Forgotten Weapons
Published 30 Jul 2025As Sweden was looking to adopt a new self-loading infantry rifle in the 1950s, one of the contenders was a modernized version of the Ljungman. The Fm/57 is one of the last iterations of that project. It is chambered for 6.5x55mm but uses the short-stroke gas piston conversion that we previously saw on the 7.62mm NATO conversions of the Ljungman. It also uses a more refined lower receiver than its Fm/54 predecessor, with a nose-in-rock-back 20 round magazine and a folding stock. It was entered into formal trials against the GRAM-63 (another domestic Swedish design), the M14, G3, SIG 510, FAL, and AR10 … which it lost.
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December 16, 2025
Swedish Paratrooper Prototype: AK Fm/57
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December 13, 2025
ZK 381: Czech Pre-War Prototype Battle Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Jul 2025The ZK-381 was designed by Josef Koucký, his first design of 1938 (hence 381). This is one of the last of the Czech pre-war self-loading rifle projects, of which there were quite a lot. It uses a tilting bolt and a short-stroke gas piston, with ZB26 machine gun magazines and chambered for 7.92mm Mauser (although they would have been happy to offer a model in any other modern rifle cartridge). It was tested in the spring of 1938 by the Soviet Union, which liked it enough that they requested a model in 7.62x54R — and those were tested in November 1938. Ultimately domestic Russian designs were chosen instead, and tests in German, France, Spain, and Italy also led to naught.
Thanks to the Czech Military History Institute (VHU) for graciously giving me access to this one-of-a-kind prototype to film for you! If you have the opportunity, don’t miss seeing their museums in Prague:
https://www.vhu.cz/en/english-summary/
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December 11, 2025
Britain’s Top 10 UGLIEST Aircraft
Rex’s Hangar
Published 13 Aug 2022Today we take a look at the top 10 ugliest aircraft every to grace the skies of the United Kingdom. Some were failures, some were hugely successful, but all were lacking in the good looks department, lets check out these ugly planes!
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December 9, 2025
Krieghoff’s Bizarre Prototype FG42 Proposal
Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Jul 2025When the Luftwaffe was looking for its new universal paratrooper rifle, six different German arms companies were asked to submit proposals. Only two actually did; Krieghoff and Rheinmetall. Krieghoff designed this very interesting system, clearly optimized to reduce weight and length as required by the design brief. It uses a tiny vertically traveling locking block and an unusual gas trap system combined with an under-barrel piston. The total number made is unknown, but both fixed- and folding-stock models were produced (the German museum at Koblenz has a fixed-stock example on display). This particular example appears to have been tested after the war by engineers at Springfield Armory by drilling a hole in the gas tube to measure pressure while it cycled.
Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this rare prototype from their reference collection to film for you! Don’t miss the chance to visit the museum there if you have a day free in Springfield, Massachusetts:
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December 4, 2025
M103: The Tank With No Name
The Tank Museum
Published 1 Aug 2025In 1950, the USA was facing a tank crisis … and the M103 was supposed to be part of the solution. But it would hardly ever be used.
After the Second World War, the USA made massive cuts to their conventional forces – declaring the majority of their tanks obsolete, with those left coming to the end of their service life. And the appearance of the Soviet IS-3 meant that the pressure was on. The US Army and the US Marine Corps wanted new tanks – and they wanted them fast. And the appearance of the Soviet IS-3 meant that the pressure was on. The USA declared a “Tank Crisis”.
The T-43 heavy tank was intended to be the response to new Soviet armour. But vehicles were being built before the bugs had been ironed out – and the delays began to mount up. Whilst the Army began to question the need for a heavy tank, the Marines went all in on the concept – ordering over 200 for their forces. But the T-43 was nowhere near ready to enter service, and the vehicles went into storage with 114 improvements needed.
Changes were made and eventually the Marines got their heavy tank – now named the M103. But its effectiveness was limited, and the M103 was only operationally deployed once. The Marines rejected replacement M60s in favour of the Future Main Battle Tank – a project that would end up being cancelled. Their existing M103AA1s were modernised using M60 parts, creating the M103A2 – which The Tank Museum has an example of in its running fleet.
The M103 is a heck of a tank: powerful, capable and incredibly imposing to be around. But did the Americans really need it? Was it the ultimate panic buy?
This is the story of the M103 Heavy Tank – and the panic that produced it.
00:00 | Introduction
00:30 | Meet the M103
03:06 | T-43 and the Tank Crisis
06:21 | Unfit for Service?
