Forgotten Weapons
Published 20 Jun 2026The FN MAG is one of those guns that is so durable and well designed that it continues to be one of the best options in its field despite being nearly 70 years old. To meet the demand for mounting larger and heavier optics, particularly night-time clip on sorts, FN developed a long rail kit. This sounds like a pretty straight-forward thing, but adding lots of extra optics to the top cover has a number of second-order issues. To solve them all, the kit includes a strengthened hinge mechanism, overtravel stop, articulated barrel handle, and adjustable-length buttstock. The stock by itself is called the FN MAG Tactical, with the rest of the kit coming as a package. It is able to mount to any existing MAG, including all models of US M240 and British L7/GPMG.
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October 23, 2026
FN MAG Tactical with Long Rail Upgrade Kit
October 11, 2026
The end of colonial Africa
Celina reviews a 1960s film I’d never heard of, and having read her review I can understand why it has been forgotten because it tells a brutal tale as the colonial European powers withdrew from their former colonies in Africa far too often leaving the newly independent peoples to settle old scores in bloody civil conflicts:
The 1966 Italian documentary Africa Addio (Goodbye Africa), directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi of Mondo Cane fame, is a must-see for absolutely anyone who wants to understand the realities of African governance. Filmed in Kenya, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Angola, the Belgian Congo, and South Africa between 1963 and 1965, Africa Addio captures the bloody upheavals accompanying the end of White colonial rule across much of the continent. It chronicles the withdrawal of the British and Belgian colonial powers, alongside Portugal’s efforts to retain its African colonies and White South Africans’ determination to preserve their rule.
The film itself is bewildering at moments, for much of the film a camera is mounted in a light aircraft, capturing the serenity of the azure waters and brilliant white sands of the Zanzibar archipelago. The visual splendour of the landscape is overwhelming in its beauty, it evokes the pristine imagery of a mid-century travelogue designed for European consumption.
Nevertheless, as the aircraft gradually descends, the white sands are revealed to be peppered by dark, irregular shapes. As the telephoto lens finds its focus, the visual abstraction resolves into a horrifying, incontrovertible reality. The idyllic beaches are entirely strewn with the corpses of hundreds of Arab and Indian civilians, the victims of the January 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.
Screenshot from the film Africa Addio. 19 January 1964. Arab civilians attempting to flee revolutionaries.
Screenshot from the film Africa Addio. 20 January 1964. Bodies of Arab civilians at low tide, caught while trying to flee Zanzibar.
Accompanying this almost god-like, detached aerial survey of mass slaughter is the melancholic, and achingly beautiful orchestral score of the celebrated Italian composer Riz Ortolani.
This startling juxtaposition, which is only one of many in the film, feels immensely unsettling with the sheer, unfathomable scale of human atrocity paired with the romantic elegance of European orchestration. It encapsulates the disturbing essence of Africa Addio.
The opening sections focus primarily on Kenya. We see a series of trials of Mau Mau terrorists and their accomplices, who massacred White families and mutilated their cattle, and for some inexplicable reason also tortured and hung wild baboons. Most were sentenced to life in prison for these egregious crimes. A few years later, Jomo Kenyatta, the anti-colonial activist who served as Kenya’s Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964, pardoned the Mau Mau criminals.
[…]
If you decide to watch Africa Addio today, you will subject yourself to a gruelling, psychologically taxing endurance test of historical horror. The film explicitly positions itself as a visual archive of decolonisation in motion, capturing the violent and often utterly merciless transition from European empire to African independence.
After watching this film, you realise that it is a genuine civilisational artefact, yet somehow it still feels wrong to watch. It forces the viewer to confront the terrifying speed with which order can evaporate when a European hegemon suddenly withdraws. Through its seemingly endless catalogue of massacres, mercenary warfare, political assassinations, and ecological devastation, Africa Addio becomes an uncompromising mirror of the anxieties surrounding the collapse of the European imperial order.
[…]
The film highlights the horrific brutality of the new African order emerging across the continent. In conflicts such as the Congo rebellion, insurgents receiving Soviet-bloc or Communist Chinese support terrorised White civilians. Nevertheless, the violence depicted in Africa Addio does not end with Whites fleeing for safety from the militant communist backed African hordes: it extends to the massacre of other ethnic and political enemies.
