Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Apr 2022After World War Two, FN put the BAR back into production. This was initially the FN-D version with a quick-change barrel, but with NATO’s adoption of the 7.62mm cartridge, there was a demand for the BAR in that chambering. The Belgian Army adopted this new round, and plenty of other nations did as well. This prompted FN to release a new version of the FN-D for it, designated the FN-DA1.
In addition to the new chambering, the DA1 also had these three changes:
– Larger bipod feet and a wider bipod stance
– A rear aperture sight instead of an open notch
– A more protected barrel release latchThe FN-DA1 would remain in production until 1967, when it was finally discontinued.
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August 8, 2022
FN-DA1: The BAR for NATO
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August 5, 2022
FN MAG: Best of the Western GPMGs
Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 Apr 2022
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July 27, 2022
Italy’s Worst Machine Gun: The Breda Modello 30
Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Jul 2017http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The Breda Model 30 was the standard Italian light machine gun of World War II, and is a serious contender for “worst machine gun ever”. Yes, given the choice we would prefer to have a Chauchat (which really wasn’t as bad as people today generally think).
The Breda 30 suffered from all manner of problems. To begin with, it was far more complicated than necessary. The amount of machining needed to build one is mind boggling compared to contemporary guns like the ZB26/Bren or BAR. And for all that work, it just didn’t work well in combat conditions.
Mechanically, the Breda used a short recoil action with a rotating bolt. The recoil action meant that the barrel moved with each shot, so the sights were mounted on the receiver to keep them fixed. This seems like a good idea, but it meant that the sights would need to be re-zeroed each time the barrel was changed. To compound this, the gun fired from a closed bolt which made it more susceptible to overheating and it was recommended to change barrels every 200 rounds or so. An oiling mechanism was built in to lightly oil each cartridge on feeding. This allowed the gun to extract without ripping rims off the cases, but was a disaster waiting to happen on the battlefield. In places like North Africa, the oil acted as a magnet for sand and dust, leading to quick jamming if the gun were not kept scrupulously clean.
The next huge judgment error on Breda’s part was the magazine. The thought behind it was that magazine feed lips are easily damaged in the field, and they can be protected by building them into the gun receiver rather than in each cheap disposable box magazine (the Johnson LMG and Madsen LMG recognized this issue as well). However, Breda’s solution was to make the 20-round magazine a permanent part of the gun. The magazine was attached to the receiver by a hinge pin, and was reloaded by special 20-round stripper clips. This meant that reloading took significantly longer than changing magazines, and any damage to the one attached magazine would render the gun inoperable. As if anything else were needed, the magazine was made with a big opening on top to allow the gunner to see how many rounds remained – and to let more of that North African sand into the action.
Most of the Breda Model 30s were made in 6.5 Carcano, but a small number were made in 7.35 Carcano when that cartridge was adopted. The rate of fire was about 500 rounds per minute, which was a bit slower than most other machineguns of the day.
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June 18, 2022
M60: Its Purpose, Mechanics, and Development
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Feb 2022https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/
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May 25, 2022
M1915 Villar Perosa
Forgotten Weapons
Published 5 Aug 2016http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
The Villar Perosa is one of the first small machine guns developed and used by a military force. It was designed in Italy and introduced in 1915 as an aircraft weapon, to be used in a flexible mount by an airplane’s observer. The gun consists of two independent firing actions mounted together. Each fires from an open bolt as a rate of 1200-1500 rounds/minute, feeding from a 25 round magazine of 9mm Glisenti cartridges. This allowed the maximum possible volume of fire in an aerial combat situation, where in 1915 ballistic power was not particularly important.
As aircraft armaments improved and synchronized, belt-fed machine guns became practical, the Villar Perosa was quickly made obsolete in aerial use. The Italian military experimented with several applications of the weapon in ground combat, including slings and belt fittings for walking fire, tripods, mounts with integral armor shields, and bicycle mounts. None of these proved particularly successful, as the elements that made the gun well adapted to early aerial use (high rate of fire with a small cartridge) made it relatively ineffective for infantry use.
