Category Archives: cold war

Classic Walther Burp Gun Spotted in the Wild

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The Portuguese Navy’s Marine Corps has deployed a 170-strong reinforced company (about a quarter of the service’s strength) to the Baltics. Dubbed the Força de Fuzileiros Lituânia (FFZ LTU) it is on a roughly three-month mission under the auspices of NATO and is the largest deployment of the Corpo de Fuzileiros since Portugal evacuated its African colonies more than 50 years ago. Notably, it includes two UAV elements.

The Portuguese Marines are also sort of old-school, in many ways being stuck in the 1960s-70s when it comes to small arms, still using HK G3 battle rifles, and Walther MP subguns. They only recently retired the P-1 (P-38) pistol in favor of the Glock 17.

Everyone knows the Walther brand, and for good reason. The company makes great guns that are often extremely innovative. The PP/PPK, P-38, P-99, PPQ, PDP, the OSP, and Olympia – the list goes on. However, Walther only made one production submachine gun: the Maschinenpistole, or MP.

Designed in the late 1950s and entering production around 1963, the MP is a blowback action 9mm select-fire SMG with a tubular receiver that fires from an open bolt. It beat the much better-known Heckler & Koch MP5 to production by a few years and was made in two different variations: the MP Lang (Long), or MPL, and the MP Kurz (Short), or MPK.

The difference in size between the two was negligible. The more full-sized MPL ran a 10.2-inch barrel for an overall length of 29.4 inches with the side-folding wire stock extended, whereas the MPK went about 3.5 inches shorter with a 6.8-inch barrel.

Seen at Walther’s in-house museum in Ulm last year…

Although well-made, the MP never really caught on. Its only European customer, besides some German police units as the MP4 (they made several on-camera appearances during the Munich Olympics in 1972), was the Portuguese Navy as seen above

Overseas, it was bought by a few third-world users and the U.S. Army, picked for use by the elite Delta Force commandos in the 1970s and the secretive Detachment A “stay behind” Special Forces unit in West Berlin.

Whereas the MP5 is a bit of a race car that needs special tools for in-depth maintenance, the MP is made simply of metal stampings. For instance, the barrel on the Walther can be swapped out by a user in the field with no tools. Plus, its 550-round cyclic rate, slower than that of the HK, was closer to that used by the M3 Grease Gun and earlier MP38/40, allowing a more familiar learning curve to those already used to those platforms. Little wonder it was adopted by the early U.S. Tier 1 counter-terror operators when Delta Force was first stood up. (Photos: U.S. Army, National Archives, Springfield Armory National Historic Site)

We recently got to shoot one earlier this year and can see why Delta dug it. 

Behold, the MPK

It is ambi and is set up kind of funny. The safety (Sicher=safe) is to the rear of the grip, full-auto (Dauerfeuer= continuous fire) straight down, and semi-auto (Einzelfeuer=single fire ) with the switch rotated forward toward the magazine well. The HK MP5 has a similar S/E/F marked switch for Sicher-Einzelfeuer-Feuerstoss

Tay Ninh Umbrellas

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March 1963. Static line ARVN paratroopers jump from USAF Fairchild C-123 Providers of the 346th Troop Carrier Squadron (Assault) during Operation Phi Hoa II, a tactical air-ground envelopment strike against Viet Cong in the Tay Ninh Province of South Vietnam. Between 13-22 March, no less than 1,181 ARVN paras hit the silk over Tay Ninh, near what would later be known as the “Iron Triangle” north of Saigon.

Official period caption: “Sixteen C-123s dropped more than 840 parachutists in two minutes after Vietnamese Air Force tactical fighters and bombers had worked over the area. A smoke bomb, dropped minutes before the assault, marks the drop zone.”

USAF Photo 342-AF-93093USAF, National Archives Identifier 542293

South Vietnam fielded a full four-brigade airborne division by the 1970s, with 1,000 American airborne-qualified advisors attached, although they pulled very few large combat jumps such as at Phi Hoa II. They were primarily delivered by helicopter but did continue to put their chutes to work in myriad small squad and platoon-sized recon missions (often in places they never officially were) to watch roads and conduct ambushes and small-scale raids.

Before the above image was taken, the ARVN Airborne Group, as it was termed at the time, had already made five increasingly larger combat jumps– leaping in to reinforce the garrison at Bo Tuc in March 1962, setting a two-company ambush behind a VC group north of Saigon in July 1962, conducting a battalion-sized raid at An Xuyen in August 1962, and finally two regimental-sized drops at Ap Tan Thoi and Ba Rai in January 1963.

