Small Arms

Rifles of the American War of Independence

Small Arms 16 Min Read

SHARPSHOOTING RIFLE The most accurate firearm of the day, rifles were used by rangers and sharpshooters in both armies; the rifle was loaded with a measure of black powder poured into the barrel, followed by a lead ball pushed in with a wooden starter and forced all the way down with a ramrod. A rifle differed from a musket in…

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Small Arms 7 Min Read

Kalashnikov

Designer Mikhail Kalashnikov poses with its AK-74 assault rifle All Kalashnikov military rifles operate with the same basic gas-piston and rotating-bolt system. Features for recognition are the short fore-end and handguard, the gas cylinder above the barrel, and the curved magazine. AK-47 Probably the most recognized and certainly the most…

Small Arms Soviet 25 Min Read

Soviet WWII Machine Guns

The Soviets were latecomers to machine-gun development generally. Prior to World War I, the czarist army bought machine guns from other countries and manufactured some under license. For this reason, Russian machine-gun development and production had to start virtually from scratch after the Russian Revolution. A top priority was the…

Small Arms 11 Min Read

THE MAXIM IN BATTLE

The first recorded combat use of the Maxim was in the British colony of Sierra Leone on 21 November 1888. A small punitive expedition under General Sir Francis de Winton was sent out to deal with a tribe that had been raiding various settlements. The British troops took with them…

British Small Arms 20 Min Read

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH MUSKETRY IN AMERICA I

British troops advance to within musket range at Bunker Hill, as depicted by 19th Century American artist Howard Pyle. The reasons why, in combating the American rebels, the British put so much emphasis on what were (by European standards) seemingly outdated shock tactics are explored in detail in the next…

British Small Arms 23 Min Read

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH MUSKETRY IN AMERICA II

While target shooting commonly involved files of men firing successively at marks, and the fire divisions generally practiced volleying with squibs rather than with live ammunition, on occasion both methods were combined. A visitor to Boston witnessed one such session in late March 1775: “I saw a regiment and the…

Small Arms 7 Min Read

CASELESS CARTRIDGE

Some German research was far ahead of its time; this remarkable drawing of a caseless cartridge – one using a solid block of propellant to support the bullet instead of a brass cartridge case – was discovered in 1945, but it was to be another 40 years before the idea…

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WWI Austro-Hungarian Small Arms Part I

Roth-Steyr Models 1907 and 1912 Austria-Hungary finally moved to replace its aging Rast-Gasser revolvers with…

Antimaterial Rifle

South African DENEL 20X110HS NTW-20 Rifle procured for evaluation in the United States The antimaterial…

Soviet WWII Machine Guns

The Soviets were latecomers to machine-gun development generally. Prior to World War I, the czarist…

Barnitzke Machine Gun (Flywheel delayed blowback)

7.92x57mm cartridge 1945 The German Gustloff Barnitzke light machine gun. Derived from the MG 42…