January 18th, 2022
7minute read
September 15, 1916, was a Friday.
Some three million men tore at each other, spilling a veritable sea of blood.
Fully a third fell as casualties.
The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest conflicts in human history.
The British Mk 1 tanks used during this engagement were intended to provide mobility.
The lessons learned from this early armored assault shape land warfare to this very day.
The Mk 1 tank came in two broad variants denoted by the strangest terminology.
One version sported a crew of eight, three Hotchkiss 8mm machineguns, and two 6-pounder cannons.
This version was called the Male.
The Female version weighed 27 tons and carried four .303-in Vickers guns as well as one French Hotchkiss.
Both contraptions were little more than death traps.
The noxious fumes from their primitive internal combustion engines quite literally poisoned the crews at times.
They also horrified the Boche.
Lieutenant Arthur Herbert Blowers commanded D5, one of the female tanks.
Blowers was born on November 5, 1891, in Knodishall, Suffolk, the 13thof 14 siblings.
He called his radical new armored war machine Dolphin.
They made excellent progress at first, but eventually the Boche begin swarming the vehicles.
German artillery in the direct fire mode took a toll as well.
Most of the British tanks were eventually disabled or destroyed.
However, their appearance on the battlefield signaled a paradigm shift in the nature of ground combat.
By now the tank was on fire, and the crew was forced to abandon it.
It was here that Lt. Blowers day got truly interesting.
Blowers nonetheless still returned to the burning Dolphin to rescue his driver trapped inside.
The gun served for three-quarters of a century as the standard-issue service pistol for the British armed forces.
Introduced in 1887, the Webley was not retired until 1963.
Though offered in both .455 and .38/200 chamberings, the basic mechanism remained unchanged.
The Webley was produced in six different Marks, starting in 1887.
The majority of the guns in service were the Mk IV in .38/200 and Mk VI in .455.
Roughly 600,000 copies were produced.
The Mk IV .38-caliber Webley launched a fairly uninspired .38/200 round, also known as the .38 Super Police.
The .38/200 cartridge pushed a 200-gr.
soft lead bullet to around 600 feet per second.
Despite its marginal ballistics, this long soft bullet did tend to destabilize in flesh and create impressive wounds.
Subsequent Mk VI Webley revolvers were chambered for the heavy .455 rimmed cartridge.
Many of these surplus WWI-era wheelguns had their cylinder faces shaved to accept .45 ACP rounds on moon clips.
However, the pressures generated by .45 ACP cartridges far exceed those of even .455 proof loads.
The top-break design made for exceptionally fast reloads.
Pressing the release catch and tipping the barrel down and forward automatically activated the Webleys star-shaped extraction system.
This exercise extracted and ejected all six cases in a single move.
The Webley represented the state of the art for its day.
Their Moneys Worth
If properly maintained, these rugged revolvers last about forever.
The British also fielded a similar pistol called the .38/200 Enfield No 2.
The Enfield looked a bit like the Webley but was mechanically dissimilar.
The Mk1* was the same Enfield revolver with the hammer removed for double-action-only operation.
Bobbing the hammer spur helped keep the gun from catching on stuff within the confines of an armored vehicle.
One of the more bizarre variants of this rugged design was the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver.
This complex mechanism indexed the cylinder and cocked the hammer automatically.
The result was a light, pleasant trigger that made it a popular target gun.
Vintage Webley-Fosbery revolvers are just stupid expensive these days.
As a result, the Webley family of revolvers endeared itself to generations of Englishmen.
Arthur Herbert Blowers was quite a piece of work.
They just dont make them like that anymore.
Arthur Blowers died in Spixworth, Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom of liver cancer in 1980.
Arthur Blowers was a larger-than-life hero and an archetype for the indefatigable British soldier.
