Standing Well Back
16th Century

Invention of the Mechanical Explosive Igniter

It’s been a while since my last post – other things have had my attention. A reader, John C, responded to a post I wrote last year with some thoughts and this encouraged me to look again at this fascinating and crucially important piece of (explosive) history.

This then is a follow up to this post   which I suggest you read through to refresh your memory. In it I explore some interesting technological developments regarding the development of explosive initiators in the early 1500s.  Why is this important?

    1. Until the early 1500s, explosives (gunpowder) could only be initiated by the physical application of fire. Gunpowder was initiated by applying a burning match to a small quantity of gunpowder which then ignited a larger charge, whether that be inside a gun or inside a larger container.
    2. Effectively this limited the use of explosives/gunpowder, because a prior step was needed to ignite a match and keep it burning until such time as it could be used.  This limited how explosive devices or firearms could be used, slowing the process or making it more obvious. So the technology development described below allows for speed of action, timeliness and concealment – all important characteristics of explosive devices.
    3. The invention of a mechanical igniter gave much more flexibility and did away with the need for a burning match. Devices could be placed, concealed and left. Firearms could be concealed.  Devices or firearms could also be initiated almost exactly when needed rather than after a delay.
    4. Mechanical igniters such as this enabled booby traps (Victim operated devices) (perhaps with a trip wire), enabled command operated explosive devices (via a pull string) and even enabled timed explosive devices (where a clock hand could pull a string). As far as firearms are concerned the jump from matchlock to wheel-lock is a very significant technological leap.

So in the history of firearms and in the linked history of explosives (as the site purports to be, in a sense)  these mechanical devices described in my earlier post are quite significant.

In the earlier post last year I included a copy of beautiful diagram of a mechanical igniter from a date of about 1505. Historically speaking this is technically a wheel lock but I think was invented before a similar device was fitted to a hand held firearm. It’s maybe the first wheel lock mechanism.  This device and one or two others were carefully drawn and included in the“Loffelholz Kodex”. At the time I hadn’t worked out how this igniter had functioned. I’ve now spent some time scratching my head and doing a little research and I think I may have an answer. But I’m only about 60% certain, so if you think I’m wrong, please correct me. I’m very open to alternative interpretations of this intriguing machine.  For ease of explanation I have included the diagram again here below but with some annotations.

I originally thought the device had a coiled spring hidden behind the wheel (F) to cause it to turn, but I no longer think that is true. Importantly I don’t think coiled springs of the type I had envisioned had been invented at this time.  Rather, like the simpler device seen in the last post, there is a cord wrapped around the wheel’s axle. The horizontal J shaped main spring (B) has its longest arm, along the bottom and this is the spring which pulls the cord down, causing the wheel to spin. The wheel is prevented from turning by the Brake (C) in the middle to which a pull string is attached. Pulling that away from the wheel is like releasing a parking brake. In normal conditions this Brake (C) is held in place by the brass bar running in parallel to it acting as a spring.  The bit I’m slightly unsure of is the Cord tensioner (G). This holds the cord tight against the axle. You can see the finger holder that you pull when winding up the wheel(F) with the winding key (E).

So… let me describe the preparation and action…

1. The winding cord is tied to the end of the J shaped main spring and the other end to to the right hand contraption. The right hand contraption is tensioned using the finger guard to pull the cord.
2. The wheel is turned using the “ring key”. This causes the cord to wrap around the axle of the wheel. (Somehow!)
3. As this is done the J spring is flexed upwards, and held there by the cord.
4. The “brake” acting on the wheel prevents the tension of the cord to act on the wheel. .
5. After a few turns the brake is engaged, holding the wheel.
6. The tray is primed with gunpowder or tinder.

The action on firing is as follows:

1. At the chosen time the string is pulled.
2. This pulls the brake away from the wheel.
3. The J spring now acts pulling the cord down that is wrapped around the wheel’s axle.
4. The wheel rotates
5. The serpentine holds the pyrites against the rotating wheel
6. Sparks are generated and thrown into the gunpowder/tinder in the tray. The ignition of this gunpowder or tinder can then be used to ignite the main charge though some sort of channel.

