The Kalashnikov pattern AKS-74U (GRAU Index 6P26) rifle was adopted for service by the Soviet military in 1979. A shortened version of the 5.45x39mm AK74, the U stands for “Ukorochenniy,” which is Russian for “shortened” which is logical as it only has an 8.3-inch barrel and 19.36-inch overall length with its stock side folded.
Soviet paratrooper clutching his AKS-74U Krinkov
Of course, the AKS-74U is better known in the West as the Krinkov. Its typically issued in the same vein as the M1 Carbine was in WWII among the U.S. Army: to equip vehicle crews, for use by officers and NCOs, and by light/elite troops such as airborne and special operations units. In all, equipping something like 30-40 percent of the Russian ground forces.
Well, it seems those days are over.
The Kalashnikov Concern JSC announced recently it plans to put the 5.45mm AM-17 compact rifle into mass production in 2025. The rifle’s design, based on the Dragunov MA (yes, as in the same guy behind the SVD rifle) was updated following combat trials in the Ukraine.
The new features include a folding telescopic buttstock, an ambidextrous fire selector switch, a Picatinny rail coupled to the barrel, what looks to be M-LOK slots, and a charging handle that can be installed on either the right or left side.
The same general size of the AKS-7U, the AM-17 is lighter and easier to produce due to the fact that it uses a polymer lower rather than sheet metal, while still allowing a rate of fire of 850 rpm.
The tiny USAF/USSF unmanned space shuttle that has quietly been breaking records across seven lengthy deployments (up to 900 days on orbit per trip) since 2010, is set to perform some very next-level maneuvers.
Powered by Gallium Arsenide Solar Cells with lithium-ion batteries, the X-37 is just over nine feet tall and 29 feet long with a wingspan of just under 15 feet. For reference, the Space Shuttle Orbiter was 122 feet long and had a wingspan of 78 feet, making it several times larger.
The pint-sized X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, as detailed by the USSF, “will begin executing a series of novel maneuvers, called aerobraking, to change its orbit around Earth and safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation.”
Artist rendering of the X-37B conducting an aerobraking maneuver using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere. (Courtesy graphic by Boeing Space). 241010-F-FA999-0011
This is the first time the U.S. Space Force and the X-37B have attempted to carry out this dynamic aerobraking maneuver leveraging six successful missions of operating the space plane safely, as well as decades of general lessons learned from the scientific community conducting Moon and Mars missions.
Boeing, eager to point out they can get some stuff right when it comes to off-planet ops, has released an interesting reel including depictions of releasing payloads and some of the X-37’s declassified records.
105 years ago today. Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. 22 October 1919. Obsolete “pre-dreadnought” type battleships in the Reserve Basin almost a year after the conclusion of the Great War, awaiting a very near future that would turn nearly all of them into recycled scrap iron or sunk in live fire exercises.
Courtesy of Frank Jankowski, 1981. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 92300
Ships in the front row are, from left to right: USS Iowa (BB-4), USS Massachusetts (BB-2), USS Indiana (BB-1), USS Kearsarge (BB-5), USS Kentucky (BB-6), and USS Maine (BB-10), while at least three other battlewagons are in the rear, almost certainly including USS Missouri (BB-11) and USS Ohio (BB-12). Although some including the three Maine-class ships were rather “low mileage” — Ohio had only joined the fleet 15 years prior and had spent much of her latter career in ordinary, only venturing out of mothballs for summer midshipman cruises– others were relics of the Span-Am War, with Indiana credited with having dispatched two Spanish destroyers at the Battle of Santiago.
While all had seen updates in their service life, switching from pole masts and the gleaming paint schemes and bow crests of the Great White Fleet days to lattice masts and haze grey, they could not compete with the new way of war. For instance, a single Colorado-class super-dreadnought, the first of which would enter service in 1921, weighed 32,000 tons and carried eight 16-inch guns compared to Indiana’s circa 1893 10,000-ton displacement and main battery of four 13″/35s.
Of the above nine or ten battleships, all save for Kearsarge— the only United States Navy battleship not named after a state– would be sold for scrap or sunk (Iowa and Massachusetts) by 1923 to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. They were left to be remembered only by their silver services, bells, and bow crests, typically preserved somewhere in their namesake states.
Soon after the above image was snapped, Kearsarge was converted into a cruising heavy-lift crane ship (AB-1) in 1920, then was unimaginatively renamed Crane Ship No. 1 in 1941, before being finally sold for scrap in 1955.
Heavy Lift Crane Ship No1,(Ex Lead Ship, Battleship USS Kearsarge) pictured in dry dock at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston. c.1925.
During her “second life,” Kearsarge raised the lost submarine USS Squalus in 1939 and would lift into place much of the heavy guns, turrets, and armor for cruisers and battleships constructed or rebuilt at Norfolk/Newport News through 1945. Here, she is seen, left, alongside the new SoDak-class fast battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), right, fitting out at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1942. Note the size difference between the two hulls. NH 57767
Interestingly, the wreck of Massachusetts scuttled off Pensacola in shallow water in 1923, was still used as a target through WWII when she passed to the ownership of the state of Florida.
80 years ago today. Leyte Operation, October 1944. The day of the first noted use of kamikaze.
Official Wartime caption: “The Australian heavy cruisers HMAS Shropshire (left) and Australia (right), with an unidentified U.S. heavy cruiser, photographed through a ring gun sight on board USS Phoenix (CL-46), off Leyte on 21 October 1944.”
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-291377
The gunsight is on a, likely Detroit-built, Bofors-licensed 40mm L60 quad mount, of which the “Phoo-Bird,” as a Brooklyn class light cruiser, carried six by this time in the war. She put them to good use, too.
In the first 11 days of the Japanese kamikaze attacks in the Leyte Gulf, Phoenix called her gunners to action no less than 55 times.
Her Navy Unit Citation reads, in part:
In encounters with the enemy air forces the ship shot down three of the suicide divers coming at her and assisted in shooting down several others that attacked other ships.
The Swedish-designed 40mm (which needed extensive conversion for inch-pattern mass production) was a godsend both to the U.S. Army who used it for ground-based AAA and to the Navy, who used it to fill the gap between 20mm Oerlikon, the fiasco that was the 1.1-inch “Chicago Piano,” and the excellent 5″/38 DP gun.
The Navy credited the 40mm Bofors with splashing an astounding 742.5 enemy aircraft during the war with 1,271,844 shells– an average of 1,713 per “kill.” Of note, they were credited with fully one out of every three aircraft downed by AAA, a record matched by no other platform.
Not put into U.S. domestic production until early 1942, during 1944-45 alone, no less than 7,440 single mountings, 6,670 twin, and 1,550 quad mountings were produced for the Navy by the time the end of the war halted production.
Only in first-line service for six years (it was officially replaced by the new rapid-fire radar-controlled 3″/50 Marks 27, 33, and 34 in 1948) the Navy still had Bofors afloat on WWII-era auxiliaries until at least 1977, with some reportedly being used from time to time on LSTs engaged in brown water ops during Market Garden during Vietnam.
USS Garrett County (LST 786) in the Co Chien River, Republic of Vietnam, June 1968. Note the PBRs alongside and HAL-3 Seawolf Hueys on deck. Commissioned in 1944, she also has manned 40mm Bofors at the ready in her gun tubs. U.S. Navy Photo K-51442
And of course, dozens of these mounts endure on WWII-era museum ships around the globe.
These images are from one of my recent visits to the SoDak battlewagon USS Alabama.
