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In this casuistry, two accidents from Germany and Switzerland are presented that happened during the shot of recoilless anti-tank weapons. In both cases, the injuries led to the death of two soldiers: A 22-year-old soldier in Germany was struck by the counter mass of a so-called Davis gun which had been fired by a comrade during a firing exercise; he died from his severe injuries, especially in the abdominal part of the body. As a peculiarity of the wound morphology, it was found to be a thick-layered, metallic, gray material in the wound cavity, which corresponded to the material of the counter mass that was ejected opposite to the shooting direction. The other case took place in Switzerland, where a 24-year-old soldier was seriously injured during an exercise with portable anti-tank rockets. At the time the shot was fired, he stood behind the launcher and was hit by the propulsion jet of the rocket motor. He died as well from his severe injuries, which were located at the chest done by the gas jet and by the very high pressure. In both cases, two different causes of death were present: massive blunt violence in the first case versus a jet of hot gases of very high speed and temperature in the second case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About a decade after its foundation, the most advanced ballistics laboratory in Germany at the time, the ?Kruppsche Schiessplatz,? was utilized by Ernst Mach in 1888. His intent was to validate his pioneering shock wave research using military shells as supersonic vehicles. The 125th anniversary of the Schiessplatz was celebrated in 2002. Along with Mach?s research, it served to initiate the field of supersonic transportation technology. The specific subject of this paper is the application of point-source spark shadowgraphy at the same laboratory in the 1970?s to visualize gas flow over aeroballistic projectiles. However, different from Mach?s original interest, the new purpose of spark photography at that time in the ballistic ranges of the German Bundeswehr was to find technical solutions to aeroballistic problems when field-testing gave incomplete answers. Both a qualitative and a quantitative understanding of the principles of aeroballistics were sought in this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]