Category Archives: Weapons that Made their Mark

The last reunion of the Doolittle Raiders

Before the war, Jimmy Doolittle was probably the most famous pilot in the Air Corps, except maybe for Lindbergh (who was the one reserve officer never activated in the war, by the personal order of the president; so he was unable, unlike Doolittle, to add to his legend). But while the Lone Eagle conquered the Atlantic and pioneered air routes to and in the Americas, Doolittle won races, set records, and perhaps most importantly, proved the feasibility of flying by reference to instruments. Doolittle could fly anything, and wring the maximum performance out of it. So when the Air Corps wanted to surprise Japan with a beyond-sane-range bombing raid soon after Pearl Harbor, they gave the mission to him.

At the end of the mission, the aircraft were all lost. Some crews were interned by the unfriendly Russians; some were captured by the Japanese — and murdered. Some were killed, many injured, and the survivors not in captivity were struggling through a Nationalist Chinese E&E net.

Looking at his bleak future, then-Colonel Doolittle told the men of his crew, ”They’re probably going to court-martial me,” for the failure of the mission. One of his loyal gunners contradicted him instantly: “No sir. They’re going to give you the Medal of Honor. And make you a general.”

And that’s exactly what they did. The attack might have been a futile pinprick, but it was bold and daring and caught the admiration of the public.

After the war, Doolittle went to work for Shell Oil, flying around the world with his sidekick (the equally celebrated, equally deserving Englishman, Douglas Bader), and his men met for reunions that got smaller and smaller over the decades. Now, the last nonagenarian Raiders are holding their last public reunion. Stars and Stripes:

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – At 97, retired Lt. Col. Richard Cole can still fly and land a vintage B-25 with a wide grin and a wave out the cockpit window to amazed onlookers.

David Thatcher, 91, charms admiring World War II history buffs with detailed accounts of his part in the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, in which he earned a Silver Star.

Retired Lt. Col. Edward Saylor, 93, still gets loud laughs from crowds for his one liners about the historic bombing raid 71 years ago Thursday that helped to boost a wounded nation’s morale in the aftermath of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Cole, Thatcher and Saylor – three of the four surviving crew members from the history-making bombing run – are at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle for a final public reunion of the Doolittle Raiders. They decided to meet at Eglin because it is where they trained for their top-secret mission in the winter of 1942, just weeks after the Japanese devastated the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.

The fourth surviving raider, 93-year-old Robert Hite, could not make the event.

via Famed World War II aviators hold final reunion – U.S. – Stripes.

The Raiders gave up their regular reunions after the 60th Anniversary of the raid in 2002, but the last survivors gathered one last time at Eglin this year. One tradition the Raiders have maintained is the set of goblets and an associated death tontine. The raiders’ website explains:

In honor of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, the citizens of Tucson, Arizona presented a set of 80 sterling goblets to the Raiders following WW II. In turn, they were presented to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs by General Doolittle on behalf of the surviving members of the Raiders for safekeeping and display between reunions.

The silver goblets are housed in a special glass-enclosed trophy case which is guarded by two Airmen. In addition to the goblets, the case contains a bottle of brandy to be used by the last two remaining Raiders at the last reunion to toast their departed comrades. Many of the goblets are already turned upside down for the men who were killed in the raid or who have since died.

At each reunion, the Raiders hold a brief ceremony to honor those who have passed away. This emotional remembrance often marks the passing of additional Raiders during the year since the last reunion.

Each goblet is inscribed twice with a Raider name – both right-side up & upside-down – so that the names are always readable.

The brandy was bottled in 1896 — the year of James H Doolittle’s birth. And the four survivors plan to meet privately to open it this year, rather than wait until two of them are gone, and maybe the last two can’t drink. They will drink a toast to the 76 raiders who have preceded them into history.

