I initially figured these Q&A video would be a fun little side note, and I have been a bit taken aback by how popular they became…and so they keep getting longer. This one clocks in at nearly 50 minutes, and I think I got some particularly good questions. Let me know what you think!
- Would we still have Browning pistols if the 1911 had not been adopted?
- Gun designs from non-industrialized places
- British .303 Conversions of the Martini
- Weapons best left forgotten
- What conflict led to weapons innovation besides the World Wars?
- Reproductions I would like to see, and why we won’t see them
- The MG81
- And more!
Want to get your question in for next month’s Q&A? Head over to my Patreon page and sign up for just a buck a month. It lets me continue bringing you Forgotten Weapons, and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside!
Note: I mentioned not having seen a photo of an MG-81 in ground use, and a viewer send me a link to this photo:
1950`s Finland used MG-81`s as double-mg`s in landingcrafts and also as a AA-mg with four mg`s installed in a platform. Seen the pictures in some old militarymagazines so unfortunately cannot share them here.
Those guns were later sold to Cummings International Armament (as most surplus was).
thanks Ian. wow i watch all of the video and wished it would go on longer.
By the way, you mentioned .303 Martinis.
Contrary to popular belief, the black powder .303 cartridge ran at a higher pressure than cordite. The service pressure for the BP cartridge is stated as 20 Imperial tons per square inch, which is higher than the later British proof load for 7.62mm NATO, which was 19T/in^2.
Many of the converted Martinis, with either Metford or Enfield barrels, were carried by territorial forces (particularly Yeomanry) in training and on home service. I also remember reading/hearing once about someone who was mounted on a horse carrying one on active service in Palestine in WW2.
They were also heavily used in training in the UK during WW1.
Many of the Martini-Metford barrels are as a result absolutely shagged out due to being fired with bucket loads of cordite cartridges in training, which eroded the throats badly.
I would give my eye teeth for a long Martini-Enfield (or -Metford for that matter)…
“… and so they keep getting longer. This one clocks in at nearly 50 minutes…”
Thankfully, when viewing on YouTube, one can hit the settings “gear” symbol and run at a higher rate. 1.25X speed cuts down the time nicely while still allowing speech to be comprehensible. 🙂
“MG-81 in ground use”
Octuple AA mount for MG-81
h t t p : / / w i k i . w a r t h u n d e r . r u / i m a g e s / d / d 5 / П В О _ M G 8 1 . j p g
for some reason I can not post that links so if you want to see photo copy, remove spaces and paste into address bar of your browser
Ok, I found other place with that photos:
http://pic.tiexue.net/bbs_4414918_1.html
Great pic. I assume that was another field expedient answer to the “what are we gonna do with all these aircraft MGs we’re replacing with cannon” question — Some series-produced answers being the triple 15mm flak mount found in some German halftracks and the air-to-ground “watering can” pod, mounting three twin MG81s.
The six MG81 pod was designed specifically for strafing infantry and soft-skinned vehicles, and I don’t think the guns were surplus. After all, the Ju 87D was still in production when the pod was introduced and it had an MG81z (Zwilling = twin mount) for the rear gunner, so the gun was most likely also still in production.
Early war German bombers had MG15 guns as defensive while fighters had MG17. In most cases the MG15s and 17s were replaced by 13mm MG131s. MG81s were used only where fitting the MG131 was not practical. So, “extra” MG81s were probably not very common even in 1945. The ones used on the ground were probably stripped from irreparable bombers (the Ju 87 in particular) and perhaps from the gun pods. Most were quite likely used as AAMGs (as in the image posted by Daweo) for airfield defense rather than as infantry LMGs.
Volkssturm used old 8mm aircraft MGs [like those two oldsters in the photo there], since the Luftwaffe went for cannon when the rifle-caliber MGs as aircraft armament were obsolete. Recall too that the various designs for Volksgewehre typically used old 8mm MG barrels.
