One of the coolest things about my recent trip to Europe was visiting Beretta for a couple of days. Not only did I get to film on the production floor and shoot some super rares (93R, NARP, et. al) on their in-mountain shooting cavern, but I also got to spend some quality time in their Museum.
I’ll have an article up at Guns.com in a bit diving into much more detail but check out these early prototypes:
The Mod. 58 in .30 caliber carbine. Developed for Morrocco, these were only made in the late 1950s. Keep in mind that Beretta at the time had a big contract to rework American M1 Carbines and Garands, something that led to the development of the BM-59.
Speaking of BM-59s, how about a .30-06 Beretta Garand Mod. 1, along with several BM-59s including a Mark I and Mark IV. Note the cutaway model. The company kept the BM-59 in production, long after the M1 and M14 had been put to bed. Beretta loves walnut, man.
This makes it no surprise that the company’s AR-70 5.56 rifle was originally prototyped with wood furniture!
For the past five months, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKECSG) has been in the Middle East under CENTCOM control where it has been neck deep in swatting away Houthi anti-ship missiles and drones and firing TLAMs ashore in retaliation. Its AAW boss is centered on the vintage Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58). Commissioned on 18 March 1989, she recently celebrated her 35th anniversary while underway and is the Navy’s 3rd-oldest active cruiser.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ (Nov. 26, 2023) USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) (IKE) and the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) transit the Strait of Hormuz as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKECSG) makes an inbound transit to the Arabian Gulf, Nov. 26. The IKECSG is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations to support maritime stability and security in the Middle East region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Merissa Daley)
It is planned by the Navy to inactivate the Philippine Sea next year, a process that will begin likely this October, so this is her last hurrah.
Speaking of which, sisters USS Shiloh (CG-67), USS Normandy (CG-60), and USS Lake Erie (CG-70) are set to be decommissioned along the same timelines, at least according to the latest Navy budget request.
Meanwhile, in Fiji
In the Central Pacific, USS Antietam (CG 54), long part of the forward-deployed Reagan Strike Group based in Japan, is currently in Fiji where she is participating on detached service as part of the OMSI (Oceania Maritime Security Initiative), giving grief to stateless (and often interloping Chi-Com) trawlers. Sure, it is more of a job for the USCG– Antietam has Coast Guard law enforcement personnel aboard– but at least the crew gets a port call in Fiji!
In 2023, the cruiser’s last full year as part of America’s Forward Deployed Naval Forces-Japan (FDNF-J), Antietam sailed nearly 34,000 miles, participated in the largest-ever Exercise Talisman Sabre alongside the Royal Australian Navy, and visited ports in Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines and Palau.
She is set to decommission as soon as October unless Congress stops that.
War Dragon is back (for now)
There is a bright spot to the Tico program, as USS Chosin (CG-65) has finally left Puget Sound after eight long years, having recently completed modernization at Vigor. The “War Dragon” arrived back at her long-absent homeport of San Diego– under her own power!– earlier this month.
USS Chosin (CG-65) will likely retire in 2027, at which point, she will probably be the last of her class in operation
The items have become historical in their own right, having ridden on the Pascagoula-built cruiser since 1989, service that included winning the Spokane Trophy twice, seeing combat in Desert Storm, participating in a 1993 TLAM strike against the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the Navy’s Fukushima response, the near-collision with the Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov, and tense transits through the Taiwan Strait.
Via the Museum:
Led by the Friends of the USS Chancellorsville (CG 62), an organization created to enhance the relationship between the ship’s commissioning committee the Fredericksburg Area Council of the Navy League, and the County of Spotsylvania, the following materials originally donated by the Friends of the USS Chancellorsville were transferred via Unconditional Deed of Gift from the United States Naval History and Heritage Command to the Spotsylvania County Museum following a decommissioning initiative to bring historic objects back to the USS Chancellorsville’s heritage community:
McClellan Cavalry Saddle
Framed case of excavated Chancellorsville battle artifacts, presented by Craig-Carroll
Framed case of excavated Chancellorsville battle artifacts, presented by Conroy F. Parker (seen above)
Ames Manufacturing Co. Model 1860 Light Cavalry Saber, presented to Captain Bill Keating on June 4, 1992, aboard the Chancellorsville by Dr. David Amstutz and acquired by the Fredericksburg Area Council of the Navy League (hung in Captain’s Cabin) (seen above)
Framed map of Chancellorsville
“Battle of Chancellorsville, Sunday, May 3, 1863” Print (original art from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Famous Leaders and Battle Scenes of the Civil War, 1896)
USS Chancellorsville at sea photo print (seen above)
“The Campaign of Chancellorsville: A Strategic and Tactical Study” by John Bigelow Jr., 1910 Yale University Press
Stellar Nioh 2022 – JFTM-07 plaque for Capt. Edward A. Angelinas, commanding officer of USS Chancellorsville (presented by Capt. Takeuchi Shusaku, commanding officer of J.S. Maya)
October 18, 2015, Japan Self-Defense Force Fleet Review plaque
DD-116 Teruzuki plaque presented to Capt. Curt Renshaw, commanding officer of USS Chancellorsville, 2015 (presented by Cmdr. Takayuki Miyaji, commanding officer of J.S. Teruzuki)
Beretta last week announced a small batch of hand-fit Model 92 pistols that were produced via the company’s custom shop in Italy.
The new Model 92FS Fusion Operational Camouflage Pattern pistol is limited to a run of just 250 handguns and gets its name from the distinctive laser-engraved camo pattern etched into its surfaces as a salute to the model’s historic military use around the globe.
I recently had the privilege to visit and tour the PB Selection shop in Gardone Val Trompia and observed the Fusion OCP in production.
Beretta isn’t kidding about the time and effort lovingly put into these guns. (All Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
And to see the gun evolve from bare steel is amazing. The camo pattern is laser engraved and is an ode to the pistol’s long career in military service around the globe with over 25 countries
Hand-fitted and hand-polished by Beretta’s master gunsmiths, the company advises the Fusion OCP delivers an extreme level of accuracy: 60 percent greater than a standard 92FS due to barrel selection and finishing.
The slide, barrel, trigger group, and frame have all been coated with the DLC treatment to reduce friction on high movement areas, increase slide mobility, and improve trigger timing.
Expect to see much more from my Beretta trip in the coming weeks.
Today marks the 80th anniversary of “The Great Escape,” the largest Western Allied prisoner-of-war breakout of the Second World War (only surpassed by the mass escape of 300 Jews– spearheaded by a force of 100 Soviet POWs from the extermination camp at Sobibor in 1943).
The Escape, from Stalag Luft III in the German Silesian town of Sagan (now Zagan, Poland), was carefully planned for a full year and required the effort of hundreds of the camp’s captured pilots and aircrews to allow 76 men (of the planned 220) to escape the stalag via tunnel system on the night of 24/25 March 1944.
“British prisoners of war tend their garden at Stalag Luft III” German propaganda image
It was a Pyrrhic victory, with 73 of 76 soon recaptured. The three who escaped, two Norwegians and a Dutch pilot, spoke passible German. Some 50 of the 76 including 20 Brits, 6 Canadians, 6 Polish, 5 Australian, 3 South African, 2 Kiwis, 2 Norwegians, and a single Argentine, Belgian, Czech, French, Greek, and Lithuanian, were executed.
Military personnel from allied nations, with a 50-strong RAF contingent led by Air Commodore Andrew Dickens, convened at the Old Garrison Cemetery in Poznan, Poland to commemorate those lost in the days after the escape. Wreaths were also laid by ambassadors from Australia, New Zealand, and Norway, alongside defense attachés from the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Germany.
One of the more head-turning debuts I saw at the recent IWA Outdoor Classics show in Germany recently came from a new Czech gunmaker who has a story eight years in the making.
We caught up with inventor and gunmaker Jan Lysak, who spent almost a decade of blood, sweat, and tears crafting something a bit different. Lysak’s company, Brno-based Creapeiron, introduced its first product at IWA: the Elysien pistol.
