title: Rachel Scott

text: At the time of her death at age 17, Scott lived at 7282 South Vance Street in Littleton and was debating as to whether she should become an actress or a Christian missionary. She also had plans to visit Botswana as a member of a Christian outreach program to build homes in the upcoming summer before moving into her own apartment in late 1999.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Scott was eating lunch with her friend Richard Castaldo when she was shot four times with a Hi-Point 995 by Eric Harris on the lawn outside the west entrance of the school. Initially shot in the chest, left arm, and left leg, from a distance of 10 to 15 feet, she sustained a fourth and fatal wound to her left temple. Castaldo was shot eight times and permanently paralyzed from his injuries. Scott's body was left outside where she died and was not retrieved by the coroner until the following morning.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Shortly after Rachel was murdered, Harris and Klebold went on a killing spree around the school, claiming 12 more lives and leaving 24 injured. The two perpetrators then committed suicide in the school library, the place where they slaughtered the most victims. Scott did not personally know Harris or Klebold. After the killings, Scott's car was turned into an impromptu memorial in the adjacent Clement Park after being moved from the school's parking lot by grieving students. A chain-link fence was also installed around the vehicle for mourners to attach their tokens of grief such as flowers, crucifixes, teddy bears, and letters of condolence. The car was ultimately covered by the objects left upon it by mourners. Scott's 16-year-old brother, Craig, was also at the school on the day of the massacre; he was in the library where most of the killings occurred; he survived unharmed, although two of his close friends were also murdered.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Craig expressed extreme regret for his last interaction with his sister: slamming a car door at her when being dropped off at school that morning.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Scott was buried at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Centennial on April 24, 1999, following a two-hour funeral service held at the Trinity Christian Center. Her funeral was one of the first services following the massacre and was attended by more than 1,000 people that included friends and staff at Columbine High School. The Reverend Porter began the service by addressing the congregation with the question, "What has happened to us as a people that this should happen to us?" He then addressed the solemn crowd with a speech that included references to Scott's pious character, kind nature and love of her fellow human, before stating: "You have graduated early from this life to a far better one, where there is no sorrow, violence or death." Her friends from the Orchard Road Christian Church Youth Group also sang a song at the service, composed in her honor, entitled "Why Did You Have to Leave?" Attendees were invited to talk at the service, as "My Heart Will Go On" was played.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Those conveying their eulogies included one youth who had been considered an outcast at Columbine High School, who stated: "All my life I prayed that someone would love me and make me feel wanted. God sent me an angel," before staring at Scott's casket and weeping. Nick Baumgart, who accompanied Rachel to the high school prom as her date three days before her murder, also spoke, saying: "A truer friend, you couldn't find. You could be having the worst day of your entire life; all she had to do was smile." Scott's parents chose not to speak at the service, but issued a statement in which they described their daughter as "a girl whose love of life was constantly reflected in her love and zeal for music, drama, photography, and for her friends".


title: Rachel Scott

text: Prior to her burial, mourners who had known Scott throughout her life were invited to write messages of condolence, grief and thankfulness on her ivory white casket. Her coffin was adorned with messages of love, gratitude, and grief. The funeral service was broadcast by CNN and MSNBC.


title: Rachel Scott

text: The deaths of Scott and fellow student Cassie Bernall—also a Christian—during the Columbine massacre led both to be subsequently depicted and remembered by groups of evangelical Christians as Christian martyrs. This began during her funeral on April 24, 1999, which was televised. At the beginning of the ceremony, Barry Palser, a pastor from an Assemblies of God organization, gave a speech in which he said she was "one who has given [her] life for the Lord Jesus Christ, a modern-day martyr." Pastor Bruce Porter delivered a sermon later in the service, in which he called Rachel a "warrior" who carried "a torch that was stained by the blood of the martyrs from the very first day of the Church's existence". Porter then requested that others pick up the "torch" in Scott's wake.


title: Rachel Scott

text: In the following year's numerous books—termed "hagiographies" by sociologist Ralph Larkin—were published about Scott and Bernall with the assistance of or authorship by their parents. Porter also wrote a book about Scott, making frequent references to sacrifice. Many web pages have been published that are specifically dedicated to Scott and she is prominently featured in more broadly themed Columbine memorial websites. Some of these sites explicitly or implicitly refer to Scott's belief in Christianity and suggest that she was killed because of it. Journalist Hanna Rosin framed public remembrance of her death as part of a phenomenon in which teenage Christians began obsessing over Christian-based death. Scott's mother and her brother Craig toured many schools across the United States years after the shooting to speak about Rachel's life, asserting that she probably died because of her religious beliefs. Christian churches used the martyr narrative of Scott's and Bernall's deaths to promote themselves and recruit members.


title: Rachel Scott

text: The circumstances surrounding Scott's death and its relation to her religious beliefs are disputed in the martyr narrative. Journalist Wendy Murray Zoba argued that the shooters targeted evangelical Christians during the massacre. As evidence for this, she claimed that Scott was shot execution-style, though the official report published by police stated that Scott was shot from a distance of 10 to 15 feet. Scott's mother claimed that she had offered to be friends to Klebold, that Klebold was romantically interested in her, and that Klebold and Harris mocked her for her religious beliefs. Scott's mother also asserted that her daughter was on a "target list." Investigations in the years following the shooting—especially Dave Cullen's findings in his book "Columbine"—have concluded that Klebold and Harris were not targeting people for their religion, ethnicity, or gender. Scott did not know the two boys personally and was in a different academic grade than them. A frequent feature of Rachel's martyr story is that she had a verbal exchange with Klebold and Harris about her religious beliefs before they killed her. "The Hollywood Reporter" accounts that Richard Castaldo, who was shot while sitting with Scott and survived, "told a newspaper that not only did the killers ask Rachel about her faith but that he, too, was asked if he believed in God, and he answered truthfully that he did not, and his life was spared." Other sources report that Castaldo had survived by "playing dead". Castaldo was in a coma in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and thus did not testify to police and his account was not included in the police report on the event. Castaldo said in his speech at Scott's funeral, "People tell me I said she said she believed in God, and I can't remember it," and Larkin wrote in 2007 that Castaldo "could not remember Klebold or Harris saying anything."


title: Rachel Scott

text: Reviewing their daughter's life and hearing firsthand just how profound an impact Scott's simple acts of kindness had imprinted on the lives of those who had known her, as well as recalling her repeatedly stated desire for her life to have an impact for the better on others, Darrell Scott and Beth Nimmo were inspired to write the book "Rachel's Tears", a non-fiction book about their daughter, her faith, her inspirational journal entries, and the impact of her loss on their lives. The book was published on the first anniversary of her death, and is incorporated into the Rachel's Challenge program.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Scott and Nimmo later published two more books inspired by their daughter and her legacy: "Rachel Smiles: The Spiritual Legacy of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott", and "The Journals of Rachel Joy Scott: A Journey of Faith at Columbine High". These books were published in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Both parents have expressed their hope that those who did not know their daughter would find inspiration in the books' description of the principles their daughter had lived during her life.


title: Rachel Scott

text: After reading the essay, "My Ethics; My Codes of Life", and the journals Scott had written in the last 16 months of her life, her father founded Rachel's Challenge in 2001. Rachel's Challenge is a national nonprofit and nonpolitical organization whose stated aims are to advocate a safe and positive climate and culture in schools in a campaign to quell school violence, bullying, discrimination, and both homicidal and suicidal thoughts in students. Through the more than 50 designated speakers and the international expansion of Rachel's Challenge, the annual international student outreach of the organization is estimated to be in excess of two million. The program itself typically involves a one-hour audio and video presentation, hosted by the Rachel's Challenge speaker, to assembled students, with the aim of motivating those present to analyze how they treat others. The Rachel's Challenge speakers include Darrell, Craig and Mike Scott; guest speakers include Nicole Nowlen, who was wounded at age 16 in the Columbine High School massacre, and Adam Kyler, a former Columbine student who had harbored suicidal thoughts until Rachel, noting he was the victim of bullying, offered her friendship and support.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Each attendee is asked to pledge to accept the five principles discussed during the presentation before leaving the assembly: to eliminate any form of prejudice from their being, and seek only the best in others; to keep a journal and seek to achieve accomplishments; to choose to accept only positive influences in their lives; to commit to bringing a positive change in their home, school, and community through kind words, and undertaking tasks great and small; and to show care and compassion to those who are vulnerable, ridiculed, or in any form of need. A final impetus is to commit to Rachel's theory of the formation of a chain reaction through these five pledges by sharing these commitments with their family members, friends, and peers.


title: Rachel Scott

text: At the close of the program, the audience is asked to close their eyes, and picture five or six people closest to them; they are then asked to tell them how much they mean to them. The initial presentation is followed by a 45-minute, interactive training session involving both adult and student leaders. Participants are trained to perpetuate the chain reaction of kindness envisioned by Scott. The participating school is provided with a curriculum and a training manual to ensure the continuity of the objectives of Rachel's Challenge, and the speaker typically holds a meeting later with parents and community leaders.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Internationally, many schools have incorporated Rachel's Challenge into their internal character building programs, with active efforts made to eradicate any sense of alienation among the student population, and various initiatives implemented to increase cohesion. One initiative to achieve this objective is to establish a "Friends of Rachel" club, to sustain the campaign's goals on an ongoing basis. In addition, many students actively seek to honor Scott's theory of just one person displaying compassion having the potential to spark a chain reaction of the same by spreading her message of kindness, empathy and compassion with their fellow students.


