In December 1944, the Haenel company received permission to produce a simplified version of the StG-44 Sturmgewehr. The idea was to keep the mechanical system and controls as similar as possible to the design in […]
Order your copy of Small Arms of the Cold War: Battle Rifles of NATO today: https://www.headstamppublishing.com/cold-war-battle Or if you are in Europe, please order through our European site: https://www.headstampbook.com/cold-war-battle When Sweden decided to replace its […]
After achieving independence from the British, Burma (now Myanmar) looked to develop a domestic small arms industry to supply its armed forces. The first weapon produced there was the BA-52, a copy of (how they […]
The Type 56C is the final iteration of Chinese Kalashnikov, originally intended for export but primarily used by Chinese police and special forces. It is a short-barreled carbine with a folding stock, and remarkably few […]
For political reasons, India decided to adopt the 7.62mm NATO cartridge when it needed to replace its No1 MkIII SMLE bolt action rifles with a modern self-loader. They chose the FN FAL as the rifle […]
Chartered Industries of Singapore was founded in 1967, and started making M16 rifles under license in 1970. These were sold to the Singaporean military as well as Thailand. To get out of their licensing agreement […]
The Falkland Islands Defense Force is a small organization independent of the British military, run directly by the Falkland Islands government. When it decided to update its small arms form the L1A1 SLR (aka British […]
The first iteration of the iconic German Sturmgewehr was developed by Haenel starting in 1938. It was a select-fire rifle chambered for the short 8x33mm cartridge, developed by the Polte company. It used a long-stroke […]
The Krása project (which translates as “beauty”, but is also a shortening of “short assault rifle” – “KRÁtký SAmopal”) is a fascinating piece of Czech small arms development. In 1976, the Czechoslovakian military requested development […]
When Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it was initially armed with a wide variety of miscellaneous small arms. They clearly needed a primary standardized rifle for the new armed forces. […]
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