The Austrian Steyr-Hahn M1912 Pistol: ‘Like if Picasso drew a 1911…
Long before Gaston Glock stopped building curtain rods and moved on to polymer pistols, the Austrian firm of Steyr was producing innovative handgun designs. One of their most curious and downright oddball offerings was their Model 1912.
The Austria of today is a small country about the size of Maine. The Austria of 1912 however was much different. With a population of more than 50-million people, it was the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and included almost half of central Europe including what we know today as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, and of course, Austria. This polyglot country had a large army of more than a million men when mobilized. Poorly led but massive in size and brilliantly equipped, the Austrian army used some of the best small arms, machine guns, and field artillery of the time. When you realize that the companies that are now Steyr-Mannlicher, FEG, and CZ were behind these weapons, it’s easy to see gun making is in their blood.
In 1911, the regular Army was equipped with the striker-fired 8mm M1907 Roth-Steyr. To arm the Austrian Landwehr, a form of National Guard, the government of the Kaiser (they had one too), needed a new and modern pistol. While the regulars had a new handgun, the reservists of the Landwher still had to make due with old Gasser revolvers. With war in the neighboring Balkans and a looming crisis with Tsarist Russia, the time for an upgrade was at hand.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
The M1910 Maxim Sokolov Machine Gun: The gun wheeled around the world
At first glance, it seems like something from a steam punk fantasy. With more parts in common with an early automobile than a modern machine gun, the Russian M1910 Maxim Sokolov variant represents a thought process from a very different age. But what make this gun truly amazing is that while the technology of its day is long gone, it is not uncommon to find this hearty century-old gun still in service on the battlefields of today.
Today we are used to driving from place to place over nice paved roads in automobiles that have computers in them to keep them from driving too far over 100mph. Back in the 1900s, roads from city to city were made of dirt that turned to thick mud in the rain; even in the industrial United States, there was no such thing as asphalt. In 1903, it took an epic 63 days to cross the US from coast to coast by automobile—the roads in 1903 Russia were far worse. The primary means of transport for the Tsar of Russia’s 15 million man Imperial Army was by the soles of their boots.
With the heavy water-cooled Maxim guns issued to them weighing in at 60 kilos, even the strongest Ivans found it a tough hump. With this in mind, the Tsars machine gunners got a set of wheels.
The 1910 Maxim going for a drag
Invented by the American-born British inventor Sir Hiram Maxim in 1889, the machinegun that bears his name was the worldwide standard for automatic weapons by 1900. The militaries of Germany, Great Britain, as well as the US Navy among others had it in regular service. When the Russians adopted it, they greatly simplified the design to make it as soldier proof as possible. With the adoption of the short-wheeled mount and a steel plate shield to protect the gunner, the gun became known as the Pulemyot Maxima Sokolov Model of 1910, or simply PM 1910.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
Grave Robbing Relic Hunters Hit Augusta GA
Sad that this happens in the town I was born in but it seems that some band of ghouls has taken to robbing the private cemtetary maintained by the American Legion Post in Augusta. The Old Cemetery there houses soldiers from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and WWI.
May they catch the Spanish Flu of 1918 from thier new found wealth and then die before passing it on!
The Browning M1918 BAR: Walking fire
Today every squad of soldiers or marines has at least one fully automatic man-portable light machine gun issued to it. In 1918, this concept was foreign and a firearm that could fill this newly arrived at need was non-existent. Not to worry though, that most genius of American firearms engineers John Moses Browning, had something up his sleeve. The Army called it the M1918, but the troops just called it the BAR.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
130-years of Revolver Speed Loaders
Like most firearms, the revolver suffers from a very annoying limitation that affects virtually anyone using it in the field: once you fire every chamber, the gun needs to be reloaded. Most of the time (meaning range time), reloading is a minor albeit sometimes irritating inconvenience and time is a no issue. Sometimes however, a bad person or animal is attempting to end your existence and, under the stress of this real-life situation, time is a priceless luxury. It was for just these occasions that the speedloader was created.
The first revolver speedloader patented was that of William H. Bell in 1879. Bell’s device was a simple metal disk with a rotating locking mechanism that held six revolver rounds. When used with a top-break revolver of the time, such as the Smith and Wesson Lemon squeezer, the speedloader would drop six ready rounds in the cylinder extremely rapidly. It is unclear if Bell’s device ever was manufactured, but it certainly seems like the first of its species.
In 1893, one Mr. William de Courcy Prideaux, a subject of Queen Victoria, patented a device he referred to as a ‘cartridge-packet holder’. This device was a circular disc through which 12 spring-steel fingers protruded in six pairs. Each pair held one .455 caliber round for the British Webley style revolver. A later 1914 improved design added a bridge-like handle to the rear of the plate.
Prideaux’s device became popular with professional army officers and discerning Webley owners..
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
The Browning M1917 Machine Gun: Browning’s water-cooled heavy
When it comes to defending a fixed position, such as a trench or pillbox, from an advancing horde of enemy foot soldiers, the best solution for the individual soldier is a machine gun. This we’ve known for some time. The problem with machine guns though, is that they overheat after the first thousand rounds and aren’t much good without a replacement barrel after that. Well, if you’re a Guns.com reader it should come as no surprise that John Moses Browning came up with the ultimate answer to this problem a long time ago, even before his legendary M2 won the hearts and minds of the American people, and it was called the M1917 machine gun.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
Free 133 page PDF on US Army Uniforms and Equipment throughout history
Want to know what the US infantryman carried in 1974, or the color of the cockade on the infantry hats of 1803? Well the incredibly detailed 133-page PDF file for free download on the US Army’s History website
“Survey of US Army Uniforms Weapons and Accoutrements by David Cole”
Warship Wednesday, April 10 The Last Swedish Parsnip!
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.
- Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, April 10
Here we see the Swedish Pansarskepp HSvMS Gustav V as she looked in broadside in the 1940s. Pansarskepps ( literally “armored ships” ) were a peculiar design that was popular in the Baltic from about 1900-45. These short, shallow-draft ships could hug the coastline and hide from larger capital ships, while carrying big enough guns to be able to brutally bring the pain to any landing ship escorted by a shallow draft light cruiser or destroyer approaching from offshore. Sweden had kept out of wars since Napoleon was around, but she was still very wary of not only Russian and German, but British designs on the Baltic. With her neutrality only as good as the ships that could protect it, the country built a series of 13 coastal defense vessels, or Pansarskepps from 1897-1918.
And no, they are not commonly referred to as ‘parsnips.’
Here’s a brief run down:
Oden-class coastal defense ship 3445 tons, 17kts, 2 x 254 mm (10 in) m/94
HMS Oden (launched1897)
HMS Niord (1899)
HMS Thor (1898)
Dristigheten-class coastal defense ship
HMS Dristigheten (1900) -3445 t, 16.5kts 2 x 210 mm (8.2 in) m/98
Äran-class coastal defense ship 3,650 tons, 17kts, 2 x 210 mm (8.2 in) m/98
HMS Äran (August 1901) – Stricken 1947
HMS Wasa (September 1901)
HMS Tapperheten (November 1901) – BU 1952
HMS Manligheten (December 1903)
HMS Oscar II (1905) -
Sverige-class coastal defense ship 7,633 tons full load, 23kts, 4x 283 mm (11.1 inch 45 cal.) 8x 152 mm (6 inch 50 cal.)
HMS Sverige (ordered 1912, comm May 1915)
HMS Drottning Victoria (September 1917)
HMS Gustav V (January 1918)
Gustav V in her WWII camo. It was a green Baltic battleship with a white ‘coast guard’ style racing stripe so that Swedish coastal artillery kept the friendly fire to a minimum.
The Gustav V, as you can see, was the last of the baker’s dozen of these craft to come off the line in Sweden and by all rights, the most advanced of the design. Laid down at Kockums, Malmö (the same company that makes Sweden’s AIP Subs today) on 12/1914, just four months after outbreak of WWI. She was launched 31/1/1918 and finally commissioned in January 1922. She was quite a bit longer than her 1912-designed sister ship and class leader Sverige. This fact, coupled with minor changes to the ship’s armament and major ones to her engineering made Gustav V was the crown jewel of the Swedish fleet from 1922 through 1957.
Note the pre-WWI style of ornate stern work. The US, and other Western navies did away with this around 1909 but the Gustav V, completed in 1922, still retained this classic styling from a more civilized era
She served in WWII and helped keep Sweden neutral even with the large Kreigsmarine and Soviet Navies coming within very close range on occasion. The Wiemar Germany-era Deutschland class was a series of three Panzerschiffe (“armored ships”), better known as Pocket Battleships, were based in part from lessons learned by the Swedes with the Gustav. When compared, the 14500-ton SMS Graf Spee carried six 11-inch and 8x 5.9-inch guns to the 7700-ton Gustav V’s four 11-inch and 8x 5.9-inch guns. The Swedish ship had much heavier armor but the German ship was built to run five knots faster and make round-the-world cruises, something the Swedes had no use for. As a final proof-of-point, the Gustav could float and fight in 20-feet of water whereas the German pocket battleships needed 24 (and a Soviet Gangut class battleship required 30).
The Gus in profile 1930s
So the Swedes had a group of tiny battleships, about the size of a frigate in today’s navies, for almost forty years. The 1938 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships even lists the Swedish Pansarskepps of the Sverige class as battleships.
Built on hulls that were only about the size of today’s frigates, the Gustav carried an armarment larger than any gun armed cruiser. It included four large 11-inch guns and 8 smaller 5.9-inchers.
Well, Gustav lived a quiet life and in 1957 at age 35 was tied up to the pier for the last time– the Soviets had decommissioned the last of their WWI-era Gangut class battleships the year before. Her two sisterships, Sverige and Drottning Victoria were laid up in 1947 and their parts had been used to help Gustav V stay operational for another decade.
But her story was not over. Gustav’s 8x 152 mm (6 inch 50 cal.) Bofors QF guns were removed and mounted around Sweden for use as Coastal Artillery should the Soviets (or Germans, or Norwegians, or British, or whoever feel froggy) and were only retired in the 1980s. The disarmed ship herself was still used as a training hulk and pierside until 1970, when she was scrapped.
The end of the Pansarskepp era.
A few of her guns still remain emplaced around Sweden to this day. While its 1900s tech, these EMP-immune guns could ruin the paint job of Soviet ships well into the 1980s if needed. The Swedes no longer use these guns, but still have their breech-blocks (just in case)
In fact, when Gustav was scrapped, she was arguably the only battleship still ‘in service.’ At the time the US Iowa-class battleships were all in mothballs and had been since the 50s. Tthe British Vanguard was scrapped in 1960 and the Turkish battle-cruiser Yavuz (formerly the Kaiser’s Goeben, launched in 1911) had been struck in 1954 by the Turks and her hulk scrapped in 1973 after an offer to sell her back to Germany was refused.
Guess the Swedes had the last laugh on that one.
Specs:
Displacement: 7,239 tonnes standard, 7,755 tonnes full load (some sources list 7633 as FL)
Length: 396.6 ft (120.9 m)
Beam: 18.6 m (61 ft)
Draught: 6.7 m (22.0 ft)
Armour
Belt: 200/150–60 mm (7.9/5.9-2.4 in)
Turret: 8 in. Front, 4 in. Sides, 4 3/8 in Rear
Conning Tower: 175/100–60 mm (6.9 in)
Deck: 1 5/8 in.
Redoubt: 4 in.
Barbettes: 6 in.
Small Turrets: 5 in. Front, 3 in. Sides
Machinery
2 shafts; Westinghouse Geared Turbines (Manufactured by Motala Company) in Gustaf V 22,000 SHP; originally with 12 Yarrow-type coal-fired boilers with (originally) 761-tons bunkerage of coal. The provided a nominal range of 3300-miles. This was seen as plenty for the Baltic region of operations. In the 1930s half of the ships 12 boilers were replaced by 2 oil-burning Penhöet type boiler. This upgrade slightly increased speed and allowed the ship to use both oil and coal for strategic reasons to operate on alternative fuel if the swedish oil supply was ever cut off). Fuel stowage was 360ts of coal and 273ts of oil after this.
Armament
- 4x 283 mm (11.1 inch 45 cal.) Bofors guns (2 twin turrets), load in 17 seconds, rated as cramped, dividing partition between guns. These guns could fire a 672.4 lbs. (305 kg) Arrow Nose Shell to 31,700 yards (29,000 m), capable of penetrating 13.5-inches of armor at 6500-yards. These four guns could fire a total of a dozen rounds every minute at targets upto 29-km away.
- 8x 152 mm (6 inch 50 cal.) Bofors QF guns (1 twin turret superfiring over the forward 11 inch battery, and 6 single turrets, 3 on each beam)
- 4x 75 mm Bofors AA cannons mounted forward of the rear 11 inch battery
- 2x 57 mm short-barreled Bofors cannons (6 pdr.)
- 9x 6,5 mm MG
- 2x 457 mm (18 in) TT
Armament after modernization (late 1930´ts to WW-II)
The underwater torpedo tubes where removed, and the underwater torpedo room was converted into an artillery central plotting room to serve the installation of modern range meters and fire control equipment for heavy, secondary and AA-gunnery.
All small gunnery and 2x152mm (6 inch 50 cal. ) was removed and replaced with modern Bofors 75mm, 40mm and 20mm Anti aircraft gunnery. (2 x 2 – 25mm/58, 4 x 1 – 25mm/58; + 1 x 2 – 40mm/56cal M32, 2 x 2 – 20mm/66cal M40, 4 x 1 – 20mm/66cal M40
The range of the 281 mm (11 inch) main-artillery was upgraded by new ‘Arrow Point’ ammunition. An upgrade at the time to the guns that would have enabled them to fire to 35-degrees elevation (from the 1912-era 25-degrees) which would have added some 10,000-m to their range, was canceled.
Complement 450 after reconstruction
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5 Knife-Equipped Handguns: Pistols with a point
Whereas a rifle can reach out and touch someone, handguns have always been more up close and personal while knife fighting has been described as the most intimate combat scenario of them all. So what could be better for those who relish a good gutter fight than a knife attached to a handgun?
In Renaissance Europe, defense weapons began to increasingly fall into one of two categories: ranged weapons like guns and bows that hurled objects and projectiles, and edged weapons, like knives and swords, used to pierce, hack and slice.
An era of innovative ideas, it did not take weaponsmakers long to start attempting to combine the two. For example, the pike (basically a long spear and one of the most effective weapons in human history) was augmented first by the musket and then finally replaced by the bayonet—which turned a musket into a pike.
The ability to retain the advantage of distance (even if your gun is out of commission) makes the bayonet seem obvious, but why would one want to apply this same concept to a handgun? Truly ridiculous, you say? Well, these hybrid knife-pistols were the original pig stickers. Hunters in Europe in the 15th century added long bladed knives to the end of their flintlock pistols so they could have a means of defense in the event that the boar they chased wasn’t dropped by the weak and unreliable boom stick of the day. These combos remained popular until gun science got its act together.
Here’s five of our favorite knife handguns in my column at GUNS.com
The 1897 Winchester Trench Gun
Americans live in a shotgun culture and we have long brought them with us when heading to war. Without argument, one of the most popular shotguns ever built in the United States was the 1897 Winchester and this work horse got called to serve in not only both World Wars, but in Korea and Vietnam as well.
The Winchester Company of New Haven, Connecticut, first breathed life into their 1897 model shotgun through a modernization of its 1893 series pump gun. Both were designed by firearms legend John Moses Browning. The gun was light and handy, at 7-pounds, and it was sold in a slew of variants with barrels ranging anywhere from 20-30.” One of the first pump action shotguns capable of shooting the then-new 2.75-inch smokeless powder shells, it was an instant hit at $25.
Users carried five shells of buckshot in the magazine tube and one in the chamber. Better yet it could be slam fired as fast as the pump could be worked, unloading 54 balls of 00 buckshot in about five seconds. The Army, needing some bad medicine to deal with Muslim insurgents in the Philippines and Mexican bandits on the border, bought several small batches of riot guns with the 20? barrel as early as 1900. When World War 1 erupted and the US found itself in the worst of it in 1917, again they found they needed more shotguns; like 20,000 more.
Little did they know these guns would still be in use in Vietnam fifty years later.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
Goodreads
