Tag Archives: military history

Steyr, Now Czech Owned

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Legendary Austrian firearms maker Steyr Arms has been purchased by the Czech Republic-based RSBC Investment Group.

RSBC, with its corporate headquarters in Prague, has been in the small arms business for almost a decade, having previously acquired Slovenian gunmaker AREX Defense in 2017. The group announced last week that it had assumed a 100-percent stake in Steyr from the German-based SMH Holding group.

Steyr, between its Austrian operation and Steyr USA subsidiary, employs over 200 and includes the legacy Mannlicher brand. It dates to at least 1864 when it was founded by gunmakers Josef and Franz Werndl.

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The Werndls had fast success in their innovative 11mm M1867 Werndl–Holub breechloading rifle, of which some 600,000 were ordered by the Austrian military and police. Changing the company’s name to OWG (Osterreichische Waffenfabriksgesellschaft = Austrian arms factory company), it followed up with Ferdinand Mannlicher’s bolt-action magazine-fed rifle platform in 1886, of which over 3 million were built before 1918.

And who can forget the Steyr 1912?

Remaining foremost a firearms company, it branched out over the years into bicycles, trucks, and automobiles and evolved first into Steyr-Werke AG in 1924 and then to Steyr-Daimler-Puch in 1934.

Following World War II, Steyr made the FN FAL under license for the Austrian military as the StG58, then found international success with the SSG precision rifle and MPi 69/81 submachine gun.

The Austrian Bundesheer’s MG 74 is an MG42/59 variant licensed from Beretta and manufactured by Steyr Mannlicher used since 1974

In 1977, Steyr introduced the revolutionary AUG bullpup rifle, adopted by the Austrian military as the StG 77, followed by the pioneering GB and M series pistols, and the Steyr Scout bolt-action rifle.

A Royal Oman Army soldier with an Austrian-made Steyr AUG, standard issue not only in Austria and Oman but also in Australia Bolivia, Ecuador, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Pakistan

By 1989, with the breakup of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch conglomerate, the firearms and air gun business spun off into the firm of Steyr Mannlicher before morphing into Steyr Arms in 2019. It was purchased by SMH Holding in 2007.

RSBC plans to fold Steyr and AREX into a division headed by current AREX CEO, Tim Castagne, to “enable both companies to offer an all-encompassing portfolio in the future.”

You Don’t See a Semi-Auto DP-28 Everyday

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While at the GDC warehouse last month, I had a chance to run across this bad boy.

Rick Smith’s Texas-based Smith Machine Group has been in the business of breathing life back into historical military guns for well over a decade and their DP series guns have long been one of their primary staples. Their complete DPM semi-automatic rifle is built using a surplus Polish kit with a new receiver, a new chrome-lined barrel, and their own fire-control group.

The semi-auto rifle was built off a Polish Circle 11 marked kit dated 1953 and is chambered in 7.62x54R. Firing from a closed bolt, it still has a gas piston operating system and uses an internal hammer.

While heavy, it has zero recoil when fired from the prone position and due to its 47-round pan magazine has a very low profile when compared to other magazine-fed semi-autos.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Fairly Well Preserved Ammo for 50 Years in the Drink

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Vietnamese media recently reported on a pile of vintage small arms ammo that was recovered from the mud of the Tiền River that looks like it just came from the factory. 

Local media showed members of the Vietnamese Army inspecting the ammo, reportedly illegally salvaged from the river near Thuong Phuoc on the Cambodian border and confiscated by Border Guards. It has been underwater for decades, purportedly in a deep-sixed PCF, perhaps one that was put there in 1975 by its ARVN crew during the final days of the regime. 

The fact that it was in fresh water and likely covered by a layer of mud surely helped but either way, you have to hand it to the quality of those green ammo cans, much of which likely dated to WWII anyway. 

You know the C20, eh?

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The Colt Canada-produced C20 semi-automatic Intermediate Sniper Weapon is being acquired for the Canadian Army in small numbers.

Produced domestically by Colt Canada in Kitchener, Ontario, the semi-automatic C20 has an 18-inch barrel with a 1-in-10 twist and is reportedly pretty friggen accurate. Testing showed the rifle to fire 8,000 rounds with no stopping and deliver an average of .66 MOA over 144 five-round groups using 175-grain Federal Gold Medal Match.

The overall length on the C20 is 38-inches while weight is 9.1-pounds. It has a 46-slot continuous MIL-STD-1913 top rail and a handguard with M-LOK accessory slots in the 3-, 6-, and 9-o’clock positions. (Photo: Colt Canada)

More in my column at Guns.com. 

Remember, today is not about saving upto 20% on select merchandise

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Division Cemetery, Okinawa, 1945, Photo via Marine Corps Archives

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…

You do know the Model 1851 Feldstutzer, yes?

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From the Hungarian site Kapszli comes a great piece on the Swiss Army’s innovative Model 1851 Federal Rifle, otherwise known as the Feldstutzer or Eidigenössischer Stutzer.

