BFBS Forces News
Published 19 Oct 2024Say “7.62mm” when talking about rifle and machine gun rounds, and most people will think of the Nato cartridge that was introduced in 1954, but there’s a far older one that’s still in use – the 7.62x54mmR.
While the 7.62x51mm Nato cartridge was brought into service in 1954, the 7.62x54mmR dates back to 1891 in Imperial Russia.
Although this cartridge was developed in Russia, the “R” actually stands for “Rimmed” and this is what makes these two 7.62mm cartridges so different.
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February 1, 2025
A century of war: The cartridge that remains deadly on today’s battleground
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January 29, 2025
Canadians – “polite lunatics”
In The Line, Mitch Heimpel talks about a Canadian culture from a time before a Canadian PM could get away with maligning the country as having “no core identity”:
In recent days, The Line has spoken of the need for Canada to go “full psycho”. To “Make ‘Canada’s back’ a threat”. And, specifically, to recapture a Canadian identity that was, not long ago, widely shared — Canadians as scary and even dangerous. My own mind had been on similar topics of late, and I’d been thinking, specifically, about how those representations used to show up not just in our pop culture, but in American pop culture.
And in at least one place, you can find it still: Shoresy, a hilarious comedy show about Canadian hockey hosers that has found success on both sides of the border.
Shoresy is interesting not because it’s new, but almost because it’s retro. Once upon a time, the kind of Canadian identity shown in Shoresy was just … Canadian identity. Here’s a great example of what I mean that I suspect many readers will have seen: 1968’s The Devil’s Brigade, a film about the First Special Service Force, a joint Canadian-American unit that would become the forerunner to the American Green Berets. The film is a remarkable reflection of the attitudes that the two cultures had about each other. In one particular scene, after the Americans (predominantly tough guy actors Claude Akins and James Coburn) have spent days making sport of the Canadians, a new Canadian sergeant — played by Jeremy Slate — is introduced in a mess hall scene. Mild-mannered, lithe, and even bespectacled, the Sergeant sits down next to Akins and begins to insult him. He starts by literally elbowing the American bully for room at the table in the Mess and proceeds to call him a fat tub of lard.
Sgt. Patrick O’Neill (Jeremy Slate) in the mess hall scene in The Devil’s Brigade (1968).
Once Akins has had enough, he attacks the Canadian sergeant, who reveals himself to be the unit’s new hand-to-hand combat instructor, and proceeds to pummel Akins while barely smudging his glasses. After having bruised the American’s body, as well as his ego, he returns to dinner and punctuates it by asking Akins for the salt. Akins hands it over.
This was not a remarkable representation. The Americans used to view us as polite lunatics. This showed up not just in American media, but also our stories about ourselves. Characters like Slate’s sergeant Patrick O’Neill showed up in the songs of Stompin’ Tom, Ian Tyson, and even Gordon Lightfoot. They’re memorialized in the works of Robert Service and Al Purdy. Purdy, in particular, describes this archetype well, both in At the Quinte Hotel and in The Country North of Belleville:
backbreaking days
in the sun and rain
when realization seeps slow in the mind
without grandeur or self-deception in
noble struggle
of being a fool –A country of quiescence and still distance
a lean land
not like the fat south.In those few lines, Purdy captures Canadiana so easily. A people shaped by distance and the harshness of the land. Capable of the toughness needed to endure. With just a little foolishness mixed in for good measure.
Polite lunatics.
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January 27, 2025
The Bismarck‘s First Adventure – The Bismarck Part 1
World War Two
Published 26 Jan 2025At 02:00 on May 19, 1941, Germany’s most powerful battleship ever sets sail. Bismarck will sail out into the North Atlantic, evade the Royal Navy and tear apart Britain’s Atlantic convoys. At least that’s the plan … pretty soon things start to go wrong.
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January 21, 2025
January 19, 2025
Dozens of Dead Tiger Tanks at Prokhorovka? – Prokhorovka Part 6
World War Two
Published 18 Jan 2025As the dust settles on the fields of Prokhorovka, Indy takes a look at the losses suffered by the Red Army and the Waffen-SS. But we soon see that Rotmistrov and the Soviets have launched a calculated propaganda operation to distort the numbers and paint the battle as a crushing victory.
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January 18, 2025
The Battle of the Bulge, LGBTQ+ Victims & Atomic Secrets – WW2 – OOTF 038
World War Two
Published 17 Jan 2025This episode of Out of the Foxholes dives deep into your WWII questions. From LGBTQ+ persecution during and after the war, to the potential impact of diverting Battle of the Bulge troops to the Eastern Front, and Ukrainian collaboration with the Germans, we unravel the complexities of war. Join us as we tackle the secrets, strategies, and untold stories of WWII.
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January 13, 2025
Forgotten War – Ep 7 – Imphal ’44 Pt1 – Planning Prevents
HardThrasher
Published 12 Jan 2025DO NOT PANIC IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE OTHER VIDEOS IN THIS SERIES YOU CAN START HERE
A video discussing the planning phase of the Battles of Imphal and Kohima at the start of 1944
Please consider donations of any size to the Burma Star Memorial Fund who aim to ensure remembrance of those who fought with, in and against 14th Army 1941–1945 — https://burmastarmemorial.org/
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January 12, 2025
Waffen SS T-34s Go into Battle! – Prokhorovka Part 5
World War Two
Published 11 Jan 2025A shocking twist at Prokhorovka as the Germans unleash a new weapon — captured T-34s! As Das Reich tries to hold the line, these iconic Soviet tanks turn their guns on former comrades. On the other side of the Psel, Totenkopf‘s Tiger tanks lead the drive forward.
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January 5, 2025
Four Waffen SS Tigers vs 50 T-34s – Prokhorovka Part 4
World War Two
Published 4 Jan 2025A mass of Soviet armour charges at the Leibstandarte Division, it looks like they might smash through the German lines. Then, Michael Wittmann’s Tiger tanks go into action. Will the Waffen SS be able to turn the tide at Prokhorovka? Indy reveals all.
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January 4, 2025
Winning WW2’s Most Important Battle – Battle of the Atlantic
Historigraph
Published 15 Aug 2024The Second World War featured many important land battles on a colossal scale. They involved hundreds of thousands of participants, ranged across hundreds of miles and inflicted the most terrible destruction. But none of them were as long-running, as vast or as crucial to allied victory as that fought at sea in the Atlantic, where for four years Allied navies and civilian sailors fought a life or death struggle against Germany’s U-boats. This is the story of how it was fought, and how it was won.
00:00 – WW2’s most important battle
00:45 – The U-boat menace in the early years
08:53 – The massacre off the eastern seaboard
13:12 – American ship printer go brrrrrrrrr
19:31 – The Allies gain the upper hand
21:49 – Black May: the convoy battles of 1943
24:41 – The most important victory of WW2
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January 2, 2025
Forgotten War – Ep 6 – The Battle of the Admin Box – Feb. 1944
HardThrasher
Published 1 Jan 2025A short video on the highlights of the Battle of the Admin Box, and its build up DO NOT PANIC IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE OTHER VIDEOS IN THIS SERIES
Please consider donations of any size to the Burma Star Memorial Fund who aim to ensure remembrance of those who fought with, in and against 14th Army 1941–1945 — https://burmastarmemorial.org/
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Why Germany Lost the Battle of Britain
Real Time History
Published 2 Aug 2024Summer 1940. The United Kingdom is gripped by the fear of a German invasion. Even if the Luftwaffe secures the sky over Britain, could Germany’s Operation Sea Lion ever really work?
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December 31, 2024
“Britzkrieg” – Did British Tactics Help Create Blitzkrieg?
The Tank Museum
Published 30 Aug 2024Where did Blitzkrieg, the tactics that enabled Germany to conquer most of Europe in the first years of WW II come from?
Throughout the 1920s and into the ’30s, the German Army was forbidden from developing tanks or experimenting with armoured warfare, but in the same period, the British Army was at the forefront of mechanization and the use of armour on the battlefield.
In this film, we will look at how British tacticians like JFC Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart developed a new and revolutionary way of warfighting and how these principles were taken up and used to devastating effect by the German Army in 1939 and 1940.
00:00 | Intro
02:14 | A New Form of Warfare
04:12 | Plan 1919
07:54 | New Technology – Better Tanks
14:01 | Trials and Tribulations
17:10 | Partly There
20:12 | Fuller’s ChildrenThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
#tankmuseum
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December 29, 2024
Armies of the Soviet Union, Charge! – Prokhorovka Part 3
World War Two
Published 28 Dec 2024On the morning of July 12, 1943, the Battle of Prokhorovka begins! Pavel Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army charges into a storm of anti-tank fire from Paul Hausser’s Waffen SS divisions. As vehicles clash and burn, fierce hand-to-hand combat rages all around. In this episode, Indy takes you into the heart of the action as one of history’s most ferocious battles unfolds hour by hour.
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wz.35: Poland’s Remarkably Misunderstood Antitank Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published Aug 26, 2024In the 1930s, Poland decided to develop an anti-tank rifle, and the young designer Józef Maroszek came up with the winning system by scaling up a bolt-action service rifle he had already drawn up. The project was kept very secret, out of concern that Germany or Russia would up-armor their tanks if the Polish rifle’s existence and capabilities became known. This secrecy has led to a lot of misconceptions about the rifle today …
Interestingly, the ammunition for the wz.35 used a plain lead core. Polish engineers found that at its incredible 4200 fps (1280 m/s) muzzle velocity, the lead core had excellent armor penetrating capacity. When the German Army later captured and reused the rifles, they didn’t trust this, and reloaded captured Polish ammunition with German tungsten-cored projectiles made for the PzB-39.
Rather than explain the full story of the wz.35 in detail here, I will refer you to http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wz-35/, where I have posted a full monograph on the rifle written by Leszek Erenfeicht.
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