Pirate Weapons...Afghan Style
 

Some of my Afghan naval/pirate pieces. Play nice gentleman.

Cheers
bbjw

Me thinks you really are a feisty scoundrel thar BJ!!! :) Lets hope we dont get another broadside with that title! :)
I'm glad you posted these as they really are some nice Afghan pieces, even though not 'naval' and of course not related to pirates.........but that gun is a beauty!!!
The top piece is the much Anglicized Afghan army sword of the late 1880's into the 1890's, and saw use again in the 3rd Afghan War in 1919. I had one of these with the arsenal mark from Mazir i Sharif . The blades on these are outstanding and really heavy.The two Khybers are beauties also. Somebody here had a Khyber mounted with the hilt from one of the army swords which was really intriguing, cant remember who its was though.
Tell us more on the gun!

All the best,
Jim

I really hate to point this out but Afghanistan is land locked so what naval pirates are we talking about :confused: ;) :D


Lew

God's Holy Trousers! ! Here we go again!

bbjw

Afghans did have a tradition of hiring out as mercs. so theoritcally it is possible. Doubtful but fun

Ah! you've been 'Spiralled' ;) ....or is that Spiral led :D

BBJW ...nice Afghani pieces :)

The sword has the arsenal mark from Mazir i Sharif and was brought back from Afghanistan last year. It would have made a great naval cutlass.

The gun was custom made for a man who had planned to retire to his yacht in 1981. He died within a couple of weeks of retiring. Very bad luck. I bought it at his estate sale. A real work of art. Beautiful brass barrel is 1 1/4" cal. and I have fired it with buckshot and BBs. With 3 cannon on my small boat perhaps I can take a lesson from Edward Teach and "take" a larger boat!

Cheers
bbjw

I can see how this thread can quickly turn into a discussion about the struggle for naval supremacy between the Nepalis and the Afghans.

On a more serious note though, I can see BBJW's point about posting these pieces and the big khukri - so far I think we came to the conclusion that there were no specifically "pirate" edged weapons, and that pirates took whatever they liked or had available that could be useful. I can imagine that the so called khyber knives and the anglicized Afghan sword would make nice boarding weapons and that some of the pirates in the Caribbean or the Maghreb for example could have actually carried those in battle, if they had been available to them. A smallsword or a yataghan can be equally effective, each in their own way and function - the list of possibilities of what could make a pirate weapon is endless.

Beautifully said Teodor!!!! :)
While possibilities of these particular weapons are of course remote, it is always amazing how far very unusual weapons might be found from thier origins. A Japanese katana was listed in an estate inventory from colonial New England in the 17th century. Similarly, a Sinhalese katana turned up in Japan in 1622.
No excitement please! Just examples, nothing to do with pirate weapons, just weapons diffusion. :)

BJ, back to pirate weapons, I did see one of these Afghan army swords that the individual claimed was a Spanish sword, based primarily on the presumption that the Mazir i Sharif stamp was actually the pillars seen on the Spanish reale coin!

Fantastic gun BJ! I feel sad for the guy, sounds as if he was quite a character. I'm glad you got it BJ, I think it found a very well deserving home and would definitely feel at home under a jolly roger!

All very best regards,
Jim

That simply must be more wholesame for one than bieng Katana-ed! ;) :D


As I recall chaps, Afghanistan used to include the Baluchistan coast. [today pakistan.] But the British took it over by war, treaty & Bribery. {as usual. ;) }

But I cant remember when that happened. But its quite possible at one time there would have been Afghan Pirates sailing the Indian ocean.

Great suff BBJW Love the cannon & the Mazar piece.


Spiral

if the swiss can have a merchant marine & patrol boats (and hence the ability to also interact with pirates), so can the afghans, lets not be so elitist, if they want a navy why not.....

Swiss Naval Site

i hereby present this list of the worlds top ten small navies:

1. The Pontifical Vatican Navy
2. Royal Bhutanese Navy
3. Peoples Navy of Mongolia
4. Royal Lesotho Navy
5. Andorran Navy
6. Royal Jordanian Navy
7. Afghan Navy
8. San Marino Navy
9. Royal Liecheistien Navy

of course one reason to have a navy is to defend against pirates :P

That's what i call a good shot :cool: .
Fernando

hi fernando,

as the UK an Portugal have shown, it's not a country's size that matters, it's how you use it. the UK & Portugal have shown the world how to do the naval business by having had the worlds top naval and maritime empires in their heydays...and still have a very proud naval tradition.

Of course it helps to be a coastal country dipping in the ocean. I'm thinking Lesotho would have a hard time renting port space from South-Africa, let alone keep navy docks :D

Since a good chunk of the countries on that list are kingdoms, I'm thinking heads of state needed some formal boat for international excurtions, and if you're gonna have a royal boat, they you better save face and have a royal navy to go with it :D .

Fresh Water Incursion??
 

:)
What about the Afghan River Navy? These crafty Pirates have no doubt realised that war can be waged from rivers as well as the sea!! :D