6 min read

The Landlocked Battleship – Old Is New?

Michael Cessna April 15, 2023

Unless something truly catastrophic happens, or you work in the industry, the average American doesn’t give a great deal of thought to railroads. Sure, they’re annoying when you get stuck at a crossing, as the seemingly never-ending parade of graffiti decorated cars slowly roll by, and sure, at some level the Average Joe or Jane Public understands that a great deal of America’s commerce is carried on them, but beyond that, railroads are just…well…railroads.

*BNSF freight train passing to the northwest of Shallowater, Texas. Photo Credit: WikimediaCommons User “Leaflet”, 2009. CCA/3.0*

But, there was a time, within living memory, when railroads were not simply the vital arteries of commerce, carrying massive amounts (the average freight train carries over four-thousand tons of freight) of goods across nations and continents, but were traversed and protected by terrifying engines of war…

…The armored train (YouTube link).

*Polish armored train “Danuta,” 1939. From the left: artillery wagon, infantry assault wagon, armoured locomotive, artillery wagon. Public Domain.*

Shortly after railroads began to dominate overland transport in the early 19^th Century, people began to think of how “weaponize” them – not simply as fast troops transports, but as actual weapons, like a kind of warship that was confined to iron rails, instead of the waters of the world.

*Armored train Hurban. Zvolen, Slovakia, 2004. Photo credit: Martin Hlauka*

As actual weapons, “armored” trains started out simply as “armed” trains. Early on, troops simply piled up some logs and maybe a few bags of animal fodder to build some improvised, “hillbilly armor” (to use the modern vernacular), that would provide some small measure of protection to troops firing out of the windows of passenger cars. With the coming of the American Civil War, however, “bombard cars” mounting massive mortars, came into use. To protect the gun crews, heavy armor made from railroad crossties and spare lengths of track were bolted around the wagon that mounted the artillery weapons, making them essentially bulletproof.

*The Union’s Moving Battery armed with a siege mortar on the City Point Railroad during the Siege of Petersburg. 1864. Public Domain.*

As time went on, and the use of trains as weapons expanded, tactics developed that governed the vehicles’ effective use in combat: engines were shielded with tempered-steel armor plates; car arrangements were worked out, placing armored or at least weighted cars in front of the engine, so that those cars would absorb fire intended for the engine; troop cars were designed that allowed light infantry to quickly dismount and counterattack ambushing forces, a practice that quickly extended to cavalry carried aboard the train. Frequently, a second train – or at least a few extra cars – followed the fighting train, carrying spare crossties and rails to repair tracks that had been torn up ahead (or behind) the train. The only long-term solution defending forces had against the massive, fast-moving monsters was to destroy bridges and collapse tunnels; but these were moves of absolute last resort, because such levels of infrastructure destruction would make it that much harder to mount an effective counterattack on the invaders.

World War One was the maturity and first mass deployment (YouTube link) of armored trains – which used purpose-designed armored cars as fighting platforms – that battled primarily on the wide-open steppes of Ukraine and Russia. In fact, the saga of the Czech Legion, made up of Austro-Hungarian Czech and Slovak prisoners freed by the fall of Russia’s Imperial government, as they battled their way across the vast expanse of Siberia, to escape Russia via the Pacific port of Vladivostok.

*Checkoslovak legion’s armored train sporting an impressive array of various machineguns. 1918. Public Domain.*

Armored train development in World War One expanded to highly specialized railcars, including command cars; signals units equipped with the new invention of wireless radio sets; hospital cars, including mobile surgical theaters; dedicated fighting cars, holding troops and machine guns; and artillery cars, armed with anything from machine guns to light artillery. The final word in the artillery class of railcars was the monstrous “railway guns”: massive artillery cannons – frequently surplus naval cannons, but eventually culminating in Germany’s terrifying “Paris Gun”, capable of throwing a 230lbs shell over seventy-five miles, and requiring a barrel so long (over 68ft in length) that it had to be braced.

*The “Paris Gun” of World War One. Imperial War Museum photograph Q 65801A. Public Domain.*

Armored trains did not go away with the end of the “war to end all wars”. When the Second World War erupted into life in 1939, armored trains served on all sides, in all theaters. This time, though, the armored trains faced a new threat: airplanes.

While aircraft had been generally slow and flimsy in 1918, by 1939, the scales were considerably different. Warplanes had become much faster and deadlier, carrying large weights of explosive bombs, and significantly large machine gun and automatic cannon armaments made all trains viable targets, including armored trains. Some of the most iconic images of the armored train era come from German examples operating in the Balkans, to Japanese trains operating in China.

*Type 94 Armored Train of the Imperial Japanese Army. China, 1935. Public Domain.*

After World War Two ended, armored trains began to fade from military use. Operating mostly in “third world nations”, armored trains – where they could be produced – continued in their traditional roles, as long as their operators learned the rules worked out in previous decades. But most of the major powers, enraptured by nuclear weapons, generally abandoned “fighting trains” by the mid-1960’s.

“Most”, however, is the key word. Russia – with few ocean coastlines – is dominated by vast expanses of land…land well suited to rail traffic. Indeed, the Trans-Siberian Railway system is a perfect example of how vital railways are to Russia. As a result, the Soviet Union, and later, the Russian Federation, maintained a few armored trains to maintain internal security. While a few attempts were drawn up on paper in he West by railroad companies desperate to maintain military relevance under the threat of expanding highway and heavy truck networks, the Soviet Union was the only power to actually deploy strategic nuclear weapons on railroad launchers.

*RT-23 ICBM railroad-based complex in Saint Petersburg railway museum, 2006. Wikimedia User “Panther”. CCA/2.5*

As the Cold War came to a close, it seemed that the armored train would be relegated to only a few narrow uses, like transporting dictators in a visible show of opulence and “flexing.” However – Russia did not forget the armored train.

Russia revived the fighting train during the war in Chechnya in 1999-2009, taking a page from the World War Two Red Army, using the train to patrol the rail lines ferrying supplies to the fighting units against raids by Chechen guerrillas during the 1999-2000 Battle of Grozny. And the Chechens learned, as had been discovered fifty-odd years prior, trains are not easy to derail, if they are handled properly.

The world got another lesson in this from Russia, when it invaded Ukraine in 2022, as Russia quickly deployed the Yenisai to secure the rear area rail lines transporting weapons, vehicles and equipment forward. Ukraine claims that the train was built up using captured Ukrainian rolling stock.

While there are many who insist that armored trains are pointless, given their “obvious” vulnerabilities against precision fires, the naysayers have not been very diligent in studying the survivability of railroad networks, nor of rolling stock. A modern concept of an armored fighting train could include very advanced anti-aircraft defenses (such as C-RAM and anti-aircraft and even anti-ship missile launchers), as well as functioning as a launch platform for theater- and strategic-level weapons.

Old concepts have a habit of sticking around for exactly as long as they remain useful…presuming, of course, that decision-makers grasp their function.

Memory Lane – The First AK-47’s, Part 2

5 min read

Memory Lane – The First AK-47’s, Part 2

Michael Cessna April 5, 2023

Last week, we discussed the Remington Rolling Block rifle, a weapon nearly forgotten outside of “gun-person” circles. To recap, the Rolling Block design equipped all or portions of the military forces of most of the nations on the planet, from the end of the American Civil War to World War One. Over a period of some fifty-odd years, the design had an impact out of all proportion to its simple design.

This week, we will look at the weapon that dethroned the Rolling Block – a weapon that is still being made, today. A rifle so iconic, it essentially stands as the image of “rifle” in the minds of most people.

That rifle is the legendary Mauser 98.

*A Mauser 1898, formerly of the Swedish Army. Photo: Swedish Army Museum. CCA/4.0*

Imperial Germany had introduced the Gewehr 1888 to replace its Mauser Model 1871 (adopted as the Gewehr 71 or Infanterie-Gewehr 71, or “Infantry Rifle 71”) that had been designed by Mauser (originally Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik (“Royal Württemberg Rifle Factory”)), of brothers Peter and Wilhelm.

*Paul Mauser (1838-1914). Public Domain.*

Unlike as has happened many times in military history, this rapid series of rifle adoptions was not a simple case of lining someone’s pockets. On the contrary, it was a vital necessity, as technology was swiftly changing, and the First German Empire had to maintain at least parity with its French neighbor. France had developed smokeless powder in 1884, and swiftly fielded the Lebel Rifle in 1886 to use the new and ‘game changing’ propellant. Mauser’s Gewehr 71 – while a fine weapon, overall – fired a huge (for rifles) 11mm bullet propelled by the now completely outdated ‘black powder’. The Gewehr 1888 (called the “Commission Rifle,” as it was designed by the German Rifle Commission (pdf link)); as a result, the Gewehr 88 was very much literally “designed by committee”, and Mauser, still tied into producing the 1871 model, did not take part in the development of the Gewehr 88. When it became painfully evident that the Gewehr 88 was not the right rifle for the job, the Kaiser’s government turned back to the Mauser family.

The Mauser brothers had acquired the Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik arms factory from the government of Württemberg in 1874; after a series of mergers and divestments that swirled in the highly dynamic environment of late-19^th Century Germany, Mauser A.G. would be formed in 1897, under the direction of Paul Mauser.

When the German government turned to Mauser to design a better rifle than the committee-birthed Gewehr 88, Mauser A.G. quickly responded. Mauser had been perfecting a smokeless powder rifle in the decade where other companies were producing the lackluster Gewehr 88. In that decade, Mauser rifles had become a world standard for hunting weapons, renowned for their inherent accuracy and durability.

*Rifle line on the march, Dresden, 1914.*

The Gewehr 98’s design works, because it is simple, solid and robust. There is very little to go wrong in a Gewehr 98; short of running over it with a tank, or loading it with overpowered cartridges, the rifle just keeps working. It is, very much, the penultimate example of “German over-engineering.” The one real fault in the design of the Gewehr 98 is the fact that its bolt – the heart of the system – did not lend itself very well to the mass production technologies of them time, making the weapon take measurably longer to produce than comparable weapons. Likewise, from a strictly military point of view, the ergonomics of its bolt layout do not lend itself to fast operation; the British SMLE Lee-Enfield and Pattern 1914 rifles remain much faster-operating actions. The “limitation” of the Gewehr 98’s five-round magazine is more an academic issue than a tactical one, especially as its main competitor until 1945, the Lee-Enfield designs – while having a ten-round magazine – also fed from five-round strip-clips, as the 98 does.

Partially disassembled Mauser Karbiner 98k action, with receiver in the middle, magazine well and magazine assembly below and disassembled bolt on top. Photo credit: wikimedia User “Mauseraction”, 2011. CCA/3.0.

The Gewehr 98 first saw action in 1898, in China, during the Boxer Rebellion, where it performed spectacularly well. By the outbreak of World War One in 1914, the German Army had well over 2 million of the rifles in their arsenals; by the end of the war, more than 7 million more would be produced.

After World War One ended, Germany took the lessons of that war, and produced a new version of the Gewehr 98 – the Karabiner 98k. Based on the same basic Gewehr 98 action, the 98k uses a much shorter barrel, a reduction in length that required the adoption of a new rifle cartridge to make the ballistics work without degrading the life of the barrels. The 98k, in a few models, were produced from 1935 to 1945; eventually producing over 14.6 million units…although records get spotty with many manufacturers towards the end of the war, meaning that the numbers are large – possibly significantly larger.

*A German sniper armed with a Karabiner 98k with a Zeiss telescopic sight and spotter in position, observing at Voronezh, Soviet Unions, 1942. Photograph by Dieck. CCA/3.0/Germany.*

After World War Two, the 98k would continue serving around the world. The Israeli “Haganah” begged, borrowed and stole as many 98k’s as they could lay hands on to arm the new Israeli Army; the Nationalist Chinese would produce their variant until 1949 – and those weapons remained in Chinese service. The 98k, among other “milsurp” bolt-action rifles like the Lee-Enfield and the Russian Mosin Nagant, remained in frontline combat service in many nations well into the 1970’s. Indeed, even today – in the 2020’s – a couple of hundred 98k’s would make for a respectable rebel army.

*Graduation ceremony for artillery officers in the Israeli Army (IDF, Israel Defense Forces). The ceremony is taking place in the main basic training base, “Tsrifhim”. Public Domain.*

Of course, that is only up to 1945, and only covers weapons produced by Mauser and other German manufacturers. Mauser had let out licenses to many firms around the world to produce first the Gewehr 98, and then the 98k, manufacturers who happily produced millions more copies from China to South America. Indeed, the United States was so impressed by early versions of the 98 (the Mauser 1893) it encountered fighting Spanish troops in the Spanish-American War in 1898, it essentially copied the design outright, causing a lawsuit that resulted in the United States Government having to pay some $3,000,000 (over $45 million in 2023 money) to Mauser (the US Army Ordnance Corps has earned itself a very sketchy reputation over the decades).

*Rock Island Arsenal U.S. Model 1903 Rifle, manufactured in 1906. CCA/3.0*

The Mauser 98, in a variety of calibers, stock designs, and accessory packs, lives on, in the 21^st Century, both as ceremonial rifles for formal military guards, military and police sniper weapons, as well as being the proverbial gold standard for hunting rifles – the Winchester Model 70, the “Rifleman’s Rifle,” is a Mauser 98 action – continues onwards, still being manufactured in many countries, by m several different manufacturers, and shows no signs of ending production anytime soon.

*A pre-1964 Winchester Model 70 rifle. CCA/2.0*

That’s pretty impressive, for a rifle designed before there was powered, heavier-than-air flight, and that has fought wars in three centuries.

Memory Lane – The First AK-47’s, Part 1

4 min read

Memory Lane – The First AK-47’s, Part 1

Michael Cessna March 26, 2023

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with modern firearms knows about the AK-47. In fact, we discussed it here, as part of another series. The AK-47 is so well known because it is so widespread, having been handed out at no- or low-cost to so many rifles, that they now appear on national flags and crests.

*Flag of Mozambique, showing an AK-47 in the canton. Public Domain.*

But the AK-47 was not the first weapon to have this kind of impact. This article is the first part of a two-part series on the rifles that had a similar impact to the AK-47. One of those is still all over the world. This one, however, is nowhere near as well known today.

Today, we’re going to talk about the Remington Rolling Block.

*Gevär m/1867, from the Armémuseum (The Swedish Army Museum) collection. CCA-4.0*

As the American Civil War raged, weapons using metallic cartridges began to appear, both in the hands of civilians and on the battlefield. While flashy weapons like the Henry and its descendant from Winchester Repeating Arms are better known, those weapons’ use in the military sphere was very limited. Early cartridge revolvers because popular with cavalry, but the Winchester remained almost solely a civilian weapon.

Armies are conservative by nature. The reason for this is understandable, given the stakes – when a business gambles on new technology, and the new tech fails, that is a very inconvenient; it might even be sad, if it causes the company to fail and costs workers their jobs. In contrast, if an army gambles on new tech and it fails, the consequences can be catastrophic out of all proportion to the technology. Case in point, the mitrailleuse.