title: Rachel Scott

text: As a direct result of Rachel's Challenge, numerous child and teenage suicides have been prevented and in seven known cases, planned school shootings have been prevented.


title: Rachel Scott

text: The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation posthumously awarded Scott the 2001 National Kindness Award for Student of the Year. The award was in recognition of her efforts to eradicate negativity, discord, and alienation in those she encountered during her life and to replace these negative influences with care and compassion.


title: Rachel Scott

text: In the wake of the 2006 West Nickel Mines School shooting, Craig Scott was formally invited to address a National Council on issues relating to safety and security in schools. This meeting was held at the White House with president Bush and included White House staff and educators from across the nation. The conference focused on cultural issues and the accomplishments and personal experiences garnered through Rachel's Challenge. President Bush requested a copy of the speech, and Craig Scott was later invited back to the White House to speak further on these issues.


title: Rachel Scott

text: In a direct recognition of the significant, ongoing, national benefits achieved in schools, colleges, and universities through Rachel's Challenge, the National Education Association of New York awarded Darrell Scott and Rachel's Challenge the "Friend of Education Award" in 2006. Darrell Scott was selected as the 2009 winner of the "All-Stars Among Us" initiative in recognition of his selfless dedication toward preserving his daughter's memory in a positive manner through Rachel's Challenge in the U.S.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Along with 29 other recipients, Scott was formally honored as part of the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game ceremonies, held in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 14 that year. At this ceremony, Darrell Scott stated: "Rachel loved to watch baseball. She had no clue that because of her memory ... I'd be here representing her." Both of Scott's parents have also spoken with entertainers, world leaders, and notable individuals including Miep Gies – one of the people who hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, and preserved her diary after her capture.


title: Rachel Scott

text: Darrell Scott has stated that reliving his daughter's death giving his Rachel's Challenge speeches is painful, but that he and his family consider the opportunity to be a worthwhile experience as they can turn a tragedy into triumph. He notes: "I feel that God has really called me to do this. To pick up the torch my daughter dropped. This is what my daughter would have wanted to see. If I died right now, I can tell you my daughter's prayer has been answered." Rachel's mother, on the 10th anniversary of her daughter's passing, stated: "Only through eternal eyes will she ever know how powerful her life and death became."


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: Marie Avgeropoulos (Greek: Μαρία "Μαρί" Αυγεροπούλου, born 17 June 1986) is a Canadian actress and model. She is best known for her role as Octavia Blake on The CW's post-apocalyptic science fiction television series "The 100" (2014–2020).


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: Avgeropoulos was born on 17 June 1986 in Thunder Bay, Ontario to Greek parents. She grew up fishing, hunting and camping, spending most of her free time outdoors. She started playing drums when she was 16. After studying broadcast journalism for two years in her hometown, she moved to Europe. Several months later, she came back to Canada and settled in Vancouver. At the age of 20 she underwent surgery in order to remove a big tumour from her chest and throat, with her vocal cords being removed and put back in. This procedure affected her voice.


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: One of her friends invited her for a casting call in Vancouver, which happened to be looking for drummers. A talent agent recognized her talent and invited her to appear in various national commercials. She caught the attention of director Chris Columbus. He hired Avgeropoulos for "I Love You, Beth Cooper", which became her first feature film role. Her appearance in the film gave her the opportunities to star in more films, television shows and magazines.


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: In 2010, Avgeropoulos was cast as Kim Rhodes in the film "Hunt to Kill", which became her break-out role.


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: Early in 2013, Avgeropoulos made her break-out in television after being cast for a recurring role in The CW's "Cult". However, the series failed to attract viewers and after episode 7, the show was cancelled. The remaining six episodes of the show were broadcast later in the summer.


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: Not long after the show ended, The CW cast her as one of the main characters in their new sci-fi, "The 100", to portray the character Octavia Blake.


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: In late 2018, Avgeropoulos was involved in a domestic violence incident when she and her boyfriend allegedly began arguing in a car on the Ventura Freeway shortly after midnight on 5 August 2018. Avgeropoulos was on new medication mixed with alcohol, and was accused of striking him multiple times in the head, neck and arm, resulting in minor injuries according to the District Attorney's Office. She was then charged with domestic violence. Avgeropoulos' boyfriend wanted the charges dropped and stated that she does not pose a threat.


title: Marie Avgeropoulos

text: The case was formally dismissed with all charges dropped, as there was no intent of harm on Avgeropoulos' part, but rather "an adverse reaction to medication that triggered the outburst."


title: Deep state in the United States

text: According to an American political conspiracy theory, the deep state is a clandestine network of actors alongside members of the federal government in high-level financial and high-level industrial roles. The theory posits that the conglomerate of individuals and entities work together in a secret allegiance to exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Conservatives are more likely to use the term deep state than liberals. Liberals, on the other hand, often use the term "military-industrial complex", which they describe as a cabal of generals and defense contractors that enrich themselves through pushing the country into endless wars.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Variations of the deep state have existed as popular conspiracy theories in the United States since the 1950s.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: The conspiracy theory reached mainstream recognition under the presidency of Donald Trump, who referenced an alleged deep state working against him and his administration’s agenda.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Opinion polling done in 2017 and 2018 suggests that approximately half of all Americans believe in the existence of a deep state.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Although the term 'deep state' is thought to have originated in Turkey in the 1990s, belief in the concept of a deep state has been present in the United States since at least the 1950s. A 1955 article in the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", quotes Americans sharing their belief in the existence of a "dual state": a hidden national security hierarchy and shadow government that monitors and controls elected politicians.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In 2014, former Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren alleged that there was a deep state protecting "powerful vested interests" and that a "web of entrenched interests in the US government and beyond ... dictate America’s defense decisions, trade policies and priorities with little regard for the actual interests or desires of the American people".<ref name="Lofgren_2/21/2014"></ref>


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In 2017, former Democratic U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich alleged that there were individuals in the intelligence community attempting to sabotage relations between the United States and Russia.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Political scientist George Friedman alleges that such a deep state has existed since 1871, when the president's power over federal employees was restricted.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Historian Alfred W. McCoy argued that the increase in the power of the United States Intelligence Community since the September 11 attacks "has built a fourth branch of the U.S. government" that is "in many ways autonomous from the executive, and increasingly so".


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Tufts University professor Michael J. Glennon stated that President Barack Obama did not succeed in resisting or changing what he calls the "double government" and points to Obama's failure to close Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a major campaign promise, as evidence of the existence of a deep state.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Some commentators, such as former NSA leaker Edward Snowden, allege that there is a deep state made up of civil servants.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Rebecca Gordon, a teacher and author at the University of San Francisco, wrote in a 2020 piece for Business Insider that Trump has used the term "deep state" to refer to the U.S. government, in particular government Institutions that "frustrate" him, as well as block or fail to implement his government policy such as courts, the Justice Department, and the news media.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: During his presidency, Donald Trump and his strategists alleged that the deep state was interfering with his agenda and that the United States Department of Justice was part of the deep state because it did not prosecute Huma Abedin or James Comey. Some Trump allies and right-wing media outlets alleged that Obama was coordinating a deep state resistance to Trump. President Trump's supporters used "deep state" to refer to allegations that intelligence officers and executive branch officials were influencing policy via leaks or other internal means.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In 2018, Newt Gingrich alleged that Robert Mueller was part of the deep state for the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In 2018, "The New York Times" published an anonymous op-ed by DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration", attributed at the time to a "senior official in the Trump Administration". In the essay, Taylor was critical of President Trump and claimed "that many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations". House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy described this as evidence of the deep state at work, and David Bossie wrote an op-ed at Fox News saying this was the deep state "working against the will of the American people".


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In 2018, Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul alleged that the CIA only briefing the "Gang of Eight" on sensitive intelligence issues was an example of the deep state.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In 2020, Trump cabinet member and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney alleged that claims of a deep state working against Trump were "absolutely, 100% true".


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Critics of Trump's use of the term 'deep state' maintain that it is a conspiracy theory with no basis in reality.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: UCLA School of Law professor Jon D. Michaels argued that compared with developing governments such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, governmental power structures in the United States are "almost entirely transparent". Michaels argues that the American 'deep state', which includes federal agencies responsible for regulation, welfare, crime prevention, and defense, and the employees who operate them, fundamentally differs from Trump's use of the term in five important respects:


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Critics warned that use of the term in the United States could undermine public confidence in institutions and be used to justify suppression of dissent.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Political commentator and former presidential adviser David Gergen said that the term had been appropriated by Steve Bannon, Breitbart News, and other supporters of the Trump administration in order to delegitimize the critics of the presidency.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University, argued that there is no deep state and that "to the extent that there is a bipartisan foreign-policy elite, it is hiding in plain sight".<ref name="Walt_9/7/2018"></ref>


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Anthropologist C. August Elliott likened military involvement in the Trump administration as a "shallow state" in which they were forced to guide the administration "away from a potential shipwreck".


