The weapon with the weird magazine-position lasted 30 years in service The Australian Army first issued the F1 submachine gun to its soldiers in April 1963 to replace the World War II-vintage Owen Gun. Like the earlier Owen, the F1 had a top-mounted magazine — which lent itself to prone-firing and was more comfortable than more-conventional weapons…
Category: Military Weapons from the Past
Military Weapons From the Past: The M3 “Grease Gun” v2.0
The Philippine Marines Teach a SMG that dates back to WW2 some New Tricks War Is Boring and Historical Firearms recently posted a story about the use of suppressed M3 “Grease Gun” from World War II onward to Vietnam. U.S. forces stopped issuing the guns to troops in 1992, but at least one unit in…
Obscure Weapons: 1929 Simson Prototype 9mm
In the late 1920s, German Ordnance hinted at an interest in replacing the P.08 Luger pistols with a less expensive handgun design. This prompted a number of submissions from hopeful companies, including this design from the Simson company of Suhl. It is chambered for the 9×19 Parabellum cartridge (as requested by Ordnance) but is a…
Know Your Weapons: The Adams Revolver
Robert Adams and Samuel Colt Waged a Vicious, but Largely Unknown War over the 19th Century Pistol market By 1850, Samuel Colt had come to dominate the American revolver market, aggressively defending his patents and using advanced manufacturing processes to out-produce rivals. Meanwhile in February 1851, British gunsmith Robert Adams patented his double-action revolver design….
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…
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…
Military Weapons From The Past: The Suppressed M3 “Grease Gun”
The U.S. Army’s M3 submachine gun from World War II drew inspiration from the British STEN. Likewise, the suppressed M3 followed the suppressed versions of the STEN — the Mk. II and Mk. VI. The U.S. Office of Strategic Services formed in June 1943, modelling itself on the British Special Operations Executive. Like the SOE, the…
Military Weapons From the Past: Japanese 7.65mm Hamada Pistol
The Hamada was one of very few Japanese military weapons made by a private commercial firm. Designed and introduced in 1940, the basic Type Hamada pistol was a blowback .32ACP handgun similar in style to the Browning model 1910. About 5000 of them were manufactured during WWII, although most of these were sent to China….
Military Weapons From the Past: Japanese Type 100 Paratrooper
The Type 100 (sometimes called the Type 0) was one of the initial Japanese experiments in paratroop rifles. Manufactured from standard Nagoya Arsenal Type 99 rifles, the Type 100 used a set of interrupted lugs at the chamber to allow the rifle to be broken into two short sections. Only a few hundred of these…