I was on this hill as a battery commander with six 88-millimeter antitank guns, and the Americans kept sending tanks down the road and we kept knocking them out. Finally, we ran out of ammunition and the Americans didn’t run out of tanks. [Nazi Artillery Commander, Battle of Salerno] At the start of World War…
Category: Military History
Obscure Weapons: Thompson Model 1923 Auto Rifle
One of the very early entrants into the United States Ordnance Department’s semiauto rifle trials was the Auto-Ordnance Company, makers of the Thompson submachine gun. For the rifle trials, they designed a .30-06 rifle using the same Blish-locking principle as had been applied to the SMG. Since the Blish principle doesn’t actually work, this resulted…
Know Your Weapons: Hiram Maxim Invented More than Machine Guns
Hiram Percy Maxim, son of Hiram Maxim — inventor of the machine gun — is best known for his silencers. The younger Maxim developed the first viable firearm suppressors at the turn of the 20th century, securing a series of patents between 1909 and 1920. He sold his designs through the Maxim Silent Firearms Company, which would eventually become…
Espionage Files: Pakistani Spies Behind the 2009 FOB Chapman Attack?
Anybody who has done any amount of serious reading about 9/11 knows that Pakistan is an ally of the U.S. in name only; they have been supplying the Taliban with intel and arms for decades and indeed did support Bin Laden and his ilk during the early parts of the War in Afghanistan in 2003…
Obscure History: Revolutionary War Veterans Live to See the Invention of Photography
Records of the Revolutionary War consist almost exclusively of paintings, sketches, and writings. However, one book, The Last Men of the Revolution, written by Reverend E. B. Hillard 81 years after the war’s conclusion, does contain photographic evidence of a few individuals who fought for America’s freedom: “Published in 1864, the 64-page book stands as the only…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Legacy of the “Sisters-In-Arms”; History’s Famous Female Fighting Units
“There have been a number of women’s brigades that have served in wartime. Here are a few of them.” IT WAS 100 years ago this week that a coalition of armed republican factions seized the city of Dublin and proclaimed Ireland’s independence from Great Britain. The disturbance, which began on April 24, 1916, would go…
Espionage Files: South Korea Announces Defection of North Korean Intelligence Official
A North Korean intelligence official who sought refuge in South Korea last year is the most high profile defector to the South since the end of the Korean War in 1953, according to authorities in Seoul. An announcement issued by the South Korean government last week said the defector is a colonel in the Korean…
ISIS Corner: Is the U.S. Lilly-Dipping in Syria?
Lilly-Dipping: A Term used to describe a person who does not place their entire paddle in the water when paddling. In Military circles, Lilly-Dipping is synonymous with the phrase “Doing something Half-Ass” Or Not putting forth 100% effort. The great, long-awaited counterattack against ISIS has finally begun. The offensive that spans Syria and western Iraq is…
Military Weapons From The Past: WWII German Spreewerke VG-2
Five different companies in Germany produced designs for the last-ditch Volkssturm bolt action rifles, and they were designated VG-1 through VG-5. The VG-2 was developed by the Spreewerke company, and differed from the others in its use of a sheet metal stamped receiver (and consequently a pretty distinctive look). In total, somewhere between 16 and…
World War II History: What Patton’s Poems Tell Us About Today
By Randy Brown Best Defense poet laureate “Patton, you magnificent bastard! I read your verse!” —Charlie Sherpa Even casual consumers of military history — at least, those familiar with actor George C. Scott‘s portrayal of Patton in the 1971 movie — suspect the historical general may have more than occasionally written poetry. In an early scene set in World War…