Looking for a Franchi SPAS-15?

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Every gun nerd knows about the Franchi SPAS-11, LAW-12, and SPAS-12 SPS autoloading shotguns of the 1980s; I mean, they were something of a pop culture fad if nothing else.

The SPAS-11 was an upgrade of the Franchi 500 meant for mil/LE sales

Meanwhile, the Franchi SPAS-12 SPS is iconic.

What you may not have known was the Franchi SPAS-15, which went box mag instead of tubular and was made (and imported) in much fewer numbers.

If you are curious, Atlantic has some as C&R SBRs, but be warned, they are $15K.

Two Cruisers, Two Very Different Stories

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Here we see, some 70 years ago this month, two “all-gun” heavy cruisers, vessels which were once common just a decade before but a comparative rarity in August 1956, captured while showing their respective flags aboard.

USS Toledo (CA 133) at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 4 August 1956, Walter E Frost photo, City of Vancouver Archives, AM1506-S3-3-: CVA 447-8602

Sverdlov-class light cruiser Ordzhonikidze during August 1956 at Copenhagen, Denmark. Note the flag of Admiral A.G. Golovko on the top mast. Danish Military Museum image.

The first U.S. Navy ship named for the city in Ohio, the Baltimore-class heavy cruiser USS Toledo (CA 133) was laid down on 13 September 1943 by the New York Shipbuilding Corp, launched on 6 May 1945, and commissioned post-VJ-Day at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 27 October 1946. Too late for WWII, she nonetheless served two stints in Korea, mostly on the gunline, earning five battle stars for her service. She then spent a few more years on active duty before she was paid off at Long Beach on 21 May 1960, having served just under 14 years with the fleet. Moved to San Diego, she spent another 14 years in mothballs before she was disposed of in 1974 amid the post-Vietnam drawdown.

As for the 16,000-ton Ordzhonikidze, she was constructed post-war at Plant #194 (Admiralty Shipyard, Leningrad), and joined the Baltic Fleet on 31 August 1952, just months before Stalin’s demise. She spent most of her short career with the Red Banner Fleet on a series of port calls around Western Europe and Scandinavia in the 1950s, as seen above in her stop at Copenhagen. Transferred to the Black Sea Fleet in 1960, she then trained a crew from the Indonesian Navy at Sevastopol and left for Surabaya in August 1962, becoming the latter country’s first (and only) cruiser, the Kapal Republik Indonesia (Republic of Indonesia Ship) Irian (C201). However, after Sukarno broke with the Soviets in 1965, she became unsupportable and was scrapped by 1972.

Army Jungleers making a GOYA comeback

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The Army is getting a newfound interest in jungle warfare.

COL Keith W. Benedict and CPT Christian M. Hert have a great article in Line of Departure (How Panama’s Crucible is Yet Again Testing Soldiers’ Mettle) detailing how legendary jungle training has returned to former Fort Sherman, Panama– now a Panamanian aeronaval base, Cristóbal Colón– after more than two decades of hiatus.

Before the doors closed in 1999 and the course moved to Hawaii, the Fort Sherman-based “Green Hell” Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC) was training up to 9,000 personnel annually and awarding the Jungle Expert patch to successful units. JOTC also offered a 10-day air crew survival course and a four-week engineers’ course.

Today the course is back as an 18-day event, using lots of old-school sweat, blood, and mud, blended with new technology.

U.S. service members and Panamanian partners, all candidates of Jungle Operations Training Course – Panama, make it to the finish line of the green mile at Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón, Panamá, July 2, 2026. The event tested participants’ endurance, teamwork, and ability to move equipment through physically demanding jungle terrain under stressful conditions. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Carolyn Dodge)

Moreover, the Army has announced it is making the Jungle Tab, retroactively to 1990, a permanent tab.

The GOYAs Return

The U.S. Army is reactivating the historic 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion as a full regiment, with sequenced ceremonies at Fort Benning and in Panama, set for 14 August.

The new unit will comprise four battalions to support joint training under the United States Army Western Hemisphere Command– which in itself was stood up last December, uniting U.S. Army Forces Command, U.S. Army North, and U.S. Army South into a single, four-star operational headquarters.

The 551st was one of the independent PIBs established by the Army in 1942-43, formed at Fort Kobbe, Panama Canal Zone, on 26 November 1942. After a stint in Panama, they were sent for more training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, and then moved up to recently liberated airfields in Italy in 1944 to join the 1st Airborne Task Force. By that time, they had earned the nickname GOYAs, which, depending on who you talked to, meant “Great Outstanding Young Americans” or “Get off Your Ass(es).”

On 15 August 1944 at 1804hrs local time, the 46 officers and 796 NCOs and enlisted “GOYAs” of the 551st PIB conducted their only combat parachute assault during WWII into Drop Zone “A” at Valbourges near Le Muy in Southern France during Operation Dragoon.

Marching 5km through the night, they liberated the French town of Draguignan the next morning, fighting on foot all the way into the Alps.

By the Battle of the Bulge, they had been attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, and the 96 remaining men from the 551st PIB, not dead or in hospital, were folded into the 82nd in March 1945, erasing the hard-fighting “Lost Battalion.”

Forgotten by history, they only recived their hard-earned Presidential Unit Citation in 2001.

It will be nice to see the old 551st returned to service– this time with Jungle Tabs.

Prest-O Change-O: 19 New SSGNs!

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Much in the same way that the SECNAV in 1975 created 15 new “cruisers” from thin air by reclassifying DLGs to CGs to gain a two-cruiser lead over the Russkis, the Navy has just dubbed 19 planned Blocks V and VI Virginia class SSNs as SSGNs to fill the gap left by the four retiring TLAM-commando boats.

The first of four Ohio-class SSGN conversions, USS Georgia is pending decommissioning after 42 years of service, with her sisters Ohio, Michigan and Florida soon to follow. Each was given a $1 billion conversion between 2002 and 2008 to carry up to four platoons of SEALs (64 operators and two support ratings) and two Dry Dock Shelters topside in addition to 154 VLS Tomahawks and a dozen torpedoes for their four tubes. Basic math gives you 616 TLAM tubes leaving the fleet in a very short period. Add to that the fact that the 22 122-cell Ticonderoga-class CGs are being replaced by 96-cell Burke DDGs by 2028, and you see how fast this is going south.

The Navy’s 19 planned Block V/VI Virginias will be able to carry 40 Tomahawks in a series of two six-cell Virginia Payload Tubes forward and four 7-cell Virginia Payload Modules amidships in addition to their 25~ torpedo tube launched weapons, theoretically backfilling 760 VLS TLAM slots back to the tally sheet starting with the planned USS Oklahoma (SSN now SSGN-802), covering (by 2038!) the cells lost on the retired Ohios and four-ish Ticos.

A rendered image of the Virginia-class Block V attack submarine, in this case, the future USS Oklahoma (SSGN-802). (Courtesy of General Dynamics)

The thing is, the four Ohio SSGN conversions were to backfill the massive loss of 128 TLAM cells when the battleships were laid up and 1,528 TLAM cells when the Spruance-class destroyers were retired early.

Plus, the capability to land more than a 16-man SEAL platoon (and even that is a stretch) via submarine will be all but gone when the Ohio-class SSGNs are retired, as the Virginias only have a nine-man lockout and very limited “spare” berthing (still using hot racking and torpedo cots to accomidate around 135 crew members using roughly 94–95 bunks), compared to the dual lockouts on the leaving SSGNs and their room for as many as 66 embarked riders when serving as a frogman bus.

Keep in mind that the Navy just has six portable Dry Dock Shelters needed for SEAL mini-sub operations. This wasn’t that big of a deal with just four SSGNs currently, but moving forward, it just seems like a skill set and capability is on the bubble– no pun intended.

PACIFIC OCEAN (June 18, 2021) — The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS North Carolina (SSN 777) conducts operations off the coast of Oahu, Hawai’i. Note the precious DDS on her deck. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Alex Perlman/Released)

Also, it is clear the Block V/VI Virginias need to be their own class at this point. While all 18 Ohios, SSBN and SSGN, shared the same hull, propulsion, and dimensions, this new Oklahoma-class SSGN will be significantly larger (10,200 tons, 460 feet oal) than Virginia herself (7,900 tons, 377 feet in length), going beyond the anticipated strike mission creep that comes with being a TLAM slinger.

“Reclassifying Virginia Payload Module-equipped submarines as SSGNs accurately reflects the extraordinary strike capacity, operational flexibility, and global reach these platforms bring to the Fleet,” said the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Daryl Caudle.

KelTec Enters the PDW Pistol Game with a Modded SUB2000: Meet the Nub Sub

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Florida-based KelTec continues its established trope of delivering strange yet intriguing new guns to the market, introducing the SUB-SDP last week.   

