and Cartridges, 1945 – 1986.

While working at the Ordnance Museum, Datig was apparently the only person on Jarrett’s staff to evince an interest in Russian small arms. This period is recalled by Mr. Datig in the Foreword to his Volume Sixteen on Russian small arms as follows:

…The year was 1949, early autumn; the place was Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland [where] Colonel George Burling Jarrett, Chief, Library and Museum Division, Development and Proof Services… had the long-established reputation of being the foremost authority on the subject [and] may be considered, without question, the founder of modern U.S. Foreign Ordnance Technical Intelligence.

…in 1949, Aberdeen Proving Ground was undoubtedly the world’s largest storage center for military ordnance, both foreign and domestic, being equipped with the multitude of small arms which had seen service in every country involved in the Second World War. The prize collection was that of German weapons, an almost complete assortment. Consequently, and due to the superb design and workmanship of this group, the majority of the Museum’s staff displayed little interest in the small arms of any other nationality. But there was one exception; your chronicler! One day Colonel Jarrett approached us and asked, “Datig, don’t you like German small arms?” We replied something to the effect that yes, of course we did, BUT it just so happened that we chose to take an interest in items which did not seem to appeal to the majority: Russian and Soviet firearms. Having then been asked if our interest was serious and having replied in the affirmative, Jarrett followed with a rather surprising proposal: if we promised to carry forth this study to a relative conclusion, we should pay a private visit to the Colonel’s nearby estate at which time every item of Imperial and Soviet Russian origin or pertinence to be found in Jarrett’s personal private files would be presented to us as a gift! While no firearms or other hardware were involved, the documentation which we received was, and in many cases still is, irreplaceable. The single and most important item, at least to us, was a German ordnance technical intelligence manual marked “Only for Service Use”, which was to be the cornerstone for all our future research… it was entitled Taschenbuch Russisches Heer (Pocket Book of the Russian Army), dated January, 1942, and revealed what little the Germans knew of Soviet armaments as of that date (which was not very much)…

Robert W. Faris

Bob Faris, a dedicated and long-serving Ordnanceman, has himself been the subject of two Small Arms Review interviews (Vol. 11, No. 4, January, 2008 and Vol. 11, No. 5, February, 2008). In addition, an entire chapter on Bob, titled “Reflections of an Ordnanceman”, appears in Dolf Goldsmith’s Collector Grade title The Browning Machine Gun, Volume III: Supporting the Rifle Caliber Brownings (2008).

Born in 1930 and an ordnance veteran of the Korean War, Bob worked for many years as a civilian Test Director in the Development and Proof Services (D&PS) section at Aberdeen Proving Ground, testing weapons, ammunition, accessories and fire controls alongside such men as Bill Brophy and Larry Moore, who was for many years the head of the shoulder weapon section.

On his first meeting with Col. Jarrett, Bob told him that one of his most vivid memories was as a young boy of ten, when during his summer holidays in Atlantic City he discovered Jarrett’s Steel Pier Museum of World War History, and spent all his allowance visiting and revisiting this awesome repository.

In his second SAR interview Bob recalls that he introduced Tom Nelson, who had then just got out of the Army, to Dick Winter of Interarms, “and later he came back down and got a job with them.”

Bob also got to know Don Bady and Val Forgett, both of whom worked for Col. Jarrett at the Museum. Regarding how he began his long acquaintance with Val Forgett, Bob recalls, “… Col. Jarrett called me up one day. He said, `I got an Army G.I. over here, just new, just come in, and he’s assigned to help me out. He’s a real gun nut. Come on over and meet him.’”

Summing up on a serious note, Bob recalls that despite all his expertise and knowledge, Jarrett had no real authority to make decisions concerning ordnance developments, and he was called on the carpet several times with the admonition, “That’s not your job!” Jarrett would respond, “Well, somebody has to do it.” Nevertheless he did influence decisions, in a general way, and the Ordnance Corps was the better for it.

Valmore J. Forgett

Later the founder and president of Navy Arms Company, Inc. and Service Armament Co. of Ridgefield, N.J., Val Forgett worked with Donald Bady at the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum.

Lt. Col. William L. Howard, the compiler of the informal book titled Technological Support of the Air-Land Battle, includes a letter dated February 16, 1983 addressed to himself from Val Forgett, president of Navy Arms Company Inc., excerpted as follows:

… First of all, I was a lowly draftee at Aberdeen, attached to the 19301 special troops. This was a unit made up of draftees who had, at least, four years of college, and many of the people in our unit had their Masters’ and Doctors’ degrees. It’s tough being a private with a Doctor’s degree and having your C.O. with a tenth grade education… Another gentleman, by the name of Donald Bady, the author of Colt Automatic Pistols, and others were attached to this unit and worked with Col. Jarrett in the Museum.

… We did extensive work at the H. P. White Lab, and I spent two weeks in Washington on TDY with the FBI’s Firearms Section. While working under Col. Jarrett, Don Bady and I developed a form of Dewey Decimal System for the classification of firearms, and put together a group of manuals for military attachés so they had some idea of what foreign weapons were known to us. Also, as a separate project, I did a manual on the interchangeability of foreign ammunition – i.e. Italian 7.7 ammunition would function in a .303 Bren gun. When I got out of the Army, Tom Nelson took over my position at Aberdeen…

Col. Jarrett… was not only my Commanding Officer, but a close, personal friend for many years… there are many anecdotes I can tell you about his founding of Ordnance Technical Intelligence… There is an excellent article… called “The Junkman Who Stopped Rommel” [extensively excerpted in Part II of this series].

Harold E. Johnson

Mr. Johnson is an Infantry Weapons Analyst for the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center [FSTC]. A member of the Handguns, Machine Guns, and Shoulder Weapons sections of the A.O.A.’s Small Arms & Small Arms Ammunition Division, he also is on the Firearms Advisory Panel of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and frequently acts as a consultant to other government agencies on matters pertaining to small arms.

Hal Johnson, who had been a warrant officer and an armor expert in the Marine Corps, succeeded Joseph E. Smith as Chief of the Small Arms Division within the Ordnance Technical Intelligence Agency in 1975.

Daniel D. Musgrave

Dan Musgrave was a retired Army officer who as a young lieutenant had participated in the 1944 Normandy invasion. He also came on board at the Museum under Col. Jarrett while Tom Nelson was still working there, and the two men became fast friends.

Musgrave later worked for the Foreign Science & Technology Center (FSTC, established in 1962) with George Chinn for some time, and actually wrote much of what became Chinn’s The Machine Gun.

A published author in his own right, Dan Musgrave also collaborated with Tom Nelson on several highly successful book projects.

Thomas B. Nelson

Lt. Col. William L. Howard, the compiler of the informal book titled Technological Support of the Air-Land Battle, includes the following short biography of Tom Nelson:

Born in New York City and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Thomas B. Nelson early developed a lively and avid interest in all types of small arms, but particularly the many and varied types of automatic weapons. During his studies at the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio, and the University of Cincinnati, he started laying the groundwork for his book. After college, Mr. Nelson made an extensive tour of Europe and Scandinavia, collecting data and information from most of the larger arms firms within these areas. Immediately upon his return to the United States, he was called to duty by the U.S. Army. After basic training, he served under Col. G. B. Jarrett in the Foreign Materiel Section of the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground. At Aberdeen, too, he attended the Army Ordnance Intelligence School. He was subsequently stationed at Arlington Hall Station, in Arlington, Virginia, there to perform comprehensive work in the small arms section of the Ordnance Technical Intelligence headquarters during the remainder of his tour of duty in the service. In 1961, after military service, he entered the private sector… He continues to be an avid student of military history and ordnance hardware.

Tom Nelson Recalls His Debt to Col. Jarrett

In his own words from one of the several phone interviews I conducted with Tom Nelson, he recalled that after leaving college in 1958 he travelled all over Europe gathering material for his book, to be called Submachine Guns of the World. After this “grand tour”, he enlisted in Army.

After basic training, Tom was sent to Aberdeen Proving Ground, with no apparent assignment. It was here that he met Col. Jarrett, who after closely questioning Tom on his knowledge of, and interest in, military firearms, took him on as his aide. Tom recalls that his first assignment was to clean a long row of LMGs, which were stored on the upper balcony of the Museum building.

Shortly after assuming his duties in the Museum Tom was introduced to another newcomer, Dan Musgrave, who took over the first desk in the office.

At that time the U.S. Army Ordnance Technical Intelligence School was usually reserved for officers and senior NCOs, but Tom Nelson wangled an interview and, thanks to his accumulated knowledge and expertise, he was allowed to attend the school, whence he graduated 1st in his class.

In 1959, Nelson was given a letter from Col. Jarrett as an introduction to Joseph E. Smith, the civilian Chief of the Ordnance Technical Intelligence Agency (Conventional Weapon Division), later designated the Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC), then headquartered at Arlington Hall Station in Arlington, Virginia. On the strength of Col. Jarrett’s glowing letter of recommendation, Tom was taken on and served as Joe Smith’s aide from 1959 to the end of 1960, during which time he helped write the revised edition of Smith’s Small Arms of the World.

From December, 1960 to April, 1970, Tom traveled all over the world working for Sam Cummings, president of Interarmco. Still later he founded several companies of his own, including Ironside International Publishers Inc.

Tom recalls that in 1976, while he was in Tokyo, word came that Joe Smith had died at the young age of 54, and was succeeded by Hal Johnston as Chief of the Ordnance Technical Intelligence Agency. The remembrance he wrote for Joe Smith appears below.

As for his debt to Col. Jarrett, Tom sums up that today he has no idea what direction his life would have taken without Jarrett’s influence and example. His time at the Aberdeen Museum as Jarrett’s protegé, and the letter Jarrett wrote that introduced him to Joe Smith and the world of Ordnance Technical Intelligence, changed his life.

Col. Jarrett Praises The World’s Submachine Guns, Volume I

The book that put Tom Nelson on the map, The World’s Submachine Guns, was published in 1963. It featured a Foreword written in typically authoritative style by Tom’s old mentor, retired Ordnance Col. G. B. Jarrett, Director of the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is excerpted as follows:

This book deals with a weapon whose entire history goes back less than half a century, for the submachine gun was born in the trench warfare of World War I… This study gathers together, for the first time, pertinent data and illustrations of all significant submachine guns manufactured to date. In addition to serving as an excellent reference for the collector and a guide for the designer, it provides an invaluable information source for law-enforcement and intelligence personnel…

The author is highly qualified in his field, and his treatment of the subject is noteworthy for its clarity and comprehensive coverage. He shows a rare insight into the need or reason why any piece was developed and is especially knowledgeable as to what extent a piece may or may not be a worthwhile weapon from the user’s standpoint…

Ludwig Olson

A concise biography of Ludwig “Lud” Olson, taken from the back of the dust jacket of the third edition of Mr. Olson’s classic book Mauser Bolt Rifles, first published in 1976, reads as follows:

Ludwig Olson is presently serving as the Technical Editor of The American Rifleman, and is without question the most eminently qualified man living to undertake, and so magnificently accomplish, the task of writing Mauser Bolt Rifles… Joining the U.S. Army in 1935, Olson served with the Coast Artillery Anti-Aircraft. as an armorer in Ordnance, at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in charge of the Foreign Document Section at the Development & Proof Services… with the Ordnance Foreign Materiel Museum, as an instructor on Ordnance Technical Intelligence, on the staff of the Armored School at Fort Knox, as one of the writers of the book Rifles used by The Ordnance School at Aberdeen Proving Ground and at other widely varied ordnance and related assignments in Europe and the Far East. Upon retirement in 1956 after a 20-year career with the Regular Army, Lud joined the Technical Staff of The American Rifleman where his concise and authoritative articles on a wide range of firearms subjects… have earned him a worldwide following…

Philip B. Sharpe

Phil Sharpe was a well-known arms expert and writer with long experience with both military and commercial small arms. He was the author of the classic book The Rifle in America as well as numerous articles and opinions which appeared in many journals and periodicals during the years between the wars.

During WWII Sharpe worked for U.S. Ordnance Technical Intelligence, where under Col. Jarrett he collaborated on the writing of Technical Intelligence Bulletins.

Joseph E. Smith

Joe Smith was the civilian Chief of the Ordnance Technical Intelligence Agency, Conventional Weapons Division, originally located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, then moved to Arlington Hall Station in Arlington, VA, where Tom Nelson recalls joining the Agency, and finally to a new headquarters in Charlottesville, VA.

Tom Nelson wrote a lengthy appreciation and obituary for Joe Smith after his untimely death in 1976 at the age of only 54, which was included in Lt. Col. Howard’s informal book Technological Support of the Air-Land Battle. This is excerpted as follows:

Rage Killed Joe!

Fortunate, indeed, is the man who is able to pursue his hobby through his vocation and his interests through his career. Such a man was Joseph E. Smith, my friend and mentor of 20 years, who in March, 1976, regrettably died of heart failure at the age of 54.

Joe Smith was internationally known and respected by ordnance buffs and experts as the revisor and later co-author of Small Arms of the World, that technical classic considered by many to be the “Bible” in its field…

Always an avid student of history, he eventually concentrated on his particular specialty, conventional ordnance. He became an international authority on the subject, and at the time of his death was Chief of the Weapons Systems Division (Conventional Weapons Section) of the Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC…

After distinguished service in the Army during World War II, he finished his education, graduating from Syracuse University, and in 1952 was employed by the U.S. Army Ordnance Technical Intelligence Agency (later, in the 1960s, designated FSTC). During the succeeding years his obvious expertise and dedication propelled him upward in his career. These same two qualities were the reasons for his frustration and, indirectly, his death…

In the U.S. bureaucracy it appears that no one is in charge. In fact, so many are in charge that it is difficult to get anything accomplished. The plethora of development groups is caused by our ever-expanding bureaucracy. An example is the Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command, DARCOM – (formerly the Army Materiel Command), and Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), both of which operate with no consistent voice and the end result is that development programs are widely fragmented, and in some cases hemmorrhage from within, to such a degree that no meaningful projects are finalized. Since these groups have no single authority, development is unnecessarily delayed, duplication of effort is omni-present, and R&D is frequently pushed forward in isolation from the ultimate user – the man in the field…

W. H. B. Smith

As I mentioned right off the bat in Part I of this series, the most famous gun book of all, for me at least, is Small Arms of the World, originally written by W. H. B. Smith. This classic remained in print for decades in numerous editions, with the writing and editing duties passing on first to a collaboration between W. H. B. Smith and Joseph E. Smith, who were not related; and then to Joe Smith alone and then to my own personal mentor, Edward C. Ezell.

