Forgotten Weapons
Published Mar 11, 2015As the Second World War started to really take a toll on German industrial production, several companies started to work on alternatives to the P38 handgun in an effort to reduce production cost and time. This is one such example made by Walther, with a normal type of milled slide and an experimental frame made from stamped sheet steel. It uses a rotating barrel mechanism taken from Nickl (and the Steyr-Hahn before him), and uses standard P38 magazines. None of these designs actually made it into production before the end of the war.
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May 8, 2024
Walther Volkspistole
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May 6, 2024
James Holland | Top 5 Tanks | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published Oct 4, 2019WW2 Historian James Holland came to The Tank Museum to choose his Top 5 Tanks. Unsurprisingly they are all from the Second World War!
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May 5, 2024
M98kF1 ZF41: Norway Recycles Germany’s Worst Sniper Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 29, 2024When Germany capitulated at the end of World War Two, several hundred thousand German soldiers were stuck in Norway (thanks to the efforts of the Norwegian Resistance preventing them from moving south to reinforce against Allied landings in Normandy). These solders’ arms were surrendered to the Norwegians, and they formed the basis of Norwegian Army and Home Guard armaments for many years. With hundreds of thousands of K98k rifles to choose from, the Norwegians were able to pick out plenty in good condition. This included 400 ZF41 DMR/sniper rifles that were kept intact and taken into Norwegian service. Three different branches used the rifles, and they are marked on the chamber with either HAER (Army), FLY (Air Force), or K.ART (Naval Artillery).
In 1950, Norway began to get US military aid in .30-06, and they decided to rebarrel these Mausers to that cartridge. The process began in 1952 and they were all converted by the end of 1956. The new barrels are marked “KAL 7.62”, for 7.62x63mm. There was only a small amount of experimental further conversion to 7.62mm NATO. The ZF-41 models like this one were also given a new serial number tag riveted onto the scope mount with the rifle’s serial number (150001 through 150400).
Converted Mausers served in the Home Guard until the early 1970s, when they were replaced by the AG3 (HK91).
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May 3, 2024
The History of Half-tracks, by the Chieftain
World War Two
Published 2 May 2024Is it a tank? Is it a truck? No, it’s a half-track! Nicholas Moran aka “The Chieftain” stops by to cover this Frankenstein of a vehicle. He looks at their origins at the turn of the twentieth century, their heyday as troop transporting, artillery towing, flak gunning, jacks-of-all-trades during the war, and their sudden decline after the war.
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April 29, 2024
Battle Rifles of World War Two: Overview
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 26, 2024Today we are going to take a look at the three main battle rifles of World War Two — the M1 Garand, the SVT-40, and the Gewehr 43. We will also consider the SVT-38, Gewehr 41(W), and Gewehr 41(M). The United States, Soviet Union, and Germany were the three countries that fielded large numbers of semiautomatic full-power rifles in combat in WW2; how did they differ in their approaches to infantry firepower?
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April 26, 2024
Guns for the Pope’s Police: Mazzocchi Pinfire Revolver
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 22, 2024The revolver we are looking at today is a 9mm pinfire revolver adopted for the Papal Gendarmerie in 1868. At that time, the Papal States controlled roughly the same amount of territory as Switzerland today, and had its own armed forced for internal security — the Papal Gendarmerie. The Papal States had previously adopted a 12mm Lefaucheux revolver for its army, but this was deemed too bulky for the Gendarmes. So in 1867, they went looking for a smaller new pistol. The Mazzocchi brothers in Rome had been official armorers to the Vatican for three generations (their shop was actually located in Castel St Angelo until 1850!), and they won the contract for the Gendarmerie with this revolver model. A total of 2500 were made in 1868 and 1869, at 50 Papal Lira each.
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April 25, 2024
The Handley Page Hampden; A Plane for Fat Shaming
Ed Nash’s Military Matters
Published Apr 29, 2022One of the key British bombers at the start of the war, the Hampden was eclipsed by its more successful equivalent, the Vickers Wellington, and the later four-engine “heavies”. But it is worth remembering for the role it played in developing the RAF’s experience and methods during WW2.
