Forgotten Weapons
Published 15 Jan 2025The Praga I was the first machine gun design from noted Czech arms designed Vaclav Holek. Three examples were made for Czech military testing in 1922, but they were not acceptable. Instead, this design served as the first stepping stone to the eventual development of the ZB-26, perhaps the best of the interwar light machine guns.
Mechanically, the Praga I is largely based on the Vickers/Maxim system except with a locking wedge instead of a toggle joint. It also uses a forward-moving gas trap sort of action instead of recoil operation like the Maxim/Vickers. The fire control mechanism is essentially a Vickers lock, just built into the receiver of the gun instead of in a moving bolt or lock. It is a truly fascinating system!
Many thanks to the VHU — the Czech Military History Institute — for giving me access to this fantastic prototype to film for you. The Army Museum Žižkov is a part of the Institute, and they have a three-story museum full of cool exhibits open to the public in Prague. If you have a chance to visit, it’s definitely worth the time! You can find all of their details (including their aviation and armor museums) here:
June 1, 2025
Praga I: A Blow-Forward Bullpup Semi-Auto-Selectable Vickers Gun
May 30, 2025
Was Germany Really Starved Into Surrender in WW1?
The Great War
Published 10 Jan 2025From 1914 to 1919, Allied warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean controlled maritime trade to and from the Central Powers – stopping shipments of weapons and raw materials, but also food, from reaching their enemies. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of German civilians died of hunger-related causes. Often, these deaths and even the outcome of the war are attributed to the naval blockade – but did the British really starve Germany into surrender in WW1?
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QotD: “Have fun storming the castle!”
… the expected threat is going to shape the calculation of what margin of security is acceptable, which brings us back to our besieger’s playbook. You may recall when we looked at the Assyrian siege toolkit, that many of the most effective techniques assumed a large, well-coordinated army which could dispose of a lot of labor (from the soldiers) on many different projects at once while also having enough troops ready to fight to keep the enemy bottled up and enough logistic support to keep the army in the field for however long all of that took. In short, this is a playbook that strong, well-organized states (with strong, well-organized armies) are going to excel at. But, as we’ve just noted, the castle emerges in the context of fragmentation which produces a lot of little polities (it would be premature to call them states) with generally quite limited administrative and military capacity; the “big army” siege playbook which demands a lot of coordination, labor and expertise is, for the most part, out of reach.
Clifford Rogers has already laid out a pretty lay-person accessible account of the medieval siege playbook (in Soldiers’ Lives Through History: The Middle Ages (2007), 111-143; the book is pricey, so consider your local library), so I won’t re-invent the wheel here but merely note some general features. Rogers distinguishes between hasty assaults using mostly ladders launched as soon as possible as a gamble with a small number of troops to try to avoid a long siege, and deliberate assaults made after considerable preparation, often using towers, sapping, moveable shelters designed to resist arrow fire and possibly even catapults. We’ve already discussed hasty assaults here, so let’s focus on deliberate assaults.
While sapping (tunneling under and collapsing fortifications) remained in use, apart from filling in ditches, the mole-and-ramp style assaults of the ancient world are far less common, precisely because most armies (due to the aforementioned fragmentation combined with the increasing importance in warfare of a fairly small mounted elite) lacked both the organizational capacity and the raw numbers to do them. The nature of these armies as retinues of retinues also made coordination between army elements difficult. The Siege of Antioch (1097-8) [during] the First Crusade is instructive; though the siege lasted nine months, the crusaders struggled to even effectively blockade the city until a shipment of siege materials (lumber, mostly) arrived in March of 1098 (five months after the beginning of the siege). Meanwhile, coordinating so that part of the army guarded the exits of the city (to prevent raids by the garrison) while the other part of the army foraged supplies had proved mostly too difficult, leading to bitter supply shortages among the crusaders. Even with materials delivered to them, the crusaders used them to build a pair of fortified towers blocking exits from the city, rather than the sort of elaborate sapping and ramps; the city was taken not by assault but by treachery – a very common outcome to a siege! – when Bohemond of Taranto bribed a guard within the city to let the crusaders sneak a small force in. All of this despite the fact that the crusader army was uncommonly large by medieval European standards, numbering perhaps 45,000.
