The riot gun used by a Star Wars assassin, with firearms and weapon expert, Jonathan Ferguson
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ก.ค. 2024
- This week's weapon tells two juxtaposing stories. The first is one born out of the troubles in Northern Ireland, while the second deals with an intergalactic lizard assassin.
Join Jonathan Ferguson as he reveals both stories behind this fascinating firearm.
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Calling Bossk "The Lizardy-looking chap" is possibly the most wholesome and hilarious description anyone has ever given a Trandoshian, especially Bossk. XD
"Sergeant Benton! The lizardy-looking chap, five rounds, rapid."
As much as i love looking at Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armories museum in the UK, can we see some photos of the other guns he’s talking about while he talks about them?
I've gotten so spoiled watching the Chieftain's tank videos that I keep expecting other channels to do it as well.
The rifles in the upper row of the shelf behind Jonathan are EM-2's, IIRC they made a video about it some 3 or 4 month ago.
Wooden rounds were teak so they did a lot of damage.
@@axewolfjackForgotten Weapons channel.
@@GeorgHaeder But he didn't talk about the EM-2's in this video, the question was about seeing pictures of the other guns he talks about like the L48 and L67.
Just like the op, the L48 and L67 mean nothing to me so I'd have much rather seen some pictures about them in the video.
"You reconsider your life choices when you get hit by a lump of wood"
A tale as old as time. XD
Looking at the background, i did not realize there were that many EM2 still in existence ....
65 were made, we have 27 of them :)
@@jonathanferguson1211 And if it weren't for people like you I never would have known about them at all (unless I happen to get hold of the half a dozen or so books that had the one grainy stock image of one specimen)...
@@jonathanferguson1211 You EM2 hoarder :)
@@jonathanferguson1211buy it, love it, hoard it
I have seven in my attic, but i never tell anyone they are there.
the way you limped through the description of the troubles and finally went to ground was amusing and well played by yourself.
For anyone who nerded out with the Star Wars connection (and by consequence who probably mostly already know this) and may be interested, the in-universe designation of this piece is the Relby-v10.
They should invite Adam Savage. He knows a lot about guns of movies and star wars. He did replicated Han Solo's Blaster on Camara here on you tube. He knows a lot about the actual parts that went into Star Wars. Movie Projector and Camara parts and what ever else they had lying around.
@@cpt_nordbart thats a good idea, I bet he would get along with Johnothan very well!
Thanks, I remembered "Relby", but none of what followed.
@@lavrentivs9891 You're welcome.
Additionally:
The most notable user of the Relby V-10 was the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk. He was a big fan of the ability to fire bolts and micro-grenades
I used the hand held rocket flare in the late 1970’s and we were told it was pronounced as if spelt “shermoolee” (sher-moo-lee with dashes between the three syllables) - I hope that helps!
I’ve also seen these hand held Schermuley flare used for other, non approved purposes, by getting a standard thunderflash, filling the handle with some soil, you then opened the top of the schermuley, removed the parachute flare but leaving the rocket part that propelled it upwards, then one person lit the thunderflash (it was safer (??) to have two people to do this) and stuffed it into the flare then the second person fired the flare towards where you wanted it to go. The thunderflash would tumble in the air and then explode! I have seen a skilled pair get them to air burst just in front and above advancing “enemy” infantry whilst on exercise. I never did this or attempted it myself but would have hated to be on the receiving end!
Brilliant! The classic ingenuity of the British soldier, left to play with pyrotechnics unsupervised!! 😂
It's "Sher-moo-lee".
Parachute flares in the British Military are still known by the same name
The "Lizard looking guy" is called Bossk, in case anyone was wondering 😊
It was great to learn about the Star Wars significance of this gun.
He looks a bit like the Gorn that fought Kirk in ST:TOS
And the species is called "Trandoshan" =)
A few things about use by the RUC, it was smooth bore as it was also used to fire CS rounds and flares, the only sight appature used for baton rounds was the lower one, ideally between 25 ad 50 yards, at 50 the rounds were out of power.
Point of aim, ideally, was belt buckle, with two inches of drop at 25mtrs it would be very effective 😉.
The upper sight appature was for launching gas so lobbing them not firing directly into the crowd.
RUC had the rifled barrel baton gun as well.
Always heard it pronounced shumooley ryhyming with goolies
“I have no live rounds or empty cases , No rockets in my pockets and no shumuely round my goolies”.