The Elysien looks very Laugo Alien and CZ75-ish from the get-go, sharing an extremely low bore axis, grip angle, and internal slide rails with those two pistols. Lysak admits the design borrows from the CZ75, a traditional Czech design, but stresses he had his gun under development before the Alien was released.
Like many classic handgun designs, the Elysien uses the so-called geometrical “Golden ratio/Golden section” in length and height to produce an aesthetically pleasing firearm offering a natural point of aim. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Going past the basics, the Elysien uses a hammer-forged heavy barrel with a triangular profile inside a ported slide that allows a better lockup.
Added to this is extensive use of magnets including both in the trigger regulator and screwless grip panels. When it comes to sights and optics, the pistol uses what the company calls the System Miridel, which includes the ability to use custom-made iron sights, a direct mount RMSc footprint MRD on the slide, or a fixed RMR/RMSc platform that stands independent of the slide.
Just in case you missed it, the museum ship USS New Jersey (BB-62) this week left her pier at Camden, where she has sat for the past 30 years, headed down the Delaware River on her way to dry docking and maintenance.
The Navy Yard caught her in movement, complete with her glad rags flying on a beautiful spring day. If it wasn’t for the fact that her radar mast has been removed to allow her to pass under bridges, and the lack of bluejackets manning her rails, you would think she was headed out for a deployment.
The Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony, Via the U.S. House of Representatives:
Three surviving members of the Ghost Army, the top-secret WWII units that used creative deception to fool the enemy, will join House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and other Congressional leaders at a special ceremony on March 21 at the Capitol to honor the Ghost Army with the Congressional Gold Medal.
Speaker Johnson and Senate Republican Leader McConnell will be joined at the ceremony by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with the original sponsors of the legislation that passed in 2022 authorizing the award, Congress’s highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements by individuals or institutions. They are Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH), and former Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT).
There are just seven surviving members of the Ghost Army, three of whom will attend the ceremony: ·
Bernard Bluestein, Hoffman Estates, IL. Bernie is a 100-year-old veteran of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. He served in the visual deception unit, the 603rd Camouflage Engineers. He joined the unit from the Cleveland Institute of Art and returned after the war for a long and successful career in industrial design. He has been a sculptor for the last 30 years.
John Christman, Leesburg, NJ. John served as a demolition specialist for the 406th. After the war, he worked in a lumber mill and the NJ Department of Corrections. He is an active baker who, at age 99, still bakes bread for his family holiday and birthday celebrations.
Seymour Nussenbaum, Monroe Township, NJ. Also 100, Seymore came to the Ghost Army from Pratt Institute and served in the 603rd, where he was friends with Bernie. Seymour helped to make the counterfeit patches used by the unit in Special Effects. He graduated from Pratt and went on to a long career in package design. He has been an avid stamp collector his entire life.
Other surviving members include James “Tom” Anderson (Dover, DE); George Dramis (Raleigh, NC); William Nall (Dunnellon, FL); and John Smith (Woodland, MI).
Many family members and relatives of the Ghost Army veterans, living and deceased, will also attend the ceremony, along with officers from the U.S. Army PSYOP forces. It will culminate a nearly 10-year effort by members and volunteers of the Ghost Army Legacy Project to win recognition for the little-known Army units that played a unique but unheralded part in the Allied victory of WWII and included such notable members as Bill Blass, Art Kane, and Ellsworth Kelly.
The ceremony will also be the first time the Gold Medal, designed and produced by the U.S. Treasury Department, will be unveiled. The ceremony is part of a two-day celebration for the veterans and their families that includes an awards dinner with featured speaker Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton, Commanding General, U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Eisenhower, and a screening of a 2013 documentary that recounts the daring exploits of the units during World War II.
Ghost Army Insignia circa 1944.
The existence of the Ghost Army was top secret for more than 50 years until it was declassified in 1996. That’s when the public first learned of the creative, daring techniques the Ghost Army employed to fool and distract the enemy about the strength and location of American troops, including the use of inflatable tanks, sound effects, radio trickery, and impersonation. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops staged more than 20 deception operations, often dangerously close to the front, in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany.