W.H.B. Smith’s precursor to Small Arms of the World, titled Basic Manual of Military Small Arms, first appeared in 1943. The Foreword to the First Edition, heavily stressing the value of Ordnance Intelligence to America’s fighting men in time of war, was written by Col. Jarrett. It is excerpted as follows:

This book is a military classic. It is of real value to every man who uses military arms.

The coverage of the basic United States weapons will help any service man achieve a quick and comprehensive understanding of his weapons. The sections on foreign arms will also help to develop a “weapons sense” in the reader; prepare him to grasp opportunities on the field of battle; and serve to increase his confidence in the superlative arms with which he is equipped.

…The photographs were specifically prepared from the actual weapons themselves to teach step-by-step all the essentials. The original working drawings are simple and clear…

There are no military secrets in this book: everything in it is known to our enemies, who have captured and are using specimens of all our arms. But there is a tremendous wealth of valuable military information in it for every American who cares to arm himself with a knowledge of a subject on which our national security rests, and on which it will rest for a long time after the present war ends.

The author is perhaps the one person in the United States with the necessary combined knowledge of firearms, writing and editing to bring this remarkable book into being…

G. B. Jarrett
Lt. Col. O. D., Army of U.S.
Chief, Foreign Materiel Section
Aberdeen Proving Ground.

An obituary for W.H.B. Smith, a famous yet reclusive man, which appears without attribution in Col. Howard’s book, is excerpted as follows:

Walter Harold Bingham-Black Smith died on 5 April, 1959… [He] gave us some pioneering gun books. He started many of us on a quest for more knowledge about firearms. But he remained a private person in the process. Perhaps in a publicity-seeking age when many authors want media exposure to enhance the sale of their books, Smith was a unique individual. He let his books sell themselves. Considering the popularity of his writings, his policy appears to have been a wise one…

Charles E. Yust, Jr.

Charlie Yust, a dedicated arms enthusiast and an advanced cartridge collector, worked for some time with H. P. White and Burton Munhall on the staff of the famous H.P. White Ordnance Co. He later purchased H. P. White’s cartridge collection.

During WWII he joined the Army, and because of his expertise he was transferred to the Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where his duties included sectioning cartridges, etc. His first tour ended in the 1950s.

He returned to the Aberdeen Museum around 1967, and worked for Col. Jarrett and his successor, Karl Kempf, until his retirement in the 1980s.

While he was the editor of the Gun & Cartridge Record, Yust wrote a fine tribute to Col. Jarrett which appeared in the “Who’s Who” column in the July, 1958 issue of that magazine:

When a man, for one reason or another, chooses a field of interest to follow, and as time eventually proves, has devoted the greater part of his life… to this interest, he must be very sincere and devoted to it. As the years go by he may develop a severe honesty in the way he conducts his efforts and in expressing his views on this subject.

In the field of research associated with historical matters, this quality is of inestimable value, as well as one of great rareness. Anyone possessing such a quality certainly is entitled to any and all recognition and honors which may be extended. This is as it should be, but unfortunately, [the bestowal of such recognition and honor] does not always come to pass…

Finale: George Burling Jarrett, 1901 – 1974

An unattributed thumbnail sketch in LTC Howard’s book of the massive railroad gun the Germans called Leopold and the Americans dubbed “Anzio Annie” is excerpted as follows:

The Leopold Railway Cannon

It is hard to imagine that the Germans could conceal a weapon capable of firing a 550-pound shell. The German Leopold Gun was the largest weapon which lobbed shells at American troops at “Anzio Beach.” An aura of mystery surrounded the employment of the gun. To the bewilderment of Allied officials who knew the approximate location of Leopold, the gun could not be silenced. Repeated bomber and naval attacks failed.

It wasn’t until the Allies broke out of the “Anzio Beachhead” and sent the Germans scurrying that the secret was revealed. The Leopold, supported by 24 railcar wheels, was mounted on railroad tracks which led in and out of mountain tunnels. When not firing, the gun was rolled back into the tunnels out of sight of Allied reconnaissance. Because bombs had destroyed Italian rail systems, the Germans were forced to leave the Leopold and its twin gun “Robert” behind. Although both guns had been extensively damaged, Allied forces were able to salvage the Leopold and after reconstruction of the railway, moved the gun to Naples for shipment to the United States

“Anzio Annie” as the gun was known to the Allied troops at Anzio, is the only German railroad gun known to have survived WWII.

LTC Howard comments on this, as follows: Once again, our failure to have an adequate intelligence service and the lack of Technical Intelligence effort would result in Technological Surprise and the loss of life at Anzio Beach until the Secret of the Railway Gun was revealed. The design of this German gun influenced the design of the [U.S. 280mm] Atomic Cannon, [a long range gun capable of firing both conventional and atomic munitions, introduced in the Army inventory in the early 1950s].

(About the Author: R. Blake Stevens is the founder and president of Collector Grade Publications, Inc., which he established in 1979. To date the firm has produced 50 “vertical” titles on important modern small arms, of which 38 currently remain in print.)

(Acknowledgements: The author acknowledges with gratitude the kind assistance of the following, who have provided the information and documentation from which the foregoing articles have been extrapolated: James Alley, Jr., Ph.D., Elliot Deutsch, Chairman, Aberdeen Military Museum Foundation, Inc., Robert W. (Bob) Faris, Harold Johnson, Thomas B. Nelson, President, Ironside International Publishers Inc., Dan Shea and Cholly Steen, President, SARCO Inc.)

The Rationale for a Strong, Permanent Ordnance Museum

A 92-page document titled Historical Monograph Aberdeen Proving Ground Museum 1919 – 1960 was prepared by Col. Jarrett’s faithful assistant and later successor, Karl F. Kempf, and published by the Ordnance Corps in January, 1961. As well as outlining the history of the Museum over those eventful decades, this interesting and well-written overview contains the following thought-provoking arguments for the retention of the Museum in the face of strong and continuous opposition from some quarters in the military:

It is often felt by some individuals that a museum is only a repository for material which no longer can have any value except perhaps to delight and amuse the casual visitor. Nothing could be further from the truth. A museum is, in reality, physical evidence of something that man has done and if its collection is reasonably complete and properly arranged it represents the background of his efforts to accomplish something. It will reveal his progress step by step and show how he arrived at his solutions.

In order to understand present thinking it is necessary to retrace the road that led to current development, and learn the basis on which this present thinking rests. Knowing this we can then take the correct path for our future work, and avoid the mistakes we would make if we had no knowledge of the past.

The Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground is a highly specialized institution which contains the concrete examples of past thinking in the field of ordnance materiel. It is a veritable treasury of ideas of ordnance design. If properly understood and thoroughly exploited it can have inestimable value for the ordnance engineer, the career soldier and the historian.

While of great historical value the collection in the APG Museum is of even greater value for research and development and technical intelligence purposes. Each museum specimen, obsolete or current, foreign or American, represents an attempt to solve some problem of ordnance design. By carefully studying these design features the ordnance engineer may make use of good features and reject bad features, to his over-all advantage. The technical intelligence value of the Museum lies in the fact that it allows us to keep abreast of foreign design.

It is interesting to note that a design which has become obsolete may be revived at a later date, albeit in much improved form. An example of this is the Gatling gun, the last model of which appeared in 1903. Forty-three years later it was again being considered and by 1956 a power-operated aircraft gun based on the Gatling principle was adopted. The hand-firing Gatling gun had been supplanted by the lighter, faster-firing guns operated by the forces of the powder gases. Then, after World War II, came the requirement for rates of fire beyond the capability of existing guns. A study of past and present machine guns revealed the fact that the Gatling gun design, if motor driven, could meet the requirement for an extremely high rate of fire. Thus out of the past came an idea for the future, and since it is true that ordnance concepts continually change, it is inevitable that they will run the full circle and return to previous ideas. For this reason, if ordnance materiel is not preserved in a museum, many valuable ideas can be lost.

The collection at the APG Museum is as complete as possible. Every effort has been made to acquire all the links in the ordnance chain and to prevent the breaking of this chain. Many items are irreplaceable, and no photograph or description can ever equal the value of the physical specimen.

The mortal enemy of the Museum is the “scrap drive,” which has periodically threatened its very existence. Two such drives in the past have seriously damaged its collection. For this reason Colonel G. B. Jarrett has fought ceaselessly for a directive which would protect the Museum from arbitrary destruction, but so far [he] has not been completely successful in achieving this end. It is to be hoped that sometime in the future the APG Museum will acquire a status that will place its collection out of reach of “scrap drives” so that its wealth of background material will always be able to enhance the over-all knowledge of the Ordnance officer and Ordnance engineer, and be of maximum value to the Ordnance Corps.

Museum Closure and Break-Up of the Collection

Unfortunately, the well-reasoned arguments put forth in Mr. Kempf’s Historical Monograph were not enough to ensure that the APG Ordnance Museum would survive intact. As the Monograph itself continued,

The World War II experience had demonstrated the value of an ordnance museum. It served as the basis for Ordnance Technical Intelligence, was a valuable asset for research and development, and became a storehouse of ordnance information. It was the only place where the entire field of ordnance development, U.S. and foreign, could be studied. Although its historical value was not stressed, and although its display did not come within the meaning of the Special Regulations (SR 870-10-1) defining historical property, it nevertheless possessed historical value as a physical illustration of ordnance development over a period of years [However,] no regulations existed which could have prevented [the loss of much of the original collection in the 1942 salvage campaign], and the museum collection was therefore vulnerable to destruction.

Elliot Deutsch, the Chairman of the newly reformed Aberdeen Military Museum Foundation, Inc. (AMMF), recalls that after it opened in May, 1973, the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum was a very popular tourist “must-see” destination, with attendance of up to 250,000 visitors annually up to 9/11. Attendance bounced back after the 9/11 attacks, climbing from 0 to 65,000 in 2007, and to 70+ thousand in 2009.

However, in conformance with the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), the Museum was closed to the public in June, 2010, and over the last year most of the collection has been moved to the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School, located some 200 miles away at Fort Lee, Virginia.


The Renaissance of the Aberdeen Proving Ground Museum

A new museum, to be known as the Aberdeen Proving Ground Museum (APG Museum) will open in 2012 in the existing museum building. The new APG Museum Director, S. Gail Fuller, is working diligently to get this new museum into operation. Its collection will include the following:

• the Communications Electronics Command (CECOM) Museum, which is moving to APG from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey;
• vehicles, weapons and artifacts from some of the 70 tenant research and development organizations operating on APG;
• about 140 of the existing large artifacts (tanks, artillery, etc.) not moved to Fort Lee;
• the history of APG, Edgewood (formerly Edgewood Arsenal) and Fort Hoyle (a former pre-WWII Field Artillery post adjacent to Edgewood Arsenal);
• native American artifacts from the region;
• relics from the Old Baltimore archaeological site, a town on the Aberdeen Proving Ground peninsula on the shore of Bush River, established in the mid-17th century by early settlers from England.

As can be seen, the new APG Museum promises to house a new, exciting and diverse collection that will replace the Ordnance Museum as one of Maryland’s and Harford County’s great tourist and educational attractions.

The mission of the newly reformed Aberdeen Military Museum Foundation, Inc. (AMMF) will be to support the mission of the APG Museum, which is to collect, preserve, and exhibit historically significant property that relates to the history of the Army at APG and associated installations. The focus of the new APG Museum is on Army research, development, testing, evaluation and training in basic scientific research, serving as a valuable educational resource for the military and civilian populations alike, in fields such as physics, biology, electronics, communications, and computer development.

Moving Aberdeen’s 16-inch Coast-Defense Gun to the Museum Grounds

It transpired that the U.S. Army’s last intact 16-inc coast-defense gun was located at the Plate Range, a site in a restricted-access area on Aberdeen Proving Ground. The gun, a Navy-built Mk III, serial No. 138, is mounted on the original Barbette Carriage, serial number 1, which underwent various changes in the course of becoming the present “Proof Mount” version. This assembly was used to proof-fire new barrels and perform a wide variety of related ballistic tests between 1919 and about 1948. Having last been fired over 60 years ago, there was of course no one left at Aberdeen with any experience with the gun.

Dr. Raymond Lewis, the Librarian of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. and a long time student of coast artillery, had been researching Aberdeen’s 16-inch gun since 1962, in an attempt to save it from the scrap mill. At least ten years ago Dr. Lewis proposed that the gun be moved to the public-accessible tank park at the APG Museum, and preserved there as an historic exhibit for all to see.

Dr. Lewis’ excellent book Seacoast Fortifications of the United States was the catalyst for the formation of a group of “fort fanciers,” which was originally set up as the Coast Defense Study Group (CDSG) in the 1970s. The CDSG became a functioning organization in 1985, with Elliot Deutsch becoming a member soon afterward.

Dr. Lewis had lobbied military authorities and friends in Congress for years about saving and not scrapping the 16-inch gun, until finally one influential person “got on board.”

When someone at APG finally sought some information about what would be involved, Dr. Lewis and others in the CDSG recommended Elliot Deutsch, later a faithful member of the Aberdeen Military Museum Foundation, who has long had a deep personal interest in coastal defense. Over time Mr. Deutsch has visited and studied many sites, forts, castles and battlefields in the U.S. and almost 30 foreign countries.

Mr. Deutsch seemed a natural person to go to, as he was mechanically inclined, already a lover of heavy artillery, and, as a resident of nearby Bel Air, Maryland, the closest CDSG member to Aberdeen.

