World War Two
Published 12 Jan 2022Even the best sniper needed a reliable and accurate rifle. During the Second World War, all warring nations fielded designated sniper and marksman rifles, but different manufacturers had different ideas, from optical sights to breech-loading mechanisms, to gas-piston systems. Some preferred traditional bolt-action, others favored the new semi-automatic approach.
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January 13, 2022
Sniper Rifles of 1942 – WW2 Special
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January 12, 2022
Sniper Warrior – Vasily Zaitsev – WW2 Biography Special
World War Two
Published 11 Jan 2022From the woods of the Urals to the burning city of Stalingrad, Vasily Zaitsev went out to hunt his prey. As a sniper, he learned his trade in the grim reality of Stalingrad street fighting. Deep in the ruins of the factories, he stalked his enemies with a team of battle-hardened snipers. For days on end, they would lay in wait for valuable targets to show up. With a finger on the trigger, they would decimate the German ranks within a few deadly moments.
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Soviet PPD-40: Degtyarev’s Submachine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Aug 2017Degtyarev’s PPD-40 was the first submachine gun adopted on a large scale by the Soviet Union. Its development began in 1929 with a locked breech gun modeled after Degtyarev’s DP light machine gun, but evolved into a much simpler blowback system. It was accepted as the best performing gun of 14 different submissions in Soviet trials of 1931/2, and first entered production in 1934. In this form, it used a 25 round curved stick magazine, and was chambered for the 7.62x25mm cartridge. In 1938 Degtyarev made a number of changes, most importantly developing a drum magazine based on the Finnish Suomi m31 drum. The PPD-38 drum had a short section of feed tower to allow the gun to use either drums or stick magazines, and this was dropped with the final iteration in 1940 when the gun was again changed, this time to accept only 71-round drum magazines of the m31 type.
The PPD-40 finally entered serious production in 1940, with just over 81,000 made. This production would continue into early 1941 with another roughly 6,000 made before it was replaced by the faster-to-produce PPSh-41 submachine gun. The PPD-40 was a relatively heavy SMG at 12 pounds (5.45 kg) unloaded, and with a rate of fire of approximately 900 rounds per minute. This particular example was captured and used by the Finnish military, and appears to have a PPD38 bolt in it.
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January 11, 2022
QotD: The decline of the “Blimp class” in the British empire
The stagnation of the Empire in the between-war years affected everyone in England, but it had an especially direct effect upon two important sub-sections of the middle class. One was the military and imperialist middle class, generally nicknamed the Blimps, and the other the left-wing intelligentsia. These two seemingly hostile types, symbolic opposites – the halfpay colonel with his bull neck and diminutive brain, like a dinosaur, the highbrow with his domed forehead and stalk-like neck – are mentally linked together and constantly interact upon one another; in any case they are born to a considerable extent into the same families.
Thirty years ago the Blimp class was already losing its vitality. The middle-class families celebrated by Kipling, the prolific lowbrow families whose sons officered the army and navy and swarmed over all the waste places of the earth from the Yukon to the Irrawaddy, were dwindling before 1914. The thing that had killed them was the telegraph. In a narrowing world, more and more governed from Whitehall, there was every year less room for individual initiative. Men like Clive, Nelson, Nicholson, Gordon would find no place for themselves in the modern British Empire. By 1920 nearly every inch of the colonial empire was in the grip of Whitehall. Well-meaning, over-civilized men, in dark suits and black felt hats, with neatly rolled umbrellas crooked over the left forearm, were imposing their constipated view of life on Malaya and Nigeria, Mombasa and Mandalay. The one-time empire builders were reduced to the status of clerks, buried deeper and deeper under mounds of paper and red tape. In the early ‘twenties one could see, all over the Empire, the older officials, who had known more spacious days, writhing impotently under the changes that were happening. From that time onwards it has been next door to impossible to induce young men of spirit to take any part in imperial administration. And what was true of the official world was true also of the commercial. The great monopoly companies swallowed up hosts of petty traders. Instead of going out to trade adventurously in the Indies one went to an office stool in Bombay or Singapore. And life in Bombay or Singapore was actually duller and safer than life in London. Imperialist sentiment remained strong in the middle class, chiefly owing to family tradition, but the job of administering the Empire had ceased to appeal. Few able men went east of Suez if there was any way of avoiding it.