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April 23, 2024
The 1950 Marketing Contest to Name the S&W Chiefs Special
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 19, 2024Today we’re taking a look at a Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special, but not just any Chiefs Special. This is serial number 29, factory engraved and gifted to Chief Edward Boyko of Passaic New Jersey in 1950. When S&W introduced the new revolver to compete with Colt’s Detective Special, they simply called it the “Model J” (it was the first of the J-frame S&W revolvers). They released it at the 1950 annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and ran a contest among to attendees to name the new gun.
Chief Edward Boyko’s suggestion of “Chiefs Special” was (perhaps unsurprisingly, given the audience) voted winner, and S&W gave him a personally engraved example as a prize. He would carry that gun for another 10 years as Passaic Chief of Police before retiring in 1960.
The Chiefs Special was essentially a slightly scaled-up I-frame revolver, strengthened to handle the .38 Special cartridge instead of the previous .38 S&W option. This extremely early example has a number of features not present on standard production guns, including the small trigger guard, large cylinder release latch, and semi-circular front sight.
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April 21, 2024
QotD: The “omni-spear” of the Mediterranean World
So I first want to suggest a set of basic characteristics for what I am going to term the “omni-spear“, the standard kind of iron-tipped one-handed thrusting spear that almost everyone fought with in the Mediterranean world.
So let us posit a spear. Its haft is made of wood – our ancient sources tend to be particular that certain kinds of wood, particularly ash and cornelian cherry (cornel wood), are best – and about 2.5 to 3m in length and roughly 2.5cm in diameter. Obviously, on one end we’ll have our iron spear head. On the other end, we probably have a smaller iron spear butt, sometimes called a ferrule.
For our spear tip, we’re going to have a hunk of iron about 250-450g in mass. It’s going to have a circular socket, about 2 to 2.5cm in diameter (to fit the haft) at its base. That socket will then proceed upwards into the tip as a “mid-ridge”, though it generally stops being entirely hollow at some point. In two directions from the mid-ridge are going to project some “blades” – if we’re French, we’ll call them flamme, “flames”, while if we’re Spanish they’ll be hoja, “blades”, and if we’re German they’re Blätter, “sheets, leaves”. These taper at the tip and widen towards the base, usually before curving gracefully inward on the socket a few inches up from its base. Often scholars have called this a “leaf shaped” spearhead, which I always find a bit awkward in phrasing (leaves can have many shapes), but the alternatives, like “tear-drop” shaped, aren’t any less awkward. If you are having a hard time conceptualizing that picture, here is an example of what I mean.
For the bottom of the spear we could just go with nothing. We could also make a simple conical socket in iron and secure it with a rivet or, if we’re being really creative, a nail hammered into the base of the shaft. If we want to be really fancy, we might make a spear-butt that combines a circular socket with a long square-sectioned projection so that it serves better as a backup point in a pinch. If you want to see the more developed version of that, here is a Greek “sauroter“, about the most elaborate this part of the spear gets.
And there we go. We have the “omni-spear”. Basic spear-butt, “leaf-shaped” spearhead with a strong mid-ridge, both generally in iron, joined by a 2.5-3m long wooden haft, about 2.5cm thick (though the haft might be thicker, as it could taper before meeting the socket) made of hardwood, with a grip at the center of balance.
That basic description describes the famous Greek dory, the spear of the hoplite. It also describes one of the more common forms of the Roman hasta, one with what I’ve termed a “Type A” Roman spearhead. And it also describes the La Tène spear, the native name of which we don’t know.1 And it also describes common thrusting spears of the Iberian Peninsula, both those used by the Iberians living in the coastal Levante and the Celtiberian peoples living on the Meseta; the names of those spears too are lost to us.2 And it also describes the common weapon of the Persian infantry, including their elite infantry which Herodotus calls “Immortals”. Almost certainly it describes spears even further afield, but we are rapidly reaching the edge of my expertise, so I’ll stop with the Persian Empire.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: The Mediterranean Iron Omni-Spear”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2023-11-10.