The raid required some unusually flexible adaptations of weapons technology. To get the maximum range out of bomber aircraft, and to enable them to fly from aircraft carriers, which only launched and recovered smaller, single-engine planes at the time, the planes had to be lightened — so they discarded most of the B-25′s defensive armament, and the gunner that operated it. They even reduced the offensive armament, fitting an extra fuel tank in the bomb bay in place of bombs. And finally, they planned to attack at low level. Given that, the classified Norden computing bombsight, the pride of the Air Corps, wouldn’t be effective (it had a hard-deck limit of 4,000 feet MSL coded into it); and adding in the high risk of capture, there was no percentage in bringing it. Instead, the crews themselves developed what was called the Mark Twain bombsight or the twenty-cent bombsight; a Captain Greening was responsible for the math and the design, and the airframe sheet metal techs fabricated the sights with hand tools.

Right after the attack, the story of the raid was told in Lt. Ted McClure’s book, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Still a good read today, and it was made into an excellent movie. Since then the story has been told many times, and while some of these tales may be more accurate, it’s hard to beat the immediacy of the story of Ted, his crew, and his plane, The Ruptured Duck.

It will be a sad day when the last of these men are no longer with us. Time never relents. But for today, take a breath of fresh air and rejoice that you are sharing that with four surviving Doolittle Raiders. Theirs was an important role in ensuring that the liberties of their fathers were passed on to us, their sons and grandsons.

Here’s a rarity from GunBroker: M16A1 Carbine cutaway

The M16A1 Carbine upper is cut away to show the workings of the gas system and locking mechanism.

Long after the XM177s were gone, and before we got the first weapon called an M4 (which had a fixed, M16A2-style, carrying handle) there were “M16A1 Carbines” and “M16A2 Carbines.” These weapons were made for export and for very limited US military markets — mostly for special operations “mobs for jobs”. To see one today is pretty rare. To see one professionally cut away is rarer. So you can see one in this post, or at least, its upper.

Ever wonder what a gas port looks like inside? Or what you’re actually pressing on when you adjust an AR-15′s front sight? Here’s your answer.

You can also go to the source: GunBroker, where you can actually buy it, if it’s worth $1,200 to you (or more if the bids get rolling).

For you cheapskates who won’t buy this, or impoverished taxpayers who can’t buy this, you can at least look at these pictures and perhaps use them when you instruct on this weapon. There are more pictures at the link, also.

The gun appears to have been of circa-1970 manufacture; one interesting feature is a 1960s-vintage C MP B marked barrel. That’s one of the early Chrome Bore barrels; the barrel marking was changed to C MP CHROME BORE in the early 1970s. A C MP B marked 14.5″ barrel is quite a rarity these days, compared to the later C MP CHROME BORE variety. (Even rarer is the mid-sixties C MP C marking, which indicates a chromed chamber, but a non-chromed bore).

Bolt Carrier Group cut away to show the internal gas chamber — and charging handle cut away to expose the BCG.

Ironically, the early M16 parts, once unloved orphans as Class III owners, police departments, and private collectors updated their arms, are now hunted by an obsessive legion of retro-heads. But they’re no good to anyone if they’re cut away.

Unless you’re one of the minority who has a use for a cutaway curiosity piece, new to you.

How accurate was a .50 in WWII?

We’re familiar with the feats of marksmanship pulled off by snipers using scope-equipped .50 machine guns in Vietnam (this was also done in Korea, but less has been written about it). The Vietnam successes, particularly the late GySgt. Carlos Hathcock’s, paved the way for the development of purpose-built .50 sniper rifles (it’s no coincidence that the M82 Barrett came to fruition at the exact time that the word of Hathcock’s then-15-year-old-feats spread far and wide among serving soldiers and Marines).

