The Tank Museum
Published Dec 29, 2023Chris Copson takes a detailed look inside and out, of arguably the most advanced German tank of WW2 … the Panther.
Is the Panther the formidable opponent that is was made out to be? Would the allies use such a vehicle and was it over engineered? Find out in today’s video.
00:00 Intro
00:54 Overview – Our Panther
02:41 War time variants & armour
06:06 Design
08:30 Weaponry
10:18 Crew, equipment and flaws – a look inside
17:53 Performance & conclusion
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April 4, 2024
See Inside Panther | Tank Chats Reloaded
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April 3, 2024
The Flying Saucer Designed To Ram Soviet Bombers | Avro Canada Silver Bug
Rex’s Hangar
Published Dec 29, 2023Today we’re taking a look at a concept “aircraft” developed in the 1950s, the Avro Canada Silver Bug — part of a long line of flying discs drawn up by designer John Frost.
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April 2, 2024
Gear-Ratio-Accelerated? Yep, It’s a Thing: French MAT 1955 Prototype
Forgotten Weapons
Published Dec 20, 2023EDIT: Shoot, I managed to get the gear ratio backwards. Sorry! The recoil action provides the necessary delay, and then the gear ratio provides acceleration to ensure the bolt can open reliably, akin to the accelerator in a Browning M1917 or 1919 machine gun, or a Lahti L35 pistol. Please excuse the error …
In the search for an improvement to the MAS 1949 rifle for the French military, all the French arsenals proposed new designs. MAS supplied an updated version that was ultimately adopted as the MAS 49/56, but the Tulle Arsenal (MAT) had a wacky idea of its own. In 1955, they presented a short-recoil, tilting bolt, gear-ratio-delayed system. It was an open bolt firing rifle chambered for the 7.5x54mm cartridge, using detachable 20-round magazines. Today we have one of the first models to look at, and there was a second iteration in 1956, which lightened the rifle by replacing some steel parts with aluminum. Neither was successful, much to the relief of the French Army …
Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film this unique rifle for you!
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March 31, 2024
HMS Unicorn (I72) – Guide 367
Drachinifel
Published Dec 23, 2023The Unicorn, a fleet maintenance carrier of the British Royal Navy, is today’s subject.
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March 30, 2024
Extra Firepower for Vietnam: the Aussie “B!tch”
Forgotten Weapons
Published Dec 18, 2023Many of the special forces groups that operated during the Vietnam War found their standard issue weapons a bit unwieldy for use in confined jungle environments. They also found a need for something that could deliver an immediate large volume of fire to break contact during an ambush (or deliver an ambush of their own). The Australians were no exception, and with the typical Special Forces attitude towards customization a few guys made some improvements to what they were issued …
What we have today is a recreation (by Mark Graham of ARS, build on a DSA semiauto receiver) of an Australian L1A1 with its flash hider cut down and a second pistol grip mounted to the barrel. The real examples of these often had rather shorter barrels, and ones that began life as semiauto L1A1 rifles were typically converted to fully automatic (some began as L2A1 automatic rifles and did not require this extra step). Fitted with a large LMG magazine, they could deliver a lot of firepower in a very short time; just the ticket for a small jungle patrol.
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March 28, 2024
Justin Trudeau never misses an opportunity to make a performative announcement, even if it harms Canadian interests
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an announcement last week that the Canadian government was cutting off military exports to Israel … except that Canada buys more military equipment from Israel than vice-versa:
Israeli Spike LR2 antitank missile launchers, similar to the ones delivered to the Canadian Army detachment in Latvia in February.
Wikimedia Commons.
When the Trudeau government publicly cut off military exports to Israel last week, the immediate reaction of the Israeli media was to point out that Canada’s military was far more dependent on Israeli tech than was ever the case in reverse.
“For some reason, (Foreign Minister Melanie Joly) forgot that in the last decade, the Canadian Defense Ministry purchased Israeli weapon systems worth more than a billion dollars,” read an analysis by the Jerusalem Post, which noted that Israeli military technology is “protecting Canadian pilots, fighters, and naval combatants around the world.”
According to Canada’s own records, meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces were only ever purchasing a fraction of that amount from Canadian military manufacturers.