Ultimately, the best use of the Villar Perosa was to break them up and convert the actions into shoulder-fired submachine guns. Designs to do this were developed by both the Beretta company and Villar Perosa themselves, and in 1918 these guns entered service in the same approximate period as the first German MP-18 submachine guns. Because of this recycling, intact M1915 Villar Perosa guns are quite rare today.
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May 11, 2022
M1944E1/M1945 Johnson Light Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Aug 2016http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
After getting his Model 1941 machine gun purchased in small numbers by the US military, Melvin Johnson continued to press for more sales and a general adoption. Following testing results and recommendations from soldiers in the field, he made a number of modifications to the gun and developed the M1944, which was quickly tweaked to become the M1944E1, also called the M1945. This new version included several improvements including:
* Replacing the bipod with a monopod less prone to interfering with barrel removal
* Improved stronger bolt anti-bounce latch
* Metal dual-tube buttstock in place of wood
* and most significantly, a gas-boosted hybrid recoil operating systemThis new model of the Johnson was in testing at the end of WWII, and weapons development budget cuts at the conclusion of the war prevented it from replacing the BAR as Johnson and many in the Marine Corps had hoped.
This particular M1945 Johnson is fully transferrable, as came out of the Winchester Museum Collection (now the Cody Firearms Museum) back many years ago when curators would occasionally sell items from the collection to raise money.
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May 4, 2022
FG-42 German Paratroop Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
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Only a few dozen of these are in private hands in the US, and they are an extremely advanced design for WWII.
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May 1, 2022
Various Guns – Bren Gun (1940)
British Pathé
Published 13 Apr 2014Various guns – Bren gun.
Item on the Bren Gun. L/S parachutists falling to earth. After seeing various machine guns of the recent past, including the Browning BAR and French Chauchat machine gun, we see the manufacture and firing of the Bren gun. There is also a diagrammatic sequence showing the workings of the gas operated machine gun.
FILM ID:1292.13A VIDEO FROM BRITISH PATHÉ. EXPLORE OUR ONLINE CHANNEL, BRITISH PATHÉ TV. IT’S FULL OF GREAT DOCUMENTARIES, FASCINATING INTERVIEWS, AND CLASSIC MOVIES. http://www.britishpathe.tv/
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British Pathé also represents the Reuters historical collection, which includes more than 136,000 items from the news agencies Gaumont Graphic (1910-1932), Empire News Bulletin (1926-1930), British Paramount (1931-1957), and Gaumont British (1934-1959), as well as Visnews content from 1957 to the end of 1984. All footage can be viewed on the British Pathé website. https://www.britishpathe.com/
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April 11, 2022
Book Review: Sturmgewehr! From Firepower to Striking Power (New Expanded Edition)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Sep 2017Get your copy from Collector Grade Publications: http://www.collectorgrade.com/bookshe…
Collector Grade is known for being a premiere publisher of technical firearms reference books, and I would be willing to argue that Sturmgewehr! by Hans-Dieter Handrich is the best book they have yet printed. The book was originally printed in 2004, and by the time I started looking for a copy myself, it was out of print and the price had jumped to at least $250, when I could even find a copy. I could never quite bring myself to pay that much, and so I was very excited when I learned that an expanded second edition was in the works. Well, that second edition is available now, and it’s even better than I had anticipated.
What makes Sturmgewehr! such an excellent book in my opinion is how it tackles the story of the MP43/MP44/StG44 from several different angles in depth. It has the mechanical development of the gun from prewar experiments to the open-bolt MKb-42 trials guns to the production versions. But it also puts those guns in historical context, how they related to the other weapons being used by both Germany and other nations. It discusses how the design criteria of the Sturmgewehr were arrived at, in terms of logistics and manufacturing methodologies. It explains in detail the political disagreements and convoluted process of weapon design and adoption in Germany, including the three direct rejections of the concept by Hitler.
In short, it gives you the fully-rounded story of how the German military conceived and implemented a whole new class of small arms. In this way, it is really much more than just a book about a single gun’s history — what you learn reading Handrich’s work will give you insight into virtually all arms design programs of the 20th century, from the Chauchat to the 7.62mm NATO rifle trials to the SA80.
