Prussian Needle-Gun - Austro-Prussian War

Prussian Needle-Gun - Austro-Prussian War Creation of the famed Prussian Needle Gun began in 1824, when gunsmith Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse first began experimenting with rifle designs. The son of a locksmith in SÃ ¶mmerda, Dreyse spent 1809-1814 working in the Parisian gun factory of Jean-Samuel Pauly. A Swiss, Pauly tinkered with various experimental designs for breech-loading military rifles. In 1824, Dreyse returned home to SÃ ¶mmerda and opened a business producing percussion caps. Utilizing the knowledge he gained in Paris, Dreyse began by designing a muzzle-loading rifle that fired a self-contained cartridge. These cartridges consisted of a black powder charge, a percussion cap, and a bullet wrapped in paper. This single unit approach greatly reduced the time needed to reload and permitted a higher rate of fire. When the weapon was fired a long firing pin was driven by a coiled, conchoidal spring through the powder in the cartridge to strike and ignite the percussion cap. It was this needle-like firing pin which gave the weapon its name. Over the next twelve years, Dreyse changed and improved the design. As the rifle evolved, it became a breech-loader which possessed a bolt action. Revolutionary By 1836, Dreyses design was essentially complete. Presenting it to the Prussian Army, it was adopted in 1841 as the Dreyse ZÃ ¼ndnadelgewehr (Prussian Model 1841). The first practical breech-loading, bolt action military rifle, the Needle Gun, as it became known, revolutionized rifle design and led to the standardization of cartridged ammunition. Specifications Cartridge: .61 acorn-shaped round, paper cartridge w/ black powder and percussion capCapacity: 1 roundMuzzle Velocity: 1,000 ft./sec.Effective Range: 650 yds.Weight: approx. 10.4 lbs.Length: 55.9 in.Barrel Length: 35.8 in.Sights:Â  notch and front postAction:Â  bolt- actionolt-action The New Standard Entering service in 1841, the Needle Gun gradually became the standard service rifle of the Prussian Army and many other German states. Dreyse also offered the Needle Gun to the French, who after testing the weapon declined to purchase it in large quantities citing the weakness of the firing pin and a loss of breech-pressure after repeated firing. This latter issue led to a loss in muzzle velocity and range. First used by the Prussians during the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden, the weapon received its first true baptism by fire during the Second Schleswig War in 1864. Austro-Prussian War In 1866, the Needle Gun showed its superiority to muzzle-loading rifles during the Austro-Prussian War. In battle, Prussian troops were able to achieve a 5-to-1 superiority in rate of fire to their Austrian enemies due to the Needle Guns loading mechanism. The Needle Gun also allowed Prussian soldiers to easily reload from a concealed, prone position while the Austrians were forced to stand to reload their muzzle-loaders. This technological superiority greatly contributed to the swift Prussian victory in the conflict. Franco-Prussian War Four years later the Needle Gun was back in action during the Franco-Prussian War. In the years since Dreyse had offered his rifle to the French, they had been working on a new weapon which corrected the issues they saw with the Needle Gun. Despite its success during the Austro-Prussian War, the French criticisms of the weapon had proven true. Though easily replaced, the rifles firing pin had proven fragile often lasting only a few hundred rounds. Also, after several rounds, the breech would fail to close completely forcing Prussian soldiers to fire from the hip or risk being burned in the face by escaping gasses. Competition In response, the French designed a rifle known as the Chassepot after its inventor, Antoine Alphonse Chassepot. Though firing a smaller bullet (.433 cal.), the Chassepots breech did not leak which gave the weapon a higher muzzle velocity and greater range than the Needle Gun. As French and Prussian forces clashed, the Chassepot inflicted significant casualties on the invaders. Despite the effectiveness of their rifles, French military leadership and organization proved vastly inferior to the Needle Gun-equipped Prussians and led to their swift defeat. Retirement Recognizing that the Needle Gun had been eclipsed, the Prussian military retired the weapon after their victory in 1871. In its place, they adopted the Mauser Model 1871 (Gewehr 71) which was the first in a long line of Mauser Rifles used by the German military. These culminated with the Karabiner 98k that saw service during World War II. Selected Sources New York Times (December 25, 1868): The Needle Gun - Dissatisfaction with it in the Army

