The Delphic Knife—An Ancient Greek Multitool

During or prior to the 4th century BCE, a blade was produced in Greece that was designed to aid its wielder in a wide variety of tasks. The knife’s exact schematics are unknown, but it was apparently the multitool or Swiss Army Knife of its day. Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE) made use of the Delphic knife in his Politics, contrasting the all-purpose nature of the blade against the individual roles and abilities that each human contributes to his or her society. Aristotle wrote, “[Nature] recognizes different functions and lavishly provides different tools, not an all-purpose tool like the Delphic knife; for every instrument will be made best if it serves not many purposes but one” (The Politics, Bekker page 1252b). As Aristotle noted, the blade must have aligned with the saying that a jack of all trades is a master of none. Although the Delphic knife could serve many purposes, other blades designed to excel at singular tasks were often more efficient than the ambitious ancient multitool.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Alexander cuts the Gordian Knot, by Jean-Simon Berthélemy (1743–1811), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Politics by Aristotle, translated by T. A. Sinclair and revised by T. J. Saunders. London: Penguin Classics, 1962, 1992.

Repeating Muskets Prior To The 19th Century

Many people think that the advent of repeating firearms was a thing of the 19th century—a time dominated, at least in the Americas, by the U.S. Civil War and battles between cowboys and lawmen in the Wild West. While the 19th century was, indeed, a time skyrocketing popularity for repeating weapons, it may be surprising to learn that multi-shot firearms had already been around for hundreds of years.

Before the 19th century, repeating firearms were available for purchase, but were often ignored, as they were expensive to manufacture, difficult to repair and provided little advantage in accuracy over other muskets. The low demand for pre-19th century repeating firearms, however, did not stop ambitious gunsmiths from inventing primitive semi-automatic and automatic weapons. The mechanisms used in these interesting weapons could vary greatly, with some relying on swiveling gun barrels, while others used something akin to a Roman candle design, or even magazines of musket balls that could be individually loaded into a firearm through a contraption similar to those found in later lever-action repeating rifles.

Here are just a few of the bizarre repeating firearms that were in existence during the heyday of muzzle-loaded weaponry. In the 16th century, the 16-shot wheel-lock was one of the first firearms to use the Roman candle design, where one shot ignited the charge of the next, repeating until the ammunition was expended. In the early 17th century, two separate gunsmiths, named Lorenzoni and Kalthoff, created some of the first magazine-loaded flintlock rifles. During the 18th century, at least three more notable repeating firearms were produced. These included the Joseph Belton 8-Shot Repeating Musket, the Cookson Volitional Repeating Flintlock and the Girandoni Air Rifle. The latter of these weapons was actually carried by Merriwether Lewis during the famous Lewis and Clark surveying expedition into the American West.

Written by C. Keith Hansely.

Picture Attribute: (Battle of Bunker Hill by Howard Pyle  (1853–1911), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Book of the Continental Soldier, by Harold L. Peterson. Pennsylvania: Stackpole Company, 1968.
• https://www.britannica.com/technology/repeating-rifle#ref264878

The “Apache Pistol”

In the mid- to late 19th century the bizarre “Apache pistol” was born.  This odd invention was a civilian personal protection firearm that allegedly was developed in France as a self-defense tool against the Parisian street gangs of the time, nicknamed Apaches. So, while snake guns were made to protect civilians from snakes and dog guns were produced to protect people from feral dogs, the “Apache pistol” was invented to protect 19th-century gentlemen from the so-called Apache street hooligans.

The weapon was like a Swiss Army knife, containing a variety of tools, but it was much less reliable or useful than an actual pocketknife. The “Apache pistol” could be called a pistol because it included a very small pepperbox revolver, with little to no gun barrel, as well as an often dangerously unguarded trigger. Supporting the weak and unreliable weapon was a set of metal knuckledusters, which served as the grip of the gun. Finally, jutting out from underneath the pistol mechanism was a small folding knife, which, when extended, looked like a small bayonet. All in all, it was a weapon that gave the user the option to punch, stab or shoot an assailant, although the weapon was so awkward that the gun wielder may just as likely have cut or shot himself by accident during the brawl. Unsurprisingly, the “Apache pistol” quickly went out of style.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Apache Pistol photographed by Flickr user Michele M. F., via Creative Commons license 2.0).

