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Stephenson:Neal:Cryptonomicon:107:Manila ShaftoesÂ…(Alan Sinder)

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This is a page for the Colt .45 ACP and Malabar

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He reports back to his ship, and is not granted any more shore leave. He does manage to have a conversation with Uncle Jack, who pulls up alongside in a small motorboat long enough for them to shout a few sentences back and forth. Uncle Jack is the last of the Manila Shaftoes, a branch of the family spawned by Nimrod Shaftoe of the Tennessee Volunteers. Nimrod took a bullet in his right arm somewhere around Quingua, courtesy of some rebellious Filipino riflemen. Recovering in a Manila hospital, old Nimrod, or "Lefty" as he was called by that point, decided that he liked the pluck of these Filipino men, in order to kill whom a whole new class of ridiculously powerful sidearm (the Colt .45) had had to be invented. Not only that, he liked the looks of their women. Promptly discharged from the service, he found that full disability pay would go a long way on the local economy. He set up an export business along the Pasig riverfront, married a half-Spanish woman, and sired a son (Jack) and two daughters. The daughters ended up in the States, back in the Tennessee mountains that have been the ancestral wellspring of all Shaftoes ever since they broke out of the indentured servitude racket back in the 1700s. Jack stayed in Manila and inherited Nimrod's business, but never married. By Manila standards he makes a decent amount of money. He has always been an odd combination of salty waterfront trader and perfumed dandy. He and Mr. Pascual have been in business together forever, which is how Bobby Shaftoe knows Mr. Pascual, and which is how he originally met Glory.

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Wikipedia: M1911 Colt .45 ACP

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M1911 Colt .45 ACP
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The M1911 is a .45 caliber, single action, semi-automatic handgun, originally designed by John Browning, which was the standard-issue handgun in the combat arm of the United States Armed Forces from 1911 to 1985.

The weapon's origin was a response to problems encountered by American units fighting Moro insurgents during the Philippine-American War in which the then-standard .38 caliber revolver was found to be unsuitable for the rigors of jungle warfare. The Army formed an Ordnance Board, headed by John T. Thompson, to select a more suitable weapon. The board decided a .45 caliber weapon would be most appropriate, and took bids from six firearms manufacturing companies in 1906.

Of the six designs submitted, two were selected for field testing in 1907, one of them being Colt 's model, which Browning had basically modified to government specifications from an earlier autoloading .38 caliber design of his. A series of field tests was designed to decide between the two finalists (the other being a design by Arthur Savage ) and the Colt passed with flying colors, firing 6,000 rounds non-stop (a record at the time).

The weapon was formally adopted by the Army on March 29, 1911, thus gaining its nomenclature. It was adopted by the Navy and Marine Corps in 1913. Originally manufactured only by Colt, demand for the firearm for use in World War I saw the expansion of manufacture to the government-owned Springfield Armory.

Battlefield experience in the First World War led to a redesign of the weapon, completed in 1926, and named the M1911A1. Changes to the original design were exceedingly minor (shorter trigger, recesses behind the trigger frame, curved mainsping housing, etc.); for this reason, those unfamiliar with the sidearm are often unable to tell the difference between the two models at a glance, and also for this reason those familiar with the weapon consider its design one of the most effective in the history of firearms. The soundness of design is also borne out in its longevity of service (over 70 years).

World War II and the years leading up to it created a great demand for the weapon, which in turn led to the Army's extending manufacturing contracts to several manufacturers, including Remington Rand, Ithaca, Union Switch and Signal Company, and Singer (the sewing-machine manufacturer), as well as the Springfield Armory and Rock Island Arsenal . So many were produced that after 1945, the government did not order any new pistols.

After the Second World War, the sidearm continued to be a mainstay in the U.S. armed forces, seeing action in the Korean War and the Vietnam War (where it was the weapon of choice for U.S. " tunnel rats "). It was replaced, largely due to considerations of NATO commitments, with a 9mm sidearm, the M9, on January 14, 1985. The M1911A1 is still used by special operations units of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, and by Hostage Rescue Team units of the FBI, among other agencies. The M1911A1 design is also favored by police SWAT teams throughout the United States.

Today the M1911A1 type is widely used by the general public in the United States for both practical and recreational purposes. The pistol is commonly used for concealed carry, personal defense, target shooting, and competition. Numerous aftermarket accessories allow the user to customize the pistol to his or her liking. There is a growing number of manufacturers of 1911A1-type pistols and the model continues to be quite popular for its reliability, simplicity, and All-American appeal. Various tactical, target, and compact models are available. Price ranges from a low end of $ 250USD for an imported "clunker" to more than $3,000 for the best competition or tactical models, which are precisely assembled and tuned by hand. Despite being challenged by more exotic and lightweight (and largely imported) pistol designs in .45 caliber, such as the Glock 21 and Sig Arms P220, the original 1911 design will soon be 100 years old with no signs of decreasing popularity.