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg said that deep state is an "elastic label" in that "its story conforms to the intricate grammar of those conspiracy narratives", referencing the transition of conservative rhetoric regarding "big government" from "meddlesome bunglers" to "conniving ideologues".


title: Deep state in the United States

text: Fox News panelist Charles Krauthammer called the idea ridiculous, arguing that bureaucracy exists in the United States government rather than a government-wide conspiracy.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: According to an ABC NEWS/"Washington Post" poll of Americans in April 2017, about half (48%) thought there was a "deep state", defined as "military, intelligence and government officials who try to secretly manipulate government", while about a third (35%) of all participants thought it was a false conspiracy theory, and the remainder (17%) had no opinion. Of those who believe a deep state exists, more than half (58%) said it was a major problem, a net of 28% of those surveyed.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: A March 2018 poll by Monmouth University found most respondents (63%) were unfamiliar with "deep state" but a majority believe that a deep state likely exists in the United States when described as "a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy". Three-fourths (74%) of the respondents say that they believe this type of group probably (47%) or definitely (27%) exists in the federal government.


title: Deep state in the United States

text: An October 2019 "The Economist"/YouGov poll found that, without giving a definition of "deep state" to respondents, 70% of Republicans, 38% of independents, and 13% of Democrats agreed that a deep state was "trying to overthrow Trump".


title: Deep state in the United States

text: In his 2015 book "The State: Past, Present, Future", academic Bob Jessop comments on the similarity of three constructs:


title: Deep state in the United States

text: "Deep state" has been associated with the "military–industrial complex" by author Mike Lofgren, who has identified this complex as the private part of the deep state. University professor and journalist Marc Ambinder has suggested that a myth about the deep state is that it functions as one entity; in reality, he states "the deep state contains multitudes, and they are often at odds with one another".


title: The KLF

text: The KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the British number-one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book "The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way)". As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house (rave music with a pop-rock production and sampled crowd noise) and, with their 1990 LP "Chill Out", the ambient house genre. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label and became the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991.


title: The KLF

text: From the outset, the KLF adopted the philosophy espoused by esoteric novels "The Illuminatus! Trilogy", making anarchic situationist manifestations, including the defacement of billboard adverts, the posting of cryptic advertisements in "NME" and the mainstream press, as well as unusual performances on "Top of the Pops". In collaboration with Extreme Noise Terror at the BRIT Awards in February 1992, they fired machine gun blanks into the audience and dumped a dead sheep at the aftershow party. This performance pre-announced the KLF's departure from the music business and, in May of that year, they deleted their entire back-catalogue. Drummond and Cauty established the K Foundation and sought to subvert the art world, staging an alternative art award for the Worst Artist of the Year, and burning one million pounds sterling (approximately £2.35m as of 2022).


title: The KLF

text: Although the duo remained true to their word of May 1992, with the KLF Communications catalogue remaining deleted, they have released a small number of new tracks since then, as the K Foundation, the One World Orchestra, and in 1997, as 2K. Drummond and Cauty reappeared in 2017 as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, releasing the novel "", and rebooting an earlier campaign to build a "People's Pyramid". In January 2021, the band began uploading their previously deleted catalogue onto streaming services, in compilations.


title: The KLF

text: Bill Drummond was an established figure within the British music industry, having co-founded Zoo Records, played guitar in the Liverpool band Big in Japan, and worked as manager of Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes. Artist and musician Jimmy Cauty was the guitarist in the three-piece Brilliant – an act that Drummond had signed to WEA Records and managed.


title: The KLF

text: In July 1986, Drummond resigned from his position as an A&R man at record label WEA, citing that he was nearly 33⅓ years old (33⅓ revolutions per minute being the speed at which a vinyl LP revolves), and that it was "time for a revolution in my life. There is a mountain to climb the hard way, and I want to see the world from the top". In the same year he released a solo LP, "The Man". Drummond intended to focus on writing books once "The Man" had been issued but, as he recalled in 1990, "That only lasted three months, until I had an[other] idea for a record and got dragged back into it all". Recalling that moment in a later interview, Drummond said that the plan came to him in an instant: he would form a hip-hop band with former colleague Cauty, and they would be called the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu:


title: The KLF

text: Early in 1987, Drummond and Cauty's collaborations began. They assumed alter egos – King Boy D and Rockman Rock respectively – and adopted the name the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs), after the fictional conspiratorial group "The Justified Ancients of Mummu" from "The Illuminatus! Trilogy". The JAMs' primary instrument was the digital sampler with which they would plagiarise the history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, underpinned by rudimentary beatbox rhythms and overlaid with Drummond's raps, of social commentary, esoteric metaphors and mockery.


title: The KLF

text: The JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love" dealt with the media coverage given to AIDS, sampling heavily from the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" and Samantha Fox's "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)". Although it was declined by distributors fearful of prosecution, and threatened with lawsuits, copies of the one-sided white label 12" were sent to the music press; it received positive reviews and was made "single of the week" in "Sounds". A later piece in the same magazine called the JAMs "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year ... It's hard to understand what it feels like to come across something you believe to be totally new; I have never been so wholeheartedly convinced that a band are so good and exciting."


title: The KLF

text: The JAMs re-edited and re-released "All You Need Is Love" in May 1987, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples; lyrics from the song appeared as promotional graffiti, defacing selected billboards. The re-release rewarded the JAMs with praise (including "NME"'s "single of the week") and the funds necessary to record their debut album. The album, "1987 (What the F**k Is Going On?)", was released in June 1987. Included was a song called "The Queen and I", which sampled the ABBA single "Dancing Queen". After a legal showdown with ABBA and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, the "1987" album was forcibly withdrawn from sale. Drummond and Cauty travelled to Sweden in hope of meeting ABBA and coming to some agreement, taking an "NME" journalist and photographer with them, along with most of the remaining copies of the LP. They failed to meet ABBA, who they didn't realize already lived in Britain at the time, so they disposed of the copies by burning most of them in a field and throwing the rest overboard on the North Sea ferry trip home. In a December 1987 interview, Cauty maintained that they "felt that what [they]'d done was artistically justified."


title: The KLF

text: Two new singles followed on the JAMs' "KLF Communications" independent record label. Both reflected a shift towards house rhythms. According to "NME", the JAMs' choice of samples for the first of these, "Whitney Joins the JAMs" saw them leaving behind their strategy of "collision course" to "move straight onto the art of super selective theft". The song uses samples of the "" and "Shaft" themes alongside Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody". Drummond has claimed that the KLF were later offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album as an inducement from her record label boss (Clive Davis of Arista Records) to sign with them. The second single in this sequence – Drummond and Cauty's third and final single of 1987 – was "Down Town", a dance record built around a gospel choir and "Downtown" by 1960s star Petula Clark. These early works were later collected on the compilation album "Shag Times".


title: The KLF

text: A second album, "Who Killed the JAMs?", was released in early 1988. "Who Killed the JAMs?" earned the duo a five-star review from "Sounds" magazine, who called it "a masterpiece of pathos".


title: The KLF

text: In 1988, Drummond and Cauty released a 'novelty' pop single, "Doctorin' the Tardis" as the Timelords. The song is predominantly a mash-up of the "Doctor Who" theme music, "Block Buster!" by Sweet and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part Two)".


title: The KLF

text: Credited on the record was "Ford Timelord", Cauty's 1968 Ford Galaxie American police car, and "Lord Rock" (Cauty) and "Time Boy" (Drummond). The Timelords claimed that Ford Timelord was the "Talent" in the band and had given them instructions on how to make the record; Ford fronted the promotional campaign for the single and was "interviewed" on TV.


title: The KLF

text: They later portrayed the song as the result of a deliberate effort to write a number one hit single. In interviews with Snub TV and BBC Radio 1, Drummond said that they had intended to make a house record using the "Doctor Who" theme. After Cauty had laid down a basic track, Drummond observed that their house idea wasn't working and what they actually had was a Glitter beat. Sensing the opportunity to make a commercial pop record they went instead for the lowest common denominator. According to the British music press, the result was "rancid", "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating" and from "Sounds" "a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". A single of the Timelords' remixes of the song was released: "Gary Joins the JAMs" featured original vocal contributions from Glitter, who also appeared on "Top of the Pops" to promote the song with the Timelords. "Doctorin' the Tardis" sold over one million copies.


title: The KLF

text: The Timelords released one other product, a 1989 book called "The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way)", a step-by-step guide to achieving a number one hit single with little money or talent.


title: The KLF

text: By the time the JAMs' single "Whitney Joins the JAMs" was released in September 1987, their record label had been renamed "KLF Communications" (from the earlier "The Sound of Mu(sic)"). The duo's first release as the KLF was in March 1988, with the single "Burn the Bastards"/"Burn the Beat" (KLF 002). Although the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu name was not retired, most future Drummond and Cauty releases went under the name "The KLF".


title: The KLF

text: The name change accompanied a change in Drummond and Cauty's musical direction. As 'King Boy D', Drummond said in January 1988, "We might put out a couple of 12" records under the name The K.L.F., these will be rap free just pure dance music, so don't expect to see them reviewed in the music papers". King Boy D also said that he and Rockman Rock were "pissed off at [them]selves" for letting "people expect us to lead some sort of crusade for sampling." In 1990, he recalled that "We wanted to make [as the KLF] something that was... pure dance music, without any reference points, without any nod to the history of rock and roll. It was the type of music that by early '87 was really exciting "me"... [although] we weren't able to get our first KLF records out until late '88."


title: The KLF

text: The 12" records subsequently released in 1988 and 1989 by the KLF were indeed rap free and house-oriented; remixes of some of the JAMs tracks, and new singles, the largely instrumental acid house anthems "What Time Is Love?" and "3 a.m. Eternal", the first incarnations of later international chart successes. The KLF described the new tracks as "Pure Trance". In 1989, the KLF appeared at the Helter Skelter rave in Oxfordshire. "They wooed the crowd", wrote "Scotland on Sunday" some years later, "by pelting them with... £1,000 worth of Scottish pound notes, each of which bore the message 'Children we love you.