The 7.9 MG15 aircraft observer flexible gun, as mounted on Luftwaffe bombers, was designed from the outset to take a detachable bipod and shoulder stock, both modified from MG13 (Dreyse) LMG parts.
At least two of the MG15s in every bomber had these components in their kit. The idea being that in event of being forced down in enemy territory, the crew could unship a couple of the MGs, bolt the bipods and stocks on, and have something better to defend themselves with than pistols and a Drilling or two.
They showed up in Volksturm use in ’45 because by then there weren’t enough Luftwaffe bombers still flying to need them, and giving them to the Volksturm meant that at least they had some sort of squad autos rather than none at all. They didn’t have quick-change barrels, of course, so they couldn’t deliver sustained fire like a proper GPMG like the MG42 or MG34, but they were better than nothing.
BTW, the odd-looking shoulder stock on the Sturmpistole grenade launcher? That same ex- MG13 stock.
See Guns of the Third Reich by John Walter.
cheers
eon
There are numerous cases where Partisans retrieved functional MGs from downed aircraft in Europe, and in the Pacific Theater, the Japanese often configured aircraft armament for ground use.
Amsel Striker shotgun. Designed by a Rhodesian, made in South Africa. South Africa has plenty of weapons makers, such as Denel and Vekton, though a lot of their small-arms designs were derivative.
In the late 1960’s I got a Martini .303 from a policeman in Swaziland. The barrel was 21″. It was pitted and the rifling almost disappeared at the muzzle. After cleaning it up, it would shoot a 4″ group at 100 yds, which was good enough to get several impala and kudu. Unfortunately I could not bring it with me when I emigrated.
The first question is worth a bit of explainations.
It is very frequent, especially on the internet, to listen or read a question that says “would X had continued to exist if USA hadn’t used/adopted/produced it ?”
For every X, the answer is still the same : yes.
USA are not a benchmark, they are not the supreme authority which the whole world looks with fascination and obei the orders of and, when USA does not use something, it does not prevent the rest of the world to use it even though. Especially in 1911.
If the 1911 had not been adopted by the US Army, then it would still have been adopted by other armies as it actually did.
If the 1911 had not been adopted by the US Army, then Browning would still have developped other handguns, as he actually did before AND after the 1911, all of which were successful and widespread worldwide.
I know the 1911 is a benchmark and a milestone for many in the USA, but it is not in… The rest of the world. The ENTIRE rest of the world.
The 1911 is one of many, many, many pistols using the browning short-recoil system.
It uses the barrel-link system, which is the most primitive, most fragile and most complex version of the browning short-recoil system.
In the history of gun design, the 1911 is nothing more than one step among others in developping the linkless browning system, which is the real milestone in pistol design. If the Browning GP35 hadn’t been adopted or the CZ75 not been developped, yes, we would certainly not have many Browning type pistols today. But if the 1911 hadn’t been adopted… Well, it wouldn’t have been adopted, that’s all. I admit we surely woudn’t have MAS 35A and S, SACM prototypes and Sig P210. Nothing that important in gun designing history.
Moreover, let’s not forget that, at that time, US Army was the small army of a small, young and quite poor nation (yes it was) that wasn’t that important on international affairs. So, again, if that small army of that small nation hadn’t adopted one particular gun from the most brilliant and most prolific gun designer in the world, be sure it wouldn’t have prevented him to continue designing guns.
Conclusion : please reconsider any and all questions of that type. “If USA hadn’t done something, would the rest of the world have done it ?” Yes. Always yes. The world is vast.
I think your statement should be qualified. At the time the 1911 was invented/adopted, I think it was true: the US was NOT a benchmark. Even up through WWII, its fair to say Germanic weapons designs were more influential. (If we include Prussia and Austria as “Germanic,” their influence is even larger.)