Crucially, in both hasty and deliberate assaults, the emphasis for the small army toolkit tends to be on escalade (going over the walls) using ladders or moveable wooden towers, rather than the complex systems of earthworks favored by the “big army” siege system or breaching – a task which medieval (or ancient!) artillery was generally not capable of. The latter, of course, is a much more certain method of assault – give a Roman army a few months and almost any fortress could be taken with near certainty – but it was a much more demanding method in terms of the required labor and coordination. Thwarting escalade is mostly a question of the height of defenses (because a taller wall requires a taller ladder, tower or ramp) and good fields of fire for the defenders (particularly the ability to fire at attackers directly up against the wall, since that’s where the ladders are likely to be).
The other major threat to castle walls (apart from the ever-present threat of sapping) was catapults, but I want to deal with those next time for reasons that I suspect will make sense then. For now it is worth simply noting that catapults, even the mighty trebuchets of the 14th century were generally used to degrade defenses (smashing towers, destroying crenellation, damaging gatehouses) rather than to produce breaches. They could in some cases do that, but only with tremendous effort and a lot of time (and sometimes not even then). Consequently, for most castles the greatest threat remained escalade, followed by treachery or starvation, followed by sapping, followed by artillery.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Fortification, Part III: Castling”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2021-12-10.
May 29, 2025
Now that a Royal Marine general is head of the Royal Navy, is he the “First Land Lord”?
Sir Humphrey on the appointment of Royal Marine General Sir Gwyn Jenkins as the top flag officer of the Royal Navy — the first RM general officer to hold this position:
Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins in Lympstone, 2022.
Photo credit – LPhot Barry Swainsbury – https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/-/media/royal-navy-responsive/images/news/new/221128-new-commandant-general-royal-marines-appointed/2.jpg, OGL 3, Link
General Sir Gwyn Jenkins has taken over as the professional head of the Royal Navy, the first Royal Marine to occupy the role of “First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff”. This is a move which is to be warmly welcomed, although the General will have many challenges ahead of him during his tenure.
While most have welcomed the move, there has been some mild hysteria on social media at the idea of a General heading the Royal Navy – what madness is this? The argument seems to be that apparently because Royal Marines haven’t commanded ships, they are somehow not able to lead the Royal Navy. Such an argument is fatuous nonsense.
The RN is a surprisingly tribal organisation of roughly 30,000 people, with its regular personnel broadly divided into four fighting arms – the Surface Fleet, the Submarine Service, the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Marines. The surface fleet is the closest to being a “generalist” branch, although in its own way it is intensely tribal with different branches, organisations and structures. The Submariners and the FAA are unsurprisingly a bit of a closed shop, due to their missions, role and locations – it is not quite a “private navy”, but it would be rare for many personnel to serve at both Faslane supporting submarines and then to Culdrose or Yeovilton supporting aircraft. It is better to think of these fighting arms as smaller versions of the RN, each with its own culture, ethos and experience, and very different ways of bringing the fight to the enemy.
There have been First Sea Lords from the Surface Fleet, Submarine Service and FAA – no one has questioned the ability of an admiral who may have spent large parts of their career within a tribal part of the Service to lead all of it appropriately. Yet some seem to think that the General is somehow unable to do this due to his Royal Marines past. This makes very little sense – surely if this were true, how could any 1SL lead the Royal Marines effectively given they have, to the authors knowledge, never held a green beret?
The role of the 1st Sea Lord is not to stride the bridge in battle and fight wars against the enemy. He (and hopefully soon She) is the professional head of a complex organisation, employing tens of thousands of service personnel, reservists, civil servants and contractors on every continent. There are Royal Navy personnel based around the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and from the depths of the ocean to the skies far above. This role is about leadership, delivering the Government of the day’s desired defence policy outcomes, setting strategic direction for the Service and ensuring that it can deliver on its responsibilities.