1. And before you jump up to tell me “oh, it was called a gaesum“, no, that’s a javelin and we do not know what sort of javelin correlates to that name preserved in our sources.
2. And before someone jumps up and tells me, “oh, it was called a soliferreum, no, that’s also a javelin and we do know exactly what sort of javelin that correlates to. They’re super cool, but they are throwing weapons, not thrusting spears. Interestingly, all over the Iberian peninsula it seems to have been standard for warriors to carry one javelin (often, but not always a soliferreum) and one thrusting spear. We find that pattern over and over again in burial deposits.
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April 17, 2024
French M14 Conversion – the Gras in 8mm Lebel
Forgotten Weapons
Published May 16, 2016The French adopted the Gras as their first mass-issued metallic cartridge rifle in 1874, replacing the needlefire 1866 Chassepot. Quite a lot of Gras rifles were manufactured, and they became a second-line rifle when the 1886 Lebel was introduced with brand-new smokeless powder and its smallbore 8mm projectile. When it became clear that the quick and decisive war against Germany was truly turning into the Great War, France began looking for ways to increase the number of modern Lebel rifles it could supply to the front.
One option that was used was to take Gras rifles from inventory and rebarrel them for the 8mm Lebel cartridge (which was based on the Gras casehead anyway). These could be issued to troops who didn’t really need a top-of-the-line rifle (like artillery crews, train and prison guards, etc). Then the Lebel rifles from those troops could be redirected to the front.
The rebarreling process was done by a number of contractors, using Lebel barrels already in mass production. The 11mm barrel from the Gras would be removed, and only the front 6 inches (150mm) or so kept. A Lebel barrel and rear sight would be mounted on the Gras receiver, and that front 6 inches of Gras barrel bored out to fit tightly over the muzzle of the new 8mm barrel. This allowed the original stock and nosecap to be used (the 8mm barrel being substantially smaller in diameter, and not fitting the stock and hardware by itself). It also allowed the original Gras bayonet to be fitted without modification, since the bayonet lug was also on that retained section of barrel. In addition, a short wooden handguard was fitted. This was designated the modification of 1914, and an “M14” was stamped on the receivers to note it.
These guns are of dubious safety to shoot, since the retain the single locking lug of the Gras, designed for only black powder pressures. However, this was deemed safe enough for the small amount of actual shooting they were expected to do.
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April 14, 2024
Elmer Keith’s Revolver Number 5
Forgotten Weapons
Published Feb 28, 2015Elmer Keith’s No.5 Single Action Army is arguably the most famous custom revolver ever made. Keith had it built in 1928 after developing a friendship with Harold Croft, another revolver enthusiast. Croft had shown Keith his own custom revolvers, which he had numbered 1 through 4. Croft had been trying to make an ideal pocket gun, and Keith used several of his ideas along with some of Keith’s own to put together a revolver for general-purpose field use. In recognition of Croft’s work, Keith called his gun Number 5. It featured an extended flat top with windage-adjustable sights, an improved mainspring, redesigned cylinder pin, custom hammer spur, and modified Bisley grip. It was chambered for the .44 Special/.44 Russian cartridges (the Russian being a slightly shorter version of the Special), and it was Keith’s favorite shooting piece until the .44 Magnum cartridge was introduced in the late 1950s. He described this gun in detail in a 1929 American Rifleman article entitled “The Last Word”.
http://www.forgottenweapons.com
Theme music by Dylan Benson – http://dbproductioncompany.webs.com
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April 12, 2024
FURY – How a Museum with a Sherman Made a Movie
The Tank Museum
Published Jan 5, 2024If you enjoyed the 2014 movie FURY, watch this and get the inside scoop behind The Tank Museum’s role in David Ayer’s Hollywood production. Ten years on from its release, David Willey describes how one of The Tank Museum’s Shermans and Tiger 131 took starring roles alongside Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal. From initial discussions to the red carpet, David reveals every inch of the process, the lessons learned and the impact it has had on The Tank Museum.
Let us know what you thought of FURY and our tank’s performance in it in the comments below… What else would you like to know?
