In 1970 the Czech government rebooted an existing handgun design to produce a neat little .32ACP pocket pistol that is a near clone of the Walther PP. This gun has marched off into history as the Vzor (model) 70, and it is a great little CZ.
After the end of World War Two, the Czech government was looking for a nice new pistol for its police forces. The task to come up with this gun fell to the brothers Jan and Jaroslav Kratochvl over at the CZ works. (These same guys came up with other CZ designs that we’ll talk about later).
The brothers K examined the German Walther PP series of blowback fixed barrel handguns and decided, why reinvent the wheel, and came up with a gun very (and we mean very) similar. This little .32ACP semi-auto was adopted and became the Vz.50. With its 6.5-inch length and 25-ounce weight, the 9-shot pistol was a well-liked and easy to carry. But by 1970 the design needed a reboot.
McLeod’s Ginger Nuts of Horror, one of the best sites around for the behind the scenes stuff in the world of horror writers, did an interview with me this week on my zombie books and its up over there now.
A Michigan man is dead this week after he accidentally shot himself with his own gun while trying to instruct his girlfriend in proper gun safety. According to CBS Detroit, “The victim’s live-in girlfriend told deputies that her 36-year-old boyfriend had been demonstrating the safety of his three handguns by holding them to his head and pulling the trigger.
The third gun fired and he was struck in the head.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. His name was not immediately released.”
Three young children, not related to the victim, were in the house at the time but thankfully did not witness the shooting. Sherriff’s officials investigating the incident say that alcohol use may have contributed to the accident.
Now let’s talk about this.
First off, with no disrespect to the late Michigan man, shooting yourself is not gun safety.
Back during WWII the OSS set both occupied Europe and Asia ablaze behind enemy lines. The CIA, its successor in 1947, declassified the agencies 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual- Strategic Services (Provisional) guide and it is available online to read as a historical reference.
Its really interesting reading.
The part about being an ineffective manager on pgs 29-30 struck me very funny and I now beleive that many of my former bosses were prviy to ths OSS’s manual:
“Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can..Do everything possible to delay -the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until it is completely ready. (1) Don’t order new working’ materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown. Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don’t get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work. In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines…
Col. Mark Anderson, 188th Fighter Wing commander, prepares to land at Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Fort Smith, Ark., following a training mission Dec. 30, 2013. The sortie was one of the last four-ship training missions that will be conducted at the 188th. The wing is currently transitioning from a fighter mission to an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance/remotely piloted aircraft (MQ-9 Reaper) mission that will also feature a space-focused targeting squadron. The 188th has divested two A-10C Thunderbolt II “Warthogs” per month since September 2013. The last Warthog is slated to leave the 188th in June 2014. The 188th has flown A-10C Thunderbolt II “Warthogs” since April 2007 and has had assigned aircraft on site since 1953. June will mark the first time in unit’s 60-year history that no assigned military aircraft will be parked on the flightline at Ebbing ANG Base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Matthew Bruch)
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 Feb 26, Mr. Hunley’s invention after 150 years.
(click to embiggen)
Here we see in a beautiful work by Mort Kuntsler, the Confederate submarine HL Hunley as she sits preparing to sail out to sea and strike at the US Navy blockade. The Hunley was the first operational submarine of any navy to sink an enemy warship in combat and she did so 150-years ago this month.
With the Confederacy surrounded by US Navy blockade at sea and the US Army on land, she desperately needed a way to poke holes to breathe. One of these plans involved early, and very primitive submarines.
The Hunley and two earlier prototype submarines were privately developed and paid for by one Horace Lawson Hunley and his associates. Hunley was a Tennessee-born engineer by training who was practicing law in New Orleans when the war broke out in 1861. There he funded his early subs before having to relocate to Mobile once the Crescent City fell to the US fleet in 1862.
The craft was born in Mobile, Alabama, one of the last Confederate ports to fall.
Park and Lyons machine shop building, Mobile, Alabama, Where the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was constructed in 1863. Located at the corner of Water and State Streets, in Mobile, this old building housed the Gill Welding and Boiler Works when photographed in about 1960.