George Orwell, “The Lion And The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, 1941-02-19.
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January 9, 2022
A Soviet Offensive Along the Entire Front? – WW2 – 176 – January 8th, 1943
World War Two
Published 8 Jan 2022Things look grim for the Germans, surrounded at Velikie Luki and Stalingrad and with no real help of relief. The Soviets are, in fact, making plans for attacks all along the front, as are the Americans to push the Japanese off of Guadalcanal.
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The Korsac EM1 – a British/Polish Bullpup FG-42
Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Jun 2017Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of the guns in this video, don’t miss the ARES companion blog post:
http://armamentresearch.com/british-k…
The Korsac EM-1 (not to be confused with the Thorpe EM-1, which is a completely different rifle) was a bullpup light machine gun based on captured examples of the German FG-42 paratroop rifle. It was developed between 1945 and 1947 by a team led by a Polish refugee designer named Korsac.
It was chambered for the 8mm Mauser cartridge, and used an 18 round magazine adapted from the ZB-26. The operating mechanism was closely copied from the FG-42, as were many elements of the rifle’s controls, including the capability for firing from an open bolt in fully automatic and from a closed bolt in semi-automatic. Unlike the FG-42, it used a short stroke tappet type gas piston, and had a detachable barrel. Ultimately only two examples were built, and only one of those (the one in this video) was completed to firing condition. It suffered from reliability problems in semi-automatic mode, and was quickly sidelined in favor of the other development projects ongoing by 1947. However, many lessons from its development would be put into the EM-2 rifle.
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January 8, 2022
Battle of the River Plate 1939: Minute-by-Minute
Historigraph
Published 24 Jul 2018The Battle of the River Plate took place in December 1939, and featured the Royal Navy cruisers Exeter, Achilles and Ajax, against the German Panzerschiffe, Graf Spee.
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Sources:
Richard Petrow, The Bitter Years: The invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway April 1940-May 1945 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974). — The first chapter of the book includes a brief description of the hunt for the Graf SpeeCorelli Barnett, Engage The Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (London: Penguin, 1991)
Commodore Harwood’s own account of the battle, made available here: http://naval-history.net/WW2LGGrafSpe…
Graf Spee‘s voyage described here: https://www.deutschland-class.dk/admi…
Video clips from World of Warships gameplay and the Battle of the River Plate film, 1958
Music:
“Crypto” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/“Division” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/“Crossing the Chasm” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Sound Effects:
Gunshots and so on are recordings from World of Warships, where the gameplay footage of the ships hails from.
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January 7, 2022
Desert War – Dysentery, Disease, and Dehydration – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 6 Jan 2022North Africa. The Axis and Allies are fighting each other but even more, they’re fighting the desert itself. The men of the desert burn during the day and freeze at night. They do most of their fighting on a litre of water and a packet of army biscuits. What is life in such a hostile environment?
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French Ragtag Army’s Desperate Winter Battles 1871
Real Time History
Published 6 Jan 2022Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/realtimehistory
One of the last bastions of French resistance in the new year 1871 is Belfort. A ragtag army called “Army of the East” rushes to free the city near the Swiss border. Meanwhile the Germans prepare to announce their Empire in Versailles.
