Anyone ever heard of 'Wachmunition'

[Gary Van Kauwenbergh, 101]

I'm nearly done with my translation of the Austrian manual for the Lorenz Rifled Musket, but there's one paragraph I'm not sure I've got correct. It talks about something called 'Watch' or 'Guard' ammunition, that apparently fits loose in the barrel so it can be easily unloaded. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? I'd be more confident of the translation if someone on the board told me they'd heard of it used elsewhere.My translation: '81. The watch ammunition differs from the usual live ammunition in that you load a single Compression bullet on the powder charge, which is slightly smaller in diameter, so you can unload the rifle without using the ball-screw or worm by pointing muzzle slightly downward.'In German: '81. Die Wachmunition unterscheidet sich von der gewöhnlichen scharfen dadurch, das man auf das geladene Pulver eine ledige Compressivfugel fesst, die durch das Abraspeln im Durchmesser etwas verringert werde, damit sie jedesmal beim Entladen des Gewehres leicht aus dem hiezu mit der Mündung nach abwärts geneigten Laufe und ohne.'

[jonk]

ohne...?

Because German kicks verbs to the end you need to have the rest of the sentence.

BTW, I asked an Austrian friend of mine about Exercierpfropf from later in the same section. She said:

I did not find "Exercierpfropf" online but in the military context "Exerzier-" and "exerzieren" refers to practice and dummies. For example, Exerziergeschoß is a dummy projectile, Exerzierpatrone is a drill/dummy cartridge, Exerziermunition is dummy ammunition etc.
Pfropfen and Propfen should be the same thing. The proper spelling includes the first f but it may not always be spelled that way because it's commonly mispronounced.

A pfropf is a bung, or plug. So I think that we could say that Exercierpfropf would be an exercise plug, i.e. a dummy round.

So given that, despite the fact that Wachmann is indeed a watchman, leading me to think guards ammo, it could be training ammo, for instance to practice easy loading, hence the ability to remove from the barrel easily.

[Don Dixon]

Gary,

Watch cartridges were used by the Austro-Hungarian Army (k.k. Army) in built-up areas where it was not practical to discharge firearms when the guard mount came off watch. They were also a vehicle for conserving powder and lead. The cost of a cartridge was equal to the cost of a k.k. Army private soldier's daily allowance for food. In his manual on the Muster 1842 k.k. Army smoothbore muskets and Muster 1844 and 1849 Kammerbuchsen (incorrectly called Garibaldi's here), Lt Dub describes the cartridges as follows:

"When on watch and post, the pointed ba​ll is removed from the [paper] cartridge and the naked ball and the charge are enclosed in a cloth-sack which is loaded in the chamber with the ramrod."

In k.k. Army ammunition, the ball or conical bullet was somewhat undersized, and wrapped in a greased paper cartridge to take up the windage. So, the guard cartridge was undersized so that it could readily be removed from the barrel. When the guard came off post, the worm was attached to the ramrod and was then used to catch the cloth bag and pull the bullet and charge from the barrel. Some specially made guard cartridges for the Muster 1854 System Lorenz arms had the nose of the bullet drilled so that the ball screw would easily fit the nose of the bullet and be used to withdraw the guard cartridge. Remember that with a compression bullet you can't use force to drill into the nose of the bullet with the ball screw. It just wedges the bullet tightly into the bore.

I have been out of town for the holidays, and will respond separately to your private request for information on the Austro-Hungarian Imperial system of measurements. I do have detailed information on that.

Regards,
Don Dixon
2881V

[Gary Van Kauwenbergh, 101]

Thank you Jonathan and Don!

[jonk]

Aha! So I was right! Watch-ammo for a watchman on guard. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for 400 gr of lead and 55 gr of powder though!

[Don Dixon]

Some reasons:

One cartridge equals one ration per day.

In 1860, the Emperor's standing army was 600,000 men when our's was 16,000. That a lot of powder and shot every morning.

The k.k. Army had a very organized system of marksmanship training. This included recovering the lead from the factory made cartridges that they expended in marksmanship training. The more lead your regiment recovered the more locally made cartridges your regiment could make for further training.

You don't want to fire arms in built-up areas due to problems with noise and ranges. In combat situations, you also probably don't want the gunfire. Look at the reports in our Civil War of troops reacting to the guard clearing their weapons or firing salutes at funerals. That's why "Taps" was written.

The k.k. Army was the element of social control in the Empire. In an Empire of tribes, the Army was the Army Tribe. As nationalism grew, the nationalist politicians in the Reich Ratt continually tried to cut the Army's budget. Between 1860 and 1865, for example, the k.k. Army's budget was cut by a third. The Army covered the deployment of the Muster 1862 rifle system by burying the profits that it made from its sales of surplus Muster 1854 weapons to the Federals, Confederates, and Bavarians.

American institutional "wisdom" has been that the converted System Augustin locks (tubelocks) used in Muster 1854 System Lorenz arms were shoddy materials foisted off on the Federals and Confederates. Instead, the always fiscally prudent k.k. Army used them in the arms that it issued to its own solders.