Ability To Efficiently Process Local Stimuli Psychology Essay

Ability To Efficiently Process Local Stimuli Psychology Essay This study is a replication of Navons third experiment in his 1977 paper Forest Before Trees. Participants are shown a large letter the global stimulus made up of smaller letters the local stimuli. The small and large letters are either consistent or contradictory. Participants were asked to identify the local stimuli. The aim was to determine whether global stimuli affected the reaction time of identifying local stimuli when the two are incongruent. 51 undergraduate students took part in the study which was an opportunity sample. This was a laboratory experiment of a repeated measures design. It was found that a contradicting global stimulus significantly affects the reaction time of identifying the local stimulus. From the results collected it can be concluded that global processing does affect local processing when the two figures are inconsistent and that incongruent stimuli cause a significantly delayed response to identifying the local stimuli. Is our ability to perceive and r ecognise local stimuli affected when local and global stimuli are incongruent? According to the theory of bottom-up processing, the whole is built up from its individual components. This would suggest that we first identify the local stimulus before perceiving the global one, implying that our ability to recognise the local stimulus should not be affected by the global one. However the Gestaltist law of common fate contradicts this in suggesting that we perceive the global stimulus as all of the local stimuli are positioned together to form it. Navon (1977) suggested in his paper ‘Forest Before Trees: The Precedence of Global Features in Visual Perception’ that we initially perceive the global structure and proceed to break it down to identify its components. He tested this by showing participants a large letter composed of smaller letters arranged to form the shape of the large letter. The small and large letters were either congruent or incongruent, and participants h ad to identify the small letter as quickly as possible. In this study, Navon’s original experiment was replicated to test whether the global letter affects the time taken to identify the local letter, comparing between when these letters are congruent or incongruent. The purpose of this study was to compare our findings to those already existing from Navon’s experiment to either corroborate or contradict his findings, and then discuss the possible explanations for the manner of global and local processing and how this can be applied to the real world and implicate possible future research. This study looks at whether global or local stimuli are perceived first and whether incongruence between them affects the speed at which they are recognised. Based on Navon’s findings, we expect that there will be an effect on reaction time when the local and global letters are incongruent, with it taking a significantly longer time to identify the local stimuli compared to wh en all stimuli are congruent. Method Design: This experiment was a laboratory experiment with a repeated measures design, in that the same group of participants performed the task a number of times in a row. The independent variable was the congruence of the stimuli, and the dependent variable being measured was the participant’s reaction time in seconds. The independent variable is nominal and the dependent variable is linear. All participants were tested at the same time under the same conditions, in the same setting; however this cannot account for personal factors such as attention or fatigue.

Learning Team Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Learning Team Paper - Essay Example This paper shall seek to answer that question. In the case of the supply chain, there has to be a critical look at ones suppliers. The company deals with material of a delicate nature and one must ensure that the suppliers also adhere to the highest standards possible. The molding company must also manage its supply chain such that so as to only undertake the tasks that are logistically sound. In other words, the supply chain must function at optimum capacity. Capacity management is also critical. The final expected return from the sale of the health parts should determine the necessary capacity. The company must ensure that the right numbers of people are at hand for a specific product. Some products are used in large numbers and so the target market shall determine the necessary capacity in that case. Excessive capacity will underutilize the workforce and lead to overproduction. Lean production is not to be ignored either. The engineer should be close to suppliers so as to minimize on transport costs. The watchword as far as lean production is concerned is waste. Cutting wastage of raw materials, wastage of stock and time wastage before delivery must be cut. After all, these are medical products and they need to be produced

American History I Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

American History I - Essay Example It is through religion that the blacks found a tool of enduring enslavement with their dignity still intact. Religion strengthened their belief that they will get their freedom. Other worshippers, however, felt that the whites became sent by God, to deliver them from their bondage. Through this, they became more loyal to the slave masters. Family was significant to the enslaved people. Family allowed the male slaves is more than a working beast. It gave him the opportunity of being a father, and also a husband. Women became allowed to be mothers and wives, and to take on responsibilities different from their slave duties (Stanley, 2000). Even though, on one hand the masters wanted these families since they wanted slaves to reproduce, they allowed for a whole new generation, to develop. Families weakened slavery because it is out of families that communities’ grew these turned out to be a world that the slave master never knew about, leading to easy riots and ganging up against slavery (Stanley, 2000). While region did both weaken and strengthened the institution of slavery, family weakened the institution completely. Families became able to plot on how to gang up against the masters without their knowledge. Slave leaders found it easier to pass information through families rather than holding public gatherings (Stanley,

Four freedoms :: essays research papers

1 Four freedoms – January 6, 1941 freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear of armed aggression. 1. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. 2. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. 3. The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. 4. The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world. his Four Freedoms speech did promise America's "full support" for the Allied cause. On August 14, 1941, President Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill confirmed the Four Freedoms as joint war aims in the Atlantic Charter. Atlantic Charter (declaration of U.S. into the war and to fight Germany first, and Japan second) 1. At the Casablanca Conference, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met and agreed on the term of â€Å"unconditional surrender.† At the Tehran Conference, the Big Three (Wilson, Churchill, and Josef Stalin, leader of Russia) met and agreed that the Soviets and Allies would launch simultaneous attacks At the Potsdam Conference, the Allies issued an ultimatum: surrender or be destroyed II. Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal? 1. A final conference of the Big Three had taken place at Yalta in February 1945, where Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pledged that Poland should have a representative government with free elections, as would Bulgaria and Romania, but he broke those promises. 2. At Yalta, the Soviet Union had agreed to attack Japan three months after the fall of Germany, but by the time the Soviets entered the Pacific war, the U.

Identify Barriers to Effective Communication Essay

Communication can be hard when people speak different languages or use sign language, and it can become frustrating when you don’t understand what a person is saying. Barriers can occur when people find it hard to pass on or receive information because of impairment such as being death or bind which is quite common impairments. If a person is ill or feeling emotional this can also affect the way they communicate as they may be to upset and unable to get the right words out. At times service providers jargon can also be a barrier when they use big technical words to describe something and we are unsure of the term. The same can happen with young people and their slang words for instance, I have came across young people describe say a film as being sick, but to my misunderstanding they actually thought the film was really good so in this case the word sick means good, this is an example of a word meaning something totally different to what you believe it means. The environment y ou are in can also become a barrier to communication in certain circumstances such as, a wheelchair user not being able to see a shop keeper or receptionist as the counter is too high or a person with poor vision not being able to read signs as they are too small, faded or have words missing. So there can be a lot off barriers to overcome when trying to communicate effectively.

How Phospholipids Help Hold a Cell Together