title: The KLF

text: Also in 1989, the KLF embarked upon the creation of a road movie and soundtrack album, both titled "The White Room", funded by the profits of "Doctorin' the Tardis". Neither the film nor its soundtrack were formally released, although bootleg copies exist. The soundtrack album contained pop-house versions of some of the "pure trance" singles, as well as new songs, most of which would appear (in radically reworked form) on the version of the album which was eventually released to mainstream success. A single from the original album was released: "Kylie Said to Jason", an electropop record featuring references to Todd Terry, Rolf Harris, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and BBC comedy programme "The Good Life". In reference to that song, Drummond and Cauty noted that they had worn "Pet Shop Boys infatuations brazenly on [their] sleeves."


title: The KLF

text: The film project was fraught with difficulties and setbacks, including dwindling funds. "Kylie Said to Jason", which Drummond and Cauty were hoping could "rescue them from the jaws of bankruptcy", flopped commercially, failing even to make the UK top 100. In consequence, "The White Room" film project was put on hold, and the KLF abandoned the musical direction of the soundtrack and single. Meanwhile, "What Time Is Love?" was generating acclaim within the underground clubs of continental Europe; according to KLF Communications, "The KLF were being feted by all the 'right' DJs". This prompted Drummond and Cauty to pursue the acid house tone of their "Pure Trance" series. A further "Pure Trance" release, "Last Train to Trancentral", followed. By this time, Cauty had co-founded the Orb as an ambient side-project with Alex Paterson. Cauty's ambient album "Space" and the KLF's "ambient house" LP "Chill Out" ambient video "Waiting" were released in 1990, as was a dance track, "It's Grim Up North", under the JAMs' moniker.


title: The KLF

text: Throughout 1990, the KLF launched a series of singles with an upbeat pop-house sound which they dubbed "stadium house". Songs from "The White Room" soundtrack were re-recorded with rap and more vocals (by guests labelled "Additional Communicators"), a sample-heavy pop-rock production and crowd noise samples. The first "stadium house" single, "What Time Is Love? (Live from Trancentral)", released in October 1990, reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart and hit the top-ten internationally. The follow-up, "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)", was an international top-five hit in January 1991, reaching #1 in the UK and #5 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. The album "The White Room" followed in March 1991, reaching #3 in the UK. A substantial reworking of the aborted soundtrack, the album featured a segued series of "stadium house" songs followed by downtempo tracks.The KLF's chart success continued with the single "Last Train to Trancentral" hitting number two in the UK, and number three on the Eurochart Hot 100. In December 1991, a re-working of a song from "1987", "Justified & Ancient" was released, featuring Tammy Wynette. It was another international hit – peaking at number two in the UK, and number 11 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 – as was "", a hard, guitar-laden reworking of "What Time Is Love?". In 1990 and 1991, the KLF also remixed tracks by Depeche Mode ("Policy of Truth"), the Moody Boys ("What Is Dub?"), and Pet Shop Boys ("So Hard" from the "Behaviour" album, and "It Must Be Obvious"). Neil Tennant described the process: "When they did the remix of 'So Hard', they didn't do a remix at all, they re-wrote the record ... I had to go and sing the vocals again, they did it in a different way. I was impressed that Bill Drummond had written all the chords out and played it on an acoustic guitar, very thorough."


title: The KLF

text: After successive name changes and dance records, Drummond and Cauty ultimately became, as the KLF, the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991, still incorporating the work of other artists but in less gratuitous ways and predominantly without legal problems.


title: The KLF

text: On 12 February 1992, the KLF and grindcore group Extreme Noise Terror performed a live version of "3 a.m. Eternal" at the BRIT Awards, the British Phonographic Industry's annual awards show. Drummond and Cauty had planned to throw buckets of blood over the audience, or to disembowel a dead sheep on stage, but were prevented from doing so due to opposition from BBC lawyers and vegetarians Extreme Noise Terror; Sheep were a symbol of the KLF, and Drummond conceded that the "sheep hacking" idea was akin to a suicide. Associates reasoned that the plan was to generate such revulsion towards the KLF that they would be ostracised from the music industry and a comeback would be impossible. The dead sheep purchased but the plan thwarted, Drummond considered chopping his hand off with an axe live on stage.


title: The KLF

text: The performance was instead concluded with a limping, kilted, cigar-chomping Drummond firing blanks from an automatic weapon over the heads of the crowd. As the band left the stage, the KLF's promoter and narrator Scott Piering proclaimed over the PA system that "The KLF have now left the music business". Later in the evening the band dumped the dead sheep, with the message "I died for you – bon appetit" tied around its waist, at the entrance to one of the post-ceremony parties. Piering's PA announcement was largely not taken seriously at the time; even he and other close associates of the band thought the announcement was a joke. "NME"'s detailed piece on the events at the BRIT Awards and the after-party, which included an interview with Drummond the day after, assured readers that the "tensions and contradictions" would continue to "push and spark" the KLF and that more "musical treasure" would be the result.


title: The KLF

text: In the weeks following the BRITs performance, the KLF continued working with Extreme Noise Terror on the album "The Black Room", but it was never finished. On 14 May 1992, the KLF announced their immediate retirement from the music industry and the deletion of their back catalogue:


title: The KLF

text: In a comprehensive examination of the KLF's announcement and its context, "Select" called it "the last grand gesture, the most heroic act of public self destruction in the history of pop. And it's also Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's final extravagant howl of self disgust, defiance and contempt for a music world gone foul and corrupt." Many of the KLF's friends and collaborators gave their reactions in the magazine. Movie director Bill Butt said that "Like everything, they're dealing with it in a very realistic way, a fresh, unbitter way, which is very often not the case. A lot of bands disappear with such a terrible loss of dignity". Scott Piering said that "They've got a huge buzz off this, that's for sure, because it's something that's finally thrilling. It's scary to have thrown away a fortune which I "know" they have. Just the idea of starting over is exciting. Starting over on what? Well, they have such great ideas, like buying submarines". Even Kenny Gates, who as a director of the KLF's distributors APT stood to lose financially from the move, called it "Conceptually and philosophically... absolutely brilliant". Mark Stent reported the doubts of many when he said that "I [have] had so many people who I know, heads of record companies, A&R men saying, 'Come on, It's a big scam.' But I firmly believe it's over". "For the very last spectacularly insane time", the magazine concluded, "The KLF have done what was least expected of them".


title: The KLF

text: The final KLF Info sheet discussed the retirement in a typically offbeat fashion, and asked "What happens to 'Footnotes in rock legend'? Do they gather dust with Ashton Gardner and Dyke, the Vapors, and the Utah Saints, or does their influence live on in unseen ways, permeating future cultures? A passing general of a private army has the answer. 'No', he whispers 'but the dust they gather is of the rarest quality. Each speck a universe awaiting creation, Big Bang just a dawn away'." There have been numerous suggestions that in 1992 Drummond was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Drummond himself said that he was on the edge of the "abyss". The KLF's BRITs statuette for "Best British Group" of 1992 was later found buried in a field near Stonehenge.


title: The KLF

text: The K Foundation was an arts foundation established by Drummond and Cauty in 1993 following their 'retirement' from the music industry. From 1993 to 1995 they engaged in art projects and media campaigns, including the high-profile K Foundation art award (for the "worst artist of the year"), and in 1993 released a limited edition single – "K Cera Cera" – in Israel and Palestine "to create awareness of peace in the world". They burnt what was left of their KLF earnings – a million pounds sterling in cash (equivalent to £2.35m as of 2022) – and filmed the performance. Cauty and Drummond announced a 23-year moratorium on all K Foundation activities in November 1995.


title: The KLF

text: Also in 1995, Drummond and Cauty contributed a song to "The Help Album" as The One World Orchestra ("featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards"). "The Magnificent" is a drum'n'bass version of the theme tune from "The Magnificent Seven", with vocal samples from DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station B92: "Humans against killing... that sounds like a junkie against dope".


title: The KLF

text: On 17 September 1997, Drummond and Cauty re-emerged briefly as 2K. 2K made a one-off performance at London's Barbican Arts Centre with Mark Manning, Acid Brass, the Liverpool Dockers and Gimpo; a performance at which "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol, caused havoc in their motorised wheelchairs. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The song performed at the Barbican – "***k the Millennium" (a remix of "What Time Is Love?" featuring Acid Brass and incorporating elements of the hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save") – was also released as a single. These activities were accompanied by the usual full page press adverts, this time asking readers "***k The Millennium: Yes/No?" with a telephone number provided for voting. At the same time, Drummond and Cauty were also K2 Plant Hire, with plans to build a "People's Pyramid" from used house bricks; this plan never reached fruition. K2 Plant Hire Ltd had been registered at Companies House since 1995; Cauty and Drummond are directors. The Directors' Report for the period ending 31 March 1996 listed the company's activities as "a music company," and the accompanying accounts noted a transaction with "KLF Communications Residual Royalties", a Cauty-Drummond partnership.


title: The KLF

text: On 23 August 2017, in Liverpool, 23 years after they burnt a million pounds, Drummond and Cauty returned as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The duo launched a novel, "", and staged a three day event, "Welcome to the Dark Ages". Ending their self-imposed moratorium, the festival included a debate asking "Why Did The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid?" The JAMs also announced new plans for a People’s Pyramid to be built from bricks each containing 23 grams of human ashes. New bricks will be laid at the annual "Toxteth Day Of The Dead".


title: The KLF

text: Cauty emphasised to the BBC in 2018 that the People’s Pyramid project, inspired by his brother's death, is serious: "It's easy to make it sound like a joke", he said, "but it isn't a joke, it's deadly serious and it's a long-term project." He also confirmed that The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu are a going concern - "It's interesting to be in a band that doesn't make records but only makes pyramids of dead people.


title: The KLF

text: On 31 December 2020, the release of series of remastered compilations under the collective title "Samplecity thru Trancentral" was announced on a graffiti and posters hung under a railway bridge on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, East London. The 30-minute collection of eight remastered singles "Solid State Logik 1" appeared at midnight 1 January 2021, on streaming platforms, while high-definition videos were published for the first time on the band's official YouTube channel, marking the first activity of Cauty and Drummond as the KLF since 1992. On 23 March 2021, the collection was followed by its part "2" featuring 12" versions of the singles.


title: The KLF

text: On 4 February 2021, a re-edited version of "Chill Out" was released, retitled "Come Down Dawn", with previously unlicensed samples from the original release removed, and added "What Time Is Love? (Virtual Reality Mix)," originally from the 1990 remix EP "What Time Is Love? (Remodelled & Remixed)", integrated in the new mix.


title: The KLF

text: On 23 April 2021, "The White Room (Director's Cut)" was officially released as the fourth part of the series. The album's edition includes tracks from the unreleased 1989 album, as well as an extended version of "Last Train to Trancentral" from the 1991 album.


title: The KLF

text: The documentary "Who Killed the KLF?", directed by Chris Atkins, was released on April 4 2022. Atkins began creating the documentary against Drummond's and Cauty's wishes, but was incarcerated in 2016 for tax fraud for two years; he continued editing the film while in prison. According to Atkins, the duo eventually claimed they "love" the film, though they pointed out some minor inaccuracies.


title: The KLF

text: From their very earliest releases as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu until their retirement in 1992, the music of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty was independently released in their home country (the UK). Their debut releases – the single "All You Need Is Love" and the album "1987" – were released under the label name "The Sound Of Mu(sic)". By the end of 1987 Drummond and Cauty had renamed their label to "KLF Communications" and, in October 1987, the first of many "information sheets" (self written missives from the KLF to fans and the media) was sent out by the label.


title: The KLF

text: KLF Communications releases were distributed by Rough Trade Distribution (a spinoff of Rough Trade Records) in the South East of England, and across the wider UK by the Cartel. As Drummond and Cauty explained, "The Cartel is, as the name implies, a group of independent distributors across the country who work in conjunction with each other providing a solid network of distribution without stepping on each other's toes. We are distributed by the Cartel." When Rough Trade Distribution collapsed in 1991 it was reported that they owed KLF Communications £500,000. Plugging (the promotion to TV and radio) was handled by longtime associate Scott Piering.


title: The KLF

text: Outside the UK, KLF releases were issued under licence by local labels. In the US, the licensees were Wax Trax (the "Chill Out" album), TVT (early releases including "The History of The JAMs a.k.a. The Timelords"), and Arista Records ("The White Room" and singles). The KLF Communications physical catalogue remains deleted in the United Kingdom.


title: The KLF

text: Several threads and themes unify the many incarnations of Drummond and Cauty's creative partnership, many of these influenced by "The Illuminatus! Trilogy"; combined, these themes, threads and their activities over the years have been said to form a "mythology." Drummond and Cauty made heavy references to Discordianism, popularised by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in the "Illuminatus!" books, Situationism, and tactics often interpreted by media commentators as "Situationist pranks.


title: The KLF

text: In a 2000 review of Drummond's book "45", and an appraisal of the duo's career to date, writer Steven Poole stated that Drummond and Cauty "are the only true conceptual artists of the [1990s]. And for all the eldritch beauty of their art, their most successful creation is the myth they have built around themselves." This deep and perplexing mythology, he suggested, results in all their subsequent activities (as a partnership or otherwise) being absorbed into their mystique:


title: The KLF

text: Drummond and Cauty have also been compared to Stewart Home and the Neoists. Home himself said that the duo's work "has much more in common with the Neoist, Plagiarist and Art Strike movements of the nineteen-eighties than with the Situationist avant-garde of the fifties and sixties." Drummond and Cauty "represent a vital and innovative strand within contemporary culture", he added.


title: The KLF

text: Drummond was the set designer on Ken Campbell's 1976 stage production of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy". In the first KLF Communications Info Sheet, Drummond explained that The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu name was "pinched" from "Illuminatus!" which he had been reading the year before.


title: The KLF

text: A notable theme of "Illuminatus!" is the number 23, placed overtly and surreptitiously, both in the book and later throughout the band's career:


title: The KLF

text: When questioned on the importance that he attaches to this number, Drummond has been evasive, responding enigmatically "I know. But I'm not going to tell, because then other people would have to stop having to wonder and the thing about beauty is for other people to wonder at it. It's not very beautiful once you know."


title: The KLF

text: The "Pyramid Blaster" is a logo and icon frequently and prominently depicted within the duo's collective work: a pyramid, in front of which is suspended a ghetto blaster displaying the word "Justified". This references the Eye of Providence icon, often depicted as an eye within a triangle or pyramid, a significant symbol of "Illuminatus!" The pyramid was also a theme of the duo's 1997 and 2017 reunions, with the proposed building by K2 Plant Hire of a "People's Pyramid" (in 1997, a pyramid built with as many bricks as there were births in the 20th century in the UK, and in 2017 a pyramid built from bricks containing the ashes of dead people).


title: The KLF

text: Trancentral (a.k.a. the Benio) was the band's studios. Despite the grandiose lyrics of "Last Train to Trancentral", the Trancentral was in fact Cauty's residence in Stockwell, South London (), "a large and rather grotty squat." According to "Melody Maker"'s David Stubbs, "Jimmy has lived [there] for 12 years. There's little evidence of fame or fortune. The kitchen is heated by means of leaving the three functioning gas rings on at full blast until the fumes make us all feel stoned... And pinned just above a working top cluttered with chipped mugs is a letter from a five-year-old fan featuring a crayon drawing of the band."


title: The KLF

text: Following the February 1990 release of "Chill Out" (the press release for which credited sheep as guest vocalists), sheep had recurring roles in the duo's output until their 1992 retirement. Drummond has claimed that the use of sheep on the "Chill Out" cover was intended to evoke contemporary rural raves and the cover of the Pink Floyd album "Atom Heart Mother".


title: The KLF

text: Drummond and Cauty's work often involved notions of ceremony and journey. Journeys are the subject of the KLF Communications recordings "Chill Out", "Space", "Last Train to Trancentral", "Justified & Ancient" and "America: What Time Is Love?", as well as the aborted film project "The White Room". The "Chill Out" album depicts a journey across the U.S. Gulf Coast. In his book "45", Drummond expressed his admiration for the work of artist Richard Long, who incorporates physical journeys into his art.


title: The KLF

text: Fire and sacrifice were recurring ceremonial themes: Drummond and Cauty made fires to dispose of their illegal debut album and to sacrifice the KLF's profits; their dead sheep gesture of 1992 carried a sacrificial message. The KLF's short film "The Rites of Mu" depicts their celebration of the 1991 summer solstice on the Hebridean island of Jura: a tall wicker man was burnt at a ceremony in which journalists were asked to wear yellow and grey robes and join a chant; the journalists' money was also burnt.


title: The KLF

text: Drummond and Cauty were renowned for their distinctive and humorous public appearances (including several on "Top of the Pops"), at which they were often costumed. They granted few interviews, communicating instead via semi-regular newsletters, or cryptically phrased full-page adverts in UK national newspapers and the music press. Such adverts were typically stark, comprising large white lettering on black.


title: The KLF

text: From the outset of their collaborations, Drummond and Cauty practised the guerrilla communication tactic that they described as "illegal but effective use of graffiti on billboards and public buildings" in which "the original meaning of the advert would be totally subverted". Much as the JAMs' early recordings carried messages on the back of existing musical works, their promotional graffiti often derived its potency from the context in which it was placed. For instance, The JAMs' "SHAG SHAG SHAG" graffiti, coinciding with their release of "All You Need Is Love", was drawn over the "HALO HALO HALO" slogan of a "Today" billboard that depicted Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable James Anderton, who had decried homosexuals amidst the UK media's AIDS furore.


title: The KLF

text: Music press journalists were occasionally invited to witness the defacements. In December 1987, a "Melody Maker" reporter was in attendance to see Cauty reverse his car Ford Timelord alongside a billboard and stand on its roof to graffiti a Christmas message from the JAMs. In February 1991, another "Melody Maker" journalist watched the KLF deface a billboard advertising "The Sunday Times", doctoring the slogan "THE GULF: the coverage, the analysis, the facts" by painting a 'K' over the 'GU'. Drummond and Cauty were, on this occasion, caught at the scene by police and arrested, later to be released without charge.


title: The KLF

text: In November 1991, the JAMs placed a photograph of graffiti with the slogan "It's Grim Up North" – which had appeared on the junction of London's M25 orbital motorway with the M1 that runs to Northern England – as an advert in the "NME". The graffiti, for which the JAMs denied responsibility, had been the subject of an early day motion in the British House of Commons on 21 October 1991. In September 1997, on the day after Drummond and Cauty's brief remergence as 2K, the graffiti "1997: What The Fuck's Going On?" appeared on the outside wall of London's National Theatre, ten years after the slogan "1987: What The Fuck's Going On?" had been similarly placed to mark the release of the JAMs' debut album.


