Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Nov 2025Late in 1944 the Ordnance Committee recommended adoption of a magazine-fed, select-fire version of the M1 Garand as a new standard US infantry rifle. Both Springfield and Remington developed rifles to meet the requirement, with Springfield’s being the T20 and Remington’s the T22.
The Springfield design went through several iterations from the original T20 to the T20E1 and T20E2, with the capability to launch rifle grenades, mount optical sights, and fire in either semiautomatic or full auto. The first examples of the final T20E2 design were ready in June 1945, but the program lost momentum in August when Japan surrendered. It did continue slowly until 1949, providing some of the basis for the eventual M14 rifle.
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April 6, 2026
T20 Family: Springfield Makes the Garand a Grenade Launching Sniper Machine Gun
April 5, 2026
When military requirements conflict with national policies
On Substack, Holly MathNerd explains why the US military hasn’t ramped up production of drones in light of the experiences of other current conflicts:
Photo by Jonathan Lampel on Unsplash
Most people who have opinions about the war in Iran are not also reading the Federal Acquisition Regulations. I am, unfortunately for my social life, one of the people who does both.
And when you hold those two things in your head at the same time — what’s happening over the Strait of Hormuz and what’s happening in federal procurement policy — a contradiction emerges that is so glaring, and so consequential, that I could not write about anything else this week.
Here is the contradiction, in full, before I show you the data.
The United States is fighting a war where drones are the decisive tactical weapon. We are spending $2 to $4 million per intercept to stop Iranian drones that cost $50,000 each. Our own offensive drone program shipped what it had into an active war because full-rate production hadn’t started yet. Ukraine, which does not have this problem, produced two million drones in 2024 by building a distributed ecosystem of small manufacturers who iterate their designs every two weeks and sell units for $300 to $5,000 each.
We cannot do what Ukraine does, because Congress — correctly, for legitimate national security reasons — spent five consecutive National Defense Authorization Acts closing the door on Chinese drone hardware. DJI, the dominant global manufacturer, is now restricted by four separate federal authorities. There is no waiver for convenience. The wall is complete.
Which means the only path to drone dominance runs through a domestic industrial base capable of producing drones at volume, at low cost, with rapid iteration.
That base exists. Partially. Precariously. And it is built on exactly the kind of small, specialized, distributed manufacturers that the 8(a) federal contracting program was designed to bring into the market.
April 2, 2026
m/27PH aka m/37: Finland’s First Standard Sniper Rifle (and it’s really bad)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Nov 2025The m27PH, aka the m/37, was the first standardized Finnish sniper rifle. It was developed as part of the plan to make a whole family of m/27 rifles for the Finnish Army, including cavalry, trainer, and sniper models. The sniper model was delayed because of the structural problems with the m/27 base rifle, and it was not formally adopted until 1937. The rifle used a 2.2x prismatic scope made by Finnish company Physica Oy. The scope was heavy, fragile, and had a very short eye relief.
When first adopted, the rifles had short, slightly bent bolt handled and standard stocks. Once they began to see use in the Winter War (for which they were Finland’s only standardized sniper rifle), experience showed these features to be problems. The bolt handles were largely replaced with much longer Soviet-style sniper bolts, and wooden cheek rests were added to the stocks.
During the Continuation War, m/27PH rifles were still in service, but as they were damaged their scopes were generally used to build new m/39PH sniper rifles instead. Today they are extremely rare rifles.
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March 31, 2026
Japan’s navy … uh, I mean the “Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force”
On Substack, Francis Turner discusses what serious countries do (so you know the topic isn’t anything to do with Canada), and part of the post is about the Japanese Navy Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and its latest ship building program:
Last month Japan started work on its second ASEV (Aegis System Equipped Vessel), which should probably classed a Guided Missile Cruiser, though it is unclear if the C designation will be used (let’s face it Japan still calls its two “not really aircraft carriers, honest guv” aircraft carrying warships “Helicopter Destroyers”. Though apparently it plans to change that soon).
At 190m long and 25m broad, the ASEVs will be some of the largest non-aircraft carrier ships being built by anyone this century1 until the Trump battleships start construction. The Trump battleships are projected to be about 50% larger but they haven’t yet been funded let alone contracted. The USN’s Zumwalts are roughly the same size.
