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Battlefield debris
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Message 1.Â
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Saturday, 9th October 2010
what actually happens to the debris of battlefields - after Dunkirk 100000 british lorries were left along roads - most disabled by emptying the sumps and revving the engines - field guns and machine guns and rifles by the thousand - what happened to them - did the germans use them again
on waterloos battlefield thousands of muskets
at kursk - thousands of tanks
etc etc
where did it all go??
st -
Message 2
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Saturday, 9th October 2010
what actually happens to the debris of battlefieldsÂ
Depends where it is. Debris from the desert war still litters parts of Libya. Servicable equipment would be pressed into service, one American division in France in 1944 was reckoned to have over half of it's tanks from repainted German ones! Lorries in particular were so commonly captured in the desert that it was rarely possible to identify the enemy by the shape of their transport.
In Europe, the metal parts would have been recycled, but in remote parts of Asia or north Africa it wouldn't have been ecconomically viable to recover complete wrecks except for a few spare parts which repair crews may have salvaged.
In earlier wars, armour would have been a valuable spoil of war and the troops would have looted the fallen enemy. Boots were particularly popular until surprisingly recently.
Muskets were indeed re-used. As, in some wars, were prisoners of war. During the C18th the enemy could readily be pressed into service by thaie captors and regiments took on a very multinational flavour. -
Message 3
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Saturday, 9th October 2010
I suppose the victorious army's engineers would clear up a battlefield at a later date? Didn't the sappers of the Royal Engineers clear up UK beaches of mines post-WWII?
If we go back further into history, fields littered with mutilated corpses were usually always picked clean by scavengers, human and animal? Or perhaps the church bade townspeople to clear and bury them? -
Message 4
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Sunday, 10th October 2010
Stalti,
The Germans captured large numbers of Soviet 76.2mm guns in 1941 which they stuck onto Czech 38t tank chassis to create the Marder III tank destroyer. -
Message 5
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 10th October 2010
st
If it could be salvaged, and there was time, then equipment, particularly high value items, were collected up by the armies themselves. Otherwise, it was down to the country concerned, and/or private enterprise, to tidy up.
In WWI, the BEF (and, I presume, the French) had Salvage Companies who collected rifles, machine guns, tin hats and webbing equipment etc. These were then cleaned and refurbished by Frenchwomen locally employed and re-issued.
Tanks were recovered by both sides. It was a criticism of the British in the Desert that the RAC practise of withdrawing at night to refuel and rearm left their recoverable non-runners isolated in No Man's Land, whereas the the German practise of laagering wherever they stopped meant thgeir casualties had more protection (being with the runners, or behind them). Both sides used to send out sapper parties to demolish the other side's recoverable tanks.
It depended on how well off for kit a given Army was. The Sherman I saw many years ago at Venlo had been one that bogged down beside a road. The recovery party had apparently taken the breeech block, the machine guns and the engine, and abandoned the rest. It was still there after the war, so it ended up in the museum.
It wasn't all recovered - famously, the USN abandoned vast quantities of stores on Pacific Islands. And many Lend Lease aircraft, not required by the US services themselves, were dumped in various seas around the world.
LW -
Message 6
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Sunday, 10th October 2010
Recovered tanks - it is claimed (plausibly) that in WWI the Germans operated more captured British tanks than ones they built themselves.
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Message 7
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Sunday, 10th October 2010
In North Africa, both sides fixed and used each others lorrys etc.I don't think the Germans had much use for British tanks though, although i believe some ended up with the Italian forces (This is hearsay though from somebody who served out there. I know T34s were recovered and used by the Germans.
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Message 8
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Monday, 11th October 2010
I read recently (not sure where) that after Kursk the Germans were able to recover a lot of their knocked out tanks & re-use them later.
Of course rescuing lost tanks wasn't a problem for the Soviets as they ended up in control of the battlefield. -
Message 9
Posted by Mike Waller (U4782937) on Monday, 11th October 2010
Before oil was discovered, the export of WW2 scrap was said to be Libya's biggest export earner. Regarding aircraft surplus to requirements, I once meet a guy who had spent months at the end of the war in North Africa, putting caustic materials into Merlin engine blocks prior to their being dumped in the Med.