11:33 | In Service
15:26 | M103 In Retrospect
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November 28, 2025
CZ247: Experimental Swivel-Action SMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 16 Jul 2025The CZ247 was developed for Czechoslovakia’s post-war submachine gun trials, where it was pitted against the ZB47. It was a simple blowback 9x19mm SMG with a number of interesting elements, most notably the ability to fire with the magazine either vertical or horizontal. In theory, this made the gun more compact for use in a jungle sort of environment (vertical) or to allow a shooter to get much lower to the ground when shooting prone (horizontal). In practice, it really isn’t very important, and requires a bit of extra complexity in the gun’s design. The CZ247 also has a neat safety mechanism for preventing unintended firing and a stripper clip guide built into the stock (both of which would be incorporated in the vz.48 SMG that was eventually adopted).
When the CZ247 failed to win the military trials, CZ got government permission to sell it on the export market. A contract for 10,000 guns was quickly obtained from Egypt, but before the guns could be shipped the export permission was cancelled by the government. Czechoslovakia opted to support Israel in its declaration of independence in 1948, and the government decided to not send weapons to Egypt which might be used against Israel. This left the guns sitting in CZ warehouses, and the basically all stayed there for a few decades. Eventually most were sold to Nigeria in 1967 and Ethiopian in 1977 — and as a result they show up occasionally in African and Middle Eastern conflict zones to this day.
Thanks to CZ for giving me the opportunity to take this example out to film and also to shoot for you!
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November 25, 2025
Roller Delay in France: The H&K 33F (Trials & Export Models)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Jul 2025When France was looking to replace the MAS 49/56 rifle for military service in the 1970s, it tested all of the major rifle options available. These included the Colt M16, FN CAL, and HK33. The HK required some modification to meet French military requirements, specifically the capability to launch rifle grenades. The model 33F was developed specifically to meet these requirements — first as a modified standard HK33, and later as a factory production run. The modifications made include a reinforced magazine well, 4-position fire control gourd (including 3-round burst), a reinforced stock attachment, grenade range rings on the barrel, and a mounting bracket for a rifle grenade sight.
Apparently the HK33F performed very well in trials, but it was ultimately deemed politically unacceptable to adopt a German rifle for the French Army (a policy which has changed now, 50 years later …). Instead, the domestic FAMAS was chosen, along with the SIG-Manurhin 540 purchased in limited numbers for the Foreign Legion.
A second type of 33F came about from the program, however. Berlin police wanted HK33 rifles, but treaty prohibited West German arms from entering Berlin in East Germany. The loophole found was to send the parts to MAS in France, where they were assembled and marked HK33F, thus making them French origin gun which could be sent to Berlin. These rifles had none of the French grenade launching adaptations, and were completely standard HK33s except for the use of heavy barrels. MAS eventually added the G3, HK33, and MP5 to its export catalog in the late 1970s and sold quantities to a number of small countries in the French sphere of influence (including Haiti, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, and others).
Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film these rather rare HK variants for you!
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November 21, 2025
URZ: Czech Prototype Universal Modular Weapon
Forgotten Weapons
Published 7 Jul 2025The URZ (Univerzální Ruční Zbraň, or Universal Hand Weapon) was a 1966 project designed by Jiří Čermák (designer of the vz.58 rifle). He envisioned a weapons system family with largely interchangeable elements that could be configured as a service rifle, carbine, light machine gun, vehicular machine gun, or precision rifle. The Czech military was not interested, but Čermák was able to convince the government to allow its development for export instead.
The design is a delayed-blowback system using rollers, and belt-fed. The first few examples were made in 7.62x39mm, but development switched to 7.62x51mm NATO in a rather surprising move. Presumably this was intended for sale to unaligned nations who were interested in the NATO cartridge, but still — seeing its development in then-communist Czechoslovakia is pretty unusual. Ultimately only 9 examples were built before the project was abandoned.
Thanks to the Czech Military History Institute (VHU) for graciously giving me access to this one-of-a-kind prototype to film for you! If you have the opportunity, don’t miss seeing their museums in Prague:
https://www.vhu.cz/en/english-summary/
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November 15, 2025
Marlin 1897 Bicycle Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Feb 2016Marlin’s 1892 lever action rifle in .22 rimfire caliber proved to be a very popular firearm, and so the company released an improved version in 1897, offered only as a rimfire takedown model. The 1897 would also prove very popular, and the same basic design would continue later as the Model 39.
