Category Archives: military history

M948 Bayonet Alert!

Posted on by Leave a comment

I am a bayonet freak.

Perhaps even a bayonet superfreak with probably 150-200 in my collection dating back to the 1700s and often opining on them.

So, when I saw that Centerfire Systems has Portuguese FBP m/948 bayonets on sale in three grades from $39 to $59, I was all in. I mean, who has too many Portuguese bayonets on hand?

My “good condition” FBP m/968 bayonet. At some 11.75 inches long overall, it has a dagger-style point and double edged 7-inch blade with a steel scabbard. It is probably the most “fighting knife” oriented bayonet I have ever encountered.

Note the lack of a muzzle ring and a very Mauser-style (though it will not fit a Mauser) locking mechanism on the rear. I also love the fact that it has wood grip panels rather than plastic, a rarity in a Cold War-era bayonet.

Notice the similarities between the m/948 bayonet and the German-made Portuguese Mauser M937A Rifle bayonet

These were all made between 1948 and 1988, with the bulk in the 1960s. As such, they popped up in several African hot spots in any number of hands and are still sometimes encountered on the continent.

What was the m/948?

Portugal, which suffered over 30,000 casualties serving with its British allies in the Great War, rearmed in the 1930s with what eventually turned into 150,000 German-made (and Swazi-marked) Mauser-Werke AG Oberndorf 98K bolt-action rifles (adopted as the Espingarda Mod.937). These were augmented by Steyr MP-34 sub guns dubbed the Pistola Metralhadora (machine pistol) m/938 (in 7.65 mm) and m/942 (in 9 mm).

While they largely sat out WWII but aligned with London and Washington (keeping Franco’s Spain neutral in the process), the Cold War soon came around, and Portugal was one of the original 12 NATO alliance members in 1949. This meant the country needed to modernize its forces should it be forced to fight the Soviets.

This need was kicked into overdrive when all of Portugal’s overseas territories slowly slid into revolt– with a little help from Moscow. What followed was the 13-year (February 1961 to April 1974) Guerra do Ultramar (The Overseas War), spent fighting Communist-backed insurgent guerrillas in the country’s African colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, as well as in East Timor and Goa in the Indian Ocean.

In other words, the Portuguese needed new guns. Lots of them.

Some 800,000 Portuguese military and colonial paramilitary members fought in the Guerra do Ultramar during the Cold War, with an average of 100,000 deployed overseas at any given time. To arm these troops, Lisbon’s Fábrica Militar de Braço de Prata (FBP) factory began licensed production of HK G3 (Espingarda Automática m/961) rifles and HK21 (m/968) machine guns in 7.62 NATO, as well as a locally designed m/968 60mm patrol mortar, and the m/948 sub-machine gun.

The Portuguese also purchased small numbers of Belgian-made FN FALs (13,470, designated the m/962) and Dutch-made AR-10s (about 4,500, designated m/961) to help fill their needs until the home-built HKs came online. As you can see, all was well within the NATO extended family.

Designed in the late 1940s by Portuguese artillery Major Gonçalves Cardoso, the FBP m/948 was a simple blow-back action 9mm open bolt SMG that borrowed elements from the German MP40 (bolt and recoil assembly, barrel and nut design), British STEN (mags, mag release, ejector), and the American M3 Grease Gun (stock, sights, grip, etc). The imitation is so complete that m/948 bolts can apparently be used in MP40s as a drop-in replacement, and the gun readily accepts STEN mags.

The FBP m/948 was a simple spot-welded “tube gun” made from inexpensive stampings that borrowed from the MP40, STEN, and M3. This intact model in the IWM collection, IWM (FIR 10392)

Production was only about 20-30,000 guns, mostly in the 1960s, and they were issued primarily to NCOs, commandos, and guards– which meant they were also often captured and used against Portuguese units as well.