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Message 10
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Monday, 11th October 2010
The problem with more complicated equipment was that it could only be used if a large quantity of spares was also captured. Otherwise, it would only be useful until it broke down (with wartime wear and tear, a fairly short period).
Thus, systematic use of captured equipment was fairly rare (although the Germans were able to use Czech tanks because they had the factories, and French tanks were used for training). Enough 25lbrs and ammunition were captured at Dunkirk and Tobruk to make it worthwhile issuing to complete units, at least for a year or so. Similarly the Russian 76.2cm, captured in extremely large numbers, was pressed into widespread service.
The Germans did make use of captured British (and American) tanks on a local basis. A number of tanks left behind at Dunkirk were locally converted into SPGs by unit workshops. The advancing IVXth Army in Burma even encountered a couple of M3 Stuarts left behind by 7th Armd and now in Imperial Japanese service.
In the victorious aftermath of Western Desert Force's victory in 1940, captured Italian tanks were used to equip a couple of armoured regiments to allow their worn-out cruisers to go back to the Delta for refurbishment. Unfortunately, they were still in use when Rommel turned up. The Australian Light Cavalry regiments (divisional recce) also equipped with Italian tanks at the same time as there were not enough Vickers light tanks for them. Some of these saw service in Tobruk.
Widespread use of captured equipment was usually a tacit recognition of shortages in your own production chain.
LW -
Message 11
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Monday, 11th October 2010
Oops. XIVth Army, of course.
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Message 12
Posted by Mike Waller (U4782937) on Monday, 11th October 2010
I think I can recall Alan Moorhead saying in (again I think) "The Desert Generals" that a British Minister of Armaments having told the H of C that, facing the choice of giving our forces adequate numbers of inadequate weapons or inadequate numbers of adequate weapons, he had gone for the former. Does that ring a bell with anybody?
On the same theme, my father used to say that he had heard of Churchill complaining that he needed three of every individual item required to support the war effort: one to be used, one to be lost and one to be stolen. I have never been able to confirm that Churchill actually said anything like that. -
Message 13
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010
Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:03 GMT, in reply to Mike Waller in message 12
The Germans used large quantities of captured equipment in the Second World War; much of the artillery used in the coastal defences in the Channel Islands was ex-French Army. The vehicles of the local tank regiment were modified Renault Char B1s, and one of the Machine-Gun Battalions were also operating French FT-17 light tanks. The turrets from captured tanks were also incorporated into coastal defences.
To the best of my knowledge there is no evidence of the Romans using captured enemy equipment, but they derived the designed of much of their kit from their opponents ('Gallic' helmets, 'Spanish' swords, and it is possible the pilum javelin and scutum shield originated with the Samnites, whilst mail may well have been a Celtic invention). -
Message 14
Posted by Mike Waller (U4782937) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010
I can recall the late Brian Redhead saying that over half the weapons used by those who sacked Rome had been supplied to them by Rome, with the intention that they defended the borders.
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Message 15
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010
As anybody who has read the likes of Sharpe will tell you, the British have been pinching other forces gear for years. Sharpe wears trousers taken from a Frenchman. Soldiers carried French musket balls to allow them to continue to use their Brown Bess muskets after they had been fired for some time, and the French ball was smaller and could be forced past the clogging. The germans looted the Russian dead because their winter clothing was better. The Russian tanks were also better on either the mud or snow because of their wide tracks.
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Message 16
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010
can recall the late Brian Redhead saying that over half the weapons used by those who sacked Rome had been supplied to them by Rome, with the intention that they defended the borders. Â
That sounds unlikely. Even Roman citizens weren't allowed to own their own weapons, and export of Roman weapons to barbarians was banned (though it did happen unofficially of course).
The Romans did hire German warriors to fight for them (known as Feoderatae) but they were expected to use their own preferred tactics and supply their own weapons.
Speaking of Germanic barbarians: When they fought against each other it was common for all of the defeated force's weapons an armour to be ritually destroyed and buried along with the bodies of the vanquished warriors. -
Message 17
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010
Surviving medieval field armours are rare, but those that do exist are often - probably usually - composite, from several harnesses. To some extent this is because they were put together as complete armours in more recent times, but I'm willing to bet some of them were created in the Middle Ages; armour was very expensive, even for many knights, and anything you could pick up for free from the battlefield was handy.