*Muzzle view of a Mitrailleuse, Les Invalides, Paris. CCA/3.0*

The mitrailleuse was supposed to be France’s ultimate war-winning weapons system, able to sweep the Republic’s enemies from the battlefield like wheat before the scythe…The problem? It was kept so secret, no one ever trained the French artillery to handle it, and thus no one ever realized what it really was: a simple volley gun that could be loaded moderately quickly, and didn’t have much better range than the regular French rifles.

Result? The Prussians completely demolished the French in 1870-71, and the destruction wrought upon France was immense.

When it came to rifles in the post-American Civil War era, militaries around the world weren’t stupid – they knew that breech loading, metal-case cartridge rifles were the wave of the future…but which one was the best to use? Many countries tried various designs from their arsenals. Many other nations, unable to afford the infrastructure to mass-produce their own internal design, did what states have always done:

They went shopping.

The Remington Company of Ilion, New York, had been making firearms and ammunition since 1816. While it was legendary for its staggering levels of management incompetence (it finally folded permanently in 2020, broken into several pieces), it managed to produce a long and majestic line of firearms. And its first real “smash hit” was the Rolling Block.

The single-shot Remington Rolling Block began in 1863 as a slightly different design. Modified to strengthen the breech mechanism, by 1867, the rifle had matured into a solid weapon. It was rugged, reliable, and – most importantly for armies – was the last word in “soldier-proof”: it literally cannot misfire during loading, and cannot fire unless the breech is fully closed. The action was so strong, it needed virtually no modification when smokeless powder was developed in 1884. The only real danger was the chance of a misfired cartridge “cooking off” while it was being removed from the breech.

*Remington Rolling Block breech mechanism. CCA/3.0*

Remington’s rifle was made in a vast array of calibers and chambering’s. Remington would happily cut barrels for any cartridge provided by the customer. Mechanically much more simple than some thing like a British Martini-Henry and vastly more reliable than the Prussian needle-fired Dreyse rifle, the Rolling Block quickly took the military world by storm.

Although the Rolling Block was never adopted in any great numbers by the United States (due to a very parsimonious Congress), it was adopted by at least forty-seven nations over its lifespan, a staggering achievement for a time (~1880) when there were only about fifty-five “nations” in the world recognized as such.

From the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, to Peru, Qajar Persia and the Papal States (YouTube link), the Rolling Block fought wars, guarded walls and stood in parades for nearly fifty years. It was party to one of the oddities of the Spanish-American War (YouTube link), in 1898. Its last major war was actually World War One (YouTube link), where it served as a second-line rifle for rear area troops. It served countless hunters as far afield as Canada and the heart of Africa, and was “the other buffalo rifle,” next to the Sharps. The last version of the Rolling Block produced by Remington was the elegant “Number 7” target rifle (YouTube link), introduced in 1907.

But, as we will see next week, the Remington Rolling Block was buried in the public mind by a newly arrived competitor in the military rifle market, a rifle what would continue to serve for nearly a century in active military forces, a rifle so iconic, it will likely still be shooting when all the readers of this article will have passed beyond the Pale.

*The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To*

Steampunk 2.0 – The Pneumatic Assault Rifle

6 min read

Steampunk 2.0 – The Pneumatic Assault Rifle

Michael Cessna March 20, 2023

Last week, we discussed the nearly forgotten history of steam-driven, pneumatic artillery from the 1880’s, a set of inventions that resulted in the construction of two US Navy warships, one of which saw action in the Spanish American War.

However, there were other, smaller pneumatic artillery pieces used during the Spanish American War, primarily the 4-inch Sims-Dudley “Dynamite Gun”. The weapon received decidedly mixed reviews: while Frederick Funston, then an American officer advising Cuban guerillas, reported glowingly on it the weapon, Rough Rider commander Colonel (later US President) Theodore Roosevelt was decidedly not a fan.

*Sims-Dudley 4 Inch Dynamite Gun on Field Mount, 1898. Public Domain.*

But – these were not the first pneumatic weapons carried by US Forces.

Many Americans, confused by hysterical anti-gun propaganda, do not realize that the United States was on the cutting edge of military technology from its inception as an independent nation. From the first nation to issue breech loading, flintlock muskets (YouTube link) to flintlock machine guns (YouTube link), the United States armed forces rarely hesitated to embrace new technology, the American Civil War being the singular exception to the rule.

In 1803, French Consul (and soon-to-be Emperor) Napoleon Bonaparte sold the entirety of France’s “Louisiana” holding to the United States, a land deal that became known as the “Louisiana Purchase”, for $15 million (a paltry $337 million in today’s money), a price that amounted to about $0.03 per acre. Napoleon’s offer stunned the US diplomats sent to negotiate the deal, as they had expected to only buy the port and city of New Orleans. Napoleon offered the deal, as France’s hold over its North American territory was shaky, given that Napoleon was locked in an all-out war with great Britain, and trying to defend such a large territory, that France had never really capitalized on, was a headache he did not want.

It is important to understand the magnitude of this land deal: this massive purchase now comprises all or significant part of the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, as well as parts of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. This is quite literally the central third of the “Lower 48” states.

*A map of the acquired lands of the United States. US Government map. Public Domain.*

The problem? No one in the United States really knew what was “out there”: there were only the scattered – and edited – reports of fur trappers and “Mountain Men”, most of whom had good reasons to “creatively edit” their reports. Thus, after the deal was done, President Thomas Jefferson ordered the commissioning of the “Corps of Discovery,” now better known as the “Lewis and Clark Expedition”. The “Corps of Discovery” set out in mid-1804, and returned a little over two years later, in 1806, returning with a wealth of detailed maps and information, that sparked the Western Expansion…

…But that was all in the future.

One of the items carried along with the Corps was a unique and little-known object: an Austrian-made Girandoni Air Rifle.

*Various Austrian rifles; Girandoni Air Rifle at center. From the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum firearms collection, 2018. CCA/4.0.*

The Girandoni (or “Girardoni,” in some spellings) Air Rifle took its name from its eponymous designer, on Bartolomeo Girardoni, who hailed from the Tyrol region. Very little is known for certain about Girandoni, nor about the development cycle for the rifle named for him; in fact, the date of the invention is not absolutely known, as it was apparently sometime in either 1779 or 1780.

Approximately 1,300 rifles are known to have been made, most of them used by the Austrian Empire. A small number, however, were sold commercially, which is apparently how the Lewis and Clark Expedition acquired their example.

The Girandoni, for the late-18^th Century, is a stunningly impressive achievement in “firearms” design. It was a breech loading, lever-operated air gun, feeding from a twenty-round tubular magazine. While not silent, it was quieter than a musket, had no muzzle flash, and produced no smoke from firing, and all in a package that weighed in at just under ten pounds (4.5kg), and less than four feet long.

The air reservoirs were pressurized to between 750 and 1,000 psi (pounds per square inch), giving performances “downrange,” – out to ranges of c.100-125 yards – where the Girandoni’s projectiles would do about the same damage as a modern .38 Special cartridge, and possibly as much as a .45 ACP round, assuming that it was fired from a mostly-full air reservoir. The teardrop-shaped air bottle was screwed into place where the buttstock would normally be. As the rifle delivered almost no recoil to the shooter, the extra weight and mass of a normal stock was not necessary. The Girandoni’s rate of fire was around 20 to 30 shots per minute, depending on air pressure in the reservoir. The three air reservoirs provided with each rifle in Austrian service were refilled, initially, via a hand-pump, not unlike a modern bicycle pump; eventually, an automated pump was mounted in the bed of a small wagon, allowing air bottles to be refilled on the march.