Mr. Deutsch was first contacted in the spring of 1988, and eventually he was asked to serve as technical consultant for the move – a job which also involved considerable heavy hands-on work and the donation of lots of the “smaller equipment” required. Fortunately, Mr. Deutsch’s family business is in the rental of just the sort of tools and light construction equipment that were to prove so useful in helping to accomplish the move. Looking back, Mr. Deutsch recalls fondly that while this job was one of the most significant challenges of his life, both technical and diplomatic, it was also one of the most-fun projects he has ever undertaken.

With the permission of the then Chief of Ordnance, BG Leon Solomon, a young Artillery officer named Captain (later Major) Lawrence (Larry) Lentz, who was also personally very keen to restore the gun and display it in a more accessible site on the Museum grounds, was appointed Project Officer. Dr. Lewis, Captain Lentz and Mr. Deutsch were joined by a large group of helpers – welders, fitters, and in the end, the men and heavy equipment of the U.S. Army’s 7th Transportation Group.

Although both serving Chiefs of Ordnance during the period of the move, BG Solomon and BG Ball, were very supportive, “diplomatic challenges” (poor or negative attitudes on the part of many in the mid- and upper-level areas of the military) were a constant obstacle. These ranged from an initial tendency to ignore the project entirely, followed by a period of mockery at the efforts being expended, and, finally, positive steps to impede or stop the project.

In all, a total of 14 months, replete with tragicomic events which both plagued and delighted the volunteer crew, was required to engineer and accomplish the move. By judicious scheduling, the necessary equipment was made available, and the job was finally completed in 1989. As Mr. Deutsch recalls it,

…to separate stubborn metal parts, the choice was among “threaded”, “bolted,” “rusted, or “too heavy for the crane,” while in order to combat personal obstruction, we had to overcome a much wider variety of human emotions.

The heaviest single part is the barrel, which is 68 feet long, and with recoil band still attached (we did not remove it) weighs 155 tons. It was lifted several times with two or three 75-ton cranes and the final few times with a single 250-ton crane to install it. The cradle is the next heaviest part, at 55 tons.

New Addition Planned – Members and Donations Sought

In the future the Aberdeen Military Museum Foundation, Inc. (AMMF) will also raise funds to construct a museum addition large enough to house and protect all the externally-stored artifacts from the elements.

The AMMF is actively campaigning for new members who can and will serve and donate to help realize the stated mission of the Foundation. For those who may be interested, the AMMF mailing address is as follows:

AMMF
PO Box 688
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005

(Look for the final instalment about Col. Jarrett in an upcoming issue of SAR detailing the legacy left by Col. Jarrett and the many people who benefitted from his vision and dedication.)

The U.S. Army Ordnance Museum Established at Aberdeen Proving Ground

An article in the November/December, 1971 issue of Ordnance, published by the American Ordnance Association, records prophetically that the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, established in 1919 [and] raided for scrap metal in World War II and again during the Korean conflict has a history of struggle.

1927: Jarrett Joins the Reserve Army – the Aberdeen Museum Opens

An article published in the Harford Democrat on April 14, 1966, to commemorate then-Colonel George Burling Jarrett’s retirement as Curator of the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, records that Jarrett was commissioned in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1927.

A later article in the same newspaper, published on April 4, 1973, titled A New Museum to Open, records that the original Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen was officially opened in that same year, 1927: Although it had been in existence for seven years prior to that time, the museum was housed in a rectangular metal building which had been manufactured in France. This structure was utilized by the Army for a time following World War I. It was then dismantled and shipped to the Proving Ground for reconstruction and use as the post museum.

WWII Breaks Out in Europe – Jarrett Ordered to Active Duty

The draft of Jarrett’s own May, 1970 article continues to chronicle his first visit to “the real” Aberdeen, and then, as the new war became a reality, his growing involvement with the Ordnance Department:

I had gone to Aberdeen Proving Ground as early as 1924 to see the famous Ordnance Museum which was a display made from World War I captured materiel. They had a fine collection of tanks, artillery, various artillery ammunition and bombs, and some of the more important small arms.

The 1938-39 period was full of a new war threat, as Hitler did as he pleased in Europe. Then, in the late summer of 1939, war did burst on Europe. This caused an alert in the U.S. and, having been a reserve officer since 1927, I was invited by Colonel Hatcher (later Maj. Gen.) to join his staff at the Ordnance School then being expanded at Aberdeen Proving Ground, long a Mecca of Ordnance as far as I was concerned. I closed up all my display activities, built a series of sheds at the farm, and stored all my collections. Then in November of 1939, I went to Aberdeen and joined Colonel Hatcher.

In 1939 when I joined the Staff and Faculty of the school, I was also given the added duty of Curator of the Museum.

Since teaching about small arms, artillery and or munitions was very much the same as I had been doing with my own museum displays, the teaching-lecture job as a staff and faculty member at the Ordnance School was just a continuation of my former work. There was one important difference, however: this time, this knowledge could be of use to our Ordnance Program in the mobilization of the Army.

Col. Icks’ 1974 article in the Ordnance Journal continues the story by describing some of Lieutenant Jarrett’s early accomplishments after joining the Ordnance Department in 1939:

[Jarrett] was among the first few reserve officers in the United States to be ordered to active duty early in the period preceding Pearl Harbor, and the first reserve officer to become a member of the staff and faculty of the Ordnance School at Aberdeen Proving Ground. In 1939, the late Major General Julian S. Hatcher (then a colonel in command of the school) requested that Lieutenant Jarrett be ordered to duty at the school… Lieutenant Jarrett’s background and interest caused him to be made Museum Officer. He also helped… establish a Bomb Disposal School.

Jarrett Sent to Egypt to Assist the British

Col. Icks continues:

Under Lend-Lease, the first shipload of American light tanks went to Egypt for the British in May, 1941… Since the British also were receiving other American weapons, they were in need of an ammunition expert. Jarrett, by now a captain, was ordered to Egypt as a one-man technical section to act as ammunition advisor to British GHQ.

Jarrett’s own May, 1970 draft article fleshes out the beginning of this crucial phase of his career as follows:

I was sent from the Ordnance School to General Maxwell’s Ordnance Staff in Cairo in November of 1941, which had the responsibility of helping the British 8th Army to understand and use the American Lend-Lease equipment then being furnished them… Soon I was to see all sorts of Allied and enemy materiel in daily use as the British fought the Axis armies.

I also became the Director of the USA Ordnance School, Middle East, and our job was to teach the British troops how to use the Lend-Lease equipment. These were the U.S. M3 Light Tank, called the Stuart, the M3 Medium called the Grant, the M4 Medium called the Sherman and the M7 Gun Motor Carriage, called the Priest… Up to that date I had known many of the designers in the Office, Chief of Ordnance and the proof engineers at Aberdeen who tested their designs. So I was well aware of the ordnance thinking of that august body at the time, and then being in the Middle East I was soon to examine and test many of the captured items.

With the advent of Rommel the desert warfare took on a new aspect as he certainly had fine operational plans, excellent designs in their ordnance (some of which proved sensational as the war progressed), and certainly very courageous and brave soldiers. The world was treated to a new concept of warfare and equipment as the war in the desert opened up.

To me it was apparent in 1942 that a lot of American design thinking of that period had not enjoyed that which the Germans had given to their ordnance. During WWII we learned quickly and made many vast improvements, but in some areas such as tank guns and armor we lagged behind, with badly-needed new designs not being available until the close of the war.

The Origins of U.S. Ordnance Technical Intelligence

An excerpt from the book Planning Munitions for War continues with an overview of U.S. Ordnance Technical Intelligence – or the lack thereof – as World War II began in earnest for American forces:

The U.S. Army’s disregard of developments in foreign munitions before 1940 is a perpetual source of astonishment to the European… the extent of what the Ordnance Department did not know about German, French and British ordnance is plainly revealed in a list of questions prepared by the Office, Chief of Ordnance in June, 1940.

At the end of August, 1940 the General Staff inaugurated an Army-wide intelligence system. The Ordnance Military Intelligence Section was established in September… From the data supplied by the special bulletins of G-2, the small staff of the Ordnance section periodically prepared detailed analyses of information bearing on ordnance. The Ordnance Intelligence Bulletins, averaging monthly nearly fifty pages, circulated among interested agencies… As early as March, 1942 the communications of the Acting Ordnance officer in the Middle East [Jarrett] described features of German weapons encountered by the British in the recent battles for North Africa, and a series of photographs of captured equipment arrived at Aberdeen soon after.

Some actual specimens of German materiel also were shipped to the States, although in 1942 they formed a thin trickle compared to the flood that was to reach Aberdeen in the summer of 1943.

Early in 1942 General Barnes was convinced that research and development would benefit by a more direct flow of technical information [and] that summer, as soon as he became head of the separate division for research and development, he persuaded G-2 and the rest of the War Department that… specially briefed Ordnance teams should be sent to the active theatres. The first Ordnance intelligence mission accordingly went to North Africa soon afterward.

The New York Times Confirms “New U.S. School in Africa”

Under the heading “Aberdeen Men Busy in Africa”, a New York Times story by-lined Cairo, May 9, 1942, reads in part:

Major General Russell L. Maxwell, head of the United States Military Mission in Africa, announced today that his organization has opened an ordnance training school for the Eastern Mediterranean area… The school is intended to train non-commissioned officers of the British armored corps in the maintenance of United States equipment, particularly tanks… Commandant of the school is Major G. B. Jarrett, formerly of the U.S. Ordnance School in Aberdeen, Maryland.

Establishing the Foreign Materiel Section at Aberdeen

A further excerpt from the book Planning Munitions for War continues as follows:

Meanwhile, Jarrett’s Finest Hour

As noted above, Jarrett went to Egypt as a captain in May, 1941, assigned as an ammunition advisor to the British Army in North Africa, where his vast knowledge of U.S. and European ordnance was to be used to its fullest value. For his outstanding achievements during this mission, chronicled in detail below, Jarrett was awarded the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.), and the Legion of Merit.

The following long excerpts from the excellent article in the December, 1957 issue of Cavalier magazine, rather irreverently titled “The Junkman Who Stopped Rommel”, indicates that author Arch Whitehouse spent a great deal of time and care researching this crucially important period in Jarrett’s career:

Hitler’s Afrika Korps had swept across North Africa in one victory after another, and was now threatening Cairo itself. The only entrance to the city was through the back door, which the British had managed to keep open by defeating the Italians earlier in Eritrea.

That is one terrible region. The world has some bad deserts, like the Sahara, the Arabian, the Sind, and Australia’s Great Sandy, but that lifeless stretch of dead volcanoes, volcanic glass, and drifting sand between Khartoum and the Red Sea can make them all look like a fruitful paradise. To make matters worse for… Jarrett, the only desert transportation available was an aged Grumman flying boat that was definitely not made for emergency landings on sand… By the time he landed in Khartoum he had referred so frequently to his new, pocket-sized edition of the New Testament that most of his suffering fellow-passengers thought he was a chaplain.

But once he was in the land of the Nile, Jarrett felt as much at home as in his own museum. Egypt was the end of the line, but so desperate had grown the battle for North Africa that every weapon, new, old, or obsolete, was being pressed into service. Worst in the lot, according to the complaints of the British, was a lot of Lend-Lease “junk” sent over by the United States, and it was with the correction of this rather unflattering impression that Jarrett was primarily concerned.

Brigadier General R. E. Maxwell, in command of the United States North African mission, made it bluntly plain that the trouble Jarrett faced was not trivial. “I sent for you” he explained, “because I need a specialist in everything. I’m appointing you Ammunition Advisor to the British, and I must say they have a real problem. Frankly, unless something is done immediately to ‘surround’ this problem, they can lose this war right here in Africa. They are having trouble with our tanks, with our anti-tank guns, and with our ammunition. Now you know this lend-lease stuff is not the most modern equipment in the world, but when the British say they can do more damage throwing kippers at the Nazis than they can with stuff marked ‘Made in U.S.A.’ well, that’s not good, you know. Get up there to Heliopolis and find out what’s wrong.”

Jarrett’s acquisitive heart pounded when he saw the foul-up at Heliopolis. Spread out for acres were such an array of English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and American weapons, only a few alike and most of them of World War I vintage, that his collector’s soul ached to think of their being destroyed in combat. At the same time his long-subdued gadgeteer’s instinct wanted to see everything belching smoke, and with that his dander rose. If there was something pathetic about trying to pit these aging relics against Rommel’s modern, fast, heavily-armed tanks plated with shell-deflecting Krupp steel, Jarrett did not think so. These were his pets, and he knew what they could do.

Fortune favored Jarrett on his first contact with the British. Ordnance officers were puzzling over the fact that some of their men had apparently been machine-gunned with their own bullets. “The only difference,” said a major, “is that these are stamped ‘7.7’. Otherwise they are identical to our .303 ammunition.”

Jarrett hefted the [cartridge case] and peered owlishly at its [headstamp]. “Easy”, he said. “In World War I you British supplied the Italians with Vickers and Lewis guns, and .303 ammunition to match. They ran out of ammunition long ago, but with the guns being as good as ever, Mussolini just ordered more of the same ammunition from his own munitions factories. Everyone knows that in the metric system, 7.7 is the same as .303 in British inches.”

“They do?” Somewhat dazed, the British major looked at Jarrett with new respect.

“Of course, these did not come from your guns,” continued Jarrett as though he were lecturing in his museum. “These came from an Italian Fiat machine gun. Every weapon leaves its own particular identification on…”

“We know that, but in this man’s war there are hundreds of different kinds of weapons. We’d have to set up a Scotland Yard here to identify them all.”

“Not at all,” said Jarrett modestly. “I know every single one.”

“… Now what’s your biggest problem?” asked Jarrett.

“Those lend-lease 75mm shells of yours” said the colonel in command. “At long range, with a high trajectory, they work fine on a stationary target. When they come bang-on down on the nose, they are quite satisfactory, but it so happens we did not order them for that. We need them against tanks, and I must say I take a dim view of their performance there.”

“Tell me exactly what happens.”

