Forgotten Weapons
Published 4 Jul 2026I had a chance to spend some time on the USS New Jersey, today docked in Camden NJ as a public museum ship. Today we are going to go through all of the weapons systems on the New Jersey, starting from the humble .50-caliber M2 machine guns and going up to the massive 16″ Mk7 guns in the three-gun turrets. The New Jersey was refitted several times, adding and removing different weapon systems for deployments from World War Two to Desert Storm, so not all of these guns were in place simultaneously — but they are all part of the story of the ship.
Many thanks to the awesome staff of the New Jersey for their hospitality and to World of Warships for making the visit possible!
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October 30, 2026
From the .50 M2 to the Mk7 16 Inch Turrets: All the Guns of the USS New Jersey
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October 23, 2026
FN MAG Tactical with Long Rail Upgrade Kit
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 13, 2026
MAC 34T Aviation: Interwar French Turret-Mount Aircraft Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 15 Jun 2026During World War One France used the Lewis gun as a flexible aircraft armament, and it was replaced by the Darne in 1922. This was an adoption of convenience, and by 1926 the Chatellerault Arsenal was working on adapting the new Mle 1924 light machine gun for aircraft use. Initial efforts were directed at a wing-mounted model with a high rate of fire and a large (300 rounds) drum magazine. This led in turn to a “turret” model for use in manned flexible mounts.
This gun was designated the Mle 1934 T, and used in several different mounts. Today we are looking at one in the Type 29 mount. It is a sheet metal carriage to enclose the gun, providing a spring counterbalance system for easy maneuvering of the gun and a mount for an early collimator sight.
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October 4, 2026
From MG 34 to MG 42: Building Hitler’s Buzzsaw – Nazi Rearmament 08
World War Two
Published 3 Oct 2026The MG 34 pioneered the modern general-purpose machine gun. The MG 42 preserved that battlefield versatility while cutting manufacturing labor roughly in half and producing the terrifying sound remembered as “Hitler’s Buzzsaw”.
In this Nazi Rearmament episode, Spartacus traces the development of the MG 34 and MG 42 from clandestine German weapons programs during the 1930s through mass production and combat in World War II.
We examine how one basic weapon could accompany an infantry squad, deliver sustained long-range fire, engage low-flying aircraft, and serve inside tanks and fortifications. We also explore why the beautifully machined MG 34 became an industrial problem, and how stamped steel, roller locking, rapid barrel changes, and a cyclic rate reaching 1,500 rounds per minute transformed its successor.
But this is more than the story of two famous German machine guns. It is also a study of Nazi Germany’s war economy: technically ambitious and capable of remarkable innovation, yet ultimately unable to overcome the manpower and industrial resources of the coalition it chose to fight.
Finally, we follow the weapons beyond 1945, from the continued foreign service of the MG 34 to the MG 42’s postwar descendants, the MG 1, MG 2, and MG 3.
Which small arm should we cover next: the MP 40, FG 42, or StG 44?
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August 18, 2026
M15 Automatic Rifle (aka T44E5): Adopted But Not Produced
Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Mar 2026When the US replaced the M1 Garand, the plan was to adopt both a select-fire infantry rifle and a heavy-barreled support weapon on the same platform. During development, both the T44 (later M14) and T48 (FAL) rifles had heavy-barreled versions. In the case of the M14, the final iteration of the heavy-barreled weapon was the T44E5, which was formally adopted as the M15. Before it could be actually put into production, though, it was cancelled as unnecessary.
In testing, first the Marine Corps and then the Infantry Board found that fitting a standard M14 with a detachable bipod gave the same performance as the M15 — and so why bother with an extra version of the gun? Of course, the equal performance was really quite poor compared to proper light machine guns, and once the M14 got into service this shortcoming was noticed. this led to the M14A1 aka M14E2 project, to essentially recreate the M15 with a pistol grip stock and front grip.
Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this truly unique specimen 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: https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm
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July 5, 2026
Terni Model 1921: Italian Interwar Assault Rifle with a Cube Mag
Forgotten Weapons
Published 16 Feb 2026After World War One, the Italian military spent some time studying the effectiveness of reduced-power cartridges, including both pistol calibers semiautomatic carbines and submachine guns as well as intermediate-caliber rifles. One of the rifles developed for the subsequent testing was the Terni Arsenal model 1921, of which 200 appear to have been made in total during the 1920s. This rifle used a surprising advanced 7.35x32mm cartridge, firing a 135 grain bullet at 1970 fps. It was a short recoil design and used a Fiat-Revelli style cube magazine. Ultimately the concept was not adopted (probably for reasons of cost), and some of the surviving rifles ended up in Ethiopia — where this example was found a few years ago.