It isn’t just the size that is impressive, it is also the speed of construction. The ASEV as a concept showed up in ~2020 when Japan decided the land based Aegis Ashore program was a failure and cancelled it. In October 2024, after about four years, plans had been made, budget allocated and contracts awarded for the two ships. Construction of the first started last July (2025) and the second last month (February 2026). Construction time is estimated to be around three years, with the first delivered/commissioned in March 2028 and the second one year later. Why one year later and not six months earlier? My guess is that the reason is to incorporate lessons learned from sea trials and operating the first in the final construction stages of the second. This seems similar to the Izumo/Kaga construction a decade ago.
Put together and you have ships that will have gone from concept to contract award in 4 years and contract award to fully-functioning delivery in under 5 years — assuming there are no delays. That seems plausible, the Izumo and Kaga were built in about the same time frame, and stands in stark contrast to the procurement speed of the US Navy and any European navy. The first Zumwalt, for example took over 5 years to go from concept to start of construction and another 5+ from there to commissioning and then another 4 to full acceptance. The ASEVs are also expected to be a lot cheaper, costing around JPY400B or about US$2.5 billion for the initial version. There will undoubtedly be upgrades — e.g. drone defenses, laser or rail guns — and there are some new features compared to previous ships — the SPY7 radar from Lockheed Martin for example — but this is an evolution of existing Japanese and US Aegis destroyers rather than a brand new concept which helps explain why I am confident about the timeline and budget.
Although the ASEV’s primary role is missile defense, there is no reason why one might not, in the fullness of time, be loaded with offensive missiles such as the TLAM or antiship missiles. Indeed the Naval News article lists both as options:
Each vessel will feature a 128-cell Vertical Launch System (VLS) — significantly more than the 96 cells installed on Japan’s latest Aegis destroyers.
The VLS will be capable of launching:
– SM-3 Block IIA interceptors, jointly developed by Japan and the United States for ballistic missile defense
– SM-6 missiles, capable of engaging advanced aerial threats, including hypersonic glide vehicles
The ships will also support Japan’s emerging counterstrike capability.
Planned armament includes:
– the extended-range Type 12 anti-ship missile (ship-launched improved variant)
– the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile
Is that TLAM in your launcher or are you pleased to see me?
Notably the Tomahawk capability has already been fitted to one of the Aegis destroyers this class is supposed to replace. A 128 cell ASEV firing TLAMs could be very unpleasant for Little Rocket Man; if it fired antiship missiles that could make a Chicom invasion of Taiwan pretty miserable just on its own. It would also make a phenomenal commerce raider / blockade enforcer if such roles were needed.
[Aside: Unlike some country’s missiles I’d be pretty confident that the Type 12 anti-ship missile will work well]
As CDR Salamander observed on X, the real question is why Japan doesn’t make a few more and sell them to countries/navies that struggle with procurement. And for that matter why it doesn’t make a couple more for itself. Perhaps it will. I figure there’s a couple of years before there will be yard space to build them so there’s no hurry to make that decision.
Russia’s Kirov class battlecruisers are larger but a) they were built in the 1970s/80s and b) only one is currently active (for some definition of active).
Japan’s decision to rebuild naval strength has been noted by others, too:
March 29, 2026
Adventures in Surplus! Finnish M28 “Ski Trooper”
Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 Nov 2025Today we are going to take a look at just how much historical [information can] be read from the features and markings of an individual rifle. This is an early production Finnish M28 “ski trooper” Mosin Nagant that can be traced from Russian manufacture to WW1 Russian use, Austro-Hungarian capture, rechambering to 8x50mm Mannlicher, concession to Italy as war reparations, sale to Finland, rebuilding as a Civil Guard M28, use in the Winter War and Continuation War, transfer to the Finnish Army, and finally importation into the United States.
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March 28, 2026
AK50: How Hard Could it Be? Brandon Herrera’s 10-Year Project
Forgotten Weapons
Published 5 Nov 2025Scaling the AK up to .50 BMG … how hard could it be? Today we find out, with a detailed look at all three iterations of Brandon Herrera’s AK-50 project.