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https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018Buk-Swienty, Tom: Schlachtbank Düppel. 18. April 1864. Die Geschichte einer Schlacht. Berlin 2011
» SOURCES
Klein, Karl: Fröschweiler Chronik. Arand, Tobias/Bunnenberg, Christian (Hrsg.). Hamburg 2021.Allorant, Salomé u.a. (Hrsg.): La République au défi de la guerre. Lettres et carnet de l’Année terrible (1870-1871). Amiens 2015
Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich. Bd. 4. Berlin 1876
Goncourt, Edmond de: Journal des Goncourts. II.1. 1870-1871. Paris 1890
Meisner, Heinrich Otto (Hrsg.): Kaiser Friedrich III. Das Kriegstagebuch von 1870/71. Berlin, Leipzig 1926
N. N. (Hrsg.): Bismarcks Briefe an seine Gattin aus dem Kriege 1870/71. Stuttgart, Berlin 1903
Pflugk-Harttung, Julius: Krieg und Sieg 1870-71. Berlin 1896
Sheridan, Philip H.: Von Gravelotte nach Paris. Erinnerungen aus dem deutsch-französischem Kriege. Leipzig 1889
Zeitz, Karl: Kriegserinnerungen eines Feldzugsfreiwilligen aus den Jahren 1870 und 1871. Altenburg 1905
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Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
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Sound: Above Zero
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Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
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Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2022
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January 6, 2022
Chinese Spymasters – The New Warlords? – WW2 – Spies & Ties 12
World War Two
Published 5 Jan 2022During World War Two, China was ripped up by many different warring parties, all of which were also playing spy games with crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses.
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The 1874 Gras: France Enters the Brass Cartridge Era
Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 May 2019After the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War, it was clear to the French military that the rationale for using paper cartridge in the Chassepot was no longer valid — a future rifle would need to use brass cartridges. A competition to design a conversion of the Chassepot to use modern ammunition resulted in the 1874 adoption of the rifle designed by French Artillery Captain Basile Gras. This maintained the use of the bolt handle as a single locking lug, but introduced a separate bolt head and extractor. The new cartridge was the 11mm Gras; very similar to the Chassepot loading but at a slightly higher velocity.
The Gras would be produced from 1874 until 1884, with more than 4 million made in total. Most were full length infantry rifles, but two patterns of carbine and a musketoon were also included for cavalry, gendarmerie, and artillery troops. These rifles saw significant use in colonial conflicts, but the much-anticipated war of revenge against Germany would not happen while the Gras was the standard French rifle. Instead, it would see a supporting role in the First World War, both in the original 11mm caliber and also converted to 8mm Lebel.
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January 5, 2022
History Summarized: The Ottoman Empire
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 5 Oct 2018Leave it to the furniture boys to pioneer a Comfort-First attitude towards Imperialism.
Join Blue in investigating the history of the Ottoman empire, and find out why “The Sick Man of Europe” is more than their nickname implies.
Further reading: Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel
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January 4, 2022
Peninsular War: Why were British infantry so successful?
Redcoat: British military history
Published 16 Dec 2021Why were the British redcoats so successful in the Peninsular war? There were many reasons, but amongst them was the way regiments were organised and the tactics they employed.
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January 2, 2022
And Now It’s 1943 … – WW2 – 175 – January 1st, 1943
World War Two
Published 1 Jan 2023The attrition cannot continue so the Japanese decide they will evacuate Guadalcanal, conceding the Solomon Islands to the Allies. The Allies are also conceding the Caucasus, and a naval battle in the far north convinces Hitler that he should scrap the entire German surface fleet. 1943 begins ominously for the Axis.
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The Schmeisser MP41: A Hybrid Submachine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Sep 2017Most people think that the MP41 is simply an MP40 in a wooden stock, but this is actually not the case — and unlike the MP40, the MP41 can be accurately called a Schmeisser — because it was Hugo Schmeisser who designed it.
The MP41 is actually a combination of the upper assembly of an MP40 with the lower assembly of an MP28 — the gun which was Schmeisser’s improved version of the MP18 from World War One. Where the MP40 fires only in fully automatic mode, the MP41 has a push-through selector switch located above the trigger which allows either semi-auto or full auto function.
For the typical user, however, this mechanical distinction is not particularly important, as the MP41 handles very much like the MP40. It has the same relatively low 500 rpm rate of fire, and weighs about 8.2 pounds (3.7kg). It uses the same magazines as the MP40, although the magazines made and sold with the MP41 were marked “MP41”. As with many other SMG designs, the MP41 was never formally adopted by the German military. In this case, the majority of MP41 production (26,000 guns in 1941 and another 1,800 or so in 1944) went to Romanian troops.
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