These production numbers from FBP are available:

“In 1963, 11,867 G-3s and 5,572 FBP submachine guns were manufactured; in 1964, there were 23,724 and 6,561; in 1969, the numbers were 45,660 and 694. In total, until 1988, the factory produced 442,197 G3 and 19,113 FBP submachine guns.” (Pinto, Renato. Portugal and Weapons – A History of Small Arms and Military Industries. Colibri, 2024.)

Guerrillas of the PAIGC on Como Island with a motley accumulation of weapons, including PPsh, PPS, and FBP SMGs. The PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) was a communist organization formed in 1956 and openly backed by the Soviets.

A Portuguese air force T-6 Texan, and a Dornier Do 27, atCazombo field, Angola, guarded by a sentinel with an FBP. The Portuguese used an amazing 250 T-6s and 150 Do-27s in the African Bush Wars, being an ideal combo for COIN and transport/liaison work from small fields. 

Note the distinctive bayonet lug on the m/948 and its STEN mag. 

The gun was made in a semi-auto variant (m/963) as well as one with a cooling sleeve around the barrel (m/976).

The FBP factory later became part of the unified national defense industries system (INDEP) and closed its doors in the early 1990s, with its last product being the even simpler blowback action Lusa submachine gun, which, designed to replace the m/948, was never put into production; its technical data package was sold to U.S. investors and faded into history.

It seems Portugal has been finally disposing of the last m/948s on hand over the past 10-12 years, and, while I’ve seen the bayonets pop up as components of torched parts kits, seeing them by themselves in good condition for under $100 was a no-brainer.

I’d recommend grabbing one while you can.

Just Cause Sheridans

Posted on by Leave a comment

Following up on the recent mention of the anniversary of Just Cause here on the blog, I would be remiss to point out something super interesting in that 1989 intervention.

It was the only instance of the M-551 Sheridan Armored Reconnaissance/Airborne Assault Vehicle (AR/AAV) being used exactly as it was designed: as an airdropped light tank.

Crewed by the 3rd Battalion of the 73rd Armor Regiment, 82nd Airborne, the 10 M-551A1s that were hurled to the earth from speeding C-141 Starlifters on 20 December 1989, were the only air drop into combat of the vehicle.

One was damaged and another destroyed when their chutes failed to deploy properly (an 80 percent success rate!), but the use in Panama of the eight functional survivors was “considered highly successful.”

The Sheridan went on to see combat once again in Desert Storm (being the first American Army armor on the ground) and run around the Mojave with the NTC for years, but other than Panama, its claim to fame was in Vietnam.

Albeit without airdrops.

‘She’s All Ablaze’

Posted on by Leave a comment

In the hard Christmas of 1915, the gleaming new “Superdreadnought” USS New York (Battleship No. 34) was resting in the Hudson. Bedecked with Christmas trees from her yardarms and one huge Douglas fir on the roof of A Turret, the warship hosted 100 needy children on a tour.

USN photo courtesy of Scott Koen & ussnewyork.com, via Navsource. https://www.navsource.org/archives/01/34a.htm

Then came a large Christmas Party attended by members of the battleship’s crew, who all chipped into the fund to buy the kiddies some gifts to make their season bright.

From a period paper published on 26 December 1915:

When Chief Bos’n’s Mate ‘Arry Percival of the superdreadnought New York slipped his ‘and around ‘is waistline to the top of ‘s pocket and nonchalantly withdrew there from something which looked ever so much like a regular flask filled with an amber-colored something that made the grape juice in the punch bowl on the reporters’ table blush a deeper purple, everyone in the foc’sle was too busy feeding his or her’s Christmas face to gasp at ‘Arry’s apparent audacity. But it wasn’t that at all, and nobody should have gasped anyhow if anyone had time to indulge in an outburst.

So, Mr. Percival proceeded to justify his lack of respect for h’ by sprinkling a great big melon-shaped plum pudding with what is technically known on shipboard as the illuminating gear, same being the contents of the flask-like affair from the Chief Bos’n’s Mate’s ‘ip pocket. Then he touched a lighted match to the steaming dish and surveyed the dancing blue flames with evident satisfaction. The next instant, Mr. Percival lifted the huge platter in his arms and paraded his burden along as happy a Christmas table as yesterday knew.