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March 27, 2026
Protecting modern warships from new threats
CDR Salamander considers how the US Navy up-gunned their fleet after the shock of the Pearl Harbour attacks with an eye to the current day, where it appears that modern warships suddenly need far more defensive firepower than they have:
USS Tennessee (BB 43) underway in Puget Sound, Washington, on 12 May 1943, after modernization.
Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia Commons.One of the many lessons of the modern air threat against surface ships in the last few years is simple: we need more of everything.
It isn’t really a new lesson. It is an old lesson that our peacetime accountants convinced us to pretend we didn’t know.
Since the first war in which the threat from the air targeted the surface fleet, what was a common thread after D+0 from WWII to the Falklands War?
After cursing those responsible for preparing the fleet for the next war, those tasked to fight the war in front of them would, at the first chance, put every possible weapon possible on their warships.
My favorite example is what the U.S. Navy did with its old battleships the first chance after Pearl Harbor.
The picture at the top of the post is the battleship USS Tennessee (BB 43) after the completion of her rebuild, May 12th, 1943.
- The older single 5-inch/25 cal guns were replaced by eight twin 5-inch/38 caliber dual-purpose gun mounts (totaling 16 guns).
- Ten quadruple 40 mm Bofors mounts and 43 single 20 mm Oerlikon guns replaced 1.1-inch and .50 cal machine guns.
Here she was with her “cleaner” deck from the 1930s.
USS Tennessee in the mid-1930s.
The Royal Navy reached the point in the Falklands War that they resorted to lining the decks with Seamen firing whatever weapons they could find from rifles to crew-served weapons … as they simply did not have the time to up-arm their ships properly.
Like the sudden realization that they did not quite understand the true nature of the threat from the air in the 1930s, here in the mid-2020s we are suddenly realizing that we don’t fully understand — or more likely were comfortable ignoring those warning of the problem — the high/low threat to warships from the air.
The tan, rested, ready, if the not quite battle-tested People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is comfortably unbothered, moisturized, happy, and staying in their lane as we have been emptying out magazines and wearing out sailors and ships, They continue to be focused on how to defeat the U.S. Navy should it venture west of the International Date Line in response to a future contingency — the very mission the PLAN was built to execute as the world’s largest navy.
I am quite confident, because, especially in the ballistic missile area, they were ahead of everyone, that the PLAN has a whole mix of threats they are ready to throw at our fleet should it be required.
The Houthi who have been providing us unscheduled range time in the Red Sea for over two years, and Iran from Turkey to UAE over the last year. The Houthi are a fourth-rate threat, and the Iranians are on a good day, a second-rate threat. They are throwing everything from slow drones to anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) at ships.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a first-rate threat … and then some. She will do the same, but better and in higher volume. We need to be ready to face that, and we are not.
Taking advantage of the temporarily insane market price for tungsten
Tim Worstall has a business idea to capitalize on a current price fluctuation in the tungsten market … and you wouldn’t need to build a massive mine or a large smelter for the purpose:
“Making friends with the 50-cal” by 416thTEC is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0 
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There are times when the prices of weird metals just get wholly out of hand. Like, absurdly, nonsensically, out of hand. This is of great comfort to the usual morons as they can then point out that markets are not rational. They’re morons because no one has ever used — other than morons — “rational markets” to mean always correct markets.
The actual defence of markets is that they produce less absurd prices less often than allowing morons to determine them.
But, OK, odd prices.
Those of a certain age might recall back around the millennium tantalum prices went ballistic. They had been $200 a kg and they went to $2,000 a kg. This was because a little bit of Ta is essential to make the capacitors that make a mobile phone work. Mobile phones were proving to be pretty hot shit and so demand rose, demand rose faster than new mines could be opened and so the price went ballistic.
[…]
So, tungsten. A fair old use (and while everyone’s screaming about this and China it’s a minority use, by a long way. The major use is actually in the teeth of digging machines as tungsten carbide. If you’ve a scrap yard of those drop me a line!) is in armour piercing bullets and shells. Which, when in use are dispersed on the battlefield and no, it’s not worth going out and collecting those. The brass shell casings, especially of artillery, those are but let the specialists do that — too many dud rounds that can still go bang for amateurs to do that.