Newcastle's troops were delayed in joining the Royalist forces for the Battle of Marston Moor, 1644, because they were raiding the large number of shoes abandoned by the Parliamentarians when they had to abandon the Siege of York in a hurry. -
Message 18
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010
In the theme of using your enemy's debris, Rommel used a British lorry as his field hq. It once came in handy as a hiding place when bypassed by a British column - they thought it was just another lorry abandoned in the desert.
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Message 19
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 13th October 2010
Wasn't Montgomery's first caravan "Electric Whiskers" Bergonzoli's Lancia body transferred to a Leyland chassis?
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Message 20
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Thursday, 14th October 2010
thanks all
surely captured muskets were used again ?
and when a legion was destroyed the high quality roman weapons must have been
what about - for instance afghanistan where huge numbers of rounds are fired - maybe not in the open flexible firefights - but in the firebases - the huge number of empty shell/bullet casings - are they salvaged ?
in our local army traing ground me and the kids used to collect the blank shell casings till i was threatened with divorce for the large piles of brass blank casings in the garden - in the end we sold them for scrsp for a good rate for high quality brass lol
st -
Message 21
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Thursday, 14th October 2010
Mike
I think it was Correlli Barnett in "The Desert Generals" rather than Morehead in "The Desert War". Barnett tends to write for effect rather than accuracy. However, a Minister did explain in the Commons that post-Dunkirk re-equipment meant that existing equipment had to remain in production rather than move to the planned upgrades.
Michael Carver has shown, particularly in "Tobruk" which remains the best British analysis of the Western Desert camapaigns up to 1st Alamein, that the inferiority of British tanks in 41/42 was a myth. The main problem was mechanical unreliability. The fundamental inferiority of the British was in organisation and tactical leadership.
Churchill, who was acutely aware that for all the industrial mobilisation effort British resources were inadequate to the task before them, was prone to resent any explanation of proper logistics. Your father's quote was onne of Churchill's many sarcastic dismissals of the fact that to keep one tank/gun/aircraft in the field, you required at least three - one as a battle damage replacement and one in workshops for repair/upgrade and/or for training.
Churchill also did this with units - any random collection of random battalions or regiments was apt to be labelled a "brigade" or "divison" and treated as a field formation, irrespective of what they actually were.
He famously did this in August 1940 with the "Armoured Brigade" sent out to Wavell. It wasn't a brigade - it was the two armoured regiments and the anti-tank and field artillery regiments necessary to bring 7th Armoured Division up to strength. No new brigade joined Western Desert Force, but the principal striking force was now capable of doing its job. The one true addition to WDF was the Matilda II tank regiment - but WDF was supposed to have three of those, not just one!
LW -
Message 22
Posted by MB (U177470) on Friday, 15th October 2010
The comment about the debris in the North African deserts reminded me of a book written by someone who was in bomb disposal.
He visited a building in Libya where they were salvaging WWII land mines. There was a big pile of them by the door and all around the room there were land mines in vices on benches as the explosive was chiselled out. There was a fine white dust everywhere - the explosive.
He asked how they disarmed them before dismantling. They did not bother, all the mine were live. He got out of the place as fast as he could. -
Message 23
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Friday, 15th October 2010
there is a fantastic photo in the book "The tunnels of ??????" about the vietnam war
2 vietcong are trepanning an unexploded american bomb to get the explosives out - one is operating the trepan tool and the other os pouring water on it - now thats recycling lol
st -
Message 24
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 16th October 2010
Romans most certainly used the captured material in those battles they won and that is exactly why they developed designs resembling it. They would not have copied something they would have not tested themselves to see if it indeed fits their own needs.
Post-battle battlefield booty scavenging is as old as homo-sapiens not to mention that the Neaderdals and the Homo-Erectus would be doing it. And it happens till our days.
I remember an all time classic case of battle scavenging. In 1171 the battle of Myriokefalon took place where the Seljuk Turks (of uknown mass but had to be more than 30,000 to ambush a Byzantine army of around 25,000) ambushed the Byzantine army and managed to reach the siege machines and destroy them, without however being able to do anything about the rest of the army, hence the battle continued for the whole day, from early morning to late night and even continued in the night hours and till the next day at certain parts. As it happens in those battles, the amount of dead was quite large. In the following days the Byzantine army without its siege engines had to retire while the Seljuks weakened also offered peace. Seljuks had declared the battle their victory, Emperor Manuel had declared the battle as a failure since he lost the ability to lay siege to the Seljuk capital cities but the real outcome of the battle was not clear.
