Forgotten Weapons
Published 29 Oct 2018Originally developed for use in light tanks purchased from Czechoslovakia, the Tankbuchse 41 was a 24x139mm semi-automatic rifle designed by Adolph Furrer of the Waffenfabrik Bern factory. Furrer was also responsible for the LMG-25 and MP41/44 used by the Swiss, and with the TB-41 he once again used the operating system he was most familiar with: a short recoil toggle-locked action. The gun was ready and adopted in 1941, and a total of 3,581 were produced, used in light tanks, lake patrol boats, fortifications, and on wheeled carriages by the infantry.
High explosive and armor piercing projectiles were made, both weighing 3475 grains (225g) and with muzzle velocities between 2800 and 2950 fps (860-900 fps). The armor piercing round could perforate 30cm of perpendicular armor plate at 500m — more than most other contemporary antitank rifles. Designed specifically for rapid fire, the gun fed from six-round magazines, and automatically ejected the magazine when the last round was chambered, so that the crew could reload it without having to run the crank handle. The guns never saw combat use, and by the end of World War Two were being pulled back out of inventory and relegated primarily to fortress use.
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November 7, 2023
Swiss Tankbuchse 41 Semi-automatic Antitank Rifle
November 6, 2023
The Army Door Knocker | Pak 35/36 | Anti-Tank Chats
The Tank Museum
Published 14 Jul 2023In this video, we look at the Pak 35/36, the German Army’s first anti-tank gun. Obsolete by 1941, it picked up the nickname Heeresanklopfgerat – the army door knocker – after its inability to penetrate tank armour. In spite of this, it carried on in service until 1945. Chris Copson talks you through the gun and its history.
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November 5, 2023
QotD: The Auftragstaktik principle of the Third Reich
[The Nazis], being Social Darwinists to the core, applied the military principle of Auftragstaktik to civilian life. “Mission-oriented” tactics means that the overall commanders leave as much as possible to the on-the-spot commanders, be they officers or noncoms, on the theory that properly-trained leaders will have a much better understanding of what needs to be done, and how to do it, than some general back at HQ. It’s the main reason the Wehrmacht could keep fighting so well, for so long, in the face of overwhelming opposition — tasks that would fall to an American company, or a Russian regiment, were often undertaken by a Wehrmacht platoon under the command of a senior corporal.
Obviously civilian life isn’t as goal-directed as the military in wartime, but a similar principle applied — given a vague set of generalized objectives from the top (Kershaw’s famous “working towards the Führer” thesis), everyone at every level was encouraged to move the ball downfield as he saw fit … with the added twist that, in the absence of a clearly defined, military-style chain of command, the various “subordinates” would ruthlessly battle it out with each other, Darwin-style, for bureaucratic supremacy.
Thus the Nazis’ infamous plate-of-spaghetti org charts. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure there were more than a few guys who held wildly different ranks in various different organizations simultaneously. He might be a mere patrolman in the Order Police, but an officer in the SS, a noncom in the SA (you could be in both, at least in the early days), and so forth. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more than one guy who technically reported to himself, somewhere deep in the bowels of the RHSA [Reich Security Main Office]. You could spend a lifetime trying to sort this stuff out …
Severian, “The Crisis of the Third Decade”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-03-18.
November 4, 2023
MKb-42(H) Assault Rifle with ZF-41 scope
Forgotten Weapons
Published 31 Aug 2014The MKb-42(H), or Maschinenkarabiner-42 (Haenel), was the first production iteration of the German Sturmgewehr. It was chambered for the then-new 8x33mm kurz cartridge, and fired both semiauto and full-auto from an open bolt. Approximately 11,000 of these were made before production changed to the closed-bolt MP43.
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November 3, 2023
Understanding Combined Arms Warfare
Army University Press
Published 24 Mar 2023Designed to support the U.S. Army Captains Career Course, “Understanding Combined Arms Warfare” defines and outlines the important aspects of modern combined arms operations. This is not a complete history of combined arms warfare. It is intended to highlight the most important aspects of the subject.