If you already have a copy of the original work, you will probably want this one as well, to get the additional 120 pages of information that have been added. And it should go without saying that if you don’t have the original, you should absolutely get a copy of this new edition before it also falls out of print!
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March 15, 2022
FN FNC: The Belgian 5.56mm NATO Carbine
Forgotten Weapons
Published 12 Nov 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The FNC (Fabrique Nationale Carabine) was FN’s followup to the unsuccessful CAL rifle. Chambered for the newly-adopted 5.56mm NATO cartridge, the FNC uses a long stroke gas piston system very reminiscent of the AK, combined with a stamped upper and milled aluminum lower. After about 5 years of development, the FNC was put on the market in 1980, and was quickly purchased by Indonesia, along with a license for domestic production as the Pindad SS-1. It would also be adopted by Sweden as the AK-5 (minus the 3-round burst functionality) and Belgium. About 6,000 semiautomatic sporting models were imported into the US. A number of those, including this one, were legally registered as transferrable machine guns before 1986.
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March 3, 2022
MKb-42(W) – The Sturmgewehr That Never Was
Forgotten Weapons
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When the German military first requested rifles in the new 8x33mm Kurz cartridge, there were two companies that provided designs. One was Haenel, who would eventually win the competition. The other was Walther, who submitted this rifle — the MKb-42(W). Where the Haenel gun fired from an open bolt and used a tilting-bolt locking system, the Walther rifle fired from a closed bolt and used a rotating bolt to lock. It also used an unusual annular gas piston. In competition, the Walther’s closed bolt operation made it more accurate in semiauto fire and less susceptible to ingress of dirt. However, it was substantially more complex and more expensive than the Haenel gun.
In total, just 200 of the MKb-42(W) were made before being cancelled in late 1942. Needless to say, very few survive today, and it was a great privilege to be able to disassemble and present this one to you. Thanks to the Association of Maltese Arms Collectors and Shooters for the invitation to do so!
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January 24, 2022
Parker-Hale .303-.22 Conversion Kits for the Enfield, Lewis, and Vickers
Forgotten Weapons
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In July of 1918, the British military formally adopted a Parker-Hale system of adapting .303-caliber arms to .22 rimfire for short range training. The system involved lining standard barrels with .22 caliber blanks that were machined with full size .303 chambers. Special cartridge inserts were used which had the external dimensions of .303 cartridges, but held .22LR cartridges inside. This allowed the weapon to use the same feeding system as it normally would, and to duplicate the handling and trigger mechanism of a standard .303 caliber gun while only firing a small rimfire cartridge.
Parker-Hale built kits of this type for the Lee Enfield rifle, the Lewis LMG, and the Vickers HMG, and all were used by the British military. In the Lewis and Vickers, there was no accommodation made to actually cycle the guns; this sort of .22 practice drill was done by manually cycling the actions after each shot. Still, it was a good way to practice basic drill (loading, unloading, etc) as well as basic marksmanship without the noise of full power cartridges and without the need for a full-power-rated backstop.
The system for the Lee Enfield was replaced in 1920 (after only about 2 years of use) with the No2 MkIV* rifle, a dedicated .22 conversion of an SMLE. Parker-Hale kept the system in their commercial catalog into the 1930s, however.
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January 9, 2022
The Korsac EM1 – a British/Polish Bullpup FG-42
Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Jun 2017Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of the guns in this video, don’t miss the ARES companion blog post:
http://armamentresearch.com/british-k…
The Korsac EM-1 (not to be confused with the Thorpe EM-1, which is a completely different rifle) was a bullpup light machine gun based on captured examples of the German FG-42 paratroop rifle. It was developed between 1945 and 1947 by a team led by a Polish refugee designer named Korsac.
It was chambered for the 8mm Mauser cartridge, and used an 18 round magazine adapted from the ZB-26. The operating mechanism was closely copied from the FG-42, as were many elements of the rifle’s controls, including the capability for firing from an open bolt in fully automatic and from a closed bolt in semi-automatic. Unlike the FG-42, it used a short stroke tappet type gas piston, and had a detachable barrel. Ultimately only two examples were built, and only one of those (the one in this video) was completed to firing condition. It suffered from reliability problems in semi-automatic mode, and was quickly sidelined in favor of the other development projects ongoing by 1947. However, many lessons from its development would be put into the EM-2 rifle.