Via Cap & Ball (Kapszli)

“The Model 1851 rifle at the time of the acceptance was truly the best military rifle of its age. First of all, it fired a much smaller diameter and lighter bullet than any other military rifle. While the French military rifle fired a 17 mm bullet, the American and British a 14.7 mm bullet, the Swiss rifle fired a 10.4 mm bullet weighing only 16.5-17 g. The bullet was pushed from the bore with a relatively high 60-grain charge of fine grade black powder resulting in a 440 m/s muzzle velocity and a flat trajectory.

The flat trajectory was a key feature in Switzerland the soldier had to master shooting downhill and uphill. The Swiss army consisted of free people for many centuries. These civilians were more important to the state than to let them be killed in melee combat so sniping the enemy from a safe distance was always an important element of the Swiss tactics since the introduction of firearms. It is also a reason why the shooting sports have been always so popular in this beautiful little country.”

Much more here

When it comes to captured enemy weapons, the Army never throws anything away

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I recently had the chance to tour U.S. Army’s Museum Support Center at Anniston Army Depot, the keepers of the flame for military history in the country.

The 15,200-acre installation in North Alabama was established in World War II and overhauls both small arms and vehicles for the Army. A longstanding tenant on the sprawling base, based out of Building 201, is the Museum Support Center, operated by the Center of Military History. The CMH maintains an immense collection of 650,000 historic items across 228 sites including 57 large museums that are a part of the Army Museum Enterprise. Items not yet on display, waiting for a public home, or are excess to current museum needs are stored in the “Army’s attic” in Anniston.

In secured storage at the MSC are 13,000 live weapons of all sorts, ranging from 13th Century Ottoman gear to guns captured recently in Afghanistan…and they were gracious enough to roll out the red carpet for me:

More in my column at Guns.com

No more White Helmets

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The Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team (RSMDT), also known as the White Helmets, will soon be no more. The group is an ode to the WWI-era dispatch riders of the BEF who carried important orders via primitive motorbikes of the day, often over broken country in some of the worst terrain imaginable.

Named originally The Red Devils and then the Mad Signals, the group was formed in 1927 from the Royal Corps of Signals.

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Today the 30 volunteers of the group are still drawn from commo units and ride British Millennium Triumph 750cc bikes, touring “from April to September every year demonstrating all the personal qualities demanded of the modern Royal Signals soldier.”

An Army spokesperson said:

The Royal Corps of Signals have come far since using motorbikes to carry messages across the battlefield, and are now highly trained ‘Leaders in a Digital Age’ with expertise in cyber operations. This modernisation means that 2017 will be the last season for the iconic ‘White Helmets’ Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team.

That chrome throwback scheme

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(Photo by CG AUX Bob Trapani)

(Photo by CG AUX Bob Trapani)

U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod and Coast Guard Station Rockland Me training with an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and 47-foot motor life boats.

The Jayhawk helicopter is painted yellow to represent the “chrome” yellow paint scheme that Coast Guard and Navy helicopters used in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Examples include the Sikorsky HO3S-1G used from 1946 to 1955 and the Sikorsky HO4S used from 1951 to 1966.

It is one of 16 aircraft in the country during the centennial celebration of Coast Guard aviation. Altogether, three different Coast Guard aircraft types, including the Jayhawk and Dolphin helicopters as well as the HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane, are receiving historic paint schemes representing various eras of Coast Guard air power.

Charles N. Daly was not a man to be trifled with

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The man pictured from these scans of Firearms Curiosa (Lewis Winant, Bonanza Books, New York, 1955) is antiquarian Capt. Charles Noe Daly.

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The book ( pg. 12) states that the armor was “found in Bordeaux in 1917” and found its way into the collection of aforementioned Mr. Daly. The cuirass weighs 30 pounds and holds nineteen cartridge pistols. Here is a further description from Firearms Curiosa:

“cuirass of steel . . . when brought into a right angle position may be fired in batteries of four and five by pressing the studs and levers, which release the hammers which are cocked by a hook carried on a chain.” The armor also came with a pair of stirrups that contained two pistols, which would fire by pulling on a strap in case one is pursued or attacked from behind. (ibid)

[ Hattip, Eldon Litchfield on the above ]

A 1922 article by Sumner Healy in Outers details the armor to more extent and includes photos of it with a set of pistol-loaded stirrups and two pistol loaded sabretechs which all told gave the horseman a total of 39 shots before having to reload.

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As for Noe, he married one Mary Ecclesine in a New York society event, and died at age 65 on Thursday, October 5, 1933 in York, Ontario, where he had long been U.S. Consul.

His 1,000 item personal collection that included the strange armor above, a saddle gun used by William of Orange, Adm. Nelson’s pistol, and others, were sold in 1935 at public auction in Ottawa.

Some of the lots:

daly collection 2 daly collection

Who knows where it is at now.

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