The beginning of the documentary establishes a common understanding of combined arms warfare by discussing doctrinal and equipment developments in World War I. The second part compares the development of French and German Army mechanization during the interwar period and describes how each country fared during the Battle of France in 1940. The film concludes by showing how the United States applied combined arms operations in the European Theater in World War II.
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November 1, 2023
The BAR M1918A3 by Ohio Ordnance – Shooting and Mechanism
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Jul 2014Today we’re looking at one of Ohio Ordnance’s semiauto M1918A3 BARs – how it shoots, how it works, and what the pros and cons of the military BAR variants were in World War I and World War II.
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October 29, 2023
The Battle of Leyte Gulf – WW2 – Week 270 – October 28, 1944
World War Two
Published 28 Oct 2023This is it — the big showdown between US and Japanese Navies, and the largest naval battle ever fought in terms of total tonnage. American landings on Leyte itself are still in progress, and the Soviets’ Debrecen Operation comes to its end.
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October 28, 2023
Smith versus Smith: US Army/Marine relations in 1944
World War Two
Published 27 Oct 2023When Marine Corps General Holland “Howling Mad” Smith removed Infantry General Ralph Smith from command in 1944 during the Battle of Saipan, it began a controversy that soon snowballed, threatening to sabotage Army-Marine relations at a time when cooperation was the key to victory.
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October 27, 2023
The Tale of Fat Man and Little Boy
World War Two
Published 26 Oct 2023Here near the end of 1944, we look at the development of the atomic bomb. What different methods of creating a nuclear reaction are being developed? How close are they to development? How does it work? Will they be able to make one in 1945? Will it go boom?
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October 24, 2023
See Inside The M3 Grant | Tank Chats Reloaded
The Tank Museum
Published 30 Jun 2023With a crew of six and a chaotically crowded interior, the Grant was a US-produced WW II tank more used by the British and Indian Armies than anyone else. Join Chris Copson as he explores probably the best preserved example of this rare vehicle – and listen out for the cheese sandwich …
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October 23, 2023
The RAF’s true workhorse fighter in the Battle of Britain – the Hawker Hurricane
William Loneskie sings the praises of the Hawker Hurricane, the main fighter plane of the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain in 1940:
Hawker Hurricane Mark I. This is the only airworthy Hurricane with a genuine Battle of Britain history. Since 2015 she has lodged with the Shuttleworth Collection and is seen displaying at the 2017 Season Premier Airshow at Old Warden, Bedfordshire, UK.
Photo by Alan Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.
In the popular mind it was the Supermarine Spitfire which carried the day for the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain. The grace of RJ Mitchell’s design was appreciated by the public as something very special, as it was for the pilots who flew it.
But it was the slower Hawker Hurricane which accounted for most of the German airmen killed in 1940 and destroyed most of their Heinkels, Junkers and Dorniers. Although nearly 200 Hurricanes had been lost in the Battle of France there were 32 squadrons of Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain compared with 19 of Spitfires.
By the time air battles commenced over England in 1940, the RAF had a secret weapon – BAM 100. This was British Air Ministry 100 octane fuel which had been developed and manufactured in the United States, bought for cash by the UK government, and shipped across the Atlantic by tankers. Compared with the previous 87 octane petrol, the new fuel boosted the speed of the Hurricane and the Spitfire by around 30mph. The Luftwaffe pilots were taken by surprise and couldn’t understand where the extra power came from until later in the war German technicians tested fuel from a downed aircraft.
Side by side the Spitfire and Hurricane, both powered by the iconic Rolls-Royce V12 Merlin, were very different. The Spitfire with its elliptical wing and perfect proportions “looked as if it could fly”, as Sergeant Cyril Bamberger of 610 and 41 squadrons said. But the Hurricane, if not quite an ugly duckling, had an ungainly appearance.
