Weapons Man

Even if you can’t follow the Danish narration, there is some very cool stuff in this 1962 promotional film, Det Er Nodvendig… which means, This is Necessary. The point of the film is to introduce Danes to their Navy.

One of the first cool things you will see is a flotilla of ex-Deutsche Kriegsmarine S-Boats. The boats don’t show their age at all — they were probably never this clean in their wartime existence.

Other scenes include the S-Boat crewmen introducing themselves by name and hometown, destroyer operations, coastal defense with artillery and AA, and Denmark’s famous frogmen. (The nation was once a leader in scout swimming and undersea war, but ceased operating submarines about a decade ago after nearly a century of successful sub ops).

On the other hand, the Danes maintain a robust coast defense capability, but these days it’s with missiles, not last century’s cannon.

The early Bazooka, in how-to format from 1943.

From the excellent youtube channel of Jeff Quitney, which always has interesting historical videos, often well-restored visually and, especially, aurally.

In 1997, the Filipino government decided to take a novel approach to stamping out the underground armories in Danao City, Cebu Province: they would bring the underground gunsmiths in from the cold, by establishing new gun factories in Danao. They licensed two manufacturers — who had no problem finding skilled workers.

That was then, this is now: the guerrilla gunsmiths of Danao still flourish, underground; they work in remote jungle workshops to stay off the authorities’ radar, so as not to have to pay stiff bail (or bribes) to get or stay out of prison.

Hey, we hope the slump is ending and this week will be good for all!

If you see a lot of video posts with short notes, we’re still slumping (grin). We’re on the tail end of a head cold.

Note that a preliminary Saturday Matinee is up backdated to yesterday, Taking Fire (TV, 2016), and hardly anyone has looked at the one posted (if belatedly) last week, Sully (2016). Sully is not the least bit military, but it’s good, and Taking Fire is a pretty raw documentary, but it’s all military.

No, that wasn’t a typo. A Greek crew took their attack helicopter surfing. (NSFW warning: an obscenity, if you happen to know modern Greek).

The pilots both survived, although their military careers might not. (Russia Today says that the Greek military claimed the aircraft had engine failure. We note that the Apache is a twin-engine helicopter, and even on a hot day has no trouble flying on one engine at sea level.

Below sea level? That’s a problem.

Remember, pilots: you can never beat the World Low Flying Record. You can only tie.

Because, even though we delayed this post for over 12 hours, we’re still drawing a blank. so we’re throwing it open for suggestions. Because we know there’s lots of ’em we haven’t covered yet but they’re not in the forebrain at present. For the Wednesday Weapons Website of the Week, it’s Thursday noon, and we still got nothin’. So… help!

One hopes the feature will return next week, eh?

We don’t know this cat. We don’t know his name, his history or why he wound up where he was. It was what he did next that assured that his name is written forever in the saga of the great warrior race, the Pathans (Pushtuns).

We don’t even know he was a Pathan, as he says not a word. He might not have been; the ISIL followers in Afghanistan, like the Taliban before them, have made their ate-up religion an excuse for the ethnic cleansing of minorities such as Tajiks, Uzbeks, and especially Hazaras. (Our hero doesn’t look like a Hazara to me, but it’s a crummy video). So the Pathans who remember his story for the centuries may be his own people, or whatever survivors ultimately remain of the doomed tribe he was fighting.

This is what it comes down to: the choice between life, and perhaps death, as a free man, and the slavery inherent in allah hu akbar. 

Some day, that phrase will sound exclusively in the ears of the demons of Hell, because it is incompatible with the existence of free men, and free men shall win.

OK, so we’re still slipping, schedule-wise, but here’s what’s we hope to make appear in this space in the coming week.

1. A short article on the FN49, including the on-again-off-again development history (and the benefit a long development history has), the reasons for its short production life, and photos. This is definite for Monday.
2. Some Czechoslovak pistols mentioned only in a single source, as far as we know.
3. Does the Mac beta of Defense Distributed’s Ghost Gunner software work? (We don’t know the answer to this question, actually. If you hear the sound of a head crash, the answer is “no.”)
4. Before the Albacore, there was a research submarine so advanced that concepts from it are still being developed.
5. What’s the oldest piece of equipment still used by the US Army or Marines?
6. How to Walk in the Woods.
7. Maybe an airplane update. We just did something pretty scary — cut a hole in the leading edge of the wing for landing light installation. So far, so good.

And… we’re going to throw it open to your ideas.

It’s generally good advice: “Don’t go into the long grass. There be velociraptors.”

