Manuals
Darne Mle 1923 Manual
In 1915, the French Darne company – best known for sporting shotguns – entered the military market with a contract to manufacture Lewis guns for the French Army. Apparently some of the folks at Darne […]
Machine Guns
Heavy MGs
Vintage Saturday: Parade Gear
Motorcycle of the Guanabara Police Department, sporting a Hotchkiss 1914 heavy machine gun. Rio de Janeiro, 1960. Thanks to Ronaldo Olive for the photo!
Submachine Guns
Polish Resistance Sten Copy
To wrap up our week of semi-mystery guns, we have today a Sten gun copy made by the Polish Resistance. The gun’s owner didn’t have any details about its origin, and I have been unable […]
Book review
Book Review: Bullets and Bureaucrats
For a while now I’ve been following the rabbit hole of machine gun use in the second half of the 19th century – the days of the manually-operated machine gun (Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, etc) and […]
Manuals
Argentine Halcon SMG
We don’t have very much information on the Halcon SMG from Argentina, but we do have a training manual for the gun to make available. As best I can tell there were at least 5 […]
Submachine Guns
Daniels Rapid-Fire Carbine
We had a reader send us some photos of an odd submachine gun that he was looking for more information on. Well, it’s a new one to me – perhaps someone reading this knows more […]
Light MGs
Vintage Saturday: Brown Water Navy
Thanks to Beryl Barnett for the photo – the label on the back reads (translated from German): Flemish channels under the protection of the German Navy. Fast and armed boats are employed, which provide the […]
Submachine Guns
Croatian Šokac SMG
Today’s gun was made quite recently, but also pretty obscure – I had not heard of it until Michael Heidler sent us this description and set of photos: Improvised firearms and mines dominated the early […]
Light MGs
Vintage Saturday: Unsure
Forcemen of 5-2, First Special Service Force, with an M1941 Johnson light machine gun on the Anzio beachhead, Italy, April 1944. They are in the process of disassembling (or reassembling) the gun. Thanks to Michael […]
Book review
Book Review: Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel
I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but this is a case where there is more than a kernel of truth to one. The unfortunate subject is Julia Keller, author of Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, and she […]