Back in June, we let you know that the CMP was beginning to sell off a supply of surplus U.S. Navy circa 1960s MK2 7.62 NATO Garand conversions-– of which AMF upgraded 17,050 rifles and H&R another 15,000 rifles using a 3:1 mix of converted .30 caliber barrels (the MK2 MOD 0 rifle) and new-made 7.62mm barrels from Springfield Armory (the MK2 MOD1).
The price at the time was $950 for the MK2 MOD0s and $1,600 for the MK2 MOD1s.
Well, that has now dropped to $900 (Mod 0) and $1200 (Mod 1) plus $35 shipping & handling per rifle.
After review by the CMP Rules Committee, the following CMP Games Rifle and Pistol Competition Rules Rule G4.2.2 e) has been edited to: As-issued M1 Garands must be chambered for the .30-06 or the 7.62mm NATO (.308) cartridge.
This change will allow CMP MOD 1 7.62mm NATO M1 Garands to be used in As-Issued Military Rifle Matches – including the upcoming Talladega 600 in November!
040303-N-6842R-025 Key West, Fla. (Mar. 3, 2004) Ð Lt. Allen Karlson, a student pilot assigned to the ÒTigersÓ of Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), with instructor Cdr. Joe Kerstiens (USNR) sits ÒshotgunÓ(rear seat) evaluating Lt. Allen Karlson before his solo formation training. 1st Lt. Tim Miller flies his T-2C Buckeye down to cross under the lead, on his first formation solo, during a formation training mission over Key West, Fla. VT-9 came to Key West to teach Navy and Marine Corps student pilots formation flying and gunnery techniques. The instructors are part of Squadron Augment Unit Nine (SAU-9), the Reserve component for Training Squadron Nine (VT-9), one of two training squadrons that operate from Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss., under Training Wing One (TW-1). U.S. Navy photo by Ens Darin K. Russell. (RELEASED)
U.S. Navy photograph 330-CFD-DN-ST-89-08969. Photographer Jim Bryant. Via NARA. National Archives Identifier: 6445247
In case you missed it, the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) last August announced they are ditching the classic white/orange/black/red scheme used by its aircraft for generations (since the mid-1950s) in favor of sort of a glossy faux tactical look.
From last year’s presser:
CNATRA utilizes four different type/model aircraft, with a fifth on the way, to support intermediate/advanced strike, intermediate/advanced multi-engine and advanced rotary training. These aircraft include the T-45C Goshawk, TH-57 Sea Ranger, TH-73 Thrasher (replacing the TH-57 Sea Ranger), and the T-44C Pegasus, soon to be replaced by the T-54A (King Air 260).
For these aircraft, the new paint scheme will utilize shades of a glossy grey coat to more closely resemble the tactical paint scheme (TPS) covering operational fleet aircraft. The shade of grey will closely resemble the specific counterpart for each training aircraft. For example, the coat of the TH-73 Thrasher will reflect the darker tactical paint scheme of the MH-60S Seahawk, while the T-54A will have a lighter coat similar to the P-8A Poseidon. Colored markings will contrast the grey paint for lettering and symbols like the United States roundel.
Additionally, the tail of each aircraft will feature a distinctive color scheme identifying the specific training air wing (TAW) an aircraft is assigned to, typically referred to as a tail “flash.”
Well, it looks like the first T-45s, those of Training Air Wing 2, have been repainted.
The conversion will slow:
The new changes to CNATRA aircraft will be gradual. An aircraft will only receive its new paint when the current life cycle of its orange-and-white coat is nearly complete. This will result in the last orange-and-white paint coats disappearing in seven to eight years.
As with everything, there are mixed feelings, with many bringing up the fact that the high-viz livery was chosen to help visually deconflict airspace (and ground space!) and make spotting downed aircraft easier.
I’ve always been a fan of the old yellow-chrome “Yellow Peril” look from WWII for trainers and target tugs.