The role of 1SL is part CEO, part diplomat, part public engagement and orator, and part politician. They need to be able to set a vision but accept their ability to deliver it is limited due to the time taken for naval procurement – while HMS VENTURER was rolled out of the yard today (27 May) some 10 years after the Type 31 was conceived, there have been no less than five permanent 1SL incumbents in this time. The post holder is also ultimately responsible for the delivery of operations, including the Deterrent, to the Prime Minister, and in providing advice to No10 on naval military matters.
Q&A: The Falklands War of 1982
Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Jan 2025Since I spent a couple weeks hiking across the Falklands and then visiting battlefields (and penguins), it seems reasonable to do a Q&A video about the place and the 1982 war there between Argentina and the UK. All the questions were provided by Forgotten Weapons Patrons.
01:38 – How did the FAL perform, seeing as both sides used it?
03:43 – Effectiveness of light and heavy weapons in the war
08:49 – Would the British have been better off Yomping with AR15s, like the SAS used?
10:09 – Is there much local animosity to Argentina today?
12:21 – Local food and adult beverages
15:31 – What do people do for fun on the Falklands?
17:52 – Oldest small arm in service during the war?
20:18 – Military equipment wreckage on the islands
22:06 – Value of full powered rifle round in the FI terrain?
24:31 – Minefields
25:44 – Interaction of weapons with different effective ranges
28:46 – Did Exocet spur development of CIWS?
31:00 – What has been done to defend the islands against another invasion?
33:51 – Issues with an army designed to fight the USSR in Europe deploying to the South Atlantic?
35:30 – Weirdest weapon used in the conflict?
36:29 – Field modifications of small arms and unique kit
38:20 – Were British vehicle at risk of damage there?
39:40 – Engagement ranges
40:23 – Relevancy of bayonet fighting
41:28 – Unique equipment used by the Falkland Islands Defense Force
43:27 – American view of the Falklands War today
44:41 – Which Yomp route did we take?
45:01 – Did we visit Ajax Bay or the cemetery?
46:00 – Reality vs my expectations of the islands
46:57 – How would the war go if it happened today instead of in 1982?
48:25 – Did British soldiers use Argentine FALs?
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May 28, 2025
The Korean War Week 49 – Race to Trap 70,000 Soldiers – May 27, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 27 May 2025The Chinese Spring Offensive continues this week, but comes to its end — it has cost the Communist forces tens of thousands of men, but even as it ends, the UN counteroffensive begins — and costs them tens of thousands more! And in Washington the MacArthur hearings continue, and it is obvious by now to all and sundry that General Douglas MacArthur had been very much out of line and President Truman was within his authority for firing him.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:41 Recap
01:12 More PVA and KPA Attacks
03:41 The Counterattack Begins
07:14 Advances Everywhere
13:07 NSC 48/5
17:45 End of the Hearings?
19:05 Summary
19:18 Conclusion
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Masters of the Air – The Bomber War Episode 4 – 8th Air Force 1942-1943
HardThrasher
Published 6 Jan 2024If you’d like to be a cool kid, then become a Patreon or if you’d like to email me send a message to lordhardthrasher@gmail.com
0:00 Intro
4:30 We’re Going to North Africa 1st
8:36 But you’re not doing it properly
16:16 Play it Again Ira
22:30 Mid 1943 – The Crisis Begins
26:53 The Black Summer
28:03 Operation Tidal Wave
34:21 Into The Valley of Death – Schweinfurt
41:34 What Now?
48:37 Survivors Club
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May 27, 2025
The Revolution is Crushed – Greek Civil War Part 3 – W2W 30
TimeGhost History
Published 26 May 2025The Greek Civil War ends in 1949 — in fire, blood, and betrayal. This episode explores how the Communist Democratic Army was defeated, why Yugoslavia and Tito cut off support, and how American-backed government forces brought the conflict to a brutal conclusion.
This is the final part of our Greek Civil War trilogy in War 2 War — TimeGhost’s Cold War series following the battles that refused to end even after WW2.
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May 25, 2025
Rommel’s Dark Secrets in North Africa – WW2 Fireside Chat
World War Two
Published 24 May 2025Indy and Sparty handle your questions on the German intervention in North Africa. Why did Rommel make such an impact so quickly? What was the war like for the local populations? How deeply involved was Rommel in the persecution of North African Jews?
