Famous, funny or suitable nicknames for weapons/equipment

Surprised, I'm sure. Then dead and feeling nothing.

Mine was a C. Sharps Arms rifle and I used the original style 500 grain slugs. I used 7 or 8 grains of Bullseye behind 120 grains of black powder. The Bullseye (a modern pistol powder) gave you a more complete burn of the black powder which was something they didn't have in those days. Still, those big slugs have very little drift and once you have the range you can ring a steel plate with amazing consistency out at 1000 yards or even more. The original Sharps .45/110 and .45/120 weighed about 19 pounds. The modern ones weigh about 12 or 13 pounds. Unless you custom order the gun, you still get that narrow, curved steel butt which hurts like hell! But, it's worth it when you pull the trigger, then hear that gong ring a few seconds later. The .45/120 was a bit much once I got out of competition shooting, but I had another in .45/70 that I regret selling.

 

Australian Beaufighters..."whispering death"...nicknamed by the Japanese...

 

Do the US names for the Japanese planes count? I.e. Zero, Kate, etc.

 

There was also a Finnish Heavy anti-tank gun Lahti 20 pst. kiv 39 / VKT -39 / "Norsupyssy" (= the Elephant Gun)

http://tonnel-ufo.ru/eanglish/weapon/heavy-anti-tank-gun-lahti-20-pst-kiv-39-vkt-l-39-norsupyssy.php
View attachment 23564

 

LST = Large Slow Target. A very apt description.

 

No Sir
Not given by soldiers.
Does anybody know, why the german planes didn't deserve codenames?

The italian food in Africa called A.M. had many interpretaions, which weren't flattering.

"The tins were stamped with the initials AM which stood for "Administrazione Militare" but the Germans always refereed to this as Alte Mann (Old Man) or as some Italians called it "Asinus Mussolini" (Mussolini's Arse) due to it's rancid taste but they went one better calling it Arabio Morte (Dead Arab). Captured tins of British corned beef, white bread, jam, hard tack biscuits and tinned fruit were considered a luxury and was most a most welcome supplement to the bland tasting rations issued to the Afrika Korps."
http://deutsches-afrikakorps.blogspot.de/2010/12/life-in-afrika-korps.html

The german heavy bomber He 177 was the "Reichsfeuerzeug", because the twin engines were prone to catch fire.
And the japanese Betties were the "one-hit-lighters", but i'm not sure about it, every japanese plane seems to catch fire easily.

 

great question.....! I never realized or thought about it
http://ww2db.com/other.php?other_id=32

here is a list of Japanese code names and a short paragraph on who developed the names

 

Soldiers have given lots of nicknames to their food throughout history.

Pre 1900 British soldiers ate a porridge known as "Burgoo." They adopted foreign words for food such as Portuguese "Pong" from the peninsular (Possibly the original of the naval nickname for British army as "Pongos." I don't have the historic slang dictionary to hand, but the modern version is here http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Category:Rations. Example.

 

Another Soviet nickname of sorts was explaining away "USA" serial numbered vehicles. The Soviets took to saying (and I probably spelled this in a hash so maybe one of our members who speaks Russian can correct that) that it stood for Uybat Sukimsim Adolpha, or "Kill that SOB Adolf!

 

at guadalcanal, lone japanese reconnaissance planes were either "louie the louse" or "washing machine charlie."

 

They also called them 'Uncle Stude'