One interesting variant of the 1897 offered was a Bicycle Rifle. While the rifle was generally available only with fairly long barrels, the bicycle version had a 16″ barrel and full-length magazine tube. This was sized specifically to fit in a special case (disassembled) underneath the top bar of a bicycle frame, allowing kids to easily use their bicycles to take these rifles to their favorite shooting spots.
While the 1897 itself was popular, the bicycle variant was not, with Marlin sales records showing only 197 sold.
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November 6, 2025
Galand de Guerre Model 1872: Too Good for the Military
Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Jun 2025Charles François Galand is best known for his simultaneous-extraction Model 1868, but he also developed a very good solid-frame revolver. This was specifically for the French 1871 military trials, which specifically required a solid frame. The Galand was chambered for 12mm Galand (with its distinctive very thick rim), held 6 rounds, operated in either single or double action, required no tools to disassemble, and had very simple but durable lockwork. The gun was very good, and was a very tight competitor for the other trials finalist, the Chamelot-Delvigne. Ultimately, it lost out because it was the more expensive of the two options.
For more information on the Model 1873 Chamelot-Delvigne that won the French trials, I suggest the C&Rsenal video on that model:
• History of WWI Primer 061: French and Ital…
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November 5, 2025
A minor gaming distraction
On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Matt Gurney takes a few minutes while waiting for the impending catastrophe of the federal budget to be released to talk about a game I’m quite familiar with (and generally share his opinions on):
It’s budget day. My job is only going to get busy in the afternoon and evening. So now is a good time to inflict a non-news and non-political tweet on you. I want to talk to you all briefly about Civilization 7, which has had a troubled launch.
Some of you may follow me closely enough to know I’m a hardcore Civ fan. I’m a wannabe gamer. I love gaming. I could get really into gaming. But I don’t have the time. My preference is for games that are very deep and immersive and require hours of time for a single gaming experience. My life actually only enables me to basically do the opposite: a quick game on my phone that kills five or 10 minutes.
Civ is my guilty pleasure. I’ve played every major iteration of it since the first. And I was SUPER excited for the release of Civilization 7 earlier this year. The company that owns the rights, Firaxis, did a really interesting pre-release marketing job. They built a lot of buzz.
The game itself, which I obviously preordered and played on the day it released, was disappointing. It looked good, but it was very shallow. Every Civ iteration grapples with the challenge of needing to improve on/enhance the game experience compared to earlier releases, but also with the problem of complexity. If you just keep layering on new functions, you eventually make the game unplayable. So there’s a natural tension there. But 7 was still weirdly sparse. There were very basic user interface issues. Fonts were very small, colour choices led to a lot of struggle making out details. It all looked beautiful at a distance until you were actually trying to absorb any information, info necessary to effectively play the game, at a glance. It was impossible. Also, and this is a separate but related problem, some very basic functions and information necessary for gameplay simply wasn’t explained. You kind of had to intuit things.
There were big, structural changes to the gameplay as well. How the game works is very different from earlier iterations. These changes were very controversial — seemingly hated, to be honest. I didn’t actually hate them. I didn’t always love them, but I was pretty open minded to them and kind of liked some of the new mechanics.
But. Ahem. The game itself regressed in some key ways, compared to its predecessor, Civ 6. A small example: religious warfare. For non-players, in Civilization, you can control units for your empire and you move them around the map. Military units can fight other military units, and can seize and defend territory. Religious units were a totally different game mechanic that players would use to export their religion, and to prevent their own cities from being converted. It added a really fun and elegant layer to the game, and one that could be meaningful enough to swing outcomes in a big way.
Civ 7 just nerfed that. Religion is useless. Worse, it’s annoying.
The company has been very aggressive at rolling out updates to fix some of these issues. They’ve also been very open in communicating what they’re working on to the audience. I admire that. I really do. But the numbers don’t lie. Civ 7 is, today, drawing maybe 15-20% of the audience that Civ 6 did. (Using Steam Charts for those figures.) I don’t know if this is a flop for Firaxis, but it has to be a disappointment verging on a disaster.
They’re rolling out a lot of updates and new content to try and fix these issues. And I think they’re making strides. But, like, yikes. Every time they announce a new update, I’m shocked by how much of that stuff should have just been in the game in the first place.
I’m not a gaming expert, like I said. I wish. I’m also not an expert in gaming as a business. I’m just a guy who loves playing Civ. I’ve stuck with 7 since it was released and I’ve given every major update a fair chance. I’ve had fun playing the game. But I just can’t deny that 6 was much better, more playable, and more fun. And I don’t know how much more time the developer has before even hardcore fans like me just give up and go back to 6 permanently.