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When NATO “stopped being an effective military alliance” and instead “became a kind of social club”
In UnHerd, Edward Luttwak says that Europe (however you might prefer to define it) needs a new Great Power:
All through European history, the intervals of peace, during which reconstruction and progress overcame the ravages of war, were secured by a temporary equilibrium between the Great Powers of the day.
It is obvious that there was no such equilibrium on 23 February 2022, when Russian columns started rolling towards Kyiv, and Russian President Vladimir Putin had just described Ukraine not merely as Russian, but as the homeland of the very first Russian state: Kievan Rus’.
[…]
But when the moment came, and Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, there was no cohesive and determined power ready to respond quickly and effectively. Nato had done just that several times during the Cold War, by promptly reinforcing threatened allies with thousands of air-lifted troops from the so-called “Allied Command Europe Mobile Force”.
That, however, was the old, pre-enlargement Nato, which was still a veritable military alliance of countries capable of defending themselves, and help weaker allies in trouble, and whose chronically weak Mediterranean member states, with the most resplendent uniforms and least combat strength, had no Russian troops on their borders.
But once very deserving yet utterly indefensible countries such as Estonia were included in Nato — along with Poland, which mustered just 42,000 combat soldiers out of its population of 33 million a mere three months before Putin’s full-scale invasion began — it stopped being an effective military alliance.
Instead, it became a kind of social club. The Nato calendar is full of meetings at the “Supreme Allied Headquarters” in Mons in Belgium, where all manner of military and related issues are addressed often very professionally and quite freely — except that nobody is allowed to mention, however politely, even the most glaring military shortcomings of fellow allies, which undermine important war plans.
The highpoint of the Nato calendar is the splendid summits with all flags flying, in which the arrival of new countries is greatly celebrated, regardless of their ability to actually defend themselves. Both heads of state and heads of government are invited to those gatherings on the premise that there is strength in numbers, with no concerns about the inherent difficulty of reaching any agreements in such a vast crowd.
In the last summit, held in Washington DC in July 2024, Biden’s confusion of President Zelensky with Putin added a touch of humour to otherwise gloomy proceedings: nobody in attendance offered any suggestions on how to end the war in Ukraine.
What proves that Nato is no longer a genuine military alliance was that nothing was done in the last pre-war days before Putin’s invasion finally began. The satellite intelligence that revealed Russian forces on the move also showed that they were already in assault formations. But even then, five days remained to fly fighter-bomber squadrons to forward bases.
Yet even inaction would have been better than what actually happened. Instead of ordering the rapid deployment of tactical airpower to bases in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, the Biden administration instead evacuated US diplomats from Kyiv, starting a panic that induced the evacuation of some 20 other diplomatic missions.
BD-44: The New Semiauto Sturmgewehr from D-K Productions
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Jan 2025D-K Productions is a collaboration between the German company Sport System Dittrich (SSD) and an American partner. SSD has been making reproductions of German World War Two small arms for something like 20 years — including Sturmgewehrs. Their guns are really good recreations of the 1940s originals, but there have long been issues importing them into the US. This was solved at last by forming a US company and doing the receiver manufacturing here in the States. While the company has plans to offer a whole bunch of different models, the one currently available is the BD-44, a copy of the standard production model of MP-44/StG-44.
I was really impressed by the use of not-finish-machined forgings for parts like the stacking rod and gas block, correctly duplicating the original German production. The stampings look good, and the handling matches the original guns (don’t expect it to be AR-level ergonomic!). The gut “feel” of the gun is an excellent match for an original MP-44. The 8×33 chambering and use of original magazines (alongside new-production magazines made by D-K) is the correct choice, of course.
I did not like the mismatch between the magazine well and magazine stops, and I did have a couple malfunctions in the two magazines I ran through it so far. Note that the gun I have at the range is my second one; the first one (which is what you see on the table) had consistent feed problems and D-K replaced it when I sent it back to them.
Whether the gun is worth the steep asking price is a personal decision, naturally. Hopefully this video gives you the information necessary to make your decision if you were considering getting one!