In Zanzibar, the targets were Arabs who were associated collectively with the island’s history of slavery and Arab domination. In January 1964, the newly independent government was overthrown in a revolution involving pro-communist forces, followed by the massacre of thousands of Arab civilians. Some estimates place the death toll as high as 20,000, although the precise number remains disputed. Historian Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim explicitly argues that these killings constituted genocide, and that their recognition has been obstructed by the political narratives surrounding African liberation.
October 10, 2026
FN’s New ARKA: Revamping the SCAR for Military Tenders
Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 Jun 2026The ARKA is essentially FN’s SCAR rifle on the inside but with more AR-style controls and handling. It was developed in response to a number of military and security service tenders which required specifically an AR-style top charging handle and AR-compatible buttstock. It is made in 11.25″ and 14.5″ barrel lengths, with long and short handguards. It will be interesting to see how this iteration of the rifle fares in international competitions.
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September 18, 2026
Guatemalan Contract St Chamond 70mm Mountain Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 May 2026Despite the French Army adopting a 65mm mountain gun in 1906, several French companies — including St Chamond and Schneider — developed their own mountain gun designs in the years before World War One. These were popular guns for foreign export, being relatively small, light, and inexpensive. St Chamond’s 70mm gun was built on the same breech design as their previous 75mm field gun, at the request of the Mexican military and famous small arms designer Manuel Mondragon. Quantities were sold to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belgium (for use in the Belgian Congo). This example is a Guatemalan one, now in the United States as a live, registered, transferrable Destructive Device.
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June 14, 2026
Mauser M80SA: Actually a High Power and Actually Hungarian
Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Jan 2026In the 1980s, the Mauser company was completely adrift, without any real plans or goals or good leadership. They had been trying to get by on relaunched old designs, and not been very successful. By the late 80s they move on to just buying guns from other companies (like Renato Gamba) and relabelling them as Mauser. One of these partnerships was with FEG in Hungary.
In 1990, Mauser contracted with FEG to buy Browning High Power copies. FEG had actually licensed the high Power design from FN back in the 1970s, and was already tooled up for production, so they just added a Mauser roll mark and called the gun the M80. It was a straight copy of the High Power, except for the omission of the magazine safety. Production ran from 1990 until 1995, with only 3,200 made. The gun did not sell well, which should [not] be very surprising — this was a very outdated design by the 1990s and the Mauser name just wasn’t worth much as a value-add.
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May 28, 2026
“Van Langenhove is not charged with spreading false information. He is charged with presenting facts in a way that incites hatred”
This is the natural end result of “hate speech” laws, as a court in Belgium clearly states in the finding quoted here:
These two paragraphs of my verdict are crucial for everyone to read and understand.
“Even if all of the statements made by Van Langenhove are based on scientific evidence and statistics, it makes no difference to the criminal intent. Van Langenhove is not charged with spreading false information. He is charged with presenting facts in a way that incites hatred against persons on the grounds of one or more of the protected criteria in the Anti-Racism Law.” 1⃣
“For Van Langenhove to have committed a crime, it is not necessary for him to have incited concrete acts of hate or violence. It suffices that others are incited to take on a general attitude of intolerance or disapproval regarding a group protected under the criteria of the Anti-Racism Law.” 2⃣
This means you can go to jail for “inciting hatred” even if your statements were 100% factual (see 1⃣) and even if you did NOT incite concrete acts of hate (see 2⃣).
The benchmark of “inciting hatred” , a crime punishable by prison, is thus “saying something that has the potential of inciting someone to have a general attitude of disapproval regarding a protected group“. This means literally any criticism of mass migration is now a punishable offence. If you cite a statistic, and someone could potentially think less of a protected group (like migrants) because of it, you can be jailed.
The craziest part is that there is no defence possible against this. I brought the scientific studies that I cited to court, but the judge didn’t care 1⃣. I also proved that the hundreds of students present at the lecture included students of all different political affiliations, and everyone was able to voice their opinion or ask questions. The lecture went very calmly, so obviously nobody was incited to hatred. But this too did not matter 2⃣, because if the judge says he believes there is the possibility that someone COULD be incited to “a general attitude of disapproval“, this is enough for the judge to send me to jail, even without any evidence.
I’m telling you this to warn you that by the time these hate speech laws have come into place, it’s already too late. You will NEVER be able to beat these laws in court. You have to stop them before they are implemented. Let my fate be your warning.
