More questions than answers (long)

Big Norm · 08-14-2003, 03:38 PM

Tom A,
I had an equally long responce the your interesting post but I accidentally hit my mouse and destroyed my message. It 85 degrees and high humidity so I will just abreviate my response.

There are many ways that shipments can be messed up from the time of letting the contract to the distribution of the guns to to unit that would end up with the weapon. In many of these steps, the serial number is meaningless. The distributor of the factory does not care if the serial numbers are in sequence. He only cares that he shipped 2,000 Navy Lugers to the naval dockyard according to contract. An admiral of a battleship damaged in Jutland does not care that his 200 Navy luger are crated in sequence. He only cares that 10 of them are distributed to each of 20 submarines that are about to go out to battle the British.

My example may be a little off but these mixup of weapons can occur all the way down the chain from manufacturing to the lowly private guarding a dockyard. Many just did not care about the serial number of this new fangled weapon.

The same could happen when one naval commander was friends with another and 'loaned' the other commander part of his consignment on promise of it being repaid a short time later.

I could think of all sorts of combinations that could occur where both the serial numbers and the property numbers could be mixed. The only thing that mattered was that they were supposed to have 10 or 200 Lugers and that they did have them.

Nothing scientific. Nothing documented. Just my two cents.
Big Norm

08-14-2003, 03:38 PM	#2
Big Norm RIP Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: SE Michigan Posts: 1,864 Thanks: 1 Thanked 6 Times in 5 Posts	Tom A, I had an equally long responce the your interesting post but I accidentally hit my mouse and destroyed my message. It 85 degrees and high humidity so I will just abreviate my response. There are many ways that shipments can be messed up from the time of letting the contract to the distribution of the guns to to unit that would end up with the weapon. In many of these steps, the serial number is meaningless. The distributor of the factory does not care if the serial numbers are in sequence. He only cares that he shipped 2,000 Navy Lugers to the naval dockyard according to contract. An admiral of a battleship damaged in Jutland does not care that his 200 Navy luger are crated in sequence. He only cares that 10 of them are distributed to each of 20 submarines that are about to go out to battle the British. My example may be a little off but these mixup of weapons can occur all the way down the chain from manufacturing to the lowly private guarding a dockyard. Many just did not care about the serial number of this new fangled weapon. The same could happen when one naval commander was friends with another and 'loaned' the other commander part of his consignment on promise of it being repaid a short time later. I could think of all sorts of combinations that could occur where both the serial numbers and the property numbers could be mixed. The only thing that mattered was that they were supposed to have 10 or 200 Lugers and that they did have them. Nothing scientific. Nothing documented. Just my two cents. Big Norm