Since the battlefield was on the borderline but on the side of the Seljuks, it was largely Seljuk subjects that "cleaned" the battlefield in the following day after the end of the battle. However as they cleaned the dead soldiers of their armours they noticed that an extraordinary number of them (which had to be more than 2 in 3) were circumcised, i.e. muslims and as such of the Seljuk side. Shows that not only Seljuks by then were already largely Minor Asian-like (having employed local central Minor Asian people already islamised in their ranks) but that not even the type of armour was always enough to distinguish the origins of the dead (since armies of the time, especially the lighter infantry) wore similar stuff.
Hence, the rumours reached Seljuk Sultan Kilij Aslan very soon and subjects of his thought that he had lied and that Seljuks actually lost the battle. So to conceal the disproportionate number of dead Seljuks he sent a whole army detachment to kick out scavengers off the battlefield for some time untill they cut dead soldiers' scalps (to hide the different byzantine and turkish-style haircuts) and genitals (to hide the existence of circumcision) so as that none could tell the origins of the soldiers.
Interesting scavenging story. -
Message 25
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 16th October 2010
Not everything does get recovered, of course.
Richard Holmes tells a story, I think in "Fatal Avenue" (if you only have one of his books, it should be this one), of a curious find.
While exploring a WWI battlefield near the Belgian border, he found what he thought was a rifle butt. He assumed it was a British SMLE, or possibly a German Mauser. But on investigation, it emerged as a Brown Bess musket, which he surmised must have been dropped during the advance from Waterloo.
LW -
Message 26
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Saturday, 16th October 2010
Sat, 16 Oct 2010 17:23 GMT, in reply to LongWeekend in message 25
The British took most of the German equipment left over from the Occupation of the Channel Islands and dumped it in the sea, where most of it still is (one or two bits have been recovered since). I dare say the Norman-Allied army after Hastings took advantage of the spoils of war, since there would have been little difference between the equipment of the rival armies. -
Message 27
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 16th October 2010
They say Cretans have kept a large part of the material either German or British discarted during the battle of Crete. Some of it was used in the struggle against Germans but some other is still maintained by them till today and often in great shape - not just rifles but also some heavier stuff.
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Message 28
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 16th October 2010
The Yugoslavs also kept a lot of ex-Wehrmacht equipment. Some of it went into service - for instance 8.8cms as coastal defence weapons, but much of the rest simply into store for reserve use.
They made some profit out this during the '70s by establishing a niche as a good place for Hollywood to make war movies (A Bridge Too Far, Force 10 From Navarone etc), but some of it also emerged during the break-up in the early '90s.
The Czechs flogged a lot of surplus off in the immediate post-war period. People assume the MG34s being clutched by Israeli soldiers in the War of Independence came from the Western Desert. In fact, most were the product of clandestine arms purchases from the Czechs.
LW -
Message 29
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Sunday, 17th October 2010
ST,
There was 400,000 tons of scrap metal at the bottom of Scapa Flow after the High Seas Fleet scuttled itself in 1919.
This was salvaged during the 1920s and 30s,first by Ernest Cox then Metal Industries Ltd.
Three of the battleships,Konig,Kronprinz Wilhelm and Markgraf are still there.They are dive wrecks now though some small scale salvage took place after 1962 (note the comment about this steel being free of radioactive contamination). -
Message 30
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Sunday, 17th October 2010
People assume the MG34s being clutched by Israeli soldiers in the War of Independence came from the Western Desert. In fact, most were the product of clandestine arms purchases from the Czechs.Â
This is slightly off the point but the Israelis also used a Czech fighter called the Avia. Ironically this was a variant of the Me109 used by Nazi Germany -
Message 31
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Sunday, 17th October 2010
IIRC the Israelis also had an ex-Egyptian Spitfire which they downed, and returned to service. Ships, if captured, have long been incorporated into the captor's navy.
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Message 32
Posted by farmersboy (U5592874) on Thursday, 21st October 2010
there is a fantastic photo in the book "The tunnels of ??????" about the vietnam war Â
The Tunnels of Cu-Chi, a most excellent book.