While the Spitfire was of all-metal construction, the Hurricane’s structure was a halfway house between fabric covered biplanes, such as the Gloster Gladiator, and all-aluminium monoplanes. An unintended consequence of the Hurricane’s fabric-covered fuselage was that German cannon shells could pass straight through without exploding. Its pilots soon realised that the Hurricane could take a lot of punishment, and the ground crews, the unsung heroes of the battle, could often repair the aircraft on station unlike the Spitfire, which was difficult to produce, maintain and repair.
Getting airborne in a squadron scramble, or landing on a grass airstrip, the Hurricane was safer than its compatriot because Camm had designed its undercarriage to open outwards, not inwards, making its track wider.
In the air the Hurricane shrugged off its ugly duckling appearance and became a killing machine. Flight Lieutenant Peter Brothers of 32 and 257 Squadrons said: “It was a superb combat aircraft … it was a better gun platform than the Spitfire”. Squadron Leader Tom Dalton Morgan said that, although he had flown more hours on the Spitfire, “as a fighting machine I preferred the Hurricane”.
The Hurricane could out-turn a Messerschmitt Bf109. Its turning radius of 785ft compared with 895ft for the German machine and 860ft for the Spitfire. The Hurricane’s thick wing allowed a different configuration of its eight .303 Browning guns giving a closer concentration of fire at a rate of 19 rounds per second.
October 22, 2023
SS Commando Coup in Hungary – WW2 – Week 269 – October 21, 1944
World War Two
Published 21 Oct 2023The Germans engineer a coup in Hungary to keep the Hungarian army in the war, but the Allies have finally entered Germany in force, taking Aachen in the west. The Soviets liberate Belgrade in the east, and launch new attacks in Baltics, and at the other end of the world come American landings in the Philippines, and the recall of Vinegar Joe Stilwell from China.
00:00 Intro
01:00 Recap
01:21 Raids on the Philippines
04:42 The Invasion of Leyte
06:11 Joe Stilwell is recalled from China
08:12 The Battle of Aachen
12:24 Battle of the Scheldt
14:03 Soviet attacks in the Baltics
16:23 Horthy’s fall- a coup in Hungary
19:45 Germans close in on Slovakia
21:55 Belgrade Liberated
24:47 Summary
25:01 Conclusion
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October 16, 2023
The Allied Rape Wave of 1944 – War Against Humanity 116
World War Two
Published 12 Oct 2023Since the earliest days of humanity, where there has been war, there has been rape. This war is no different. As vast armies battle across Europe, the chaos in their wake breeds an epidemic of rape. In its action and its punishment the European rape wave is also highly racialised. It adds up to a storm of suffering.
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October 15, 2023
The Isolation of Army Group North – WW2 – Week 268 – October 14, 1944
World War Two
Published 14 Oct 2023Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt meet at the Moscow Conference and talk about future “spheres of influence” in the Balkans. They also make plans for the future of Poland. In the field the Soviet Red Army completes the isolation of Army Group North and also advances in Hungary and Yugoslavia. The Allies enter Aachen in the west and cross the Rubicon in Italy. The Americans are still fighting the Japanese on Peleliu, and this week also make raids against Japanese airfields ahead of next week’s invasion of the Philippines.
01:00 Recap
01:22 The Moscow Conference begins
03:43 Isolating Army Group North
06:29 Soviet advances toward Belgrade
08:14 The Debrecen Operation
13:20 Horthy and Hungary
14:30 Chiang Kai-shek accuses Joe Stilwell
16:19 American raids on Formosa
19:29 The fight for Peleliu continues
20:01 Antwerp and Aachen
22:01 The Allies cross the Rubicon
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October 13, 2023
Elvira, the Party Girl Double Agent
World War Two
Published 11 Oct 2023She’s the gambler with a hotline to the Abwehr. The party girl tearing up the London social scene. Now she’s doing her bit to hold back the Panzer divisions and pave the way for D-Day. This is the story of Elvira Concepcion Josefina de la Fuente Chaudoir, Double Cross’s most flamboyant double agent.
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