They had a lineage that went back to the old French, who recruited and trained 1e BPVN, 3e BPVN, and 5e BPVN, which were airdropped into Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The French raised at least four colonial airborne battalions and five independent companies during their fight against the Viet Minh.

Of note, the C-123s of the 346th at the time were also used to train Air America crews and in Ranch Hand defoliant spraying operations, which were no doubt a bonus to the ARVN paras.

Royal Regulator: The “Inglis” L9A1 clone

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Tennessee-based SDS Arms, whose umbrella of brands includes Military Armament Corporation (MAC), Tisas, Tokarev, and Spandau, is bringing back the Inglis name to the American market.

At SHOT Show ’24, the company announced the L9A1 clone to include a black Chromate finish and plastic grips as well as three more commercial models: a black Inglis P-35B with walnut grips, the satin nickel Inglis P-35N with black G10 grips, and a color-case hardened Inglis GP-35.

We caught up with Jahred Gamez at the time to check out these new guns, which were “coming soon.”

Now, the Inglis guns are shipping, and we made sure to get a production model to review.

The L9A1 feels like a well-built BHP from the 1980s and mimics what would be marketed at around that time by Browning/FN as the Mk. II series gun. It is close to the T-series guns used by the British Army from 1964 to 2013 but with the benefits of more understated markings and an ambidextrous manual safety lever.

I say toss some beans on toast, grow your mustache out over your top lip, and cue up “God Save the Queen.” The only true Dr. Who was Tom Baker, and I’m not apologizing for it.

More in my column at Guns.com. 

What a Difference 7 Years Makes

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While off the Virginia Capes on 7 March 1949, a twin-engine P2V-3C Neptune able to carry atomic ordnance lifted off from the brand new Midway-class supercarrier USS Coral Sea (CVB-43)— via an 8,000-pound thrust boost in the form of RATO tanks. With a mammoth 37-ton take-off weight, the aircraft was set for a 4,600-mile flight and reportedly lifted off with “room to spare.”

Piloted by the legendary Capt. (later VADM) John Tucker “Chick” Hayward (USNA ’25) of VC-5, the Coral Sea Neptune carried an 8,600-pound inert Little Boy “pumpkin” style A-bomb. Flying across the continent without refueling, the Neptune dropped its ordnance on the West Coast at Muroc, California (Edwards AFB), then returned nonstop to land at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, vetting the concept of long-range carrier-based atomic bomb attacks.

A later test from Coral Sea’s sister, USS Franklin D Roosevelt (CVB-42) saw another similarly outfitted P2V-3C fly across the Gulf of Mexico to the Panama Canal and finish at Moffet NAS in San Francisco, a distance of 5,156 miles– not bad when the published range of the type was 3,935 miles.

USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) launches a Lockheed P2V Neptune bomber with JATO assist, during a Task Force 21 cruise, 2 July 1951

Keep in mind that the heavily modified Army B-25B Mitchells launched from USS Hornet in April 1942 on the Doolittle Raid each carried just four 500-pound conventional bombs, with a trim 18-ton take-off weight, on an (expected) 2,400-mile one-way trip that was lengthened at the last minute.

Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942 View looking aft and to port from the island of USS Hornet (CV-8), while en route to the mission’s launching point. USS Vincennes (CA-44) is in the distance. Several of the mission’s sixteen B-25B bombers are visible. That in the foreground is tail # 40-2261, which was mission plane # 7, piloted by 2nd Lieutenant Ted W. Lawson. The next plane is tail # 40-2242, mission plane # 8, piloted by Captain Edward J. York. Both aircraft attacked targets in the Tokyo area. Lt. Lawson later wrote the book Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. Note the searchlight at left. Catalog #: NH 53293

An Army Air Force B-25B bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) at the start of the raid, 18 April 1942. Note men watching from the signal lamp platform at right. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-41196

Mad Max of Chad…and Iraq

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A very Mad Max-looking (or possibly Le Dernier Combat) scene from 24 February 1986. It shows a bush patrol (patrouille en brousse) of 3e section du 8e régiment parachutiste d’infanterie de marine (8e RPIMa) near Moussoro, Chad, doing what they could to modify their uniforms in the 120 degree F heat.

Réf. : 1 986 072 34 13, Patrice George/ECPAD/Défense

Note the FAMAS bullpup of the assistant gunner and the holstered SACM pistol of the anti-tank man. Speaking of which, the pipe is a Luchaire Defense SA Lance-Roquettes AntiChar (LRAC) model F1 STRIM 89mm rocket launcher with a 3x APX M 309 optical sight and two spare rockets at the ready.