But it deserves to be said that while the US is not the world-wide arbiter of militaria, we are a genuine pace-setter, especially since the end of the Warsaw Pact. The influence the US wields through the sheer size of its military and attendant contracts, and the size of its legal civilian gun market (unmatched anywhere else in the world) is dramatic. The 5.56 and 7.62 NATO rounds are ubiquitous. Light, short-barreled assault rifles made of aluminum and plastic are ubiquitous. These were invented, pioneered and spread around the world specifically because of the US. Don’t talk to me about the AK-47; it is 1940s-era technology a lot of countries use because it is cheap and obtainable, nothing more. Even Russia now uses a high-velocity .22 round in a rifle that is partly plastic. When the M-16 was introduced, no one else had ANYTHING like it on the drawing board. The British EM2? Wood and steel, in .280 caliber. The CETME Model A? Wood, steel, and chambered in 7.62 NATO. Stand-alone grenade launchers like the M-79? Nope.
I think the Vietnam War was a big reason for this, but our national culture is part of it too. We just love our weapons, and this tends to drive things. While the rest of the world is banning legal ownership of guns, we’re going the opposite direction. It’s bound to have an effect. Can anyone name a really influential handgun design to come out of Europe since the Glock? And that was the 1970s.
Also, the Browning “marque” was already well-established in Europe by 1910, due to FN producing Browning’s Model 1900, 1903 “Grand Model”, and .25 cal. “Baby”. In the U.S., the Colt 1900 “Sporting Model”, and the 1903 “Pocket Model”, which is basically a 3/4 scale copy of the “Grand” in 9 x 20 SR, were equally popular, as was the Colt rendition of the .25 Baby.
Even without the 1911, Browning’s designs were already taking the world by storm in the first decade of the 20th century, with only DWM’s Parabellum and Walther’s various single-action pocket automatics as serious challengers for market share aside from Spanish-made “Eibar” knockoffs of Browning’s own designs. Mauser had yet to come up with a salable pocket auto (the 1910) and their service auto, the C/96, was already obsolescent. Over here, Remington’s Model 51 was still in the future, leaving the Savage M1907 as the only real challenger.
Before WW2, “Browning” was supposedly a common European nickname for any automatic pistol, rather like “gat” (from “Gatling gun”) was supposed to be over here. (I state for the record that growing up, I never heard either term used in such a context and I question the whole thing.)
But even without that, most Europeans who wanted a pistol for self-defense and could obtain one, legally or otherwise, seemed to prefer Browning designs. If they were less powerful than, say, a 9 x 19mm Parabellum, they were also a lot less aggravation to carry, conceal, and get out of your coat pocket in a hurry.
BTW, one of my uncles carried a .25 Baby right through WW2 as a general’s field car driver. In the left breast pocket of his uniform blouse, right behind his pack of Camel cigarettes.
His boss didn’t mind a bit. Nobody else ever noticed it. That’s the definition of a “pocket pistol”.
cheers
eon
“Browning” was certainly synonymous for an automatic pistol at least in Finland before WW2. The FN 1900 and 1910, as well as the 6.35mm pocket pistols, were hugely popular as self defense weapons. Many are still floating around, some as legal collector’s items, but many others as illegal “night stand” pistols, since getting a legal permit for a “pocket pistol” is almost impossible for non-collectors.
“Don’t talk to me about the AK-47; it is 1940s-era technology”
AK (if you refer to series production, AK-47 is one of prototypes).
AK is now outdated, but when system of 7.62×39 weapons: SKS – AK – RPD, U.S.A has nothing equivalent
“When the M-16 was introduced, no one else had ANYTHING like it on the drawing board.”
Not true, see Korobov TKB-022
http://world.guns.ru/assault/rus/korobov-tkb-022-e.html
In fact, usage of Bakelite in gun design dates back to 1910 and is a European trend.
This idea didn’t made its way because wood was still a better choice at that time. When plastic became sufficiently more efficient than wood, everyone did its own gun using plastiic, and the reason why USA were leader in this way in the 1960’s was not for them to be “pioneers” (because plastic in gun design existed since almost 50 years at that time) but because they were rich and powerfull enough to widespread their guns or methods. Exemple : FA MAS 62, which used plastic since its first prototype phase, dating back to mid-50’s. Other exemple ? German MP-40, in bakelite.