Tungsten prices are weird. The price is quoted at metric tonne unit in WO3 concentrate. Which is, now, perhaps $2,400 (which is insane, but there we are). An mtu, well, WTF? To get to the tungsten price divide by 8 (OK, OK, 7.92). So, $300 kg tungsten metal. The scrap price will be less than that, obviously and etc.
And, well, something that some do do. Firing ranges.
Lead has a value, most bullets are made of lead, a lot of bullets are fired at the range. There’s a big bank of earth behind the targets at the range to ensure we don’t hurt no kangaroo etc with bullets flying over the horizon. It does actually pay, every so often, to go dig out that bank of earth for the bullets embedded in it. Lead scrap has a price.
Can you see where this is going? Find the ranges they test their armour-piercing ordinance on and offer to dig out their bank behind the targets. Collect the tungsten scrap — and the lead, but separate them — and make bank on the vast, stupid, insane price of tungsten. Shovel, wheelbarrow, sieve, sweat, this works.
If we can find the shooting ranges they try their tungsten bullets out upon. Each bullet is going to be in the 3 to 7 grammes range, that sort of thing. So we’ll need 200 bullets to get a kg at $300 (less scrap discount!) which sounds like a lot. But if we find the ranges where they teach firing the .50 cal armour piercing machine gun rounds then … well, if they’ve not dug through that bank for a few years $$!!
March 25, 2026
Apache Arms Carbine: A Saga of Compliance and Crappy Manufacture
Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Nov 2025The Apache Arms carbine was a Thompson SMG lookalike that was made in small numbers in the late 1960s. It was the successor to the Spitfire carbine made by the same people, after the Spitfire was deemed a machine gun by the IRS. The Apache used M3 Grease Gun magazines and was chambered for .45 ACP. It uses a square receiver tube and many of the same cast parts as the Spitfire. It is a very interesting look at how the design was adapted to be legally considered semiautomatic.
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March 23, 2026
Canada’s NEW Rifle – the CMAR
The Armourer’s Bench
Published 22 Mar 2026The Canadian Armed Forces are set to adopt variants of Colt Canada’s MRR as the Canadian Modular Assault Rifle (CMAR). The announcement stated that more than 65,000 rifles will be procured over the next 5 years to replace the Colt Canada C7 rifles and C8 carbines currently in Canadian service.
Be sure to check out our accompanying article for this video here – https://armourersbench.com/2026/03/22/canada-adopts-new-rifle/
March 22, 2026
The Original AR-15: Serial Number 6 in Original Configuration
Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Nov 2025The very first AR15 rifles submitted to US government trials were extremely lightweight, with an assortment of interesting features that did not last long. They had top-mounted charging handles, one-piece hand guards, very thin barrels with plain muzzles, and a different safety selector configuration than became normal later one. Updates and modifications were made to virtually all of the original rifles, but today we have a chance to look at serial number 6 in the Springfield Armory collection — which is still in completely original configuration.
Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this truly unique specimen from their reference collection to film for you! Don’t miss the chance to visit the museum there if you have a day free in Springfield, Massachusetts: https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm
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March 21, 2026
The Complete Chieftain Tank
The Tank Museum
Published 20 Mar 2026Chieftain. The world’s first main battle tank. An icon of the Cold War, it served the British Army for more than 30 years. Yet, it had something of a Jekyll and Hyde reputation. It was prized for having the best gun in the world but, for the British, it never fired a shot in anger. Loved by gunners. Loathed by mechanics. The Chieftain was often referred to as the best tank in the world as long as it broke down in the right place.
But was the gun truly as good as the stats make it out to be? And was the engine really that bad? It’s time to take a dive into the heart of the Iron Triangle to find out.
00:00 | Introduction
00:36 | Gun
03:44 | Engine
06:19 | Armour
11:07 | Just Deserts
13:53 | A Tragic HeroIn this film, join James Donaldson as he delves into the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of the Chieftain tank. With a great gun, revolutionary armour, and a misunderstood engine, Chieftain’s service with the British ensured the Cold War never turned hot. And hear from Chieftain veterans, Bob and Steve, as they share their experiences with this iconic tank.