Introduced in the early 1970s as a marginally better (but 100 percent more French) weapon than the 90mm M20 Super Bazooka, the launcher weighed 11 pounds, sans sight, with HE rounds pushing another 7 pounds a pop. Capable of penetrating 400mm of armor, the French never confirmed or denied that it was used in combat in Chad.

The French Foreign Legion used the LRAC in Iraq as they served as the far left hook of the Desert Storm ground campaign. 

24-26 February 1991 Al Salman Iraq A two-man anti-tank rocket launchers (LRAC) of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e Régiment Étranger d’Infanterie, 2nd REI) sitting near a concrete hangar at the air base. Ref.: 1 991 001 239 17. Christian Fritsch/ECPAD/Defense

It was replaced by the MBDA Eryx after 1993, which is slated to be replaced by an updated 84mm Carl G.

As for 8e RPIMa, the “Chicken Thieves” (voleurs de poules) shown in the top image are still around and still specialize in light, fast-moving operations that often tend toward the desert environment, having deployed to Afghanistan (2008), Central Africa (2013) and the Sahel (2015) in recent years.

Holy Loch North

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One of the aces in the hole for the old-school Polaris Fleet Ballistic Missile submarines and their Trident descendants was Refit Site One, hidden in Holy Loch, Scotland near the Firth of Clyde.

Established as the forward base for SUBRON 14 around the tender USS Proteus (AS-19) and floating dry dock Los Alamos (AFDB-7) in 1961 with a small shoreside footprint, the tenders and SSBNs changed but Los Alamos endured and the base quietly closed after the thaw in the Cold War in 1991, capping its 30-year mission.

“Trident, The Black Knight.” USS Michigan (SSBN-727) rests quietly at the US Naval Base at Holy Loch, Scotland in 1988, waiting to be replenished for sea. Painting, Oil on Masonite; by John Charles Roach; 1984; Framed Dimensions 34H X 44W NHHC Accession #: 88-163-CU

Well, with Holy Loch long gone and the sub force still in need of some quiet out-of-the-way places to make occasionally needed pit stops on the surface, Iceland has become a friend indeed. Since April 2023, six SSNs– important to the Icelandic government nuclear-powered but not “officially” carrying nuclear weapons– have slipped into Eyjafjordur– a huge fjord in Northcentral Iceland some 15km wide and 60 km long, dotted by a few small villages and the town of Akureyri (pop 19,000)– for partial resupply and crew swaps.

For their part, Iceland provides logistical support and local security in the form of the cutters and crews of the Icelandic Coast Guard.

The ICG’s cutter Freyja recently assisted with one such service of one of SUBRON 12’s Block III Virginia-class hunter-killers, USS Delaware (SSN 791), over the weekend.

Via the ICG:

The service visits are part of Iceland’s defense commitments and an important contribution to the joint defense of the Atlantic Union. Their deployment here on land allows our allies to ensure continuity of surveillance, shorten response times, and send messages of presence and defense in the North Atlantic.

Meanwhile, down under…

In related news on the other side of the globe, the SUBRON15’s Guam-based Virginia-class hunter-killer USS Minnesota (SSN 783) arrived in sunny Western Australia on February 25, 2025, kicking off the first of two planned U.S. fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling at Freemantle in 2025.

250225-N-QR679-1011 ROCKINGHAM, Western Australia, Australia (Feb. 25, 2025) Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) conduct mooring operations at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, Feb. 25, 2025. Minnesota arrived in Western Australia kicking off the first of two planned U.S. fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling in 2025. Minnesota is currently on deployment supporting the U.S. 7th Fleet, the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered flee

250225-N-QR679-1002 ROCKINGHAM, Western Australia, Australia (Feb. 25, 2025) The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783) prepares to moor at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia, Australia, Feb. 25, 2025. Minnesota arrived in Western Australia kicking off the first of two planned U.S. fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling in 2025. Minnesota is currently on deployment supporting the U.S. 7th Fleet, the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, operating with allies and p

Bear Patrol

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The old turboprop-powered Tu-95 Bear, first flown in 1952, is still poking around, spotted this time over the Bearing and Chukchi Sea, and a whole new generation of interceptors are now rising to meet them.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft positively identified and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 and two Su-35 military aircraft over the Bering Sea, on 18 Feb. 2025.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft positively identified and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 and two Su-35 military aircraft over the Chukchi Sea, on 19 Feb. 2025.

Two Russian Tu-95 and two Su-27 military aircraft are positively identified and intercepted by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft over the Chukchi Sea,19 Feb. 2025. 

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft positively identified and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 and two Su-35 military aircraft over the Bering Sea, on 18 Feb. 2025.