I’m not quite sure about how the cord is wrapped on the axle – this important component is hidden from view.

The Loffelholz Codex was produced at roughly the same time as Leonardo da Vinci was also developing spring powered wheel locks. Frankly his diagrams are much harder to interpret that these in the Loffelholz. I have no idea which came first, and it doesn’t really matter perhaps. Other technologies which enabled this design include:

    1. Metallurgy and the ability to produce, shape and utilise Spring steel, which seems to have occurred in the late 1400s.
    2. Clock technology, and associate manufacture of relatively carefully produced metal components.

The impact of this development was significant – in 1512 such mechanisms were banned in at least one European country because of the capabilities it provides to those with nefarious intent, and therefore a threat to society of the time. There are interesting parallels with trying to control and constrain explosive technology today.  Wheel locks continued to evolve into neater, smaller designs designed to be mounted on or built in to firearms, usually with some clever spring design – but this early example is entirely separate from a firearm in this form.

1920-1930

South Armagh Command Wire IED – 1921

UPDATE!!!

This story below, based on contemporaneous news reports, turns out to be incorrect.  I’m indebted to JB for sending me the Irish History statement of an IRA member of the time describing how the tracks were manually removed causing the train to derail and crash.  So the story below doesn’t stand up.  But I’ll leave it here because its interesting on a number of levels:

a. how the press reports will vary from the truth quite dramatically.

b. The geography of the area that I assessed as being useful for a command-wire attack, also enable this manual sabotage operation.

Here’s what I wrote originally:

During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s South Armagh in Northern Ireland was a tricky place for IEDs. Only the best and most experienced EOD teams were deployed there.  And one particular part of South Armagh posed more problems than most and that was the railway line that snaked sinuously through the countryside.  As the line gets towards the border, it can be viewed as if in a large amphitheatre, and can be observed for miles, and with the border close by providing escape routes, things were pretty challenging.   At the time no-one told us this place had history. But exactly 100 years ago there was a very significant attack on the British Army here, blowing a train of the track and killing soldiers and horses. Here’s a brief outline.

The new government in Belfast had just been formed. A British Army Cavalry unit, the 10th Hussars, normally based in Dublin, had travelled North by rail , in three separate trains with their horses, for the parades and pageantry associated with the opening of the new Ulster parliament by the king. On 24 June 1921, the unit were travelling back to Dublin again by three trains.   It was the third and last train that was attacked.  The front carriages contained the soldiers and the rear carriages the horses. A few mile beyond Newry the line runs through open countryside with Slieve Gullion on the right and the Ravensdale hills on the left.  In the 80s and 90’s I knew this place as the “Drumintee Bowl” and in those days it was under a lot of observation from the British Army.  In 1921 though it was just pretty rolling wild countryside.  Both then, and in the 70’s,80’s and 90’s the place provides an “arena” for the IED – long views, little high hedged lanes, and a border to escape across. Tricky place for an EOD team, who can feel very exposed there.  A lot of detailed procedural techniques were honed and carefully applied during EOD operations in the Drumintee bowl and on the railway line in particular.

The railway line, which still runs today on the same route runs along an embankment, sitting about 7 -10m high, in full view.  The IRA of the time, knowing the trains were to return to Dublin and knowing , presumably when the trains were loaded and boarded at Belfast, had planted two explosive charges under the rails. The press of the time suggested the device had a time fuse, but I think this is unlikely. Much more likely would have been a command wire, run to an observation point a couple of hundred yards away.  Local IRA men had been trained in the use of electrical command -wire IEDs from the previous year and were equipped with the components including coil exploders.

As the train passed the point of explosion, the circuit was made and the device exploded under about a midpoint on the train. One carriage containing a few soldiers took the brunt of the explosion and three of the soldiers were killed. The carriages behind containing the horses then tumbled off the embankment and about 50 horses were killed (all but one). Here’s a  Pathe news reel of the time at this link.