*Recreation of an Austrian Girandoni System Accouterments Bag, including spare air flasks, air pump, wrenches, bullet mold and ladle. Army Heritage Museum, U.S. Army. Public Domain.*

The “firing mechanism” was almost the exact opposite of a conventional flintlock musket. After tipping the rifle up slightly (to drop a lead ball into position), the shooter would push a block protruding from the left side of the rifle to pull a ball from the tubular magazine into line with the bore. When the trigger was pulled, instead of the ‘cock’ (what we now call the ‘hammer’) falling and striking its flint against the frizzen (the latch over the powder pan) to strike a spark and ignite the powder charge, the Girandoni’s cock tripped an internal hammer that struck a pin; this pin pushed backwards, towards the shooter, and struck the head of a vale – not dissimilar to a trumpet valve – which depressed the valve just enough to release a blast of pressurized air. This burst of pressure struck the back of the ball in the chamber, and propelled it down the barrel. Because of the high pressure in the air bottle, the valve would snap shut almost instantly. The shooter would simply repeat the process, until either the ammunition tube was empty, or the air pressure in the reservoir had dropped too low to continue firing.

Needless to say, this seemed to be a definite revolution in military firearms. The Lewis & Clark Expedition made numerous comments in its reports about how impressed and intimidated the Native American tribes were when the Corps demonstrated the Girandoni to them.

The question, then, is: Why didn’t the Girandoni become the new dominant military rifle?

The Girandoni, for all its very impressive performance, was both an expensive and comparatively delicate weapon. Militaries of the time knew very well that when things “went sideways,” as they often do, troops needed a longarm that could withstand combat with bayonets, or be used as a very heavy club – actions that would shatter a Girandoni.

The Girandoni was very useful in the hands of well-trained, independent-minded skirmisher troops, but was not “soldier-proof” (to use the more polite modern phrase), and, even in the hands of well-trained troops, it did not provide enough of an advantage to justify its expense in even limited service.

As with many things, “newer” does not necessarily mean “better”. This is as true today, as it was c.120 years ago…

…Would that people in positions of responsibility would understand that idea more.

Steampunk Tech…What?

5 min read

Steampunk Tech…What?

Michael Cessna March 10, 2023

The dawn of the 19^th Century heralded perhaps the greatest explosion of technological development in human history. While technologies in most areas had been advancing slowly for centuries, a little-understood combination of factors combined to radically reshape human societies, developing – for better or worse – faster in one hundred years, than at any other point in human history. Steam engines radically reshaped transport on land and sea, opening broad new ranges of products, both agricultural and manufactured; the telegraph radically altered patterns of human communication; medicine suddenly evolved from speculation and bloodletting to observable and testable practices, radically reshaping human mortality rates. The maturing of electrical power generation, transmission and use resulted not only in the telegraph and the light bulb, but of an early form of fax machine.

*Caselli’s pantelegraph tinfoil mechanism, 1866. Public Domain.*

In firearms technology, the developments were just as radical. In 1800, the only personal firearms out there were flintlock muskets (aside from some pretty radical one-offs). Less than thirty years later, the percussion cap significantly changed the calculus, by making the musket vastly more reliable. By the end of the 1860’s, self-contained rimfire and centerfire cartridges had begun to dominate the battlefield. Well before the end of the century, smokeless powder and functional machine guns had begun to fundamentally alter infantry warfare.

This steamroller of technological advancement held true in the world of artillery technology, as well. The muzzle-loading cannons of 1800 gave way to breech-loading guns by 1870…Which is where our story actually begins, when artillery met steam power, but off the railroad or warship.

Edmund Louis Gray Zalinski, (1849 – 1909) was a Polish-born American soldier, military engineer and inventor. Born to a Jewish family in Kórnik, Prussian Poland in 1849, he immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1853. Lying about his age to enlist, he joined the US Army and served during the Civil War. Commissioned a 2^nd LT in an artillery regiment from the state of New York, Zalinski served on the staff of General Nelson Miles. While not much is known of the details of his exact service, it was apparently enough to see him offered a commission in the Regular Army after the war, which is a notable thing, given the drastic post-war cuts in manpower and budgets. During his career, he served as an artillery officer at the Fort Jefferson military prison in Florida (where he authored an appeal to President Andrew Johnson to pardon Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had been convicted as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, for the doctor’s service during an outbreak of Yellow Fever at the prison), and as a professor of military science at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). During this time, he patented a number of inventions, including an artillery sight.

In 1883, Zalinski witnessed a demonstration of a pneumatic artillery weapon, designed by D. M. Medford of Chicago, Illinois. Zalinski began working on the idea, and eventually designed his own pneumatic gun. While the Army was not initially interested, the US Navy was intrigued. As chemistry had advanced, it had started to create high explosives, that were far more powerful than the older black powder; however, these new explosives were very unstable, and were liable to detonate when fired in a conventional gun. The Navy, wanting to find a way to use the new tool, thought that Zalinski’s new system might be the answer.

*USS VESUVIUS Dynamite Cruiser, 1888-1922. Photo: H.C. Peabody. Public Domain.*

In late 1887, the USS Vesuvius was laid down at the William Cramp & Sons yard in Philadelphia, PA; she would be commissioned some six months later. As fitted out, the Vesuvius (named for the Italian volcano) carried three 15-inch “dynamite guns” (a term coined by the press), that could each throw a 500-lbs shell (called a “torpedo”, because – Navy) out to about one-and-a-half miles, adjusting the range by varying the air pressure. Without a war to fight, however, the ship was mostly relegated to the dreaded “dog & pony” circuit, visiting port towns to help them celebrate various holidays. In South America, the Brazilian Navy also fitted a 15-inch model to an auxiliary cruiser named the Nichteroy, which was later sold to the US Navy, which named that ship the USS Buffalo.

*15inch ‘Dynamite Gun’, mounted on the Brazilian Navy ship Nitheroy, 1892. Photo by Marc Ferrez, 1982. Public Domain.*

Wanting to stay as far ahead of the game as possible, the Navy also commissioned the USS Holland in 1900, to see if an 8-inch version of Zalinski’s gun could be used on a submarine.

*USS Holland (SS-1), the first submarine of the U.S. Navy, showing the 8-inch dynamite gun muzzle open at the bow. Taken in 1898. US Navy Photo.*

Following a two-year stint in the yards for repairs, Vesuvius returned to the fleet in 1897, as relations with Spain worsened. These tensions would soon lead to the Spanish-American War, in 1898. While the Vesuvius performed well in nighttime raids on the Cuban city of Santiago, the ship was saddled with a number of flaws, not least of which was the fact that it was very difficult to aim her main guns, as they were set deep into her hull, instead of being mounted in more conventional turrets. This led the Navy to convert the Vesuvius into a torpedo test vessel in 1904, stripping her of her ”dynamite guns” and replacing them with a variety of torpedo tubes.

*U.S.S. Vesuvius, c. 1890-1901, showing its main gun barrels protruding from its deck. Library of Congress. Public Domain.*

As well, the US Army would abandon their experiments with Zalinski’s guns. The Army, which was responsible for coast artillery defense, had installed a number of 8- and 15-inch guns at various forts around the country. But, by 1900, the “dynamite guns” had all been dismounted and sold for scrap.

*“Battery Dynamite” at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco, CA. Photo c.1900. Public Domain.*

The reasons for the abandonment of Zalinski’s design are simple: the development of stable high explosives and the limited range of the guns made the “soft-launch” of the pneumatic guns irrelevant, as both issues were easily overcome by conventional artillery. As well, the low velocity of the shells forced them to fire at a high angle, limiting both their accuracy and impact force against armored targets.