March 14, 2026
Belgian Aces in Exile – Belgian Fighter Aces – WW2 Gallery 10
World War Two
Published 12 Mar 2026Belgium might have been quickly overrun by the Germans in 1940, but many Belgian airmen continued the fight by flying with Britain’s RAF, and quite a few of them were good enough to score five or more aerial victories and become Flying Aces. Here are a few of their stories.
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February 21, 2026
Canada’s Only Mass-Production Fighter Jet – Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck
Ruairidh MacVeigh
Published 18 Oct 2025During the 1940s and 50s, with World War II rapidly transitioning into the Cold War, Canada, as a major ally of the NATO nations and with large swathes of remote countryside that could easily be penetrated by Soviet fighters and bombers, created the CF-100 Canuck, one of the earliest production jet fighters in the world an a machine that, despite some early flaws, would go on to prove itself rugged and robust for patrolling the turbulent weather of the frozen Canadian north.
At the same time, though, the CF-100 was very much a product of its time, and despite its exceptional rigidity, by the middle of the 1950s it was very much obsolete as swept-wing and delta fighters rapidly became the norm for both Communist and Capitalist factions alike, and through its initial success would lay the groundwork for even more ambitious projects that sadly would not continue Canada’s major involvement in cutting edge military aerospace design.
Chapters:
0:00 – Preamble
0:49 – Facing a New Kind of War
4:28 – Ups and Downs
7:12 – Reworking the Design
10:36 – The CF-103 Project
15:51 – The Canuck Career
19:06 – Later Years
20:30 – Conclusion
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February 4, 2026
French Trials FN CAL: Adding Rifle Grenade Capability
Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 Sept 2025In the 1970s when the French Army was looking for a new rifle 5.56mm, they tested a number of foreign rifles alongside development the FAMAS at St Etienne. These included the HK33, the M16, and the FN CAL — and today we are looking at the FN CAL. It already had a four-position selector switch (safe/semi/full/burst), fulfilling one of the French Army requirements. But it did not have sufficient grenade launching capability, and so several examples were modified for trials with unique rifle grenade launching hardware.
Ultimately the HK33 was the best performing rifle, but it was not seen as a politically acceptable option and the FAMAS was chosen instead. I have not seen the trials reports to understand specifically why the FN CAL was unsuccessful, but we know that it was unsuccessful in many other trials, and FN dropped it for the distinct FNC design instead before long.
Full FN CAL teardown: • FN CAL: Short-Lived Predecessor to the FNC
HK33F Video: • Roller Delay in France: The H&K 33F (Trial…Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film these trials prototypes for you!
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January 31, 2026
WW1: Hell in the Trenches | EP 4
The Rest Is History
Published 4 Sept 2025What happened at the crucial, bloody, Battle of Ypres in October 1914? How did the battle come about? Why did the Germans and the British fight each other so brutally and for so long to take Ypres? What made the fighting so particularly violent? How were the British able to repel the relentless German onslaught time after time? What was the famous “Kindermord” — “the Massacre of the Innocents” — in the German army, and how true was it? And, what would be the outcome of this almighty clash?
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the terrible Battle of Ypres; its significance to the First World War overall, and its consequences for the rise of Hitler in Germany later on….
0:00 – Adobe Express AD
0:49 – Intro: To the Front
3:26 – The Kindermord Myth
5:02 – Race to Ypres
11:04 – The Ypres Salient
17:07 – Crisis at Gheluvelt
23:29 – Uber & Folio Society ADs
25:43 – November Slaughter
32:05 – The Langemark Legend
44:02 – Why the War Didn’t Stop
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January 23, 2026
WW1: 1 Million Vs 1 Million at the Marne | EP 3
The Rest Is History
Published 1 Sept 2025What extraordinary events saw the French — already on the brink of defeat — take on the formerly formidable German army in a remarkable counter-offensive on the 4th of September, in France, in a clash that would later become known as the Miracle on the Marne? Why was this such a decisive moment in the events of the First World War How did it relate to the famous Schlieffen plan? Did it really see the French charging into battle in Renault taxis? And, why did it become one of the most legendary moments in all of French history?