The pistol, dubbed the “Nub Sub” in the company’s own marketing materials, is based on the KelTec SUB2000 folding carbine, made into a pistol format and sporting a stabilizing brace instead of a stock on a shorter extension tube and a 6-inch barrel.

Set up to take Glock-pattern 9mm double stacks (i.e., G17, G19, G45), the base model ships with a Magpul 15-round magazine. Weight is 3.57 pounds, while the overall length goes from 10 inches with the pistol folded to 17.7 inches when extended.

While at first the Nub Sub seems funny, compare it to similar products such as the Flux Raider, which costs two to three times more, and the laughing slows.

It may not stop, but it at least slows.

Plus, you have to love the release video, done by the folks over at Offensive Marketing.

Carrier-esque liminal photography

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Sixth Fleet images, some 40 years ago this month.

How about this surreal photo of a 44,000-ton Soviet Kiev class (Project 1143 Krechyet) “heavy aviation cruiser” (CVHG) seen from across the deck of a Sovremenny class destroyer, Mediterranean, August 1986.

USN Photo DN-ST-86-11164, via NARA

And this full-length version, sans Sovremenny:

USN Photo DN-ST-86-11165, via NARA

How the Kiev and the Sovremenny stack up to the rest of the fleet:

DD-ST-86-06685

The above CVGH is believed to be the Minsk, which was built along the shores of the Black Sea at Chernomorsky Shipyard 444 (now Mykolaiv SY) and entered service in 1978.

After Cold War service, she was laid up in poor condition in 1993 and sold for scrap, then resold to a group of Chinese video-game arcade owners to be turned into a floating entertainment park. That fell through, and she has been all but abandoned and is the subject of urban explorers.

Old Mary at Peace

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On the road at an industry event all week in Louisiana, so we’re taking a knee on Warship Wednesday.

In its place, how about this amazing photo essay by LIFE Photographer Peter Stackpole of the Colorado-class “Super 16” dreadnought USS Maryland (BB 46) with embarked floatplanes of Observation Squadron Four (VO-4) seen in the waters of the Territory of Hawaii in August 1941 during the tense lead-up to the Pacific War, some 85 years ago this month.

Holystoning the deck, a ritual known throughout the old wooden-deck Navy for generations. 

Note the “meatball” roundels on the Vought OS2U Kingfisher. The floatplane began deliveries to the Navy in August 1940. 

While some 1,500 Kingfishers were produced, they never fully replaced the biplane Curtiss SOC Sea Gull, which remained in service until 1949

Note the searchlights on the masts

The third warship to use the name of the seventh state, USS Maryland (Battleship No. 46) was laid down 24 April 1917 by Newport News, launched 20 March 1920, and commissioned 21 July 1921.

Maryland was hit by two armor-piercing bombs during the attack on Pearl Harbor, causing localized fires, flooding, and structural damage but only 17 casualties. Meanwhile, her own batteries fired 7,450 rounds and claimed seven enemy planes shot down, so there is that.

Patched up, she soon returned to service, and steamed 152,697 miles during 1942-45, during which she shrugged off a Japanese aerial torpedo (22 June 1944) and two kamikazes (29 November 1944 and 7 April 1945). In return, she sent aloft 3,479 16-inch, 13,972 5-inch, 4,093 40mm and 10,500 20mm shells aimed at the subjects of the Emperor.

From her official War History:

Maryland received seven battle stars for World War II service, and, after spending 13 years in post-war mothballs, was scrapped in 1959– only after the Russian Gangut-class battlewagons Sevastopol and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya were sent to the breakers.

Copenhagen Joes

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Filmed 75 years ago in August 1951, this historical video covers the visit to the country of then five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who just four months prior had been named the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

The occasion of the visit was for Ike to stress how important Denmark was to the new NATO alliance, expressed through the handover of surplus Republic F-84 Thunderjets to the rebuilding Danish Air Force, which would soon be bolstered by 240 new F-84Gs over the next four years– a huge upgrade from their previous force of 40~ WWII surplus RAF Spitfires handed over in 1948.

An especially interesting part of the video for me– which incidentally is about 60 percent in English– is the Danish Army honor guard for the occasion.

Outfitted in British-pattern wool uniforms and American M1 helmets, M1 Garand rifles (adopted as the M/50 GarandGevær) and canvas-holstered Swiss-made SIG P210 pistols (adopted as the M/49), they are very exotic in a sense. Danish by way of Portsmouth, Neuhausen, and Springfield.

The Danes would continue to use the Garand as their primary infantry arm until 1975, when it was replaced by the German-made HK G3, adopted as the Gevær M/75.

Garands would continue to soldier on with the Danish as a second-line and Home Guard rifle through the 1990s, when it would finally be replaced by Colt Canada C7 (M16A2) rifles and C8 (M4A1) carbines, which would be adopted as the Gevær M/95 and Karabin M/96, respectively. As such, the Danes would be the last Western European NATO member to field John Garand’s vaunted 30.06.

Today, the Danish military is expanding once again, waking from a 35-year nap after the end of the Cold War. The country is now drafting women, upping the annual intake from 5,000 to 7,500 18-year-olds, and extending mandatory service from four months to 11.

See this interesting 10-minute doc on conscription in the country recently published by NATO:

A Semi-Auto 12 Gauge for all Seasons: Meet the Smooth new Beretta A400 Solo

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I got a sneak peek to try out the newest A400 series autoloading shotgun before Beretta debuted it last week at the Ducks Unlimited Expo.

Beretta has been an autoloading shotgun maker for over 70 years, having introduced the pioneering gas-operated system Model 60 in 1955. Fast forward to the 1990s, and the company’s superb AL390/391 series had picked up the mantle, but the company’s shotgun dev team thought it could do better.

After three years of development, 8,000 hours of engineering, 2,000 hours of testing, and more than 100,000 shells fired through prototypes and production models, the A400 Xplor Unico debuted in November 2009. Incorporating Steelium barrels, the B-Link gas operating system, and a Kick-Off recoil reduction system that utilized hydraulic dampers inside the stock, the new shotgun was set up for success, and, by the start of 2026, Beretta had 19 different models in the A400 family, priced between $1,949 and $3,699.

We’ve covered the A400 story for over a decade and have extensively reviewed the most popular model, the A400 Xtreme Plus. They are good guns.

But now we have the new A400 Solo, which has a much lower starting price ($1,549 MSRP in black synthetic) while keeping the same Steelium, B-Link, and Kick-Off trinity that has made the series a success.

The gun is designed as a sort of do-all “only sporting shotgun you need,” covering target and hunting uses, hence the “Solo” moniker. Even though it is a magnum (3-inch) chamber and not a bigger 3.5-inch super magnum, the Solo should have no issue with most waterfowl hunts, especially considering improvements in modern shotshell technology.

Meet the new Beretta A400 Solo in its most basic form: black synthetic, 28-inch barrel, 12 gauge. (All photos except noted: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The Solo is engineered to thrive in the toughest hunting environments.  

Quick summary:

Beretta has nothing further to prove on the A400 series when it comes to high-value and soft-recoiling hunting shotguns. Yet, the Italian-made A400 Solo was just introduced and includes some nice updates to the platform like the cleaner-running B-Link Pro gas system and improved trigger pack. What can you say, the company makes good shotguns.

Head on over to my column at Guns.com for the full 1,800-word review. 

Family Reunion in the Gulf of Ceylon

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CARAT (Sri Lanka) 2026 just wrapped up in Trincomalee, following a series of exercises and exchanges between the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and the U.S. Navy. The 32nd iteration of the exercise saw the SLN work alongside deployed VP-26 P-8A Poseidons from CTF 72, staff from Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 7, CTF-73, CTF-76, Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, and a U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Engagement Team.

Of note to our audience will be a few steaming formation shots of SLNS Samudura (P261)/ex-USCGC Courageous, which has been in service with the force since 2005, and SLNS Vijayabahu (P627)/ex-USCGC Munro. which was transferred in 2021.

Samudura/Courageous is an ASBC-built 210-foot Reliance-class cutter commissioned in 1968, while Vijayabahu/Munro is a 378-foot Avondale-built Hamilton-class cutter that entered service in 1971.

Note that the former 210 now carries fore-and-aft 40mm Bofors L70s, flanked forward by two Chinese Type 58 (ZPU-2) 14.5mm AAGs, while the 378 still has her MK 75 76mm OTO installed during her 1990s-era SLEP (and it works!), along with some Chinese Type 61 25mm AAGs.

Plus you have to appreciate the seafoam green/blue paint scheme the SLN uses. It is very effective.

Also note the Bell 212/412 delivering ship riders.

Aside from the above, the SLN also operates a second 378, SLNS Gajabahu (P626)/ex-USCGC Sherman, and the recently delivered SLNS Samudravijaya (SLS P 628)/ex-USCGC Decisive (WMEC 629).

Nice to see the old girls still clocking in.

At least they will never have to worry about icing up ever again.

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