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QotD: Cancellation of the Avro Arrow and destruction of the prototypes
The first project of this new company was the C-102 Jetliner, the first commercial inter-city jet to fly in North America in 1949, and the second [civilian] jet to fly in the world, behind the trans-oceanic British Comet. After being test flown successfully for three years and with potential orders pending, the Jetliner project was cancelled, allegedly in favour of committing all company resources to the development of the military sub-sonic CF-100. The Arrow was to be the successor to the latter, designed to intercept and destroy if need be, incoming supersonic bombers coming across the North Pole, from the then Soviet Union.
The Arrow was a sleek, twin engine, delta winged aircraft embodying many advanced features such as fly-by-wire controls, titanium and magnesium alloys for light weight and resistance to frictional heat, transistorized electronics and an advanced engine, the Iroquois. While some other aircraft may have included some of these advanced features, what made the Arrow unique was that all of them were built into this one singular aircraft.
Adding insult to injury, the five flying preproduction aircraft, including all technical documentation, tooling and jigs and fixtures and others in various stages of assembly, were ordered destroyed. Why was a project being hailed by aviation experts around the world, suddenly cancelled? In the absence of clear facts and in the presence of rumour and innuendo, debates have raged back and forth as to the reasons, sparking a series of myths and misconceptions about the entire affair.
In 1988, the late Canadian historian, Professor Desmond Morton, lamented the fact that he could not obtain any government archival documents on the Arrow, assuming they even existed. Out of interest, I decided to try my own hand in this endeavour. Since then I have uncovered and have had declassified thousands upon thousands of records including many Secret and Top Secret, ranging from memos, reports both scientific and financial, to minutes of meetings and letters. The list includes some from the United States and Great Britain as well.
Those documents which I deemed more critical, I have either quoted from or have reproduced in my books, with full references. Following is a discussion of some of the myths and misconceptions that the documents have helped clarify.
Arrow Destruction
Perhaps one of the most enduring myths is that the destruction of the completed Arrows and all else, was ordered by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, due to his hatred of the President of A.V. Roe, Crawford Gordon. Alternatively, it has been argued that it was Gordon who had everything destroyed as a spite against the Prime Minister. Neither account is true.
The government records from the Department of National Defence clearly show the order to destroy came from the Minister of National Defence, George R. Pearkes, after receiving that recommendation from Hugh Campbell, Chief of the Air Staff, and after conferring with numerous others including the Deputy Minister of National Defence and the Minister of the Department of Defence Production. The documents contain the signatures of those involved, all of whom would later deny publicly having any knowledge of the destruction, leaving the Prime Minister to be subsequently vilified for it. In fact, the paper trail ends with Minister Pearkes. The matter was not discussed with the Prime Minister at all.
Even today, when the Department decides to dispose of something – it does not matter if it is an aircraft, a tank, a ship or some other equipment – there is no need to seek approval or even advise the Prime Minister as to the manner of its disposal. In fact, all departments dispose of their equipment through an arm of the government. At the time it was called Crown Assets Disposal, but today it is renamed GC Surplus. The name may change yet again.
Palmiro Campagna, “The Avro Arrow: Exploding the Myths and Misconceptions”, Dominion Review, 2025-02-20.
May 23, 2025
Yasukuni-jinja, Japan’s most controversial historical site
Nigel Biggar on the Yasukuni-jinja in the Imperial Gardens in Toyko, where the Japanese shrine to their war dead also celebrates fourteen convicted WW2 war criminals:
The Yasukuni Shrine in the Imperial Gardens, Tokyo.
Photo by Pierre Hazan
If ever you find yourself in the centre of Tokyo, make your way to the north-west corner of the Imperial Gardens, and turn left. A few minutes will bring you to the Yasukuni-jinja, Japan’s most controversial site. This is the national shrine to the war-dead, whose two and half million resident “glorious souls” include fourteen Class A war criminals.
A hundred yards to the right of the main shrine stands a museum, the Yushukan. Upon entering it, a visitor finds himself immediately face to face with a locomotive.