“Nothing, dammitall. Not a dashed thing. You must know these tanks are fast. You shoot ’em like you shoot rabbits with a shotgun. Figure out the range, lead ’em a few feet, and blaze away. Hardly proper for artillery, shooting from the hip, as it were, but this war is hardly proper from the beginning. Now here’s the thing in a nutshell – at a flat trajectory, your shells bounce off those tanks like peas, and when they explode, if they explode at all, it’s when they ricochet into the ground a mile or so beyond. I will say this for the Heinies – they hang their armor plate on their tanks at so many angles that it is almost impossible to score a direct hit.”

The two months Jarrett had spent exploring the secrets of the French “75” fuse raced through his mind. The word was “creep”. Those World War I fuses were so sensitive that the mere brushing of a shell through the treetops was enough to jar the “creep” into sliding up to detonate the charge. The Americans, vexed at so many premature bursts, had taken the creep out of their fuses, and were gratified thereafter when the shells exploded only upon making direct, nose-on contact with the target. That was fine when all artillery targets were stationary, but for World War II, against racing tanks, that old creep or “graze” fuse could be mighty handy. Even though a shell only kissed an angled plate of armor, it would explode fast enough to rattle a few teeth.

“The last of the creep fuses were made in 1918,” announced Jarrett from his stockpile of obsolete knowledge, “but if I know the French, they did not throw away the surplus of old fuses when the new models came in. Aren’t there a lot of French Foreign Legion outposts around the Sahara somewhere?”

The British colonel had not achieved his rank through being dim-witted. “Better yet, old chap”, he announced. “A lot of the French forces from Syria have joined us, bringing in their old French “75s” with them. Seemed a little hopeless at the time, but now that you mention it, our RAF blokes can fly you up to their encampment in a couple of hours.

Within 24 hours of his arrival, Jarrett had master-minded his first triumph. At the French encampment he located a store of 90,000 “creep” fuses, No. 1898/09, and had them airlifted back to Cairo. It marked the turning point. With Rommel within 90 miles of Alexandria on his “unstoppable” drive, the Tommies went into action with the Jarrett-improved shells. It was a slaughter. On modern shells the old museum-piece fuses, some of them dating back to 1915, acted with uncanny assertiveness, needing, as one Tommy said, “only a whiff of sauerkraut to go boom.” The supply lasted all through the Libyan battles the following May, and Egypt was saved.

Meeting Major Northy

At length [Jarrett] came to an ammunition dump, and there, leaning disconsolately against a mound of captured shells, he met a Major Northy, ammunitions expert with the Australian forces. Instinctively Jarrett looked first at the shells.
“High explosive ammunition used in the 7.5cm tank cannon of the Panzer IV,” he catalogued aloud.

“Righto,” agreed Major Northy. “And what bloody chance do we have with our pea shooters when the Jerries have got ammo like this?”

“But they haven’t got this pile,” observed Jarrett, blinking. “We have. Let’s toss it back at them.”

“Wrong size. I suggested once that wars be fought with interchangeable ammunition, but nothing ever came of it.”

Jarrett measured the shells with nothing more scientific than his eye. Except that the rotating band looked a little thick and wide, he had just the gun to fire it. “The old M2 tank gun,” he mused. “Frankly, I’ve always said the tank and the gun were better than their ammunition. If you don’t mind, this is my chance to prove something.”

Major Northy could see no reason why he should mind. An hour later they were in Cairo requisitioning an old engine lathe from a British-owned machine shop. It was not self-powered, but that little detail meant nothing to Jarrett. Back in his junkyard he had enough old trucks, belts, gears, and other incidentals to power a dozen machine shops. By mid-afternoon of the next day his borrowed lathe was hooked up to the drive wheel of an old truck, and a crew of mechanics who knew better but didn’t give a damn were busy trimming the rotating bands of the captured shells to fit the M2 tank gun. Among the minor miracles of the war is that not a single shell exploded while being spun furiously on the lathe.

Out on the Suez Road Test Range, even Jarrett was surprised at the results. In its native German gun, the captured ammunition had a muzzle velocity of 1,650 feet per second: in the M2 gun it blasted out at 1,950 feet per second, with an increase in its power to penetrate that was truly fantastic. When tested on a captured Panzer tank, it not only pierced the armor plate, but with its high explosive burst it scattered the tank over the desert.

“Wow, that’s better than our best ammunition,” exclaimed Jarrett, picking up a twisted chunk of “invulnerable” armor plate. “Back in Aberdeen there’s a big argument about armor-piercing shells. One group claims the shells have to be high-explosive to do any real damage, and the other says a standard charge is plenty. We can settle that little debate right now.”

Another Panzer IV was rolled out onto the range, and this time Jarrett let the tank have it with the latest M61 shells. The penetration effect about equalled the German ammunition, and while there was little doubt that the shell would knock out the tank crew, the tank would be in fine shape again after a few repairs, this was the proof Jarrett wanted. The shells had to be high-explosive to decisively knock out a tank.

“That does it. I’m sending a cable to Aberdeen tonight, and we’d better get a photographer out here so the boys can see for themselves the difference in the damage. This is going to change a lot of thinking back home.” said Jarrett.

“Back home?” exclaimed Major Northy. “It’s changed a lot of thinking right here. Let’s get those 15,000 captured shells processed!”

Within another 24 hours the British Royal Armored Ordnance Corps had a score of lathes in operation, all patterned after Jarrett’s original model and powered by old trucks.

With that operation in high gear, Jarrett started one of the weirdest and potentially the most dangerous munitions operation in the world. Calling upon his wide knowledge of explosives, fuses, and shell cases, he began turning out a hybrid ammunition made up of a little bit of everything. With the Ordnance Corps improvising shell pullers and crimpers, and with Arabs for labor, he began taking shells apart for their assorted parts. American M72 and Mk I high explosive shells provided the primed cartridge cases and charges. German shells were pulled and their cases disposed of. And then, to get the desired velocity of 1,950 feet per second, all sorts of recovered gunpowders were carefully weighed, dumped into cleaned oil drums, and there blended under the hot desert sun with wooden paddles. At one point in this safety-last operation, with Jarrett himself stirring up a barrel of powder with an oar, it is estimated enough propellant was being mixed to blow the whole junkyard into bits should so much as a small spark be struck on one of the steel drums. And there was no shortage of flint-like rocks being kicked around. But the inevitable never happened, and when the hybrid shells went into action they performed so far beyond anything yet on the field that Jarrett was awarded the Legion of Merit medal.

Augmenting British Weaponry

By that time he was deep in his next task. Rifles and all sorts of small arms, plus ammunition, were in desperately short supply. In his dash across North Africa, Rommel had made a point of striking first at supply depots, and by the time he had the Tommies backed up against the Pyramids, most of them were reduced to the few weapons they had been able to carry with them, and the few rounds of ammunition that remained in their belts. What was more; the wily Desert Fox had done an excellent job of severing all their supply lines. Rising to this crisis, Jarrett recalled the stacks and stacks of Italian materiel he had seen during his brief stopover in Eritrea. Included had been thousands of rifles piled up in the open, and slowly being covered with drifting sand.

The admiring British at this stage were willing to grant Jarrett anything he asked for; knowing in advance few of his requests would be either sane or reasonable. They were not surprised then when Jarrett called from the Eritrean Service Command, requesting an Alfa Romeo automobile assembly plant and a score of machine shops left over from Mussolini’s Ethiopia campaign. Nor were they surprised a few days later to learn that Jarrett had cut across national lines, and that British and American armament men were working side by side in a fast-operating weapons reconditioning factory. Sand-choked weapons were being fed into one end of the converted automobile plant, dismantled, cleaned, inspected for worn parts, and reassembled at the rate of several hundred a day.

Factory organization was but a small part of Jarrett’s job. The captured Italian weapons were of all shapes and sizes, and in all states of disrepair. Until he got his machine shops going making spare parts, as many as three rifles might have to be dismantled to get enough parts to make one good one. All told, he found 53 types of rifles requiring 13 different kinds of ammunition, and he could only wonder how Mussolini had ever managed to defeat Emperor Haile Selassie’s spear-carrying warriors. He produced order out of this chaos by combining the useful parts of a dozen obsolete weapons to make a half-dozen efficient hybrids. For example, he found several hundred old Vickers and Lewis machine guns that had been stripped from old aircraft. The guns were useless as ground weapons, the whole firing mechanism of each weapon being dependent upon power supplied by the aircraft engine in synchronization with the propeller. But Jarrett had made them work in his museum, and now, by taking parts from other, less efficient machine guns, he was able to put them back in action, complete with a new spade-grip hand-trigger component and tripod mount.

His biggest triumph came when he reconditioned thousands of Mauser rifles and assured the British their own 7.92mm cartridge would fit perfectly. “It has to,” he informed a skeptical British ordnance man. “You might not know it, but your British Besa gun is an adaptation of the old Czech Brno, and the Czech gun was originally designed to use Mauser 7.92mm ammunition. So you see, Major, in copying the Czech gun you copied the German ammunition, and I happen to know we have plenty of 7.92mm ammunition in Cairo.”

Now for the astonishing part of Jarrett’s foray into the Eritrean junkyards. To classify all the Italian weapons and ammunition, sort them out according to usefulness, cross-breed those necessary to produce his hybrids, organize his reconditioning factory and machine shops, and start the flow of desperately needed weapons to the front, had taken just two weeks. He was back in Cairo just sixteen days after his departure, and spent the night writing a handbook translating American technical terms into British nomenclature.

Jarrett Draws Some Crucial Conclusions

As a captain and then as a major, Jarrett continued to follow Rommel’s retreat across North Africa. When he discovered German shell cases made of blued steel instead of brass, he was the first to announce that Hitler’s copper supply was nearing exhaustion. By taste and smell he was the first to discover Hitler’s motor fuel was ersatz, a synthetic substitute that would break down on a long haul. Both of these discoveries enabled the Allies to increase the pressure on the Germans at a time when such pressure would have been suicidal had Jarrett been wrong.

Jarrett Returns to APG a Light Colonel; Proceeds to “Raise Hell”

Col. Icks’ Ordnance Journal article describes Jarrett’s return to Aberdeen as a Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the Foreign Materiel Branch, where he was to remain until the end of the war:

A promotion to Lieutenant Colonel took place prior to his return to the United States to head up a Foreign Materiel Branch for testing and evaluating captured weapons. Finding no action had been taken on producing a delayed action fuse and finding that the 100 rounds of German ammunition he had shipped from Cairo had never been tested, it was characteristic of him to raise hell from top to bottom over the matter. Rank for its own sake meant nothing to him and sacred cows to him were for slaying… A few heads were weary when he had finished, but American tankers quickly were on the way of receiving something badly needed, although an entire year had been wasted through negligence.

Jarrett on the Foreign Materiel Branch (FMB)

In a document titled Ordnance Research Center General Story for Press and Newsreels dated November 26, 1943, Col. Jarrett spelled out the important mission of the center which he headed as follows:

The Foreign Materiel Branch was established in the latter part of 1942 to receive and store enemy weapons sent to the United States by groups of Ordnance Intelligence officers and enlisted men from the various theaters of operation. Directly responsible to the Office, Chief of Ordnance in Washington, the Branch’s mission includes the analysis of all materiel for evaluation and for possible adaptation of noteworthy designs into our own equipment, to maintain a collection of the available weapons and to conduct training programs to disseminate information on this captured enemy equipment.

The flow of German, Japanese and Italian weapons into Aberdeen Proving Ground has been continuous, and at the present time there are approximately 4,000 tons of enemy pieces, comprising 1,300 principal items. Results of the detailed analyses of the materiel tested here and at other stations are maintained in the files of the library together with intelligence received from Military Attachés and other overseas observers.

The Importance of Ordnance Technical Intelligence

Lt. Col. William L. Howard, the compiler of the informal book titled Technological Support of the Air-Land Battle, penned the following under the heading “Introduction and Purpose”:

My purpose in preparing this booklet was to record in picture and letter format the evolution of the U.S. Army’s Technical Intelligence Operations from about 1918 until the present. It is primarily the story of a select group of men in the Army who have defied the traditional career patterns and forged ahead into the future…

Certainly Col. Jarrett qualifies as perhaps the most important of this select group of men.

Jarrett in Europe, Leading a Technical Intelligence Team

Col. Icks’ Ordnance Journal article continues:

Before World War II was over, he was ordered overseas again, this time to Europe. There he participated in the industrial and military interrogation team efforts in evaluating German experimental material found in various plants and proving grounds. Again much of the material which had value to us was shipped to APG for further study and comparison…

An Excerpt from Intelligence Bulletin Vol. III, No. 6, February, 1945

Tom Nelson recalls that Col. Jarrett, along with Phil Sharpe and other noted U.S. ordnance experts, gathered and edited the material which appeared in the Technical Intelligence Bulletins, published by the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department, which proved of great value to the Allied cause.

In a related article about captured WWII Japanese aircraft being tested by U.S. Technical Air Intelligence, reprinted in Lt. Col. Howard’s book titled Technological Support of the Air-Land Battle, author Robert Mikesh leads off with these sardonic words:

“The Germans fought for Hitler, the Japanese fought for their Emperor, and the Americans fought for souvenirs.” This was the comment most often repeated by members of the Technical Air Intelligence Units, whose first responsibility was to keep G.I.s away from captured enemy equipment.

This sentiment was echoed in an article titled “Ordnance Intelligence Teams Uncover Technical Secrets”, published in February, 1945 in Vol. III, No. 6 of the Intelligence Bulletin, excerpted as follows:

“One of the biggest difficulties that Ordnance Intelligence Teams face is the continued refusal of combat units to recognize the importance of technical information gained from a study of enemy ordnance.”

… This report [from a lieutenant in charge of an Ordnance Technical Intelligence Team now operating in the Pacific] emphasized an unfortunate condition which has existed for a long time. Combat troops, preoccupied with fighting or souvenir hunting, are unaware of the part captured enemy equipment plays in the progressive development of our own weapons, and of its usefulness in enabling intelligence officers to predict the probable widespread use of new weapons by enemy troops.