title: The KLF

text: Cauty and Drummond's tactics have often been labelled by media commentators as "pranks" or "publicity stunts". In 1991, Drummond told an "NME" journalist that "we never felt we went out and did things to get reactions. Everything we've done has just been on a gut level instinct", whilst acknowledging that people would likely not believe him. On the morning after the BRITs performance, an impassioned Drummond told the "NME" that "I really hate it when people go on about us being 'schemers' and 'scammers'. We do all this stuff from the very depths of our soul and people make out its some sort of game. It depresses me." Cauty has expressed similar feelings, saying of the KLF, "I think it worked because we really meant it."


title: The KLF

text: "Chill Out" is cited by AllMusic as "one of the essential ambient albums". In 1996, "Mixmag" named "Chill Out" the fifth best "dance" album of all time, describing Cauty's DJ sets with the Orb's Alex Paterson as "seminal". "The Guardian" has credited the KLF with inventing "stadium house"; "NME" named the KLF's stadium house album "The White Room" the 81st best album of all time whilst "Q" listed it as the 89th best British album of all time, in 2000.


title: The KLF

text: In 1991, Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys said that he considered the only other worthwhile group in the UK to be the KLF. Neil Tennant added that "They have an incredibly recognisable sound. I liked it when they said EMF nicked the F from KLF. They're from a different tradition to us in that they're pranksters and we've never been pranksters."


title: The KLF

text: At the time of the KLF's retirement announcement, Drummond's old friend and colleague David Balfe said of Drummond's KLF career that "the path he's trod[den] is a more artistic one than mine. I know that deep down I like the idea of building up a very successful career, where Bill is more interested in weird stuff ... I think the very avoidance of cliché has become their particular cliché".


title: The KLF

text: In March 1994, members of the anarchist band Chumbawamba expressed their respect for the KLF. Vocalist and percussionist Alice Nutter referred to the KLF as "real situationists" categorising them as political musicians alongside the Sex Pistols and Public Enemy. Dunst Bruce lauded the K Foundation, concluding "I think the things the KLF do are fantastic. I'm a vegetarian but I wish they'd sawn an elephant's legs off at the BRIT Awards."


title: The KLF

text: The KLF have been imitated to some degree by German techno band Scooter, being sampled on virtually every album Scooter have released.


title: The KLF

text: In the weeks leading up to the 1996 FA Cup Final, a group called "1300 Drums featuring the Unjustified Ancients of M.U." released a novelty single to cash-in on the popularity of Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona.


title: The KLF

text: The Timelords' book, "The Manual", was used by the one-hit-wonders Edelweiss to secure their hit "Bring Me Edelweiss".


title: The KLF

text: The duo "The FLK" released two albums and several singles in the 2010s, appropriating the KLF's aesthetic and musical style and mixing it with samples and references from folk music. Their anonymity, along with details such as their use of a Ford Timelord which was very similar to the original in their videos and promotional material, led some to believe that the FLK actually were the KLF. However, it emerged in 2018 that they were two ex-members of the Leeds-based indie band The Hollow Men.


title: The KLF

text: Drummond and Cauty have appeared frequently in British broadsheets and music papers since the KLF's retirement, most often in connection with the K Foundation and their burning of one million pounds. The "NME" called them "masters of manipulating media and perceptions of themselves".


title: The KLF

text: In 1992, "NME" referred to the KLF as "Britain's greatest pop group" and "the two most brilliant minds in pop today", and in 2002 listed the duo in their "Top 50 Icons" at number 48. The British music paper also listed the KLF's 1992 BRIT Awards appearance at number 4 in their "top 100 rock moments of all time". "What's unique about Drummond and Cauty", the paper said in 1993, "is the way that, under all the slogans and the sampling and the smart hits and the dead sheep and the costumes, they appear not only to care, but to have some idea of how to achieve what they want."


title: The KLF

text: "[Of their many aliases,] it is as the KLF that they will go down in pop history," wrote Alix Sharkey in 1994, "for a variety of reasons, the most important being the resolute purity of their self-abnegation, and their visionary understanding of pop." He added: "By early 1992 the KLF was easily the best-selling, probably the most innovative, and undoubtedly the most exhilarating pop phenomenon in Britain. In five years it had gone from pressing up 500 copies of its debut recording to being one of the world's top singles acts." The same piece also quoted Sheryl Garratt, editor of "The Face": "the music hasn't dated. I still get an adrenaline rush listening to it." Garratt believes their influence on the British house and rap scene cannot be overestimated. "Their attitude was shaped by the rave scene, but they also love pop music. So many people who make pop actually despise it, and it shows."


title: The KLF

text: "Trouser Press" reviewer Ira Robbins referred to the KLF's body of work as "a series of colorful sonic marketing experiments". "The Face" called them "the kings of cultural anarchy". Robert Sandall wrote in 1993 that one of the KLF's "maxims" was "making the unthinkable happen".


title: The KLF

text: In 2003, "The Observer" named the KLF's departure from the music business (and the BRITs performance in which the newspaper says "their legend was sealed") the fifth greatest "publicity stunt" in the history of popular music. A 2000 piece in "The Daily Telegraph" called the BRITs performance "violently antagonistic" and reported that the "music-business audience" was "stunned"; on the other hand, Piers Morgan writing shortly after the performance called the KLF "pop's biggest wallies". A 2004 listener poll by BBC 6 Music saw the KLF/K Foundation placed second in a list of "rock excesses", after The Who.


title: The KLF

text: A 2017 piece in "The Guardian", pondering the rumoured return of The KLF, noted that "in the 25 years since their disappearance, nobody else has come up with anything that matches the duo’s extraordinary career"; another piece in the same newspaper in the same year, by a different author, called them "abstruse" and "pop’s greatest provocateurs", and their career "anarchic, anti-commercial and mostly ludicrous".


title: The KLF

text: Early releases by the JAMs, including the album "1987", were performed using an Apple II computer with a Greengate DS3 sampler peripheral card, and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. On later releases, the Greengate DS3 and Apple II were replaced with an Akai S900 sampler and Atari ST computers respectively.


title: The KLF

text: The KLF's 1990–1992 singles were mixed by Mark Stent, using a Solid State Logic automated mixing desk, and "The White Room" album mixed by J. Gordon-Hastings using an analogue desk. The SSL is referenced in the subtitle of the KLF single "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)", and the title of their 2021 digital compilation albums "Solid State Logik 1" and "Solid State Logik 2".


title: The KLF

text: The house music of Space and the KLF involved much original instrumentation, for which the Oberheim OB-8 analogue synthesiser was prominently used. Drummond played a Gibson ES-330 semi-acoustic guitar on "America: What Time Is Love?", and Cauty played electric guitar on "Justified & Ancient (Stand by The JAMs)" and "America: What Time Is Love?". Graham Lee provided prominent pedal steel contributions to the KLF's "Chill Out" and "Build a Fire". Duy Khiem played clarinet on "3 a.m. Eternal" and "Make It Rain". The KLF track "America No More" features a pipe band. The Roland TB-303 bassline and Roland TR-909 drum machine feature on "What Time Is Love (Live at Trancentral)".


title: Shell (projectile)