With all the ingenuity that was displayed in World War II, why wasn’t the M2HB used as a sniper weapon? A look at some wartime data from the Heavy Barrel’s close cousin, the aerial M2, might be instructive. The interesting website LoneSentry (which was this week’s W4) has a relevant document. They seem to alternate publishing press releases of new kits for modelers with fascinating original documents from the World War II era. And they’ve reprinted numerous excerpts from a 20th Air Force set of B-29 crew notes, which we’ll snag a short excerpt of:

There are several factors to consider in arriving at an answer to the question of how long a burst it is practical to fire. The ammunition has a high degree of accuracy. At 600 yards, when fired from an accuracy rifle held in a V-block, it will group in a circle 18″ in diameter. When fired single shot, using an aircraft machine gun on a tripod mount, tests have shown a 20″ circle of fire.

This is a Mann accuracy device, used for ammunition testing by the Army (this particular one is in 7.62 NATO on a Springfield acton). These were made in all calibers, and ammunition lots had to pass an accuracy test for acceptance. Image: CMP (which has some of these for sale as collector curiosities).

So that’s the purpose of their investigation — how long a burst makes sense for an aerial gunner to fire. And the first thing they establish is that the theoretical accuracy of the ammunition, fired from a (presumably Mann) accuracy rifle, as roughly 2.87 MoA. (Angular calculation from here, using values of 1800 feet [600 yd] and 1.5 ft [18"]). Using the same calculator to solve angle for longer ranges, using that theoretical accuracy established at 600 yards, we get about a yard dispersion at 1200 yards and 43 inches and change at 1500. Again, this is the theoretical accuracy of the ammunition. Using single shots from an actual MG on a ground tripod (presumably with T&E, although the record doesn’t say) we see a slight degradation which makes that 1200 and 1500 yard shot on a man-sized target problematical (and with iron sights, functionally impossible). In single-shot mode, the differences between the ANM2 aerial machine gun (several variations of which are seen here) and its M2HB ground counterpart are not telling.

The information file goes on to address burst fire, of less interest vis-a-vis sniping but interesting in its own right.

In a burst of 10 or 12 on the same mount the group was approximately five feet. When longer bursts were fired, it was observed that the gun soon lost accuracy, even though it remained relatively stationary in the mount. When over fifty rounds were fired, in one burst, the projectiles tumbled in flight and dispersed over a 75 foot area at 600 yards.

Why is that? Does the barrel get “shot out” that quickly? Not exactly.

When the barrel has been overheated, it will be found that it cannot be relied upon for further accuracy even though the lands and grooves measure up well and the barrel, to all appearances, seems good. If the exterior of the barrel has a burned appearance, it should be tested by ordnance before further use. When a barrel becomes over-heated it expands to such an extent that the muzzle velocity decreases several hundred feet per second. This decrease continues as the barrel continues to expand, until a point is reached where tumbling of the projectiles takes place and controlled fire is reduced to a few hundred feet.

If an enemy flew his plane to within “a few hundred feet” of a B-29, self-preservation was not high on his agenda. Pilots — German and Japanese alike — who excelled at attacking 4-engined day bombers tended to make fast, slashing, attacks from straight ahead — ahead high, if they could get up there (most of the Japanese fighters were doing well to get to the B-29′s bombing altitude). Pilots who settled in at short range to shoot the four engines out one at a time were in the convergence zone of several guns from that bomber and his cell mates, and their careers tended to the truncated.

The gunner instructors who wrote the document reached this conclusion:

The accuracy of the fire delivered, therefore, depends not only on how steadily the gun is held, but also on the length of the burst, and the condition of the barrel. If a gunner fires short bursts of three to five rounds, constantly using his sights, he will have a tight group and a high degree of accuracy. This is the most effective method of firing your machine guns.

Now, this has always been the advice for ground gunners using air-cooled guns, but it’s enlightening to see aerial gunners getting the same instruction. The ANM2′s principal differences with the M2HB were: a lighter barrel and a ventilated, full-length barrel shroud, on the theory that an aerial gun would be bathed in fast-flowing cooling air. (And, at bomber altitudes, cold air: 50 to 60 degrees below zero F). But they still suffered extreme accuracy degradation, and bullet tumbling, when long bursts were fired.