This difficult master-minding is a job of the Army Service Forces Equipment Intelligence Service Teams. These teams include trained personnel from each technical service. Specifically, where weapons are concerned, it is a job for Ordnance Technical Intelligence, which must keep the army up to date in this highly technical aspect of warfare.

Early in the war, the U.S. Army saw the necessity for immediate first-hand technical observation, and in December 1942 the first Ordnance Intelligence Team, a handful of specially-trained officers and enlisted men, was dispatched to a combat zone. Its mission was to procure enemy weapons and ship them to the United States to be used in a continuous study of the latest developments and trends in the enemy armament industry and to rapidly develop counter weapons. Today teams of trained technical observers work in every theater of operations.

Col. Jarrett’s Team at the Walther Factory

An interesting anecdote from Chapter One of author Fred A. Datig’s book on postwar Russian small arms, titled Soviet Russian Postwar Military Pistols and Cartridges, 1945 – 1986, discussed further in Part III of this series, concerns an important and timely visit by a U.S. Technical Intelligence team, led by Col. Jarrett, to the Waffenfabrik Walther plant shortly after the end of WWII in 1945:

… The United States Army’s Technical Intelligence team, headed by the late Colonel G. B. Jarrett, was able to enter Walther’s factory only 2 hours before the Soviets (thanks to Yalta and Potsdam) were to take charge officially. Jarrett’s group was able to cleanse the premises of the entire collection of some hundreds of prototypes of pistols, rifles and machine guns, plus much pertinent documentation, and to whisk everything, including Fritz Walther himself, away to the West.

A Typical Jarrett `Take’ on a Pentagon Briefing

Tom Nelson, who will also be mentioned in greater detail in Part III of this series, recalls a briefing which Col. Jarrett was invited to give to an assembly of general officers at the Pentagon in 1946. Casting his eye about the thousands of exhibits and artifacts at his disposal in the Museum, and concerned about just what he would be able to cover in the limited time available to him, in the end Jarrett selected and took with him five items, each of which he felt represented an outstanding advance made by the Germans in WWII.

The first items he put on the table were a captured MP44 (Sturmgewehr) and an example of its 7.92x33mm intermediate cartridge. The advantages of this new weapon system were many fold, he explained: constructed very largely of plain carbon steel stampings requiring no scarce, exotic alloying elements, production of this weapon was cheap and fast, compared with a U.S. product like the M1 rifle. Even more importantly, he said, it represented the dawn of a new tactical era, one for which the U.S. had no comparable weapon or cartridge, other than the M1 carbine and its comparably weak cartridge. (History has shown that while the U.S. was to flounder along with the underfunded M14 program until 1957, the Soviets took these advances very much to heart and were soon to emulate both the German StG concept and its intermediate cartridge with the adoption of the 7.62x39mm AK47.)

The second example he laid on the table was an MG42. This fast-firing weapon incorporated the improved cartridge belt and direct feeding system, the quick-change barrel, and the recoiling “softmount” of the Einheitsmaschinengewehr (all-purpose machine gun), all features which had been introduced in the earlier MG34, which in its day was by far the most advanced machine gun in the world. The MG42 went one step further, and like the MP44 it was also made very largely of plain steel stampings, which meant that it could be manufactured five times as quickly as a comparable U.S. Browning machine gun.

The third was, ironically, a German copy of the American “Rocket Launcher, A.T., M1″, commonly known as the Bazooka, which fired a larger (3.5″) and more powerful shell than its U.S. 2.36” counterpart. The shaped charge of the larger German projectile was capable of defeating the armor on virtually all existing tanks and self-propelled guns. Jarrett urged that the then-U.S. bazooka round be increased in size and power. (Here again his remarks soon proved to be prophetic, as U.S. soldiers rushed from Japan to Korea in 1950 were to discover that their bazooka rounds bounced off the armor of the latest Russian T-34/85 tanks.)

The fourth item was a large German artillery shell, which had been made of cheap cast steel rather than as an expensive machining as were U.S. projectiles. Jarrett pointed out that the German round was thus much quicker and cheaper to make, although it produced the same degree of devastation on impact as did the machined projectile. The advantages were obvious.

The fifth and final example Jarrett piled on the table was a late-war German Panzerfaust (literally, the “tank fist”). This he regarded as being capable of improvement (as indeed it was during the final stages of the war), because the German design was a dedicated single-shot launcher which, once fired, could only be discarded. Jarrett recommended that development be undertaken to produce a similar device, but one that could be reloaded multiple times with separate grenades – exactly like the highly successful and ubiquitous East Bloc RPG, which still accounts for a high percentage of Coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan to this day.

As an extremely dedicated and knowledgeable man but one with few social graces, Jarrett harangued the assembled officers with the dire prediction that if the U.S. did not recognize and copy the advances that these examples represented, the looming threat of Soviet aggression would be difficult if not impossible to overcome in the future. The days of NMA (not made in America) were over, he concluded.

Unfortunately, his forceful demeanor and the brusqueness of his presentation rubbed his august audience the wrong way, with the upshot that rather than inspiring improvements, his urgings were ignored.

Jarrett Released from Active Duty – Becomes Civilian Curator

The Harford Democrat article recording Jarrett’s retirement in 1966 contained the following brief comments regarding his release from active duty:

… Following his release from active duty in 1947, [Jarrett] continued the study of foreign materiel until the Korean War as civilian museum curator.

Jarrett on WWII Russian Ordnance

A further excerpt from the draft of his May, 1970 article contains Col. Jarrett’s typically pragmatic overview on the state of Russian ordnance during WWII and later:

Throughout the war we, along with the British, supported the Russian effort and sent Ivan boatload after boatload of equipment, fuel, various other supplies and food, and never even got thanks. But the Germans who first faced the Russian materiel and at the time easily forced the Soviets to retreat deep into the interior, later got up against some very remarkable Russian-designed ordnance. This material, in the final analysis of combat, surprised the Germans; and let us not forget that the Russian T-34 tank provided enormous support for the great Soviet offensives which eventually drove the Germans out of Russia. The Russian engineer was no fool, was brutally realistic and [was] eventually capable of producing such vast quantities of materiel, plus training of personnel, that one day Ivan drove the German armies out of Russia.

Many Russian pieces of ordnance were reliable and capable enough of excellent field performance that they were utilized by the Germans for combat replacement in the German Army. The Russian 7.62cm field gun, model of 1936, as one example, was used by the Germans in great numbers and eventually modified to improve its performance. It turned up in Libya in 1942. When I saw this piece I was deeply impressed, and from that time on I was anxious to examine any Russian piece of ordnance we could find. I was to see many of them prior to the war’s end, and again from Korea.

By the time we were involved in the follow-through for the D-Day venture in France, use of countless Russian pieces of ordnance by the Germans was found to be commonplace, and eventually we shipped a large collection of it as captured enemy materiel to Aberdeen. After the war we conducted a considerable examination of all these pieces and coupled it with reports made by the Germans (which we had captured), who had of course captured it first. Thus we managed to become well informed on all of it and its performance. When the Korean War broke out, we possessed priceless data and an understanding of the Russian equipment which we discovered was then in use by the North Koreans, including the Russian T-34 tanks equipped with the highly satisfactory Russian 85mm tank guns.

Jarrett Appointed Honorary Curator of the West Point Museum

Col. Jarrett’s friend and admirer Charles Yust, at the time the editor of the now long-defunct periodical Gun & Cartridge Record, who as discussed in Part III served under Jarrett at the Aberdeen Museum, recorded the following concerning a new accolade bestowed upon Col. Jarrett in 1952:

In the “Who’s Who” Department of our July [1952] issue, we ran the biography of Colonel G. B. Jarrett, and feel that it is in order to add a bit of new information which has recently come into our possession…

This was followed by an extract from an official letter dated November 16, 1952, signed by Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, appointing Jarrett an Honorary Curator of West Point Museum:

y Dear Colonel Jarrett:

In recognition of your standing as an authority in the field of Modern Ordnance and in acknowledgement of your generous activities in an advisory and consultive capacity… it gives me great pleasure to appoint you an Honorary Curator of the West Point Museum…

It is a distinction for the Museum that it may welcome you as an “ex officio” member of its staff, and I trust you will have no objections to the recording of your name as an Honorary Curator in appropriate future publications of the Military Academy and the Museum…

A Jarrett Retrospective on the Acid Test: Combat Performance

Jarrett’s draft article of May, 1970 contains the following retrospective thoughts:

In more than 50 years of curio collecting, I have owned or cared for and tested at Aberdeen well nigh countless pieces of ordnance. Many were extraordinary, and yet many many items were well nigh worthless. Some enjoyed amazing physics lab performance and fooled people into thinking them capable of great military potential, but on the battlefield they fell far short of such performance…

It has been my privilege to observe a lot of armored force equipment in action, made movies or stills of these tests, fired their guns and shot at them to observe their armor qualities, and long ago came to the conclusion that most tanks over the years had more penalizing points than good ones. In our Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen we have had a remarkable collection of wheeled or half- and full-tracked vehicles, headed under the general title of Armor. These have come from World Wars I and II and since. Of all the collection only maybe 4 or 5 were outstanding fighting vehicles, by which one might expect to affect the outcome of WWII or of modern warfare. I’d list them as far as WWII is concerned as the German Panzer IV, with long-barrel 7.5cm gun, the Panther with its super-long 7.5cm gun, the U.S. Shermans with the British 17 pdr. A.T. gun (which the British put on the Sherman tank), the U.S. Sherman M4A3E8 (better known as the “Easy 8″on which we had put the then-new 76mm gun, and lastly the famed Russian T-34/85. All these tanks were capable of good movement and their gun performance did great hurt to the enemy, and did affect combat operations favorably for the side in question.

Jarrett Retires as Curator of the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum

Col. Icks’ Ordnance Journal article frankly sums up some of the accomplishments, setbacks and tribulations of Col. Jarrett’s remarkable career on the occasion of his retirement as Curator of the Ordnance Museum:

Before his demobilization from active duty [in 1947], Colonel Jarrett was offered a permanent commission in the Regular Army, but he decided to remain at APG as a Civil Service employee and did so until his retirement in 1966. He built up the Foreign Material Branch and the Ordnance Museum and during the Korean War played an important part in evaluating Chinese and Russian weapons and equipment in comparison with our own. A short-sighted Chief of Ordnance permitted another scrap drive, duplicating one which took place… during World War II. On both occasions, priceless museum pieces were lost forever. His own collection also suffered from lack of care while he was away. Most of the planes were in bad shape. He planned to move them to his new home on an estate near Aberdeen, but shipping costs precluded it. Eventually he sold two of the planes and most of the other weapons and moved the rest to Aberdeen.

He trained the first Ordnance Technical Intelligence team which went to Korea, but the job was then given to the Ordnance School in 1951. With fine disregard for their own part in the matter, higher authority criticized him for not having had such teams ready when they were needed. He found shortcomings in our equipment and was not reticent about letting it be known, in spite of incurring the wrath of higher-ups who preferred not to rock the boat.

He frequently got along on only a few hours of sleep a night, his usual working day being about 18 hours. His energy was boundless, and yet he was and is no recluse. With all this, he lived a normal social life with his wife and one daughter who now is married to a young Regular Army officer.

Jarrett Makes Aberdeen’s Collection “The Largest in the World”

The April 14, 1966 Harford Democrat article marking Col. Jarrett’s retirement as Curator of the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum records that “He added, from his personal collection, 9,000 items to the museum, making it one of the largest and finest collections in the U.S. Army.”

The April 4, 1973 article in the same newspaper goes further, calling the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum “the largest consolidated collection of such material in the world.”

The Ordnance Museum is Closed: Collection Moved to a Small Barracks

The Harford Democrat article dated April 4, 1973, titled “New Museum to Open”, records that the old pre-WWI French steel “Truscon” building, which had long served as the Ordnance Museum, was closed indefinitely in 1968 and the building slated for conversion into the new, modern home for the Headquarters of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command.

The real reason behind this move was related to the author by long-time Ordnance expert Harold Johnson, who explained that there was a total freeze on the construction of new buildings at Aberdeen at the time, but that existing structures could be “improved”. Col. Jarrett had antagonized a number of highly-placed officers in the military by this time, and when all the possible locations for the new headquarters were surveyed, the building housing his Museum was selected. In the end the only feature that was saved was the concrete pad – the building itself was completely demolished and a totally new structure was erected on the original floor.

According to the article in the November/December, 1971 issue of Ordnance, the Ordnance Museum was thenceforth housed ignominiously “in a small, wooden barracks-type building and reduced (in terms of materiel actually on display) to a few carefully selected items and files of photographs.”

The 1973 Harford Democrat article concurs, stating that:

Despite many attempts to find a new home at the Proving Ground for the Ordnance artifacts, none were successful. It was decided to mothball the thousands of items rather than permit them to either deteriorate, be destroyed, or transferred to other installations and thereby losing the largest consolidated collection of such material in the world.

Consequently the job of labeling, recording, protecting and packing these items was begun. The larger items were moved to an outdoor area to augment an existing display of tanks, self-propelled weapons and the large field and railroad artillery weapons systems.

In 1968 the Ordnance Historical Exhibit was opened in a one-floor wooden barracks type structure. It contained a few hundred selected items, models and photographs.

Col. Icks pulls no punches in describing how Jarrett’s outspoken attitude had contributed to this public humbling of the importance of his work, and thus of himself:

It was a hard blow for this sincere and earnest man to reach the age of retirement, but an even harder blow was to have higher authority decide that his Museum Building was needed for other purposes and that all the contents should be placed in mothballs indefinitely.

This was the last job that he supervised, almost like a man attending his own funeral. After the Army reorganization which did away with the Ordnance Corps as such, APG became just one of many testing facilities now controlled by the Army Materiel Command. All the Defense experts seemed to be looking ahead and apparently saw no need to look back or even to look around to see what the competition is doing.

Colonel Jarrett fought that kind of smugness and is still fighting it. He believes with all his heart in the United States and cannot understand anyone putting personal prestige ahead of his country’s interests. Stuffed shirts are his favorite target and, as can be imagined, he has intensely loyal friends and intensely bitter enemies.

The Ordnance Technology Foundation and the New Museum Building

Characteristically, however, Jarrett bounced back. As recorded in the final excerpt from Col. Icks’ Ordnance Journal article,

… [Jarrett] did not take the placing of his beloved Museum on the shelf as final, but is working hard toward the building of an Ordnance Center of Technology at APG supported by private subscription…

The article in the November/December, 1971 issue of Ordnance continues, recording that:

… ground was broken on August 27, 1971 [and] the new building will dominate the center of the APG’s Foreign Tank and Artillery Park… Arranged around the building will be the entire collection of foreign tanks and artillery while, inside, small ordnance items will be displayed.

The value of the present collection has been appraised at $24 million – and this tremendous treasure of armament artifacts and information has been guarded and kept together almost single-handedly by Col. G. Burling Jarrett, U.S.A. (Ret.), who, however, is the first to call attention to the help that has been received over the years from individuals and groups who have the Nation’s defense interests close at heart.

The April 4, 1973 Harford Democrat article further records that:

… six years of dedicated labor by local citizens, businessmen and both retired and active U.S. Army officers will be culminated when the Ordnance Center of Technology Foundation, Inc. donates the new structure to the Army.

The museum construction was undertaken by the foundation, a private corporation.

Museum Size, and Jarrett’s Role, Severely Curtailed

Despite his Herculean efforts, described above, which “single-handedly” guarded and conserved “this tremendous treasure of armament artifacts and information”, and then his dedication in organizing the non-profit Foundation which raised the money for the new museum structure, Col. Jarrett had meanwhile seen his future role reduced to that of a mere “adviser” to the museum.

In addition, despite the best efforts of the Foundation, which had envisaged a building of some 300,000 square feet capacity, the money raised proved sufficient only to underwrite a much more modest structure, which measures some 10,000 square feet.

A Typical Jarrett Broadside Greets Plans to Curtail Exhibits

In an article published in the April 26, 1973 edition of the Baltimore Sun, the new curator described in detail how he planned to arrange only a comparatively few exhibits in the new museum, in effect utilizing only 15 percent of the available material.

Typically, Jarrett objected strenuously to these plans in a letter to the Sun Editor, which is reprinted as follows:

Sir: I have read your article (The [Baltimore] Sun, April 1) on the Ordnance Museum with considerable amazement. You were duped into the background, for the article is not only misleading but parts are downright incorrect and could only be the work of misrepresentation on the part of the person interviewed. The picture is very distorted.

The Ordnance Center of Technology Foundation has had a difficult time over the past seven – eight years to realize this goal, and quite frankly your article at this critical time comes as a shock. That the story could be so diverted from the facts is a dreadful sham – and by one who has only personal aggrandizement as a basis for it.

[Gordon W. Chaplin] may be a good history teacher but is no ordnance expert. To condemn 85 per cent of this famous collection to stay in the warehouse by his display arrangement certainly is a dreadful shame. The current design of the display media while exquisite is exceptionally wasteful of space.

It is a great shame that your article had to appear at this time, less than two months prior to dedication… I have spent more than 30 years of effort on making that collection and creating a building and I must repeat: to condemn 85 per cent of it to the warehouse is inexcusable.

G. Burling Jarrett, Colonel U.S.A. (Ret.),
President of the Board,
Ordnance Technology Foundation.
Aberdeen.

An excerpt from a one-page In Memoriam to G. Burling Jarrett, Colonel, United States Army Reserve, Retired, records that the new museum did open as scheduled, with Jarrett himself serving as master of ceremonies:

On May 18, 1973, the completed structure was dedicated and accepted by the Army in an impressive program. Colonel Jarrett served as master of ceremonies. Until his final illness, he continued to serve as an adviser to the museum.

A final excerpt from the May 19, 1973 article in the Harford Democrat states as follows:

Thousands of historical ordnance items presently in storage will see the light of day on May 19, 1973 when the new Ordnance Museum is… turned over to the U.S. Army and opened to the public.

Priceless and historically irreplaceable, this collection represents more than a century of [U.S. and foreign] ordnance development.

A Final Tribute, to an “Outstanding American”

A letter to the editor published in the March/April, 1972 issue of Ordnance, the journal of the American Ordnance Association, titled “Outstanding Americans”, by Hanson W. Baldwin, contained the following tribute to Col. Jarrett:

I am delighted that Col. G. Burling Jarrett’s single-minded devotion over many years has at last paid off in a new building for the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen… I well remember the days when Col. Jarrett, a born collector of ordnance of any kind, was fighting a lonely struggle for recognition of the importance of such a museum. For years the “museum” was his own back yard: only Col. Jarrett’s perseverance over the years overcame official indifference – and even opposition – lack of funds, and apathy.

The End of the Road

A final excerpt from the Harford Democrat of July 3, 1974 reads as follows:

Colonel George Burling Jarrett USAR (retired) died at his home in Churchville on Monday evening [July 1, 1974].

Col. Jarrett was Curator Emeritus of the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground and his leadership within the Ordnance Center of Technology, Inc., a non-profit organization, resulted in the building of a new U.S. Army Museum at the Proving Ground. The structure was dedicated on May 18, and Col. Jarrett served as Master of Ceremonies.

He is survived by his wife, the former Marguerite Workman, a daughter, Mrs. Nancy Jarrett Travis of Oak Ridge, Tenn., and three grandsons, Michael, Richard and William Travis II.

Interment will be in Arlington National Cemetery at 1:30 p.m. [on July 5, 1974].

It might seem strange that a series of articles about such a quintessentially patriotic American should be written by a Canadian, and there are two points I would like to make in mitigation.

First, I well remember the thrill of excitement I felt when I first discovered the series of paperbacks published in 1958 by the U.S. Army Ordnance School at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The Preface to Submachine Guns Volume I reads as follows: This text has been prepared with a twofold purpose in mind. It is to serve as a historical document and as a reference for use at the U.S. Army Ordnance School and in the field. It was compiled with the advice and assistance of Mr. G. B. Jarrett, Chief of the Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen Proving Ground.

As a young man in an era when an early edition of Small Arms of the World was just about the height of specialization in the field of arms literature, I knew immediately that this was a document of great value. Opening the yellow-covered Volume I to the Table of Contents, I had to read no farther than “Section I: German Special Rifles” to know I had to have this book.

Colonel Jarrett, his work and the publications with which he was associated have always occupied an important niche for me, and although I never met him, I have long considered him a mentor in my working life as a writer, editor and publisher. Therefore, when I heard from Dan Shea that some research material about Colonel Jarrett had come to light, I asked to be allowed to write this series of articles.

Second, as will immediately become apparent below, I have done very little of the actual writing as others far better qualified than I – mostly friends and military colleagues who knew, worked with and admired Colonel Jarrett – have already done it, and it has simply been my enviable task to put their material together. In this regard I must record a note of heartfelt thanks: first to James Alley Jr., Ph.D., who among his many fine tomes and folios has preserved a treasure-trove of Jarrett material, which he in turn acquired from another writer, editor and long-time Jarrett friend, the late Charles E. Yust. Second, to Thomas B. Nelson, who worked in Ordnance Technical Intelligence while in the service and regards Col. Jarrett as his mentor, and who has supplied some very interesting material from his personal collection. This accumulation of original documents from various sources, some written by Jarrett himself, has kindly been made available to me, and my main contribution has been to chart a circuitous, chronological meander through these yellowing papers to form the body of what follows.

Introduction

The tone, one of respect and admiration for Colonel Jarrett’s accomplishments, tempered by the veiled acknowledgement that he was not always the recipient of everyone’s wholehearted support, is set right off the bat by the following introduction to an article in the Ordnance Journal by Robert J. Icks, a fellow retired Ordnance colonel, which was published shortly before Colonel Jarrett’s death in 1974: There probably is not a single individual, military or civilian, who is interested in matters concerning guns, ammunition and other items of ordnance equipment or a single military or historical museum curator who does not know the name of Colonel G. B. Jarrett… he is representative of those unassuming but dynamic citizen soldiers whose attainments represent a degree of professionalism not exceeded and seldom equalled by professional soldiers in the same fields.

Early Days – Accumulating “Burling’s Junk”

According to his obituary, published in the Harford Democrat on July 3, 1974, George Burling Jarrett was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, on October 14, 1901, the son of Joseph Roberts and Laura Burling Jarrett.

Col. Icks’s article, begun above, continues as follows: As a boy, young Burling grew up among Civil War guns and trophies belonging to his grandfather, an officer in the Union army. His father was an understanding man who permitted him to find out for himself how everything worked.

A more colorful embellishment of the exploits of the young Jarrett (who incidentally was known to his friends and family as “Burling” rather than “George”), is found in an initial excerpt from a lengthy and very well-researched article written by an Arch Whitehouse titled The Junkman Who Stopped Rommel, published in the December, 1957 issue of Cavalier magazine: For George (the collector’s mania) had burst into full bloom one Fourth of July when he was five years old. To celebrate the holiday properly, his grandfather had fetched out his Civil War rifle, choked with rust and cobwebs, and fired a blast that nearly rattled the old gentleman apart. Not to be outdone, George’s father brought out his Colt .31 cap-and-ball revolver and nearly blew off his hand when he used more powder than caution. George was delighted. These were just the kind of lethal toys to delight his mind, and when he begged for a chance to restore the relics to perfect working condition, the senior Jarretts raised no objection. They thought the weapons were beyond repair, and not until they caught their five-year-old heir gunning for woodchucks with both toys in prime condition and loaded for bear did they lay down the law. By that time it was too late. George had the bug.

Except for mathematics and military history, school brushed lightly over George. He lived mainly for his collection, using such funds as other kids squandered on jaw-breakers and all-day suckers for adding to his collection of arrow heads, bullets and rusty cannonballs from Civil War battlefields.

An article published in Popular Science in May, 1944 continues the story and immediately dispels any suspicions that Jarrett’s collecting mania was underwritten by a bottomless parental purse: The quiet old Quaker town of Haddonfield, N.J. was inclined to look askance at young Jarrett’s passion for the instruments of death. It was not long before his trophies filled every available inch on the walls of the young collector’s bedroom. But the older Jarretts took alarm when “Burling’s junk” filled the attic and began to spill over into the basement.

The Jarretts were not wealthy, and they were of no mind to advance hard-earned cash for such a useless-seeming enterprise as young Burling’s. But he easily hurdled that obstacle. Summers he worked as a helper on a delivery truck. So single-purposed was he that he never learned to smoke cigarettes. Every spare bit of cash was saved for investment in the growing collection of “Burling’s junk.”

The First of Many World War Acquisitions

An initial excerpt from the draft of an article written and typed out by Jarrett himself, dated May, 1971, provides an early inkling of the purposeful nature of his seemingly random collecting interests:

The effort to gather curios of a military nature can require fascinating and exhaustive study as well as gradually to acquire a collection worthy of note. While the art itself has personal rewards for the individual there are times when such an endeavor might be of great technical value to one’s country.

For many years I have been interested and fascinated by weaponry, starting with the story of the Civil War. From childhood, when my grandfather’s relics from that war hung on our staircase wall, they had intrigued me. Gradually as I grew older, I added other pieces of that era and the whole war became apparent to me.

In the 1914-15 period I experienced the details of the new war then at hand, and with avid interest I followed all the printed news and photos then available. Early in the war a young man from my home town of Haddonfield, New Jersey left for France and to serve as an American ambulance driver. He wrote to me several times and in 1915 sent me two buttons, one from a French and the other from a German uniform. That started me on World War I collecting.

Coming of Age During the World War

The December, 1957 Cavalier article continues the saga of Jarrett’s young manhood as follows: At 16, with an after-school job to augment his income, he moved to bigger things by haunting John Kreider’s old gun shop at Second and Walnut in Philadelphia. His first purchase was a .69 caliber musket used at the Battle of Bull Run. The price was enough to exhaust his income for a month, but not his collector’s mania. As his gaze rove through the shop, he saw item after item he simply had to have, and the thought that some other customer might buy them first was too antagonizing to contemplate.

“Save them for me,” he pleaded. “I’ll be back.” And he always was, though at one time the amount of stuff marked “Hold for Jarrett” threatened to devastate his salary for the rest of his foreseeable career.

World War I caught Jarrett short by a couple of years, a frustrating circumstance he partially relieved by commissioning all his older friends to bring back all the souvenirs they could get their hands on. Fortunately, by 1918 he was big enough, if not old enough, to get a job with the New York Shipbuilding Co. By spending his days at the yards, and his evenings at nearby Camp Dix, he was able to buy up hundreds of trophies brought back from the front by returning soldiers that included machine guns, belts of cartridges, Mauser rifles, helmets, trench mortars, Mills bombs.

An initial excerpt from an article in the July, 1937 issue of the periodical Flying Aces, written by “Lt. G. B. Jarrett, Curator and Owner of the Jarrett Museum of World War History”, reads as follows: Two small military buttons picked up back in the stormy days of 1915 started me off in the World War relic game. To the buttons, I gradually added other odd pieces, and it wasn’t long before my bedroom was resembling Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe.

Col. Icks’s article continues to describe how Jarrett ever more purposefully continued to amass World War collectibles: During World War I, older friends sent him buttons, badges and shell fuses. The fuses naturally were disassembled, examined, the component parts sketched and instructions recorded on the sequence of reassembly. He finished prep school in 1920 and during summer vacations worked at the New York Shipbuilding Company yards because they were near Camp Dix, New Jersey, and Camp Dix had war curios for sale after World War I.