M16 ? Well, M16 is just a melting-pot of European mechanism put into one gun. It’s a big plagiarism with some inovations, in fact. Innovations that are more of general industry than of specifically military industry, moreover.
It’s the same for small caliber light rifles : France, Spain, UK, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austria all developped semi-auto and auto rifles in small caliber, some as soon as the 1910’s. Why 5,56×45 was so widespread ? Because of financial and political pressure from the USA, that reacted to any non-american decision, idea or concept in any topic as do a stuborn baby : by saying “no no no ! I don’t even listen ! no no no !”
7,62 ? Same thing : 7,62 is WAY less suitable for military usage than .280 british, but USA wanted a big round that was BIG, “like the BIG USA, because big is good”, so USA looked at the .280 british, saw it surpassed 7,62 in absolutely all domains and… answered “no no no ! I don’t see anything ! .30 cal is better because bigger is better ! No no no !”.
And today… Well today USA comes saying “well, you know these problems we have with 7,62 since its adoption ? And these problems we also have with 5,56×45 since its adoption ? Well, in fact, we noticed with genius, brand new and totally US-made calculations that a .260 to .280 round would be better. Can I offer you some brand new american made 6,8 Rem SPC that are not at all plagiarized on .280 British ?”.
Stand alone grenade launchers ? What’s the big deal ? That’s a tool, yes, and as any tool it fulfills a role. Did it changed anything for the soldier that used rifle-grenade ? No. And I talk with experience, because I live in a country that uses both and testimony are these : rifle grenade is more versatile, more accurate, more powerfull and lighter because it weights the same as a 40 mm grenade and doesn’t need the addition of a Standalone launcher.
A significant development in handgun technology since the Glock ? Well, since the Glock is the last real influencial development in handgun technology, there is none, neither in Europe nor anywhere else : Europe gave the last improvement in handgun design, which was 35 years ago and is still consistent today… But we can still notice rotating barrels becomming the next stage in handgun design, which is a totally European trend. We can also notice high velocity small-caliber handgun cartridges, which is also a European trend (even if USA developped the colt SCAMP tens of years ago, I admit), or maybe the vast usage of bullpup configuration which is the solution to something like 50% of the problems of a soldier confronted with modern rifles.
Significants guns, worldwide, since the glock ? That one you call “Springfield XD”, which is in fact the Coratian HS-2000. Sig of various models. Beretta of various models. And before that : Browning GP35, CZ75, Beretta 92, H&K VP70, Steyr GB and many, many, many others. Last successful american gun design is the 1911, which is a notoriously imperfect design.
USA is indeed a great country of gunmakers. But why is USA predominant in small arms making today ? Because they have financial power and industrial capacity. Nothing more. Even among the “genuine american inventions” you quoted, half are in fact not american and the other half is bad decisions made by a stubborn but powerful authority that placed its veto over any decision that was not made by itself.
USA brought the world some pretty good innovations in gunmaking. But they still aren’t a benchmark, nor a “pace-settler” in this domain. They are a coercive financial authority, that’s all. That pace-settler you talk about use the same imperfect and not forward looking concept in gunmaking since the 1960 and is now promoting a 1950’s british concept as it was his genuine brand-new idea.
And, to refocus on the present subject : In 1911, USA did not have that coercive authority it used later to impose its decisions on NATO countries. So Yes, Browning would still have made guns and we wouuld still have browning pistols today if the 1911 hadn’t been adopted.
The history is a little different. GDP wasn’t actually calculated until the depression, but people trying to “back measure it” all seem to agree that the US was the largest GDP in the world by 1914, perhaps before then. So in a very real sense, the US as a whole was by definition neither poor nor small in 1911. (Side note – Germany was probably about to catch/pass the UK at the same time.)
That doesn’t mean the rest of the world would have any particular need to follow US practice in that era, as indeed in many things they did not (9mm vs 45acp for example.)
A note on reproductions and 3D printing. (I pay a lot of attention to general manufacturing issues.)
