Rifle gets the bullet
QUESTION Why were Winchester rifles never used in World Wars I and II? They could hold about 15 rounds, and were not as cumbersome as Lee Enfield rifles. Lever-action Winchester rifles weren’t used in either world war because the 1895 model was the only one that the Winchester company manufactured chambered for the British .303 Mk 7 smokeless cartridge.
The military has always considered that it’s the bullet that does the damage, not the rifle it’s discharged from. So the military would consider using only a rifle that fired whatever current cartridge was considered suitable for its purposes.
In both world wars, the .303 brass cartridge, with its muzzle velocity of 2,540 to 2,180 feet per second (depending on bullet weight) was supreme.
The 1895 Winchester was chambered for this round, but it had to be housed in a box- style magazine holding only five rounds. British experts considered the lever action falling breech mechanism weaker than the Lee enfield bolt mechanism used in the No 1 Lee enfield rifle, known as the SMLe.
This, combined with the larger capacity magazine on the SMLe of ten rounds, plus bayonet, made it a superior infantry rifle in every way.
Winchester was contracted to manufacture a .303 bolt action rifle designed by enfield Lock engineers, designated the Model P14, and supplied more than a million in 1918, but they never saw service in the war and were stored at Woolwich Armoury for future use.
They were then issued to the Home Guard in World War II. The Dad’s Army Tv series features Captain Mainwaring’s platoon carrying this rifle.
It was never issued to the regular Army because of its five-round magazine. But it was very accurate, and I believe some were fitted with telescopic sights and issued for sniper use where rate of fire was unimportant.
John Atkins, Greatstone, Kent. THIS is a hypothetical question as it would be impossible to achieve.
The fastest electric motor in the world is claimed to be one produced by Dyson that rotates at 104,000rpm.
Assuming this motor could turn a wheel large enough for the rim to achieve the speed of light, the wheel would have to have a radius of just under 28km. But the Dyson motor wouldn’t be powerful enough to turn a wheel of this size.
The most common industrial electric motor is the three-phase induction motor, which runs at a speed determined by the number of poles it has and the frequency of the power supply.
Typically, a four-pole version on a standard european 50Hz power supply will run with a synchronous speed of 1,500rpm. It is, however, possible to run this motor with a device called a frequency inverter, at frequencies up to about 100Hz.
At 100Hz, the four-pole motor should have a synchronous speed of around 3,000rpm, and driving a wheel whose rim achieved a speed equal to the speed of light would require the wheel to have a radius of 987km.
Obviously, turning a wheel of this size would mean overcoming a very large inertia. If we assume it weighed a nominal 1kg per square metre, it would weigh 3,060 million tonnes. The inertia of a wheel this size would mean that it would take a very long time to get up to speed. Allowing a full week, the power of motor required would be 227,000 terawatts — way beyond the UK power supply. To get this matter in proportion: for the surface of the world at the equator to travel at the speed of light, earth would have to spin at 450rpm — that’s 648,000 times faster than it spins at the moment.
Brian Collins, Mold, Flintshire.
QUESTION Under the Soviet regime the Russian people used humour to express their desire for reform. What were some of these jokes?
FUrTHer to earlier answers, when Stalin died, the Devil locked the gates of Hell and refused to let him in, because even he couldn’t stand him.
So God asked for his strongest angel in Heaven and sent him down to hell.
The angel shouted over the top of the gates: ‘Have you got a man called Karl Marx in there?’ The Devil shouted back: ‘Yes!’ So the angel picked up Stalin, threw him over the gates and shouted: ‘Here’s the interest on his Capital!’
Roderick Moore, Liverpool. MOTHer gives her son Sergei money to buy three papers: ‘Pravda for your father; Izvestia for me and Komsolskaya Pravda (the communist youth paper) for you.’
On his way, Sergei meets his father, who declares he’d prefer to have the money for vodka rather than a copy of Pravda, relieves him of the money and sends him off with a clip round the ear.
returning home, his mother asks where is the Pravda. Sergei tells her what happened. ‘What is your father going to use for lavatory paper then?’ she asks.
In another anecdote, Ivan is responding to a government questionnaire: ‘Where were you born?’ He answers: ‘St Petersburg.’ ‘Where were you educated?’ ‘Petrograd.’ ‘Where do you live now?’ ‘Leningrad.’ ‘Where would you like to live?’ ‘St Petersburg.’ Had Ivan lived long enough, he would have seen his wish come true.
Edward Baker, Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
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