Sailor cranks the engine of an N3N training flight, circa 1941 Kodachrome NNAM
Stearman N3N-3 N2S trainers NAS Corpus Christi, TX WWII cadets
Harry Greene flies his Boeing Stearman Kaydet Primary Trainer airplane over the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, May 30, 2016. Greene is a helicopter pilot at Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point and an aircraft enthusiast in his off-duty time. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle/Released)
Yellow is my favorite
Alternatively, I think that the high-viz 1920s look or 1940s-early-50s fleet blue would be great choices.
USS Boxer CV-21 March 10, 1948, off San Diego First operational jet fighter squadron VF-5A FJ-1 Fury LIFE Kodachrome.
Germany’s Heckler & Koch finally dropped a commercially available micro compact 9mm pistol this week, debuting the thoroughly tested HK CC9 onto the market.
The polymer-framed striker-fired “one and a half stack” 9mm offers flush 10+1 and extended 12+1 capacity magazines, is optics-ready (RMSc/407k footprint) with a tritium front sight and a blacked out, serrated rear sight; and is somewhat modular through the use of interchangeable backstraps.
It is almost the exact same size as the SIG P365 (introduced in Jan. 2018), Springfield Armory Hellcat (Aug. 2019), and March 2021’s Ruger MAX-9 and S&W M&P Shield Plus. Then of course there are the more recent Canik Mete MC9, Taurus GX4, Stoeger STR-9MC, et. al, ad nauseum.
However, HK has a big up by saying they held to the same standards as their full-size duty pistols and tested the micro compact to the NATO AC/225 standards across 750,000 rounds. This meant running it in extreme temperatures, dust, sand, and mud, and “being dropped to simulate real-world conditions,” with the latter part seeming like the company was throwing a little shade at some other pistol makers.
So they may have just taken the time to get it right…
When the Germans swept into France in May 1940, the Gallic country had over 3,200 tanks on hand, by far besting the invading forces which only had about 2,400 Panzers they brought to the party.
However, it’s not how many you have but how well you use them that counts, and, by June 1940 it was all over.
As part of the Compiegne Armistice of 22 June 1940, which kneecapped the rump of the Vichy government’s military forces, especially those still in Europe, most of the decent French armor still in service– over 2,500 tanks– was turned over to the Germans.
French SOMUA S 35 and Renault R 35, handed over by Germans to Italians. Spring of 1941
A captured French Somua S-35, under new management, circa June 1940
The Germans allowed the Vichy a few small tank units– in overseas colonies. There, they fought the Americans in Morocco and the British in Syria in 1941-42.
Not one to throw away anything of value in the largest land war in Europe, the Germans dutifully used more than 800 old Renault FT17 and 800 newer Renault R35 light tanks in a mixture of static defense roles along the Atlantic Wall and constabulary uses in occupied areas.
German soldiers at a checkpoint at the crossroads near Dieppe, with a pillbox made of a French FT Renault light tank. Note the Hotchkiss MG
Renault FT17 (German Panzerkampfwagen 17R 18R 730f) in Serbia for security anti-partisan operations
Canadian officers examining abandoned German defenses in liberated Dieppe in 1944, including a dismounted Renault FT17 turret
French FT 17 Renault light tank of the Veinesodden coastal battery Btt. Nr.4 448. Located near the villages Kongsfjord and Veynes Finnmark
More modern and better-armed/armored tanks (Char B1bis, S35s, R-35s, and H-39s) were passed on to armor-poor Axis fellow travelers such as the Italians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Romanians.
A Soviet soldier stands next to an abandoned ex-French Romanian Renault R35 that had been rearmed with a captured Soviet 45 mm AT gun, 1944
The Germans used over 500 11-ton Hotchkiss H35/H38/H39s in counter-partisan efforts in the Balkans and Eastern Front.
German Hotchkiss Tanks 21 Pz Div by Steve Noon
Armed with a 47mm L32 main gun, the Germans seemed to have thought highly of the 20-ton Somua S35 AMCs (Automitrailleuses de Combat), and some 300 of them were pressed into service, largely on the Eastern Front, with the 201. and 202. Panzerregiments.