3D printing is very useful for making parts with very complicated shapes for which a defining CAD model is at hand, and for which some 3D printable material is satisfactory (all the way up to some tool steels.) It is also very useful for activities where a 3D printer is all people have/can-afford/understand-how-to-use – and this later subcase is the source of most of the hype we see at least at the low end. Many commercial uses of 3D printing are either very complicated shapes in very high value applications (aerospace), very special one off custom uses in high value applications (medical) – though that is much more constrained than you might think. (For example, the custom jibs derived from MRI used in knee surgery are generally CNC machined rather than 3D printed, even though they aren’t actually part of the implant.)
It will always be the case that getting the design right, getting the tooling right (especially for stamped guns), getting to a design that will reliably pass a proof test, feed from a magazine, etc. will be quite costly. 3D printing won’t actually help that much for reproductions.
For making improvised guns, where “being just like” something from history is not the goal, things are quite different.
What army/branch are the guys with the MG81 in? the pips on the collar tabs vaguely resemble SS, but the lack of runes on the collar at left suggest either a foreign legion, or perhaps a German allied army whose insignia I’m unfamiliar with, like the Hungarians or Bulgarians.
They are in the last-ditch NSDAP militia, the Volkssturm.
Rank insignia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Ranks_Volkssturm.jpg
I hadn’t realized they used insignia distinct from the regular army. I guess that explains their apparent advanced age as well.
Yes, the Volkssturm was a party-based militia, under the sway of Gauleiters, so basically NSDAP type “party ranks” were used instead of more typical army–or SS–ranks and insignia. The lack of a standard uniform apart from an arm band or brassard has the effect of making most Volssturmmänner conspicuous by their “multiform” such that when uniforms and kit were used, the VS look like some kind of regular armed force. Old SA and NSDAP braun uniforms were used, HJ caps and uniforms, Luftwaffe caps, coats, uniforms, the Luftschutz “Gladiator” helmets, bits of Italian uniform and kit, and of course, entirely civilian clothing and coats and so on.
Otto Morawietz of the Heereswaffenamt once told me that the MG81 was extremely sensitive to dirt and therefore not suitable as a ground weapon. I am very much in favor of fast firing machine guns, but reliability comes first by a big margin.
Thanks for the video. What I’d like to do is examine that book case behind you. If I had a reproduction to pick it would be the .45 Luger. That is even rarer than the ones you mentioned. And Luger is well known enough that new ones were made. And the 1911 is popular enough that new ones are still being made. So I strongly suspect that if the .45 Luger was made in quantity it would sell and it for sure would not cost what the few existing originals do.
The main problem with the Luger is, I think, that an exact replica would be very expensive to make regardless of the caliber. If it were to be modified for modern production methods, some would probably disregard the modified replica as too unauthentic, and a redesign would of course cost more money and increase the financial risk.
Another set of firearms that in no way should ever be fired were some of the Khyber pass guns that at times show up as bring backs by servicemen/women. these things look pretty good but are made from railroad rails and similar quality metal by guys living in the mountains using hand tools. Personally i have seen a revolver and an Enfield rifle that at a glance looked super convincing but when you looked at it closer you could see hand tool marks. Read an article/website about them finding Martini action pistols as well
http://www.armscollectors.com/darra/darra.htm
Gun designs from non-industrialized places?
Besides the various Chinese “mystery pistols”, I first think of the “Paltik” guns of the Philippines. They ranged from single shot “water pipe” shotguns to revolvers firing .410, 20, or 16-gauge shotshells or even .30 Carbine or 5.56 x 45mm rounds.
Probably the ultimate Paltik guns were full-auto or selective fire 12-gauge shotguns, with box magazines, operating on the straight-blowback principle. These figured prominently in the near-civil war during the 1972 presidential elections over there.
