A weird little Marine Corps tank blasted North Vietnamese troops Designed and built in a farm tractor factory and armed with six 106-millimeter recoilless rifles, the M-50A1 Ontos was rejected by the Army and only purchased in small numbers by the Marine Corps. Years later in Vietnam, the USMC trained infantry riflemen to drive these…
Category: History of Weapons
History of Weapons: Hiram Maxim’s Self-Loading Rifle Came Before his Machine Gun
In 1883 Hiram Maxim designed a unique system that harnessed the recoil of a rifle. Maxim filed a patent for this system which, when the U.S. government granted it in April 1884, became his first firearm design patent — a year before his now-famous machine-gun concept patent. To prove his ideas about using recoil to operate…
History of Weapons: The Hill H15 Sub-Machine Gun was Ahead of it’s Time
Today’s FN P90 drew inspiration from John Hill’s obscure weapon Developed by engineer and inventor John Hill, the Hill H15 submachine gun was decades ahead of its time. The H15 inspired the successful FN P90 but the Hill gun itself faded into obscurity. Hill began developing the idea for his futuristic-looking gun in the…