Many a Japanese fighter pilot's last sight on Earth. Note the upper turret is trained forward, the lower, aft. And yes, it embiggens. Bill Crump photo (CAF).

Many a Japanese fighter pilot’s last sight on Earth, although this photo, of the only surviving airworthy B-29, was taken at far lower altitude. Note that the upper turret is trained forward, the lower, aft; they can both be controlled by the bombardier in the nose. And yes, the picture embiggens. Bill Crump photo (CAF).

The 20th Air Force was the one that operated B-29s against Japan, first from Chinese bases and then, after the successful Marianas campaign, from Saipan and Tinian. To bring it full circle, its commander was General Curtis LeMay, who was an absolute gun nut, and as Chief of Staff of the Air Force would drive the US adoption of its longest-serving small arm: the M16 series.

Wednesday Weapons Website of the Week – Lone Sentry

“Jap Infantry Weapons.” Period poster. Click to embiggen.

We have no idea who the “Lone Sentry” is, but he seems to be a military buff and/or scale modeler with a great interest in World War II.

There’s some news about new model releases, a field that doesn’t interest us all that much (is it just us, or is modeling dying out demographically even as a computer and injection-molding revolution makes higher and higher quality models available?).

But what gets us at Lone Sentry is the variety and range of original World War II documents published there.

For instance, this is what the Department of the Army thought about the MP40 — in 1954, nine years after the last one was made. (Why? It was still widely in use then, and lasted until the late 1980s with second-line formations, like the Norwegian Home Guard, and until the early 90s in strategic caches).

That poster of Japanese Infantry Weapons that illustrates this post is a pretty good cheat-sheet for the advanced Imperial Japanese collector. It came from Lone Sentry. Forty years ago, you could have got all of these but the field guns dirt cheap. Today, not so much.

The utility of these World War II documents doesn’t end on V-J Day (the 1950s MP40 article is an illustration of that!).
Russian road concealment TTPs… that would resurface in Indochina.

Here is an American translation of a German assessment of Russian summer camouflage techniques, from 1943. Figures 3 and 4 (right) shows means of concealing a road from enemy aerial patrols — something the Russians, often in a position of aerial inferiority, desperately needed to do. This identical technique was used on the Ho Chi Minh trail in the 1960s, as numerous reports from SOG, Project Delta, and other reconnaissance teams testified.

One thing we really like, is that Lone Sentry documents what original document his insights come from. We’re going to pluck some wisdom out of the posts here, and inflict it upon you shortly.

So that’s the W4 for this week: LoneSentry.com. Enjoy.

A thousand dollar AR barrel?

As we write this, the auction isn’t over yet, but $1k for an original AR-15/M16 barrel is a distinct possibility (the auction’s up over $900 already). Whatever price the auction finally stops at — which should be before this post goes live Monday at 0600, so we may update — will certainly be a record for a mass-produced M16-series barrel.

Barrels have been in increasingly short supply since an ATF ruling suddenly reclassified barrels as non-importable parts, even ones like this that were made in the USA. This is contrary to the letter of the law, but the Congress and the courts have given ATF bureaucrats very great latitude in how they interpret the law.

As a result, gun parts kits have only been imported without barrels for the last several years. And in a parallel Obama Administration initiative, the military has ceased disposing of barrels and other parts by sale, but has demilled them at great expense instead.

Cast FSB (no forging flash) and non-chrome-lined barrel. (Click to embiggen).

But still, what’s so special about this barrel? Two things: it’s a relatively early barrel, and it’s unfired, both of which are extremely rare. Hundreds of thousands of these barrels were made, but few survived; the military replaced them when the rifles went to depot for maintenance. This barrel predates the chrome bore and even the chrome chamber, which were production-line reactions to Vietnam maintenance and reliability issues. It also contains the cast front sight base, which was only used for the first few years of production and was soon replaced by a forged part.

