#English

Looking like the bizarre lovechild of a bolt-action rifle, a boat oar, and those weird prop rifles from the original Planet of the Apes movie, the Thorneycroft Carbine is one of the unsung “firsts” of the 20th Century. Specifically, this British repeater is the world’s first military bullpup rifle. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons gives us a real-time look at one of the Thorneycroft prototypes, located at the Royal Armouries museum:

On Saturday we looked at one British  “contender” which could have in some alternate reality become the NATO standard round, and today we’re going to look at another: The 4.85x49mm. After the United States adopted the .223 Remington round as the 5.56x45mm in the mid-1960s, a race began among NATO member nations to create and adopt something similar. Lest the Organization lose the benefits of standardization if a member nation pre-emptively adopted a new SCHV round, these efforts force NATO to begin a competition for a second NATO-standard infantry round. Entrants from the USA, France, Belgium, Germany, and the UK competed head-to-head, and while it was the Belgian 5.56mm SS109 that emerged victorious, the 4.85x49mm round submitted by the UK was ballistically impressive enough to warrant a second look.