Category Archives: weapons

FN to Hold Lottery for 400 Legit FAL Rifle Parts Kits

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The “Right Arm of the Free World” has returned, fueled by a recovery project to extend the legendary FN FAL to a select group of historic arms collectors and builder enthusiasts in the U.S. market.

These kits come from a batch of 400 FN FAL rifles issued in the 1980s to the Belgian Gendarmerie then stored for the past 30 years that were recently decommissioned and painstakingly crated at FN Herstal and then shipped over here.

The catch is that FN is holding a lottery for the next four months, for 100 lucky folks each month to buy a single $900 parts kit.

While it is a Mensch move, as it keeps one company or deep-pocketed opportunists from getting all 400 kits, keeping the best for themselves, and then selling the dogs on Gunbroker to cover their costs, it still seems a little costly to me. Still, folks are paying $4K for used SCARs these days, so anything FN long arm is relative to how much folks want to spend. 

Anyway, the details: 

Each FN FAL parts kit contains the following 10 imported parts: bolt, bolt carrier, operating rod, trigger housing, trigger, hammer, disconnector, buttstock, pistol grip, and forearm/handguard. You are solely responsible for complying with all applicable local, state, and federal laws when assembling a semiautomatic FN FAL rifle using an FN FAL parts kit.

Each FN FAL parts kit contains once-issued used parts that will show signs of wear and light cosmetic marking, including blemishes and discoloration. Metal parts are free of pitting or fatigue.

A skilled gunsmith must inspect and assemble the parts contained in each FN FAL parts kit. Each FN FAL parts kit is sold as-is and FN makes no warranty whatsoever with respect to the FN FAL Parts kit, whether express or implied by law, course of dealing, course of performance, usage of trade, or otherwise.

The lower trigger frame, stocks, bayonets, and slings in these authentic FAL builder kits have light cosmetic markings from once-issued uses. Metal parts are free of pitting or fatigue, as long-term storage oils preserved the operating character and finish of each component.

The legacy of the FN FAL can be felt throughout FN’s long history, from the FNC all the way to the present-day FN SCAR. Its influence is undeniable and forever changed the landscape of modern firearms.

Der General Rates a Umbrella on the Range

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Official caption: “Übungsschießen mit einem Scharfschützengewehr am Schießplatz in Ferlach, 03.11.1915” (Practice shooting with a sniper rifle at the shooting range in Ferlach), showing an evidently high-ranking Austrian officer test-firing a German Gew 98 Mauser, equipped with an early scope, some 107 years ago today.

Via the Austrian National Library (ONB) https://onb.digital/result/11242BC9

The shooter, decked out not only with his own personal poncho and goggles but also firing under an umbrella to make sure his carefully waxed mustache remains intact, is General der Kavallerie Franz Rohr, who at the time of the range session had recently returned to active service after being placed over the Hungarian Honved reserve in 1913.

Rohr, placed in charge of a scratch force along the Carinthian frontier upon Italy’s entry into the war, would go on to lead the newly-formed 10th Army, then the 11th Army, before switching to the Eastern Front in 1917 to command the prestigious old 1st Army, picking up a baron’s title and adding a “von” to his name. Made Feldmarschall Freiherr Franz Rohr von Denta in 1918, at age 64, he would go on to become the head of Hungary’s postwar army before his death in 1927.

Also, note the peculiar Austrian use of a “dress bayonet” in lieu of a sword, but still outfitted with a Portépée-style sword knot, as displayed by Rohr’s very wet ADC, who does not rate a regenschirm.

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022: The Loss of Trap Ship K

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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022: The Loss of Trap Ship K

Above we see a circa 1917 Willy Stöwer painting depicting a dashing German U-boat of the Kaiserliche Marine encountering the British Q-Ship Headley at sea, with the crew pretending to abandon ship to sucker the submarine in close enough to be pounded under the waves by hidden Vickers guns and 12-pounders. While the British extensively used Q-ships/Mystery Ships– heavily armed gunboats disguised as merchantmen– despite Stöwer’s propaganda piece, the Germans also had a few Qs of their own during the Great War, one of which is the subject of our piece this week.

