Artillery - Forgotten Weapons

Hotchkiss Model 1886 3-pounder Quick Firing Gun

September 26, 2025 Ian McCollum 15

Small fast boats with torpedos (or other explosives) have always been a threat to large warships. One of the weapons the British Royal Navy adopted to counter that threat was the Hotchkiss Model 1886 “Quick […]

Soviet World War Two 50mm Light Mortars (RM-39 & RM-40)

August 25, 2025 Ian McCollum 20

The Soviet Union decided to adopt a 50mm light mortar in 1937 as a company-level armament. The first such weapon they used was the RM-38, introduced in 1938. It was a complex design, with a […]

Shooting a WWII German 50mm Light Mortar (L.Gr.W.36)

November 9, 2024 Ian McCollum 18

The standard German light mortar in World War Two was the model 1936 5cm Leichter Granatwerfer. It was a very precise (Germanic, one might say) machine, and a bubble lever for careful aiming, and it […]

Fiji in World War Two: the Momi Bay Gun Battery

February 3, 2024 Ian McCollum 10

When the clouds of World War Two began to loom in the 1930s, Britain decided to begin securing some of its more distant colonial outposts – places that might be of strategic importance in a […]

Japanese Type 96 150mm Howitzer (Guadalcanal)

October 6, 2023 Ian McCollum 1

Like the smaller 105mm field gun, the Imperial Japanese Army essentially copied a French Schneider design for their 150mm howitzer, adopted in 1936 as the Type 96. It was produced by the Osaka Arsenal from […]

Japanese Type 92 105mm Field Gun (Guadalcanal)

June 28, 2023 Ian McCollum 3

In 1927, the Imperial Japanese Army purchased a 105mm field gun from the French company Schneider as a potential replacement for their rather underwhelming Type 14 105mm field gun. The Schneider design was quite good, […]

Type 94 Japanese 37mm Antitank Gun on Guadalcanal

December 30, 2022 Ian McCollum 55

The Type 94 was the standard infantry antitank gun of the Japanese Army during World Ware Two. It was developed in the early 1930s as tensions with the Soviet Union rose; there had not been […]

A Gun For Aiming: M8C .50 Caliber Spotting Rifle

May 6, 2022 Ian McCollum 25

The M8C is a .50 caliber self-loading rifle designed to mount on top of the 106mm M40 recoilless rifle. The recoilless rifle creates a massive signature when fired, and so it is imperative that operators […]

Airtronics PSRL: An American RPG (with demo shot…for real!)

December 27, 2021 Ian McCollum 33

Thanks to Jeff Folloder and Airtronics USA, I have a chance today to look at and test-fire a PSRL (Precision Shoulder-fired Rocket Launcher) – in essence, an American-made RPG-7. The rocket we are using here […]

Krupp 50mm Mountain Guns for Siam (Thailand)

November 16, 2020 Ian McCollum 23

In 1906, Siam (now Thailand) purchased a batch of 50mm mountain guns form Krupp of Germany. These were simple fixed barrel guns with steel-belted wooden wheels. Designed to be carried by elephant, mule, or even […]