Hunley’s craft was simple. Manned by a captain who would steer and command the vessel, it was powered by a hand cranked turned by 4-7 men. This made the 40-foot long submersible capable of about 4-knots for as long as the crew could hold out. It was submerged and raised by hand pumped ballast tanks. Armed with a copper cylinder containing 90 pounds of black powder on a 22-foot spar ,she would attach the charge to the enemy ship, back away, and then detonate the bomb against the hull of the Yankee blockader.
While testing in Mobile Bay, the boat was able to simulate an attack on a moored coal boat in the summer of 1863. This led the craft to be transferred by rail to besieged Charleston, SC.
There she sank twice in testing, the first time taking five of her crew with her, the second time, on October 15, 1863, taking Mr. Hunley himself to the bottom of Charleston harbor.
Finally on the cold night of February 17, 1864, she sailed with her third unfortunate volunteer crew under the command of Lieutenant George E. Dixon, himself a well-known Mobile area steamboat engineer before the war and late of the 21st Alabama Infantry Regiment. The Hunley cranked to the location of the 1240-ton screw sloop USS Housatonic, swaying 3.5 nautical miles from Sullivan’s Island outside of the entrance to Charleston Harbor.
Housatonic‘s officer of the deck sighted an object in the water 100 yards off, approaching the ship. “It had the appearance of a plank moving in the water,” he later reported. Although the chain was slipped, the engine backed, and all hands were called to quarters, it was too late. Within two minutes of the first sighting, the Hunley rammed her spar torpedo into Housatonic‘s starboard side, forward of the mizzenmast. The resulting explosion sank both the sloop, with a loss of five men.
It was the first occasion in history that a submarine sank another warship in action and would be far from the last.
Hunley, however, was mortally stricken and her hulk, still with Dixon and the crew inside, was raised by author Clive Cussler and his NUMA crew in 2000, found in 1970 just twenty feet from where the Housatnonic sank in 1864. Remember, Hunley‘s spar was but 22-feet long.
Dixon and the bodies of the crew, namely Frank Collins, Joseph F. Ridgaway, James A. Wicks, Arnold Becker, Corporal C. F. Carlsen, C. Lumpkin, and Augustus Miller, were recovered and buried with military honors.
The crew was posthumously awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor by the Sons of the Confederate Veterans in 1991.
The Hunley remains in preservation process and you can visit the Friends of the Hunley website for more information and how to help with its preservation.
If you liked 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/
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.
Commando Hubert diver submerged with skrim camouflage and an EOTECH outfitted SIG 550 series rifle. Commando Hubert is a combat swimmer unit assigned to the French Navy’s COFUSCO. Of the five Naval Commando units of the French Navy, Hubert is the dedicated frogman group. The unit is tasked with conducting maritime special operations in support of the French Navy and intelligence services, primarily the DGSE (the French foreign intelligence directorate).
Currently Commando Hubert is composed of 80 men divided into two companies. The first company consists of 50 men and is subdivided into four sections designated A, B, C, and D.
A section is the command and support section. It contains the unit HQ, and the units Hurricane RIBs.
B section is the maritime counter terrorism (CT) section. The unit specializes in conducting underwater approaches to terrorist targets. They conduct joint operations with the Navy’s GCMC and GIGN’s diver section. In the event an assault was ordered on a target at sea, B section divers would act as guides for the GIGN team.
C section is the SDV section. The divers of this section receive additional training in the use of SDV’s and their maintenance.
D section contains the units snipers and heavy weapons experts. The section is responsible for performing beach reconnaissance, shipping attacks,underwater demolition operations, providing heavy fire support, and testing new equipment for use by the unit. All members of D section are both HAHO and HALO qualified.
Although there have always been lots of jokes about the French military (hey, they were the first army we ever beat, back in the French and Indian War), Hubert divers are as hard as coffin nails. They are constantly out there, unseen in the worst places, and have been in near-constant warfare since 1941.
Sparked by growing unrest due to the Ukraine’s Euromaidan protest movement against the government, that country broke out into open revolution this month.
With the Ukrainian police under the direction of President Yanukovych being filmed engaging in shooting at demonstrators in Kiev, and reports of up to 100 killed in violence in the country, we have been subjected to a series of photos in which ordinary citizens are taking up arms against a regime that is illegitimate.