Of course it’s no surprise that the characteristics that made this place attractive to the bombers of 1921 were the same 60 years later. The IRA probably knew fully well about the 1921 attack – I can tell you that the EOD teams operating in South Armagh 60 years later were , to their chagrin, less aware of history than they should have been.   Other attacks planned by the IRA in the 1920/21 era in South Armagh included pumping oil and paraffin in a mix into a police Baracks in Camlough as a pumped “flame thrower” incendiary. This technique was returned to by the Provisional IRA to attack the RUC station in Crossmaglen in 1993. (Guess what, the British Army had forgotten the earlier attack) , and using a large explosive device paced at the entrances to police barracks – another techniques which came around again in the 1970s,  1980s and 1990s in that same place.

The soldiers who died that day in 1921 were Private Carl Horace Harper, Private William Henry Telford and Sgt Charles Dowson.

The attack was carried out by a IRA unit led by Frank Aiken, a notorious man who commanded the IRA volunteers of South Armagh and Newry at the time. In the weeks that followed their were tit for tat reprisals including the shooting of four IRA men by the B Specials, and so on. South Armagh always was a hard place.

 

Command IED

More early explosive ROVs

In an earlier post here, I discussed some First World War antecedents of modern ROVs, these early one being used to deliver explosive charges – essentially a mobile land mine.  One of the early ones I mentioned was a Schneider “Crocodile” from 1915 which I have not much information on but is pictured here, and which apparently was French developed, but was trialled by a number of nations including Britain and Russia.

Here’s a pic of the controlling team, manning some sort of command interface while the ROV pays out or pulls a cable. I think they are French.

Interestingly I’ve just come across a reference to a number of other Russian devices, some of which seem to have been ROVs. These are referred to as “Sidelnikov’s mobile mine, the creeping mines of Kanushkin and Doroshin, the crocodile mine of Colonel Tolkushin.”     It’s interesting that Colonel Tolkushin’s device was also called a “Crocodile” like the French device. I have only this poor image of it from about 1915-1920:

It seems to be a multi-charge device, on wheels, but to be honest it’s not that clear. Alas my Russian is not good enough to dig out more detail.

Russian ROV technology also preceded some other German technology to deliver large explosive charges in WW2 that I have written about here .  In the 1930s, Russia developed the “Teletank” . One of the versions of this teletank had a large charge (200-700kg) which was “dropped” by the ROV tank like the German Borgward. These were radio-controlled tanks and utilised some early systems which were designed to prevent radio jamming.  Don’t underestimate Russian technology.

 

20th Century

1931 Train Bomber – Pervert or Russian Agent?

I’m grateful to Prof Tim Wilson for drawing my attention to these peculiar 1931 railway bombings by Sylvestre Matushka. Here’s the story:

In the 1930’s the most important “infrastructure” in Europe was the railway system. As my previous posts about railways have discussed, (see the tab on railway bombings in the right-hand column) railways provide a useful target for explosive attacks – they impact the wider world economically and therefore always get attention, there’s thousands of unguarded miles of tracks and bridges that provide safe and unconstrained opportunity of access, the presence of a population dense, massive target, arriving at great speed can be predicted, and the very fact a train balances fairly precariously on rails is also a key factor. So trains and railways were (and remain) a popular target.

The protagonist in this story, Sylvestre Matushka, was a Hungarian engineer and businessman. Some reports suggest that during the First World War he was a soldier in an Austro-Hungarian military engineer unit, responsible for demolitions of railway lines which of course, if true, would be significant. He later became a manager and owner of a number of businesses including a quarrying company which gave him access to explosives or a justification to purchase explosives. Other reports suggest he was a chemist.

Matrushka, (in a dirty raincoat!)

He made at least two unsuccessful efforts to derail trains with explosives in Austria in December and January 1930/31.  In the first attempt he loosened the railway track (also leaving a note saying ” “Assault! Revolution! Victory!”), but the attempted derailment failed. In the second, he fastened another rail across the track but that too failed to derail the train. Strange for him to use this methods if he was a chemist able to access explosives and had experience of damaging railway lines.

Then on 8 August 1931, he derailed a train with explosives causing over 100 casualties (none of them fatal) . The train was the Berlin-Basel express, and the attack took place just south of Berlin. I’m not sure of the device construction but one vague report suggests it was electrically initiated.

A little over a month later on September 13th, he successfully attacked the Budapest to Vienna express, a the Biatorbágy bridge near Budapest.  His device was placed on the viaduct and the train and several carriages plunged into a ravine.   Here 22 people died and 120 were injured. Matushka was arrested at the scene where he was pretending to be a surviving passenger. He was released but re-arrested a month later in Vienna, where he “confessed”. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

I have regrettably found little detail so far about the device here also. It reportedly used dynamite in one source but another more convincing source suggests the explosive was “ecrasite”. Dynamite as a main charge would match the quarrying background of Matruska but ecrasite would perhaps marry with the report he was a chemist, and as military explosive perhaps marry with the reports that he had been a demolitions officer in the First Wold War.  One source, without explanation, suggests the Vienna device was initiated by the pressure of the train closing a switch. That’s interesting but I can’t confirm it yet. Such devices were certainly technologically possible, and were used in the Great War and before, as I have discussed in earlier posts, so would have been available in concept to Matushka. But he was “present at the scene” and a command initiated device would have been simpler perhaps, so I think there still remains a question mark over the initiation.

The question of Matushka’s “motivation” is interesting. Initially the investigations assumed a political motivation because at the Berlin explosion a defaced Nazi magazine was found and the note found after one of the earlier attempted derailments.  Allegedly a letter was found after the last incident “praising revolution” but there are suggestions that this was a plant that enabled the government to implement an anti-communist security crack-down. Two communists were executed for supposedly encouraging Matrushka, but there were doubts about how genuine this was.   At his trial he claimed he first claimed to have been directed by “God” to conduct the bombings, then that they were instigated by an imaginary or long dead friend, “Leo the Ghost” who only he could see and who had hypnotised him. The assessment at the time was that Matrushka was pretending to be insane.  Then a story emerged that he had sexual gratification from seeing dramatic and tragically violent incidents. This was supposedly the first ever case of “Symphorophilia”, and to be honest I’m not aware of any subsequent ones involving explosives, so I’m a bit sceptical. To me, it’s no more believable than “Leo the Ghost”.    In any event he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Matushka remained in jail in Vac throughout most of the Second World War. Vac was liberated by the advancing Soviet Army, and at that point Matushka disappeared.   There are unconfirmed but intriguing suggestions that he then worked for the Soviet Union under a new identity, as an explosives expert in the latter part of the War,  and perhaps even operated as a demolition expert in the Korean War in the 1950s. The Soviet Union certainly had secret programs to cause disruption to Western European countries later in the 1930s (see my earlier posts on Ilya Starinov) , and some of these did include train bombings of a similar kind. There are other rumours (supposedly back by documents) that he reappeared in Hungary in the 1970s under another identity.

There is an interesting possible link to the first bombing near Berlin. The morning after the bombing, two policemen were assassinated by a communist group who were active at the time – and Berlin was a long way from Matushka’s home turf.

So the possibilities are that

  • He was inspired by God
  • He was inspired for reasons of perverted sexual gratification
  • He was a right wing “plant” to justify anti-communist programs
  • He was a communist operative.

Take your pick.

 

16th Century

Development of Mechanical Explosive Initiators in the early 16th Century

A few days of enforced idleness has given me a little space to think. Inspired by my (off topic) recent post, a book review on the evolution of piston engines in the Second World War I’ve been thinking again about key technological developments in history with regard to explosives and related issues.

To put this blog into context, let me try to make things really simple.  An explosion, (whether that be of high explosives or gunpowder) is a chemical reaction, typically a change from a solid to a lot of gas. For about 500 years from about 1000 AD to 1500AD, there was only gunpowder, a low explosive, and this mix of chemical solids could be brought to change to gaseous products with the application of a naked flame which starts essentially a combustion process.  So by introducing a naked flame, or equivalent amount of heat, it starts the reaction, and causes the explosion of hot gases. Until about 1500 the only way of igniting gunpowder was by heat or flame. You can see my earlier post about other related technologies here.