While it is neat to speculate on “what if,” the fact remains that pneumatic artillery, although playing an interesting and important role in late-19^th Century artillery, has had its day: the support infrastructure to operate pneumatic guns, even using modern technology, is not sufficient for use in combat, even using rocket assist to increase their range.

There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes – How The French Revolution Ruined Everything

6 min read

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes – How The French Revolution Ruined Everything

Michael Cessna March 3, 2023

In human cultures, worlds and eras have a habit of disappearing. Sometimes, they disappear in a gentle fade-out; sometimes, they evolve, and sometimes, they die in fire. As one example, in mid-1914, Western society had reached a peak of culture, in literature, thought and technology that is hard to understand, some one hundred years later.

Of course, this culture was certainly not all roses: aside from “wealth disparity” and “social inequality,” both recent, and artificially moral, phrases of questionable utility, did have significant impacts on class relations, in the form of simmering anger among the urban poor and lower middle class, that frequently led to riots. Likewise, racism was rampant, despite some surprisingly modern views in many quarters; indeed, no sane person in the early 21^st Century would attempt to defend the actions of Imperial Germany in Southwest Africa, of those of the Belgians in the Congo…or of the United States in its own West, against its Native American population.

*A Rake’s Progress, Plate 4. William Hogarth, 1735. Public Domain.*

But for all that, early 1914 in Europe was still the world of Renoir…And six years later, it was gone, never to return. The places still existed – mostly – and most of the people were still alive, but six years of all-out industrial warfare, revolutions, and a crushing pandemic had left the survivors numbed. The result was a long period of despair, economic depression, social and political strife, that resulted in a tawdry cynicism.

Of course, this was certainly not the first time: Two hundred and thirty-four years ago – and some 131 years before 1920 – a similar event happened, an event that would destroy the Europe of the day, leaving it a pale shadow of its former self.

While the “gory details” (and they were gory) of the French Revolution are not really the point of this article, the earth-shaking similarities between that event and the aftermath of World War 1 are important to understand, because they help inform our modern reality.

*Nine émigrés are executed by guillotine, 1793. Unknown author. Public Domain.*

Taking inspiration from the recent end of the American Colonies’ successful rebellion against Great Britain, the French population rose up against King Louis XVI and the Ancien Régime in 1789, and hammered France into a Frankenstein version of a republic. Surrounding European monarchies, rightly fearing for their own existence, and attempting to return the Ancien Régime to power, wasted little time in launching invasions of France on multiple fronts. These wars would last for some twenty-three years, only ending in with Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat in 1815 on the battlefield of Waterloo, in what is now Belgium.

But, even before Napoleon’s ultimate defeat, the ‘great powers’ of Europe had already gathered in Vienna, Austria, in what became the “Congress of Vienna”, to establish a new European system – the system, in fact, that would be destroyed less than a century later…But that is the “60,000 Foot View.”

More practically, the Congress of Vienna solidified the previous Treaty of Westphalia, which we touched on briefly last year. The impact of the Congress, however, failed to deal with the impact of one of the little understood results of Revolutionary France’s effort to deal with the invasions that began in 1792:

The “Levée en masse” and the rise of Nationalism.

Before the French Revolution, military conscription in Europe was rather rare. Although used by some navies during this period, most nations found it highly distasteful, not to mention dangerous, as it greatly increased the chances of peasant uprisings, and in the middle of a war, that was last thing a nation needed (as the United States would discover in 1863).

While European states certainly preferred to recruit their regular soldiers from within their own nations after the Treaty of Westphalia, hiring professional officers that had been released by their native states (for any of a number of reasons) was considered perfectly normal and common. Although the word “mercenary” has developed a very negative connotation since the end of World War 2, in the 1790’s, it was considered a completely normal practice.

And the United States was certainly not immune – the Marquis de Lafayette (George Washington’s long-time aide), Baron von Steuben (who rebuilt the Continental Army at Valley Forge), the engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko and friends Casimir Pulaski (who would die at the Battle of Savannah) and Michael Kovats de Fabriczy (who would die defending Charleston, South Carolina) (together, known as the “Fathers of American Cavalry”), were quite common in the Continental Army. While many, like Lafayette and Fabriczy were certainly volunteers motivated by the American cause, most of the foreign officers certainly were not, following centuries-old common practice.

*Kazimierz Pulaski. Jan Styka, c.1920-1925. Public Domain.*

But, after the French Revolution, Nationalism began to take hold. Nationalism is the idea that the characteristics of “nation” and “state” are intertwined and inseparable. For example, in the United States, there are various “tribal nations” (such as the Navajo or Cherokee), or any of a number of ethnic “national people” groups from outside of North America, but those ethnic and cultural “nations” are a part of the “state”, in the form of the United States government.

This is not an insignificant point: After Revolutionary France instituted the levée en masse, serving in the military of a foreign state was often seen as something approaching treason. This view would eventually evolve into equating “foreignness” to “evil,” frequently resulting in little or no quarter being offered or given. Aside from some notable exceptions, it has only been in the first quarter of the 21^st Century, in which “mercenaries” (now euphemistically termed “security contractors” or “private military contractors) are seen as an acceptable alternative to “regular” military forces, despite their unreliability.

*Employees of PMC “FDG” in Al-Faluja, Anbar province (Iraq), 2007. CCA/3.0*

Over time, nationalism began to take on its own negative connotations – for obvious reasons – and was replaced, very briefly, with “globalism,” and its associate term, “globalization”, doctrines that are now beginning to collapse after a bare thirty years of experimentation, despite attempts to couch the terminology.

This brings us to 2023.

With technological acceleration and the rise of the online job market, skilled workers can frequently work from home, managing offices and even factories on the other side of the planet via online conferencing. Meanwhile, industrial production has evolved to the point where only moderate levels of skill are required to perform maintenance and repair on plant equipment.

These points, along with other factors deriving from the acceleration of technological development, are causing people to increasingly question the utility of “nationalism,” as well their own, personal, “national identity.”

The issue? “Evil,” despite attempts to dismiss or consign the term to the passé in recent years, still exists. And “Evil” does not negotiate. The response to this is, and always has been, direct military confrontation; while myriad examples of individual failures – and successes – in “anti-Evil” warfare can be cited, those are not the point.

Massed military force is needed to fight Evil when it stops being metaphorical, and enters the physical realm, lest it get out of hand.

*Bombed out streets of Mosul. Northern Iraq, Western Asia. 18 November, 2016. Photo: Mstyslav Chernov. CCA/4.0*

But, militaries around the world (and especially in the West) are finding it increasingly difficult to fill their ranks without resorting to conscription, and in many countries – including the United States – even instituting conscription, while certainly legal, is politically impossible, and could easily lead to widespread revolts, possibly rising to the level of revolution.

*U.S. Air Force Col. Becky Beers, administers the Oath of Enlistment to U.S. Air and Space Force recruits, Nov. 17, 2020. U.S. Space Force photo by Van Ha. Public Domain.*

But – Evil is still out there, waiting, training and planning. And it still needs to be dealt with.

The reasons for this situation are not well understood: Is it a failure of nationalism? A failure of globalization? “Wokeness”? No studies seem to be taking a look at this phenomenon…But it is something that needs to be addressed urgently, because – as Thomas Sowell, PhD (Economics, U. of Chicago, 1968) says in his 1980 book “Knowledge and Decisions”

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.”