Somua S35 in German use
Captured French Somua S35 and Hotchkiss H38 tanks in a German parade, in Paris, in 1941.
Prague, May 1945: the last stand of the Wehrmacht in Czechoslovakia was spearheaded by French AMR 33 and 35 tanks
Meanwhile, heavy Char B1bis were used by Panzer-Abteilung 213, the unit that garrisoned the Channel Islands, as well as in training and service roles and as Flammwagen flame tank conversions. Formed on 17 November 1941 in France, it was equipped with 56 captured French tanks: 20 FT17s, which were largely converted into pillboxes, and 36 Renault Char B1s.
The latter included two Char B bis command tanks with Abteilung Headquarters in Guernsey, 12 standard Char B1 bis tanks, and five flame tanks with 1. Kompanie in Gurnesy, and an identical 2. Kompanie in Jersey. It was assigned to 319. Infanterie-Division on the Channel Islands.
French Char B1 bis sent to the Channel Island of Guernsey in 1941, as part of Panzer Abteilung 213
Fast forward to the Overlord and Dragoon landings in Normandy and along the Riviera in the summer of 1944, and the Allies increasingly came in contact with running second-hand pre-1940 French tanks kept in good repair by the German occupier.
Cherbourg Two GIs examine a camouflaged Renault UE tankette, German designation: Schlepper UE-630(f) (infantry tractor).
Many were scooped up by Resistance groups who were happy to go from hiding in attics and garages to openly controlling strategic points from behind armor plates.
Free French H-39 tanks (Pz. Kpfw. 38H 735 fs) in Paris, August 1944: French, then German, then French again.
Resistance marked B1bis tank, recovered in Paris on August 25, 1944
Somua S-35 tank taken on August 20 in Saint-Ouen, photographed on August 23 in front of the town hall of the 17th arrondissement of Paris, rue des Batignolles.
By early October, the Allied forces in liberated France had collected 60 working tanks (17 B1bis, 21 S35s, and 22 H35/39s) along with at least twice that many junked hulls that could be cannibalized for parts. Plus, workmen and repair shops at Souma and Renault were available.
The old 13e Régiment de Dragons, which had operated S35s and H35/39s in 1940 before they lost 90 percent of their tracks in combat against the Germans and were disbanded, was reactivated on 16 October 1944 and given the job of rolling with these rag-tag upcycled tanks which were derided as “defective, unreliable, unstable and of fanciful operation.”
Under Chef d’Escadrons Georges Lesage, the 13e RD was authorized 20 officers, 90 NCOs, and 500 men, with a HQ squadron and one squadron each of S35s (1st Sqn, Capt. d’Aboville), B1bis (2nd Sqn, Cpt. Voillaume), and H35/39s (3rd Sqn). Support was a mortar battery on half-tracks, an oversized recovery and repair troop, and truck-carried engineer and medical platoons.
Talk about a wacky TOE!
Making lemonade, 13e RD was used not on a frontline where they could possibly bump into a Tiger or Panther, but rather in an infantry support role against isolated pockets of German holdouts along the French Atlantic coast that had been bypassed in the advance across Western Europe.
This included clearing out Royan (Operation Vénérable), the island of Oléron (Operation Jupiter), La Rochelle (Operation Mousquetaires), and the liberation of the Pointe de la Coubre. Grueling reduction operations against desperate and cutoff men, where the object was a daily squeeze until the pocket was no more.
Free French Char B1 named Vercors of the 13th Dragoons enters a French town, 1944
Char Somua S35 du 13e Régiment de Dragons dans les ruines de Royan, le 16 avril 1945.
