Remember as a kid when you’d play ‘rock, paper, scissors’ and then some Smart aleck would end the game by throwing a ‘nuclear bomb!’? Well that’s kinda what the US Army did in the 1950s when they first rolled out the M65 artillery piece—better known as Atomic Annie.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
Here you see the Maersk Line’s Triple-E (Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller) on her sea trials. All 165 000 tonnes, motoring along at 25kts.
For reference she is four times larger than the RMS Titanic, or about the same size as all of the Iowa class battleships…put together.
Tell that to somebody even 50 years ago, and they’d tell you that you’re crackers. Then tell them that, by the way, it only needs 22 crew
Ok ok, not really, but it doesn’t seem all that far fetched…
For nearly the past 70-years, the Avtomat guns of Mikhail Kalashnikov have been the standard rifle of the other half of the world. With a new improvement on this classic design, the Russians have a new AK on the market.
Back in the late 1940s, Soviet weapons engineer Mikhail Kalashnikov (with a good bit of assistance from guest worker Hugo Schmeisser), came up with a neat rifle. His gun, one of the first successful assault rifles, was made from a simple sheet of stamped steel, coupled to a trunnion and a collection of parts. Made with loose tolerances, it was almost dummy-proof and very accepting of dirt, grime, mud, and sand. This gun, the AK-47 (for “Kalashnikov automatic rifle model 1947”) was made in greater numbers than just about any firearm in modern history, with some 75-million of these 7.62x39mm rifles coming off the lines in a dozen countries over the past several decades.
By the 1970s, this design was dated and seen as a throwback to WWII, (based on the German StG44). It was improved with plastic bodied magazine and chambered in a smaller intermediate cartridge, the 5.45-39mm. The gun itself however still used a bunch of good old-fashioned wood in the stocks. Since then, more than 5-million of these AK-74s have been used first by the Soviet then the Russian/Ukrainian militaries.
The thing is, it’s not 1974 anymore, and another update is in order.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
No this is not from Pacific Rim.
The time is 1911.
The man is inventor Chester E Macduffee and he is shown with his experimental Aluminum Alloy Suit.
US Patent 989530, “Submarine Armor “, this German aluminum alloy (Duraluminum) suit weighed over 550-pounds (without the man inside! ) The cylindrical joints mounted on ball bearings allowed movement in one direction only. They do not appear to be watertight due to the fact Macduffee implemented a waterpump in the suit. This pump was able to pump water from the leg section into the sea. The pump operated on compressed air supplied from the surface. The used air from the pump then expanded into the suit and was used by the diver for breathing. The suit was equipped with a 12 section-gripper mounted on one arm and an electric light on the other arm.
This steampunk nightmare actually worked and was tested in 1915 to a depth of 214 feet in Long Island Sound.
So, we’ve all heard stories of people walking away from a fusillade of bullets unscathed but the truth is this is not often the case.
In fact, more often than not, just a single well placed round does the trick. Guns.com looks at five cases where one single shot ended the fight and made history.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
“Bring enough gun…” It’s a common expression at both ranges and hunting cabins, but can be applied whenever a buddy buys some huge caliber rifle or shotgun and shows it off for the first time. Nevertheless, we decided to point out some of the finer points of those titanic gatts of the safari.
When European and American adventurers came to Africa in the 1800s, they found the continent teeming with exotic wildlife. While there was many of the same types of hunting scenarios as there were back home, (e.g. upland birds, small game, deer etc.), there were also some incredibly dangerous big game animals. The five most fatal of these, called the Big Five, or the Fatal Five, were the African elephant, rhinoceros, leopard, Cape buffalo, and lions.
These animals were difficult to hunt, especially on foot and when cornered, they were incredibly dangerous as all could mount attacks rapidly. Immense 13,000-pound elephants could charge, almost totally concealed from tall grass and trample a hunter flat before he could get a shot off. A 2000-pound black rhino’s skin is thick enough to deflect small and even medium caliber rounds.