Kalashnikov’s Immortal Children – The AK Series

5 min read

Kalashnikov’s Immortal Children – The AK Series

Michael Cessna February 25, 2023

Near the end of World War 2, the Soviet Union was searching for a new rifle. While the country was very happy with the venerable 7.62x54mmR (Rimmed) cartridge (dating from the 1880’s), its primary service rifle – the Mosin-Nagant – was long past its due date. The Mosin was, and is, a terrible rifle. Its one major positive, was that the Soviet state arms factories had been producing it for so long, they could (figuratively) make the rifles in their sleep. The 7.62x54R was, and remains, a fantastic cartridge for machine guns, as well as for sniper weapons, but as a general-issue cartridge for infantry weapons, there are serious issues that run against the cartridge, as the Soviets discovered to their regret.

*SVT-40 Russian semi-automatic rifle (1940), without magazine. Caliber 7.62x54mmR. From the collections of Armémuseum (Swedish Army Museum), Stockholm, Sweden. CCA/4.0*

The solution presented itself in the form of the M43 cartridge. The M43 – developed in 1943 – was formally adopted in 1945, for use in the SKS rifle. But the SKS, although a perfectly fine weapon, was on the tail end of technical developments, much like the Western FN-49 rifle. The Soviets had found that as war had changed, so too did tactics need to evolve as well. We touched on these tactical concerns recently, but a short review is warranted.

In their fight-back against Nazi Germany, the Soviets had learned that massed, fully automatic firepower from the infantry, assaulting alongside tanks, was one of the main keys to victory. This was especially true in assaulting into urban areas, where suppressive fire, delivered in close concert with the infantry, was vital to success. In these tight, fast-moving combat environments, long, cumbersome and slow-firing weapons like the Mosin (even in its shorter cavalry carbine version) were simply incapable of getting the tasks done.

The Soviet solution was deploying massive numbers (YouTube link) of submachine guns. This, however, was only a stopgap solution, as almost all SMG’s fire pistol caliber only. Even when using a longer barrel than a handgun, this significantly restricted the range of the weapons, forcing Soviet infantry to not fire until almost at point-blank range. And after that, if ranges suddenly opened back up, SMG-armed troops were immediately thrust back into a severe range disadvantage.

The solution to this problem was not a smaller weapon, but a carbine-class cartridge – and hence, the M43 was born. Fired from a 14- to 16-inch barrel, the M43 is accurate to 300-400 meters.

*Home studio shot of the most common pistol and rifle cartridges. From left to right: 5.45×39mm, 5.56×45mm NATO, 7.62×39mm (**the M43 cartridge**), 7.62×51mm NATO and 7.62×54mmR. CC0/1.0*

As noted above, although the SKS was – and is – an excellent carbine, it is severely limited by its fixed, 10-round magazine. A different weapon was required, a weapon that could feed its ammunition through a detachable magazine, similarly to an SMG, and with a similar ammunition capacity, of preferably in the range of thirty rounds. It needed to be selective-fire (capable of firing either single shots, for accurate fire, or emptying its contents in bursts, in the assault), and it needed to be compact, to fit in tight confines in vehicles, and when maneuvering through trenches and urban areas.

*SKS Carabine, with charger strip of M43 ammunition inserted. CCA/4.0*

The Soviets had faced the German StG-44 – the first true “assault rifle” – on the Eastern Front, and it fit the requirements for their new weapon. Although certain quarters still try to insist that what became the AK47 is a copy of the StG-44, nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from a superficial resemblance on the outside, the AK47 and the StG-44 are completely different weapons under the skin.

Which brings us to Mikhail Kalashnikov.

*Senior Sergeant Mikhail Kalashnikov, c.1944. Mil.ru. CCA/4.0*

Although the story has almost certainly been embellished over the decades, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (1919-2013) had grown up tinkering, as so many inventors do, with anything mechanical. But his “grease monkey” side was balanced with his love of poetry; he would go on to publish six books of poems over the years. In 1938, Kalashnikov was conscripted into the Red Army, where his engineering skills had him first assigned as a tank mechanic, and then a tank commander. When Nazi Germany turned on Stalinist Russia, Kalashnikov commanded his T-34 tank in several battles, before being seriously wounded at the Battle of Bryansk in October of 1941.

While recuperating in the hospital, Kalashnikov began designing small arms in earnest. His design for a submachine gun was rejected in 1942, but was seen as good enough to warrant assigning him to the Central Scientific-developmental Firing Range for Rifle Firearms of the Chief Artillery Directorate of the Red Army.

*The original prototype of the Kalashnikov rifle. CCA/2.0*

Over time, his design would evolve, eventually being adopted as the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova, model 1947).

*English: AK-47 copies confiscated from Somali pirates by Finnish minelayer Pohjanmaa, during Operation Atalanta, c.2012. Public Domain.*

Comparatively light in weight and relatively cheap (especially after a stamping process was developed for the receivers), the AK47 was also more reliable than most of its Western competitors, and was a very easy weapon to learn. If the stock version of the AK47 has a major fault, it is the rifle’s “iron” (or, “manual”) sights, which – while usable – need real improvement. In this regard, however, it is no worse than most of the rifles and carbines that preceded it.

Once the design was perfected, the Soviet Union began producing them on a gargantuan scale. Factoring in licensing to non-Soviet manufacturers, a 2007 study (pdf link) estimated that, of the c.500million firearms in circulation in the world, approximately 100million are AK-variant weapons, with some ~75million being AK47’s.

AK47s are, quite literally, everywhere: in every conflict zone in the world – actual or potential – a person is guaranteed to run across an AK-variant rifle. The weapon is so ubiquitous, it is a central feature on national flags and emblems from Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to East Timor, in the Pacific Ocean.

*PAIGC Carrying weapons to Hermangono, Guinea-Bissau. Kalashnikov AK-47. Photo: **Roel Coutinho**, 1973. CCA/4.0*

The only significant version to see widespread service to date is the AK74. Entering service in 1974, the AK74 is chambered for the 5.45x39mm cartridge. This caliber was chosen as a result of studies of infantry combat during the Vietnam War (1946-1975), where the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerillas battled with French and US forces, the latter of whom deployed the M-16, in 5.56x54mm. While sharing the simplicity and reliability of its older sibling, the –74 is merely different – “good different,” to be sure, but only that. The later Kalashnikov variants have never surpassed the older rifle in popularity, reinforcing the rubric, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

For good or for ill, Kalashnikov rifles have battled across the globe for over 75 years, and are not likely to disappear within the lifetimes of the readers of this article. Anyone who thinks that they may encounter a Kalashnikov model at some point, would do well to find a manual – if not an actual weapon – and learn how to employ it.

One never knows when that kind of information might come in handy.

*AK47 Manual, 2009. USMC. Public Domain.*

Spy Tech – Numbers Stations: The Immortal Dinosaur

4 min read

Spy Tech – Numbers Stations: The Immortal Dinosaur

Michael Cessna February 21, 2023

In the intelligence world, one of the key disciplines is communicating information securely. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is, albeit for different reasons. Since the invention of radio communication – or “wireless telegraphy,” if you prefer – has been the Numbers Station.

To understand what a numbers station (One-Way Voice Link, or OWVL), is the technical term) is, we briefly have to discuss cryptography.

In its simplest form, cryptography is the art of making and breaking codes. Over the course of human history, many states and leaders have come up with various, often ingenious, codes and ciphers, as well as the means to both break them and manipulate them. Sir Francis Walsingham, official spymaster for the first Queen Elizabeth, was responsible (among many other things) for the interception and breaking of the ciphers used by Mary, Queen of Scots – an intelligence operation that resulted in that monarch’s execution. Likewise, the “polyalphabetic substitution cipher”, invented by an Italian cryptographer named Giovan Battista Bellaso in 1553 (better known as the Vigenère cipher), was so strong, it remained unbroken until 1863. There are many other systems – ancient, new and unique – but all share the same fundamental flaw: Key Distribution.

