Hi Bill:
When I was a young Gunner, my Detachment Commander, a Sgt known for his violent mood swings, called it the "Tools, Adrenaline Flow Inducing, Canadian Mark I"!
He used to induce our adrenaline flow by having us run around the Gun Position waving it over our heads... the number of laps equalled the size of our indiscretion or screw-up. Damn thing got pretty heavy around lap three or four (our Gun Positions are about 300metres across)!
We were always convinced that if we screwed up badly enough he would use it to pound personal parts of our body into a messy paste!
Cheers! Mike