An article in an old Guns magazine by J.M. Ramos(Aug ’83 IIRC) is a good start, with excellent diagrams. There is also this more recent article by Ramos;
http://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1789
In fact, making a “Paltik” gun from scratch according to the originals might be an interesting experiment.
cheers
eon
It’s not so much a gun from non-industrialized places so much as it is a gun for non-industrialized places – the Erquiaga MR-64, designed by Peruvian army officer Juan Erquiaga Azicorbe, in collaboration with none other than Gordon Ingram, who he had met during the latter’s year-long trip Peru to set up manufacture of the Ingram Model 6.
Conflicting sources say the MR-64 was built for pro- or anti-Castro guerrillas, but I am inclined to believe the latter. Being manufactured en masse in a factory in California, over 1000 of these guns were made in 1964, although I’m not sure how many made it to their intended destinations. Either way, when the FBI caught on, the factory was raided, the guns were destroyed and Erquiaga found himself no longer welcome in the US, since he threatened to single-handedly worsen (already poor) US/Cuban relations by illegally trafficking weapons to the latter country.
In terms of design, the MR-64 was basically just a STEN gun with some extra frills (shrouded iron sight, wooden grip, overall better standard of manufacture).
dear Ian,
would like to contact you directly, is there a personal mail adress ?
kind regards from Germany
Albrecht (I wrote the book Sniper on the Eastern Front)
My email address is admin@forgottenweapons.com
Sorry, but arms from the Middle East or Africa? You do realize Israel is considered part of the Middle East, yes? They’ve had a few I can think of, with the Uzi qualifying as a homegrown design even if you discount the Galil as an AK variant and the Jericho as a CZ-75 clone. As far as Africa goes, South Africa had a few of its own despite adopting the Galil to replace the FAL, and IIRC Rhodesia had a few machine guns of indigenous design…
Rhodesia and South Africa only really got into weapons design because of international embargoes that prevented them from buying decent weapons. Certainly Rhodesia would never have manufactured indigenous weaponry if not for embargoes.
The Middle East designs plenty of weapons; most of them, however, are based on Western designs.
Fact is that there are so many AKs, FALs, G3s and M16s knocking around in those parts of the world, left over from US/USSR proxy wars – so there is not much point in manufacturing indigenous designs, of which there are probably many that we don’t know about.
The question wasn’t about guns from the middle east, it was about guns from non-industrialised nations. Neither Israel nor South Africa really qualify there
The point about non-industrialized parts of the world is well explicated. The Dominican San Cristóbal .30 carbines are a particularly good example, and point to a feature of industrialization, particularly post-WWII, that very many nations start out with native submachine gun designs since they are simple to build. No vacuum, certainly, and many rely on foreign designers influence. As far as crude, artisanal, village workshop, smithy designed weapons, there are legions of examples from the NLF/VC in Vietnam, the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, aka. the Maumau rebels, extemporized homemade weapons supplemented by shotguns by the “ronda campesina” in Perú during the war vs. the PCP-Sendero Luminoso, etc. etc.
Middle East:
Post-Attatürk Turkey: Ankara and other arsenalcopies of Mausers, etc.
Iran famously used the Czech made 98/29 Mausers until WWII, when production of the Model 49 Mauser rifle and the copy of the Czech ZB30 LMG started up. Iran produced PPSh41 SMGs “Model 22” in the area subject to Soviet occupation during WWII, and postwar continued to produce them until the largesse of U.S. aid brought in the entire suite of WWII U.S. small arms: M1 Garand rifles, M3A1 SMGs, Browning MGs, etc.
Egypt: Another Swede Nasser-era tie in with the Ljungman/Hakim: The “Port Said” copy of the Carl Gustav m/45 9mm SMG.
Antipodes:
Australia: Owen gun, F1 SMG
New Zealand: Charleton conversion automatic rifle/LMG
Latin America:
Argentina–Hafdasa/HALCON SMGs, PAM 9mm SMG (9mm copy of U.S. M3A1), FMK 3 (Czech Vz.23/25 samopal/ Israeli Uzi), M67 and M75 MEMS, etc.
Brazil: locally produced IMBEL copies of U.S., Italian, Belgian, and Danish (INA m/953) firearms designs, but also a few Brazilian designs as well, particularly SMGs and LMGs, and now rifles.