Bottom line: this is a necessary barrel to build an accurate early M16 clone, or a Project Agile weapon. It is also the barrel someone would need to restore an early Colt AR-15 SP1, guns that have become expensive collector items in their own right. So a lot of people want it. At this writing Sunday night, eight different bidders have bid it up to $916 and there’s still three hours to go. (There’s usually a flurry of bids at the end of an auction, unless an earlier high bidder is already way up high).

Retro M16 XM16 Colt 602 through 603 barrel – UNFIRED

This is the last of my retro parts AND YES I saved what I believe to be the best for last. This is an original Colt 602 through early 603 barrel that is UNFIRED with original cast front sight post. This barrel has never been on a rifle, has not been refinished and would be virtually impossible to upgrade upon.

If my information is correct, this would have been used approx. 1963 through 1966.

These barrels are very hard to find now in any condition. If you are building an early retro black rifle this is as good as it gets. Bid now, because there are very few of these out there (that anyone is willing to part with) and I have never seen another offered in this condition. I bought this years ago for a future retro project that now looks unlikely due to my Connecticut lawmakers; this is the only one I have.

via Retro M16 AR15 Colt 601 602 603 barrel – UNFIRED : AR15 Parts at GunBroker.com.

Certainly the current AR-15 feeding frenzy is also a factor. We were actually planning to bid on this, but we were expecting it to go for around six hunge… obviously our market calibration is out of date. (And if you think barrels are crazy, check out reputable bolt carrier groups… if you can find ‘em).

The seller is known to us; we’ve bought other retro parts from him (barrels, actually, if we remember right) and he always treated us right. We are glad to see this windfall going to a deserving fellow. We always liked his clear photos, like these. And the GI blanket background was a nice touch.

Update

It did indeed go over one large… $1,035 to be exact. That’s definitely a record. Will it go down into the retro parts record books… or will it soon be broken?

Auction Action

Every once in a while we like to call out an auction with some cool stuff in it. How is this for some cool stuff?

This was the collection — well, part of the collection — of the late Richard Wray. His collection includes some 200 weapons, 90 of them Class 3 weapons comprising a history of the development and deployment of the 20th Century machine gun. His other weapons include such rarities as a Mexican Mondragon semi-auto rifle, a weapon so rare we’ve only seen it in pictures. Jack Lewis of Cowan’s Auctions teases the auction, coming in April, with some great photographs and scanty description.

It’s remarkable what range and quality of weapons there are here, including a llot of large crew-served guns: Water-cooled Browning, a bunch of Maxims including distinctive Russian (1905 and 1920) and German (MG08 and 08/15) models and their British Vickers cousins, a Lewis gun with an unusual AA sight; and a Danish Madsen, once a huge worldwide commercial success, with bipod and rare tripod. Tripod mounted, magazine fed guns of any kind or nationality are rare.

And those are just the guns in your face in this photo. Right behind them is a rarity! An Austrian Schwarzlose, a blowback-operated, tripod-mounted machine gun of the Great War. But that’s as common as a 10/22 compared to some of the other vintage pieces, like this M1913 Parabellum machine gun. This air-cooled weapon was used by the air forces of the German Empire, primarily as a flexible gun by observers and gunners on two-seaters, large bombers, and Zeppelins (yes, we’re aware that technically the Zeps were operated by the Navy). This rare bird is complete with the much rarer optical sight, gun mount and belt spool, and is in stunning condition (click to embiggen the picture).

But we haven’t hit the real rarities yet. Sure, there are strange Japanese and Italian light and medium machine guns, which are rarer by far than the collection’s standard SMGs like a Sten and an MP 38 or 40. But they can’t compare to this baby: the Benet-Mercié Machine Rifle of 1909, complete with the rare Warner & Swasey “Telescopic Musket Sight” of 1908 (the sniper variation of which we discussed in this blog last month) and the even rarer tripod adapter. This Hotchkiss derivative replaced the superior M1904 Maxim whose introduction we also previously discussed, citing an article written by an officer involved, Parker K. Hitt (is it just us, or is Hitt a great name for an infantry ofifcer?).

