Trapdoor Pistol

[Booner]

I know, I need to look up the source, but fairly sure it is accurate, they had mountains of excess Spencer and Henry ammunition, but instead thought that the TD carbine would limit expenditure. The brass would expand and jam rendering the weapon useless and the "punch" that they thought they were getting from the higher grained cartridge was negated by the Plains Indian tactics.

At the time of the LBH battle, I think the 45-55 cartridge used by the 7th cav. was made of copper, not brass, and this was partially the extraction problem. The failure to extraction rate was something like 1:300 firings, and is not considered to be a major factor in the loss. The army switched over to brass sometime in the 1880's

edit----
Sorry, I didn't see Mr. Heinz most excellent post regarding this.

 

[unionblue]

Might as well have put wagon wheels on that monster and called it a howitzer!

 

[Ralph Heinz]

I did that oil painting for Don Horn, a Custer historian who provided me with an unpublished photo of Tom Custer that showed the bullet scar to the right side of his face. We know that Custer had been wounded high in the left shoulder which Dr. Porter (the surviving surgeon) stated would not have been a fatal wound and that the bodies of his brother Tom, Lt. Reily, and Lt. Cooke were all found in the circle of dead horses. We also know Custer was not wearing his buckskin jacket as it was a very hot day.

I've ridden three times from the Crow's Nest to the battlefield itself using accurate repro equipment and uniform in the heat of June and worked as a metal detector for the NPS on three of the archaeological projects on the battlefield. My wife worked on two of them.

 

[Package4]

At the time of the LBH battle, I think the 45-55 cartridge used by the 7th cav. was made of copper, not brass, and this was partially the extraction problem. The failure to extraction rate was something like 1:300 firings, and is not considered to be a major factor in the loss. The army switched over to brass sometime in the 1880's

edit----
Sorry, I didn't see Mr. Heinz most excellent post regarding this.

I stand corrected on the cartridge composition, but my point remains the same, Custer was severely out gunned, as a case in point, of the government's desire, to save, not only in ammunition, but virtually every aspect of the military, post ACW.

Don't know what the outcome would have been with repeating rifles, but it could not have been worse.

 

[Booner]

I stand corrected on the cartridge composition, but my point remains the same, Custer was severely out gunned, as a case in point, of the government's desire, to save, not only in ammunition, but virtually every aspect of the military, post ACW.

Don't know what the outcome would have been with repeating rifles, but it could not have been worse.

I don't think Custer was out gunned, he was out Indianed. Attacking an armed Indian camp without recognizance, not listening to his Indian guides, dividing his command, surely were major factors.

 

[Ralph Heinz]

The Indian warriors commented that many of Custer's troops stood while the warriors fired from low behind the sage brush making the troops easy casualties. Unlike most paintings of the battle, the warriors did not ride in on horseback around the troops like a giant merry-go-round which would have made them easy targets. Those mostly young warriors needed to survive so they could provide for their families. They weren't stupid. The troops on the other hand had some men who had little experience and were not well-trained in marksmanship at that time. If you lived then and enlisted in the army (as many unemployed emigrants did) and your regiment was going on campaign, you went with them as on-the-job training. Many were very poor horsemen coming from eastern cities -- never having ridden a horse before and with no previous training with weapons. Except for the officers, they were not made up of a preponderance of Civil War veterans. It was a disaster in waiting.

 

[Package4]

I don't think Custer was out gunned, he was out Indianed. Attacking an armed Indian camp without recognizance, not listening to his Indian guides, dividing his command, surely were major factors.

Not really the proper forum, but from almost all extant information and archeological evidence, that I have seen, they were outgunned in terms of the number of native Americans, that were armed with repeating rifles, not to mention the number of arrows that could be loosed, in a high trajectory into frightened and bunched troopers.

Repeaters would have made a difference on every part of the battlefield, from Reno to Custer and may have bolstered their confidence, thus their specified spacing.

The point is, we will never know because the government purposely did not allow extra ammunition for training and did not provide the best firepower, for fiduciary reasons. There was also the added factor that many of the troopers were immigrants from large European cities and training was difficult, both in maneuvers and horsemanship.

 

[Ralph Heinz]

Package 4 is correct. Out-gunned, poorly trained, and over-powered -- the outcome was predictable.

 

[Package4]

Package 4 is correct. Out-gunned, poorly trained, and over-powered -- the outcome was predictable.
View attachment 159038

Is your art for sale?

 

[Ralph Heinz]

I gave up painting a decade ago. Art is controlled by artist's groups and as I didn't belong to one and was self-educated I wasn't invited to art shows where contacts with art buyers take place. What the public doesn't understand is that artists don't want competition particularly from someone who has actually been in battle and has spent 65 years collecting weapons, uniforms, and equipment from the Civil War through WWII. A few men commissioned paintings but large battle scenes took me 6 months to do. All my friends have been historians like Brian Pohanka and Doug McChristian and collectors like Hayes Otoupalik -- not other artists-- except for Don Troiani -- whom I regard as the finest historical artist of all time. Don arranged for me to do a large painting for the US Army NG Heritage Painting series of an 1867 cavalry battle in Kansas against Indians which now hangs in the Pentagon.