But having to have an already burning flame or equivalent is tricky. You can’t disguise it easily. If your “match” is unlit you have too start a fire somehow and that takes time, even more so before the age of boxes of matches and cigarette lighters.  All this led to practical challenges in the use of firearms and explosives.  The most efficient method until 1500 (and indeed for many years later) was to have ready a slow match burning well in advance,

The time was ripe then in 1500 for a more flexible way of initiating gunpowder, either in a firearm or for an explosive device or indeed nay kind of munition that used gunpowder.  There then appears to have been a key turning point enabled by a number of disparate technologies. These include:

  • Engineering skill in terms of precision craftsmanship from clock makers. This included the development of skill which creation of relatively fine metal components that could be shaped into a fair amount of detail.
  • Advances in metallurgy and associated engineering that led to effective steel springs.  The springs become a “store” of energy which can be released to cause sparks with a little ingenuity. To be effective, springs needs to be relatively high in carbon so they don’t lose their “springiness”.   In the century running up to 1500, the manufacture of springs became optimised.
  • To me  (as an amateur blacksmith) there appears to be some clear links and cross over between “door lock” mechanisms that use springs to release levers, and these gun lock systems. As I understand it these engineering developments were also occurring at about this time in history.  And of course the word “lock” crosses the gap – in German where these may have been invented the word used for both firearm locks and gun locks is “Schloss”.

Around 1500 the wheel lock was developed, perhaps in Germany or perhaps by Leonardo Da Vinci.  The mechanism of the wheel lock is that potential energy is stored in a spring.  When the spring (carbon steel enabled by metallurgy) is released, this spring (a coil)  typically causes a steel wheel to turn around a spindle as in clock technology. The wheel , with a jagged edge turns against a quantity of pyrites, causing sparks to occur. The sparks drop into a container of ignitable material, typically gunpowder in our case.  In preparation to ignition a key is used to tension the spring, which is held on a latch.  That spring can be held indefinitely, with only the release of a latch needed to initiate the mechanism and whatever combustible is placed next to it. When the latch is released by a trigger, the wheel spins and another spring loaded lever pushes the pyrites into contact with it. Interestingly the “wheel” also needs to ideally be carbon steel to get the best sparks, so the development of these two key components were driven by clock makers developing springs for their mechanisms using carbon steel, and understanding how energy could be released from a spring and applied usefully. After all, engineering is often about how energy is turned from one form to another.

I’ve written before about a lovely diagram from the 1580s of an IED initiated by a wheel lock , with a fantastic picture I found in a book in the British Library. That post is here, but I’ll repeat this diagram below for convenience – it’s one of my favourite historical IEDs. One doesn’t need to understand the writing to work out what’s going on – note the string attached to the trigger, the wheelock mechanism and the fuze leading to a barrel of gunpowder.

So this image was a wheel lock initiated IED from 1582, and I wanted to find an earlier example.  Some sources suggest that Leonardo Da Vinci was the “inventor”, so I’ve been hunting for Da Vinci diagrams.  Here, below, is one from the “Madrid Codex” . Whether Da Vinci actually designed this or was simply copying a design made by a German inventor is an issue for the academics. If I’m honest I can’t quite understand the diagram (and also the accompanying text!)  but I have picked out some key points.  Let me at least point these out to you:

  1. The Trigger, is at the lower right hand side.  Compare this with the trigger above at the top, tied to a piece of string which runs round a pulley.
  2. There are two Serpentines in the diagram below. A serpentine is best thought of as a lever which acts under the effect of a spring. If I’m honest I’m not certain of the purpose of the left hand one – it could be as a release-latch on the spring loaded steel spinning wheel.  The right hand serpentine I think holds the pyrites, and a spring action pushes that down when triggered. “Serpentines” were of course used before wheel locks to hold the burning fuze of a match lock, then press it into the gunpowder when a trigger was pulled releasing it. the second serpentine could though, be a failsafe, duplicate to the first.
  3. The spinning wheel is shown vertical and isolated but I suspect it was horizontal, but it’s not clear to me how this was held. I’m also not sure what the circular object in the middle is.

