World War Two
Published 24 Jul 2021The Soviets keep withdrawing from the advancing Axis forces, and Hitler keeps issuing contrary orders to try and stop that, with the results that logistics are getting screwed up and the mobile units are bogged down in huge traffic jams. The Allies have decided not to open a second front in Europe in 1942, but do choose another spot to begin the long counter offensive.
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July 25, 2021
Wehrmacht Conquers 250 Miles of Nothing – WW2 – 152a – July 24, 1942
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Russian Type 2 AK: Introducing the Milled Receiver
Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Jul 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Updated to fix errors in nomenclature and production dates.
With recognition of the production problems of the original Type 1 AK, an alternative was needed. Russian engineer Valeriy Kharkov led a team of engineers who designed a replacement drop-forged and machined receiver for the AK. This new receiver was not a technical challenge for Izhevsk to produce, and it added durability and potentially accuracy to the weapon, at the cost of an additional pound (half kilo) of weight and more manufacturing time/expense.
The Type 2 AK is distinctive for its rear socket used to attach the buttstock, which was done to simplify the receiver profile and to allow the same receiver to be used for both fixed and underfolding stocks. The Type 2 receiver also has a weight reduction scalloped cut on the right side which is parallel to the top surface of the receiver (on the later Type 3, this cut would be made parallel to the bottom of the receiver instead) as well as a few other smaller features.
While the Type 2 receiver solved the immediate problem for Kalashnikov’s team, it would only be in production for a short time. Introduced in 1951, production ceased in 1957, being replaced by an improved iteration of milled receiver, the Type 3, in 1955. The Type 3 would remain in production until the stamped receiver was finally perfected as the AKM in 1959, and the Type 3 would be produced by a significant number of nations outside the Soviet Union.
Today, the second pattern AK is an very rare weapon, and I am grateful to the private collector who allowed me to video this one for you!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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July 22, 2021
Type 1 Russian AK: The First Production Stamped AK (Updated)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Jul 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…
Updated to fix errors of nomenclature and production dates.
The AK was formally adopted in 1947, and went into production in 1948. In this very first form, it used a stamped receiver with front and rear trunnions riveted in place. Unfortunately, while the hand-fitted preproduction guns were quite excellent, the manufacturing processes and quality control left a lot to be desired. The stamped receiver was relatively thin (especially compared to previous stamped Russian small arms like the PPS-43), and was very susceptible to warping during heat treating and other parts of the manufacturing process. The guns that met QC requirements were every bit as good as expected, but the high number of rejects nullified much of the point of having those stamped parts in the first place.
For this reason, Type 1 AK production ended in 1951, and a milled receiver was developed to allow rifles to continue being made while the engineering and production team worked to improve the receiver design and the manufacturing processes around it.
It should be noted that the “AK-47” was the final prototype version of the gun, and the Type 1 was designated simply “AK” in official Soviet documentation.
Today, the first pattern AK47 is an extremely rare weapon, and I am grateful to the private collector who allowed me to video this one for you!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704
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July 20, 2021
QotD: Lenin’s “Hanging Order”
Lenin is the same cold-blooded thug who famously wrote, “We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth[.] … We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”
Elsewhere, Lenin declared that “The proletariat needs state power, the centralized organization of force, the organization of violence, for the purpose of crushing the resistance … and for the purpose of leading the great mass of the population … in the work of organizing a socialist economy.”
In August 1918, Lenin sent his now famous “Hanging Order” telegram. It instructed local Bolsheviks in the Penza region to deal harshly with the farmers (kulaks) who owned land there and were standing in the way of its nationalization. The British historian Robert Service discovered it in Soviet archives in the 1990s. It read as follows:
Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because ‘the last decisive battle’ with the kulaks is now underway everywhere. An example must be made.
- Hang (absolutely hang, in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, fatcats, bloodsuckers.
- Publish their names.
- Seize all grain from them.
- Designate hostages, in accordance with yesterday’s telegram.
Do it in such a fashion, that for hundreds of miles around the people see, tremble, know, shout: “The bloodsucking kulaks are being strangled and will be strangled.”
Telegraph receipt and implementation.
Yours, Lenin.
P.S. Use your toughest people for this.
That chilling telegram ushered in the “Red Terror” which murdered Russians by the tens of thousands over the next two years.
Lawrence W. Reed, “How Germany’s ‘Deal With the Devil’ Backfired and Changed History”, Foundation for Economic Education, 2021-04-16.
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July 18, 2021
Stalingrad Now a Primary Objective?! – Hitler’s Chaotic Directives – WW2 – 151 – July 17, 1942
World War Two
Published 17 Jul 2021The second phase of Fall Blau begins with second guessing by the Axis Powers and constant changes in directive. The Soviet Union’s response to the successes of the first phase of Fall Blau is equally chaotic. Over in North Africa there is the question of it maybe ending in stalemate.
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July 15, 2021
Goodbye Lenin, Hello Jazz! | B2W:ZEITGEIST! I E.22 Winter 1924
TimeGhost History
Published 14 Jul 2021The winter of 1924 sees the death of not only Vladimir Lenin but also the Ottoman Caliphate. However, it also sees something fresh and completely unique enter the American mainstream. George Gershwin has given the Jazz Age a soundtrack.