The Vietnamese became experts in recycling whatever the Americans left behind; they had teams of spotters to try to identify where unexploded bombs were, and risked their lives to remove the explosive which went into home-made grenades and booby traps made from discarded ration pack tins.
In one tunnel complex a partially buried ARVN tank was found that was still in use as a command post, the engine being use to charge the batteries that powered the radios. -
Message 33
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 21st October 2010
Ships, if captured, have long been incorporated into the captor's navy.Â
Yes. There's also a tradition in the Royal Navy that if a ship is captured then its name is never used again.
On the recycling of ships - the USS Phoenix was a Brooklyn-class light cruiser which (appropriate to her name) survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. She then saw action in the Battle of the Coral Sea, in New Guinea and also at the retaking of The Philippines. All the while she evaded further attacks by torpedo bombers, mines and kamikaze pilots. In 1951 she was decommissioned and sold to a foreign state.
31 years later she was sunk by the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror southwest of the Falkland Islands. The USS Phoenix was, of course, the ARA General Belgrano. -
Message 34
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Thursday, 21st October 2010
Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:50 GMT, in reply to Vizzer aka U_numbers in message 33
There's also a tradition in the Royal Navy that if a ship is captured then its name is never used again.Â
Similarly, the numbers of Roman legions that were destroyed were not reused.
During the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, the British captured the Dutch 18-gun sloop-of-war Havik, which was taken into the Royal Navy as HMS Havick (havik meaning hawk, there being already an HMS Hawk - where the stray 'c' came from is a mystery!). In due course, the Dutch launched another sloop-of-war called Havik. Shortly afterwards, it was captured by the British and taken into the Royal Navy... Talk about bad luck! -
Message 35
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Friday, 22nd October 2010
Wasn't the first Ark Royal, a name so loved by the British people, also a captured and renamed ship?
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Message 36
Posted by MB (U177470) on Friday, 22nd October 2010
Wikipedia suggests that the first Ark Royal was built for Sir Walter Raleigh and purchased for use by the Navy.
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Message 37
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Friday, 22nd October 2010
Build as "Ark Ralegh" indeed. The "purchase" is a little more doubtful - Elizabeth I was notorious for never settling up,and never did so in this case but Walter eventually was let off a debt to the crown, IIRC for well under the agreed purchase price of the ship.
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Message 38
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 22nd October 2010
The other Brooklyn-class cruiser sold to Argentina, the USS Boise, had portrayed the panzerschiff Graf in the film "Battle of the River Plate".
So, in a manner of speaking,the RN did for both of them.
In a similar vein (although not really battlefield scavenging), the River class frigate HMS Nith was sold after the war to the Egyptians, who named her Domiat. On 31 October 1956, she encountered HM Ships Newfoundland and Diana, who sank her.
Warranty must have expired.
LW -
Message 39
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Friday, 22nd October 2010
The cruiser in "The Battle of The River Plate" was the USS Salem
Regards Vf -
Message 40
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Friday, 22nd October 2010
One of the more cosmopolitan vessels was this :
Another migrant was -
Message 41
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Saturday, 23rd October 2010
Yes. There's also a tradition in the Royal Navy that if a ship is captured then its name is never used again.Â
I have to disagree with this one Vizz. Swiftsure has been a name used from the 16th century to the present day and two Swiftsures have been captured, one by the Dutch in 1666 and the other by the French in 1802. In the latter case,a replacement Swiftsure joined the fleet shortly afterwards and as it turned out both Swiftsures fought on opposing sides at Trafalgar. Also another captured ship,Berwick,was in the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar and there were heavy cruisers named Berwick in both World Wars.
Trike. -
Message 42
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 23rd October 2010
Thanks for that Trike.
Maybe the 'tradition' is more of a naval guideline than an actual rule. That said - the Royal Navy Ships’ Names and Badges Committee does have certain provisions regarding the naming of ships including whether or not a particular name has 'an unhappy history'. It could be that ships with a certain name need to have been captured and/or lost more than once before that name is proscribed. -
Message 43
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Saturday, 23rd October 2010
Edward III's flagship the 'Edward' was captured by the French, reused by then, then recaptured by the English and used against the French again!