Jarrett Visits the Battlefields of Europe

Jarrett’s own July, 1937 article in Flying Aces continues as follows: The summer of 1922 found me wandering with a watchful eye through the battlefields of the Western front. In order to get better acquainted with the shell-hammered sectors and to come closer to their spirit, I rented a bicycle, and pedaled about the country. My entire equipment – mainly a toilet kit and a blanket – was carried on the “wheel”. I often spent nights with peasants of the section in crude shacks they had built from leftover military supplies – sheet iron, ammunition boxes, and the like. And curios of every kind were mine for the taking, as they lay in indescribable confusion on the deserted battlefields. In the early fall of the year of my battlefield tour, I returned to America and to school.

Col. Icks adds his own comment on Jarrett’s 1922 trip to the European battlefields: Since this was only four years after the war was over, much of the wreckage of war and the appearance of the terrain was unchanged. Jarrett collected guns, shells, ammunition, maps, uniforms and a host of other materials and found means to get them shipped home.

The well-done Cavalier article embellishes this part of the Jarrett story, beginning in 1918, the year the World War ended, as follows: All he could think about for the next four years was that war-torn Europe was one vast museum of military equipment, all falling apart for lack of a Jarrett to give it protective ownership and in 1922 he wangled a job in Antwerp with a New York importing firm. It is doubtful that he earned his salary. Most of the time he was off on a bicycle touring the battlefields and keeping the shipping companies happy with crates full of his acquisitions. As an example of his methods, at the famous Ypres battlefield he roomed for a week with two elderly sisters who were eking out a gentle living making lace. “That’s nonsense,” he told them. “Why don’t you just collect a few bombs and things like that for me? I’ll buy all you can send me.”

For eight years the lavender-and-lace Haellert sisters made an incongruous team as they minced around the shell-pocked battlefields, but they shipped Jarrett thousands of items, and wealthy spinsters they were when they retired. Elsewhere Jarrett had a score of other “agents”, but none to compare with the frail lace makers. “To see them disarm a mine,” he said admiringly, “why, you’d think it was as safe as threading a needle. For them I guess it was.”

Jarrett’s 1970 article contains the following tongue-in-cheek recollection: I had all this displayed in my home bedroom and the cellar. When I moved to Atlantic City (in 1930) it is possible that my mother welcomed my exit.

Jarrett’s July, 1937 Flying Aces article continues: I took my first definite inventory in 1926, (and) I had more than two thousand pieces! Most of these later acquisitions I gained through barter.

Col. Icks confirms this, as follows: During this period, many Army and Navy surplus stores came into existence. (Jarrett) became well acquainted with these merchants between 1926 and 1928 and not only purchased many items but in return for identifying items, he even worked out trades.

Jarrett himself continues the story, from his July, 1937 Flying Aces article: In 1928 I took my collection on tour through many of the eastern states on behalf of some of the veterans’ organizations. Returning, and adding accumulated items to the whole, I found that the collection weighed more than four tons.

By now, I realized that my two-button collection was well out of the “just-a-hobby” class, and was, in fact, a small museum.

Already it was about driving me out of the house – for bedroom, third story, cellar and “all way stations” were full to overflowing with these valuable, often cumbersome, War trophies.

The Jarrett Collection Moves to the Steel Pier in Atlantic City

Arch Whitehouse’s excellent article in the December, 1957 issue of Cavalier picks up the thread as follows: By 1930 Jarrett was back in the United States, the proud owner of more workable items than could be found in any other military collection in the world. Other ordnance experts might know more about their highly select fields, but as the man who had restored Russian, German, French, Italian, British and American equipment to working order, he knew more about ordnance in general than did all the experts of Krupp, Woolwich Arsenal, and the Aberdeen Proving Ground combined.

His timing was perfect, and a fortunate thing that was for his exhausted bank account. Ten years earlier the veterans of World War I wouldn’t have paid a nickel to tour a military museum, and the major part of them had sworn, in fact, never to look at a gun again. But by 1930 nostalgia had set in, and with wives and children to impress, they came in increasing numbers.

The original typescript Foreword to Jarrett’s memoir West of Alamein, published in 1971, begins as follows: From 1915 to 1930 I had managed to gather a large curio collection and to keep it in an ordinary dwelling such as my home in Haddonfield, N.J. In 1930 I had at least 3,000 items, which weighed between three and four tons.

I met a grand and thoughtful man in Mr. Frank Gravatt who at the time operated the world famous Steel Pier at Atlantic City, N.J. To him I said I had the Museum with no roof over it, and that he had the roof and no Museum to put in it. So we joined hands and I moved onto the Pier lock, stock and barrel in the spring of 1930.

The Steel Pier provided me with an annual cash turnover, and for once I was funded to acquire spectacular and heavy items and move them onto the Pier.

Col. Icks augments Jarrett’s recollection, as follows: By 1930, Jarrett had become completely familiar with all kinds of ordnance used by both sides during World War I and had collected more war material than most museums. He contracted with the Pier authorities to set up on the Steel Pier at Atlantic City “The Jarrett Museum of World War History”. The collection began with some 3 1/2 tons of curios.

A typescript draft for a later article by Jarrett dated May, 1970 confirms and consolidates the above regarding the important milestone of establishing the Steel Pier Museum as follows: During the 30s I joined hands with a Mr. Frank Gravatt who then operated the Steel Pier, an amusement center in Atlantic City, New Jersey and known the world over. He had several sections of the Pier which had space adaptable to static displays of an educational nature. He gave me a home for my Museum collections, which at that time numbered more than 3,000 pieces and weighed over 3 tons. I displayed the Museum on the Pier from 1930 to 1939.

In the typescript Foreword to West of Alamein, Jarrett mentions another event from 1930 that had great personal importance: I almost forgot I got married on the strength of my move onto the Pier, and (our marriage) has held together despite the collection of curios and all the ramifications that it can provide.

“The Jarrett Museum of World War History”

Several flyers and brochures among the documents collected by Charles Yust were handouts and catalogs procured over the years during visits to “The Jarrett Museum of World War History, Steel Pier, Atlantic City, N.J.” One such is a double-sided orange card and the reverse reads as follows: This Museum is the effort of G. Burling Jarrett, O.R.C., who has spent more than fifteen years assembling it. The collection from the Great War numbers over 6,300 pieces with a total weight of over sixteen tons.

The Museum is divided into nationality groups and specimens are exhibited from all branches of the various services. In this exhibit are several airplanes, most prominent of which are a Sopwith Camel and a Fokker triplane.

Numerous artillery and heavy ordnance pieces, and one of the original 1914 Paris taxicabs are also to be seen.

In addition there is a remarkable assortment of small arms, uniforms on figures, equipment, ammunition and hundreds of wartime authentic photos.

A number of scenes have been constructed to enable one to visualize wartime trench life and to show certain relics in an historically true setting.

It is without a question a Historical Museum and not a collection of curios that incite and recall old hatreds. All ex-servicemen as well as others should see this display. The co-operation of the Steel Pier has made this museum possible and placed it before the public.

Running Out of Room Again – Moving to the Farm

As the typescript draft of Jarrett’s May, 1970 article continues: Since I then began to get financial help by way of the contract with the Pier, I sought some really spectacular pieces and at once began to display aircraft, artillery and automotive pieces with a WWI record. The Pier as early as 1935 could not allow me more space and I had moved a vast amount of my heavy items to my farther-in-law’s farm near Moorestown, New Jersey. During those last years of the 30s I displayed the Museum both at the farm and on the Pier. More than 9,000,000 people visited the Museum during that time.

Col. Icks confirms the need for more space: The space on the Steel Pier was insufficient to house everything he was collecting, so his father-in-law gave him space for storage at his large farm at Moorestown, New Jersey. Here, Jarrett restored his planes to working order. Jarrett not only collected planes during this period, but also larger pieces of ordnance including heavy artillery pieces, all of which were stored at the farm. The Ordnance Department gave him a 6-ton tank which, according to regulations, had been made unserviceable but, together with his brother-in-law, he put it back in running order.

“Reviving the World War in New Jersey”

Along with the freedom and scope of outdoor display space came the happy thought of inviting various groups and interested parties to come and inspect the collection and perhaps witness some actual maneuvers. The first of several annual “field days” was held in October, 1934.

A foldout flyer from the “Research and Curio Center, Moorestown, N.J.” records one of Jarrett’s famous purchases: an “original German Pfalz D12 (biplane), imported to Hollywood for Warner Brothers Dawn Patrol in 1928 and seen since in many other movies; brought from Hollywood to the Museum in 1937 and restored to wartime appearance and condition.”

This story is confirmed by a faded Bill of Lading from the Shepard Steamship Co. of Los Angeles, dated October 15, 1937, which documents the shipment of the Pfalz biplane, described pessimistically by the shipper as “1 uncrated old 2nd-hand German airplane in one bundle – wings collapsed to side and roped. Fabric torn. Tires flat. On Deck – Owner’s risk. Vessel not responsible for damage.” The freight charge was $79.75.

Despite the obvious risks involved, notes pencilled in Jarrett’s handwriting confirm that the aircraft “Came thru OK. Arrived at Museum Nov. 6, 1937.”

The 1937 Field Day at “Little Aberdeen”

A now-crumbling page torn from the June, 1940 issue of a large-format colored newsmagazine records that “Lieutenant G. Burling Jarrett, (by then an) instructor at the Ordnance School Aberdeen, recently conducted his class in south Jersey, where he has a collection of arms from the World War. Here he staged a small war of his own by showing how the Germans and Allies operated about 25 years ago.

“One of the spectacular demonstrations presented by Lieutenant Jarrett was one showing the effects of land mines on an American light tank. The tank’s ability to drive over barriers was also demonstrated.”

Lieutenant Jarrett wrote an article titled Little Aberdeen, describing his 1937 field day on the farm which was published in the October, 1937 issue of Army Ordnance, excerpted as follows: The fourth annual field day of the Jarrett Museum of World War History was held May 8, 1937. This year the faculty of the Bordentown Military Institute of Bordentown, N.J. joined the writer along with over 700 spectators to witness the exhibition, which was held on the Workman Dairy Farm, Moorestown, N.J.

As a collector of curios, I long had toyed with the dream of some day having both the material and a suitable space to imitate the Ordnance shows held at Aberdeen Proving Ground, if only on a tiny scale.

Regarding this museum, let me say that a “den” collection is one thing, but when one starts shipping home artillery, warplanes, automotive pieces, etc., it is another. A serious housing problem soon presents itself. For years I have been cramped for space, and only in the past twelve months have I moved the entire museum – little by little – to one address – the 88-acre farm at Moorestown where the museum section is known as Artillery Park. It takes two acres to store the museum and five to display it! Realistic settings are easily obtained, and the best feature of all is that maneuvers can be held and certain types of firings or demonstrations attempted with safety.

Recalling Some Famous Donations

Jarrett’s 1940 Little Aberdeen article continues: The museum has, after some twenty-two years of collecting, reached more or less elaborate proportions. The Italian Government, during the past two years, has donated some very valuable sets of equipment, together with a complete library of twenty-one volumes on its activities during the World War, an album of photographs, and a hand-carved desk. The British War Office furnished several valued books for the research library, which has reached large proportions of late. The Crown Prince of Germany presented one of his caps worn at Verdun, and Col. Armand Pinsard of the French Flying Corps presented a cap that he used during the war.

The machine gun section of the museum is worth passing mention, as it contains sixty-five specimens. I have, perhaps, been especially interested in these guns, and a discussion of them is a story all by itself. Light and heavy ground types, tank, aircraft and antiaircraft types form the group, with but two or three patterns missing from all such designs made up to 1919.

Paramount Films the Last Show at “Little Aberdeen”

As World War II loomed ever closer, Jarrett’s original Foreword to West of Alamein records the last field day at “Little Aberdeen” and the closure of both the farm and Steel Pier exhibits: In 1939 Paramount Studios, who produced each month a short film called “Unusual Occupations”, asked me to run a show for them that they might film it. This I worked on and in July of ’39 they came and filmed it. This film was shown all over the USA and also abroad, I got hundreds of letters. In August I ran one of my regular “Little Aberdeen” shows since I had arranged all the pieces for Paramount. This was as the war clouds were beginning to gather over Europe. This was my last show, and in the fall I closed down operations on the Steel Pier and at the farm.

Col. Icks describes the collection as it then existed on the Steel Pier:i By 1939 (the Steel Pier collection) had grown to 75 tons, and over nine million persons had seen the exhibit…

By Chuck Madurski

Collector Grade Publications has been publishing high quality, high-value books on the world’s most important small arms for over 25 years. Beginning with their initial title North American FALs, published in 1979, they have provided advanced collectors, researchers, military historians and other arms enthusiasts with an ever-increasing catalog of in-depth historical studies. From the very beginning, R. Blake Stevens, the man behind Collector Grade Publications, has ensured that his books were printed using the best materials with sewn binding, full-color laminated dust jackets, and an attention to detail that has set the standard for the genre. Profusely illustrated with excellent and often rare photographs, Collector Grade books never fail to impress. However, it is the subject matter that truly sets Collector Grade Publications apart.

Today, Collector Grade books are the best-known sources of detailed, accurate information on various military small arms, and the good news is that a large percentage of them are about machine guns. From the esoteric WWII German FG42 Death From Above; now sadly out of print, to the politically controversial but now near-ubiquitous M16 (in two classic studies The Black Rifle and Black Rifle II), over half of the thirty-three Collector Grade titles currently in print are about machine guns or other automatic arms. When one considers the consistent quality of the books, the wealth of information and the subjects covered, it is obvious that the Class 3 community owes quite a debt to R. Blake Stevens and Collector Grade Publications.

With all of this in mind, and recognizing the important niche Blake has created for Collector Grade in the gun world, especially regarding machine guns, SAR paid a visit to his office in the charming country east of Toronto, Ontario to talk about gun books and the publishing business.

SAR: How did you get started writing and publishing gun books?

Blake: Like a lot of writers in the gun business, I started out as an avid gun collector. In fact, at one time I had my own small mail-order gun parts business called Collector Grade Parts & Accessories, which is where the name of the publishing company came from. My ads always included the phrase “Description Guaranteed,” and I’m proud to say that I never had anything come back.