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January 16, 2026
WW1: The Slaughter Starts | EP 2
The Rest Is History
Published 28 Aug 2025What was Britain’s first military move following the outbreak of the First World War? Where did the French launch their initial attack on the Germans? Whose army was the biggest and best of all the participants in the war? And, what unfolded at the pivotal Battle of the Ardennes in August 1914, on the frontiers of France, between the Germans and the French, and what would be the consequences of the outcome for the war as a whole?
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss, in riveting, unsparing detail, the dramatic early engagements of the First World War, and the bloody Battle of Ardennes.
00:00 Who was Aubrey Herbert? The MP offered the throne of Albania
02:24 Expectations of WW1: catastrophe foretold
04:50 Britain’s war council: should the BEF go to France?
14:12 The French: splendid uniforms uniforms, and a daring plan …
20:05 Battle of the Frontiers
26:37 Charleroi: Lanrezac’s warnings ignored, French collapse begins
30:20 The Battle of Mons
42:00 French retreat as well: Joffre forced to abandon offensives
44:44 The Battle of Le Cateau: Smith-Dorrien decides to stand and fight
47:35 Le Cateau outcome: heavy losses, but strategic British success
49:04 The Great Retreat: exhaustion, refugees, collapse of morale
51:05 Sir John French proposes pulling back behind Paris
53:12 London & Paris reactions
56:09 Paris prepares for siege
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January 8, 2026
WW1: The War Begins… | EP 1
The Rest Is History
Published 25 Aug 2025Following the declaration of war in 1914, how did the outbreak of the First World War unfold? What were the earliest military engagements of this terrible, totemic event? Who were its key political players and how did they respond? What was the attitude to the war in Germany? Were the allies unified from this early stage, or were they suspicious and frozen by indecision? And, how did the Germans, with the mightiest army in all the world, make its move on “plucky little” Belgium?
Join Dominic and Tom as they launch into one of the most consequential events of all time: the outbreak of the First World War.
00:00 – Germany: from peaceful nation to war machine
02:30 – Introduction to WWI series: scope and importance
04:16 – Was Germany uniquely responsible for the war? Historians’ debate
06:12 – Fear versus aggression: German motivations
06:46 – The July Crisis: Sarajevo, blank cheque, Kaiser’s holiday, Austrian ultimatum
08:08 – Helmuth von Moltke the Younger: personality, melancholy, moustaches
12:01 – Germany’s strategic weakness: encirclement fears, manpower and GDP
13:45 – The Schlieffen Plan explained
18:06 – Von Moltke panics
19:00 – Kaiser signs mobilization order; emotional scene in Berlin
22:53 – The problem of Belgian neutrality and Britain’s obligations
23:47 – British cabinet debates: how far into Belgium would justify war?
25:04 – German ultimatum to Belgium: demands for railways and fortresses
26:14 – Belgium rejects ultimatum; King Albert’s defiance
27:59 – “A scrap of paper”: German gaffe fuels British propaganda
28:35 – King Albert’s speech to parliament: “Determined at any cost”
29:52 – Total War Rome (Creative Assembly)
30:37 – German invasion begins
36:18 – German reprisals in Belgium
50:00 – Comparisons with Allied conduct in Ireland, colonies, and elsewhere
50:47 – The Leuven library fire: destruction of manuscripts, global outrage
52:12 – Germany’s reputation collapses: admired culture turned to “barbarism”
53:28 – Fall of Brussels: German army enters the capital
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December 19, 2025
Pick One: G1 (FAL) vs G3 (H&K) w/ John Keene
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Aug 2025If you had to pick one, would you take a G1 (FAL) or a G3 (H&K)? Both are 7.62mm NATO rifles adopted by Germany. The G1 has more features and capabilities, like the carry handle, bipod, multiple muzzle devices, and adjustable gas system. The G3, on the other hand, is simpler, without things to change for better or worse. So which would you take?
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December 11, 2025
Lines of Fire: Operation Market Garden Part 2 of 2 – WW2 in Animated Maps
TimeGhost Cartographic
Published 10 Dec 2025September 17, 1944. A slight morning fog over Britain gives way to clear skies, as the first of hundreds of Allied aircraft leave the ground to execute the largest airborne operation ever attempted. Will Montgomery’s gamble pay off? Or are the Germans in the Netherlands far less beaten than he believes? Last time out we covered the planning, rationale, and logistics of the idea. Now, watch it unfold from beginning to end, map by map.
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