At the time of the Mexican Punitive Expedition (1916) and the US entry into World War I (1917) this forgotten gadget was the standard US Army and Marine machine gun, and because nothing was too good for the troops, they got next to nothing: both services could inventory mere dozens as we declared war on a nation that had put a machine gun every few yards along its battle front for three plus years. (According to an article from the American Rifleman, 670 were made, by Springfield Armory and Colt. The auction gun in the photo is a Springfield piece).

They were used in the Philippines and Haiti as well as in Mexico. In Europe, our doughboys would be equipped, mostly, with weapons bummed from Britain and especially France. (It wasn’t that much of an imposition on our hosts: the French were running out of living Frenchmen to issue guns to, and by 1917 the bedraggled remnants of what had been Europe’s largest and strongest army were mutinous). The Benet-Mercié is fundamentally a Hotchkiss, which might have come from the pen of Rube Goldberg. The troops generally disliked it, although the Warner & Swasey prismatic telescopic “musket sight” got mixed reviews. The American Rifleman article explains how the gun turned off infantrymen:

The Chauchat notwithstanding, it is fortunate that our troops did not have to go into combat against the Germans with the “daylight gun.” A well-known small arms authority of the day, Edward C. Crossman, noted the following: “I remember one cold day how a government inspector and I lugged one of the government Benet-Mercie machine guns out of the great Colt factory where they were made and set it up in a testing yard. Although the gun was in the hands of a most skilled man, a man there on purpose to inspect machine guns—that gun broke six parts in the first 20 shots. It broke extractors and firing pins as fast as we could put them in—because the weather was cold, and the chilled parts were brittle. Imagine tumbling out in the chill dawn of a winter’s day with the Huns coming over No Man’s Land, and having your machine gun break apart the first rattle of shots!”

The “Daylight gun” nickname came from the difficulty of reassembling a dismantled Benet-Mercié. Even the feed strips could be put in a right way or a wrong way, and inserted the wrong way, they wouldn’t work. Later Hotchkiss models would resolve some of those problems. The Empire of Japan’s troops used Hotchkiss-based machine guns very effectively — by day or night. But they had the luxury of more years of development; the USA had new Browning designs waiting in the wings, and the Hotchkiss action and its brass feed strips were an evolutionary dead end.

That’s not a gun, mate…

THIS is a gun.

No, it’s not a shotgun, even though its calibre is gauged in “bore” like a shotgun. But while shotguns peak out at 10-gauge for hard-core waterfowlers and 12-gauge for general sporting and self-defense use, this puppy is an 8-gauge (to be persnickety, 8-bore) rifle.

What on earth would you hunt with an 8-bore? Elephants? Why, yes. Also cape buffalo, rhino, hippo, man-eating lions and tigers, and other dangerous African and Asian game. In its day, this W.J. Jeffery double rifle was the serious hunter’s field tool. It has sight leaves for 100 and 200 yards, and fired a massive, thousand-grain .875-inch bullet from lathe-turned brass casings, propelled by black powder. It manages recoil the traditional way — by weighing 17-plus pounds. (So the next time you think some 19th-Century Great White Hunter was a pansy for having a gun bearer, pick up three M16s and walk around with ‘em in your arms all day).

Several English smiths made eight and even four bore rifles, and each maker designed his own cartridges — there’s no such animal as a standard 8-bore casing or load that could be interchanged among disparate weapons.

Large-bore black powder elephant guns are one of the many side currents in John Ross’s legendary novel of the gun culture, Unintended Consequences, which is unfortunately long out of print.

This particular 8-bore is up on GunBroker, offered by a highly reputable seller fairly local to us, but, alas, priced beyond our reach. An excerpt from the write up (there’s more, and more photos, at the link) follows.