*Front matter of Cifra (1553), Bellaso. Public Domain.*

In cryptography, encipherment and decipherment are relatively easy, but only if both sender and receiver share the code – and written codes, as proved by Walsingham – can be intercepted, opening messages’ secrets that could and did lead to war, death and betrayal.

Heavy stuff.

The goal of key distribution was only solved – for a time, at least – by the invention of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) in the 1990’s…but that’s for another time.

But the problem, ‘back in the day’, seemed insurmountable: in order to decipher a message, the receiver required a copy of the code, a serious problem if a considerable distance separated sender and receiver. The Vigenère cipher, however, significantly reduced that problem through what we would now call “keywords”. Still, as was proven in 1854 by English mathematician and scientist Charles Babbage, Prussian army Major Friedrich Wilhelm Kasiski in 1863, and by American engineer William F. Friedman in the 1920’s, the Vigenère cipher model could, and was, breakable, via frequency analysis.

As early as World War 1, strange radio transmissions in the short-wave band began to be heard over the public airwaves. These stations transmitted signals in Morse Code, but the transmissions were not encoded. Instead, they were just strings of letters, numbers, and occasionally both. It quickly became apparent that these signals were almost certainly in a code of some kind, but no one – in public, at least – was able to decode the signals. They were resistant to frequency attacks, and seemed to be immune to proven forms of cryptanalytic attack.

This was the births of the One-Time Pad (OTP) and the Numbers Station.

*An example of a one-time pad. Mysid, 2007. Public Domain.*

First outlined in 1882 by the American banker Frank Miller, the OTP was reinvented in 1917, patented in the United States by Gilbert Vernam and Joseph Mauborgne (pdf link). In this coding system, random strings of letters or numbers (and sometimes both) were added or subtracted against a list of random numbers, to produce an enciphered message. The receiver – who would have a copy of the list of numbers – would, using their copy of the list – work in reverse, to reveal the message. Once received and decrypted, both sender and receiver would cross out the section of the numbers list they had used…and never use those exact sequences again.

And, up to this day, as long as the strict requirements of the system are followed, the messages are indecipherable, unless a decrypter has access to the key. (For a full discussion of the practical use of OTP’s, visit this PDF file).

What someone had realized was that an encoded signal did not have to go via telephone, telegraph or mail, all of which were open to interception. Instead, all a secret agent in the field needed, was a radio capable of picking up the Morse signals on the proper frequency, to receive a message. And, with the OTP, the agent’s “codebook” was shrunken to the size of a roll of postage stamps.

As time went on, wireless radio moved from Morse to verbal speech, helping to eliminate errors in transmission. National intelligence services constructed powerful shortwave transmission towers in areas they controlled around the world, and – in addition to the normal propaganda broadcasts and music they would play – would periodically pause, and transmit strings of letters and/or numbers at specific times of the day.

*Three portable shortwave receivers. CCA/3.0*

Counterintelligence officers found this highly frustrating, because there was no way to monitor who had a simple radio receiver. Capturing agents was usually through those agent’s mistakes, not through any kind of cunning technology.

And that is where things stand, to this day. Numbers stations transmit messages “in the clear,” and unless someone makes a mistake, there is no way to decipher the messages. No nation, incidentally, will openly admit to operating a numbers station, and will only rarely acknowledge their existence, as happened in the “Atención spy case”, where the bumbling of a group of agents from Fidel Castro’s Cuba rolled up a network of some twenty-seven agents, among many other operations.

There are civilian monitoring groups out on the internet for the interested sleuth, such as the Numbers Stations Research & Information Center, and PRIYOM.

…Just…please don’t get caught doing dumb things. If certain parties in government think you are up to no good, you won’t be able to catch our articles on time.

Priorities, you know.

Memory Lane – The First PDW…That Actually Worked

3 min read

Memory Lane – The First PDW…That Actually Worked

Michael Cessna February 11, 2023

As the Cold War wound down in the early 1990’s, militaries around the world were being forced to prematurely “beat plowshares into swords.” Part of the so-called “peace dividend” was interpreted to mean that military forces had to take on more “civic” missions, in order to remain relevant. As a part of that shift in focus, certain quarters thought that “reinventing the wheel” was a good idea. In that regard, one of their less-than-bright ideas was to reinvent the concept of the submachine gun (SMG)…and, since reactionary-anything is regarded negatively, they had to slap a new logo onto the idea.

And thus, the Personal Defense Weapon (the PDW) was born.

The idea was for something better than a handgun, but something not as powerful as an “assault rifle”. Readers may recall a recent article wherein we discussed this very concept. Without going into exhaustive detail, the results were less than spectacular…not least, since the PDW – then known as the “machine pistol” – had already been done some ninety-five years before, and had been done much better than the modern PDW.

The thirty-year period from 1884 to 1914 was a wild time for military small arms development, and for military arms development in general. It saw the development of high-pressure smokeless gunpowder, aerodynamically shaped projectiles, the first practical machine guns, and semiautomatic handguns. It saw the development not only of aircraft that didn’t relay on hydrogen gas for lift, but saw the first use of airplanes for bombing targets…and, unfortunately, saw the prelude to modern chemical weapons.

Amid the tumult, one weapon stood out: The C-96 Pistol, made by the legendary Mauser company.

Heavy and somewhat ungainly, the C-96 was a semiautomatic, that fed its ammunition from a ten round strip-clip; later models would use 20- and 40-round detachable box magazines. In a time long before neurotic and incoherent restrictions on firearms, the pistol’s grip was cut to accept a shoulder stock, allowing the shooter much more control over the weapon and increasing its accuracy considerably. Due to its compact size, even with a stock affixed, the weapon was easily wielded in very tight confines, making it one of the main choices for trench warfare when World War 1 settled into its slugfest phase, a role it would later play in China’s war against Japan.

*Chinese soldier aiming Shansi Type 17 while wearing a gas mask, c.1937-1945. Public Domain.*

As well, the pistol’s original cartridge, the 7.63x25mm Mauser cartridge, was no slouch: when the Royal Italian Navy tested what would become their 1899 Contract model, it was reliably punching 25mm-deep holes into 60mm-thick fir boards at a range of 1,000 meters (YouTube link).

The pistol was reliable enough, if having a problematic concept of a “safety” mechanism. Despite its clumsiness, however, Mauser quickly found itself with a hit to compliment its Gewehr 98 rifle, albeit not enjoying nearly as wide an acceptance. However, the steady stream of international orders for militaries quickly made the pistol a solid win for Mauser.

As World War 1 grew, the nations led by Germany needed more and more handguns, and Mauser greatly increased its production of the C-96, even changing its caliber to the more common 9x19mm; those pistols had a large, red-painted, numeral “9” engraved into their hand grips, to differentiate them from the originals.

*Mauser C96 M1916 “Red 9” with holster-stock fixed. CCA/4.0*

Post-WW1, Mauser continued the development of the C-96 for its foreign markets, eventually producing the Schnellfeuer (rapid fire) selective-fire pistol with detachable magazines in 1932, after the Spanish gun-makers Beistegui Hermanos and Astra had started making variants in the late 1920’s.

*Mauser C-96 machine pistol, model 712, with detachable magazine. Public Domain.*

Over the decades, attempts were made to put machine pistols into service, but weapons like the Vz-61 Škorpion and the VP-70 never really caught on like the C-96 had.

While the C-96 is long gone, its legacy has never really been equaled. The SMG came and went, displaced by the assault rifle for most functions, and after the painful silliness of the various PDW projects, militaries settled on just using a simple handgun for their ‘back-up’ weapon to a long arm…which is unfortunate, since there was once a complete package of weapon that fit the needs of the PDW precisely.

Infrastructure – America’s Jugular Vein

6 min read

Infrastructure – America’s Jugular Vein

Michael Cessna February 4, 2023

Unless a person has paid essentially no attention to any news for the last twenty years, strident complaints and warnings about the abysmal state of basic infrastructure in the United States is nearly impossible to avoid.

Highways, local roads, bridges, railroads – the arteries that carry both commerce and the work force, both inter- and intrastate – are in terrible condition. The situation has become critical enough, that it has noticeably slowed the velocity of the supply chain, compounding the impacts of both the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the grounding of the MV Ever Given container ship in 2021.

Critically, failures in the railroad network caused by favoring profiteering over operational efficiency – one of the few examples of actual failure in deregulation policies – are leading to staff cuts of up to twenty-nine percent, while the mileage of operating rail track has steadily decreased, even though per-mile profits rise.

*An eastbound freight train at West Drive overpass in Brampton, Ontario. CCA/4.0*

This is a toxic situation, as the imbalance between railroads and over-the-road (OTR) trucking continues to grow. Even given the inefficiencies inherent in OTR vs Rail (as freight trains commonly haul between 200 and 300 intermodal containers, or dedicated freight cars, allowing a crew of three or four to do the work of 200 or more people), slowdowns caused by poor infrastructure increasingly impact the economy…

All of this has been known for decades, although it is little remarked about in the mainstream press, unless there is some major newsworthy nugget to titillate the audience…That said – what does this have to do with a critical strategic threat to the United States? What does this have to do with security and defense, aside from the obvious logistics advantages?

A recent YouTube video by the channel “Real Life Lore” (YouTube link) pointed out that the Continental United States, i.e., the “Lower 48”, is uniquely blessed with a unique terrain that practically guarantees global economic dominance to anyone who can control this territory. This has, in fact, been the reason for the meteoric rise of the United States over the course of the last one hundred and thirty-odd years.

*A map of the Mississippi River Basin, made using USGS data. CCA/4.0*

The driving engine behind this geological and geographical system lays in the facts that, first, no major agricultural or manufacturing center in the Lower 48 is further than 150 miles (240km) from a navigable waterway. East of the Rocky Mountains, the majority of navigable waterways feed into the Mississippi River system (which is itself navigable all the way to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota), which then flows south, to the port of New Orleans.

From there, the Intracoastal Waterway chain of barrier islands provides a near contiguous navigable seaway, for almost the entire length of the US coast, from Brownsville, Texas, to Virginia, and from there, to the Hudson River, which connects to the Great Lakes, all with little exposure to open sea conditions. No other continent has this precise mix of features. And, as water transport is anywhere from ten to thirty times more efficient than any other type of transport, the titanic economic advantages are obvious.

However – there is a catch: Vidalia, Louisiana.

Most readers will have never heard of Vidalia. This is not surprising, as it is a tiny town of barely 4,300 people, even though it is the seat of Concordia Parish. Vidalia, however, is home to perhaps the single-most critical point of physical security in the world:

The Old River Control Structure.

Completed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1963, the Old River Control Structure was built to prevent the Mississippi River from diverting its course into the Atchafalaya River. The Mississippi River’s tends to wander over time. For the entire existence of the United States as a nation, the Mississippi followed (more or less) its current course. As a result, the city of New Orleans – and its seaport – was built and expanded into the critical complex that it is today. Indeed, it was a pivotal point in the War of 1812, in a battle that launched the career of a future President, and later formed a cornerstone of Federal strategy in the Civil War.

*The delta of the Atchafalaya River on the Gulf of Mexico. View is upriver to the northwest. 1999. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.*

In 1953, however, the Corps of Engineers concluded that the Mississippi was beginning to shift its course again, and that if left unchecked, it would divert into the Atchafalaya Basin by 1990. Thus, they launched the Old River Control Structure project at their predicted point of divergence at Vidalia, as the result of such a diversion would be catastrophic, as the Mississippi river would quickly and violently carve a new channel and river delta complex, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico some sixty miles to the west of New Orleans, an even that would leave both New Orleans and the Louisiana state capital of Baton Rouge not simply ‘high and dry’, but would leave both major cities without a source of fresh water.

Aside from the catastrophic environmental impact on the United States and major cities along the river’s route –as well as the significant impact on the strategic military system of the US in the Lower 48 – the impact on the economy of the United States would almost certainly lead to another “Great Depression”, virtually overnight, an economic contagion that would almost certainly crash the world’s economy, as the United States’ economic system is not designed to flow “upriver”.

The Corps of Engineers did a fantastic job on the control project; the only significant natural threat to the structure was the Mississippi flood of 1973, with damaged the structure to a degree.

*Mississippi River inundating Morgan City, Louisiana, May, 1973. Environmental Protection Agency. Public Domain.*

But now, we live in the world of the early 21^st Century, and “lateral thinking” about security has to be taken into account…Specifically, the “Poor Man’s Nuclear Weapon”.

On April 16, 1947, an explosion in the port of Texas City, Texas mostly vaporized the SS Grandcamp, formerly, the SS Benjamin R. Curtis, a Liberty Ship built during World War 2 and later gifted to France to help rebuild that country’s merchant marine. The ship had been loaded with approximately 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate – used in fertilizer or explosives – as well as small mounts of other cargo. The explosion leveled nearly 1,000 buildings within 2,000 feet of the explosion, killing at least 560 people (including all but one of the town’s 28-man volunteer fire department) and injuring more than 5,000 people, almost 1,800 of whom were admitted to area hospitals. Some 63 people were unidentifiable, and were buried in a memorial cemetery; an additional 113 people were declared “missing”, because no identifiable parts could be found. The Grandcamp’s 2-ton anchor was hurled over 1.5 miles, digging itself into a 10-ft deep crater, while one of her propellers was thrown 2 miles inland. More than 1,100 vehicles, 360 rail freight cars and 500 homes were damaged; 10 miles away, in the city of Galveston, half the windows in town were shattered. All told, damages totaled between $1,000,000,000 and $4,500,000,000, in 2019 dollars.

*Texas City disaster. Parking lot 1/4 of a mile away from the explosion, 1947. University of Houston Digital Library.*

Then, on August 4, 2020, an estimated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer – confiscated from an impounded ship nearly a decade before – detonated in a gargantuan explosion. The blast – estimated as equal to 1.1 kilotons of TNT – killed at least 218 people, injured over 7,000, and left nearly 300,000 people homeless.

*Port of Beirut, Lebanon. Before (Left, 7/30/2020) and after (R) comparison showing blast damage from the August 4,2020 explosion (circled area). Google Earth Pro and Maxar Technologies.*

Such a blast would critically damage the Old River Control Structure; two or three, should they happen simultaneously, would certainly destroy it outright. Neither ships, nor ammonium nitrate, are hard to come by. And they are not, comparatively, all that expensive. Both are within easy reach of many “extra-national hostile groups”. And the MV Rhosus, the ship at the center of the Beirut blast story, would have been capable of transiting for most of the Mississippi’s length…

…And yet, there are no real security measures in Vidalia that would prevent an American version of the St. Nazaire Raid.

Someone should really look into this.

Really.

Essays

The Landlocked Battleship – Old Is New?

Memory Lane – The First AK-47’s, Part 2

Memory Lane – The First AK-47’s, Part 1

Steampunk 2.0 – The Pneumatic Assault Rifle

Steampunk Tech…What?

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes – How The French Revolution Ruined Everything

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.”

Kalashnikov’s Immortal Children – The AK Series

Spy Tech – Numbers Stations: The Immortal Dinosaur

Memory Lane – The First PDW…That Actually Worked

Infrastructure – America’s Jugular Vein

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