In 2022 — the last year for which data is publicly available — Canada exported $21,329,783.93 in “military goods” to Israel.
This didn’t even place Israel among the top 10 buyers of Canadian military goods for that year. Saudi Arabia, notably, ranked as 2022’s biggest non-U.S. buyer of Canadian military goods at $1.15 billion — more than 50 times the Israeli figure.
What’s more — despite Joly adopting activist claims that Canada was selling “arms” to Israel — the Canadian exports were almost entirely non-lethal.
“Global Affairs Canada can confirm that Canada has not received any requests, and therefore not issued any permits, for full weapon systems for major conventional arms or light weapons to Israel for over 30 years,” Global Affairs said in a February statement to the Qatari-owned news outlet Al Jazeera.
The department added, “the permits which have been granted since October 7, 2023, are for the export of non-lethal equipment.”
Even Project Ploughshares — an Ontario non-profit that has been among the loudest advocates for Canada to shut off Israeli exports — acknowledged in a December report that recent Canadian exports mostly consisted of parts for the F-35 fighter jet.
“According to industry representatives and Canadian officials, all F-35s produced include Canadian-made parts and components,” wrote the group.
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March 27, 2024
Weirdest of the French Trials SMGs: the EROP 1954
Forgotten Weapons
Published Dec 15, 2023“EROP” was a small company based in Paris, which produced about 18 submachine gun prototypes between 1954 and 1956. These were submitted to French military trials in several different configurations first in 1954 and later in 1956, and none of them were given any further consideration after that.
Mechanically, the EROP guns are closed-bolt and striker-fired, using modified MP40 magazines (and chambered for 9mm Parabellum). They use a small square-profile tubular receiver, and several (including this particular one) have a very perplexing buttstock system that I really can’t figure out.
Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film this unique SMG for you!
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March 25, 2024
WWII Allied Vehicles – Universal Carrier
Ontario Regiment Museum
Published Jan 26, 2022This multi-part series was originally created in support of our friends at D-Day Conneaut for presentation during their live stream in 2020.
In part 5 the Museum’s Operation Manager Dan Acre details the history of a Canadian-made WWII vehicle, the Universal Carrier. (Please forgive the sound quality, it was one of the first videos we produced in the early stages of the pandemic.)
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March 24, 2024
Gahendra: the Nepalese Not-A-Martini
Forgotten Weapons
Published Jul 8, 2018(This video has been updated from its original form to fix translation issues and to clarify that Nepal was not, in fact, a British colony. Originally published January 10, 2017.)
Long a mysterious unknown member of the Martini family, the Nepalese Gahendra rifles finally became available in the US and Europe after IMA purchased Nepal’s cache of historic arms. The Gahendra is a uniquely Nepalese design built to sidestep British reluctance to supply military arms to the country. Developed by a General Gahendra (who is also responsible for the Bira copy of the Gardner Gun), the rifle is not actually a Martini at all. Instead, it shares its mechanical features mostly with the earlier Peabody falling block rifles, using a hammer and flat mainspring (the Martini improvement replaces there with a striker and coil spring).
Gahendras are chambered for the standard British .577/.450 Martini cartridge, although their bore diameters vary substantially, and one should absolutely slug a specific rifle before loading ammunition for it. In fact, unless you are capable of proficiently assessing the safety of the Gahendra, it is wiser not to shoot them at all. These rifles were individually handmade well over a hundred years ago using steels of questionable metallurgy and hardening.
That said, the guns were actually much better made than most people assume, considering their non-interchangeable parts. Craftsmen built each rifle part by part, giving the factory an output of just four rifles per day. Production began in the 1880s, and according to the Nepalese government ended prior to 1899. Dates on the rifles, however, are commonly found as late as 1911. These dates are generally assumed to be inventory or refurbishment dates.
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March 22, 2024
Char B1 V Panzer III | Size doesn’t matter – it’s how you use it!
The Tank Museum
Published Dec 15, 2023Two tanks that fought against each other in the early part of World War Two. On one side, the heavily armoured French Char B1 … on the other, the mobile German Panzer III. On paper it’s no contest – but what actually happened when these two tanks fought it out in 1940?