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Colt LE-901 Modular Multi-Caliber AR: A Well-Designed Failure
Forgotten Weapons
Published 29 Oct 2025Colt originally developed the 901 as part of the US Army SCAR program, with the intention being to create a 7.62x51mm rifle that could also use unmodified 5.56x45mm upper assemblies. This would allow special operations units to customize a single weapon to a variety of different configurations for different mission profiles. Mechanically, the system Colt devised to do this was quite clever, and very effective. However, the rifle ultimately failed to win a military contract.
Moved to civilian sales, the system was unsuccessful fundamentally because the modular concept is just not very desirable. A single modular rifle like this inevitably sacrifices some capability in every specific configuration in exchange for the modular capability and most people would rather have two dedicated rifles in different configurations than one swappable one. It sounds appealing on paper, but almost always fails economically in practice.
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March 18, 2026
SPAS-12: Franchi’s Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 Nov 2024Franchi introduced the Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun (SPAS-12) for Italian military and police agencies in 1979 and it quickly became popular worldwide. Based originally on the gas-operated Franchi 500, that SPAS-12 was robust, reliable, and designed as a semiautomatic action with a backup pump action operation for use with underpowered ammunition (like beanbags or other less-lethal loads). In 1982 they began to be imported into the US through FIE, which was replaced by AAI as the importer in 1989. Eventually the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban ended SPAS-12 importation, and Franchi discontinued the model in 2000 in favor of the improved SPAS-15.
The SPAS-12 was almost always sold with a 21.5 inch barrel and 8-round magazine tube. It was available with either a solid sock or a top-folding type, complete with arm brace hook for shooting one-handed from a vehicle. In total, between 45,000 and 50,000 were made between 1979 and 2000, with the largest single purchaser being the Egyptian government (which took 18,000 of them).
Full video on the SPAS 15:
• SPAS-15: Franchi’s Improvement on the SPAS-12
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March 17, 2026
The mine threat in the Straits of Hormuz
CDR Salamander discusses the naval situation in Iranian coastal waters as the threat of mines in the busy seaway helps deter civilian tanker traffic even more than existing drone and missile threat:
At the end of last week, things were a’buzz’n about ‘ole silent-but-deadly … MINES!
There is a lot of bad and in some places intentionally misleading reporting from traditional media on down over this weekend, so let’s do a quick summary.
Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf channel that carries 20 percent of the world’s oil, according to U.S. officials, an effort that could further complicate American efforts to restart shipping there.
While the U.S. military said it had destroyed larger Iranian naval vessels that could be used to quickly lay mines in the strait, Iran began using smaller boats for the operation on Thursday, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps can deploy hundreds, even thousands, of the small boats, which the Iranian force has long used to harass larger ships, including the U.S. Navy’s.
This quickly reminded everyone of a little event from the start of the year that had a memorable visual.
Via TWZ:
Four decommissioned U.S. Navy Avenger class mine countermeasures ships have left Bahrain on what may be their final voyage aboard a larger heavy lift vessel. Avengers had been forward-deployed to the Middle Eastern nation for years, where critical mine countermeasures duties have now passed to Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).
The public affairs office for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) and U.S. 5th Fleet first released pictures of the M/V Seaway Hawk, a contracted semi-submersible heavy lift vessel, carrying the former Avenger class ships USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator, and USS Sentry last Friday. The Navy released more images and a brief statement yesterday. The date stamps on the pictures show the Avengers were physically loaded onto the Seaway Hawk in Bahrain on January 9.
This had a second echo of a seapower past.
Battered and unseaworthy, HMS Middleton was dragged by tugs into Portsmouth naval base on Sunday.
The Hunt class mine countermeasures vessel (MCMV) returned to the home of the Royal Navy on March 8 after being brought back from the Gulf by a heavy-lift ship.
The ignominious piggy-back was cheaper than letting the more than 40-year-old ship make the 6,200-mile journey back from Bahrain under her own power and freed her crew to join other ships.
But her return after a journey that took weeks meant the end of the Royal Navy’s anti-mine vessel presence in the Middle East after almost 50 years. Only unmanned drone systems are left, according to the Navy.
Another metaphor, etc.
However, there is a worry that Iran might mine the Strait of Hormuz because it has been a concern — and occasionally a reality — for almost half a century.