The weapon typically uses a variety of 230-grain full metal jacket ammunition also originally designed by Browning, with a normal capacity of 7 or 8 rounds, or even more with larger aftermarket magazines.

  • Weight (unloaded) : 39 ounces
  • Height: 5.25"
  • Length: 8.25"

Moros and .45s

Amok, sometimes spelled amuck and often used as "running amok," is a Malay word which in this language means to be out of control. For this reason, there has been an unfair association made between the Malays as a race and susceptibility to uncontrollable anger. An Amok warrior is the equivalent of a Viking Beserker. The Moro Freedom Fighters used religious ritual and body binding to put themselves into an altered state of consciousness prior to battles, and the .38 Long Colt would not adequately stop these highly motivated warriors. Thus Amok warriors were made numb and their leather armor allowed them to withstand the shock of smaller caliber gunshot wounds. This made them feared in the war.

A kris is a dagger noted for its wavy blade, which is to be feared for the excruciating pain of the undulations during a stabbing. Kris were used in the island arcs from the Malay Peninsula, through Indonesia, to Mindanao, in the Philippines.

One of the most famous folk story from Java (Indonesia) describe legendary kris blacksmith, called Mpu Gandring, and his impatient customer, Ken Arok, who eventually stabbed him to death, because the old blacksmith kept delaying the scheduled due date of kris, which Ken Arok ordered probably several months before.

Kris are trademark accessories of Javanese aristocrats. Several kris are considered sacred, and people believe they contain magical powers; thus specific rites need to be completed, if they do not want to get its consequences.

Malabar

Malabar is a region along the southwest coast of the Indian peninsula, which forms the northern part of present-day Kerala state. The region was a part of the Madras presidency until the Indian state of Kerala was formed in 1956, when this area and the erstwhile Thiru-Kochi (Travancore-Cochin) kingdom were united.

Bekalfortbeach.JPG

Bekal Fort Beach

Before the British Rule, Malabar was ruled by chieftains notably the Kolathiris of Kasargod, Zamorins of Calicut and the Valluvokonathiris of Walluvanad.

The Malabar Coast is an historic name for India's southwest coast, lying on the narrow coastal plain of of Karnataka and Kerala states between the Western Ghats range and the Arabian Sea. The coast runs from south of Goa to the Cape Comorin on India's southern tip.

The Malabar Coast is home to a number of historic port cities, notably Kozhikode (Calicut), Cochin, and Quilon, that have been centers of the Indian Ocean trade for centuries. Because of their orientation to the sea and to maritime commerce, the Malabar coast cities are very cosmopolitan, and were home to some of the first groups of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in India.

The Malabar Coast, especially on its westward-facing mountain slopes, is the wettest region of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains. The Malabar rainforests refer to one or more distinct ecoregions recognized by biogeographers; the Malabar Coast moist forests formerly occupied the coastal zone to the 250 meter elevation, but 95% of these forests have been cleared; the South Western Ghats moist deciduous forests are found at intermediate elevations, and the South Western Ghats montane rain forests cover the areas above 1000 meters elevation.

Though so intimately associated with the Malay there is some ground for believing the word to have an Indian origin, and the act is certainly far from unknown in Indian history. Some notable cases have occurred among the Rajputs. Thus, in 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amok at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.

In Malabar there were certain professional assassins known to old travellers as Amouchi or Amuco. The nearest modern equivalent to these words would seem to be the Malayalim Amar-khan, "a warrior" (from amar, "fight"). The Malayalim term chaver applied to these ruffians meant literally those "who devote themselves to death." In Malabar was a custom by which the zamorin or king of Calicut had to cut his throat in public when he had reigned twelve years. In the 17th century a variation in his fate was made. He had to take his seat, after a great feast lasting twelve days, at a national assembly, surrounded by his armed suite, and it was lawful for anyone to attack him, and if he succeeded in killing him the murderer himself became zamorin (see Alex. Hamilton, "A new Account of the East Indies," in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, viii. 374). In 1600 thirty would-be assassins were killed in their attempts. These men were called Amar-khan, and it has been suggested that their action was "running amok" in the true Malay sense. Another proposed derivation for amouchi is Sanskrit amokshya, "that cannot be loosed," suggesting that the murderer was bound by a vow, an explanation more than once advanced for the Malay amok; but amokshya in such a sense is unknown in Malayalam.