Rather than “Q-ship,” a code name that referred to the British vessels’ nominal homeport in Queenstown, Ireland, the Germans used the term “U-Boot-Falle Schiff,” literally “Submarine Trap Ship” with each further described simply on naval lists and orders as a support/supply ship (Hilfsschiff). In stark contrast to the no less than 366 British Qs (of which 61 were lost in action while they only took down 14 U-boats for their sacrifice), the Germans only had eight trap ships and five of those were very small coasters and trawlers of under 1,000 tons.

As all were merchant vessels converted to decoys, the Admiralstab decided to keep the ships’ prewar names and simply designate their wartime service with a letter designation as Hilfsschiff A, B, C, well, you get the drift, with the letter typically drawn from the first of the vessel’s name. They often also had alter-identities that would include fake name boards, flags, and shifting profiles.

The Hateful Teutonic Eight:

  • SS Alexandra (Hilfsschiff A) (1909, 1615 t, 4-10,5 cm L/35 guns)
  • SS Belmonte (B, fake name Antje) (1914, 193 t, 2-105/35) three-masted schooner
  • SS Friedeburg (F, fake name Anna) (1912, 211 t, 2-10,5 cm L/35) three-masted schooner
  • SS Hermann (H) (1901, 5000 t, 4-10,5 cm L/35)
  • SS Kronprinz Wilhelm (K, fake named Gratia, then Marie) (1914, 2560 t, 4-10,5 cm L/35)
  • SS Oder (O) (1897, 648 t, 2-10,5 cm L/35)
  • SS Primula (P) (1904, 834 t, 2-10,5 cm L/35)
  • SS Triumph (T) (1907, 239 t, 2-88/27)

Belmonte, Hilfsschiff B, of the German Navy as a submarine trap around 1916 with her 4.1-inch gun

The Germans also had about 20 armed Vorpostenboot (outpost boats), small trawlers that often illegally flew a Dutch flag and served as something of an early warning picket and were sometimes used in sabotage actions such as cutting submarine cables and landing/extracting agents, but, while interesting, they are beyond the scope of what we are covering.

Here, a Vorpostenflottille heading out in 1917.

Of the eight trap ships, Kronprinz Wilhelm/Hilfsschiff K, was the most interesting and most successful, and, as she was sunk by British destroyers in the Kattegat some 105 years ago today (2 November 1917), she is our primary focus.

Meet Hilfsschiff K

Ordered for the Stettin Rigaer Dampfschiff Gesellschaft, a small Baltic passenger, and merchant shipping company that ran a regular route from Stettin to Riga from 1874 until 1937 when it merged with Gribel, Kronprinz Wilhelm was a small cargo steamer with a few passenger berths.

Constructed in 1914 by Stettiner Oderwerke (Yard No. 654), she was 252 feet long and powered by two boilers and a single engine that developed 1,500 hp, making her able to chug along at 14 knots.

SS Kronprinz Wilhelm of the Stettin-Riga line

SS Kronprinz Wilhelm of the Stettin-Riga line

Once the war shut down her cargo route (although the Germans would occupy Riga in 1917 and remain there in one form or another until almost a year after Versailles), Kronprinz Wilhelm was soon requisitioned by the German navy for further use.

One of the largest trap ships, she entered service on 12 November 1915 as Hilfsschiff K and was assigned to the I. Handels-Schutz-Flottille (1st Trade Protection Flotilla) in the Baltic. Her armament was a quartet of 4.1-inch SK L/35 guns recycled from the casemates of turn-of-the-century Kurfüst Friedrich Wilhelm-class pre-dreadnoughts. These were hidden behind fake bulkheads and under on-deck dummy crates.

Her profile was also changed with a second funnel.

The British also did the same thing, so it is likely that the tactic was borrowed after reports from U-boats of the Q ships, after all, Stower knew about it.

Q ship disguises, in this case, on the HMS Farnborough

Hilfsschiff K was tasked with quietly escorting small convoys to Sweden with her “SS Gratia” disguise intact and embarrassingly ran aground in Swedish waters in January 1916. When responding Swede destroyers found out she had four popguns aboard and reported as such to the press, her cover was blown. This led Hilfsschiff K to get a new skipper– Leutnant (der Reserve) Julius Lauterbach, late of a series of Far East escapades.

Herr Lauterbach

Prisenoffizier Lauterbach, des Kleinen Kreuzers SMS Emden

Lauterbach was a Hamburg-America Line officer who joined Admiral Graf Spee’s Squadron when the war broke out and went on to be assigned to the cruiser, SMS Emden. Serving as a prize officer with the famed raider, in November 1914 he assumed command of the seized Admiralty chartered British coaler SS Exford with 5,500 tons of fine Welsh coal aboard and when the planned meet-up to refuel Emden two weeks later fell through after the latter was sunk by the Australian Navy, surrendered his 16-man prize crew to the armed British merchant cruiser Empress of Japan. Imprisoned in Singapore, he escaped during a mutiny of Indian troops there (which some reports say he had a hand in) in February 1915 and made his way across Asia back home.

As he had largely only ever had experience with merchant ships, it made sense to put the hero Lauterbach in charge of Hilfsschiff K once she was repaired.

Back in the Baltic Again!

Sailing alternatively as the “SS Marie,” Hilfsschiff K went on to a string of successes. On 27 May, she rammed and severely damaged the Russian Bars-class submarine Gepard after he fell for the German trap ship, and three months later had a tangle with the managed to damage the British E-class submarine HMS E43 which was operating from the Russian Baltic ports.

The Imperial Russian submarine Gepard and cruiser Oleg in Reval, 1915. The former was damaged by a 4-inch shell and ramming from Hilfsschiff K in early 1916.

Hilfsschiff K was also credited (erroneously) with sinking HMS E18 the same summer after the British boat disappeared while on a patrol off the Estonian coast, but after E18‘s wreck was discovered off Hiiumaa, her hull busted by a mine, this was dispelled.

Regardless, Hilfsschiff K was by far the most successful German trap ship. However, if you live by the gun, you can also die by the gun.

Tasked with protecting German fishing vessels from British gunboats in the Kattegat cod grounds between Denmark and Sweden. There, on the late night of 2 November 1917, Hilfsschiff K met with the 15th Destroyer Flotilla of the Grand Fleet and made battle with the shiny new destroyer leader HMS Parker (1916, 1700 t, 4-4.1 inch) under Captain Rafe G. Rowley-Conwy, together with the companion S and R-class destroyers Sorceress, Ready, Rigorous, Rocket, Rob Roy, and Trenchant, in a running engagement, complicated by rough weather, that stretched from around 9 p.m. to just before midnight.

At the end of the day, Hilfsschiff K and eight German trawlers (Frankfurt, Frisia, Emmy, Makrele, Julius Wieting, Seadler, Sonne, and Walter) were at the bottom while the British suffered only a few splinters and zero casualties. Of the trap ship’s 81-man crew, 28 were killed or missing while the British plucked 64 prisoners (some of them crewmembers from the lost trawlers) from the icy waters, taking them back to the UK for the duration of the war. Danish steamers, arriving at the site of the battle the next morning, pulled bodies, wreckage, and 17 additional German survivors– Lauterbach included– aboard.

Epilogue

Julius Lauterbach (später Lauterbach-Emden) would evade internment, return to Germany from Denmark, and go on to be promoted to Kapitänleutnant. Subsequently, he was given command of the raider SMS Mowe, although the war ended before he could ever try to break out with her.

He spent the last days of the Great War writing a sensationalized autobiography, “1000 Pds. Kopfpreis – tot oder lebendig” (£1000 Head Prize – Dead or Alive) which dealt principally with his time as the former prize officer of the famous SMS Emden, a ship that had much more name recognition than Hilfsschiff K. As part of that, he often toured around Weimar-era Germany on lecture tours about his experiences, often appearing in conjunction with Count Felix Graf von Luckner, “Der Seeteufel” of the commerce raider SMS Seeadler. 

Lauterbach passed in 1937 in Sonderborg, aged 59. From what I can tell, he never served in the interwar Reichsmarine or follow-on Kriegsmarine

In July 1920, the British Admiralty would grant HMS Parker and the rest of her flotilla a bounty for sinking the “Auxiliary Cruiser Kronprinz Wilhelm.”

The wreck of Kronprinz Wilhelm was discovered in 1999. Resting in just over 100 feet of water off Torekov, Sweden it has become a popular dive site, inhabited by large eels and cod. At least two of her 4.1-inch guns and “piles” of shells are reported intact.

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/membership.htm

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Hellcats: The Colors, the Colors

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Springfield has been kicking out new color options for its popular Hellcat series of micro-9 pistols and a Desert Flat Dark Earth variant is the newest offering.

The new Springfield Armory Hellcat Pro in Desert FDE still offers a 15+1 capacity in what the company says is “a smaller footprint than any other gun in its class.”

It is also an Optical Sight Pistol, or OSP, configuration milled with the Shield RMSc/Springfield Micro footprint with a set of co-witnessing U-Dot tritium sights. For those keeping count at home, the Hellcat Pro runs 6.6 inches in overall length and 1 inch in width, which puts it in the same box as the nominally 10+1 capacity Glock 43X.

Previously, Springfield only offered an FDE variant of the Hellcat in its original 3-inch barrel format.

Also, the company has announced new Robin’s Egg and Burnt Bronze two-tone models as well:

Gonna give you a wild guess of what I would go with, as I have a (spoiler alert) something of a problem when it comes to 50 shades of FDE.

Mighty Mo and ADM Nimitz, together again

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35 Years Ago Today, Gulf of Oman: Below we see a classic “Sea Power” image showing a bow view of the nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) underway astern of the Iowa-class battleship USS Missouri (BB-63), with the latter’s Turret No. 3 starboard 16″/50 caliber gun framing the shot. A Spruance class destroyer photobombs in the distance.

Note the Cold War classic dungarees on Iowa’s stern, along with the A-6 and S-3 rich airwing carried by Nimitz. You can almost hear “Danger Zone” in the distance. U.S. Navy photo DNST9300653 by PHAN Brad Dillon. National Archives Identifier: 6485327.

Of course, not far from Missouri’s Turret No. 3 stands a marker denoting the location where representatives of the Empire of Japan signed the instrument of surrender ending WWII before the assembled Allied representatives. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (USNA 1905), who led the Pacific Fleet to that victory, was aboard that day and revisited the spot at least once again, in 1954.

While Nimtz would pass in 1966, at which point Missouri was in mothballs and likely never to return to service, the huge carrier that bears his name was ordered in 1967 and is still kicking while “Mighty Mo” would in fact be reactivated in the 1980s for one last hurrah.

German tin can makes drone “kill” via laser, err, Laserwaffendemonstrator

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The German frigate Sachsen (F219) has carried a laser demonstrator for the past year and recently proved it worked.

Sachen is a 5,700-ton F124-class frigate, commissioned in 2004. her principal battery is a 76mm OTO backed up by twin Mauser 27mm autocannons while her missiles consist of a 32-cell VLS system, quad-packed Harpoons, and two 21-cell RAM systems. Oh yeah, and a frick’n laser

The laser weapon demonstrator is integrated in a 20-foot container that was installed on the deck of the German frigate Sachsen.

Die Tests zeigen: dynamische Ziele, wie bspw. Drohnen, können erfolgreich bekämpft werden.

As described by Rheinmetall:

On August 30th, 2022, the German frigate Sachsen successfully engaged drones at short and very short range in the Baltic Sea near Putlos Major Training Area. The laser weapon demonstrator was developed by the High-Energy Laser Naval Demonstrator working committee (“ARGE”), consisting of MBDA Deutschland GmbH and Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH.

Future high-energy laser (HEL) weapon systems for the Navy will be especially useful in defending against drones and drone swarms as well as engaging attacking speed boats at close and very close range. But the system can also be designed for greater output, enabling it to destroy guided missiles and mortar rounds.

…

Testing of the high-energy laser weapon will continue until mid-2023. In subsequent test campaigns, new scenarios will challenge the demonstrator’s capabilities. Not least, the results will determine what still needs to be done on the path to a fully functional, operational laser weapon.

As noted by the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (Bundesamt für Ausrüstung, Informationstechnik und Nutzung der Bundeswehr = BAAINBw):

After almost ten years of intensive research into laser effectors, the results of these efforts have been bundled into a demonstrator that integrates the entire functionality in a 20-foot container – from reconnaissance and data processing to combat with a high-energy laser. The laser weapon demonstrator was already scaffolded on the frigate “Sachsen” at the end of June 2022 in order to test it under realistic operational conditions in the maritime environment. For this purpose, the BAAINBw developed an extensive test program with demanding test scenarios on land, on water and in the air, in which the laser weapon demonstrator is to prove its suitability during a test lasting almost a year.

Lindbergh’s Own, 1944 Edition

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Here we see a group of Army Aviators clustered around “White 29,” Bell P-39Q-5-BE Airacobra/42-20349, of the “Musketeers” of the 110th Reconnaissance Squadron (Fighter), taken at Tadji Airfield, New Guinea in a photo dated 28 October 1944 (although likely taken as much as four months prior). LT Hunt is listed as the assigned pilot.

Photo via the UTA Libraries Digital Collection https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/20038768

“Texas fighter pilots are pictured here. Left to right, they are, First Lieutenants Daron M. Reedy, Henry E. Parish, Wilkins W. Hunt, Junior (Jr.), Michael L. Evans, L. H. Williams, and Van Kennon. Six men wearing uniforms are posing by a fighter plane. On the door of the plane is a skeleton wearing armor and holding a sword with dripping blood. The number 29 is on the nose of the plane and in a small box it says Pilot LT. HUNT Crew Chief S/SGT GLYNN. The tail of the plane has the number 349 on it.”

For reference, the 110th Rec. Sq. (F) was originally organized as the 110th Aero Squadron back in 1917, flying Jennys.

Beginning WWII equipped with Douglas O-38 biplanes and the lumbering North American O-47, they were rushed to California after Pearl Harbor to conduct anti-submarine coastal patrols.

Upgrading to a mix of P-39Q and P-40N armed photo birds in 1942, the squadron embarked for Australia and then New Guinea where they became operational in December flying, in turn, from 5 Mile Drome at Port Moresby, Gusap Airfield, and Tadji before moving onto Biak, the Philippines, and the Ryukyus by the end f the war. By that time they were using super sexy F-6D Mustang photo birds. 

Don’t let the recon aspect of their service fool you, by the end of the war the unit counted across 437 days in combat some 21 air-to-air victories, 102 aircraft destroyed on the ground, 2.8 million pounds of bombs dropped in addition to 14,000 gallons of napalm, and over 3.2 million rounds of ammo expended– including 41,835 37mm cannon shells from the nose of their Airacobras.

The 110th’s end-of-the-war scorecard Ie Shima, in the fall of 1945.

Redesignated a bomber outfit after WWII, today the unit is the 110th Bomb Squadron, flying the B-2 Spirit out of Whiteman AFB, Missouri, and is known as “Lindbergh’s Own” due to the fact that a young Charles A. Lindbergh was a junior officer in the unit from 1924 to 1929, including the period when he made his famous trans-Atlantic flight.

70 Years Ago: The Big Stick arrives on Battleship Row

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USS Iowa (BB-61) underway in Pearl Harbor with an escort of harbor tugs, while en route to the U.S. at the end of her Korean War combat tour. The photograph is dated 28 October 1952. Middle tug is Anacot (YTB-253). Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 44539

In the above, note that Iowa has lost her WWII seaplane catapults– her class used helicopters during their Korean tours-– as well as her 20mm Orelikons but still maintains her 40mm Bofors batteries.

The NHHC also has this great bow shot in their files from the same day.

USS Iowa (BB-61) Steaming into Pearl Harbor with rails manned, 28 October 1952, while en route to the U.S. following her first Korean War deployment. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 44538

As well as a direct overhead shot.

USS Iowa (BB-61) off Pearl Harbor, en route to the U.S. at the end of her Korean War combat tour. The photograph is dated 28 October 1952. Note the ship’s hull number (61) and U.S. Flag painted atop her forward turrets. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 44536

Iowa commissioned 22 February 1943 and earned nine battle stars for her World War II service. Post-war, she served as Fifth Fleet flagship and conducted a variety of sea training, drills, and maneuvers with the Fleet before she entered mothballs in 1949.

However, her slumber was short.

As detailed by DANFS: 

After Communist aggression in Korea necessitated an expansion of the active fleet, Iowa recommissioned 25 August 1951, Captain William R. Smedberg III in command. She operated off the West Coast until March 1952, when she sailed for the Far East. On 1 April 1952, Iowa became the flagship of Vice Admiral Robert T. Briscoe, Commander, 7th Fleet, and departed Yokosuka, Japan to support United Nations Forces in Korea. From 8 April to 16 October 1952, Iowa was involved in combat operations off the East Coast of Korea. Her primary mission was to aid ground troops, by bombarding enemy targets at Songjin, Hungnam, and Kojo, North Korea.

During this time, Admiral Briscoe was relieved as Commander, 7th Fleet. Vice Admiral J. J. Clark, the new commander, continued to use Iowa as his flagship until 17 October 1952. Iowa departed Yokosuka, Japan 19 October 1952 for overhaul at Norfolk and training operations in the Caribbean Sea.

A beautiful period Kodachrome of USS Iowa (BB-61) hurling a 16-inch shell toward a North Korean target, in mid-1952. Some 16,689 rounds were fired from her main and secondary batteries on enemy installations during her stint off Korea. Note her 40mm quad gun tubs. Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-K-13195 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command.

She added two Korean War battlestars to her tally, then spent the next five years in a series of Cold War operations in the Med– where she was Sixth Fleet flag– and throughout the North Atlantic region.

Iowa decommissioned 24 February 1958 for a second time, then entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia, where she remained until a trip to Pascagoula for her second recommissioning in 1984– and I was a goofy ten-year-old in the stands at Ingalls West Bank that day, my heart bursting.

Turkish Tactical

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I’ve been looking at the new Tisas PX-9 Gen3 Tactical for a few months now and have found a lot to like about it. The third generation of the Tisas-made polymer-framed striker-fired pistol includes a 5.1-inch extended threaded barrel, accepts easy-to-find SIG P226 pattern double-stack mags, is offered in three finishes (black Tenifer, OD green, or FDE Cerakote), has a decent 4.5-pound flat-faced trigger, comes with steel suppressor-height Glock-pattern sights with a front fiber-optic, and has a factory micro red-dot slide cut in a Trijicon RMR/SRO pattern.

Proving reliable across the first 1,000 rounds of Barnaul import, CCI Blazer Brass, and Federal American Eagle 115-grain FMJ, I recently quieted down a bit and tested it with a suppressor.

A big one.

For reference, the overall length in this format was 16 inches and it balanced well between the full mag and the can. Keep in mind you could always shrink that down, for instance, the SilencerCo Omega 36M shown can be dropped to its short format, or you could use a lighter can such as an 8-ounce Osprey 9 2.0, but we are getting too much in the weeds here. You get the idea.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Centurion Layout

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Check out this great Cold War circa 1965 “layout” image of a Centurion Mk 5 main battle tank. While the whole thing seems very British, the picture is actually of a track from Bravo Squadron, 101 Tankbataljon (101 Tkbat), of the Dutch Army’s Regiment Huzaren Prins Alexander (RHPA).

NIMH AKL052561

A closer image gives a better view of the crew and the tank’s interesting camo pattern. NIMH AKL052558

All smiles, NIMH AKL052559

The crew in front of the tank all carry a 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistol as a personal weapon and two 9 mm UZI SMGs as an additional weapon for the gunner and the loader. Also, note the Class A-style uniforms on their packs and the vehicle gear to the right.

The Royal Netherlands Army’s tank history is a curious one.

Prior to World War II, the Dutch possessed but a single tank, a second-hand French Renault FT that was acquired in 1927. While this was augmented by five Carden Loyd Mk.VI tankettes in the 1930s and a fleet of about three dozen assorted armored cars including the excellent domestically-made (with Swedish help) M39 Pantserwagen, European Holland was not very well equipped when it came to armored vehicles when the Germans crashed over the border in May 1940. The Royal East Indies Army (KNIL) in what is today Indonesia, had more going for it but that is beyond the scope of what we are talking about.

The “Free Dutch” Prinses Irene Brigade, formed in England during the German occupation in WWII, was ostensibly motorized but was only about a battalion-sized unit that, in the end, would ride into Northwest Europe in late 1944 on Bren and Loyd Carriers while their reconnaissance unit was equipped with Daimler and White Scout cars.

Post-war, with a fight on their hands against Indonesian insurgents and the threat of thousands of Soviet T-34s set to turn Europe red, the Dutch received almost 300 surplus M4A1, M4A2, M4A3, and M4A4 Shermans as well as some former British and Canadian Firefly tanks, which they operated into the late 1950s when they were replaced by new Centurions.

When it came to Centurions, the Dutch bought an impressive 592 Mk 3 models with British radios and thin 20pdr OQF Mk.I (84 mm) main guns between 1953 and 1960, using American MDAA funds as production of the M48 Patton wasn’t sufficient to cover the demand. Plus, the Centurions allowed the Dutch to work hand-in-hand with the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and the Canadian Brigade in West Germany should the Fulda Gap become a contested space.

About 340 of these tanks were later upgraded with American radios and 105 mm L7A1 guns to become Mk 5 NL and Mk 5/2 standard by the early 1970s while the unmodded Centurions went into the reserve. The Dutch replaced them with West German-made Leopards and the Centurions, technically still owned by the U.S., were then (apparently) transferred to Israel.

The Dutch picked up 468 Leopard 1s in the 1960s and later 445 Leopard 2A4s (NL version which was all German but used Dutch radios, antenna bases, FN MAG machine guns, and smoke mortars) in the 1980s, then upgraded the latter to 2A5 and 2A6 standard.

With the end of the Cold War, the older Leos were scrapped (or converted to ARVs, BARVs, and bridge layers) and the newer Leo 2s hit the sales blocks for an average of $2 million a pop– a comparative bargain in the MBT world as the Dutch panzers were meticulously maintained and little-used. They sold them to Austria (115 2A4s in 1993), Norway (52 2A4s in 2001), Canada (100 2A4s/2A6Ms in 2007), Portugal (37 2A6 in 2007), and Finland (124 2A6s in 2011), leaving just a handful left in Holland. With no tanks left to drive, the disbandment of the 1st and 2nd Hussars (Regiment Huzaren 1st Van Sytzama, 2nd Prins van Oranje) occurred in 2012.

Even though no tank units “officially” exist in the Royal Army, the Dutch have just 18 Leopard 2A6M A2s active for service as part of a joint German/Dutch unit (the German 414th Panzer Battalion) and another handful of older Leo Is for spares, gate guards and museum displays beside the auxiliary hulls used as ARVs, etc. The Dutch make up the 4th Panzer Kompanie (4 PzKp) of the battalion and are barracked at Bergen-Loheide, though the battalion is under the overall command of the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade.

Still, at least it is better than just having one.

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