text: A shell, in a military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Modern usage sometimes includes large solid kinetic projectiles that is properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: All explosive- and incendiary-filled projectiles, particularly for mortars, were originally called "grenades", derived from the French word for pomegranate, so called because of the similarity of shape and that the multi-seeded fruit resembles the powder-filled, fragmentizing bomb. Words cognate with "grenade" are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Shells are usually large-caliber projectiles fired by artillery, armored fighting vehicles (e.g. tanks, assault guns, and mortar carriers), warships, and autocannons. The shape is usually a cylinder topped by an ogive-tipped nose cone for good aerodynamic performance, and possibly with a tapered boat tail; but some specialized types differ widely.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Gunpowder is a low explosive, meaning it will not create a concussive, brisant explosion unless it is contained, as in a modern-day pipe bomb or pressure cooker bomb. Early grenades were hollow cast-iron balls filled with gunpowder, and "shells" were similar devices designed to be shot from artillery in place of solid cannonballs ("shot"). Metonymically, the term "shell", from the casing, came to mean the entire munition.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: In a gunpowder-based shell, the casing was intrinsic to generating the explosion, and thus had to be strong and thick. Its fragments could do considerable damage, but each shell broke into only a few large pieces. Further developments led to shells which would fragment into smaller pieces. The advent of high explosives such as TNT removed the need for a pressure-holding casing, so the casing of later shells only needs to contain the munition, and, if desired, to produce shrapnel. The term "shell," however, was sufficiently established that it remained as the term for such munitions.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Hollow shells filled with gunpowder needed a fuse that was either impact triggered (percussion) or time delayed.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Percussion fuses with a spherical projectile presented a challenge because there was no way of ensuring that the impact mechanism contacted the target. Therefore, ball shells needed a time fuse that was ignited before or during firing and burned until the shell reached its target.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Cast iron shells packed with gunpowder have been used in warfare since at least early 13th century China. Hollow, gunpowder-packed shells made of cast iron used during the Song dynasty (960-1279) are described in the early Ming Dynasty Chinese military manual "Huolongjing", written in the mid 14th century. The "History of Jin" 《金史》 (compiled by 1345) states that in 1232, as the Mongol general Subutai (1176–1248) descended on the Jin stronghold of Kaifeng, the defenders had a "thunder crash bomb" which "consisted of gunpowder put into an iron container ... then when the fuse was lit (and the projectile shot off) there was a great explosion the noise whereof was like thunder, audible for more than thirty miles, and the vegetation was scorched and blasted by the heat over an area of more than half a "mou". When hit, even iron armour was quite pierced through." Archeological examples of these shells from the 13th century Mongol invasions of Japan have been recovered from a shipwreck.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Shells were used in combat by the Republic of Venice at Jadra in 1376. Shells with fuses were used at the 1421 siege of St Boniface in Corsica. These were two hollowed hemispheres of stone or bronze held together by an iron hoop. At least since the 16th century grenades made of ceramics or glass were in use in Central Europe. A hoard of several hundred ceramic grenades dated to the 17th century was discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, Germany. Many of the grenades contained their original black-powder loads and igniters. Most probably the grenades were intentionally dumped in the moat of the bastion before the year 1723.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: By the 18th century, it was known that the fuse toward the muzzle could be lit by the flash through the windage between the shell and the barrel. At about this time, shells began to be employed for horizontal fire from howitzers with a small propelling charge and, in 1779, experiments demonstrated that they could be used from guns with heavier charges.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The use of exploding shells from field artillery became relatively commonplace from early in the 19th century. Until the mid 19th century, shells remained as simple exploding spheres that used gunpowder, set off by a slow burning fuse. They were usually made of cast iron, but bronze, lead, brass and even glass shell casings were experimented with. The word "bomb" encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner" ("the bombs bursting in air"), although today that sense of "bomb" is obsolete. Typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter, and they were about two-thirds the weight of solid shot of the same caliber.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses toward the muzzle, they were attached to wooden bottoms called "sabots". In 1819, a committee of British artillery officers recognized that they were essential stores and in 1830 Britain standardized sabot thickness as a half-inch. The sabot was also intended to reduce jamming during loading. Despite the use of exploding shells, the use of smoothbore cannons firing spherical projectiles of shot remained the dominant artillery method until the 1850s.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The mid–19th century saw a revolution in artillery, with the introduction of the first practical rifled breech loading weapons. The new methods resulted in the reshaping of the spherical shell into its modern recognizable cylindro-conoidal form. This shape greatly improved the in-flight stability of the projectile and meant that the primitive time fuzes could be replaced with the percussion fuze situated in the nose of the shell. The new shape also meant that further, armor-piercing designs could be used.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: During the 20th century, shells became increasingly streamlined. In World War I, ogives were typically two circular radius head (crh) – the curve was a segment of a circle having a radius of twice the shell caliber. After that war, ogive shapes became more complex and elongated. From the 1960s, higher quality steels were introduced by some countries for their HE shells, this enabled thinner shell walls with less weight of metal and hence a greater weight of explosive. Ogives were further elongated to improve their ballistic performance.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Advances in metallurgy in the industrial era allowed for the construction of rifled breech-loading guns that could fire at a much greater muzzle velocity. After the British artillery was shown up in the Crimean War as having barely changed since the Napoleonic Wars, the industrialist William Armstrong was awarded a contract by the government to design a new piece of artillery. Production started in 1855 at the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The piece was rifled, which allowed for a much more accurate and powerful action. Although rifling had been tried on small arms since the 15th century, the necessary machinery to accurately rifle artillery only became available in the mid-19th century. Martin von Wahrendorff and Joseph Whitworth independently produced rifled cannons in the 1840s, but it was Armstrong's gun that was first to see widespread use during the Crimean War. The cast iron shell of the Armstrong gun was similar in shape to a Minié ball and had a thin lead coating which made it fractionally larger than the gun's bore and which engaged with the gun's rifling grooves to impart spin to the shell. This spin, together with the elimination of windage as a result of the tight fit, enabled the gun to achieve greater range and accuracy than existing smooth-bore muzzle-loaders with a smaller powder charge.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The gun was also a breech-loader. Although attempts at breech-loading mechanisms had been made since medieval times, the essential engineering problem was that the mechanism couldn't withstand the explosive charge. It was only with the advances in metallurgy and precision engineering capabilities during the Industrial Revolution that Armstrong was able to construct a viable solution. Another innovative feature was what Armstrong called its "grip", which was essentially a squeeze bore; the 6 inches of the bore at the muzzle end was of slightly smaller diameter, which centered the shell before it left the barrel and at the same time slightly swaged down its lead coating, reducing its diameter and slightly improving its ballistic qualities.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Rifled guns were also developed elsewhere – by Major Giovanni Cavalli and Baron Martin von Wahrendorff in Sweden, Krupp in Germany and the Wiard gun in the United States. However, rifled barrels required some means of engaging the shell with the rifling. Lead coated shells were used with the Armstrong gun, but were not satisfactory so studded projectiles were adopted. However, these did not seal the gap between shell and barrel. Wads at the shell base were also tried without success.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: In 1878, the British adopted a copper "gas-check" at the base of their studded projectiles and in 1879 tried a rotating gas check to replace the studs, leading to the 1881 automatic gas-check. This was soon followed by the Vavaseur copper driving band as part of the projectile. The driving band rotated the projectile, centered it in the bore and prevented gas escaping forwards. A driving band has to be soft but tough enough to prevent stripping by rotational and engraving stresses. Copper is generally most suitable but cupronickel or gilding metal were also used.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Although an early percussion fuze appeared in 1650 that used a flint to create sparks to ignite the powder, the shell had to fall in a particular way for this to work and this did not work with spherical projectiles. An additional problem was finding a suitably stable "percussion powder". Progress was not possible until the discovery of mercury fulminate in 1800, leading to priming mixtures for small arms patented by the Rev Alexander Forsyth, and the copper percussion cap in 1818.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The percussion fuze was adopted by Britain in 1842. Many designs were jointly examined by the army and navy, but were unsatisfactory, probably because of the safety and arming features. However, in 1846 the design by Quartermaster Freeburn of the Royal Artillery was adopted by the army. It was a wooden fuze about 6 inches long and used shear wire to hold blocks between the fuze magazine and a burning match. The match was ignited by propellant flash and the shear wire broke on impact. A British naval percussion fuze made of metal did not appear until 1861.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Gunpowder was used as the only form of explosive up until the end of the 19th century. Guns using black powder ammunition would have their view obscured by a huge cloud of smoke and concealed shooters were given away by a cloud of smoke over the firing position. Guncotton, a nitrocellulose-based material, was discovered by Swiss chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1846. He promoted its use as a blasting explosive and sold manufacturing rights to the Austrian Empire. Guncotton was more powerful than gunpowder, but at the same time was somewhat more unstable. John Taylor obtained an English patent for guncotton; and John Hall & Sons began manufacture in Faversham. British interest waned after an explosion destroyed the Faversham factory in 1847. Austrian Baron Wilhelm Lenk von Wolfsberg built two guncotton plants producing artillery propellant, but it was dangerous under field conditions, and guns that could fire thousands of rounds using gunpowder would reach their service life after only a few hundred shots with the more powerful guncotton.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Small arms could not withstand the pressures generated by guncotton. After one of the Austrian factories blew up in 1862, Thomas Prentice & Company began manufacturing guncotton in Stowmarket in 1863; and British War Office chemist Sir Frederick Abel began thorough research at Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills leading to a manufacturing process that eliminated the impurities in nitrocellulose making it safer to produce and a stable product safer to handle. Abel patented this process in 1865, when the second Austrian guncotton factory exploded. After the Stowmarket factory exploded in 1871, Waltham Abbey began production of guncotton for torpedo and mine warheads.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: In 1884, Paul Vieille invented a smokeless powder called Poudre B (short for "poudre blanche"—white powder, as distinguished from black powder) made from 68.2% insoluble nitrocellulose, 29.8% soluble nitrocellusose gelatinized with ether and 2% paraffin. This was adopted for the Lebel rifle. Vieille's powder revolutionized the effectiveness of small guns, because it gave off almost no smoke and was three times more powerful than black powder. Higher muzzle velocity meant a flatter trajectory and less wind drift and bullet drop, making 1000 meter shots practicable. Other European countries swiftly followed and started using their own versions of Poudre B, the first being Germany and Austria which introduced new weapons in 1888. Subsequently, Poudre B was modified several times with various compounds being added and removed. Krupp began adding diphenylamine as a stabilizer in 1888.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Britain conducted trials on all the various types of propellant brought to their attention, but were dissatisfied with them all and sought something superior to all existing types. In 1889, Sir Frederick Abel, James Dewar and Dr. W. Kellner patented (No. 5614 and No. 11,664 in the names of Abel and Dewar) a new formulation that was manufactured at the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey. It entered British service in 1891 as Cordite Mark 1. Its main composition was 58% nitro-glycerine, 37% guncotton and 3% mineral jelly. A modified version, Cordite MD, entered service in 1901, this increased guncotton to 65% and reduced nitro-glycerine to 30%, this change reduced the combustion temperature and hence erosion and barrel wear. Cordite could be made to burn more slowly which reduced maximum pressure in the chamber (hence lighter breeches, etc.), but longer high pressure – significant improvements over gunpowder. Cordite could be made in any desired shape or size. The creation of cordite led to a lengthy court battle between Nobel, Maxim, and another inventor over alleged British patent infringement.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: A variety of fillings have been used in shells throughout history. An incendiary shell was invented by Valturio in 1460. The carcass shell was first used by the French under Louis XIV in 1672. Initially in the shape of an oblong in an iron frame (with poor ballistic properties) it evolved into a spherical shell. Their use continued well into the 19th century.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: A modern version of the incendiary shell was developed in 1857 by the British and was known as "Martin's shell" after its inventor. The shell was filled with molten iron and was intended to break up on impact with an enemy ship, splashing molten iron on the target. It was used by the Royal Navy between 1860 and 1869, replacing heated shot as an anti-ship, incendiary projectile.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Two patterns of incendiary shell were used by the British in World War I, one designed for use against Zeppelins.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Similar to incendiary shells were star shells, designed for illumination rather than arson. Sometimes called lightballs they were in use from the 17th century onwards. The British adopted parachute lightballs in 1866 for 10-, 8- and 5-inch calibers. The 10-inch wasn't officially declared obsolete until 1920.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Smoke balls also date back to the 17th century, British ones contained a mix of saltpetre, coal, pitch, tar, resin, sawdust, crude antimony and sulphur. They produced a "noisome smoke in abundance that is impossible to bear". In 19th-century British service, they were made of concentric paper with a thickness about 1/15th of the total diameter and filled with powder, saltpeter, pitch, coal and tallow. They were used to 'suffocate or expel the enemy in casemates, mines or between decks; for concealing operations; and as signals.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: During the First World War, shrapnel shells and explosive shells inflicted terrible casualties on infantry, accounting for nearly 70% of all war casualties and leading to the adoption of steel combat helmets on both sides. Frequent problems with shells led to many military disasters with dud shells, most notably during the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Shells filled with poison gas were used from 1917 onwards.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Artillery shells are differentiated by how the shell is loaded and propelled, and the type of breech mechanism.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Fixed ammunition has three main components: the fuzed projectile, the casing to hold the propellants and primer, and the single propellant charge. Everything is included in a ready-to-use package and in British ordnance terms is called fixed quick firing. Often guns which use fixed ammunition use sliding-block or sliding-wedge breeches and the case provides obturation which seals the breech of the gun and prevents propellant gasses from escaping. Sliding block breeches can be horizontal or vertical. Advantages of fixed ammunition are simplicity, safety, moisture resistance and speed of loading. Disadvantages are eventually a fixed round becomes too long or too heavy to load by a gun crew. Another issue is the inability to vary propellant charges to achieve different velocities and ranges. Lastly, there is the issue of resource usage since a fixed round uses a case, which can be an issue in a prolonged war if there are metal shortages.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Separate loading cased charge ammunition has three main components: the fuzed projectile, the casing to hold the propellants and primer, and the bagged propellant charges. The components are usually separated into two or more parts. In British ordnance terms, this type of ammunition is called separate quick firing. Often guns which use separate loading cased charge ammunition use sliding-block or sliding-wedge breeches and during World War I and World War II Germany predominantly used fixed or separate loading cased charges and sliding block breeches even for their largest guns. A variant of separate loading cased charge ammunition is semi-fixed ammunition. With semi-fixed ammunition the round comes as a complete package but the projectile and its case can be separated. The case holds a set number of bagged charges and the gun crew can add or subtract propellant to change range and velocity. The round is then reassembled, loaded, and fired. Advantages include easier handling for larger caliber rounds, while range and velocity can easily be varied by increasing or decreasing the number of propellant charges. Disadvantages include more complexity, slower loading, less safety, less moisture resistance, and the metal cases can still be a material resource issue.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Separate loading bagged charge ammunition there are three main components: the fuzed projectile, the bagged charges and the primer. Like separate loading cased charge ammunition, the number of propellant charges can be varied. However, this style of ammunition does not use a cartridge case and it achieves obturation through a screw breech instead of a sliding block. Sometimes when reading about artillery the term separate loading ammunition will be used without clarification of whether a cartridge case is used or not, in which case refer to the type of breech used. Heavy artillery pieces and naval artillery tend to use bagged charges and projectiles because the weight and size of the projectiles and propelling charges can be more than a gun crew can manage. Advantages include easier handling for large rounds, decreased metal usage, while range and velocity can be varied by using more or fewer propellant charges. Disadvantages include more complexity, slower loading, less safety and less moisture resistance.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Extended-range shells are sometimes used. These special shell designs may be rocket-assisted projectiles (RAP) or base bleed (BB) to increase range. The first has a small rocket motor built into its base to provide additional thrust. The second has a pyrotechnic device in its base that bleeds gas to fill the partial vacuum created behind the shell and hence reduce base-drag. These shell designs usually have reduced high-explosive filling to remain within the permitted mass for the projectile, and hence less lethality.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The caliber of a shell is its diameter. Depending on the historical period and national preferences, this may be specified in millimeters, centimeters, or inches. The length of gun barrels for large cartridges and shells (naval) is frequently quoted in terms of the ratio of the barrel length to the bore size, also called caliber. For example, the 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun is 50 calibers long, that is, 16"×50=800"=66.7 feet long. Some guns, mainly British, were specified by the weight of their shells (see below).


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Explosive rounds as small as 12.7 x 82 mm and 13 x 64 mm have been used on aircraft and armored vehicles, but their small explosive yield have led some nations to limit their explosive rounds to 20mm (.78 in) or larger. International Law precludes the use of explosive ammunition for use against individual persons, but not against vehicles and aircraft. The largest shells ever fired during war were those from the German super-railway guns, Gustav and Dora, which were 800 mm (31.5 in) in caliber. Very large shells have been replaced by rockets, missiles, and bombs. Today the largest shells in common use are 155 mm (6.1 in).


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Gun calibers have standardized around a few common sizes, especially in the larger range, mainly due to the uniformity required for efficient military logistics. Artillery shells of 105 and 155 mm for artillery with 105 and 120 mm for tank guns are common in NATO allied countries. Artillery shells of 122, 130, and 152 mm with tank gun ammunition of 100, 115, and 125 mm calibers remain in common usage among the regions of Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Northern Africa, and Eastern Asia. Most common calibers have been in use for many decades, since it is logistically complex to change the caliber of all guns and ammunition stores.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: The weight of shells increases by and large with caliber. A typical 155 mm (6.1 in) shell weighs about 50 kg (110 lbs), a common 203 mm (8 in) shell about 100 kg (220 lbs), a concrete demolition 203 mm (8 in) shell 146 kg (322 lbs), a 280 mm (11 in) battleship shell about 300 kg (661 lbs), and a 460 mm (18 in) battleship shell over 1,500 kg (3,307 lbs). The Schwerer Gustav large-calibre gun fired shells that weighed between 4,800 kg (10,582 lbs) and 7,100 kg (15,653 lbs).


title: Shell (projectile)

text: During the 19th century, the British adopted a particular form of designating artillery. Field guns were designated by nominal standard projectile weight, while howitzers were designated by barrel caliber. British guns and their ammunition were designated in pounds, e.g., as "two-pounder" shortened to "2-pr" or "2-pdr". Usually, this referred to the actual weight of the standard projectile (shot, shrapnel, or high explosive), but, confusingly, this was not always the case.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Some were named after the weights of obsolete projectile types of the same caliber, or even obsolete types that were considered to have been functionally equivalent. Also, projectiles fired from the same gun, but of non-standard weight, took their name from the gun. Thus, conversion from "pounds" to an actual barrel diameter requires consulting a historical reference. A mixture of designations were in use for land artillery from the First World War (such as the BL 60-pounder gun, RML 2.5 inch Mountain Gun, 4 inch gun, 4.5 inch howitzer) through to the end of World War II (5.5 inch medium gun, 25-pounder gun-howitzer, 17-pounder tank gun), but the majority of naval guns were by caliber. After the end of World War II, field guns were designated by caliber.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: With the introduction of the first ironclads in the 1850s and 1860s, it became clear that shells had to be designed to effectively pierce the ship armor. A series of British tests in 1863 demonstrated that the way forward lay with high-velocity lighter shells. The first pointed armor-piercing shell was introduced by Major Palliser in 1863. Approved in 1867, Palliser shot and shell was an improvement over the ordinary elongated shot of the time. Palliser shot was made of cast iron, the head being chilled in casting to harden it, using composite molds with a metal, water cooled portion for the head.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Britain also deployed Palliser shells in the 1870s–1880s. In the shell, the cavity was slightly larger than in the shot and was filled with 1.5% gunpowder instead of being empty, to provide a small explosive effect after penetrating armor plating. The shell was correspondingly slightly longer than the shot to compensate for the lighter cavity. The powder filling was ignited by the shock of impact and hence did not require a fuze. However, ship armor rapidly improved during the 1880s and 1890s, and it was realised that explosive shells with steel had advantages including better fragmentation and resistance to the stresses of firing. These were cast and forged steel.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: AP shells containing an explosive filling were initially distinguished from their non-HE counterparts by being called a "shell" as opposed to "shot". By the time of the Second World War, AP shells with a bursting charge were sometimes distinguished by appending the suffix "HE". At the beginning of the war, APHE was common in anti-tank shells of 75 mm caliber and larger due to the similarity with the much larger naval armor piercing shells already in common use. As the war progressed, ordnance design evolved so that the bursting charges in APHE became ever smaller to non-existent, especially in smaller caliber shells, e.g. Panzergranate 39 with only 0.2% HE filling.


title: Shell (projectile)

text: Although smokeless powders were used as a propellant, they could not be used as the substance for the explosive warhead, because shock sensitivity sometimes caused detonation in the artillery barrel at the time of firing. Picric acid was the first high-explosive nitrated organic compound widely considered suitable to withstand the shock of firing in conventional artillery. In 1885, based on research of Hermann Sprengel, French chemist Eugène Turpin patented the use of pressed and cast picric acid in blasting charges and artillery shells. In 1887, the French government adopted a mixture of picric acid and guncotton under the name "Melinite". In 1888, Britain started manufacturing a very similar mixture in Lydd, Kent, under the name "Lyddite".