This “traveling road show of deception,” of only 1,100 troops appearing to be more than 20,000, is credited with saving an estimated 30,000 American lives.
U.S. Army analyst Mark Kronman stated, “Rarely, if ever, has there been a group of such a few men which had so great an influence on the outcome of a major military campaign.”
A sister unit, the 3133rd Signal Company Special, carried out two deceptions along the Gothic Line in Italy in April 1945. The unit was joined by a platoon from the 101st Royal Engineers, a British unit equipped with dummy rubber tanks.
“What made the Ghost Army special was not just their extraordinary courage, but their creativity,” said Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH), the House sponsor of the bill authorizing the Gold Medal. “Their story reminds us that listening to unconventional ideas, like using visual and sound deception, can help us solve existential challenges like defeating tyranny.”
Florida-born Mack W. Gwinn, Jr., the son of a retired Army officer, joined the U.S. Army Special Forces in 1961 and served until 1972, a period that included seven deployments to Vietnam, earning several Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star in the process.
Then, on return stateside following the war, he developed the Bushmaster Arm Pistol. The concept, a pistol-sized gas piston firearm that used an intermediate round rather than a pistol caliber, could rightly be described as one of the first personal defense weapons and predated the initial crop of large format AR handguns such as the OA-93 by a generation.
Moving on from Bushmaster, Gwinn went on to take out several patents on magazines as well as design and develop concepts for numerous other firearms applications including the SSP-86 pistol (see the Magnum Research Lone Eagle), developed the QCB system that FN used for the modern M2HB/M3 .50 cal, and lots of other neat stuff.
Capt. Mack W. Gwinn, Jr. (U.S. Army, Ret.), 79, died on March 11, 2024, at the Maine Veterans’ Hospital in Togus.
Some 103 years ago today: The future USS Colorado (Battleship No. 45) stern view, previous to launching by New York Shipbuilding Co., Camden, N.J., 21 March 1921.
Library of Congress Photo 19-LC-19G-18
Each of the four propeller shafts seen above was powered by a 5,424 kilowatt electric motor, fed by two Westinghouse two-phase turbo generators rated at 5,000 volts. Eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers, each in its individual compartment, provided steam for the generators. Altogether, the ship’s power plant was rated at 28,900 electrical horsepower to provide a flank speed of 21 knots. The suite was so modern that, if needed, a single man could run her entire propulsion system from a central control room while underway.
The third USS Colorado was launched the day after the above photo was quietly taken, on 22 March 1921, sponsored by Mrs. M. Melville; and commissioned on 30 August 1923, Captain (later Rear Admiral) Reginald Rowan Belknap (USNA 1891), in command. Belknap, a veteran of the SpanAm War and the Boxer Rebellion, would be the first of Colorado’s 20 skippers stretching throughout the ship’s 24-year career.
Narrowly avoiding Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 as she was in overhaul at Puget Sound Navy Yard,Colorado went on to receive seven battle stars for her World War II service starting with the preinvasion bombardment and fire support for the invasion of Tarawa in November 1943.
In line with a 3,500-person shortfall in recruiting and retention—a nearly 10 percent shortage in the enlisted ranks—that is forcing the Coast Guard to take 13 badly-needed cutters out of service in one form or another, some aging 210-foot Reliance class cutters are being essentially placed in what would have been deemed “ordinary” back in the old days.
The CGC Confidence (WMEC-619) and CGC Dependable (WMEC-626) will therefore soon be placed in “commission special” status, pending an eventual decommissioning and likely handover to overseas allies.
The planned Offshore Patrol Cutter program, which was to replace the 210s and other Cold War-era blue water assets, is behind schedule, so there of course will be a “cutter gap.”
This means that when the actual ax falls, the crews will no longer be assigned so there will be no traditional decommissioning ceremony, just an administrative move on paper. Sad when you consider these vessels have each put in over a half-century of service. In fact, both recently returned from far-reaching ex-CONUS patrols.