The army and police used to issue a Fulton style right angle torch or the Ever Ready rubber armoured torch. Both used the D Cell battery. The D Cell battery fits almost perfectly down the muzzle of the less lethal 37mm launchers or you could pull the rubber and shove the battery into the cartridge. I think you can guess the rest of that story.
A friend of mine told me that exact same thing about his time in n. Ireland, I was thinking about it watching the video. If I remember rightly, he said they'd monitor the A&E departments in the hospitals after rioting to see who was getting bits of D cell battery pulled out.
@@jonprince3237 The injury or scar they used to look for specifically at check points was a snail track burn down the fore arm. Most people who throw petrol bombs burn them self when they do because the burning fuel streams out when thrown. A&E departments tended not to get involved in asking how or where people got injured as it was seen as neutral ground. They were only obliged to report gun shot wounds which is why the Irish Defence Force were know on occasion to provide field hospitals just over the border during times of intensified unrest. Lobbing D Cells at people was entirely contrary to the army act and the RMP cracked down on it quite quickly.
Oof, that would have been horrible to get hit with. My friends and I used to wad some duct tape around D batteries and shoot them put of our potato guns-- would blow through 5/8" plywood like it was nothing. Probably comparable to a powder charge in a launcher, and definitely lethal.
I believe there's some anecdotes of similar things being done with the Stopper riot launcher in South Africa, though they supposedly didn't replace the projectile, rather just dropping it down the bore on top of the baton shell. I imagine it still was incredibly dangerous to be hit by though.
Shooting people in face with wood clubs sounds very painful
And sometimes not non-lethal
They were supposed to be fired at the ground in front of the legs so they'd bounce up into people's legs. They were replaced with rubber bullets of the same size, same method of employment. Fatalities were very rare, in all of the nearly 40 years the RUC and Army killed about the same number of terrorists as the US police kill in six months.
@@PobortzaPl yes, but then the IRA did not have a non lethal option,,,,
@@PobortzaPl Considerably less lethal than the alternative.
Don't call me Shermeley 🤣
Thanks, once again, Jonathan and team. It was really good to hear about the Star Wars significance of this peculiar Webley product. And we can never have too many Webleys on this series. My first air rifle was a Webley Jaguar and I have fond memories of using Webley single shot target pistols on a variety of targets.
There's no scraping on the breech face because of the way it hinges shut. There's no lateral or vertical movement of the relatively soft case against the breech. No argument about the steel being necessary to hold the case pressure though. My paratrooper friend told me they fired these at the ground to mitigate damage and hopefully hit people in the legs. Irish friends told me the rubber bullets were very popular souvenirs.
I think Jonathan mentioned in a different riot gun video that the early doctrine was to bounce rounds off the ground, but they later changed it. Not least because almost half of the baton round fatalities in NI were kids/teens 🫤
cool, thanks for talking about this cool piece
In 1969 the army were not issued with any batten gun in N Ireland. In 1970 the first gun I saw was a very pistol with a 12 inch length barrel and wood butt fixed on. Later other guns appeared. This was probably called a gas gun because the primary use of these weapons was to fire a gas round which the RUC had done a lot of times before the army arrived.
Bit of a flex Jonathan with all those EM-2s in the background! Are those from the xl-60 series in the background too?
I reckon so. There's showing off and then there's Royal Armouries showing off. If you have not yet seen their Hall of Steel you really should get to Leeds and experience it.
Always enjoyable.
bit of trivia: soldiers were ordered to fire baton rounds with these at the ground so that it bounced, but in many instances, some people had half their faces blown off and others were killed when these were aimed directly at a target👍🏼 non lethal sure
You should totally consider making resin/rubber casts off this thing! I'm sure it could make some nice coin from Star Wars Collectors who want an accurate replica
While that sounds like a great idea in theory, from what I understand of manufacturing techniques, casting is relatively cheap to produce things, but very expensive to actually set up to produce them in the first place. Which means casting is only really profitable if you’re going to make a TON of whatever you’re producing. While I’m sure they’d make a lot of money selling replica Star Wars blasters, I don’t think they’d be able to make *enough* money to offset the cost of setting up production in the first place.