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May 20, 2026
LMG-25: The Swiss Toggle-Locked Light Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 29 Dec 2025The LMG-25 was designed by Adolph Furrer at Waffenfabrik Bern in the 1920s. Furrer was a devoted fan of the toggle locking system, and also designed a toggle-locked submachine gun that Switzerland (unwisely) adopted in 1941. The LMG-25 was first produced in 1924, adopted in 1925, and remained in production until 1946 with a total of 23,045 standard models and 1,742 optics-equipped fortress models made.
It is chambered for the standard 7.5x55mm Swiss cartridge with a 30-round side-mounted magazine (interchangeable with the later Stgw 57 magazine, incidentally). It is an effective design, if expensive to produce, and served Switzerland well for several decades.
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April 18, 2026
The First M60 Prototype: FG42 + MG42 = T44
Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Dec 2025The FG-42 caught the attention of a lot of countries at the end of World War Two. The British and Swiss both used it as the starting point for some developments. The US went one step simpler, and simply cut up a captured FG-42 to make into the T44, the first prototype of what would become the M60 machine gun.
This project was done in 1946 by the Bridge Tool & Die Company, who spent about six months reinforcing an FG42 and adding an MG42 feed system to it to create an unholy hybrid kludge of a gun. It was, however, successful enough to justify continuing the project. Only this one example was made before moving on to much more practical models built from the ground up instead of hacking up captured German guns.
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April 6, 2026
T20 Family: Springfield Makes the Garand a Grenade Launching Sniper Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Nov 2025Late in 1944 the Ordnance Committee recommended adoption of a magazine-fed, select-fire version of the M1 Garand as a new standard US infantry rifle. Both Springfield and Remington developed rifles to meet the requirement, with Springfield’s being the T20 and Remington’s the T22.
The Springfield design went through several iterations from the original T20 to the T20E1 and T20E2, with the capability to launch rifle grenades, mount optical sights, and fire in either semiautomatic or full auto. The first examples of the final T20E2 design were ready in June 1945, but the program lost momentum in August when Japan surrendered. It did continue slowly until 1949, providing some of the basis for the eventual M14 rifle.
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March 27, 2026
Taking advantage of the temporarily insane market price for tungsten
Tim Worstall has a business idea to capitalize on a current price fluctuation in the tungsten market … and you wouldn’t need to build a massive mine or a large smelter for the purpose:
“Making friends with the 50-cal” by 416thTEC is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0 
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There are times when the prices of weird metals just get wholly out of hand. Like, absurdly, nonsensically, out of hand. This is of great comfort to the usual morons as they can then point out that markets are not rational. They’re morons because no one has ever used — other than morons — “rational markets” to mean always correct markets.
The actual defence of markets is that they produce less absurd prices less often than allowing morons to determine them.
But, OK, odd prices.
Those of a certain age might recall back around the millennium tantalum prices went ballistic. They had been $200 a kg and they went to $2,000 a kg. This was because a little bit of Ta is essential to make the capacitors that make a mobile phone work. Mobile phones were proving to be pretty hot shit and so demand rose, demand rose faster than new mines could be opened and so the price went ballistic.
[…]
So, tungsten. A fair old use (and while everyone’s screaming about this and China it’s a minority use, by a long way. The major use is actually in the teeth of digging machines as tungsten carbide. If you’ve a scrap yard of those drop me a line!) is in armour piercing bullets and shells. Which, when in use are dispersed on the battlefield and no, it’s not worth going out and collecting those. The brass shell casings, especially of artillery, those are but let the specialists do that — too many dud rounds that can still go bang for amateurs to do that.
Tungsten prices are weird. The price is quoted at metric tonne unit in WO3 concentrate. Which is, now, perhaps $2,400 (which is insane, but there we are). An mtu, well, WTF? To get to the tungsten price divide by 8 (OK, OK, 7.92). So, $300 kg tungsten metal. The scrap price will be less than that, obviously and etc.
And, well, something that some do do. Firing ranges.
Lead has a value, most bullets are made of lead, a lot of bullets are fired at the range. There’s a big bank of earth behind the targets at the range to ensure we don’t hurt no kangaroo etc with bullets flying over the horizon. It does actually pay, every so often, to go dig out that bank of earth for the bullets embedded in it. Lead scrap has a price.
Can you see where this is going? Find the ranges they test their armour-piercing ordinance on and offer to dig out their bank behind the targets. Collect the tungsten scrap — and the lead, but separate them — and make bank on the vast, stupid, insane price of tungsten. Shovel, wheelbarrow, sieve, sweat, this works.
If we can find the shooting ranges they try their tungsten bullets out upon. Each bullet is going to be in the 3 to 7 grammes range, that sort of thing. So we’ll need 200 bullets to get a kg at $300 (less scrap discount!) which sounds like a lot. But if we find the ranges where they teach firing the .50 cal armour piercing machine gun rounds then … well, if they’ve not dug through that bank for a few years $$!!
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March 22, 2026
The Original AR-15: Serial Number 6 in Original Configuration
Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Nov 2025The very first AR15 rifles submitted to US government trials were extremely lightweight, with an assortment of interesting features that did not last long. They had top-mounted charging handles, one-piece hand guards, very thin barrels with plain muzzles, and a different safety selector configuration than became normal later one. Updates and modifications were made to virtually all of the original rifles, but today we have a chance to look at serial number 6 in the Springfield Armory collection — which is still in completely original configuration.
Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this truly unique specimen 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: https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm
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February 16, 2026
M1918A2 MOR: How to Make a Non-NFA BAR
Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Sept 2025Prior to 1986, Group Industries imported BAR parts kits and then manufactured and registered full-auto receivers for them. This produced transferrable guns which were subject to NFA registration and the $200 transfer tax — which was a much more significant sum at that time than it is today. Some of the potential customers were people (like reenactors) who wanted guns that looked and handled like real BARs but were not regulated by the NFA. To satisfy this subgroup of customers, Group designed a receiver which neither had nor could be adapted to have a gas piston, rendering the gun manually operated. It would fire from an open bolt, but had to be manually recocked after each shot. This was not legally a machine gun, and he made 68 of them.
When the Hughes Amendment to the FOPA passed in 1986, manufacture of new transferrable machine guns ceased, and Group Industries went out of business. Its assets were sold off, including a number of parts kits and unbuilt M.O.R. receivers. One of the buyers was Ohio Ordnance Works (then called Collector’s Corner). They got ten receivers and after selling them, decided to develop a semiautomatic BAR for that same non-NFA BAR market. That gun ended up being the M1918A3, which is still available from them today.
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February 10, 2026
FAMAS G1: Simplified for Export
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Sept 2025The FAMAS G1 was developed as a lower-cost option for FAMAS export sales. The original F1 model had been offered for international sale, but it attracted little interest largely because of its high price. In response, GIAT created the G1 with many of the extra features left optional. This allowed them to reduce the price by up to 40%. Specific feature reductions included:
- Omitting the bipod legs
- Omitting the grenade launching sights and barrel fittings
- Omitting the night sights
- Omitting the burst fire mechanism
- Replacing the trigger guard with a molded whole-hand trigger guard
The mechanism stayed the same, and all of the omitted features could be included as options. This still failed to generate any export sales, in part because GIAT came under ownership of FN, and FN’s competing assault rifle options were more profitable than the FAMAS.
The G1 did contribute elements like the whole-hand trigger guard to the mid-1990s G2 model adopted by the French Navy, however.
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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 28, 2026
The Best Operational Briefcase: American 180 & Laser Sight
Forgotten Weapons
Published 5 Sept 2025The “American 180 Security Briefcase” is the best execution of the operational briefcase concept that I have yet seen. The idea is simple; hide a submachine gun inside an ordinary looking briefcase so that it can be carried in the open by VIP security without arousing attention. Sometimes this is done strictly for stowage (see the Uzi coming out of a Secret Service briefcase during the attempted Reagan assassination) and sometimes it is designed to fire from within the case (see the H&K MP5 operational case). This one is meant for firing.
Unlike virtually all other such cases, this one includes a sight, a helium-neon laser. That allows the gun to be actually aimed — what an idea! The firing mechanism is also well thought out, with a manual safety switch that powers the laser and firing solenoid, then a constant-pressure switch for the laser and a pressure pad for the gun. I don’t know who made this, but it was a commercially available product … and a very cool one at that!
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