“‘Ere you go, children,” beamed the Chief Bos’n’s Mate. “She’s all ablaze.”

And the “Ahs ” and “Ums” that greeted his announcement simply smothered the flames as he set the dish before the New York’s guests in the center of the long mess table.

Fast forward exactly 30 years, and after Great War service in Battleship Division Nine as reinforcement for the British Grand Fleet, earning three battle stars for her WWII service that included 1,088 operational days with the Atlantic Fleet and another 276 in the Pacific, firing over 53,000 shells in anger, she was docked in the Hudson once again.

A tired and very well-traveled war vet.

From her amazing 229-page WWII cruise book digitized online via the Bangor Public Library, the “Christmas Ship” in December 1945:

Father Christmas’s Cold War Lighthouse Run

Posted on by Leave a comment

Put into service in 1967, the Leuchtturm Kiel stands some four miles offshore of Kiel in the shallows of the Kieler Außenförde and serves as both the pilot station for the busy terminal and a manned aid to navigation– the only one of its type in use in Germany.

Soon after it was established, each December saw Weihnachtsmann, Father Christmas, hitch a ride out to the station to deliver holiday treats to the keepers and pilots, with his traditional sleigh or horse replaced by a fast attack craft of the Warnemünde-based 7. Schnellbootgeschwader (the 7th Fast Patrol Boat Squadron, 7. SG or 7. S-geschwader), a unit that had only been formed a few years earlier, in 1961.

It was a no doubt fast trip of about 75 nm across the Holsatian littoral.

Father Christmas on a Lürssen-built 42m Type 142 Zobel-class schnellboot of 7. SG, delivering goodies to Leuchtturm Kiel in December 1972. (Foto: Bundeswehr/Archiv)

And via a Type 143 Albatros-class FAC of the West German 7. Schnellbootgeschwader aus Kiel im Jahr 1985 den Weihnachtsmann (Foto: Bundeswehr/Archiv WBK I „Küste“)

(Foto: Bundeswehr/Archiv WBK I „Küste“)

Type 143A Gephard class Hyäne (P6130) (S80) of 7. SG on the Leuchtturm Kiel run in December 1994, complete with a Santa cap on her stern RAM launcher.

Typically equipped with 10 boats and two small 2,300-ton/324-foot Rhein-class tenders, 7. Schnellbootgeschwader kept watch over their stretch of the Baltic with jaunts to Norwegian fjords on NATO exercises.

The last four boats of 7. SG (Hermelin, Frettchen, Hyäne, and Zobel) stood down on 16 November 2016, capping a 55-year run for the squadron and logging over 350,000nm in patrols.

Santa gets out to the lighthouse by other means these days, but he surely remembers his schnellboot days.

Christmas 1944 ‘Somewhere in England’

Posted on by 2 comments

No Warship Wednesday today for obvious reasons.

But I do have something special for you guys (and we do have a companion piece publishing tomorrow)

While poking around my normal haunts of antique stores, library sales, and the like, I came across an old book and bought it. No surprise.

A bigger surprise was finding this old veteran tucked in between the pages, used as a bookmark. It is well-traveled and yellowed, printed on cheap paper using wartime-quality ink.

But it has traveled 81 years to be here and deserves a mention.

I am presenting you with the program and menu for the 1944 Christmas dinner aboard the United States Landing Ship (Tanks) 294, at the time, “somewhere in England.”

I thought one of the more humorous parts was that “Cigarettes!” with an exclamation point is listed under desserts.

USS LST-294 gets hardly a mention in naval history, but she was there. I mean t-h-e-r-e kinda there. Like the first wave of D-Day on Omaha Beach, kinda there. And that was just over four months after she commissioned.

USS LST-294 high and dry on the beach at Normandy, June 1944.

Cigarettes! Indeed.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em, boys.