@@610Blackhawk I suppose it depends on just how. If hobbyists can successfully cast other guns with seemingly little issue, maybe there's a way? I'm not an expert on the process however, so I'm sure there's hurdles I'm not aware of :)
@@Detaleader Intellectual property can be one, and Lucasfilm/Disney are both notorious for protecting their IP. They'd probably have the IP for the movie version, but might also be IP rights held by whoever's ended up with Webley. It's probably something that would be easier to just provide hi-res 3D scans. That would be less expensive, and if it didn't go down to the part level a way to make safe replicas available. Guessing that library's slowly being created as games devs etc scan parts of the collection to make their models. Would be nice if that could be standardised so the RA can make models available to the public.
If I ever make it across the pond, I will have to come and see the museum.
Oh my god its bosks gun, I can see it now.
That was very interesting gun to listen about.
Boshe or Boche was the starwars character's name from what I remember, I saw this movie in the cinema back when it was released, feels so long ago now, I had the all the figurines as well as a kid lol..
Bossk is the character name in question here, although there was a Boushh (pronounced "Boshe" I believe) that was the name of the character that Leia was disguised as in the beginning of Return of the Jedi.
@@andydaniels3029 hehe I knew it was something like that ;)
Great video as always but I had to collect myself and try to focus as that rack of EM-2's in the background was so transfixing and drawing me in!
It reappears in Mandalorian S3E4.
One of the training blasters at the beach training scene. Once you see it, it can't be ignored.
When I was a squaddie in the 70s we had a hand held parachute flare known as a Shermuley .
Jonathan. Are they em1s and em2s behind you.?Didn't realise there were so many. Great video again. Thanks
In one of his previous videos he did confirm they are EM-2s
Not only do we have Gun Jesus but it seems we also now have Obi-Gun-Ferguson. 😀
pronounced "sure-moo-lee" and the name is synonymous in the british army with their parachute flares - even when not made by them.
We had a couple of old Federal gas guns in our police armory (I was a police officer in a small town in California). They seemed pretty nicely finished, but were probably pre-WWII era. Their cases were large, wood trunks with compartments for individual cartridges. They were considered 37/38mm or 1 1/2 inch bore.
Bossk. A Trandocian? They also pop up in some of the Disney+ series too.
Would like to see the other variants, mid to late 1980's. FRG.
The odd thing about the star wars connection is that in universe it has since been described as a "micro-grenade launcher", which one would think the muzzle device would take it away from
a nice selection of em 2s behind you
"Urban Pacification" what a lovely way of saying 'getting shot in the head with a lump of wood' 🤗🤣
The Mandolorian, episode 3 & 4.
I counted three of these among the Warriors!
We had gas guns that could penetrate 1” plywood with 38mm CS gas projectiles 😊
As far asa the Army goes, it's "sher-mooly" - you got it right in the end! Mind tyou, it's quite possible that we've been saying it wrong for decades! They are (were?) long-time purveyor of pyro such as the eponymous Schermuly, a 1.5" hand-fired parachute flare, in service for decades.
no live rounds in my possesion, nor rockets in me pockets, wombats in me combats or shermoolies round me goolies, SIR!
am I banned?
@@keithskelhorne3993 Nope, I saw it - not heard that saying for years - brings on memories of declaring at the end of a noisy day!
@@keithskelhorne3993 not forgetting, "no LAWs in my drawers"!!
Parasmocks were a godsend for smuggling pyro off the range .
I think I remember reading about a UKSF soldier firing a Schmerley flare at the enemy during an operation 😂
Really don't understand how Jonathan gets in my cellar so often.
The "lizard guy" bounty hunter mentioned in Star Wars using this weapon was a Trandoshan (alien species), called "Bossk".
If the MPA is 4” below the MPI, the weapon shoots 4” high, not low @17:35
The flash hider on the prop looks mega basic, maybe not from a real firearm
Edit: Yes, the jousts are good fun, went to one last year
I always believed it was pronounced 'Shermooly' from my days sailing and having their distress flares and rockets on board my dad's boat. Also the connection with Cadet training where the Army pronounces it the same way. Fascinating device....is there a clue in that MOD sticker that, being called a 'gas gun' it was used to launch tear gas cartridges as well? I suspect it was tested for that purpose as well...? I have also heard tales that in the other British Army anti-riot guns, someone discovered that a D cell torch battery would fit in the case for the rounds....imagine the devastating consequences of being hit by such a projectile....ouch. Another interesting vid, many thanks!!
I had a pair of short under and over 37mm rifled less lethal hand guns that looked a bit like a cut down one of those Webley riot guns.
They're sitting in my nephews gun locker, in Belgium. They have an high giggle factor.
OK, honestly, what British Weapon hasn't been in Star Wars at this point???
German weapons are pretty prominent , Solo's blaster is a broom handle mauser, storm troopers use mg 34's as well.
Vickers Heavy Machine Guns aka British maxims, perhaps? Not sure about VGO, Vickers Gas Operated, it might be in some ship turret.
Sten? I'm just shooting blindly lol
@@fenui Well, Sten is just a tube with a piston and spring inside it...
;)
They were really cheap at the time, so made sense, very clever way to make them feel really too
Webley also produced a gas gun based on there large frame revolver. It looked very much like a 37mm verry pistol with a stock added.
I always wondered where the expression ' Get back or I'll thump you with a big black dill-doh!' Came from?
And now I know! 🤓
Those things still killed adults & children here in N.I. plastic & rubber bullets can easily deliver lethal outcomes.
Ah.. the Donk gun! Fired by a small gunpowder capsule..
Schermuly's claim to fame was the design of an extremely efficient rocket motor that they used to power a range of pyrotechnic devices from Parachute flares to line throwers.. made them a lot of money!
It looks like when a child draws a gun
So many Em-2s . . . and I'll never get my hands on any of them!
Never say never. If you could sign on at a university for a history PhD about Em-2's you would then have a very legitimate reason to go and visit that collection.
@@derekp2674 Yes, I could also find a cure for cancer . . . I'm educated to, roughly, A-Level standard and I'm over fifty so I think my chances of doing a PhD of an stripe is limited. ;-)
Royal Ulster Constabulary. RUC. I remember in the pre-internet days, I was heavily into dial-up bulletin boards, and if I remember correctly, this particular one was a FidoNet affiliated board that had a firearms group. I was exchanging messages with a fellow from Northern Ireland and somehow it came up that he was with the RUC and the rifle he carried was an Enfield Enforcer. He didn't think I would know what the RUC was, and also what an Enforcer was either. Little did he know that I was a bit knowledgeable about the Royal Ulster Constabulary as it was covered from time to time in the American media while was I was growing up. I also knew a bit of the Enforcer, I think from reading either one of Ian Hogg's books, or perhaps from my copy of Jane's Counter-Insurgency and Defense books. Yeah, little to do with this particular firearm, but the talk of the RUC did bring back that peripherally related memory.
The Hell with that, Jonathan! I count 13 EM2’s behind you, and an unknown number of 4.85mm Individual Weapons…
Fantastic to meet you on the 11th. Maybe see you at the Joust?
N
Schermuly pronounced in Army usage (where we used their parachute flares extensively) "shuMOOly" - as in "horizontal Schermuly" being a known accident type...
AKA an, "Instrument of State Repression"
It's been a few decades now but I was taught the pronunciation was something like "𝘚𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳-𝘮𝘰𝘰-𝘭𝘦𝘦" & it was used as a catch all name for flare guns & flares & particularly parachute flares. as in "Send up a Schermuly." As a figure of speech, Schermuly could also be used as a reference for being in distress/trouble.
As a kid we had an old brass & what we'd now term very "𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘯𝘬", brass WWI Webley flare pistol that we played with. Wish we still had it as it was very cool.
Great video, have you been working on the lighting & camera work?
Both
Could you review the Queen Elizabeth’s pocket pistol sometime? Might require an outing though…
Jabba the Hutt called, he wants his property returned.
The RUC were mostly in hiding aroung the Bogside when I was there, around the referendum days of 1975. The riot gun that I used we called a Greener. It was a lot smaller than that thing you are showing. It came with a skeleton butt and fired the normal rubber baton but by 75 they were PVC. I xan't guess how many rounds I fired on the referendum day, getting the ballot boxes out from Blighs Lane school, between The Creggan and the Bogside. The issue with the rubber bullet was that we could pull out the bullet, load extra charges, and put batteries in, cut down the rubber and use it as a cap like they did in the days of muzzle loading muskets.
His name was Bosk. At first. Kenner gave him away if you sent in proof of purchase of other SW figures. Still have mine.
Bosk? Spitting image of Prince Andrew.
What is the documentary called that the Armouries helped with
Very Interesting , I have a L60A2 in my collection , I think it is a later edition , as it is a hard plastic round , You might be able to correct me on that one.
The L60A2 is the latest/current British issue baton round.
"Gas gun" may imply that it was tested as a tear gas launcher.
They could also fire CS rounds.
Gadzooks - yet another T-shirt cannon! - 'We shall indeed dress well this year Sir Ulrich, onward; Gelderland! Gelderland!' : )
why would you rifle a thing that is probably best at lobbing its projectile or used for short ranges??
Of course you knew the bounty hunters name. 👍
were the cartridges and bullets separate?
I remember reading one of those SAS "I was there" books in which the writer mentions firing "a Schermuley" and neglects to explain what it might be. To those of us who have never been in armed forces service nor police/security bodies, this was a bit vague.. In there, the context was one of firing flares. So would that have been one of these things, or one of the pistols that J mentions, in passing, in this vid?
It would have been one of the schermuley parachute flares, fired from a single use launcher. Basically a long green plastic tube that holds the flare.
Pocket sized pencil flares with a simple pull & release striker were referred to as Schermuleys although it may also refer to any pyrotechnic.
The Relby-v10. ':^D
What was the documentary you were part of?
lethal: the secret history of plastic bullets. on the BBC Iplayer
Were they also used for CS gas hence gas gun?
Yes, they could also fire CS rounds.
I always thought less than lethal rounds were more or less rubber balls. The projectile this fires is basically a non explosive missile. Ouch!
Side note: the timing of this has to be on purpose, yes? With what’s happening here in America, we may see a plethora of new LTL footage. Does America use this type of round/weapon specifically?
Rubber bullets, tear gas grenades. Recently a forest defender was killed with a normal gun.
Typiclly it's s those two, often died directly at people. There's several records of people receiving devastating head injuries from the direct impact of rubber bullets and tear gas grenades.
Many stories about these that Jonathan did not cover as he is a young gentleman, for instance the original rubber projectile was considered to be providing the Rioters with "Dildo's", if you removed the bullet/projectile and tapped the case the propellent discs could be removed and tripled up in one round got a lot more oomph.
They also fire batteries.
Loads of these, practically unmodifieds, in the new season of The mandalorian. Particularly among the Mandalorians.
You reconsider your life choices when You get hit with a lump of wood haha never change ian
You mean Bossk the Trandoshan bounty hunter?
A few people might think that because of the Republic Commando books written by Karen Traviss that this is the KJ-50. A favorite of the ARC Commandos and General Etain. But that isn't accurate. The LJ50 looks like a cross between a wookie crossbow and the deck gun Luke used to blow up Jabba's yacht.
What is the title of the BBC documentary?
This is a deep video if you're willing to take in the many things that Jonathan says.
I went to see Bradford City play in an Ulster pre-season friendly tour in (I think) the summer of 1986. Everywhere I went I got bought beer: both sides were most concerned that "The other side!' had; or would: "...treat(ed) you right!".
Back to reality: I saw that the Royal Ulster Constabulay had much better equipment than the British Army, Literally: the RUC drove around in Land Rovers that looked like something from a video game. The Army drove around in Land Rovers that might have had cardboard Copydexed to the sides.
When you say shermully do you mean shamooli, the maker of the L24 flare in Yorkshire?
Schermuly were based in Newdigate, Surrey.
@@weylan.yutani Thanks
My eyes hurt seen all those beauties behind Jonathan (the EM1s and 2s at the top, not the shitty XL60s below). What a dream job you have mate.
Not more effective than beanbag rounds for shotguns and a slower rate of fire but you are not going to accidentally load a intentionally lethal round into it.
No Fart Gas Gun like the minions use ? You know it's highly effective don't you ? 😆
Is anyone aware of the BBC Documentary Jonathan refers to?
Lethal: the secret history of plastic bullets
Colonoscopy via rubber bullet
Police in Pakistan still use these, one was shown on the news a few days ago in use in the Imran Khan compound riot.
Sher- moo- lee!
Jonathan says bitch at 8:15 for those curious.
Just casually chatting in front of an astonishing number of EM-1/EM-2's... as you do.
With all those EM2's and other bullpups in the background, you're just showing off now aren't you! 😉
"Gas Gun" - Did it fire tear gas rounds?
Yes
Ex MOD during the troubles. It was ordered that the rubber bullets be bounced off the round. This meant the target if running away ended up with a nasty rubber taste in his mouth. An in house joke at the time that spread rapidy.
G3. Gas gun 3 perhaps
The only thing that would make these videos better would be seeing them being fired. However, I understand why many of these weapons can not be used.