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When Japanese soldiers train, a strange device is attached to their rifles. Does it make their weapons more accurate? Does it change the rate of fire, reduce recoil, increase stability, or otherwise affect the effectiveness of the weapon? Absolutely not. Instead, it makes cleaning a little easier. In Japan, the standard rifle is the Type 20 chambered for 5.56. During training, Japan Self-Defense Forces soldiers often attach. This is a fabric bag that attaches to the weapon, covering the ejection window. When fired, the cartridge case falls into the bag, rather than flying around to be collected later. Instead of the tedious task of collecting each cartridge individually, they can simply empty the bags at the appropriate time. So why exactly
do they do this? Soldiers around the world shoot live ammunition to improve accuracy, get a better feel for their weapons, and simulate combat conditions. This is all good, but there is one caveat. Like any large organization, the military relies on bureaucracy to function. Every piece of equipment must be accounted for, and ammunition is no exception. Accounting for spent ammunition prevents its theft for illegal purposes, so correct ammunition counting is an important security requirement. Brass can also be recycled, and the proceeds from the sale of the metal fund many programs. And there is another much simpler reason.
Shooting ranges and training areas would quickly become covered in a layer of shell casings, which would need to be cleaned up after the exercises were over. Most often, cleaning of used cartridges is done the old-fashioned way, manually. This tedious and tedious activity, known as " police cleanup," involves soldiers who have just practiced with their weapons forming a line and walking across a shooting range, carefully examining the ground and collecting shell casings one by one. In modern semi-automatic and automatic weapons, empty shells fly a fairly significant distance so that the hot metal does not hit the shooter's hand, which would be
inconvenient. This makes collecting casings much more difficult as they can be scattered over a large area. After collection, the empty shells are further sorted by caliber: 5.56,.50, 9 mm, 12 gauge-all of which are stored and processed separately from each other. Why is that? Except in cases of re- equipment, they will still be melted down. So why worry about this stage? All this is due to a counting process that has even a hint of efficiency. Instead of counting thousands of individual rounds, the brass is weighed. The used cartridges have the same mass, and weighing them allows you to accurately determine the number of rounds fired without tedious manual counting. In fact, the US Army uses a
special table for this. It covers most of the major calibers used by the military: from the tiny.22 short to 25- mm rounds for machine-guns that destroy equipment. The entire system is strictly regulated. When issuing ammunition for exercises, the number of rounds is recorded in reports. After the training is completed, the casings are collected, and their weight must meet predetermined parameters. And now some mathematical equations for you. The 5.56x45mm cartridge, the standard ammunition for the M-16, M-4 rifles, and the M-249 SAW machine gun, has an empty brass case weighing 0.0135 pounds. If soldiers were issued 39,875 rounds of ammunition for training, assuming they were all used, what would be the total weight of the empty
shells collected? Grab a piece of paper or the calculator on your phone and do the calculation. Did you get an answer? This means that soldiers must return 538.3 pounds of empty shells. We at Simple History apologize to those for whom this brought back memories of math lessons in school. Anyway, that's why it's important to separate calibers, as their weights can vary significantly, especially when it comes to thousands of units. If the weight was too much, it could be due to debris, such as steel links from a machine gun's spreader belt, which should have been removed. If the indicators are too low, well, there must be a good explanation for this. At a minimum, you will need to complete Form 58-11-the standard document for damaged or lost
equipment. So, hooray, more paperwork. An investigation will be launched, which could lead to penalties for negligence-up to imprisonment or dishonorable discharge if the ammunition was stolen or sold on the black market. The South Korean military is doing the same thing, installing shell casing catcher devices on the ejection ports of its K2 assault rifles and other weapons. However, there is more to using this device than just simple convenience. As in the US Army, ammunition is strictly regulated, and a full accounting is conducted after the exercise is completed. Unlike the US Army, which weighs spent cartridges for a rough estimate, in South Korea each cartridge must be counted individually, piece by piece.
This focus on making every shot count borders on extreme. According to the recollections of an American journalist who was with the South Korean marines, the platoon combed the training ground for several hours in search of three lost cartridges. Although the use of shell casing bags is considered a very convenient way to track spent ammunition, there are certain disadvantages. The biggest problem is weight gain. The shells themselves are very light, but when there are a lot of them hanging from the side of the rifle, all that extra metal can interfere with the use of the weapon, throw off the sight, or at the very least be very annoying. There are also concerns that the obsession with counting cartridges
reduces the combat effectiveness of soldiers, as they spend countless hours counting unnecessary things instead of honing their combat skills. It is even suggested that they may try to collect shell casings during a real fight out of an ingrained habit, instead of focusing on the fight itself. However, whether this is true is a matter of speculation. Cartridge bags are by no means a new invention. During World War I, aviation played a decisive role on the battlefield for the first time. The planes of the time were rickety biplanes made of fabric and wood with open cockpits. When the pilots fired, the shells would fly in unpredictable directions, though
usually backwards, right into the pilot's face. If he was wearing goggles, it was annoying, but it could also lead to disaster. Many early aircraft models were " pushers", meaning the propeller and engine were located at the rear. In this configuration, the shells could get into the engine or damage the propeller, which was obviously not the best option. Many pilots and gunners equipped their weapons, most often machine guns such as the Lewis, with cartridge bags to prevent this. However, this was not always the case, and cartridge bags could also be used for pistols. Although the main weapon during the Great War was the machine gun, aerial combat was in its infancy, and taking out a pistol and shooting the pilot of an
enemy aircraft in flight was a perfectly acceptable tactic. To prevent the cartridges from causing problems, RFC pistol cartridge deflector" was created. RFC stands for Royal Flying Corps, and there is some evidence that they used this device on M1911 pistols that they purchased along with specialized 20- round magazines. Although it was an American weapon, there is no evidence that the US military used this or similar devices. There is little information about the use of the RFC shell reflector in combat, although one can only speculate. It is a bulky item that makes it difficult to carry in a holster or store, and would likely interfere with aiming, especially when firing one-
handed by an aircraft pilot in flight. Although there are special cartridge case catchers, sometimes you have to improvise. There are videos on social media of soldiers using plastic bottles taped to the receivers of rifles. Cutouts are made in the bottles so that the discarded cartridge case falls inside, and not on the ground. Is this primitive? Yes. Does it work? Certainly. Remember: if it looks silly but works, then it's not silly. Case catcher kits are still used today by both military and civilian personnel, and they make cleanup after a day at the range much easier.