Chile: FAMAE after the military dictatorship’s priorities of creating a weapon industry (like the Brazilian regime in this regard), created copies of Sterling SMGs, SIG firearms, etc.
Dominican republic: Already mentioned with the San Cristóbal.
El Salvador: late 1950s HB-1 9mm prototypes–essentially a copy of the Beretta m/38 with Madsen magazines. German, U.S., and Israeli firearms shortly became standards.
Mexico: Post-revolution, Mauser rifles, Mendoza SMGs and LMGs,
Peru: Ingram SMG copy POC 6, later MGP 79/87 SMGs, a micro-Uzi knock-off, and now an IWI ACE factory.
Uruguay in the late 1940s, during the heyday of what scholars term the WWII-era “import substitution industrialization” or “ISI” for short, produced a few copies of the Beretta M38, but did not produce them with the largesse of post-WWII U.S. weapons.
Asia:
Burma: Copy of the Italian TZ45 as the BA-52.
Indonesia: Bandung Model VIII 9mm SMG prototype, Beretta M12 copies, modified BM59s, FNCs.
I don’t know if Australia really qualified as “non-industrialized” even before WW2. If it does, so should Finland, which had a predominantly agrarian economy before the 1960s.
Maybe a way of exploring the topic of small arms made in mostly non-industrialized countries is to consider that if one were in charge of a not very industrialized country, and it was apparent that, for whatever reason, the supply of foreign-made arms might dry up, where would small arms be in the list of priorities?
Spare parts for existing aircraft, tanks, boats, and APC’?
Ammunition? A lot to that if powder and primers are to be made also.
Artillery pieces? Land mines? Bombs? Sea mines?
Take Iran as an example, would whatever manufacturing capability they have be better spent in making a slightly improved AK or in making spare parts for the Shah’s left over F-14’s?
In the late 19th century Nepal built serviceable copies of Snuders and less successful copies of Sharps and Martini rifles.
They also built the Gahendra rifle, an indigenous design.
Be nice if you’d include timecodes for different topics. There were a couple I was interested in but wasn’t willing to wade through 45 plus minutes to find them.
Hey Ian,
You probably haven’t read down this far into the comments, but I just wanted to thank you for your long winded thoughtful videos.
You hit at the exact center of the Venn Diagram “History Geek” with “Gun Geek” (with “Engineering Geek” as a heavy overlap)
Take all the time you want and I’ll come back to listen. It’s not like you have to keep your videos within 30 minutes so they fit on a TV time slot.
I finally got aroundb to watching and have a few thoughts. On magazine cutoffs, probably the last person to advocate a magazine cutoffs was Col. Jeff Cooper in his original Scout Rifle specifications. As a result the Steyr Scout is probably both the last rifle designed with a magazine cutoffs and the only magazine cutoffs design still made.
On the subject of bad or dangerous designs, the first thing I think of is the Winchester 1911 shotgun, nicknamed the widowmaker due to a fatal design flaw. In order to get around Browning’s patent on a charging handle, Winchester had the user grasp a knurled section of the barrel to cycle the action, unfortunately lots uusers braced the butt on the ground, pushed down on the muzzle and died when the gun slam fired. The Japanese type 94 pistol’s exposed sear also comes to mind.
On the 1911 shotgun… my brother’s father in law has THREE of the things. Once we went shooting, and he loaded one, and carefully pointed it at the berm as he racked it. At which point it slamfired…. And we all looked at each other in a bit of shock. Widowmaker is a deserved name, those things are dangerous.
Link to another possible MG81 use on the ground.
http://www.ww2incolor.com/german-air-force/Bundesarchiv+Bild+101I-301-1952-03%23.html
Soldiers of a German “Luftwaffen-Felddivision” cleaning an MG-81. Normandy/France, June 1944. (Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-301-1952-03)
Do you think the various guns made by criminals out of pipe and sheet metal are probably roughly the same on the danger scale as Chinese mystery pistols?