Char B1bis tanks from the 13th Dragoon Regiment parading in Orléans on May 1, 1945, for the Joan of Arc Festival
Somua S35 tank of the 13th Dragoon Regiment (13e RD), in Marennes (Charente-Maritime) on April 30, 1945, while loading onto a barge for its transfer to the island of Oléron. This tank, taken by the Wehrmacht from the French Army in 1940, is one of the vehicles recovered in the Paris region or in Gien. It still bears German camouflage. The French cockade probably covers a German Maltese cross.
However, they were popular with the locals, who were no doubt overjoyed to see the pre-war Republic’s tanks, operated by French crews, on parade after rooting out the “boche“.
13e RD Parade of tanks on rue du Palais, May 8, 1945 by Pierre Langlade
“B1bis tanks recovered by 13e RD, parading in front of General de Gaulle at Les Mathes, on 22 April 1945, during the troop review organized after the battles of Royen and Pointe de Grave. These tanks are partly from the recovery campaign organized during the previous winter in Normandy:”
A report dated 13 June 1945 is equal parts complimentary and realistic:
The French equipment has generally given complete satisfaction on this front. The Somua has only confirmed the qualities of robustness and handling that it had shown in 1940. The B1bis, much more delicate in terms of maintenance and handling, has [not] caused any major problems […]. The tanks were used as support tanks for infantry units, arriving before or after the infantry depending on the circumstances, leading the infantry to the shutters, or being surrounded by them if necessary.
Post VE-Day, 13e RD was sent to help occupy the Rhine and remained there until it was disbanded in April 1946, its men then disbursed to other units.
Its sister unit, the 12e RD, had made it to Germany the previous May along with a smattering of French armor.
April 1945. R35 tanks of the 12ᵉ Régiment de Dragons
Hotchkiss H39 recaptured for use by the 3e Regiment de Dragons (renamed 12e Regiment de Dragons in early 1945), 1st French Army
Parade of Hotchkiss H39 tanks recovered and assigned to the 12th Dragoon Regiment, in Lindau (Germany), May 9 or 11, 1945
Re-established (sans armor) in 1952 as a paratrooper unit to fight in Algeria, today the Camp de Souge-based 13eme RDP is a fire brigade of sorts and has been deployed since 1977 everywhere from Chad to the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, and Syria.
Tracing its origin back to 1676, the regiment’s motto is Au-delà du possible (Beyond the impossible), which makes sense.
Official caption: “Sailors shoot a Mark 38 25mm machine gun during a live-fire exercise on the fantail of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) in the Pacific Ocean, Oct. 14, 2024. Nimitz is underway in 3rd Fleet conducting routine training operations.”
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Timothy Meyer
To be clear, the mount is a stabilized BAE Mk38 Mod2/3, which can be fired remotely and reportedly has a two to three-fold increase in Probability of Hit (POH) versus the old Mod 1. It has a cyclic rate of 175-to-200 rounds per minute, at least until its onboard 150 linked rounds run out.
Nimitz and her sisters, for the past decade, have carried at least four MK38s for use against surface targets as needed.
The Navy’s program of record for the Mk38 is 501 guns, which may or may not include the USCG that uses the mount on its remaining handful of 210-foot Reliance class cutters (where they replaced the last WWII-era 3″/50 DP wet mounts in U.S. service) and 60+ 158-foot Sentinel-class patrol boats.
Keep in mind that all installed armament on cutters “belongs” to the Navy while the Coasties are on their own to purchase small arms, hence their use of Glocks rather than SIG P320 M17/M18s.
USCGC Benjamin Bottoms (WPC-1132), note her Navy-owned MK38 forward
Continental Navy sloop-of-war Fly (8 guns) along with Continental Navy sloop-of-war Mosquito (4 guns). Both ships were mentioned as being on station in Delaware Bay with Fly watching six British ships in a letter dated 30 December 1776. This image from a 1974 painting by William Nowland Van Powell is currently in the U.S. Navy Art Collection
The Navy marked its 249th official birthday (well, technically begun as the Continental Navy) this week.
They released a well-produced 8-minute moto video, below, that is very decent.