The gun parts business wasn’t my “day job” though – I had a regular career going. But after a number of years of beavering away in the corporate environment, I found I had had enough. Unless you are working for yourself, there is always someone above you to make sure you know who is really in charge. I got to the point where I didn’t want to do that anymore. This was much tougher than I had thought, however. I had to learn a new way to think: instead of looking outside for my paycheck, I had to look inside and ask myself, “What do I know enough about so that people will pay me to do it?” No one teaches Entrepreneurship 101, at least not in the schools I went to. When I was younger I knew I wanted a job where I couldn’t wait for Monday morning to get back to work, and lo and behold, I found it. Due to my interest in the C1, the Canadian service rifle of those days, I already had a lot of research at hand, so I thought I’d write a book about the “North American FAL”!

SAR: That explains how you became an author, but what about creating the publishing company at virtually the same time?

Blake: I wrote that first manuscript by hand. Computers weren’t nearly as common or affordable then, and I found it easier to just write. It was a learning curve in a number of respects. So I’m going to write a book, well that’s great; lots to learn. Then I get it written and think “Oh thank God, the end!”, you know? It’s finally over. But no, that’s just the first step. Next thing was I had to get it published and printed, and that’s a big job. Not to mention distribution, otherwise you end up with a garage full of books forever. I tried to find a publisher who would take my project on and pay me a royalty, but I soon found that all the “general-interest” publishers viewed a large, in-depth gun book as obscure and off-the-wall, and nobody really wanted to touch it. The only other approach was for me to do it myself, which is quite an undertaking. Had I understood just how large it really was, I might have not attempted it. However, it was publish or perish at that point, and I didn’t want to waste all the work I had done, so I did it.

SAR: What did you do before the book writing and publishing business?

Blake: Well, I played trumpet in a dance band in high school, and considered music as a path. However, I got a job in a trust company in the financial sector in downtown Toronto and worked there for some years, advancing into systems analysis and computer programming. Then I went to General Motors for a short time, working as a programmer on early IBM mainframe computers. Then out of the blue I got a call from an IBM salesman who had made a sale to another trust company whose first concern was, “We don’t have anybody who knows how to program a computer.” He put them in touch with me as someone who could head it all up. So, not for the first time or the last, I took a leap. It brought me back to my home town of Toronto and it was a much better arrangement financially, but after a few more years, when the system was up and running well, that’s when I decided to go out on my own.

SAR: Why did you start with the North American FAL?

Blake: I guess it was mainly because the research material was comparatively close at hand, but it sure stood me in good stead when I had to fly to England and Belgium to dig up the information to do the second and third FAL books.

SAR: Did you plan from the start for your books to be the large format, high-quality reference tools they are?

Blake: Back when I started there were very few gun books which focused on a specific gun or system. The type of guns I was interested in were expensive even then, and I wanted to create the kind of books that would do them justice, in a quality format that would complement the guns in my own collection.

A large specialist book dealer told me that he has lots of gun show customers who want a book dealing with some gun or another they like to collect. The dealer will point out the several choices usually available, from a copy of an old military manual for a few dollars up through a series of books designed to sell at various price points, and then conclude by explaining that if they want the best, here is the Collector Grade book that will provide complete and authoritative coverage of the subject. Often the customer will buy one of the cheaper books, and come back a few gun shows later to tell the dealer he was right – they need the Collector Grade book.

Some of the better books out there have a lot of good information in them, but the text seems to jump around and can be hard to follow. I lay mine out chronologically, so the reader can see what happened, and why, throughout the entire history of the firearm. And right from the start with the original paperback edition of North American FALs, which by the way is a bit of a collectors item itself these days, all our books have had sewn-in pages. I wanted these books to be read and studied, and to last without falling apart.

SAR: Why don’t you include an index in your books?

Blake: Frankly, the reason why my books are not indexed is simply that I find myself genetically unequipped to produce such a thing. Every time I try (and I have), I get the same frustrated feeling: “Browning, John: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…”. With my original premise in mind, that “Collector Grade” books are designed with the needs of an advanced collector in mind (myself, originally), I have consciously tailored the layout and content to be not something just to pick off the shelf for a quick check of a model number or caliber, ala Small Arms of the World, but as an enduring reference which will bear repeated readings, so that the greater the reader’s knowledge and familiarity with the text, the greater the dividends it will pay him. Added to this is my deliberate editorial arrangement of the material in a logical, chronological fashion, and the expanded Table of Contents, including up to five levels of subheadings, so that anyone even remotely familiar with the subject can reference any particular portion of the text quickly and easily.

SAR: Have you considered going offshore for printing, to cut costs and lower prices?

Blake: I could go offshore, and God knows they are doing excellent work these days in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and places like that. But if you send your money overseas it never comes back. When I spend my money in Canada or the USA, it stays here, you know? Every few books I get a comparative quote from some printer I haven’t dealt with before but in the end, well, the longer I stay with the company I’m with, the better the relationship we have. They have come to know my needs and will do some little extra “custom” things for me. I am very happy having my books printed by the Book Division of Friesen Printers in Altona, Manitoba. Friesen’s specialize in high-quality image reproduction and are generally recognized as the finest coffee-table book producers in Canada. The extra touch of quality they bring to everything they do is much appreciated, certainly by me. They are also among the very few printers in North America who are equipped to print and bind right in their own facility. That does away completely with the problems one can (and often does) encounter when dealing with separate printers and binders, who both try to point the blame for wrinkled pages or worse at one another, to the ultimate dissatisfaction of me and my customers.

Also, today’s hi-res scanners, ultra-fast computers and photo imaging programs have allowed me to greatly improve the appearance of my books without increasing outside costs. The manuscripts for some of my early books were typeset in galleys on equipment which had no memory, and consequently every alteration required a laborious paste-up of a few new lines of galley type. Now with word processing programs and layout software, setup doesn’t take nearly as much time and the end result is a much better product.

SAR: Why are some of your books done in the landscape format as opposed to the usual portrait format?

Blake: I was following the content of the book. I chose the landscape (horizontal) format for books on large, long guns like the Lewis, the Bren, and even the Thompson. In a “vertical” layout the biggest image I can place on a page is eight inches wide, as the paper itself measures only eight and a half inches wide. In the horizontal or landscape format, I can make the same image nine and a half inches wide, which is 20% bigger. I got the idea from a publisher who specialized in commemorative books about famous warships – destroyers and so on – where the landscape format showed off the long ships in the water to their best advantage. I thought that was a really good idea, so I used it for some of my books where the format made sense. However some customers complained that landscape books don’t fit on their shelf properly and, due to these complaints, I discontinued the use of this format. After all, this is a business, and the clients should certainly have a say in what they are willing to pay good money for.

Conversely, I have had nothing but praise and approval for our continued use of upgraded matte coated paper and library-quality hardcover binding. This “reader acceptance” factor applies especially to the sewn-in pages I mentioned earlier. I feel that this is really an essential element for a reference work to which repeated returns are invited. Nothing is more annoying than to pick up an interesting book and find yourself holding a folio of loose pages!

SAR: What books do you have coming up?

Blake: We recently published Volume I of The Browning Machine Gun series by ex-US Army armorer Dolf L. Goldsmith, wherein Dolf covers all the rifle-caliber Brownings in US service. Volume II, subtitled Rifle Caliber Brownings Abroad, will be our next title. Our latest published book is called Desperate Measures – The Last-Ditch Weapons of the Nazi Volkssturm, a really fascinating look into the last desperate days of WWII in Hitler’s Germany. There is also a big Luger book in the cards. I don’t want to give too much away, but as you know there are already a lot of Luger books out there. So why is Collector Grade doing a Luger book? Wait and see…

Some people have asked me if I will be doing more Mauser books, for example, assuming that our Swedish Mauser title was a natural “follow-on” to Backbone of the Wehrmacht. The answer is that there is no master plan. I’ll get a call out of the blue from someone who will say something like, “Hi, my name is so-and-so and I’ve been collecting such-and-such for the last xx years. I like the way you do your gun books, but I can’t find anybody interested in doing mine with that degree of quality. Would you be interested?” I’ve had to turn down a few projects, such as a book on the Gyrojet, which would doubtless be very interesting, but I have to remember what happened to our SPIW book. This was one of the most fascinating projects I ever did, but sales were very slow. They’re all gone now, but basically the only guys who bought that title were cartridge collectors. The flechette-firing guns themselves were all experimental, and there just aren’t any in private hands, you know?

SAR: I am surprised at how small the Collector Grade operation really is. Do you have any assistants?

Blake: My wife, Susan, is our financial person, and also my proofreader.

SAR: How did she become your proofreader?

Blake: Because she’s really good at it. She hasn’t got a clue what many of the technical terms mean, but she knows if the words are spelled correctly or not, and she also knows her grammar. She was educated in private schools in Scotland and Switzerland, and she’s very quick and sharp. I can read the text over and over and miss some of the typos she finds right away, but of course I’m reading it for sense, which is different. Don’t forget, we do books in British English (calibre; armour; defence) as well as American English.

SAR: Which is your favorite Collector Grade book?

Blake: The Black Rifle has probably been reprinted the most times, though US Rifle M14 and The Browning High Power Automatic Pistol are also very popular titles, which we’ve reprinted several times over the years. But I think perhaps the best example of our work is Hans-Dieter Handrich’s Sturmgewehr!, the complete story of the WWII German MP43/MP44, which we published in 2004. This was written by a prizewinning military historian working directly from German archival material, and I consider this to be the most important book we have ever done.

SAR: Do you find it difficult to edit or change the painstaking work of others? I mean with how strong personalities can be in this business.

Blake: It can be a problem at times, but since it’s my money on the line and our customers, who deserve the best for their money, it’s my job to keep things on the straight and narrow. Personalities can come into it. Rarely does the author’s manuscript come into my hands ready to go. I’ll just get a big box full of all sorts of great information, and start sorting through it. The first thing I do is to prepare a chronology. I go through a whole text putting everything in order based on the date on which each event occurred. This shows up a lot of discrepancies right away. For example I’ll see an important point which the author has placed in say, chapter three, followed by something that really belongs in chapter two.

SAR: How did the change from writer/publisher to editor/publisher happen?

Blake: I had completed most of the FAL Series when a very good friend of mine who’s unfortunately no longer with us, Tom Dugelby, said to me, “Gee Blake, you’re doing a great job here, how about doing a book for me on the EM-2?” That was the first book I did for anyone else, and it worked out rather well. He was really pleased with it.

SAR: You currently have 33 titles in print, several of which are now revised editions. How many others are now out of print?

Blake: The EM-2, The SPIW, Modern Military Bullpup Rifles and Death From Above, the book about the FG42. That’s about it, at least on automatic weapons.

SAR: Who was your greatest influence, or was there possibly a mentor of sorts?

Blake: That’s easy. Ed Ezell – the late Ph.D. military historian, Dr Edward C. Ezell. Ed was just a super guy. He was a real mentor to me. He was the most, not driven, but just on-the-go-all-the-time guy I think I’ve ever known. I got tired just watching him. We met at one or other of those great old Houston gun shows, when he was the historian at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. At the time I was doing the M14 book, and he became one of the major contributors to that project. Then he moved back East and was appointed Curator of Military History at the Smithsonian in Washington, and we collaborated on the SPIW and the M16 projects. Ed just said to me one day, “I’ve got all this material on the M16 and I don’t really have time, and you’ve already done the M14 book, so…”. And he gave me this mass of absolutely incredible archival documents and photographs on the M16 controversy.

So Ed was certainly the greatest influence and help that I had. Everybody has to have somebody, you know – this doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. Thinking about this, I feel somewhat obligated too. If there is anything that I could do to help anybody coming along in this business, I’d be more than happy to do it. It’s a tough row to hoe alone.

SAR: How much longer do you plan to continue?

Blake: I’m 67 now and one of these days I’ll have had enough. But for now, certainly in these last few years, I have had more work in front of me than I’ve ever had before. The “specter” of completing one job and having nothing else to do is over, long gone. If I decide to stop it will be a decision, not a necessity.

SAR: After you retire, will Collector Grade carry on as a name? If so, do you think (or demand) that this future Collector Grade publisher maintain your high standards?

Blake: The most likely (so far) successor with whom I have talked feels, as I do, that it would make all the sense in the world to carry on with the Collector Grade name. This is still a year or two down the road, God willing and the creek don’t rise – but I think it’s just good economics to keep the same format and name. Content will be a different story. I will probably be available to act as a consultant for the first one or two projects, but after that, of course, I can make no guarantees. However, I’m sure the purchaser, whoever he might be, will recognize and appreciate that the niche we have created, or at least inhabited, is built solidly on quality presentation and reliable, in-depth content.

SAR: What was the most difficult project you ever tackled?

Blake: Every project is a challenge, both in the “learning curve” which is necessary right off the bat in order to be able to critique someone else’s manuscript intelligently, and the sheer amount of work involved in producing and editing that much text, scanning and enhancing all the images, and then putting it all together. But since I mentioned at the beginning of the interview that I wanted to make this article an inspiration for younger people who might consider such a writing and/or publishing career as their life’s work, I have to say frankly that for me, the greatest challenge lay in the early days, when I had to confront and overcome some serious doubts and hesitations from within myself.

I well remember contemplating the first copy of the little pamphlet I showed you, which I did for another publisher back in 1974, on the Canadian Inglis “Hi-Power” pistol. It was my first published book and an accomplishment, to be sure; but I immediately found myself playing my own devil’s advocate with the thought that it was as nothing compared to a comprehensive book on ALL the Browning High Power pistols. But that was such a daunting thought! How would I be able to travel to Belgium and convince the busy engineers and department heads at Fabrique Nationale to co-operate? The whole idea seemed so impossibly beyond my reach! But, a few years later, that’s just what I did, numerous times, and, if I do say so, the results were even better than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.

And don’t even get me started on the “window of opportunity” – suffice it to say that those early books, especially The Metric FAL, simply could not be done today, as all the people who so kindly did assist me have died or retired. Most of the early documentation has long since been thrown away, and no one is left who remembers the events of those days.

SAR: Thanks Blake!

Blake: You’re welcome.