00:00 | Intro
00:49 | Char B1 History
02:16 | Radio Communications
02:45 | Panzer III Crew
03:43 | Char B1 Crew
05:16 | Char B1 V Panzer III
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March 21, 2024
French NATO Standardization: the MAS 49-56 in 7.62mm
Forgotten Weapons
Published May 27, 2019In the late 1950s, France was still part of the NATO integrated military structure. When the 7.62x51mm cartridge was adopted as standard for the alliance, France looked to be in a good position to simply convert their MAS 49-56 rifles to use it. After all, the 7.5mm cartridge the rifle was designed for was very similar to the new NATO round. After several years of trials, however, the project was dropped as impractical. It turned out that the much different pressure curve of the 7.62mm round would require significant redesign of the MAS rifles. They suffered from poor extraction, broken parts from high bolt velocity, and other issues (not coincidentally, the exact same problems reported with the 308 MAS 49-56 rifles imported by Century …). The St Etienne factory only made a total of 150 of them in 7.62x51mm before the project ended.
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March 18, 2024
Moore’s Patent Revolver (Swing-Out Cylinder)
Forgotten Weapons
Published Feb 13, 2015Manufactured in Brooklyn from 1861 until 1863, Moore’s revolver was a 7-shot single-action piece firing .32 rimfire cartridges. What makes it unique is its swing-out cylinder design — the first commercial revolver in the US to use this mechanism. A latch on the back of the frame released the entire barrel and cylinder assembly, allowing it to tip over to the right, exposing the chambers for loading and unloading. The ejector rod is stored under the barrel, but must be removed and used by hand when needed. Moore’s revolvers were popular with New Yorkers heading off to the Civil War and almost 8000 were made, but production was halted when Rollin White successfully sued for patent infringement (over his patent on the bored-though cylinder).
http://www.forgottenweapons.com
Theme music by Dylan Benson – http://dbproductioncompany.webs.com
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March 15, 2024
Starr DA & SA Revolvers
Forgotten Weapons
Published Feb 4, 2015Starr revolvers are one of the less recognized designs used in the US Civil War, although tens of thousands of them were made and issued. Indeed, in many ways they were superior to the much more common Colt and Remington revolvers of the period. One of the interesting facts about the Starr is that the double action design came first, and was only replaced with the more typical single action design several years into the war (due to problems with price and complexity). Today we’re taking a look at a pair of Starrs, one single action and one double action. Ultimately the company shut down after the end of the war, and Colt would go on to dominate the revolver market in the United States.
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March 12, 2024
Vektor CP-1: Recalled to the Mother Ship
Forgotten Weapons
Published Dec 8, 2023The Vektor CP-1 was developed by Lyttleton Engineering Works (who owned the Vektor brand) in 1995 for a South African Police contract. They lost that contract to the Republic Arms RAP-401, but decided to put the CP-1 onto the civilian market instead. It was a pretty decent seller for them, and after a couple years they started importing it into the US. Things went bad when it turned out the the gun wasn’t quite drop-safe, and in late 2000 they were recalled for a repair. Some were repaired and returned to owners, but a great many were simply repurchased by Vektor instead. In light of the recall and potential future problems with the US legal outlook, Vektor USA was dissolved circa 2001.
Mechanically, the CP1 is a gas-delayed blowback pistol in 9mm Parabellum. It came with 12- and 13-round magazines (10 rounds in the US, because of the Assault Weapons Ban). It was hammer fired, and used a polymer frame (the first such made in South Africa). Its futuristic design lines are very deliberate, and its biggest shortcoming is a fairly heavy trigger, for being single action only. It has a somewhat unorthodox trigger safety, and also a Garand-style manual safety in the front of the trigger guard.
In today’s video, we will take a look at both an original configuration example and also one rebuilt after the recall, with a new firing pin block mechanism.
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March 9, 2024
1871 Spencer Rifle Conversion
Forgotten Weapons
Published Nov 12, 2014The Spencer repeating rifle was a major leap forward in infantry firepower, and more than one hundred thousand of them were purchased by the US military during the Civil War. The Spencer offered a 7-round magazine of rimfire .56 caliber cartridges in an era when the single-shot muzzle-loading rifle was still predominant. This particular Spencer is a long rifle which was one of roughly 1100 rebuilt from damaged carbines in 1871 at Springfield Arsenal.
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