Unless, you are the velociraptor.

We’re the apex predator, guys. Time we shed the herbivore camouflage (staff, FOBs, SJAs) and started acting like it.

Well, without much in the way of comment, anyway.

From US Army WTF Moments.

Petraeus, for his part, had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with Michael Hanlon saying that the readiness problem is all imaginary, and who are we going to believe, him or our lying eyes?

Exit question: shouldn’t Bowe Bergdahl be on this slide, too?

That’s what it was, witnesses agree: a green, 6½-foot wooden panel which came sailing down under a clear blue sky and slammed into a man’s head. The New York Post says:

Sources say the victim, described as a male between 60 and 70-years-old, was walking northbound on Fifth Avenue near 30th Street around 4 p.m. when a green, six and a half foot wooden panel became loose from a surrounding safety wall and struck the victim in the head. The man fell to the ground near the road, bleeding.

The panel pulled off from a safety wall. God does mock our pretensions from time to time, doesn’t He?

“There is a lot of blood on the ground,” an on-site worker said. “They put sand on the ground to cover it up.”

Witnesses said two women attempted to keep the man awake while another man diverted traffic.

The victim was reportedly groggy, but remained alert and conscious throughout the entire ordeal and was transported to Bellevue Hospital by emergency units for further evaluation.

The condition of the victim was unknown at press time.

We regret the circumstances that require this.

Today, Plaintiff II is shipping out for St Louis after her several-years-long attempt to move back in after a 20-year absence. She leaves with some regrets, apparently. Our only fear was (and is) that she will not go.

We’re looking forward to a reversion to the status quo ante around this place. And expect to be more productive even though “real’ work is occupying more of our time these days.

There’s no rational explanation of a man’s attachment to his woobie — his poncho liner, one of the few things of military issue that is treasured long into civilian life.

If rational won’t work, here comes Mat Best and friends to explain the story in song:

We’re closer to the Out door than the In door of life, no matter how optimistically we measure, and we still have woobies strategically prepositioned on all recliners in Hog Manor.

Indeed, a woobie and a dog, and a nice recliner… why ever go out?

Safely. In a clump of brush. After being saved with 150 precisely delivered rounds of .22LR from a scoped 10/22. Jason Galvin, an Army vet of Afghanistan, stepped up to do the right thing for the national symbol.

If that’s all pretty confusing to you, maybe you better just watch the video.

The eagle, named Freedom (what else?), is recovering and vets at the University of Minnesota are cautiously optimistic about his chances. If he comes to be released back into the wild, Jason and Jackie Galvin have asked one thing: could you bring him back home, to our lake?

Without the rope, this time.

It’s a day for healing-up from a busy week, for perhaps plugging some gaps left in yesterday’s blog, for a recliner and a poncho liner and a good book.

Perhaps some writing, perhaps some yard work, perhaps a bike ride along the Atlantic shore. Or perhaps “nothing to say, but it’s OK.”

We may be on a regular schedule or a holiday schedule tomorrow. It depends… among other things, on just how sanative this Sunday is.

Here’s an NRA “I have this old gun” video on the Johnson Spitfire, with all the usual suspects (Phil Schreier, Martin K.A. Morgan, Mark A. Keefe IV, etc.) and a little of the history we discussed yesterday. There are also some clear pictures of the folding stock variant.

“Yes, it’s a footnote to the history of the M1 Carbine,” says Morgan. “But it’s a darn interesting footnote!” We agree.

Recently, we referred to some firearms development or other probably being illegal in several totalitarian regimes, including, MA, NK, CA, and Cuba.

To which Al T. replied in the comments: “How do you tell the difference?” Smart man, Al. He asks a logical question, and that pointed out to us a pressing need.

This graphic should be useful to anyone who has to deal with these living dystopias.

With our compliments. Just one more service to the public by the selfless graphic galley gnomes of Weaponsman.com.

We didn’t even have a post here. Eh, it happens.

We’ve shown you before some of the cool stuff Guy in a Garage gets up to and posts on his Yoot Oob channel. This time, the yoot’ is doing something very interesting — prototyping a lower for an MP5 that will take conventional AR parts.

Is that even possible? you may ask. Be answered:

It’s an early development mule, but it shows every sign of working. An MP5 that can take AR trigger components is potentially a very useful thing.

The 3D printed mule is expected to lead to a 3D printed prototype, which would then lead to a production part in metal. There are many ways to make that metal part — one could bend sheet metal and add small parts to make a weldment, machine the part from billet, or even 3D print it in ABS and then lost-ABS cast the part.