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Message 44
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Saturday, 23rd October 2010
What about this for debris!
Oh and these!
This one is extremely moving and very sad.God rest their souls.
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Message 45
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Sunday, 24th October 2010
Hi Vizzer,
That might well be the case. There were a few HMS Captains up until 1870,until it was the name given to the Royal Navy's first turret ship. This Captain sank early in its career with heavy loss of life and the name has never been used since. Warship names are a study in themselves.
Excellent video about the Royal Oak,first time I've seen this.
Trike. -
Message 46
Posted by Pete- Weatherman (U14670985) on Wednesday, 3rd November 2010
When it comes to WW1 most of its still there, under sevral feet of what was once MUD. As with most battle grounds Mud is offten the stuff your fighting on, with explosions, tank, and the like, a dropped gun is soon sevral feet down, and hit a truck or even a tank enough times and it to can soon get swamped. As an anti-tank gunner we were once given the chance to blow up a car, damaged by a tank (Long Story) We hit it with just one round, and there was littraly nothing left of it. Now times that by 1000+ Shells or Bombs. not much stays in one piece on a Battle field
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Message 47
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Friday, 5th November 2010
Modern armies must be the most eco-unfriendly that have ever existed as the amount of non-perishable rubbish/litter they produce has increased tremendously.
Just thinking back to the times I was an ammunition number on a light gun (105mm). Shells and cartridges came in separate metal boxes, two shells/carts to a box.
Now the boxes were always re-used for brew kits, tools and such like military uses, and I daresay a lot of the boxes found their way out into civvy street (I noticed ammo crates onboard Starbug on Red Dwarf) but there’s a limit to how many brew kits any one crew would need, so come a hostile situation I can imagine them being left behind when the battery moves to another position. Six guns blatting off 30 rounds – 90 empty metal boxes and a battery would be expected to do half a dozen moves per day.
And it’s not just the boxes – it’s the contents.
Break out the shells - each box was sealed with two clips of wire – they get kicked off and left lying. Pull out the two cardboard cylinders (a bit like those that a good bottle of malt comes in but a lot bigger) – watch your fingers though – each are 35lbs. Strip off the black tape that seals the cylinder – throw that away. Slide the shell out – throw away the horseshoe shape of metal that supports the end with the fuse on. Throw away the cardboard cylinder.
What fuse for this mission – non standard? Right rip of the sealant on that aluminium tin (a bit longer than a can of beans), throw it away, unscrew the top, pull out the rubber sealant and other packaging, discard the rubbish and take the fuse to the shell, unscrew the old fuse (better keep that I think) and screw on the new.
Break open the propellant cartridges – kick open the box (leaving the wire clips) pull out the black plastic containers the carts come in. These are big unwieldy black cylinders about a yard long. Twist off the top – often a bit of a task as they are sealed quite tightly – just hope the handle doesn’t ping off. Once the top comes off throw it away, ditto with the rubber sealant ring, slide the cartridge out. The propellant can be broken down into different charges – if you are using a lower charge (perhaps the enemy is not as far in front of you than you would wish!) that means you will have spare bags (increments are the mil speak term) throw them away – whoa, no you keep them and hand them over to be carefully burnt well away from the position.
Sling the pill up the breech, follow that with the cartridge – hang on a minute, flick off that metal cruciform thing that’s clipped to the base of the cartridge (stops it being detonated accidently) and throw that away. Fire the gun, and carefully (it’s hot) pick up the expended cartridge (similar to a spent rifle cartridge case, this is known as a brass) and throw that away too!
Repeat that numerous times.
Quite a lot of litter is being produced. Now supervised squaddies are a tidy animal and all of this discarded packaging etc are kept in reasonably tidy heaps as the bloke in charge of the gun wants to keep his platform neat ( the gun platform is a term that covers the area under the camouflage net that the gun is lurking under) but if it was a real war, this rubbish (it used to be called ‘gash’ in my time) would just lie there. Most of it is metal, plastic and rubber, so it would take an age to decompose in the normal scheme of things.
Add to that the empty tins of fizzy drinks, mars bar wrappers and the general rubbish that a bunch of six young men can generate with apparent ease and I can imagine certain parts of the modern battlefield are going to look like a field the day after an outdoor Rock Festival.
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