Via Alaskan Command:
On Feb. 18th and 19th, 2025, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft positively identified and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 and two Su-35 military aircraft in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) remaining in international airspace west of Alaska.
NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North American including meeting presence with presence.
The bandits appear to include Tupelov Tu-95MS Bear-H Red 45 (RF-94189), a strategic missile slinger of the Amur long-range aviation unit, escorted by Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flankers Blue 24 (95493) and Red 51– possibly of the 23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment.
Of note, Blue 24 seemed to be armed with two long-range Vympel NPO R-77s and two short-range R-73 AAMs, which is a flex.

M2 Days in Chad

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45 years ago this week. 22 February 1980. Opération Tacaud. Chad. “Batha,” a M101A1 (M2) 105mm howitzer in action during a live-fire exercise by 2ème batterie, 11e régiment d’artillerie de marine (RAMa). The location is likely Camp Dubut north of N’Djamena, the country’s capital.

Note the cannon is likely named for the Batha prefecture of Chad. Marc-André Desanges/ECPAD/Défense. F 80-115 L256

The handy 4,900-pound U.S. M2/M101A1 howitzer entered French service in 1943 as the HM2 10,5cm gun and it remained a standard in operations against the Viet Minh in Indochina, in Algeria, and in other places– such as Chad against the Libyans– until finally withdrawn from service in 1997.

While the gunners of 11e RAMa– a unit that dates back to 1622— are still in French Army service, based at Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier and equipped with Caesar 155mm guns, 120mm mortars, Mistral missiles, and VOA Griffons, the French have officially departed Chad after 70 years of post-colonial security assistance (and 60 years of colonial rule). 

It would seem the Chadians are pivoting towards Moscow. 

B-ONE Vibe Check

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19 February 1985. 40 years ago this week. Official caption: “Airman First Class Peter Warner, 3902nd Air Base Wing, Security Police Squadron, Wheaton, Illinois, provides security for a B-1B bomber aircraft (background) during a stopover. He is armed with an M16A1 carbine.”

USAF Photo DFST8600723, National Archives Identifier 6400254

Despite the caption, Airman Warner is sporting a GAU-5AA, Colt Model 649, XM177 carbine with its distinctive 11.5-inch barrel. Note the lack of forward assist and the characteristic beefy muzzle device.

Also, you have to love the hard 1980 vibe check to include the OG-107 cotton sateen olive drab uniform with the rolled sleeves and blue service stitching, the camo ascot, and the Casio digital watch with the OD flex band. You just know he has a Coleco Electronic Quarterback game in his desk drawer back at the guard shack, or a Rubik’s Cube.

Finns on point in the G-I-UK Gap

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Since the Black Knights of the 57th FIS pulled its F-15Cs out of Keflavik NAS in 1995, ending its 41-year run providing air defense over Iceland– and the only full-time fighters in the 2,000 miles between CFB Goose Bay in Newfoundland and RAF Stornoway in Scotland– Iceland has relied on a rotating NATO-supplied occasional Air Policing mission to provide for more muscular patrols of Icelandic airspace than the helicopters of the Icelandic Coast Guard can supply.

Since 2008 (there was a 13-year peace gap when Russia was seen as a tame bear), the detachments have been provided by the French, Danish (5 rotations), Norwegian (8), U.S. (14), German (2), Canadian (3), Portuguese (2), Italian (7), Czech (3), British (2), and Polish air forces.

The newest kid on the Icelandic beat is four F-18Cs of the Finnish Air Force’s Lapland Air Wing’s (Lapplands flygflottilj) No. 11 Squadron (Hävittäjälentolaivue 11), which arrived with a 50-member detachment under Lt. Col. Lasse Louhela in late January.

Photos by Anne Torvinen, Finnish Air Force:

Note the old Cold War USAF hardened shelters and the reduced-sized white and blue donut roundels on the F-18C

Toting AIM-9s and AIM-120s along with DTs. Note the tailhooks, which the Finns use for reduced-distance operations on railways

Keflavik has never been forgiving, especially in February, but as HävLLv 11’s normal base is in Lapland, they are probably used to it

The Finnish gray livery is almost light blue in color, which works great in polar regions.

They rely on the Icelandic CG EC225 Super Puma for SAR duties and have been conducting operations with Finnish aircrew.

In addition to operations out of Keflavik, the Finns plan to operate remotely from airports in Akureyri and Egilsstaðir, spreading the love.

The Finnish mission is expected to conclude at the end of February.

The Czechs will return with their JAS 39C Gripens for their 4th rotation this summer.

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