The thing is, these arms are pitiful in comparison to those being used against them.
(A Daisy Model 880 pellet rifle is heavy artillery due to the country’s strict gun control measures)
(Another with a Chinese made single shot air rifle and great trigger discipline..)
According to a study by Gunpolicy.org, the 46-million person Ukraine only has some 3.1-millon guns owned by civilians across the country. Two thirds of these are off the books and unregistered (and thus illegal to possess). The Ukraine has just 640,615 legal firearms owners who in turn have just over a million guns– most of which are shotguns, with semi-auto rifles and pistols in many cases being hard to obtain legally. This is about 6 registered and unregistered guns for every 100 people. The Ukrainian police and military forces are estimated to own some 7.5 million guns including some of the most modern select-fire small arms in the world. The government outguns its citizenry and does not have to listen to them….or at least they didn’t think they did…
A combat loaded Dassault Rafael with 6x AASM Hammer, 4x Mica A2A short to medium range, 2x METEOR A2A long-range, 3x 2000 liter fuel tanks. In this configuration Rafael has a 750nm combat radius. Of course this can be greatly extended by in-flight refueling.
Mali mission…..
Last year four Rafaels escorted by three C135FR tankers (from which they made five refuelings) took off from Saint-Dizer France flew to Mali and dropped it like it was hot on the heads of pro-ALQ forces then landed in N’Djamena, Chad. This flight covered some 4,200+ air miles. The Rafales each carried three fuel tanks, and either six GBU-49 500-lb Enhanced Paveway II GPS/INS-equipped GBU-12/B Laser Guided Bomb variants) or six AASM (Armement Air-Sol Modulaire – Air-to-Ground Modular Weapon) along with the Thales Damocles targeting pod.
The Army would drop to under 440,000 active, which isn’t really an issue if we aren’t mired down in Afghanistan and Iraq. You can bet that the SF boys and RDF ‘leg’ style units (82nd, 101st, Rangers, 173rd, 10th Mountain) will be saved at current levels while the heavies will be gutted and amalgamated, with more being pushed to the reserves. The Army has long wanted to cut tank numbers anyway since the Fulda Gap went away. Speaking of reserves, the Apaches are going to the active army in exchange (they say) for Blackhawks. Hold your breath. No mention of the Kiowas but those have been rode hard and put up wet in the GWOT so they could be quietly phased out as part of this plan.
The USAF would lose the A-10 (which personally I think is the only other aircraft in the current inventory that could be a 100-year aircraft like the B-52 series, plus the boys in blue have hated close air support for years unless it could be done from 30,000 feet). Which would leave the Army with a better case to keep (and maybe expand) their ‘Green Predator’ the MQ-1C Gray Eagle. Also USAF is giving up the ghost on the U-2 spyplane, to be replaced by something better (Global Hawk). Yeah, we’ve heard that before– they’ve been trying to do that since 1960, so don’t hold your breath. They do get to keep blowing money on the F-35 however. After all, you can only batch upgrade the F-16 and F-15 for so long right?
The Navy will come out smelling like roses on this. We guess someone is still freaked out by China. Hagel is asking for two SSNs (Virginia class) and two more DDGs per year (Burke Flight III) for the next few years and keeping carrier numbers at 11 (which is still better than 1941, and still more than the rest of the entire globe put together). However the USN will be forced to mothball 11 early Tico class CGs– which are pushing 30 years old anyway.
The Navy currently has 75 Burkes at sea or in the works, and it looks like there will be another half-dozen at least. Unlike the Flight IIA USS Spruance (DDG-111) seen here, they will likely be the newer Flight III mod. Plus it gives me an excuse to put up a gnarly ship pic.
So you can expect lots of media pundits ranting about how disastrous this is.
But in reality, it’s just a draw-down from the end of WWII that was put off by a 45-year cold war (that included hot parts in Korea and Vietnam), followed by 25-years in the desert fighting first Saddam and then the Tally and Iranian proxies. So by coincidence, Pre-WWII troop levels seem almost like right– and the Joint Chiefs are cool with it.
So long as we can stay out of the desert in the future and that nutcase in the DPRK sticks to whacking his family and courting basketball players, we should be fine. Oh yeah, and China. But hey they already own our ass anyway.