Anyway. This is what happens when all the news is due to come out later in a day.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Matt is more patient with Firaxis than I am, I have to admit. I downloaded and played Civilization VII on release day … played a few rounds of a couple of different civilization/leader combos … played one up to the new “change your entire civilization to a totally different one in a new age” mechanic, saved and quit the game. I’m sure I’ll play again at some point, but VII didn’t grab my attention and interest the way all the earlier iterations had done and I hate hate hate the swapping civilizations gimmick with a passion because it ruins my immersion in the civilization I’m trying to build. But I’m pretty far from being the target market for this game, so take my dissatisfaction with a shaker of salt.
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October 25, 2025
A Modern Stocked Pistol: B&T’s Universal Service Weapon (USW)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 9 Jun 2025The genesis of the B&T USW was a two and a half hour car ride home from a youth hockey game, when Karl Brugger and a friend were thinking about how to improve police effectiveness with handguns. What would make a handgun more accurate in practice? Clearly a red for and a shoulder stock. So how does one add those elements to a pistol while maintaining easy carry in a service holster? The answer was the USW.
The first prototypes were built on AT-84 Sphinx pistols (a Swiss-made copy of the CZ75). The first production run used Sphinx components, but with newly made frames and slide that incorporated cocking surfaces forward on the slide and an extension off the frame to mount the side-folding stock and Aimpoint Nano optic. Only a few of these were made, as the project was never all that popular.
Other experiments included conversions for other pistol models, with the SIG P320 being the most practical. Clamp-on conversion kits were made for guns like the CZ P10, Walther PPQ, and Glock.
Perhaps the most influential outcome of the project was the optic. Aimpoint originally developed the Nano as B&T’s request, but in the original form is was not nearly as reliable as Aimpoint desired. It was iterated and ruggedized (and renamed to avoid a lawsuit over the Beretta Nano pistol) and became the very successful Aimpoint Acro.
My 2022 Desert Brutality match with a USW-320:
• Evaluating the Modern Stocked Pistol: USW-…
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October 23, 2025
A39 Tortoise: The Forgotten Super Heavy
The Tank Museum
Published 13 Jun 2025The A39 Tortoise. The last complete survivor of a World War Two project that arrived just a little too late. Some have called it “The British Jagdtiger” – but is that actually a fair comparison?
Tortoise was a part of the strategy the Allies would need to defeat Germany during the Second World War. It was recognised that total victory could only occur on German soil – and that meant smashing through the imposing defences of the Siegfried Line. The Allies would need a Heavy Assault tank. Many designs were put forward for this role, including the Valiant, the A33 and the T14 Assault tank.
The A39 is extremely well-armoured. Its casemate construction could withstand a hit from an 88mm gun at close ranges. But at 78-tons, this lumbering beast was both slow and heavy – and is one of the largest and heaviest vehicles in the museum’s collection. In terms of firepower, the impressive 32pdr gun was extremely effective against both concrete and enemy armour. It even has room inside for 7 crew!
In the end, the Tortoise arrived too late to see any action on the battlefield. It was intended to form a part of the 79th Armoured Division – making it one of Hobart’s Funnies. Whether Tortoise would have become the stuff of legend, or a bit of a joke – well, we’ll leave that question up to you.
00:00 | Introduction
00:39 | What is a Heavy Assault Tank?
03:45 | Why a Heavy Assault Tank?
09:24 | The A39: As Good as it Gets?
17:55 | A Solution Without a Problem
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October 22, 2025
H&K MG4: Germany’s New 5.56mm Squad Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 7 Jun 2025Heckler & Koch released the MG4, a new 5.56mm squad machine gun in 2001. It was adopted by the German army in 2005, and then by the Spanish and Portuguese armies in 2007. Alongside its sister weapon the 7.62mm MG5, it is H&K’s current export machine gun.
The MG4 fires from an open bolt, with a 2-lug rotating bolt locking system and a long stroke gas piston operating system. It uses standard M27 NATO links for feeding, and does not have a semiauto selector setting. Mechanically, the MG4 uses a front trunnion into which both the barrel and bolt lock independently — meaning that the quick-change barrel can be removed with the bolt in either the forward or rearward position.
As one would expect for a 5.56mm machine gun weighing 18 pounds, it is very easy to control.
Thanks to Sellier & Bellot for giving me access to this modern machine gun to film for you!
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October 21, 2025
The amazing invisible detail
Rex Krueger
Published 20 Oct 2025Patrons saw this video early: / rexkrueger
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