The 200-pound leopard was a master of the stalk, only appearing at night to ambush its prey. The Cape buffalo, stubborn even when wounded, could ambush pursuers and turn the tables in the blink of an eye, earning these unlikely bovines the dubious reputation as one of the most successful killers of humans on the continent. Finally, we all know the lion as “the king of the jungle”. A pair of these creatures, known as the Tsavo Man-Eaters, killed no less than 35 workers along the Kenya- Uganda railway project in 1898. This epic lion v. man battle was depicted in the 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness.
With animals like these, your regular off the shelf rounds just did not cut it.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
one of the Tsavo-Lions
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, Aug 14
Here we see the patrol yacht USS Cythera (SP-575/PY-26) in her former livery as a Agawa, personal yacht. Owned by William Lamon Harkness, an Ohio-born oil tycoon who owned a big portion of Standard Oil at the turn of the century, Agawa was actually Harkness’s second large yacht, but both would have a sad history.
yacht Gunilda, now almost perfectly preserved in the freshwater of the Great Lakes. She was Harknesses first yacht and the Agawa favored her, even being build in the same yard
You see Harkness, born with a silver spoon (he inherited his stake in Standard), was something of an arrogant person. His first yacht, the 195-foot mega cruiser Gunilda, was a work of art. Designed by Cox & King in London, England, and built by Ramage & Ferguson in Leith, Scotland. The yacht Gunilda launched from Scotland in 1897 and sailed across the Atlantic with a crew of 25 after being chartered in 1901 by a member of the New York Yacht Club. Press reports of the vessel’s arrival in America describe her as a schooner rigged with a sail area of 4,620 sq. ft of canvas. Harkness bought her in 1903 in a fit of extravagant spending, then in 1911 sank her in Lake Superior, apparently being too cheap to spend money on a pilot.
His new yacht, Agawa, was laid down at Ramage and Feguson as well. She was launched 20 September 1906, Mrs Harkness being her sponsor. A 215-foot long statement in white, she was beauty in motion. She won the Mill Trophy, an award for a long-distance yacht race, in both 1907 and 1909. When the US entered World War One, the Navy was in fast need of boats that could be used as escort ships to convoy troops and supplies ‘Over There’. Harkness volunteered the love of his life for service and on 20 October 1917, the Agawa became the USS Cythera (SP 575). She served for a total of just under 18 months on the Naval List, being returned to her owner on 19 March 1919. In the war she sailed with Patrol Force, Atlantic Fleet, towing small boats to France and then escorting coastal convoys in the Med.
In WWI Dazzle Scheme
Harkness himself died on May 10, 1919, but his family put her back into civilian use for another two decades. At the time of his death, his estate was worth some $700-million in today’s dollars.
When WWII erupted, the Navy found itself in the same old problem as before, being eaten alive by German U-Boats in the Atlantic as well as Japanese ones in the Pacific. Mrs Harkness leased the now 30+ year old yacht back to the Navy for $1 on 3 Mar, 1942. On her first cruise, leaving Norfolk for Hawaii just a few months after Pearl Harbor, she was encountered by U-402 a Type VIIC German submarine under the command of Kaleu Siegfried von Forstner. Firing a single torpedo (of three fired) the U-boat broke the Cythera in half while she was zigzagging some 115-miles off the North Carolina Coast.
In World War Two haze grey
From U-boat.net ” The ship immediately split in two, and the forward half rose steeply out of the water. The ship sank very quickly and at least two of her depth charges that were preset exploded underwater. This information was told to me by one of the two survivors, Mr. James M. Brown, who I located in Maine in 1991. He was on forward lookout at the time of the attack. The other survivor was Charles H. Carter, but I was never able to locate him. He was standing on the bridge next to the Commander when they were attacked. As a side note, Charles H. Carter was at Pearl Harbor aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB 37) that was sunk during the Japanese attack. He survived two attacks within 5 months when the ships he was aboard were sunk – incredible!