Sources:

• Weapons: an international encyclopedia from 5000 BE to 2000 AD, edited by David Harding and Jefferson Cann, et. al. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980.
• https://www.businessinsider.com/worst-guns-ever-2016-8#1-apache-pistol-8 
• https://books.google.com/books?id=MloqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115&dq=apache+pistol&source=bl&ots=nWHmtere-O&sig=jVqJOpXpEvaYLstp_4UsAaXjSNk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiumoadq-3cAhUBX60KHf-QCi44KBDoATAGegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=apache%20pistol&f=false  

The First Soft "Bulletproof" Garments Were Made In Japan And Korea

(Image of Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik successfully testing a bulletproof vest  (1901), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Cloth and fiber armors are likely the longest-serving family of armor. Light and soft materials, from overlapping paper scales to thick fabric gambeson jackets, have long been used to create powerful armor that resists cuts and punctures. The effectiveness of these armors grew exponentially when combined with mail coats made of interwoven metal rings.

The introduction of firearms into warfare caused many armor designs to become obsolete, but armorers and inventors quickly began inventing better and stronger defensive equipment that could resist firearm projectiles. The first bulletproof armors are thought to have been reinforced metal breastplates, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Yet, the first modern soft, bullet-resistant vests are thought to have been created by the Japanese and Koreans in the mid-to-late 19th century. The Japanese found that garments that were skillfully constructed with around thirty layers of thick silk cloth could stop a bullet from puncturing the human body. The Koreans, too, constructed a bullet-resistant armor made of around ten layers of thick cotton material.

The men who popularized the modern notion of the bulletproof vest were inspired by the cloth designs of the Japanese and the Koreans. A Ukrainian immigrant priest named Casimir Zeglen and a Polish inventor named Jan Szczepanik created and marketed a bulletproof vest that consisted of a steel plate woven in between layers of silk. To prove that their product worked, the priest, Casimir Zeglen, held a demonstration where he was shot by a .44 caliber firearm at a distance of only ten steps from the shooter.

The materials of bullet-resistant armor have continued to change since the days of Japanese silk garments. Instead of steel, aluminum was tried. Kevlar replaced Asian silk, and ceramic plating was found to be a great solid material for bullet-resistant armor. Now, however, silk is making a return—yet, this time the inventors and engineers have set their gaze on scientifically-modified spider silk.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• http://www.historyofarmor.com/armor-history/history-of-bulletproof-vest/  
• http://mentalfloss.com/article/24039/brief-history-bulletproof-vests 
• http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-viral-image-robbed-a-polish-priest-of-his-iconic-inventionthe-bulletproof-vest  

The Crossbow—The World’s First Mechanical Superweapon

(Sketch of a super-crossbow by Leonardo da Vinci  (1452–1519), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

The crossbow was an effective weapon used by many cultures across the world from the ancient times to the Middle Ages, and the deadly devise is still used by hunters, today. It is thought to be the world’s first mass-produced mechanical weapon. Able to be produced in large quantities and easily taught to soldiers, the crossbow proved to be an effective weapon on the battlefield for more than a thousand years.

Historians still debate where the crossbow originated, but a wide majority places the first crossbows in ancient China around the 5th and 4th century BCE, but some even claim it was developed in the 6th century BCE. In ancient China, the crossbow trigger mechanisms were fairly standardized, so soldiers could repair their weapons without much difficulty. Furthermore, detailed manuscripts of crossbow use have been discovered in China dating from the 4th and 3rd century BCE.

Across the world, the ancient Greeks, and later the Romans, used a much larger crossbow design to make powerful siege engines known as ballistae. There is some evidence that crossbows may have been used in Europe by the 390s BCE, and the ballista is definitely thought to have been in Alexander the Great’s arsenal during his conquests in the 330s and 320s BCE.

The crossbow remained a relevant weapon well into medieval history. It’s use turned simple and weak peasants into deadly soldiers, especially when it was outfitted with a crank, making the device easier to load. The crossbow only went out of style, along with other projectile ancient weapons, when firearms began to become the world’s long-range weapon of choice.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources:

• The Art of War by Sun Tzu, translated by John Minford. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009. 
• http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/05/23/the-crossbow-a-medieval-wmd/ 
• http://ancientstandard.com/2007/06/29/a-brief-history-of-the-crossbow-ca-4th-c-bc-%E2%80%93-onward/ 
• http://www.militaryfactory.com/ancient-warfare/detail.asp?ancient_id=Crossbow