Now, when an Anglo-Saxon puts together Japan, Second World War, and locomotive, he arrives at one thing only: the “Burma Railway”. This is the railway that was hacked through the Burmese jungle partly by Allied prisoners-of-war, who were treated as slave labour and perished in their thousands. Over 12,000 Westerners died — about one in five — alongside perhaps 90,000 Asians.
So our Anglo-Saxon visitor beholds the locomotive with a mixture of disbelief, rising horror, and curiosity. He approaches the machine, looking for an explanatory text. Finding it, he learns that this locomotive is one of ninety that ran along the Burma Railway. He also learns the name of the military unit responsible for the railway’s construction. But of the Allied prisoners, the slave-labour, and the number of their deaths he learns nothing at all.
The Burma Railway wasn’t Auschwitz, either in genocidal intent or in murderous scale. But it was similar in its cruel contempt for human life. So the experience of confronting this Tokyo locomotive is analogous to stepping into a museum in Berlin and being confronted by one of the trains that shipped Jews to Auschwitz, and then reading an explanation that omits any mention of its cargo or the nature of its destination. If there were such a museum in Berlin, I’d have found it.
When our Anglo-Saxon ventures deeper into the Yushukan, he eventually discovers the exhibition on the 1930s and World War Two in the Far East. And here he learns that Japan’s imperial expansion was in fact a war of liberation, waged on behalf of subjugated Asian peoples, against Western colonial domination. And he learns that, even though Japan lost the war militarily, she won it politically, since the example of her early victories over the French in Vietnam, the Americans at Pearl Harbor, and the British at Singapore helped to inspire anti-colonial movements worldwide and so succeeded in ridding the world of European empires.
He also learns that what is known outside Japan as “the Rape of Nanking” (1937-8) is referred to demurely in the museum as “the Chinese incident”. And that whereas the “Rape of Nanking” is reckoned to have involved the indiscriminate massacre by Japanese troops of about 300,000 Chinese civilians, “the Chinese incident” only involved the severe treatment of Chinese troops who had violated the laws of war by disguising themselves in civilian clothes.
May 22, 2025
Landstad 1900: A True Semiautomatic Revolver
Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Jul 2024The Landstad Model 1900 is a magazine-fed, semiautomatic revolver designed by Norwegian Halvard Folkestad Landstad, who lived in Kristiana (now called Oslo). He designed the gun on his own dime, and presented it to military trials in 1901, which it failed miserably. The gun has a six-round detachable box magazine of 7.5mm Nagant cartridges, a two-chamber cylinder, and a simple blowback action. Its firing cycle is to chamber a round from the magazine into the bottom cylinder chamber by manually cycling the action. The trigger is a long double-action type which rotates the cylinder 180 degrees so the cartridge is in line with the barrel and releases the striker to fire the round. Upon firing, the bolt cycles open, extracting and ejecting the empty case, rechecking the striker, and chambering a new round from the magazine into the bottom of the cylinder.
The purpose of this overly complex system was to provide a semiauto action which did not ever leave a live cartridge under the striker, in the name of safety. Only one example was made, and its bolt broke after just 5 or 6 rounds fired. It was repaired almost immediately, but the Norwegian military had was not interested in further development, and nothing more came of the program. A few years later in 1908 Norway would institute a more serious semiauto pistol trials program which led to adoption of the Kongsberg 1914 (a slightly modified Colt 1911).
Thanks to Jan for allowing me to disassemble and film this one-of-a-kind piece for you!
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May 21, 2025
The Korean War Week 48 – Cut Off. Outnumbered. Doomed – May 20, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 20 May 2025The Chinese Spring Offensive reignites, and it does so with a vengeance, kicking straight into high gear, and also totally surprising the UN forces by hitting them heavily much further east than they had ever expected — in the high Taebacks. Units find themselves, cut off, sandwiched, or broken … although a redeployment means that already by the end of the week, a UN counterattack is in the cards.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:50 Recap
01:28 The Offensive Begins
07:39 Van Fleet Reorganizes
11:03 ROK 3rd Corps Breaks
12:55 A Counteroffensive
14:13 The Joint Chiefs Speak
16:31 Summary
16:46 Conclusion
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