00:00 | Intro
00:50 | Fury – The Beginning
02:48 | Tiger Inquiries
05:00 | Insurance & Contracts
08:06 | Hollywood in Dorset
09:51 | On Set & Filming
14:55 | Was it worth it?
16:34 | Fury’s Longevity
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April 11, 2024
SVT-40: The Soviet Standard Semiauto from WW2
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 10, 2024The Red Army was interested in developing a semiautomatic rifle clear back to the mid 1920s, and they spent about 15 years running trials and development programs to find one. First in 1930 a Degtyarev design was adopted, followed by the Simonov AVS-36, and then Tokarev won out in 1938 with the SVT-38. Combat experience in the Winter War led to an upgrade program to reduce the weight of the rifle, and that created the SVT-40. Between April 1940 and mid 1942, about 1.4 million SVT-40s were produced in three different factories. They were supposed to be the new standard infantry rifle and also the sniper’s rifle — although they ultimately failed to really be either.
In 1942, production shifted to the AVT-40, identical to the SVT-40 but with a trigger group capable of fully automatic fire. Another roughly 500,000 of these were produced by the end of the war, but the focus of small arms issue had changed to Mosins and submachine guns — options that were a lot cheaper to produce.
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April 8, 2024
Beecher’s Bible: A Sharps 1853 from John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 8, 2024On October 16, 1859 John Brown and 19 men left the Kennedy farmhouse and made their way a few miles south to the Harpers Ferry Arsenal. They planned to seize the Arsenal and use its arms — along with 200 Sharps 1853 carbines and 1,000 pikes they had previously purchased — to ignite and arm a slave revolt. Brown was a true fanatic for the abolitionist cause, perfectly willing to spill blood for a just cause. His assault on the Arsenal lasted three days, but failed to incite a rebellion. Instead of attracting local slaves to his banner, he attracted local militia and the US Marines. His force was besieged in the arsenal firehouse, and when the Marines broke through the doors they captured five surviving members of the Brown party, including Brown himself. All five were quickly tried and found guilty of murder, treason, and inciting negroes to riot. They were sentenced to death, and hanged on December 2, 1859.
Most of Brown’s 200 Sharps carbines were left in the farmhouse hideout, to be distributed when the insurrection took hold. These were found by local militia, among them the Independent Greys, and some were kept as souvenirs — including this example.
There is an intriguing historical question as to whether Brown’s raid was ultimately good for the country or not. It was extremely divisive at the time, and it can be argued that the raid was a major factor leading to Lincoln’s election and the Civil War. Could slavery have been abolished without the need for a cataclysmic war if John Brown had not fractured the Democratic Party? To what extent is killing for a cause justifiable? Do the ends always justify the means? John Brown had no doubts about his answers to these questions … but maybe he should have.
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April 5, 2024
Ero: The Croatian Uzi (With Israeli Help?)
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jan 3, 2024The best of the submachine guns made in Croatia during the Homeland War was the Ero, made by a company called Arma. The Ero is a basically perfect, parts-interchangeable copy of the Israeli Uzi that was developed in 1992 and adopted into Croatian Army service in 1993. The only really distinguishable difference between the Ero and Uzi is the Ero’s use of Croatian-language selector markings (and receiver markings). Between 15,000 and 20,000 were produced, and they remained in service long after Croatian independence was secured. They were issued to vehicle crews, military police, special forces, and reconnaissance units.
Arma was a subsidiary of a major Croatian engineering firm, and after the Ero production it developed the APS-95 Croatian AK (which is a story for another video). They were a very competent company, but the details and quality of the Ero are so good that I believe it must have been made with tacit or explicit assistance from Israel. Croatia does have a strong Jewish community, and there were rumors during the war that the technical data package for the Uzi did find its way into Croatia. There is no official acknowledgement of this happening, but it would certainly not be hard to believe. But however the development happened, the result was a very high quality submachine gun.
A big thanks to the Croatian Police Museum (Muzej Policije) in Zagreb for giving me access to film this cool piece for you! Check them out at: https://muzej-policije.gov.hr
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