#Ww2

In January, just before the 2017 SHOT Show, I got the opportunity to travel to Cody Wyoming to visit the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, to see some of their rare firearms and bring photos of them to our readers. The folks at the Cody Museum were tremendously helpful in getting high quality pictures of the weapons in their collection, and so I’d like to give a big “thank you” to Ashley and Danny!

Miles is at it again on World War II small arms, with the awesome help of Corey, a very dedicated and knowledgable Reenactor who has taken the time to showcase and discuss the “Light Thirty”, or the Browning 1919A4 light machine gun in use by U.S. Infantrymen in the Second World War. Unfortunately we couldn’t get an actual Class III 1919A4 for the video, but the semi-automatic variant in 7.62x51mm NATO is a true dimensioned representation of what the historical fully automatic 1919A4 would have functioned and looked like. Developing from the water cooled Browning 1917, the 1919A4 is essentially the first highly mobile belt fed light machine gun to see service, being replaced by the M60, and then followed on by the current M240B.

If a Garand pings in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? The answer is “yes”, because German super-hearing allows them to detect high-pitched noises from up to a kilometer away!

It is not a secret that Mosin-Nagant rifles are one of the most popular military surplus rifles in the USA. They are relatively affordable, .30 cal reliable rifles just to mention a few reasons of their popularity. The information about the history and various modifications of these rifles is readily available on the internet, so I’ll skip that basic information. The subject of this article are the strangest and rarest Mosin-Nagant rifles and accessories, which were designed until the end of WW2. This time period includes the active duty era of the rifle when it was in service in many countries, most notably in Russian Empire and Soviet Union. So below is the list of mentioned rifles and accessories:

In the fourth part of the series of articles I am writing on the Lightweight Rifle program of the 1940s and ’50s, we looked at some of the experimental rifles that were being tested and evaluated during and just after World War II as potential replacements for or upgrades to the excellent M1 Garand semiautomatic rifle. The goal of these programs was ambitious: To create a rifle – based on the M1 – that would provide all the functions of the military infantry rifle, submachine gun, and automatic rifle, thereby achieving the “all in one” squad level infantry small arms package. This concept was called the “paratroop rifle”, possibly in reference to the German Fallschirmjeagergewehr (translated: paratroop rifle) FG-42 which itself was designed as an “all in one” weapon for paratroops.

We’ve all heard it at gun shows or with friends: The M1 Garand was the first rifle that brought true semiautomatic firepower to the battlefield, but it came with a fatal flaw – the ping, which would alert German soldiers that the hapless GI was out of ammo, allowing them to pop up and strike!

The M1 Carbine is a lightweight, handy weapon that is well-liked by many. One of its weakest points for many people, however, is its cartridge: The .30 Carbine caliber is regarded by some as being too weak to be a true intermediate caliber round fully capable of effective 300m fire. Still, the .30 Carbine is short, so maybe there is another caliber out there that could fit into an M1 Carbine’s action while giving it a little more punch… It turns out that during the late 1940s and early 1950s, at least one Spanish small arms designer felt the same way, and invented the gun in the Forgotten Weapons video below:

Today’s Photo of the Day is something spectacular. A time machine back to WW2.

During World War Two the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was known as a sort of lost child and wonder lab among all the war efforts. I mean compared to the 101st jumping into Normandy, operations that the OSS were interested in were very hard to be seen as tangibly successful to the overall war effort. Even the head and founder of the organization, General. William “Wild Bill” Donovan was considered off the wall by the establishment. I mean, this is the guy who walked into FDR’s Oval Office in the White House, unloaded an entire magazine from the newly designed .22 LR High Standard suppressed handgun into a a sandbag that he had brought, then essentially asked the President of the United States if he had heard any of the discharges just yards behind him while on the phone. Just to prove how quiet their new handgun was.

This post is part of two others, about a recent range outing with some very historically interesting small arms, the DeLisle commando carbine, the M50 Reising submachine gun, and the Russian PM1910 Maxim heavy machine gun. All of these are NFA items (either Class III or suppressed) and the owner was extremely kind enough to take me out and blow over a thousand rounds through his small arms.

Many would consider this next round to be the first intermediate cartridge ever, and while that isn’t really true, it is one of the most influential rounds of all time, and perhaps the most influential intermediate round ever developed. I am talking of course about the Nazi-era Kurzpatrone 43 Spitzgeschoß mit Eisenkern, or as it is more commonly called, the 7.92×33 Kurz. This round became the model – in one fashion or another – for numerous intermediate rounds developed all around the globe after World War II, including the promising .280 British, and ubiquitous 7.62x39mm Soviet, as well as several others we’ll discuss in later installments.

This past week a discussion with my junior-higher over a school assignment brought back a laundry list of World War II topics. The assignment was to select a topic from the 1940s for what is, to a junior higher, a lengthy essay. In the end she chose the USS Indianapolis, in part because she met survivors when she tagged along on interviews with me for military articles, but also because it’s a flat-out phenomenal moment in our nation’s history. It’s about more than man-eating sharks, tremendous bravery, and the delivery of Little Boy – you see, without the Indy World War II would not have ended as it did, when it did – but I digress. Another part of World War II was what was known as “sweetheart” grips, and this particular topic seemed like a good one for a daily post.

General Thompson will certainly be remembered for his famous “Tommy Gun” or formally adopted as the M1928 or in its later blow-back only form the M1 Thompson. But what about Thompson’s other designs?

Making sure a soldier’s tools and weapons are clean and functioning are not a joke, his survival could obviously depend on them. However getting this message across to the troops without sounding completely draconian all the time can be tough. Thus we have satire and comedy. Certainly not a new way of conveying warnings, any currently serving Marine, Soldier, Sailor, or Airman can attest to the ridiculous lengths the DOD goes to present to us the perils of Cyber Awareness. But in World War Two, the War Department came up with Private Snafu (Situation Normal, All F**ked Up). A poor old private who just keeps breaking the rules and getting things wrong as an example to those in the service of what not to do as a soldier. A number of cartoon videos were produced, ranging from what not to say when out on Liberty, to how to act when an aerial attack is occurring. They were made with singing and rhyme, and the rhyming scheme actually isn’t too bad. However in this case, we have Private Snafu not taking care of any of his weapons, from his M1 Garand, to his M1917A1 water cooled machine gun, while confronting the evil Nazi aggressor in North Africa (these were made in 1943, and look to be concentrating on the North African front of operations, although some are oriented towards the PTO). I took some screen shots from the video, but I would highly recommend watching it, as it actually is a little funny, and filled with adult humor. For those diehard World War Two buffs out there, the entire cartoon series is available to watch on a 2 hour long video on Youtube.

Well, sort-of-not-really, although it makes for a pretty great title. The Bendix-Hyde Carbine was in fact one of the nine prototypes initially submitted to the Light Rifle program (not to be confused with the Lightweight Rifle program  that is the subject of my ongoing serie s), and it’s in many ways the most interesting one to me. First, though, a brief overview of George J. Hyde, the brilliant designer who invented it: