Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Vintage Saturday: Charge of the Light Brigade

July 28, 2012 Ian McCollum 3

Okay, this isn’t actually the light brigade, it’s a Swiss unit (this is still Swiss Week) from probably the 1930s. The rider in the foreground has a cavalry variant of the LMG25, with its unusual […]

Swiss Week – Prototype Furrer 1919

July 27, 2012 Ian McCollum 10

We’ve mentioned that Adolf Furrer (director of Waffenfabrik Bern) began his career making Lugers and Maxims, which helps explain his obsession with toggle locks. Well, before he developed his own take on the mechanism for […]

Book Review: Automatwaffen II

July 26, 2012 Ian McCollum 1

It’s a bit of a different book review today – since we’ve been looking at Swiss arms all week (and there’s a really unique one coming up tomorrow), we needed to find a book on […]

Swiss Week – MP41/44

July 25, 2012 Ian McCollum 4

The line between genius and insanity is a thin one, right? Well, the Swiss LMG25 was well build and effective, but the MP41 and MP41/44 fell off the edge into silliness. It was adopted in […]

Swiss Week – LMG25 Manuals and Photos

July 24, 2012 Ian McCollum 3

Continuing Swiss Week, we have more detailed information on the LMG25 light machine gun today. There design was officially adopted by the Swiss Army in 1925 (as you might have guessed) after about 7 years […]

Swiss Week – LMG25 video

July 23, 2012 Ian McCollum 6

This week, we will be featuring all Swiss weapons here at Forgotten Weapons. Kind of like Shark Week, but more land-locked. We’ll kick off today with a video showing you around a Swiss LMG-25 light […]

Vintage Saturday: Motorized Type 38 Arisakas

July 21, 2012 Ian McCollum 11

If they all fire in the same direction simultaneously, that cart will exceed the maximum speed of a Type 89 medium tank. Okay, I’m exaggerating. A bit. (I know someone will chime in to defend […]

Vesely V-42 Submachine Gun

July 20, 2012 Ian McCollum 12

The Vesely Machine Carbine (aka V-41, V-42, and V-43) was a submachine gun designed in Britain by a Czech refugee named Josek Vesely. In most respects, the Vesely was a typical subgun, firing 9mm Parabellem […]

Book Review: Japanese Submachine Guns by William Easterly

July 19, 2012 Ian McCollum 1

Today we’re taking a look at William Easterly’s booklet “A Comprehensive Study [of] Japanese Submachine Guns: 1920 – 1945”. Talk about a subject with very little written coverage – Easterly has photos, data, and descriptions […]

TRW Low Maintenance Rifle

July 18, 2012 Ian McCollum 37

As everyone is away, the M16 suffered from maintenance and reliability problems early in its deployment to Vietnam. While working to resolve these issues, the US government wanted to find a replacement weapon that would […]