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December 14, 2021
Chatellerault M24/29: France’s New Wave of Post-WWI Small Arms
Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Aug 2017France fought the Great War with an array of weapons which were all sub-par in one way or another — the Lebel rifle was obsolescent by 1914, the Berthier was a cavalry carbine forced into rifle service, the Chauchat was an emergency wartime design optimized for production volume instead of quality, and the handguns were a mixture of old revolvers and desperate imports from Spain. Once the war finally ended, the French military would move to replace the whole lot with new and modern arms.
This would begin by finally replacing the 8mm Lebel cartridge with a non-tapered, rimless cartridge — something that would be well suited to use in magazines and repeating arms. Simultaneously, a new light machine gun would be found, as this was deemed to most important improvement to be made. The cartridge was adopted in 1924 as the 7.5x58mm, but it would soon be realized that there was a critical problem with that round. The French military had a large supply of German arms taken as war reparations, and the new 7.5mm cartridge looked very similar to the 8x57mm Mauser cartridge. Worse, the Mauser round would chamber and fire in the new French chambers, causing serious damage to guns when the 8mm bullet was squeezed down to 7.5mm. To fix this issue, the French cut their cartridge down by 4mm, resulting in the 1929 adoption of the 7.5x54mm round — the chamber of which would no longer fit a German 8mm round.
As for the machine gun, the first choice was to simply adopt the Browning BAR — but France insisted on obtaining the technical data package and producing the guns in France, and they could not come to an agreement with Colt over the price of such a license. So, the French held trials of other guns, looking at virtually everything then available. In the aftermath of the trials, it was decided that the Chatellerault arsenal could design its own weapon using the best features of the other existing guns. The arsenal rather quickly produced prototypes, and they were adopted in 1924 (and then updated to use the shorter version of the 7.5mm cartridge in 1929).
The Chatellerault M24/29 is a quite good weapon, especially considering how early it was designed. It uses a tilting bolt and a top-mounted 25 round magazine. It has two triggers, the front one firing in semiautomatic and the rear one in fully automatic. The wooden front handguard allows for fire from the hip or shoulder if desired, and a set of thorough dust covers keep the gun free from ingress of mud or dirt. About 188,000 would be manufactured, and it would stay in service for many decades.
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December 8, 2021
SA80 History: The Pre-Production XL85 and XL86
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 May 2017Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of the guns in this video, don’t miss the ARES companion blog post:
http://armamentresearch.com/british-e…
The SA80 saga continues today with the final pre-production versions of the L85A1 and L86A1, although at this point they still both carry XL designations, as they were not yet formally adopted weapons. In these weapons we can see a couple last distinctive mechanical changes, but perhaps more importantly by this time the worker morale at RSAF Enfield was thoroughly in the tank. It had become well known that the factory complex was going to be taken public or sold outright, and it was widely expected that Enfield would be shut down as a result. A new facility would be built in Nottingham, but none of the rank and file staff expected to transfer. They would be laid off, and they knew it. Not surprisingly, quality control suffered as a result.
As for the guns themselves, the first distinctive visible improvement was in the magazine well. In the XL70 weapons, the bottom half of the magazine well had been simple welded onto the bottom of the lower receiver, in order to retain the easy stamping of that element. On these guns, that have been replaced by a separate box which encompassed the magazine and was spot welded into the lower receiver. This change in construction method allow the magazine well to be much more precisely located in the receiver, and then fixed in place without the risk of warping the thin sheet metal of the lower receiver – while still retaining the simple stamping of that lower.
The other visible change was to the Light Support Weapon, and it consisted of a long “girder” support added below the barrel. This was intended to mount the bipod onto, in the hopes of resolving the long-running problem of split groups in the LSW. This was a problem in which the first round of a burst would hit substantially low and left relative to the rest of the burst. While the LSW was a quite accurate weapon in semiautomatic mode, this split group problem was a substantial detriment to its effectiveness as a proper support weapon.
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