Machine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Shooting the MG-34 and MG-42

May 12, 2014 Ian McCollum 62

The MG-34 and MG-42 machine guns were the mainstay of German infantry (and vehicle) firepower during World War II, and it will take several videos to properly cover them. For now, we are shooting them […]

Experimental German 08/18 Maxim SMG

May 9, 2014 Ian McCollum 92

From Max Popenker, we have a set of photos of a very funky German submachine gun from the first world war (presumably 1918). The weapon is currently in possession of the weapon design department at […]

Vintage Saturday: Not for Squeamish Collectors

April 19, 2014 Ian McCollum 14

Russian Colt 1895 machine gun destroyed on the Eastern front, WWI.

Japanese Type 1 HMG

April 16, 2014 Ian McCollum 19

I was recently contacted by a fellow looking for information on the Japanese Type 1 heavy machine gun – a replacement for the Type 92 whose name would suggest it was adopted in 1941, but […]

Vintage Saturday: Mountaineer

April 5, 2014 Ian McCollum 26

Not sure which army exactly, but he has a PPSh-41 (or copy) and plenty of rope…

Vintage Saturday: Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

March 29, 2014 Ian McCollum 58

Parabellum 1914 MG in gunnery school, Belgium, 1918 (photo from Drake Goodman)

Vintage Saturday: Everyone Likes Kittens

March 22, 2014 Ian McCollum 32

The lighter side of war – German soldiers in a halftrack playing with a kitten and their MG34 mount (note the periscope optic. Photo from WarAlbum.ru.

Browning 1919 Experimental Belt Box

March 7, 2014 Ian McCollum 10

About a year ago, I wrote a post about some Browning 1919 feeding devices that were patented but never went into production. Well, reader Alex found photos of one of them in the Springfield Armory […]

Browning M2 “Anti-Mechanization Weapon”

February 19, 2014 Ian McCollum 100

During the latter half of the 1930s, the US Cavalry decided to experiment with adapting the .50 caliber Browning M2 heavy machine gun into a bipod-mounted, shoulder-fired configuration. The goal was to devise a variant […]

Belt-Fed Johnson LMGs

February 7, 2014 Ian McCollum 33

Since we just took a look at the final American iteration of the magazine-fed Johnson LMG (the system would live on briefly in Israeli service as the Dror), we should also take this time to […]