Military Weapons From the Past: Steyr-Hahn Pistol Variations

The Steyr-Hahn is one of the less glamorized pistols used in WWI, despite being made in quite large numbers (250,000-313,000, depending on who you read). The gun is an interesting mix of features, including bits from the Roth-Steyr M1907 and the early Colt/Browning 1900/1902/1903 pistols. As the M1912, the gun was the standard pistol for the Austro-Hungarian Empire (albeit supplemented with M1907s, M1898 Rast-Gassers, and more) during the Great War. It was also purchased in quantity by Romania, Chile, and Bavaria. We will look at a couple of these variants today, and also an example of the guns converted to 9x19mm for Austrian police forces in the 1940s.

Read the Original Article at Forgotten Weapons

Know Your Weapons: French Marine Commando’s with CETME Rifles

I was doing some reading up on the early roller-delayed rifles (in Blake Stevens’ exquisitely technical and detailed book Full Circle: A Treatise on Roller Locking) and came across this very cool story, which I wanted to share…

Spain formally adopted the CETME Model B in 1958. It was mechanically pretty much the same gun we know today as the CETME-C or G3, but still chambered for the 7.62 NATO-CETME cartridge. This was a Spanish response to the NATO cartridge requirements – it was dimensionally identical to the 7.62mm NATO but fired a 125 grain projectile at 2300 fps, rather than the 143gr @ 2790fps of the NATO standard. The Spanish saw that the standard cartridge was too powerful to be effective in a select-fire rifle, and the reduced load was developed to reduce recoil to a manageable level. This was done for only a few years, until they surrendered and adopted the Model C in 1964 using standard ammunition. The CETME-B would still use the NATO ammo, but it was rough on the guns.

Anyway, the French were busy fighting against Algerian rebels at this time, and in March 1961 a Danish freighter named the Margot Hansen was spotted by a French maritime patrol aircraft and stopped off the coast of Algeria. Upon boarding and inspection, it was discovered that the ship was carrying 200 brand new CETME-B rifles and ammunition for them, destined (illegally) to the ANL and FLN rebel groups. The arms were confiscated, of course, and put into storage at the French naval depot at Mers El Kebir. This depot held other seized weapons as well, mainly of German WWII origin – Kar 98k Mausers and StG-44 assault rifles. When the 200 CETMEs arrive, the quickly drew the attention of the French Marine Commandos who were stationed at the port.

The French at the time were using MAS 49/56 rifles, semiauto only, and with 10-round magazines. The supplementary full-auto firepower was provided by Chatellerault 24/29 light machine guns, which had 20-round box magazines (which were occasionally adapted to 49/56 rifles, but that is a different story). The Marine Commandos were very interested in this new rifle, which looked to offer the capabilities of both their rifles and LMGs in a single light package. Because they were a unit of the French Navy and the guns had been seized by the Navy and were stored in a Navy depot, the Commandos were able to requisition the guns and the seized ammo for their own use without much difficulty.

The one obstacle that did surface was when someone noticed that all the rifles were missing their firing pins. Why? Nobody knows for sure, but most likely because the smugglers were planning to hold them back for security or for an addition payment. It is also possible that the whole smuggling setup was actually a fake operation being run by the SDECE (French secret police), but any records that could confirm that are long since destroyed. At any rate, the Marines didn’t let a minor issue like firing pins stop them, and the depot machinists reverse engineered the design and manufactured a large supply. They were never able to get the material and heat treat quite right, and their firing pins apparently had a tendency to break frequently – so the Marines carried a bunch of spares whenever using the guns.

Another obstacle that developed was that the seized ammunition turned out to be garbage. It had been hastily made from components sent to be scrapped, and dimensions like overall length varied substantially. Some cases had no primer flash holes. Headstamps varied significantly, and were mixed within boxes. The men were able to source French-made 7.62mm ammunition, and wound up using those CETME-B rifles in active combat operations as late as 1978. Quite the colorful path for a batch of early Spanish rifles, ultimately used for decades against the very groups they were intended to aid!

How did the guns make it out of Spanish control? That’s a good question. They would have been first-line military arms at the time, not guns being surplussed or otherwise left about unattended. However, CETME was actively working with Dutch and German firms and military organizations at the time, and shipments of rifles could have been legitimately bound for either of those countries. Blake Stevens suggests one possibility for the source was such a shipment being rerouted by a man like notorious German arms smuggler Otto the Strange – although this can only be speculation.

Read the Original Article at Forgotten Weapons

Military Weapons From The Past: The EMC-49 SMG Was Too Futuristic For The British Army

Following the end of World War II, the British Army sought a replacement for the STEN Gun which had been the British military’s workhorse submachine gun since 1940.

The Army did not choose the futuristic Experimental Machine Carbine, 1949 from BSA. But maybe it should have.

The STEN was simple, cheap and arguably nasty. While the STEN was the perfect wartime submachine gun, the Army requested a more refined and durable design.

Ultimately, the Army chose Sterling Armaments Company’s Patchett M1944,later known simply as “the Sterling.” Before selecting the Sterling, the Army considered the Welgun — which BSA had developed during the war — as well as a new design from Enfield.

BSA’s Experimental Machine Carbine, 1949 was another failed contender. Chambered in the same ubiquitous nine-millimeter cartridge as the STENwas, the EMC also had the same side-mounted 32-round box magazine that characterized the STEN and, later, the Sterling.

The Experimental Carbine used the standard blowback action as rival guns but cycled at 600 rounds per minute, faster than the Sterling and all of the earlier STEN variants.

It had a number of interesting features, including a bakelite plastic foregrip that had a similar profile to the EM series’ foregrip. It also had an ingenious hinged magazine-housing that could pivot backward to clear jams, without the user having to remove the magazine. The same feature also facilitated cleaning.

The EMC also boasted an easy-to-operate safety switch integrated into the grip.

Interestingly, the weapon lacked a bolt handle. Instead, the shooter cockedthe EMC by pushing the foregrip forward and then pulling it back. This pushed a bar which in turn pushed the bolt back and cocked the weapon. The user then slightly rotated the grip in order to disengage the bar and allow the bolt to cycle once fired.

In response to criticisms of the Welgun’s open receiver, BSA entirely enclosed the EMC, leaving only the magazine well and ejection port open — and the latter only when firing.

Regardless of the EMC’s innovative features, the Army passed over the design in favor of the Sterling submachine gun, which entered service in 1953.

This story originally appeared at Historical Firearms.

Read the Original Article as Seen Here at War is Boring

Obscure Weapons: The Standschultze-Hellreigel Submachine Gun

The Austro-Hungarian Standschutze Hellriegel debuted in 1915. Today the automatic, light firearm is something of a mystery.

The prototype blended pistol-caliber ammunition with the firepower of a machine gun, making it one of the first weapons which could be considered a “submachine gun.”

That much, we know. The rest is … conjecture.

The images in this story come from an Austrian archive, where they all fall under the title “Maschinengewehr des Standschützen Hellriegel.” The photos are dated 10.1915 — presumably meaning October 1915 — and show what appears to be a test-firing of the weapon at a shooting range.

The archival entry indicates that the weapon was named after someone with the second name “Hellriegel.”

“Standschützen” may refer to the designer being a member of the Austro-Hungarian reserve force, the Standschützen, whose mission was to defend the Austrian states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg.

The Standschutze Hellriegel may have been developed for this corps or by a member of it.

Read the Remainder at War is Boring

Military Weapons From The Past: The Thompson SMG T2

Introducing the “Cheap and Ugly as Hell” Version of one of the Baddest Ass SMG’s in History

The U.S. Army had initially been uninterested in submachine guns, and it was only in the late 1930s that the Ordnance Department placed Auto-Ordnance’s Thompson SMG on its “limited procurement list.”

In September 1938, officials green-lit procurement of the Thompson, but it was not until June 1939 that the government actually placed its first order for M1928A1s.

From the outset, the Army had sought a cheaper alternative to the expensive Thompson and, by 1941, had begun testing a number of alternative designs. In April 1942, Army adopted the M2 submachine gun, designed by George Hyde, as a substitute standard for the Thompson.

The Auto-Ordnance Corporation didn’t want to lose out on lucrative contracts, so it developed a more cost-effective, easier-to-manufacture SMG design — the T2.

Despite adopting the M2, the Ordnance Department continued testing other SMGs and, in November 1942, conducted trials of the T2 at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Testers compared the results to the data from the earlier trials of Hyde’s M2.

Auto-Ordnance developed the T2 in both .45 ACP and in nine-by-19 millimeter, which the British and Commonwealth countries preferred. The U.S. Army, however, wasn’t interested in the nine-millimeter variant and declined to test it.

Read the Remainder at War is Boring