Re: Interesting History Behind BF1 Weapon Skin Names?
Howdah Pistol skins
Legendary: The Big Smoke, The Colonel
Distinguished: Abu Klea, Hussar
Other: Frontiersman
The Colonel skin for Howdah Pistol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster_pistol): The Lancaster pistol was a multi-barrelled (2 or 4 barrels) handgun produced in England in the mid-late 19th century, chambered in a variety of centrefire pistol calibres—chiefly .38 S&W, .450 Adams, .455 Webley, and .577 inch. The Lancaster pistol exists as the Howdah Pistol in the 2016 video game Battlefield 1. Use in Sudan. When facing charging tribesmen like the Zulus (reference to the Martini-Henry's Zulu skin) or Ansar (the so-called Sudanese Dervishes), more modern ammunition tended to go straight through the enemy who would keep going. What was needed was a heavy lead bullet that would lodge in their body and bring them down. One famous user was the photographer and film maker Lieutenant Colonel John Montague Benett Stanford (1870-1947), who killed a fanatical assegai-wielding Sudanese Ansar with a Lancaster pistol while working as a war correspondent at the Battle of Omdurman. The Khartoum Campaign, 1898 Or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan by B. Burleigh: Many officers equipped themselves with powerful pistols specially for the Sudan campaign. Scudamore spells this weapon as ‘Lankaster’. Churchill (reference to the C96 Pistol' Churchill skin) had a Mauser pistol with 10 shots. A fellow correspondent put the best gloss he could on this incident: 'Mr Bennett Stanford, who was splendidly mounted, with a cocked four-barrelled Lancaster pistol aimed deliberately at the dervish, who turned towards him'. https://www.victorian-cinema.net/benettstanford John Montagaue ('Mad Jack') Benett-Stanford (1870-1947): Rogue, fox-hunter, war cameraman and archetypal English squire. His next service assignment was the Sudan expedition of 1898, where he acted as war correspondent for the Western Morning News, and, like Frederic Villiers was present at the battle of Omdurman. Before leaving Britain he had managed to obtain a film camera from Prestwich, and with this he filmed the British commander, Kitchener, as well as a view of the Grenadier Guards fixing bayonets and marching off on the day before the battle. This brief film had a huge success, being the only film taken at Omdurman, a notable British military victory.
Abu Klea skin for Howdah Pistol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Abu_Klea): The Battle of Abu Klea, or the Battle of Abu Tulayh took place between 16 and 18 January 1885, at Abu Klea, Sudan, between the British Desert Column and Mahdist forces encamped near Abu Klea. The Desert Column, a force of approximately 1,400 soldiers, started from Korti, Sudan on 30 December 1884; the Desert Column's mission, in a joint effort titled "The Gordon Relief Expedition", was to march across the Bayuda Desert to the aid of General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan, who was besieged there by Mahdist forces. The place is generally known in British military records as Abu Klea, which arose as a contemporary British spelling of its Arabic name, 'Abu Tͅuleiħ (أَبُو طُلَيْح). The British forces consisted of 1,400 British of the Desert Column under Sir Herbert Stewart, against a Sudanese force of approximately 14,000 fighters. The British force was composed of four regiments of camel-mounted troops (Guards, Heavy, Light and Mounted Infantry), detachments of the various infantry regiments in Egypt and of the River Column, and a detachment of the 19th Hussars (reference to the Howdah Pistol's Hussar skin), mounted on horses. The battle was short, lasting barely fifteen minutes from start to finish. Casualties for the British were nine officers and 65 other ranks killed and over a hundred wounded. The Mahdists lost 1,100 dead during the fifteen minutes of fighting, made all the worse by only 3,000–5,000 of the Dervish force being engaged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Feathers The Four Feathers is a 1902 adventure novel by British writer A. E. W. Mason that has inspired many films of the same title. Against the background of the Mahdist War, young Feversham disgraces himself by quitting the army, which others perceive as cowardice, symbolized by the four white feathers they give him. He redeems himself with acts of great courage and wins back the heart of the woman he loves. The 2002 version starring Heath Ledger is set during the 1884–85 campaign. The British infantry square was broken in the battle of Abu Klea, and the British are forced to retreat. The central battle is accurately portrayed in the film Khartoum (1966).
Hussar skin for Howdah Pistol (https://www.alloutdoor.com/2021/06/04/potd-lancaster-four-barreled-pisto/): This pistol was made in 1895 and sold to a Mr. Harold S. Maur. This may be Major Richard Harold St. Maur (1869-1927) , often known as Harold St. Maur, of the 14th Hussars and Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry, a veteran of the Boer Wars and First World War. Many officers assigned to Africa and India chose Lancasters as their personal sidearms, but the total production of these pistols is estimated at just 712 further subdivided into smaller volumes in the various calibers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussar A hussar (Hungarian: huszár; Polish: husarz; Serbo-Croatian: husar) was a member of a class of light cavalry, originating in Central Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely adopted by light cavalry regiments in European armies during the late 17th and 18th centuries. By the 19th century, hussars were wearing jackets decorated with braid plus shako or busby hats and had developed a romanticized image of being dashing and adventurous. Historically, the term derives from the cavalry of late medieval Hungary, under Matthias Corvinus, with mainly Serb warriors. On the eve of World War I, there were still hussar regiments in the British, Canadian, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Romanian, and Austro-Hungarian armies. In most respects, they had now become regular light cavalry, recruited solely from their own countries and trained and equipped along the same lines as other classes of cavalry. https://battlefield.fandom.com/wiki/Legendary_Russian_Hussar_Cavalry_(Codex_Entry) Legendary Russian Hussar Cavalry is a Codex Entry featured in Battlefield 1, introduced in the Battlefield 1: In the Name of the Tsar expansion. In the Russian advance in the summer of 1914, the Hussars were often sent on reconnaissance missions far ahead of the infantry. They also guarded their infantry's flanks, screened their maneuvers, and intercepted enemy patrols. Outfitted with carbines and revolvers, they were even able to dismount and fight on foot, but were no match against well-positioned or entrenched infantry. Instead, they fought smaller skirmishes or exploited gaps in the frontline with their speed.
The Big Smoke skin for Howdah Pistol (https://slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/annotated-glossary/j): Jack Johnson: A large German or Austrian low-velocity shell. Facetious use of personal name. Jack Johnson (1878-1946) was a famous American boxer whose nickname was ‘The Big Smoke’. Shells that gave off a dense black smoke when they exploded thus were dubbed ‘Jack Johnsons'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_(boxer) John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). His 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries was dubbed the "fight of the century". Johnson defeated Jeffries, who was white, triggering dozens of race riots across the U.S. According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious black boxer on Earth". In the trenches of World War One, Johnson's name was used by British troops to describe the impact of German 150 mm heavy artillery shells which had a black color. The book of poetry, The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka, is inspired by Johnson's voice and life and written in forms ranging from sonnets to prose poetry.
Frontiersman skin for Howdah Pistol: tripple question mark (???) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25th_(Frontiersmen)_Battalion,_Royal_Fusiliers The 25th (Frontiersmen) Service Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was a British Army unit that served during World War I. It was raised by the Legion of Frontiersmen. The battalion served in the African Theatre of the war from 1915 to 1918, centered mostly in the area around Lake Tanganyika, British East African and German East African territory. The battalion was largely composed of older men who hailed from diverse backgrounds and varied occupations, some of whom were Boer War veterans. The unit was formed on 12 February 1915 by Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Patrick Driscoll, who was, at that time, fifty-five years of age, well above that of an average soldier. Another noted serving officer (and eventually the Second in Command of the battalion) was Frederick Courteney Selous, a veteran of various small African wars and skirmishes, a big-game hunter and friend of Theodore Roosevelt (reference to Russian 1895's The Teddy skin). Selous had previously hunted with Roosevelt during his famed 1909 African safari. Selous is also known for having served as the inspiration for Sir H. Rider Haggard to create his fictional Allan Quatermain character, a 19th-century African explorer and hunter of big-game beasts. Captain Selous was later killed in action with the unit, shot through the mouth by a German sniper in January 1917. The unit gained the nickname "Old and the Bold", due to its members' ages, their veteran status, and reputation for endurance and daring against the enemy, even though the majority of volunteers were young men. The exploits of "The Old and the Bold" were later the loose basis of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode "The Phantom Train of Doom" (German East Africa, November 1916).
