View Single Post
Old March 19, 2012, 08:18 AM   #1
Rifleman1776
Senior Member
 
Join Date: April 25, 2010
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 3,309
black powder transition to smokeless?

At a meeting yesterday I was asked when America transitioned from using black powder to smokeless powder.
Interesting question I had never thought about. Coincidentally, I am currently reading Teddy Roosevelt’s account of his experiences during the Spanish-American war in Cuba.
He mentions many times how the American troops were at a disadvantage because the Spanish used smokeless powder in their rifles while Americans were still using the 30-40 Krag with black powder. When the American fired it created a revealing cloud of smoke and brought retaliatory fire from the enemy. When the Spanish shot it could not be determined where the shot came from due to the “smokeless” powder. Previously, looking for the smoke from the enemy’s guns was part of standard military tactics. Now, the Americans were not prepared with new tactics involving smokeless powder.
Very interesting. The Spanish-American war was in 1897. Obviously, the Spanish had smokeless for some period of time before that war. The Americans developed the smokeless 30-06 in 1903 but did not adopt it until 1906.
Others may have a different perspective but I will conclude America began transitioning away from black powder in 1897.
Rifleman1776 is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02826 seconds with 8 queries