This Jeffery double rifle in 8 Bore was made in 1893 and is, as they say, the real thing. With 24” barrels having somewhere between a 1:68” and 1:72” twist in the 11 groove rifling it’s clear that bullets between 950 and 1200 grains will be stabilized nicely at 1500 or so feet per second delivering in the neighborhood of 6800 foot pounds of energy to whatever happens to be very unlucky that day – twice.

With the Empire’s numerous (while far flung) pockets of dangerous game, the London gun makers responded to officer’s and gentleman’s requests for something of a “stopper”. So the 8 Bore was refined. Only a few makers rose to the top and Jeffery was a pioneer there.

This example features a round body Jones type under lever action which was chosen for its extreme reliability, durability and strength. The 5/8” wide rib is matted from the doll’s head to the express sight and again from the muzzle to 4-1/2” behind it. The front sight is a tapered bead of platinum while both the 50 and 200 sights have a thin platinum centerline inlay. The locks are appropriately large back action with rebounding hammers. There is tight floral engraving on the doll’s head and screw heads while the locks, guards, tangs, grip cap, forend iron and frame have a tastefully simple line bordering with subtle flourishes here and there. The stocks are beautifully figured walnut with single border checkering and the wood has that great depth that only age brings. Sling hook eyes are present on the lower barrel rib and the butt toe line. It appears that the original horn or hard rubber butt plate has been faced off to a thickness of 5/16” (5/8” at the point of the heel tang) on to which a ¾” custom pad has been glued (LOP is 13-3/8” & 14-3/8”). It weighs in at 17 pounds, one ounce. This rifle was made to put ivory on the bearer’s back and it certainly did.

via W.J. Jeffery & Co 8 Bore Double Rifle Made 1893 : Antique Guns at GunBroker.com.

By all means, Read The Whole Thing™.

We’re not even hunters, really, and are generally much more interested in combat weaponry than in hunting tackle. But this thing stirs every impulse of want in our imperfect human souls, and like the most interesting military weapons, it draws an involuntary exclamation out of us:

“The stories this gun could tell if it could talk!”

If you can afford the staggering, but probably fair, price, perhaps it will come home and talk to you.

Not all weapons are morally neutral

It’s questionable whether this is a weapon, actually, although if you define weapon as “an implement of violence,” it is.

This particular implement of violence is used in Iran to cast fear into thieves, at least those thieves who are not members of or associated with the Government and Shiite clergy. Those thieves get a pass… kind of like the ones associated with our government, when you think about it.

France 24 found images and a story on social media, and followed up:

We contacted many of our Observers in Iran to ask them about this machine. Some of them had heard about it before, but many discovered its existence through these morbid photographs, which were reportedly taken on Thursday. According to the INSA press agency, the man shown getting his finger cut off was charged with robbery and adultery by a court in the southwestern city of Shiraz. He was also accused of being at the head of a criminal organisation. On top of losing one of his fingers, he was sentenced to three years in prison and 99 whip lashes.

via Iran unveils machine for amputating thieves’ fingers | The Observers.

No word on whether the mullah that ordered this barbarity then ate the finger, but it would be about their speed. The article goes on to note that brutal punishments for petty crime are on the rise in the absolutist theocracy.

Can any of our machine-savvy readers tell us what this instrument of torture is made from? To us, it looks like a modification of some kind of small-shop stamp press.

How far back do weapons go?

There are several answers, of course. The Bible suggests that there was already a weapons user, or abuser, in the first human generation, in fact, the first born human: Cain, who slew his younger brother Abel. (The scriptures are silent on how exactly Cain did it, so maybe he didn’t use a weapon at all and just strangled the guy).

If you’re diffident about the creationist approach, we can offer you the fruits of science today. While no one is completely sure when the first Neanderthal bashed a peer’s ridged brow in with a rock, archaeologists had, until recently, evidence that projectile weapons like spears and arrows were invented twice, once about 60,000 years ago and again some ten or twenty thousand years later, after the technology died out once. But now they have new evidence that we’ve been spearing one another, and our now-extinct Neanderthal rivals, since about 71,000 years ago.

The (UK) Independent reports:

The fine stone blades were excavated from a prehistoric site called Pinnacle Point on the southern coast of South Africa and are between 6,000 and 11,000 years older than the previous oldest known samples of spear and arrow blades, scientists said.

The discovery suggests that the invention of lethal projectile weapons came far earlier in the course of human prehistory than previously realised and that, once invented, the knowledge was passed down the generations, according to a study in Nature led by Curtis Marean of Arizona State University.

Previously, scholars thought that the technology of “projectile weapons” was first invented about 60,000 years ago and then lost for many thousands of years before being reinvented between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago.“

Every time we excavate a new site in coastal South Africa with advanced field techniques, we discover new and surprising results that push back in time the evidence for uniquely human behaviours,” Dr Marean said.

Arrows and spears were probably the key weapons that allowed anatomically modern Homo sapiens to migrate out of Africa and successfully colonise other parts of the world, including Europe where the Neanderthals lived, he said.

“When Africans left Africa and entered Neanderthal territory they had projectiles with greater killing reach and these early moderns probably also had higher levels of hyper-cooperative behaviour,” he said.

“These two traits were a knockout punch. Combine them, as modern humans did and still do, and no prey or competitor is safe. This probably laid the foundation for the expansion out of Africa of modern humans and the extinction of many prey as well as our sister species such as Neanderthals.”

via Stone-age humans began using lethal technology 71,000 years ago to fight Neanderthals – Science – News – The Independent.

Of course, some Neanderthal genes and traits survive today in modern humans, thanks to ancient interspecies uggle-dee-boo. But if you look at what Dr Marean says were the advantages that allowed our ancestors to vanquish those Neanderthals, you see the same traits that make elements, units, and nations victorious today: superior projectile weapons with greater kliling reach (think of our essay on range here) and superior organized, cooperative behavior.

If only Abel had had weapons, and someone to team up with, the whole Book of Genesis might have gone a different way. Instead, he’s a dead end, like the Neanderthal.

One last thought: just because a weapon is superseded by new technology doesn’t mean it goes away. Many news stories have noted that American homicides are statistically more likely to involve blunt-trauma weapons (like Ogg’s rock up there) than “assault weapons, ” and that even Cain’s stranglin’ thumbs remain viable as lethal weapons millennia later. That’s why, while some combatants only master the latest lethal technology, whether it’s a sniper rifle or an F-22, true warriors apply the warrior spirit to any weapon that comes to hand, and failing any weapon at all, hands themselves.

Einstein’s famous observation that he didn’t know what weapons would be used in World War III, but “World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” was facile, but false in this: we never stopped fighting with sticks and stones. New weapons are additional, not in lieu of old favorites.

Something great over at Forgotten Weapons… FG42!

One of SMG’s FG42 replicas. Rather than embed his video, we’ll just give you a picture and a link. The picture is the one they have on GunBroker right now.

Pretty, isn’t it? Go here for Ian’s short writeup and nearly 16 minute video, including disassembled examination, a comparison of what’s like the original and what’s not, and some shots of it in action. at an IPSC match. As Ian says, “Hope you enjoyed the video… you probably didn’t enjoy it as much as we did because this thing is just really awesome!”

We actually ordered one of these, then never finished up the paperwork as various crises struck around here. Even though we laid in the required stock of ZB-26 mags. What the hell were we thinking? True, paperwork’s “not our bag,” as folks said back in the swinging sixties. But some paperwork is worth it. We’ll be rectifying that this week, especially now that we’ve seen video of one in action. WE WANT!

Of course, Chuck Schumer wants it, too, but not in a healthy and hygenic way like us. That pervert.

WeaponsMan

Quiet Professionals, Noisy Machinery