Shortly after USS Cythera went down, U-402 surfaced and turned on its search light looking at whatever debris was floating in the large oil slick that was all that remained from the ship. Brown and Carter were found clinging to a small raft and were taken aboard as prisoners. They asked to be left back in the water but Von Forstner replied: No, boys, the war´s over for you. Both survivors were covered in oil, and Von Forstner gave his sweater to Mr. Brown. Both were also given some brandy to drink. Brown also spoke fluent German, but I never thought to ask if he revealed that to Von Forstner. He did say, however, that the Chief Engineer on the U-Boat spoke fluent English, so I suppose that´s how they communicated. When Brown asked Von Forstner why they were not machine-gunned in the water, Von Forstner and crew members present expressed shock that the Americans would even think of such a thing.
During the return trip to France the Americans were treated well. They were given cigarettes every day and allowed to go topside for fresh air every day. Brown said Von Forstner was a compassionate man who was not signed on to Nazi ideology. He was a professional sailor who came from a family of military background. He was not enthusiastic about war, but he did his job well as a German officer. When the Americans were turned over to the German Army in France there apparently was consternation between the U-Boat crew and the German soldiers, who may have manhandled the POWs. In the almost three-week trip to France, the crew and prisoners formed somewhat of a bond between them; in fact, the Americans even invited the crew to visit them in America after the war.
Brown, at least, wound up in a POW camp in Upper Silezia, Poland for the remainder of the war. The camp produced synthetic fuel and held mostly British POWs. Later in the war, the camp was abandoned because of advancing Soviet forces approaching from the east, and the POWs were force-marched toward Moosburg, Germany, to another camp. He was finally liberated in late April 1945 by forward units of Patton´s 3rd Army and made his way back across Europe where he was put in a military hospital for several weeks.”
U-402 herself was sunk on the 13th October 1943 in the middle of the North Atlantic, in position 48.56N, 29.41W, by an acoustic torpedo (Fido) from TBD Avenger supported by F4F Wildcat aircraft of VC-9 flying from the escort carrier USS Card. Unlike the Cythera, she went down with all hands. Fortsner was credited with 15 ships sunk (71,036 tons) and 3 ships damaged (28,682 tons), of which Cythera was both the smallest and the only warship.
Cythera‘s name was recycled on 26 October 1942 when the yacht Argosy was commissioned into the US Navy
Mr. Harkness is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Specs:
Displacement 1,000 t.
Length 215′
Beam 27′ 6″
Draft 12′
Speed 12 kts.
Complement 113 in WWI, 71 in WWII
Armament: WWI : One 3″ gun, depth charges. WWII: Three 3″ gun mounts, 50 depth charges on roll-off racks, four .50 caliber
HMGs
Propulsion: One 1,350ihp steam engine, one shaft.
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO) They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.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.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
I’m a member, so should you be!
No less of a firearms guru than Colonel Jeff Cooper said that he felt there were way too many cartridges. He felt that perhaps six calibers could cover the range from practice to small to medium to large game. The question has been since then, which calibers. Over the past 150-years of centerfire rifle cartridges, each large manufacturer introduced their own ‘new and improved’ round to give the shooter the cutting edge. This led to such oddball cartridges as the .225 Winchester (only offered on a few Model 70s from 1964-66), the .303 Savage (only used in a few early Model 99s) and the .32-20 Remington (used in the Model 25 pump rifle of the 1920s).
Over time, these rounds sometimes caught on and other manufacturers started making rifles in their competitor’s net new caliber, saving themselves the R&D of developing their own neat-o cartridge that did the same thing. If this didn’t happen, odds are the round would die out.
In a world of rifle calibers that ranges from .10 Eichelberger to .950JDJ, it’s a bit of an understatement to say there’s whole a lot of chamberings for shooters to chose from. While millions of rifles are made in popular choices such as .223, .30-.30, and .270, there are some equally fantastic rounds out there that are not as readily available because they just don’t get as much love from shooters as the rest. These hard-hitters have endured the test of time and are still around, albeit in limited numbers.
Survival of the fittest. Or something like that.
Read the rest in my column at Guns.com
But What about Flamethrowers?
Icepicks?
Bazookas?