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July 13, 2021
Japanese Armour Doctrine, 1918-1942
The_Chieftain
Published 11 Jul 2021Sources include:
Japanese tanks and armoured Warfare 1932-45, David McCormack
WW2 Japanese Tank Tactics, Gordon Rottmen, Akira Takizawa
Japanese Tanks, Tactics and anti-tank weapons, Donald McLean
Type 89 and Tankette books, Kazunori YoshikawaContinuing on this series of videos supporting the WW2 Channel, I look at what I can find about how the Japanese thought of tanks and their usage, tempered by quite a bit of combat experience.
Improved-Computer-And-Scout Car Fund:
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July 11, 2021
Fall Blau – A Victim of Its Own Success? – 150 – WW2 – July 10, 1942
World War Two
Published 10 Jul 2021Adolf Hitler is not happy, and yet phase one of Fall Blau has accomplished all of its goals and done so ahead of the timetable. However, the Soviet Army in 1942 is not the same as that in 1941, and is not waiting around this time to be captured by the hundreds of thousands, and if things continue then the Axis might just be wasting a ton of gas to take a ton of empty space.
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July 4, 2021
Fall Blau Begins, Stalin Caught off Guard Again – 149 – WW2 – July 3, 1942
World War Two
Published 3 Jul 2021It’s that time of the year again — the time when the Axis Powers drive deep into the Soviet Union. Fall Blau is the name of this year’s huge offensive, and it begins this week, making great gains from the very beginning, but the Axis Powers are also making big gains this week in North Africa, taking Mersa Matruh and pushing to within 100 km of Alexandria. Can nothing stop them?
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June 30, 2021
The Red Orchestra – The Nazi-Soviet Spy Dance – WW2 – Spies & Ties 04
World War Two
Published 29 Jun 2021An extensive network of spies and radio operators are gathering intelligence and sending it to Moscow from Western Europe. They are a colourful group of people who go by the name of Die Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra.
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June 27, 2021
Fall Blau Starts … or Does it? – WW2 – 148 – June 27, 1942
World War Two
Published 26 Jun 2021Fall Blau, the huge Axis summer offensive in the Soviet Union, is supposed to being this, but is postponed to next. The smaller Operation Fridericus II does begin though, and what does Josef Stalin make of that and the intelligence he’s received? Meanwhile in North Africa, after the fall of Tobruk, the British 8th Army gets a leadership change, but Erwin Rommel is still on the move eastward into Egypt. Where will the Allies try to hold him? Half the world away, the Allies begin to establish a base at Milne Bay, New Guinea. It’s a start, a small one, but a start.
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QotD: Being right at the wrong time
There was never a good time, for example, to be anti-communist. Those who early warned of the dangers of bolshevism were regarded as lacking in compassion for the suffering of the masses under tsarism, as well as lacking the necessary imagination to “build” a better world. Then came the phase of denial of the crimes of communism, when to base one’s anti-communism on such phenomena as organised famine and the murder of millions was regarded as the malicious acceptance of ideologically-inspired lies and calumnies. When finally the catastrophic failure of communism could no longer be disguised, and all the supposed lies were acknowledged to have been true, to be anti-communist became tasteless in a different way: it was harping on pointlessly about what everyone had always known to be the case. The only good anti-communist was a mute anti-communist.
Anthony Daniels, “Authoritarianism in Cement and Steel”, Quadrant, 2018-11-04.
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June 24, 2021
First Arab-Israeli War 1948 – Political Background – COLD WAR
The Cold War
Published 31 Aug 2019Our series on the history of the Cold War period continues with a documentary explaining the political background of the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948.
To learn about the military events of this conflict, go to the Kings and Generals channel
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June 23, 2021
QotD: Churchill’s support for Stalin
This support was more than rhetorical. In a gesture of astonishing (and short-sighted) selflessness, Churchill responded to news of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union by sending Stalin 200 brand-new Hawker Hurricane pursuit planes which had been pledged to defend Singapore against Japanese attack. Churchill then “re-gifted” Stalin 200 Tomahawk fighters and 300 Douglas A-20 Havoc bombers from Britain’s own Lend-Lease consignments, and shipped Stalin 2,000 tonnes of processed aluminum for Soviet warplane factories, despite it being desperately needed at home.
Even more striking was Churchill’s decision to ship Stalin nearly 600 tanks, which helped tip the balance in the Battle of Moscow in December 1941. Churchill even agreed to strip Cairo command of hundreds more tanks in 1942, routing them to Stalin’s USSR via Iran to bail out the Red Army at Stalingrad, which left Egypt vulnerable to Rommel’s Afrika Korps.
Churchill doubled down on his pro-Soviet policies even in areas where Britain had her own clients, such as Yugoslavia. Despite hosting the Yugoslav exile government in London, by September 1943, Churchill abandoned that government’s commander on the ground and threw his full support behind Stalin’s man, Josip Broz (“Tito”). Bamboozled by a Soviet smear campaign against Colonel Draža Mihailovic, Churchill cut off Mihailovic’s Chetniks and shipped Tito more than 100 times more war materiel over the next nine months than Mihailovic had received in the previous two years.
Sean McMeekin, “Churchill’s enigma: the real riddle is why he cozied up to Stalin”, Spectator, 2021-03-21.
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June 20, 2021
Tobruk: A second siege? – WW2 – 147 – June 20, 1942
World War Two
Published 19 Jun 2021Two convoys head from opposite ends of the Mediterranean to supply Malta, hoping to run interference for each other, and the Battle of Sevastopol continues as the Axis slowly wear down the Soviet defenders, but the big news is Erwin Rommel’s continued advances in North Africa, defeating the 8th Army again and again. Can the Allies hold Tobruk? Will they even try? Watch and find out.
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