Make Battleships Great Again (?)

Posted on by Leave a comment

Wow.

The first class of U.S. battleships built since 1944.

I mean, this announcement.

Engineered to outmatch any foreign adversary, the new battleship class will be the centerpiece of naval power. At triple the size of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, its massive frame provides superior firepower, larger missile magazines, and the capability to launch Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missiles and the Surface Launch Cruise Missile-Nuclear.

The Trump class will be capable of operating in a traditional Integrated Air and Missile Defense role with a Carrier Strike Group or commanding its own Surface Action Group for Surface and Anti-Submarine Warfare efforts, in addition to delivering long-range hypersonic strategic fires and quarterbacking the operations of an entire fleet as the central command control node.

I mean, yes, build a Great Navy.

A world-class Navy with new and innovative vessels that will be cutting-edge for generations to come.

Bring back a modern BBG or BBGN, hell, bring back a class of CGNs while you are at it.

I’m all for a modern take on USS Long Beach with 192 VLS strike-length cells.

But the move to designate these new battlewagons the “Trump class” with hull number “1” and the first named USS Defiant (BBG-1) is just pure unadulterated MAGA autism.

You would be far more likely to get a Democratic-controlled Armed Services Committee (coming in 2027 if not 2029) to approve billions of pork-flavored dollars for a ship named after a state. Give it the name of the biggest state (in terms of population and House seats) that currently doesn’t have a ship named after it already on the Navy List, and give it a traditional hull number in line with previous battleships– the future and sixth USS South Carolina (BB-67)– or BB-72 if you take into account the canceled Montana class battleships.

Plus, it should be pointed out that the canceled USS Kentucky (BB-66) was redesignated as BBG-1 in 1954 while still under construction, so at least the new Trump battleship should be BBG-2.

Further, there is already a “Defiant” on the Navy List, a Valiant-class harbor tug (YT-804), which commissioned in 2010. The Navy also owns the Nichols/Serco Maritime unmanned demonstrator ship USX-1 Defiant, which is not officially in commission.

Moving past the name and hull numbers and looking at the renderings, these will be the same rough size (35,000 tons, 840-880 feet oal) as the 10 fast battleships of the North Carolina/SoDak/Iowa classes, but Trump is advertising a build out of 20-25 (!) of these leviathans.

Main battery will be a dozen Conventional Prompt Strike cells (including the use of a theorized W80-4 tipped SLCM-N) and 128 Mk 41 strike-length VLS, with a secondary battery of a 32MJ railgun (hold your breath), a pair of 5-inch guns, 2 300-600kW lasers, and a defensive battery of two RAM launchers, four Mk46 30mm guns, four AN/SEQ-4 ODIN lasers, and two undefined counter UxS systems.

A huge mistake is making these gas turbine-powered akin to the DDG and LHD-8 designs rather than nuclear powered– something that will be desperately needed with the electric draw of the rail gun, ODINs, etc.

Plus, there are realistically just two yards in the country (Ingalls and Newport News) that could build these without major improvements to their facilities, and both are already swamped making CVNs, SSBNs, SSNs, LHAs, LPDs, DDGs, and FF(X)s, so somehow freeing up yard space for two dozen 35,000-ton battleships while still building everything else is…well…just not going to happen.

Three other private yards may have slipways big enough for an 880-foot/35,000-ton warship: NASSCO in San Diego, Philly Shipyard, and BAE in Jacksonville, but do they have the personnel and shop space to pull off such a project?

There are only something like 21 certified dry docks in the entire country to conduct routine warship maintenance– with just four of those on the West Coast (THE biggest issue with a modern Pacific naval war in my opinion). Of those 21, just nine are rated to hold a battleship-sized vessel, and they are busy supporting CVNs, LHA/Ds, AOs, and LPDs.

Portsmouth NSY and Bremerton NSY both have very large dry docks capable of holding a CVN, but could they construct a 35,000-ton battleship and still address their huge maintenance backlogs of current ships? That’s probably a big no.

Industrial reality is going to hit this project hard.

Congress may hit it harder.

An Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyer costs roughly $2.5 billion per ship for the newest Flight III models, while a Ford-class carrier is more like $13 billion. Back-of-the-envelope math would have a BBG fall somewhere in the middle of those two bookends, which would still be an amazingly stout $7.75 billion per hull. Times 25 hulls is $193B. Sure, the F-35 program runs $2 trillion, but that includes mountains of R&D and sustainment costs as well as spare parts. Speaking of which, what would lifecycle costs be on 25 battleships, each with a 650-800 member crew (which is about three times the size of a DDG crew)? The Navy has often quoted that it cost $100K per year per bluejacket, so that is $2B in just salaries and benefits for battleship sailors, per year, not to count those in shoreside support and maintenance.

Hell, maybe this is all a big ask to get Capitol Hill to gratefully torpedo the 25 Trump-class battleships for a new and improved 12-ship Long Beach CGNs, all conveniently named after Big Blue Cities.

I’d take that.

USS Long Beach (CGN 9), concept by T.G.Webb of proposed anti-air warfare modernization with the Aegis Fleet Air Defense System, FY77. NH 90071

Le Tonnant Found

Posted on by Leave a comment

The lost Redoubtable (Pascal)-class submarine of the M6 series (Agosta type) Le Tonnant (“Thunderer”) (Q172) has been discovered.

Built by F.&Ch de la Méditerranée and commissioned on 1 June 1937, she made a high-profile pre-war deployment to Indochina, participated in some early war patrols with the Toulon-based 3rd Submarine Squadron before the Fall of France in June 1940, and ventured as far as Dakar.

She then sailed under orders from Vichy until 15 November 1942, when she was scuttled off Cadiz, Spain, by her own crew following the German occupation of Southern France and the British-American occupation of French North Africa.

Her crew all managed to reach Spain and be interned for the duration, while Le Tonnant settled into the seabed.

Of Le Tonnant’s 31-boat class, only five survived the war, including the famous Casabianca (Q183).

Now, 83 years later, her wreck has been documented by a Franco-Spanish research team by the Univesite de Bretagne Occidentale.

 

Double Deuce: Keeping the Watch

Posted on by Leave a comment

This image by Cal Obson of the Mexico-United States border in Agua Prieta, Sonora/Douglas, Arizona captures the old international boundary some 110 years ago today, 22 December 1915.

Arizona Historical Society. PC 1000 Tucson General Photo Collection, Places-Douglas-F1 #58732

Pvt. M.R. Pankratrte of Company A, 22nd US Infantry Regiment, stands guard with his M1903 Springfield at hand while Pvt. Montes Simon, of the 3rd Company, 20th Batallion de Siniloy (Batallón de Sinaloa), Mexican Army, has a Mauser with plenty of ammo, and what looks to be a big S&W on his belt.

The old “Double Deuce” was originally founded in May 1861 as a battalion of the 13th Regulars before earning its own regimental status during the great reorganization of 1869. Famously including a company of Seminole Negro Scouts during the Indian Wars who earned four MoHs, the 22nd saw much service across the frontier in the Old West, shipped to Cuba in the war of ’98, fought across the Philippines from 1900-05, helped San Francisco during the great earthquake of ’06, then shipped to Alaska for two years to help establish order and communications amid the Klondike gold rush.

In garrison at the Presidio, the 22nd was sent to the Border during the tense Mexican Revolution and Civil War then, in April 1917 was about to sail for the Philippines again when the U.S. entered the Great War and was rushed to New York City and Washington, D.C. to guard docks and infrastructure during the conflict, missing out on going “Over There.”

The 22nd only made it to France on 6 June 1944, landing on Utah Beach with the 4th Infantry Division, before being assigned to the 2nd Armored Division, the 83rd Infantry, and back to the 4th, breaking through the Siegfried Line and finishing the war in Germany. The regiment suffered an incredible 1,653 killed and 7,706 wounded in less than a year of fighting.

It later served with the 4th Infantry again in Vietnam (earning a  Presidential Unit Citation) and, with a battalion sent to the 10th Mountain, has since seen service in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Today, the Fort Drum-based 2nd of the 22nd is the regiment’s only active battalion, and, naturally, is known as the Triple Deuce.

The regiment’s motto: Deeds, not Words.

Fletcher snowballs

Posted on by One comment

Happy first day of winter.

With that, how about this amazing watercolor painting by Edward T. Grigware titled “Scene Onboard Ship,” one you can almost feel if in a snowy area today.

It was painted in 1943 and depicts U.S. Navy sailors aboard two tied-up destroyers working in bone-numbing cold and snowy conditions, likely in the Alaska theater where Grigware, an official Navy artist, was deployed.

Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Edward T. Grigware; 1943; Framed Dimensions 16H X 18W. Naval History and Heritage Command Accession #: 07-805-P

Grigware, born in 1889, was already a well-known American artist and illustrator before he moved from Chicago to Cody, Wyoming, in the 1930s. He attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and spent time working as a commercial artist.

During WWII, Grigware created poster art to support the war effort and painted pieces for the Navy, including the haunting work above.

Panama flashback

Posted on by One comment

Panama Defense Force patches, including that of the Macho de Monte jungle commandos, captured during Operation Just Cause in December 1989, at the USAF Armament Museum, Eglin AFB (Chris Eger)

More Just Cause PDF patches, including the desk plate and helmet from Noriega’s desk, are at the Infantry Museum, Fort Benning. (Chris Eger)

I once worked with a guy, let’s call him Dan, who I now list as a friend, on a government contracting job about 20 years back, who had just retired as a Marine SNCO.

One cold night, while talking over a way too tough pot of coffee, the subject matter turned to Panama, and Dan fished a photo from his wallet of a younger version of him, clad in M81 Woodland BDUs and a high-and-tight, war face, and an M16A2 dutifully on display.

“That’s when I was stationed in the Canal Zone.”

Dan said he loved it. Kid in a candy store kind of duty in 1988, shifting to the big bad Just Cause in 1989 when things weren’t so much fun.

He said the night Just Cause kicked off, he was on a one-man post shared with a PDF corporal on an oft-forgotten back gate of some naval base (Rodman?), when the phone rang– a call Dan had been advised was coming– and was told to go ahead and take the Panamanian into custody one way or another.

It almost turned into a 1911-on-1911 “gunfight in a phone booth,” but eventually de-escalated, and my friend was able to sit back down at his desk with an extra pistol and no shots fired.

“I’d have blown his brains out,” Dan said, sipping coffee. “Glad I didn’t have to.”

Fast forward to today, where Just Cause is now 31 years in the rearview, and these pictures came into my feed, part of the expanded formalization of efforts for the DOD/DOW getting involved with Panama’s mil/LE counterparts.

A combined U.S. Navy SEALs and Panamanian special operations team conducted a complex crisis scenario at the U.S. Embassy in Panama City, according to information shared on December 9, 2025, by U.S. Special Operations in Central, South America, and the Caribbean. Officials familiar with the drill described it as a full-spectrum validation of how quickly partner units can synchronize communications, access sensitive areas, and stabilize a rapidly evolving threat within a diplomatic facility. The mission paired U.S. Navy SEALs from Naval Special Warfare with Army Special Forces operators from 7th SFG(A), who worked alongside embassy security elements and Panama’s elite Dirección Nacional de Fuerzas Especiales, or DINFEE.

Members of the U.S. Marine Corps and Panamanian security services practice contact drill techniques during the Combined Jungle Operations Training Course at Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, Panamá, Dec. 8, 2025. U.S. Southern Command is focused on increasing partner nation capacity and interoperability in the region and reflects the United States’ enduring promise of friendship, partnership, and solidarity with the Panamanian people. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Trey Woodard)

Glad to know things are healing.

Maybe I’ll text Dan later.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »