80 years ago today: 20 June 1943. Finnish army training grounds outside of Hyrynsalmi, in the country’s rural and heavily forested Kainuu region of North Karelia.
On the move is a domestically-made 109-pound Lahti L39 20mm “anti-tank” (really just “anti-material” by this period of WWII) rifle and what looks to be a French-made Hotchkiss (canon de 25 mm SA mle 1934) 25mm anti-tank gun, dubbed the PstK/37 “Marianne,” of which the Finnish army had received 40 during the Winter War.
The “enemy” has detached itself from the hill and pst. the riflemen hastened to secure its possession. Hyrynsalmi 1943.06.20 (“”Vihollinen”” on irroittautunut kukkulalta ja pst. kiväärimiehet kiirehtivät varmistamaan sen omistuksen. Hyrynsalmi 1943.06.20) SA-Kuva 132062
“On the way to the combat training ground. Hyrynsalmi 1943.06.20. (Matkalla taisteluharjoituspaikalle. Hyrynsalmi 1943.06.20). SA-Kuva 132058
Note the rider and the shell carriers along with all the slung Mosins. SA-Kuva 132059
Note the tiny shell to the right.”The anti-tank gun fires. The fire was marked with pile stakes. Hyrynsalmi 1943.06.20″ (Panssaritorjuntatykki tulittaa. Tulta markkeerattiin kasapanoksilla. Hyrynsalmi 1943.06.20) SA-Kuva 132065
Besides the 40 Mariannes that the French sent to the Finns directly in 1939, the Germans gave (some accounts said sold) them another 200 that they had captured. They remained in inventory for quite a while despite their liliputian caliber.
Report concerning antitank guns used by the Finnish Army dated February 1942 notes from the 25 mm French guns that: “Their armor-penetration capability is such, that they have no meaning as actual antitank-weapons…”
The last 25-mm antitank guns were withdrawn from frontline use in the year 1943.
After the war, they were mothballed for possible further use until being declared obsolete in 1959. The remaining 225 guns were sold to Interarmco that year and exported in 1960. The guns sold to Interamco included 125 M/34 and 100 M/37.
The future USS Iowa (SSN 797) was officially christened by Christie Vilsack, the ship’s sponsor and former first lady of Iowa, during a ceremony at the Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut last Saturday. She is the 23rd Virginia-class submarine and the 6th advanced Block IV boat of the class.
230617-N-UR986-0140 GROTON, Conn. (June 17, 2023) – Christie Vilsack, sponsor of the pre-commissioning unit (PCU) USS Iowa (SSN 797), christens the ship during a ceremony at General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut , June 17, 2023. Iowa and crew will operate under Submarine Squadron (SUBRON) FOUR
230617-N-UR986-0042 GROTON, Conn. (June 17, 2023) – The crew of the pre-commissioning unit (PCU) USS Iowa (SSN 797), stand in ranks next to their ship during a christening ceremony at General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut, June 17, 2023.
The future USS Iowa (SSN 797) is the fourth U.S. Navy vessel and first submarine named in recognition of the state. Previous ships named after the state were battleships, as well as, a converted merchant ship that was never activated.
Her crest includes BB-61, “The Grey Ghost” that I saw recommission in 1984 as an excited 10-year-old at Pascagoula– and accidentally bumped into then Veep George Bush in a passageway.
The final battleship Iowa decommissioned on 26 October 1990 and her name was stricken from the NVR on 17 March 2006, leaving an almost 16-year gap on the Navy List without the Hawkeye State.
John Moses Browning’s most famed and enduring design is now available in domestic production to a potential 1.4 billion new fans.
As I previously covered, Webley & Scott India spun up in early 2020 with a new manufacturing facility near Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. Operating via a 2017 partnership with the famed English firm that dates back to 1790, the company started with traditional designs such as a reboot of the classic W&S Mark IV top-break revolver in .32 S&W Long for the commercial market – essentially a more polished answer to the overpriced Nirbheek revolver sold by the country’s state-owned Indian Ordnance Factory at Kanpur.
However, they are now making something much more, well, Red White & Blue.
Webley & Scott India’s 1911, dubbed the catchy WP4523 by the company, is an all-steel gun made in-house. It uses 70 Series internals, is chambered in .45 ACP, runs a skeletonized trigger, Novak-style combat sights, a rounded A1 style mainspring housing, and a round spur Commander-style hammer.
Webley is offering their 1911 in a few different variants, including one with a matte finish, ambi safety lever, and Houge grips. Others carry a more traditional deep-blued finish and double-diamond wood grips. (Photo: W&SI)
First teased in March 2022, the pistol hit the market earlier this year and the company says sales are brisk.
“The Webley 1911 WP4523 .45 Auto is getting rave reviews across the country,” says the company. “Production is in full swing and we are working tirelessly to fulfill demand.”
Austal USA in Mobile last week celebrated keel-laying of what likely will be the last Littoral Combat Ship to enter U.S. Navy service, LCS-38. The 19th of the Independence-class LCSs built in Mobile, the angular trimaran is set to become the USS Pierre.
Austal USA
A graphic illustration of the future Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Pierre (LCS 38). (U.S. Navy graphic by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Paul L. Archer/Released)
When commissioned, she will be only the second ship named for the South Dakota city.
The first, the PC-461 Class submarine chaser USS Pierre (PC 1141), while commissioned in 1943, only carried a hull number until 1956 when she picked up her more honorable moniker.
Decommissioned just two years later, she was then stricken and transferred to Indonesia. Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 85158.
Hopefully, the second USS Pierre will have a longer term on the Navy List.
Just 20 years ago, revolvers were dead. Colt and Dan Wesson had stopped making revolvers altogether. Taurus had just bought Rossi and was closing their revolver lines. Smith was trimming down their wheelgun offerings as was Ruger. Anyone forecasting what was to come would have surely pegged the downward spiral as one that would continue.
Well, a funny thing happened. Turned out, folks liked revolvers.
Colt is back making more than ever before. So is Smith. Two of Ruger’s top-selling product lines are the Wrangler .22 and the LCR, announced in 2017 and 2009, respectively. The biggest splash at SHOT Show 2016 was that Kimber was making revolvers. Rossi came back to the wheelgun world at this past SHOT Show.
Now, Henry, who has been a stalwart rifle and shotgun maker since they were re-booted in 1996, is making a .357 magnum revolver– and you know that I had to get one to try out.
The Big Boy is very S&W K-frame but with a brass backstrap/trigger guard.
A six-shot double-action/single-action medium-frame six-shooter, the Big Boy revolver is meant as a complementary wheel gun to the company’s popular Big Boy Brass Side Gate rifle, which carries an octagonal 20-inch blued steel barrel, American walnut furniture, and a polished hardened brass receiver. Likewise offered in .357/.38, it has a 10-round capacity via its underbarrel tube magazine.
The Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard (or SuE) first flew in 1974. It was intended from the beginning as a lightweight single-engined, single-seat, carrier-borne strike fighter aircraft to replace the older transonic Étendard IVM (Dassault’s first solely navy aircraft), which had been in service with the French Navy since 1962 on the service’s newly built Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers, the Clemenceau and Foch.
French aircraft carriers Foch (R99) and Clemenceau (R98) in 1977
The original Dassault Étendard IVM was operated by the French Navy from 1960 to 1987. A total of just 69 fighters and 21 photo reconnaissance aircraft were acquired and this is one of the latter, as seen at Pima by me earlier this year.
While the Jaguar M, a navalized variant of the Anglo-French SEPECAT Jaguar, was intended to be the Étendard IVM’s replacement, and doubtless would have been successful…
SEPECAT Jaguar M in July 1970 take-offs and landings from the French carrier Clemenceau
…Dassault swooped in and pulled out the W with the updated Super Étendard and the French would keep flying them for generations.
French Navy Super Etendard on Charles de Gaulle Carrier. Mediterranean Sea, 2015. The very 1960s-styled type earned the nickname late in its career of “Papy” even in its final Super Etendard Modernisé (SEM) update.
While the legacy Etendard IVM carried Nord AS.30 (529-pound warhead to 7.4 miles) and AS.20 (73-pound warhead to 5.4 miles) air-to-surface missiles or up to 3,000 pounds of iron bombs with a combat radius of about 350 miles, the Super Étendard was intended as a platform for carriage and launch of the then-new sea-skimming fire-and-forget Aerospatiale AM39 Exocet (364-pound warhead to 38nm) solid-fuel anti-ship missile, with the jet’s more advanced Agave radar providing targeting data– although mounting it required de-installation of the onboard 30mm cannon to accommodate the black boxes for its fire control system. Moreover, the Super Étendard had a low-level combat radius of 530nm while carrying an Exocet (one missile with a drop tank under the other wing).
In short, it was a game-changer for its era.
Video via ECPAD, the French military’s archives:
The French started fielding the SuE and its AM39 by 1977 and would continue to use the combo for almost 40 years, updating the aircraft four times including swapping out the Agave radar for the more advanced Anemone, and stepping up the AM39 to at least Block 2 standard.
The Exocet-Super Etendard combo, sold in the early 1980s to Argentina which had a small aircraft carrier that could accommodate them, famously saw combat in the Falklands.
Argentine carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo 25, with SuEs and A-4s on deck. The country maintained its WWII-era light carrier until 1993
Two Argentine Navy SuEs carrying a pair of warshot AM39s caused enough damage to sink the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Sheffield on 4 May 1982.
Two more SuEs armed with Exocets struck the 15,000-ton merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor on 25 May, sending her to the bottom.
Two further SuEs, only one carrying the country’s final AM39, made an unsuccessful run on the carrier HMS Invincible on 30 May with the Type 21 frigate HMS Avenger (F 185) often credited with splashing the missile with her 4.5-inch gun– an impressive feat if true.
In a bit of further Gallic damage to NATO naval goodwill, Saddam’s Iraqi Air Force also used exported AM39 Exocets on its Mirage F1s and Super Étendards during the Iran–Iraq War, with two infamously being fired at the OHP-class frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) in 1987.
The Argies hadn’t sent their SuEs to sea for years, at least since the Brazilians– who had allowed the occasional touch and go with the Argentine Navy– retired Navio Aeródromo (NAeL) São Paulo (A12) (ex-Foch) in 2000. This puts the final seagoing SuEs as the ones retired by the French seven years ago.
Thus:
Final catapult (Dernier Cata) Super Etendard Modernisé S5 taking off from Charle de Gaulle for the last time, March 2016
Dernier Cata Super Etendard Modernisé S5 taking off from Charle de Gaulle for the last time
Of note, the Super Etendard was only made between 1974 and 1985, with just 85 airframes produced beyond the prototypes, which means everyone you have ever seen is a rare bird.
Meanwhile, although definitely an aged and arguably no longer top-tier anti-ship missile, MBDA still lists the AM39 Block 2 Mod 2 in their catalog, and various marks of the weapon are still carried in the arsenals of Brazil, Chile, Greece, Morrocco, and Peru. Notably, besides many tactical aircraft able to carry the “flying fish,” the AM39 can also be delivered by medium helicopters. Plus, the French validated that the new Rafael-M strike aircraft can carry the AM39 with a SINKEX in 2012.
But you aren’t ever going to see an airborne SuE with an AM39 again.
Thus, closing the page on that little piece of naval history.
Super Etendard launching, 1991, Foch, via the French Navy
Few cartridges have remained alive for more than a century in factory production. For every .30-06, 7.62x54R, and .38 Specials, there are dozens of .32 Short RF, 56-50 Spencer, and .577 Sniders.
For those keeping track, the circa 1870s .45-60 Winchester, carrying a big 300-grain pill and made for the Winchester Model 1876 and Colt Lightning carbines, stopped factory production around 1935 while the chunkier .50-95 Winchester Center Fire, an express cartridge shooting a heavier bullet, was never even as popular as the .45-60.
Now the new loads aren’t cheap, because let’s be honest, anything made in a limited run never is, but at least it’s new and made to spec on modern equipment and gives reloaders of these rounds another lease on life for a generation or three.
Cimarron currently offers Cimarron-stamped .45-60 Win. in a 20-round box for $67.10. The 300 gr. RNFP-coated rounds have an FPS of 1,380.
Cimarron’s .50-95 Win. Ammo is also offered in a 20-round box at $67.10. This 350 gr. RNFP round has an FPS of 1,300.
80 years ago today: Casco Bay, Maine, June 1943, a trio of OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes of Observation Squadron Five (VO-5) aboard the battlewagon USS New York (BB-34) while anchored at Casco Bay, Maine on 16 June 1943.
USN Photo via the National Archives
The archives also have two great images of these VO-5 Kings in a take-off in formation on Casco Bay, undoubtedly taken around the same time, although they are for some reason listed as being in May and July respectively, although DANFS does list that New York was at Portland, Maine from 2 May until 27 July 1943 in between the Torch Landings and training “11,000 enlisted men and 750 officers from the Navy, Coast Guard, and Allied navies” prior to D-Day:
As part of the GWOT/Operation Enduring Freedom, in 2002, the Navy tapped Coast Guard Reserve Port Security Units to step up the waterside security abord Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. This was later augmented by USCG Maritime Safety and Security Teams performing anti-terrorism force protection with the combined team termed the Maritime Security Detachment (MARSECDET) as part of Joint Task Force 160, later JTF-GTMO.
The Coast Guard’s eight PSUs, consisting of 120-150 people comprising 12 boat crews, three security squads, and command, logistics, communications, and engineering departments, would typically rotate into Cuba for six or nine-month tours every four-five years or so, maintaining a persistent presence while not burning out the small boat guys too much. Otherwise, they could continue their normal annual 2-week ADT along with monthly IDT weekends.
Coast Guardsmen from Port Security Unit 305 aboard a 32-foot Transportable Port Security Boat patrol the waters off the coast of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Wednesday, July 19, 2017. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew S. Masaschi
A Coast Guardsman with Port Security Unit 305 stands the watch in a battle position at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, July 19, 2017. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew S. Masaschi
Fittingly, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia-based PSU 305 was the first unit to deploy to GTMO in 2002 and just wrapped up its fifth unit deployment to the base and they will be the last, at least for now. PSU just cased their colors and are headed back home.
Like the Navy, they are shedding as much of the old missions from the GWOT era and pivoting to the Pacific.
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan and Cmdr. James Lovenstein, Port Security Unit (PSU) 305’s commanding officer, rolls the unit guidon as Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Lepage, PSU 305’s command master chief, extends it during the unit’s casing of the colors decommissioning ceremony at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, June 13, 2023. PSU 305, based in Fort Eustis, Va., was the first unit in 2002 to begin the Coast Guard’s mission with Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay and is the last to complete it. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Valerie Higdon)
There have been 39 unit rotations to Guantanamo Bay since the Coast Guard began supporting the mission. The men and women assigned to the MARSECDET collectively provided over 200,000 underway hours conducting around-the-clock waterside patrols and over 50,000 hours of shoreside anti-terrorism and force protection defense security to Department of Defense assets and personnel at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.
PSU 305 departs GTMO after 21 years with an escort from an AS Clearwater H60 (U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater)
Late last year, FN announced they had a supply of FAL kits up for grabs. These kits come from a batch of ~400 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.
FN’s plan to move them out, rather than let some greedy dealer buy them up and resell them in a year on Gunbroker for 2x-3x the cost, was to hold a lottery for four months (December 2022-March 2023), for 100 lucky folks each month to buy a single $900 parts kit.
And, individuals sold them on GB anyway because of course, they did…
Check out these two completed auctions in the past few weeks:
Note the blue bayonet frog and FN certificate showing 1 of 400
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.
