The Brown Bess

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes, and brocade
Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise --
An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,
With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes --
At Blenheim and Ramillies, fops would confess
They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.

-- Rudyard Kipling

During the Revolutionary War, the standard issue firearm for both the American revolutionaries and the British military, was the barrel-loading flintlock musket. The actual "Brown Bess" refers to the Land Pattern Musket, produced in mass quantities by Britain in 1722. The name remains somewhat of a mystery, but may have been a reference to the walnut stocks (a rich brown color), the anti-rust treatment given to the barrels which resulted in a deep brown appearance to the gun, or a bastardization of the German phrase for strong gun: braun buss.

Although many adaptations were made to this weapon, the generic name "Brown Bess" has been applied generically to all muskets of this type used throughout the 18th century.

The weapon itself weighed nearly 10 pounds, and had limited accuracy, with a range of perhaps 100 yards. Moreover, the loading process was involved (as seen in the video above):

• Bite the cartridge.
• Push the frizzen forward to open the pan and pour a small amount of powder into the flash pan.
• Snap the frizzen back to position covering the flash pan.
• Hold the musket vertically so that the muzzle is up.
• Pour the remaining powder down the barrel.
• Insert the bullet in the barrel.
• Push the cartridge paper into the barrel
• Remove ramrod from pipe under the barrel and use to push wadding and bullet down the barrel.
• Replace the ramrod.
• Raise musket to firing position with the butt against the shoulder.
• Pull back the hammer.
• Aim and fire!

A well trained soldier could load and fire three shots per minute; some accounts suggest that Prussians could volley as many as five in that time...although that seems unlikely. Because of the time it takes to load, soldiers tended to fire in volley.

The video below illustrates how a well regimented soldier would follow commands precisely. Now imagine a line of these soldiers standing their ground while facing an opposing army, as the British did on Bunker Hill in 1775....

Laotian Bomb Hunters

During the Vietnam War, the United States unleashed a bombing campaign of epic proportions. In an effort to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the US secretly targeted the jungles of neighboring Laos. Although Laos was declared a "neutral country" by the Geneva Convention of 1964, the US launched 580,344 missions over Laos from 1964-1973, dropping an estimated 2 million tons of bombs on Laos alone. To put that into perspective, that number is greater than the total of all bombs dropped on all nations in World War II, including the nuclear weapons detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Among other controversial weapons of the Vietnam era (e.g., napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange), the US deployed "cluster bombs." A cluster bomb was actually a 1,000 to 2,000 lb . canister containing hundreds of smaller bomblets. The canister opened in mid-flight, spreading the bomblets out to maximize the destructive capacity of the weapon.

It is estimated that 30% of the 260 million cluster bombs dropped in Laos failed to explode. Much of this unexploded ordinance (UXO) is embedded just below the earth surface, or hidden under the dense underbrush of the Laotian jungle.

I recently heard this story, about Laotians who continue to be killed by UXO every year. A particularly alarming trend among poor farmers is "hunting" for bombs with metal detectors in order to defuse them and sell them as scrap metal, as this BBC World News story describes.

A plan to detect and destroy UXO has been in effect since the 1990s, but the project may take 50 or more years to locate and detonate the over 90 million unexploded bombs in Laos. In the meantime, an international treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs has been signed by over 100 nations, including the Vatican City. The United States, China, and Russia still have not signed on.