 

In doing some more digging I found a couple more interesting diagrams that are worth showing in the context that I think they may not be to ignite explosives, but rather to light tinder, which in effect meets the same requirement.  Perhaps these “mechanical tinder igniters” were precursors to the wheel lock. They date from the first decade of the 1500s, right in the early days of match locks and I have lifted them from the “Loffelholz Kodex”. Here’s the first:

This is really a beautiful diagram, from 1505, and I think shows a pocket-sized igniter. A portable “everyday carry” from 500 years ago.  The box container contains tinder” or , if you like, gunpowder. The brass slide holds the tinder in a box. A cord is fitted to a spindle, and wound round and round. Also attached to the spindle is a steel wheel, and the serpentine holds the pyrites. The user, with a ring on his finger to which is tied the cord, pulls, the wheel spins, the pyrites is engaged , sparks fly and light the tinder. Replace the tinder with gunpowder, and run the cord as a trip wire and you have a booby trap IED.  You can see that with the addition of a clock spring ,  a release catch to allow the spring to act on the wheel and another spring to engage the pyrites, it is the same idea.

The second diagram is more complicated, and I confess I can’t quite work it out. But it is clearly a wheel lock device for some purpose or other. If you can interpret the action here, please let me know your thoughts. I can see the “wheel”, the tinder box, the serpentine holding the pyrites and one , if not two triggers, but I can’t quite work out the springs.  Clearly this is meant to be screwed onto the side of something.

What these inventions do, that previously wasn’t very easy to achieve, are:

  1. Reliable ignition of gunpowder without the need for a pre-lit burning fuze, allowing concealment in advance. This is a key IED capability. Previously any emplaced device would have been spotted by the smoke emitting from a match, and could not have been left for any length of time.
  2. Booby trap initiation – using the “string” to release a spring, or pull a spindle, both causing sparks and thence initiation of a charge.
  3. Command initiation from a distance, again using the string.
  4. Timed initiation – because a clock could be used to to cause the trigger to be pulled – and it was clock engineers who were developing the mechanisms anyway.

So these are startling new offensive capabilities for explosive devices. As such, the development of the wheel lock had perhaps more of an impact on explosive device design than on firearms. where , in battle at least, the need to conceal a burning match was not an issue.  Perhaps there was an impact though on the use of firearms in ambushes and for highway robbers, when firearms could be concealed under a cloak. Such mechanisms in firearms were quickly banned in some countries – again showing the potential for the illicit use of a mechanism such as this for nefarious effect.

As such I think that historically speaking the development of the wheel lock is one of the most significant engineering developments in the history of explosives as it provided several distance new IED capabilities.     Wheel locks were expensive to produce so the use of match locks continued for some time – flintlocks which came some time later were simpler and therefore cheaper to produce, eventually phasing out the wheel lock.  That development is in itself interesting because it was a “simpler” technology replacing a complex engineered device.

Before I finish, there’s two interesting aside. Most wheel locks used a concentric spiral spring to turn a spindle that ran through its middle. But there’s two other initiating systems , one a variant of the spring construction. This is it below, another Da Vinci Drawng, this from the Codex Alantic and you can see that the spring is a longitudinal coil rather than a spiral, but it still acts on a “wheel” that is perpendicular to the length of the spring.

Finally another approach to the same problems this not using a wheel at all but a longitudinal bar of steel pulled so that it scrapes along the pyrites. This is the Monk’s Gun, held in the Dresden Armoury. This dates from somewhere between 1480 and 1550.

Although it has no “wheel” it has the advantage (?) of being somewhat simpler. You can see the “serpentine” holing the pyrites, and the ring on the bottom is pulled to the right, causing the teeth on a steel slide to act on the pyrites producing a spark – hidden behind would have been a touch hole leading to the chamber of this simple gun.

 

Close Me
Looking for Something?
Search:
Post Categories: