Warship Wednesday 25 February 2026: ‘Sorry, Your Bird’

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday 25 February 2026: ‘Sorry, Your Bird’

Via The Times History and Encyclopaedia of the War Vol XXI, London 1920 (p.127)

In the above depiction, we see, on the left, HM’s Armed Merchant Cruiser Alcantara (M.94), late of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co, fighting what appears to be a Norwegian-flagged steamer Rena but was actually the very well-armed German auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) SMS Greif, some 110 years ago this week.

It was a cutthroat affair, one of swirling action, six-inch guns, and, finally, torpedoes.

At the end of the day, both ships were at the bottom of the North Sea.

Meet Alcantara

Built at Harland & Wolff, Govan (Yard number 435G) for the RMSP Company’s Southampton-to-South America run, RMS Alcantara was a beautiful A-series ocean liner of some 570 feet in length with a displacement of 15,831 GRT. Carrying one large single funnel, two four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines drove her two outward screws while a low-pressure steam turbine drove the centerline shaft, enabling the liner to cruise at 18 knots all day.

RMS Alacantara, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. 1_125487

She had accommodation for 1,390 passengers (400 first class, 230 second class, and 760 third class passengers, as well as five holds and a refrigerated cargo space for frozen meat.

Launched 30 October 1913 and completed 28 May 1914, she was preceded in service by her sisters, the Belfast-built RMS Arlanza, Andes, and Almanzora.

Alcantara’s only pre-war commercial cruise was a maiden voyage in June 1914 on RMSP’s route from Southampton to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires.

Once the Great War kicked off in August 1914, she and several of her sisters were subsequently taken up from trade and quickly modified into armed merchant cruisers. They had lots of company as the Admiralty had over 60 commissioned AMCs employed on patrol– and later convoy protection– during the Great War.

In this, the now HMS Alacantara was fitted with eight BL 6″/40 Mark II naval guns repurposed from old battleships, two 6-pounders, and two 3-pounders. By 10 March 1915, she then joined the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, a catch-all outfit for AMCs that at one time had 33 such vessels on its list, tasked with enforcing the blockade along the Northern Patrol.

Her only wartime skipper was a regular, Capt. Thomas Erskine Wardle, RN, who came aboard on 23 March 1915. Shipping out on the training ship HMS Britannia at the ripe old age of 13 in 1890, Wardle had previously commanded the old battlewagon HMS Canopus in 1909, served as Naval Secretary to the Ordnance Board, and been the skipper of the armored cruiser HMS Crescent and then the small AMC HMS Calyx (formerly SS Calypso) in operations around St Kilda earlier in the war.

Wardle was a scrapper.

Her log books for her 11 months with the Northern Patrol detail she was a busy little searcher, challenging at least 57 ships encountered on the sea and boarding another 77 via small boat despite rough sea states, low temperatures, and howling winds common in the region. During that period, she spent no less than 215 days at sea.

Meet Greif

Meanwhile, the planned 432-foot, 4,962 GRT, steel-hulled ship Guben for the German-Australian Line (DADG) was still on the builder’s ways at Neptun Werft AG, Rostock, when the war began. Unfinished, she was subsequently converted for naval service at Kaiserliche Werft, Kiel in 1915 and commissioned as SMS Greif on 23 January 1916.

The only image I can find of Guben/Grief. Her external appearance was later altered by removing her distinctive second funnel, which was false anyway. She was disguised as the freighter Rena from Tønsberg with large Norwegian flags painted on her sides, plus “NORGE” (Norway)

Slow at just 13 knots on her two-boiler/3,000shp suite, she was armed with four 5.9-inch SK L/40s (two forward abeam, two staggered aft, taken from old battleships) and a single 4-inch SK L/40 hidden aft as well as two 50cm torpedo tubes, one on each side of the bow. and provision to carry as many as 300 mines. Outfitted with an oversized 317-man crew (10 officers, including two doctors; and 307 enlisted– 130 regular navy and 167 reservists), she carried extra manpower to equip prize vessels encountered while on patrol.

Speaking of which, two 2.3-inch landing guns were carried, broken down, for use in arming future raiders of opportunity, ideally in the Indian Ocean.

Her only wartime skipper was Fregattenkapitän Rudolf Tietze, aged 41, previously commander of the old coast defense battleship SMS Wörth, which had been reduced to an accommodations hulk in January 1916.

Inspected on commissioning by Großadmiral Prinz Heinrich von Preußen, Greif was detailed to raid the South Atlantic and work her way into the Indian Ocean. Packing enough coal and canned foodstuffs in her holds for an expected 35,000nm sortie, she also shipped aboard 600 6-inch shells, 200 4-inch shells, 12 torpedoes, an extensive small arms locker, and crates of demolition charges. While designed for mines, I am not positive she carried any.

If unable to return home, Greif’s crew was ordered to attempt to land and join colonial warlord Lettow-Vorbeck, holding out in the rump of German East Africa.

Greif set sail from Cuxhaven on 27 February 1916, following behind the submarine U-70, which would see her through the minefields of the Skagerrak.

Our subjects meet

Naval Intelligence advised Jellicoe that an armed German raider was steaming north from the Skagerrak. On this news, he ordered two light cruisers and four destroyers to sail from Rosyth to secure the English east coast against an advance by the expected German auxiliary cruiser. It was probably initially assumed that Greif would lay mines off one of the English naval bases, similar to what SMS Meteor had done at the time.

In addition, three light/scout cruisers, HMS Calliope, Comus, and Blanche, each accompanied by a destroyer, were sent from Scapa Flow to the Norwegian coast to block the northern route for the enemy. They would soon join the alerted Alcantara, low on coal and due to be relieved by her sister Andes. 

The AMCs Columbella and Patia were tasked with searching north of the Shetlands.

Post-war German reports note that Greif encountered two large British auxiliary cruisers working their searchlights and quietly sending short low-power Morse signals back and forth– surely Alcantara and Andes–while poking some 70 miles off Bergen in the pre-dawn of 29 February 1916, but, halting engines and engaging their smoke device, Greif managed to remain unseen.

At 0855 on the same morning, while some 230 miles east of the Faeroes, Alcantara, with Andes not far off, sighted the Norwegian ship Rena, alerted to the prospect that a German raider was trying to break out into the Atlantic. Alcantara fired two blank charges from her 3-pounder, ordered the ship to stop, and prepared a boarding party to check for contraband.

After much hemming and hawing and back-and-forth challenges, Alcantara and “Rena” closed to within 1,100 yards.

FKpt. Tietze ordered his guns to open up at 0940, and Greif’s initial salvo, as noted by Wardle, “put the tellmotor steering gear, engine room telegraph, and all telephones on the bridge out of action, besides killing and wounding men, and disabled Alcantara’s communications equipment.”

Wardle also noted that Greif, most ungentlemanly, dropped the Norwegian ensign and “fought under no flag.” German accounts later note that her Reichskriegsflagge war ensign had been mounted on a corroded line, which broke, then rose later.

The combat was swirling, with the larger and better-armed Alcantara, which had regained steering control, missing two of Greif’s torpedoes but unfortunately catching the third, while the British gunners raked the raider’s decks, hull, and superstructure.

The raider’s ready ammunition for her stern guns was hit, sparking a secondary explosion and blaze that soon spread to her oil tanks.

Greif’s torpedo officer, one Lt. von Bychelberg, remained on the raider’s burning bridge until that final fatal torpedo was fired at 2,800 meters.

By 1015, “Rena” (Greif) was aflame some 3,500 yards off Alcantara, which was listing. With the enemy fire ceased, Wardle ordered his own guns to stop while likewise passing the word to abandon his own stricken ship.

By 1120, Alcantara was under the waves, her survivors attempting to crowd into 15 lifeboats. As the engagement took place “North of 60,” the water temperature was a balmy 44 degrees F.

Meanwhile, her sister Andes, joined by the faster and more proper cruiser Comus and the destroyer Munster, rapidly arrived on the scene.

View of HMS Comus alongside Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard, seen from the south side of the River Tyne, c1915. Equipped with two 6-inch and eight 4-inch guns as well as four torpedo tubes, the 28-knot C-class light cruiser was more than a match for Greif, even if Greif was still in fighting condition when Comus came on the scene. (TWAM ref. DS.SWH/5/3/4/2/B187).

When a round cooked off on the sinking Greif, Comus followed by Andes, opened up on her from 8,000 yards, then, receiving nothing further, signaled, “Sorry, your bird.”

Greif drifted, ablaze, from 1139 to 1212, then sank, carrying 192 of her crew to the bottom, including five of ten officers, her skipper and XO among the lost. With just two of her boats not shot out and generally reserved for use by wounded men, Greif’s survivors grabbed whatever would float that was at hand– ammunition box lids, hatch covers, planking– and took to the water.

Her survivors were picked up by Comus. Post-war German naval tomes report that the remaining officers from Greif were treated well on Comus, fed in the officers’ mess, while the enlisted were “provided for as best as possible.”

Her most senior officer remaining was the navigator, KptLt (Reserve) Jungling, who later compiled a report to the German admiralty in 1919.

Those surviving officers were encamped in Edinburgh Castle, and there found out the extent of British Naval Intelligence’s reach.

Translated from Der Kreuzerkrieg in den ausländischen Gewässern: 

From the interrogation questions posed to the prisoners in Edinburgh Castle by naval officers who spoke fluent German, it emerged that the English knew that the Greif had been moored in the Kiel shipyard next to SMS Lützow and that the Greif crew had been provisioned there initially. Furthermore, it was known that the Greif had been inspected on February 24th by Prince Henry of Prussia and the station commander, Admiral Bachmann. It was also known that the Greif had been anchored in Gelting Bay on February 23rd and 24th.

Her movements out to sea were also apparently known, likely due to decoded signal traffic from U70.

“Alcantara sinks in battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Greif, February 29, 1916” By Willy Stoewer

Alcantara lost 72 with two ratings passing of wounds later in March. Her survivors were picked up by Munster and Comus.

HMS Comus rescuing survivors of the Greif, 29 February 1916. The sinking ship on the left is the Greif, which was finished off by the Comus after being crippled by gunfire from the armed merchant cruisers Andes and Alcantara. The ship shown indistinctly on the far right is probably the Andes since the Greif returned the fire of Alcantara, also managed to torpedo her, and she too sank in the action. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection

Of note, the Kaislerliche Marine once again tried to send a raider out, the Hilfskreuzer Leopard, disguised as the Norwegian Rena, in 1917. That ended with Leopard being sunk with all hands by the intercepting British cruisers HMS Achilles and Dundee.

Versenkung des deutschen Hilfskreuzers Leopard durch HMS Achilles und HMS Dundee, Art.IWMART15814

Not the first odd twist in this tale.

Epilogue

While FKpt. Tietze, Greif’s skipper, was killed by shrapnel during the sea fight, Capt. Wardle of Alacantra was decorated with a DSO for his gallantry in this fight, then, after a stint with the Naval Intelligence Division, was given command of the light cruiser HMS Lowestoft in the Med, followed by the famed battleship Dreadnought, and, post-war, the cruisers Danae and Calliope. In 1924, he was made Rear-Admiral Commanding, Royal Australian Navy Squadron, a position he held for two years before retiring after a 36-year career.

Appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath, he was made a vice admiral on the Retired List in 1931 and passed in 1944, aged 67.

Vice-Admiral Thomas Erskine Wardle, CB, DSO. Australian War Memorial photos. 

One of Alacantra’s most famed survivors was English stoker and firefighter Arthur John Priest, who had previously survived a collision at age 19 aboard RMS Asturias in 1908, then the collision between RMS Olympic and HMS Hawk in 1911, the sinking of the RMS Titanic (1912) and the loss by mine of HM Hospital Ship Britannic (November 1916), then would go on to be an albatross of sorts on his old ship, HMHS Asturias (torpedoed and beached March 20-21st, 1917), and the SS Donegal (sunk in April 1917). Priest, “The Unsinkable Stoker,” subsequently left sea work and spent the rest of his life on dry land in Southampton, passing in 1937 at the age of 49.

Shifting to more infamous survivors, Greif’s waterlogged ship’s doctor from the raider’s decimated wardroom, Assistant Naval Surgeon (Reserve) Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt, went on to become a fairly well-known psychiatrist and neuroscientist. After spending just three months in a British POW camp, he was part of a prisoner exchange and spent the rest of the war assigned to the German naval mission to Constantinople, where he was discharged in 1919. He went on to discover Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and had a rather “complicated” working relationship with the SS during WWII that is beyond our scope.

In a curious twist of fate, the later Royal Mail Lines steamer RMS Alcantara, built by Harland & Wolff in 1926, was taken up in WWII and used as an AMC for three years. She also encountered a German raider at sea, the Hilfskreuzer Thor, with both ships landing hits on each other in the South Atlantic in 1940, then mutually breaking off the fight and limping away.

HM Armed Merchant Cruiser Alcantara (1926) showing battle damage while anchored off Brazil in August 1940 with the Kriegsmarine raider Thor

Sometimes history is like a carousel. You see the same horses over and over.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

If you like this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find. http://www.warship.org/membership.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

With more than 50 years of scholarship, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO, has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

PRINT still has its place. If you LOVE warships, you should belong.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Gaming the Suwalki Gap

Last December, WELT collaborated with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt-University of the German Armed Forces to conduct an all-day war game centered on an October 2026 Russian move into the Baltics without the bedrock promise of immediate U.S. military support.

Under the guise of a humanitarian emergency in isolated Kaliningrad (still occupied former German East Prussia), the 65-mile Suwałki Gap between the Lithuanian borders becomes a fortified Russian superhighway in an operation that could be interpreted as somewhat short of all-out Article 5-invoking war.

The outcome, gamed by a group of German high-ranking former defense bigwigs, is interesting, albeit a bit slanted.

More here. 

CZ Shadow 2 Carry, a Deep Dive After 2,000 Rounds

The Shadow line, originally based on the CZ 75 SP-01, has been a top choice in competitive shooting since winning the 2005 IPSC World Shoot. The well-reviewed Shadow 2, launched in 2016 with improved features and an optics-ready option in 2020, is now widely used by leading IPSC competitors, including Eric Grauffel.

In response to demand for a lighter model, CZ released the Shadow 2 Compact in 2023, featuring a 7075-aluminum frame, 4-inch barrel, and 15+1 magazine capacity on a gun that was about a pound lighter. Both versions offer textured grips and smooth trigger action.

full-sized Shadow 2 and Shadow 2 Compact side by side
Testing both models, the full-sized Shadow 2 and Shadow 2 Compact side by side in Czechia at CZ’s range in 2024, revealed impressive performance that differed little between big brother and the new kid on the block. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

As the Shadow 2 Compact is based on a DA/SA competition gun, there’s no firing pin block plunger system, which can be a pucker factor for some, being drop-safe if carried with a round in the chamber. That led to the Shadow 2 Carry, which retains everything folks loved about the S2 Compact but deletes the manual safety lever in favor of a simple de-cocking lever, while adding a safety notch on the hammer and an automatic firing pin block.

Additionally, it features a direct mount with a K-series footprint, while retaining excellent sights, unlike the universal plate-based optics pad on the Compact, which requires removing the rear sights. The magazine release has also been made shorter, more akin to that on the P01– something we complained to CZ about directly back in 2024 on the Shadow Carry, so you are welcome.

CZ Shadow 2 Carry
Boom. The CZ Shadow 2 Carry as made in Europe for the U.S. market. As you can tell from our installation of a Holosun 507K, it is optics-ready (but doesn’t ship with one). 
CZ Shadow 2 Carry
The new CZ Shadow 2 Carry has a 4-inch barrel, giving it an overall length of 7.5 inches. All the dimensions are a 1:1 comparison with the Shadow 2 Compact, which means you can swap barrels, many internals (not controls), and holsters. 
CZ Shadow 2 Carry
The width over the ambi decocker is 1.5 inches, while the height is 5.4 inches. 
CZ Shadow 2 Carry compared
As you can see, when compared to this early 1980s CZ75 “Pre-B,” it carries forth the same lineage that has been the benchmark for the company’s 9mm family of semi-auto pistols for over 50 years. 
CZ Shadow 2 Carry compared
Including the low bore axis and gliding internal slide rails. 
CZ Shadow 2 Carry compared
And the overall grip angles and feel. People love the classics, man. 

Quick summary: CZ responded to those who wanted a safe-to-carry Shadow 2 Compact with the same race gun lineage known and loved for generations, and the resulting Shadow 2 Carry delivers on that promise, blending style, performance, and dependability in one platform.

For the full 2,500-word/30-image review, head on over to my column at Guns.com.

Desert Emils: 7./JG 26’s 109Es and the shifting sands of Africa

The 7th Staffel of Adolf Galland’s famed Jagdgeschwader 26 (JG 26) “Schlageter,” fresh off the Lowlands and France campaigns and the drawn-out aerial combat against the RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, was sent south to warm the skins of their Messerschmitts along the assorted shores of the Mediterranean some 85 years ago this month.

This left Oberleutnant Joachim “Jochen” Müncheberg (at the time with 23 confirmed aerial victories), with his unit on a well-earned skiing vacation in the Austrian Alps, suddenly ordered off the slopes and rushed to Sicily with his pilots and ground crews (sans planes) to assist in the attempted reduction of stubborn Malta.

The squadron never got another vacation.

Arriving at Gela on 9 February, they received their factory-new Bf 109 “Emil” E-7/Ns, and by the 12th, Müncheberg tallied his 24th victory, a RAF No. 261 Squadron Hurricane flown by Flt. Lt. James MacLachlan (who bailed out, wounded), over Malta.

Messerschmitt Bf 109E4 7.JG26 White 1 Joachim Muncheberg transit flight Sicily, Feb 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E3 7.JG26 White 4 line up Gela Sicily March 1941-01

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7 7.JG26 White 7

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7 7.JG26 White 9 Gela Sicily 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7B 7.JG26 Gela Sicily April 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7B 7.JG26 White 12 Joachim Muncheberg WNr 3826 Gela Sicily 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7B 7.JG26 White 1 Munchenberg Gela Sicily Feb 1941

7./JG 26 would continue its rampage across the theater, relocating to Grottaglie airfield near Taranto for the Yugoslav/Greece campaign in April, shifting to airfields in Greece (Molaoi) for the Crete campaign in May, then to join Fliegerführer Afrika where they operated from Libya (Ain el Gazala) until, with only a couple of planes left, were recalled to France in late August 1941, where they received newer Bf 109 F-4s.

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7B 7.JG26 Gela Sicily

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7B 7.JG26 Gela Sicily 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E4 7.JG26 White 3 Ernst Laube Gela Sicily May 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7 7.JG26 armorers 1941

Messerschmitt Bf 109E7N 7.JG26 White 11 Theo Lindemann WNr 4139-Gazala 21st Aug 1941. Note the flare cartridges around his legs. 

By the time they did, Müncheberg’s tally had grown to 49 while 7./JG 26 claimed 52 enemy aircraft during their time in the Med without a single pilot lost to the Allies.

While 7/JG 26 never saw the sands of North Africa again, Müncheberg would return there as a Major in command of JG 77 in October 1942– by which time he had over 100 “kills” after Eastern Front service.

In the desert, he met his fate at the hands of Capt. Theodore Reilly Sweetland, USAAF, who reportedly rammed his flaming British-made 2nd FS/52nd FG Spitfire into the German uber-ace’s Bf 109 G-6 during a dogfight over Meknassy, French Tunisia, on 23 March 1943.

The Pomeranian-born Müncheberg, aged 24, is buried at the German cemetery at Bordj-Cedria, Tunisia, and was credited with 135 victories, while the Oakland-born Sweetland was just three months shy of his own 24th birthday. The American is still listed MIA, memorialized at Tablets of the Missing North Africa American Cemetery Carthage, and earned a posthumous Silver Star among other decorations.

In a bit of dark irony, RAF Squadron Leader James Archibald Findlay MacLachlan DSO, DFC & Two Bars, who had lost his arm to Müncheberg over Malta in February 1941, would perish in Pont-l’Évêque, German-occupied France, also aged 24, on 31 July 1943, just three months after Müncheberg and Sweetland’s mid-air inferno. “One-Armed Mac” at the time had 16 claimed victories, a triple ace, and had been shot down over France while piloting his American-made ADFU Mustang, then passed 13 days later at a German field hospital in Normandy.

Looks terrible. Where do I sign up?

As part of long-running (since 2007) Op Nanook-Nunalivut, a joint exercise in the Canadian Arctic, the Yellowknife-based 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG/GPRC) has begun its snowmobile-borne High Arctic sovereignty patrol.

Supported by Joint Task Force North and the Royal Canadian Air Force, the patrol will cover some 2,800 miles over the next several weeks, literally showing the flag, as well as visiting and engaging with 17 remote communities across the North who like to know that “someone” is out there in all that snow and ice.

1 CRPG/GPRC Op Nanook ’26

I have to admit, I almost want to move to the Yukon just to volunteer for the Rangers and ride along on one of these!

On a side note, the Army National Guard/Alaska State Defense Force needs to stand up such patrols in the more remote regions of Alaska, reversing decades of closing historic small community NG armories. 

RCAF unit getting Ranger rifles

Of note, the RCAF’s No. 440 “Vampire” Transport Squadron, JTFN’s primary air unit, is co-located at Yellowknife and operates four CC-138 Twin Otters, enabling them to “conduct year-round, all-weather missions including on-skis/tundra tires” throughout the Arctic.

The unit recently upgraded their predator defense rifles aboard each plane to the same Colt C-19 (Tikka T3 CTR) .308s that the Rangers use. The standard service round for the C-19 is the C180 cartridge, which uses a Nosler Accubond 180-grain Trophy bullet over a pretty stout load, in the interest of having to stop polar bears.

Or random Russian commandos, just saying.

Mix and Match in the Mountains

Some 70 years ago this month.

The Ouarsenis mountains of northwestern French Algeria, between 12 January and 5 February 1956.

How about this great snapshot of an element of the French GPI (groupement parachutiste d’intervention) deploying to the field as part of Operation Iris? Note the three Sikorsky H-34 (S-58) Choctaws in the background.

Réf. : ALG 59-116 Photographe inconnu/ECPAD/Défense

Zooming in shows not only the joyous faces of the young beret-clad paras, but also their interesting mix of gear to include lots of MAS-36 bolt-action rifles, a handful of MAT-49 SMGs with their magwells folded, at least two FM-24/29 light machine guns, and a M1/M2 carbine.

Note the TTA47/51 lizard camo smocks, which would remain in service throughout most of the Cold War and would be seen again by 2e REP paras on the dark continent in Kolwezi 1978. Others wear U.S. M41 jackets, while a few wear early TTA47s cut from surplus German Wehrmacht oakleaf fabric left behind in France after WWII.

The four reinforced battalion-sized parachute regiments of the GPI (the 1st REP, 1st REC, and the 1st and 2nd RPC) in July 1956 would go on to form the equally short-lived 10e Division Parachutiste (10e DP), which would serve in Operation Musketeer in the Suez in October-November then gain infamy in the Battle of Algiers in 1957 with their berets replaced by new peaked Bigeard caps– which in turn would be copied and modified by the Portuguese on the continent and the Rhodesians in their own Bush Wars.

Later joined by a fifth regiment (the 3rd RPC), it would take part in the so-called Battle of the Frontiers along the Tunisian border in 1958, the massive Operation Jumelles sweep against the ALN in Algeria in 1959-60, and would be disbanded following the attempted generals’ putsch in 1961.

Ukraine Tepid on Surplus WWII-era Hi-Powers, Canadians May Scrap

Canada built its own, more Maple Leaf, version of theBrowning Hi-Powerin Toronto during World War II and may torch the survivors, as Ukraine apparently doesn’t want the vintage pistols.

The classic 9mm pistols were manufactured during the War in Ontario by John Inglis & Company, with a little help from Dieudonne Saive, the Belgian firearms engineer who helped design the gun in the first place.

Canadian-made No. 2 Mk1* Inglis Hi-Powers, produced between 1944 and 1945, are distinctive period BHP clones with the “thumbprint” slide, high rear sight, and internal extractor, features that FN discontinued by the early 1950s. (Photo: Canadian Forces Combat Camera)

These Browning-Inglis No. 2 Mk1* pistols remained in service until 2023, when they were replaced by the new C22, a variant of the SIG P320 ordered the previous year.

The Canadian Browning-Inglis production was aided during WWII by FN’s exiled staff, with the BHP’s co-designer, Dieudonné Saive, helping with the technical package, making these unofficial clones. Ultimately, an agreement was reached to pay FN a royalty of 25 cents after the war for each gun produced. (Photo: Guns.com)

With 11,000 surplus Inglis-made guns on hand in 2024, the Canadian government did what the Canadian government typically does and, saving 500 for museum pieces, moved to recycle (um, scrap) the rest. Then came the idea to instead offer them as military aid to Ukraine. I

t was a win-win for the Trudeau government, both saving the cash that would have been spent to destroy the guns and earning some kudos on the international stage by helping the embattled Ukrainians.

The thing is, flush with more than $61 billion in much more modern munitions given to Kyiv by the Biden Administration, and with major European arms makers setting up local production in Ukraine proper, those 10,500 very well-used Hi-Powers just didn’t seem that attractive, and the deal never happened.

So, as recently reported by the Ottawa Citizen, the Canadian government has returned to the original plan and has scrapped 2,000 of the highly collectible war veteran handguns and is once again asking Ukraine if they want the 8,500 or so guns still on hand.

If not, well, you know how this song goes.

Cue the Indiana Jones, “It belongs in a museum,” memes.

Ford Getting Broken in (or Maybe Just Broken)

A U.S. Sailor signals the launch of an F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft, assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 37, from the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Feb. 2, 2026. (U.S. Navy Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Gladjimi Balisage)

The country’s 20th and newest supercarrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has been deployed since 24 June of last year– recently passing the 240-day mark while underway.

She had originally been scheduled to return to her homeport in January, but that has been extended, first for operations off Venezuela under 4th Fleet, and now headed for 6th Fleet, then later 5th Fleet, where she is expected to arrive to reinforce the task force off Iran in the coming days.

This puts her on track to surpass the current post-Cold War deployment record of 294 days held by USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72)— one that was set due to the coof.

USNI News has been keeping track of the 10 longest carrier deployments since 1964, and puts Lincoln’s longest cruise in 6th place, leaving Ford primed to beat Vietnam-era Yankee Station records held by Oriskany/Bon Homme Richard (both with 298), Swanky Franky (300), Saratoga (308), Coral Sea (329), and Midway (332).

Meanwhile, Ford, which spent a decade in construction, is reportedly being plagued by cranky toilets and persistent rumors that her inagural EMALS catapults are still teething.

I hope the lobsters and steak hold out.

Dugout Doug Does Kimpo, Pines for Chaing

Some 35 years ago this week.

A very well bundled General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 71, is shown inspecting troops of the 24th Infantry on his arrival at the recently recaptured Kimpo airfield, Republic of Korea, for a tour of the battlefront. 21 February 1951.

NARA FILE #: 306-PS-51-10432

At the time, the world’s most famous corncob pipe enjoyer was the SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in the Pacific, a post he had held since August 1945; Commander of the Far East Command (FECOM), a post he had held since January 1947; was Commander of the United Nations Command, Korea, a job he held since 7 July 1950; and was Governor of the Ryukyu Islands (USAR), an office he held since December 1950.

In early 1951, MacArthur was the senior soldier in the American army — “senior,” quipped one junior officer, “to everyone but God” — and the next president, Eisenhower, had served under “Mac” for seven years in the 1930s.

Old “Dugout Doug” was only about six weeks away from being replaced in all of those posts by Gen. Matthew Ridgway on orders of Harry Truman, capping MacArthur’s epic military career, one that unofficially started at his birth in 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, son of a regular Army captain.

The KMT’s second front(s) in the Korean War

It was as the unofficial Field Marshal of the Philippine Army in the mid-1930s that MacArthur became aware of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of KMT China. This acquaintance that became an active friendship once MacArthur was recalled to active service as  U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) after Pearl Harbor.

The two men, the exiled 63-year-old generalissimo and the most powerful man in the hemisphere, only met once, at Taipei, Formosa (Taiwan), on 31 July 1950– just weeks after the North Koreans marched across the 38th Parallel and kicked off the biggest war of the decade.

Chiang offered MacArthur 73,000 troops —three full infantry divisions and support troops —for use in Korea, as well as 20 of the C-47s he had on Taiwan to help move them.

The White House immediately torpedoed the idea, but MacArthur continued to ask Truman to allow his use of KMT troops in South Korea until just a few weeks before he was sacked. Ridgeway did not entertain such a fantasy.

Chiang saw it as just an extension of the Civil War, which he had been fighting against the Chinese Reds since 1927.

Keep in mind that at the time he met with MacArthur, Chiang’s forces were still actively fighting an insurgency war under General Ma Hushan in mainland China’s northwest and Yunnan region that would last until 1958. Further, his exiled 93rd Nationalist Division– with a few mysterious but well-connected American “civilian” advisers among them– was conducting a low-key border conflict under General Li Mi in Burma. 

Chiang was also effectively tying down Chicom General Chen Yi’s 3rd Field Army and Piao’s 4th Army along the Fukien coast across from Taiwan, where the Reds were “massing 5,000 vessels for the invasion by commandeering freighters, motorized junks, and sampans and refloating ships that had been sunk in the Yangtze River during the fight for the mainland. Further, they gathered and trained over 30,000 fishermen and other sailors to man the flotilla.”

And the KMT, having lost the bulk of their heavy weaponry on the evacuation from mainland China to Taiwan, had in late 1949-early 1950 (before Korea kicked off) been greatly bolstered by surplus American hardware– signed off on by MacArthur– to allow them to keep holding. Most of it was unwanted and had been warehoused in the Western Pacific, destined for scrap, so it made sense.

KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 75mm pack howitzers

KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 M5A1 tank

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

Going past fighting off a planned Chicom invasion of Taiwan, Chiang was actively planning to invade the mainland, prepping a 270,000-man force.

Check out these images from the Taiwan-based KMT’s October 1950 Pingtung landing exercises:

M3 half track, M5 Stuart, October 1950, Pingtung exercise, ROC Taiwan KMT

The deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in a series of “naval parades” in the Taiwan Straits during the Korean War effectively halted the KMT plans for a major, direct invasion from Taiwan, while likewise spoiling (but not releasing) the bulk of the 300,000 Chicom fighters assembled along the Fukien coast.

To help keep them there, the KMT’s irregular Anti-Communist Salvation Army — trained by the CIA as “civilian” employees of the Agency-run Western Enterprises — raided the Chinese coast from ROC-controlled islands near the mainland from 1951-54, encompassing most of the Korean War period. This low-key conflict carried on well into the 1960s.

Meanwhile, General Ma’s forces in Burma (at least those that didn’t want to stay behind in the Golden Triangle and become warlords) would only be repatriated to Taiwan with U.S. assistance in November 1953, once the Korean war had ceased, while unreconstructed KMT holdouts there would keep fighting the Reds as late as 1961.

ROC KMT Chinese troops, Burma, 93rd Division of the 6th Army, going to their “new” home in November 1953. 

Danes Receive First of 26,000 Colt C8 Rifles, Order another 26,000

The Danish military has literally doubled down on an order of new 5.56 NATO chambered Colt Modular Rail Rifles in an effort to rebuild its army.

The Danish Ministry of Defense Materiel and Procurement Board (Forsvarsministeriets Materiel- og Indkøbsstyrelse, FMI) last week made a two-point announcement.

First, it had received the first shipments of new Colt Canada C8 MRR Carbines, type qualified as the Gevaer M/25 in Danish service. These guns, ordered last August, were to be in two variants separated by colorways, with half being all-black and the other half being a sort of coyote brown/dark FDE, with the full order delivered by the end of 2026.

Colt C8 MRRs arriving in Denmark
The first of 26,000 ordered Colt C8s arrived in Denmark this month. (Photos: Danish FMI)
Colt C8 MRRs arriving in Denmark
The Colt Canada C8 MRR uses a monolithic upper receiver with a lot of slots for M-LOK accessory rails, and it looks like the 15.7-inch model was delivered. These will use Elcan Specter 4x optics. (Photo: Danish FMI)
Colt C8 MRR
They use free-floating, cold-hammer-forged chrome-lined barrels in lengths of 11.6, 14.5, 15.7, or 18.6 inches. The C8 MRR is also offered in .300 BLK and 7.62 NATO, although the Danes are just using the 5.56 variants. (Photo: Colt Canada). 

The second part is that they want to double the order.

“As part of this contract, there was an option to purchase an additional number of rifles, and this option has now been used by the IMF,” said the agency in a statement. “This means that through 2026 and 2027 in total, over 50,000 new rifles will be delivered to the Armed Forces (Forsvaret) and Home Guards (Hjemmeaernet).”

The new guns will replace the old M/95 and M/96 series carbines, which are Canadian-made Diemaco C8 and C7s, which are effectively clones of the Colt M4 and M16A2, respectively, and were delivered in the late 1990s. The country also fields the M/10, which is more equivalent to the M4A1, and was also made by Colt Canada. All three series of rifles were used by Danish forces in Afghanistan, a country to which they deployed a total of 18,000 troops from 2002 to 2021.

Denmark, a NATO ally, is not only trying to beef up its military forces in Europe with the ongoing tensions with Russia, but is also expanding its defensive capabilities in Greenland. This year, the country stationed the first combat units on the somewhat disputed Arctic island – detachments of the Jutland Dragoons and the newly formed Jaeger Corps Arctic Specialists (Jaegerkorpset Arktiske-Specialister) – at Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq, as part of the ongoing Operation Arctic Endurance.

Previously, only a small surveillance unit armed with bolt-action M1917 .30-06 rifles and 10mm Glock pistols was stationed in Greenland full-time.

Perhaps the new guns will be ordered in a white and green colorway.

The new guns getting some use this week at Flyvestation Karup:

« Older Entries