Established on June 16, 1993, under Executive Decree No.65, the Salvadoran Military Museum is located at the old El Zapote Fort (10 Avenida Sur and Calle Alberto Sánchez) in San Jacinto, San Salvador. El Zapote fortress’ physical appearance is impressive, by regional standards, and it’s linked to the development of the Salvadoran artillery corps. At one point, the museum’s collection included fourteen exhibition rooms and two interactive areas and duly had a rich collection. In addition, it had an extensive football field that doubled as parade ground. However, a few years ago, the exhibits were moved within the walls of the fort, and the museum went down the hill, with few exhibits remaining open to the public, in poorly lighted and unkept rooms, and relying more on pictures of different leaders with no relevant information about them. El Zapote Museum became a shadow of what it once was, and it did little to preserve the proud Salvadoran military heritage.

Things finally appear to be changing again for the better. Within the last year, the Salvadoran presidency has been using the installations for a number of functions that have highlighted the museum, and now there is an awesome parade ground with manicured gardens and spaces leading to the old presidential offices, which also function as part of the cultural space, with tours offered of the Oval Hall, Hall of Honor, Dr. José Matías Delgado Hall, Official Office Hall, Gerardo Barrios Hall, Juan Manuel Rodríguez Hall and General Manuel José Arce Room or “Blue Room.” In August 2018, the government initiated a three-stage project to convert and revitalize the cultural spaces of the San Jacinto neighborhood in the center of San Salvador, with an investment of $22 million, and the first stage was completed in February 2019. However, it has been only within the last few months that a number of exhibits have been reopened and/or relocated, making them accessible to the public. Unfortunately, and as explained later, some items have been lost forever.

In contrast, the Honduran Military Museum Francisco Morazán is located into a much more confined physical space. It occupies the old San Francisco Fort in front of Valle Park in downtown Tegucigalpa, maximizing its space and having well-lit rooms, and patios with weapons featuring basic explanation cards. The museum was reconditioned and reopened to the public in May 2017, with nine exhibits and several static displays.

One of the most important exhibits is dedicated to the Salvadoran invasion of July 1969. This includes a video presentation of the crisis, and… a distortion of some historical events. The exhibit claims the Salvadoran front collapsed after Honduran forces were able to execute a counteroffensive on July 16, 1969 along the Southern Operational Theater (or “TOS” in Spanish), and after execution of a deadly ambush executed around San Rafael las Mataras farm on July 17, 1969, in the South Western Theater of Operations (or TOSO in Spanish).

The truth is that the Salvadoran front did not collapse, and, in fact, held-on to occupied territory until August 3, 1969. Nevertheless, both actions deserve their rightful merit. The Honduran counteroffensive of July 16, 1969, stalled the Salvadoran Army advance, but failed in dislodging it. The ambush at las Mataras, El Portillo area cost the Salvadoran forces the initiative at a considerable loss of life and equipment. However, the presentation overestimates the results since it also failed to collapse the Salvadoran forces. After the ambush, the Salvadoran National Guard was able to basically cut off and isolate the Honduran forces at El Portillo, prompting the deployment of the Honduran II (MAP) Infantry Battalion to Llano Largo in an attempt to encircle the Salvadoran National Guard. This experience at the San Francisco Museum motivated me to write Battleground – the Honduran and Salvadoran border conflict 1967 – 1980.

BLUE SKY OPERATION

Very little has been said about the ground actions that took place during the Salvadoran incursion into Honduras between July 14 and August 3, 1969. The conflict became known incorrectly as the “Football War”, focusing on the period between June and July of that year. However, the situation along the border had reached the boiling point much earlier.

On May 29, 1967, a Salvadoran National Guard patrol was ambushed at the border area of ​​Monteca, Salvadoran territory, by a Honduran Army unit. As a response, the Salvadoran National Guard reinforced its bases in Chalatenango and Morazán, and other border points, while the Army mobilized its two MAP battalions, the 1st Battalion from Sonsonate and the 3rd Battalion from San Miguel, to the border on June 4, 1967. The following day, a four-truck military convoy from the Salvadoran 1st Regiment/1st Battalion/1st Brigade stumbled into the Honduran city of New Ocotepeque, where a single Honduran police officer detained it. The load included VZ-24 rifles, up to 15 Madsen machine guns and four Madsen 51mm mortars, along with their ammunition. After this event, the tension somewhat subsided and in 1968 there was a prisoner exchange, with Honduras returning the two officers, two national guardsmen, and more than 40 soldiers for the return of one convicted individual related to the Honduran strongmen at the time, General Lopez Arellano.

There were twelve major armed clashes reported along the border between May 1967 and June 1969. This situation culminated in the Salvadoran invasion on July 15, 1969, and a short, but deadly engagement that lasted some 120 hours. The Salvadoran raid was codenamed operation “Clear Sky” and relied in the Gerardo Barrios Campaign Plan developed in 1967. It would take two cease fires, one on July 18, 1969, and the other one on July 23, 1976, before a peace treaty was finally signed on July 20, 1980. The aftermath of this engagement led to the evolution and rearmament of both armies and contributed to the revolutionary conflict that develop in a reduced form in Honduras, and in full-scale infighting in El Salvador.

MILITARY MEMORY LAPSE

By 1969, the Central American armies had ordered their first assault rifles, and Honduras had asked for 2500 M14 rifles from the U.S. On July 17, 1969, the Salvadoran newspaper El Diario de Hoy, published the picture of POW Eugenio Hernández from the Honduran I (MAP) Infantry Battalion stating that he had been captured with a T-57 rifle. As the picture shows the barrel of a Mauser rifle, some speculated that the T-57 refers to Honduras’s designation for the Mauser. Given that the Salvadoran Army used the Mauser, as well, it seems odd that the news made particular mention of the rifle as the T-57. It is noted that T-57 normally refers to Taiwan’s version of the M14. In 1967 the U.S. sold Springfield’s M14 production tooling and assembly lines to Taiwan, and in 1968, the Republic of China State Arsenal began production of the rifle under the designation Type 57 (T-57). It is noted that in the aftermath of the Salvadoran invasion, the M14, and perhaps its twin model, the T-57 made in Taiwan, became the standard issue rifle until replaced with the FAL by the mid-1970s.

Unfortunately, the reference to the T-57 as a Taiwanese model is only speculation since the Salvadorans looted everything, including their own war-trophies. It’s known that the Salvadorans seized rifles, submachine guns (M50 and others), and machine guns, with the Honduran Army crest, during the raid in Honduras. There are even photographs of two jeeps with Honduran Army markings seized during the incursion. Yet, none of them are available at the Salvadoran Military Museum. Heck, even many of the Salvadoran historical weapons have disappeared, most of them given away in controversial weapon barters realized as soon as the civil-war ended in 1992, and up to 2012.

As soon as the shots stopped, the Air Force disposed of all the surviving Alouette helicopters, selling them as junk, and even the last flyable Corsair is said to have gone in exchange for a couple of Cherokee station-wagons. In 2020, two former defense ministers were arrested after it was disclosed that 14,930 firearms, 27,721 magazines, 2.7 million 7.62 caliber cartridges, and 9,800 spare parts for the G-3 rifles were provided to Centrum S.A de C.V (a local small arms dealer) in exchange for two M-71 howitzers and tools that were supposed to be worth some $2 million. Later it was found that the exchange in reality included 23,306 firearms and was valued at $3,277,097.28. However, according to the documents presented by the Attorney General’s Office (or FGR in Spanish) in 2021, the weapons were worth more than $8 million but their original value was manipulated in favor of Centrum, reducing the initial appraisal of $480 per gun, to $200, and, finally, to $42 per weapon. The lot contained 4,593 FMK-3 Argentinean-made SMGs, 2,670 of them brand new, 83 UZI Israeli-made SMGs, 700 MP5 German-made SMGs, 1,873 M50 Madsen Danish-made SMGs, 32 Styer Austrian-made Bullpup rifles, and an inventory of more than 16,000 G-3 rifles, 709 of them in mint condition (150 in original package), and up to 9,000 spare parts for of all types of weapons. To top it off, the FGR reported that the two M-71 howitzers were unworkable.

Prior to that barter, the military had disposed, quietly and in similar fashion, historical armament, to include the old CV3-33 tanks (the first of its kind used in El Salvador and disposed long ago), most of the old/antique small arms, to include Luger pistols, Mausers and Mauser-like rifles and respective bayonets, MP-28 SMGs, MG-30s, antique Gatling cannons, and other exotic weapons. There are not even illustrations of the CV-3-33, the Solothurn, Madsen M/38, and Breda 20mm autocannons once used by the military or the first coastguard cutters (GC-1 and GC-2), much less of the sole gunboat, the Cuscatlán, acquired in 1890.

In contrast, in Honduras, the military has preserved a number of antique and historically important weapons, to include captured Salvadoran examples, such as Madsen machine guns and 51mm mortars seized in June 1967, as well as a bounty of G3 rifles, G8 (HK-21) automatic rifles, and even an M37A1 anti-tank cannon, captured during the deadly San Rafael las Mataras ambush executed on July 17, 1969, on the highway between Nueva Ocotepeque and Santa Rosa de Lima. An M38C jeep, said to have been seized to the Salvadoran Army, parades with veterans every July. It needs to be noted that Honduras has probably experienced the same challenges annotated in El Salvador.

EL ZAPOTE FORT

El Zapote Fort was established in 1898, when a metal galley was built on what was previously a hill where zapote trees were abundant, hence its name. In 1900, the Cavalry was established as an independent body and consolidated at El Zapote Fort, but it marched away on 1906, being replaced by the First Infantry Regiment. At the time, the Second Artillery Regiment was housed at the San Francisco Fort, in downtown San Salvador (the Artillery Brigade/First Artillery Regiment was housed in Santa Ana). The First Infantry Regiment shared the installations with the First Machine Gun Regiment when it was established in 1912.

On September 24, 1914, the Salvadoran Artillery modernized with 53mm Krupp and 75mm Gruson Mle 1897 cannons, and in 1917, it consolidated in a single First Artillery Regiment in El Zapote. The First Infantry Regiment marched to occupy the San Francisco Fort in downtown San Salvador, and the First Machine Gun Regiment went to share installations with the 2nd Infantry Regiment at the Francisco Menéndez Fort, also in downtown San Salvador. That same year (1917), the metal galley gave way to a wooden house. El Zapote housed, at one point or another, the School of Corporals and Sergeants, and played a prominent role in the December 1931 coup that brought to power General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez.

In 1937, architect Borromeo Flores began the construction of the present structure, implementing a building resembling a medieval castle, with four towers, one in each corner, and two on its façade. In April 1944, El Zapote Fort backed General Hernandez Martinez in crushing a coup d’é·tat, and 28 years later, on March 25, 1972, El Zapote garrison became involved once more in a coup, this time against the military regimen. That day, then-Captain Rafael Bustillo dropped a bomb from his Mustang P-51 that destroyed the southwest tower, where there was an anti-aircraft gun firing at him.

In 1976 the Artillery Regiment vacated El Zapote, and marched to a new base some 37 km from San Salvador, where it became the Artillery Brigade “Lt. Col. Oscar Osorio.” El Zapote was then occupied by the Armed Forces Transmission Instruction Center (CITFA) in 1980. The CITFA became the Communications Command in 1993, and moved to occupy the San Carlos Fort, leaving the installations to the new Military Museum.

SAN FRANCISCO FORT

The San Francisco Fort Museum was established in 1983, and the Fort itself occupies the area that was once the San Diego de Álcala Convent (1592). This installation was abandoned and then demolished in 1730 to make way to the San Francisco Barracks built between 1731 and 1735. In 1828 the facilities were declared a military base for the revolutionary troops, and in 1831 it became the first military academy in Honduras. Then, in September 1847, its installations became the National University of Honduras, reverting once again in 1881 to a military school.

Fast forward to 1950, the fort became the First Military Zone, and on August 1, 1956, the garrison rebelled under the leadership of Santos Sorto Paz against then-president Julio Lozano Díaz. The building was bombarded with 51mm, 60mm, and 81mm mortars and hit by machine gun fire. Once in power, the proclaimed military junta that ruled between 1956-1957 ordered its immediate restoration. In 1959, the garrison rebelled once more, under Colonel Armando Velásquez Cerrato, and then again in 1963 under Colonel Oswaldo López Arellano, both actions against then-president José Ramón Villeda Morales. In 1972 its installations were occupied by the Army Officer Application School, and in 1983 it became the Military History Directorate. The fort was completely restored in 1999, and again more than a decade later. Finally, on May 2, 2014 the renovated installations of the Honduran Francisco Morazan Military Historical Museum reopened to the public.

During 1983-1985, Harold “Hal” Johnson designed and built an experimental prototype .30 cal., lightweight machine gun for the Austin Aerospace Corporation for use on their ultra-light aircraft, the Austin Hawk, the Austin Armament Support Program (ASP) referred to it as the ASP machine gun, showing it as a twin gun system in their promotional literature. Two ASP machine guns and a supply of 1000 rounds of belted .30 caliber carbine ammunition in M-27 links formed a light-weight offensive/defensive gun system. This gun system, when mounted under a Hawk, would have been used for scout and escort missions in a hostile environment. This system never saw field use, and all that remains is one gun, some drawings, some literature, several memos, a few photos, and a rather interesting story.

Prior to tasking Johnson with the design and manufacture of the ASP machine gun, Austin Aerospace did a trial with dual-mounted 7.62 NATO caliber M-60 machine guns on their Hawk aircraft. The M-60 was available as an off-the-shelf item and was well worth trying as it had a proven track record. Two M-60s were mounted on a Hawk and, during live fire with the Hawk air born, one of the M-60s jammed and ceased firing. Due to the sudden lack of recoil impulse on one side of the aircraft, the aircraft became unstable in flight. At that point it was decided that a recoil-free machine gun was what they needed. This live fire testing was done at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The .30 caliber carbine round was chosen because it most closely met the criteria for this weapons system: a gun and caliber combination that Austin literature states has an effective range of 600-700 meters and a maximum range of 1400 meters, and that was as near to recoil free as possible. The fact that an ASP with a given load of ammunition was approximately half the weight of an M-60 with the same quantity of ammunition was also a factor.

The gun is simple in design, and could be produced in quantity without great expense. The bolt has a fixed firing pin, with a claw extractor, and operates much as a blow back sub machine gun does. When cycling, the bolt travels to the rear, until spring tension overcomes the movement of the bolt, and pushes it forward to pick up and fire the next round.

The gas operating system is somewhat unique. Gas is tapped from the barrel, travels to the feed block in a gas tube and powers a feed piston with an attached feed pawl. High pressure gas pushes the piston and the attached feed pawl over the next linked round. As  pressure drops in the barrel, the compressed gas piston spring repositions the piston, whose feed pawl positions the next linked round in the feed block for pick-up by the forward traveling bolt. The  guns are fired by the pilot via an electric trigger motor.

The Austin Hawk was intended for sale to small countries fighting small non-conventional wars. It was small, lightweight, and modular for ease of shipping. It would be easy to maintain and easy to learn to operate. (Part of what Austin Aerospace was going to offer was training on operation, and use and maintenance of the system). It could operate off a 300 foot, smooth surface and while no information exists as to the cost of a complete system, it would certainly have been less expensive to buy and operate than modern military aviation hardware.

Johnson did not make any profit from his design and work on the ASP. There is a memo to him from Austin Aerospace explaining that he would receive a $15-per-gun royalty for the first 2000 guns sold, and $7.50-per-gun thereafter. In this he joins many inventors throughout history who did not receive a benefit for the fruits of their labor.

Sidebar: A word on Hal Johnson. Hal grew up in New York near Bannermans, and got an early start In the world of guns. He enlisted in the Marines at age 17 in 1944 and fought on Okinawa as a bow gunner in an M4-A2 Sherman tank. He served in the Korean war as a platoon Sgt in 1st Battalion, 5^th Marines. He went on to serve 20 years and retired as a Chief Warrant Officer after spending most of his career in ordnance, to include having been the officer in charge of the 5th Atomic Ordnance Platoon at Camp Pendelton. (Atomic Ordnance Platoons are now called Nuclear Ordnance Platoons). He authored several editions of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide’s. Simply put he was the master of all things ordnance.

People often have crazy ideas. Combined with megalomania and arrogance, they then create things like bomb-carrying bats. This “lowest form of animal life” could have burned down Japan during World War II.

It all started with a holiday. Dr. Lytle Schuyler Adams, a dentist from Pennsylvania, spent a few weeks in New Mexico in December 1941. Among other things, he visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park with its famous stalactite caves. These were then, as now, home to around one million Brazilian free-tailed bats. Their evening fly out of the caves for hunting is an impressive natural spectacle and attracts tourists from all over the world.

On the drive home, Doctor Adams’ ideal world was dealt a severe blow, for he heard on the car radio about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States of America suddenly found itself at war with Japan. Doctor Adams was outraged. As a great patriot, various thoughts of retaliation were soon buzzing around in his head. And the countless bats he had observed on holiday came back to his mind. In view of the traditional construction of Japanese buildings made of bamboo, wood, and paper, he devised a most perfidious plan: bats equipped with incendiary material were to set Japan’s cities ablaze.

Since in Dr. Adam’s religious world of faith, man, as the highest living being on earth, may freely dispose of all animals, he also had no inhibitions about this matter. He put his idea on paper and sent a letter to the White House in Washington D.C. in January 1942. He was helped by his acquaintance with President Roosevelt’s wife Anna Eleanor. In his letter, Dr. Adams stated that the bat was the “lowest form of animal life” and that “reasons for its creation have remained unexplained“. Completely insane, he went on to write that bats were created by God to wait to play their part in the plan of free human existence and to thwart any attempt by those who dare to desecrate that way of life. Roosevelt read the letter and noted “This man is not a nut“. It sounded like a crazy idea to him, but it would be worth looking into.

Dr. Adams gave four reasons why the bat was the ideal object: They are strong enough to carry a small load. By lowering the temperature, they go into hibernation, which makes it easier to load and transport them. In daylight, they seek dark hiding places, such as cellars and attics. And finally: there are millions of bats, so there is an almost infinite supply.

After Roosevelt gave his approval to the project, it became the responsibility of the U.S. Army Air Force. Adams assembled the staff for the project, including mammologist Jack von Bloeker, who described himself as a “bat lover”. In a later interview, he admitted that it never occurred to him to question the morality or ecological consequences of sacrificing a few million bats. Actor Tim Holt was also part of the team, then still 23 years young and at the beginning of his career as a western actor.

First of all, the type of bat had to be determined. After testing several species, the choice fell on the Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis). Dr Adams had to ask the National Park Administration for permission to take a large number of these animals from the caves on government land.

The original plan was to equip the bats with white phosphorus. But then the chemist Louis Frederick Fieser joined the team. At the time, he was experimenting with a sticky, slow-burning incendiary compound that would later become famous: Napalm.

In tests, a 0.5 oz. (14g) bat could carry about 0.53 – 0.63 oz. (15 – 18g) of payload. The napalm was filled into small, easily inflammable cellulose containers, so-called “H-2 Units.” After trying different methods of attachment, it was decided to stick the containers to the bats’ chests with a strong adhesive. This method would also be quick, given the large number of animals to be prepared.

Now the flying incendiaries had to be brought to their destination. Dr Adams had a new employee named Andrew Paul Stanley make a cardboard model of a drop container. Inside were 26 round trays, each 76cm in diameter, each stacked on top of the other with a spacer. The trays were stacked with the open side down and connected at the edges with 7cm long strings. On the parachute, the trays would then hang among each other like an accordion. Each tray would hold 40 bats in individual chambers, similar to a square egg box. This means a total of 1,040 bats per transport container.

During the first test flight, the (still empty) cardboard container was shredded by the air current. So they turned to a small engineering firm in Del Mar, which belonged to the singer and actor Bing Crosby and his brother Larry. There, based on the plans of the cardboard model, a version in sheet metal was designed. Only the trays for the bats remained made of cardboard. The 5 ft. (1.5m) long transport container was also fitted with a parachute for slower sinking, a barometric opening device for dropping the side parts and a small heater to wake the bats from hibernation before dropping.

It was then to be brought to Japan by plane. After being dropped at dawn, at an altitude of 4,000ft (1,200m), the brake parachute would release, and the sides of the container would fall off. The bats would then be free to make their way to a protected shelter within about 20 to 40 miles (32 to 64 km).

Dr Adams was thrilled and ecstatically wrote down his ideas: “Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles [64 km] in diameter for every bomb dropped. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life“.

But the time had not yet come, and the bats first wreaked havoc in America itself. Due to carelessness, some animals equipped with incendiary devices escaped from the Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base on 15 May 1943 and hid in hard-to-reach corners, such as under the tanks with the fuel supplies. And the ‘weapon’ worked – the large fire that was set off destroyed numerous buildings and there were several casualties.

After this embarrassing setback, the project was transferred to the Navy in August 1943, which renamed it ‘Project X-Ray’. Then in December, the Marine Corps took over the project and moved test operations to the Marine Corps Air Station at El Centro in California. After several trials and operational adjustments, the final test was conducted with the Japanese Village. This was a replica of some Japanese houses in typical construction, which had been built by the Chemical Warfare Service on the test site Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Right next to it, by the way, there was also a German Village, with two more sturdily built row houses made of bricks and concrete.

The results report provides interesting insights: “A reasonable number of destructive fires can be started in spite of the extremely small size of the units. The main advantage of the units would seem to be their placement within the enemy structures without the knowledge of the householder or fire watchers, thus allowing the fire to establish itself before being discovered“. The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) observer noted that X-Ray was an effective weapon and was more effective on a weight basis than the standard incendiary bombs of the time: “The normal bombs would probably cause 167 to 400 fires per bomb load, while X-Ray would cause 3,625 to 4,748 fires“.

Further tests were planned for summer 1944, but then the program was cancelled by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. By this time, an estimated 2 million U.S. dollars (equivalent to 18.7 million U.S. dollars today) had been spent on the bat project. Presumably, progress was too slow for him, because in the meantime another weapons development had progressed very promisingly: the atomic bomb.

Photos: Dugway Proving Ground Archive, Aberdeen Proving Ground Ordnance Museum

In this edition, we’ll take a look at some interesting developments as the massive might of the combined U.S. Armed Forces was brought to bear in Southeast Asia, not only against elusive Viet Cong guerrillas, but increasingly in pitched battles against well-trained and -equipped regulars of the North Vietnamese Army and their Communists Chinese and Russian “advisers.”

Now, with apologies for some of these rough-looking images—presented as they were found—let’s look at some very unusual weaponry from America’s quickly escalating involvement in South Vietnam’s fight against Communist guerrillas, backed by North Vietnam and China.

Escalation in Vietnam

While it was initially believed that the Viet Cong insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam would soon collapse when confronted by strong South Vietnamese forces being trained, armed and equipped by America, this proved sadly optimistic. Despite horrendous casualties, Communist VC guerrillas didn’t seem to falter and were increasingly well-armed and reinforced by PAVN (People’s Army of Vietnam) regulars from the north.

America’s political leadership was unwilling to cut and run (that would eventually change when Democrats took control of the money), so escalation was inevitable. By the high water mark in 1968, more than 536,000 U.S. Soldiers, Seamen, Airmen and Marines were in the fight, alongside Allied counterparts, notably 800,000 South Vietnamese and 50,000 South Koreans.

Desperate for some sort of victory that would put an end to the hemorrhage of American lives and treasure, the Army as an institution and its essential Ordnance Corps radically ramped up RDT&E (Research, Development, Test & Evaluation). This came in support of the ever-expanding war in Vietnam that was already spilling over to other countries in Southeast Asia. Results, as it’s said, were mixed, and it wasn’t rare for combat troops in the field to make their own modifications and innovations.

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What’s Ahead

In the next installment of “Ordnance Oddities,” we’ll turn a jaundiced eye on some “Silliness in the 70s and 80s.” Like the funny 5.56mm Folded Ammunition/Weapon System from Frankford Arsenal and maybe even the remarkable Colt SCAMP.

State-of-the-Art Weaponary

Machine guns today are generally defined as firearms that shoot automatically more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger.  This modern definition has come about due to the development of such a weapon as pioneered by Hiram Maxim and is subsequently used for all weapons that employ all mechanical means in firearms today.

Before Maxim invented the truly automatic system of feeding, loading, firing and ejecting continuously with just a single function of the trigger, “machine gun” was a term applied to a weapon that provided these functions albeit in a manual mode of operation.  In reality, the evolution of automatic weapons really began before the introduction of gun powder.  From earliest times, there has been a continual attempt to augment firepower by mechanical means.

These early machines included trebuchets, catapults, ballistas and siege engines.  These machines threw projectiles ranging from rocks and stones, dead animals and putrid corpses conveying pestilence, flaming projectiles, to a fusillade of javelins and arrows.

While these were large crew served weapons, there was mechanical development in the individual combatant’s weapons to increase firepower, range and lethality with the crossbow being a good example that evolved into a weapon firing a number of arrows.  One could say that a general definition of an automatic weapon in these early days would be a weapon capable of discharging a number of projectiles in a short space of time, either simultaneously or in rapid sequence.

While weapon development of volume of fire and sustaining fire of ancient weapons is a discussion in itself, we will begin our discussion here with the culmination of the state of the art manually operated rapid fire weapons that lead to the fully automatic weapon.

Reliable mechanical development was hindered until the advent of percussion caps in the early 1800s, and in the next 75 years following the percussion cap patent, more was accomplished in terms of design, development and performance of firearms in general than at any time in all of history.

During this period, there was an abundance of ideas of how to make a machine gun “work,” including the use of steam and gas.  Some did actually work but were too impractical and complicated.  But it was the continued work on ignition that dictated the mechanical future of automatic weapons, and it was the advent of incorporating the detonating cap as an integral part of the fixed cartridge in 1856, and the first true metallic cartridge with a center fire primer and an inside anvil invented by George W. Morse in 1858 that set the stage for machine gun development.

Concurrently within this time period, it was the gun makers who took the concept and perfected the use of machine tools, particularly in New England, to speed up and economize on weapon production.  This was a radical development that set in motion the Machine Age that led us to the Industrial Revolution that enabled the use of machine tools to produce advancements in light, power, heat, all modern transportation, electric communication, agricultural machinery, textiles, paper mills, printing, all the instruments used in every science, etc.: everything that ultimately affected everyone’s daily lives.  At each advancement of ignition, from percussion cap to paper cartridge to metallic cartridge, gun makers were in lockstep with new mechanical developments, designing machine tools to make their mechanical ideas a reality.

Gatling Revolving Machine Gun

Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling was born in Hertford County, North Carolina in 1818 and came from a family of inventors.  Though born in the South, he felt there were better opportunities in the North and he moved to a number of cities in Missouri, Ohio and Indiana.  In 1847-1848, he studied medicine at Laporte, Indiana and the following year he entered Ohio Medical College from which he received his degree.  However, there is no record of him actually practicing medicine.

Gatling conceived the idea of his gun and began work in 1861 with a prototype being made in late 1861.  The gun was demonstrated in early 1862 and a patent in that year was granted.  This gun was a crude predecessor of what was to become one of the most significant firing mechanisms of all ordnance history.

The 1862 Gatling gun was crank-operated with six revolving barrels around a central axis point that had a bolt for each barrel capable of not only volume of fire but sustained fire.

Nevertheless, the 1862 model had its shortcomings and Gatling continued to perfect his gun.  This led to the design of the Model 1865, the precursor of all later Gatling guns.  Gatling continued to refine the operation and mechanism of his gun.  As they got better and better with each successive model, the world took notice and the Gatling gun saw service in armies and navies around the world continuing into the twentieth century.  The Gatling gun was the beginning of the state-of-the-art manually operated guns that flourished until Hiram Maxim took the next step with fully automatic guns, but his operating principle lives on today in Vulcans and Miniguns.

Credit: U.S. War Department/National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

First Flying Cannon

Since mounting a heavy and hard-kicking cannon would destroy the typically flimsy wood and fabric aircraft of WWI, this novel gun was developed by U.S. Navy Commander Cleland Davis for use in anti-submarine and anti-Zeppelin engagements. Seen here mounted at the nose gunner’s station of an F5L seaplane, this Davis Non-Recoiling Gun is fitted with a Lewis machine gun for both aiming the cannon and as a defense weapon. Its secret is cleverly designed ammunition that simultaneously fires its explosive projectiles out the front while blasting a counterweight of lead balls packed in grease out the back. Thus circumventing Newton’s Third Law of Motion, a technique quite successfully applied to subsequent developments in a variety of recoilless cannons including the U.S. military’s spectacular 105mm M40 and the now-ubiquitous Carl Gustaf.

Our introductory photo for this feature doesn’t show the earliest of these oddities, but it certainly represents an excellent engineering solution to a previously unknown challenge in the evolution of warfare and weaponry. But now having set the stage, we’ll move out smartly in somewhat chronological order, starting with a peek at a place way back on the developmental trail of the multipurpose hand grenade.

Credit: Richard Knotel in Glogau 1857/Wikimedia Commons

Hand Bombs!

What we now think of as hand grenades originated centuries before as fuzed, gunpowder-packed clay pots, evolving into somewhat efficient and deadly miniature cannon balls. In this illustration, a pair of handsomely uniformed and equipped Prussian (German) Grenadiers is plying their trade, circa 1715. Note the length of slow burning match cords in their left hands, used to light the shorter time fuze on the grenade itself. The Grenadiers of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia were elite soldiers, chosen for exceptional throwing strength as well as being at least 6 feet tall due to the short and rotund King’s odd fetish for his personal regiment of what became known as “Potsdam Giants.” Their quite necessary secondary armament consisted of a sword and a matchlock musket with detachable bayonet. A small supply of the heavy cast iron bombs was immediately available from that large leather bag slung over the left shoulder.

Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons

Shoot and Stab!

Yes, muzzle loading pistols with flintlock ignition were much more handy and efficient than matchlock hand cannons for close-quarters fighting by the likes of ship-to-ship boarding parties in the age of sail. Alas, they still offered the user only one shot before the decidedly inconvenient need for a reload in the midst of a melee, so most sailors preferred stab, slash or smash weapons. Of course, it made sense to add a handy mini-bayonet to the pistol for use as the situation required. The matched pair seen here is finely crafted in silver-inlaid walnut and intricately carved brass with a steel barrel and lock mechanism; most likely a custom-made armament for a wealthy Naval officer. Their wicked triangular bayonets are immediately deployed when the trigger finger pulls back on the sliding latch seen just below the lock.

Credit: Photograph by Andreas Franzkowiak at Germanisches Nationalmuseum/Wikimedia Commons

Matchlock Revolver

Finding the slow rate of fire of single-shot matchlock weapons to be intolerable, this clever Luntenschloss-Drehling mechanical repeater was crafted in Germany circa 1580. Its revolving cylinder has multiple chambers with sliding touch hole covers, each loaded with powder and a ball. The glowing tip of a slow-match cord would fire each in turn as it ratcheted up to align with the barrel. This revolver arrangement was adopted for any number of muskets, rifles and pistols, enduring today in such notable weapons as Milkor USA’s 40mm M32A1 Multi-Shot Grenade Launcher.

Credit: U.S. Army Ordnance Museum

Fast Firing Flintlock

This photo, fortuitously found in the somewhat haphazard research holdings at the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum when it was still at Aberdeen Proving Ground, is noted only as a “repeating flintlock rifle made by Kirkland & Company.” Subsequent research suggests that it may have been influenced by a similar weapon from previous makers in Europe and the U.S. including the .54 caliber, four-shot Ellis-Jennings Military Repeating Flintlock Rifle. We speculate that the Kirkland version works with superposed loads in a manner similar to the Ellis-Jennings as noted in the Springfield Armory’s collection record: “The gun was loaded by ramming down four charges, one on top of the other. The lock was then pushed opposite the foremost vent and held there by a little apron closing the vent nearest to the rear. It was supposed that the flame was kept from reaching the next charge by tight ramming of the intervening ball. The apron having then been lifted, the lock was slid back to the next hole, and the process continued. A small reservoir for the priming powder was seen attached to the pan. By raising this up before each shot and [w]rapping the piece, the pan was filled. This rendered the piece self-contained, as the powder horn or cartridge box was not required for its service.” In some ways, its modern equivalent is found in the remarkable Metal Storm system.

Credit: Booklet “Maxim Automatic Gun in Action” in the collection of the U.S. Army Center of Military History

Backpacked Maxim

Weighing “only” 44.5 pounds with tripod mount, this 1895 Extra Light machine gun from the Maxim-Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company of London can be carried handily by an infantryman in a serviceable, but no-doubt uncomfortable, box with shoulder straps. Forced by competition from the much lighter Colt-Browning M1895 “Potato Digger,” Hiram Maxim radically reduced his anvil-like standard gun by eliminating the prominent water jacket, along with several other simplifications. Overheating of its brass-shrouded, air-cooled barrel was a major flaw, and, while few were sold, several of these light and handy guns served the British South Africa Company quite well in the Chitral and Matabele Campaigns.

Credit: Booklet “Maxim Automatic Gun in Action” in the collection of the U.S. Army Center of Military History

Cavalry Maxim

Standard Maxim Automatic Machine Guns of the 1890s with their formidable tripods, tools and spares made for a heavy, bulky and ungainly load on even the sturdiest of pack animals, limiting tactical effectiveness in fast-moving cavalry engagements. Hiram Maxim sought to remedy this with the Extra Light machine gun of 1895, an air-cooled gun weighing 27.5 pounds and quite handily carried by a single cavalryman in a sturdy leather scabbard. Interestingly, a dozen or more of these (sold to the British South Africa Company) were used to devastating effect by rebellious Boers against the British Army.

Credit: Archives of the Northwestern Military Academy and Wikimedia Commons

Heck on Wheels

In 1899, these four stalwart soldiers were aboard a specially modified, gas engine automobile from the Duryea Motor Wagon Company mounting a .30 caliber Colt-Browning M1895 “Potato Digger” machine gun behind a rather small steel shield. This was one of a series of experimental machine gun carriers and other developments from Major R.P. Davidson of the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy, recognized as a key figure in armored warfare evolution. While we are tempted to make fun of this early scout vehicle, it offered some advantages over horse-drawn versions at the time.

Credit: U.S. National Archives

Fight Club!

With a pedigree dating back to the dawn of caveman conflicts, clubs are ultra-simple to make and use and are nearly foolproof in close-quarters battle. What’s remarkable about this selection of seemingly medieval examples is that they were made for and used with deadly efficiency in trench raiding in WWI. This is not surprising given the obvious limitations of long and heavy bolt-action rifles, particularly when equipped with absurdly long bayonets of the time. As such, the trench club, in all its particularly nasty forms with spikes, barbed wire wrapping and such, did yeoman duty along with knuckled knives, sharpened spades, handy hatchets, revolvers and grenades.

Credit: U.S. National Archives

British Biker Gang

Motorcycles reached a high degree of utility by the time the world was at war in 1914-1918. All of the major combatants were using both solo and sidecar-equipped versions for a variety of tasks like liaison and message running. As scouting was prominent among these, mounting a machine gun was inevitable. Here we see a battery from the British Machine Gun Corps–Motor Machine Gun Service, heading out on heavy “combination” (with sidecar) bikes made by Clyno Engineering Company. The formidable belt-fed, water-cooled Vickers machine gun, Mark I, .303-inch, mounted in a firing position on the sidecars could be quickly detached and used on ground tripods.

Credit: U.S. National Archives

Last of the Lance

The tragic absurdity of horse-mounted cavalrymen in modern conflict reached its pinnacle on the Western Front in WWI with trench warfare dominated by massed artillery, machine guns and endless thickets of barbed wire. This photo is said to depict a German Uhlan, armed with a steel tube lance and bolt-action Gewehr 98 rifle, patrolling behind the front lines. Noting his Lederschutzmaske 17 (leather protective gas mask model of 1917), it isn’t polite to ask what might happen to his noble steed if there actually were poison gas in the area. But the Germans did have a muzzle mask for the horse that looked like a canvas feed bag (apparently not available for this photo-op).

Credit: U.S. National Archives

Ridiculous Rifle Grenade?

Technically the Granatenwerfer 16 (grenade thrower model of 1916) is a trench mortar, but the on-target effect of this 79-pound piece of Teutonic over-engineering was little more than that of the simple cup or rod type grenade launchers for most any infantryman’s rifle. But to its credit, the device’s sturdy base is topped with a well-marked elevation mechanism and traversing plate to facilitate rather precise accuracy out to around 300m. Its finned fragmentation grenades contain a blank cartridge that—when its hollow base is slid down on the “spigot” rod—it is trigger-fired and quickly reloaded for multiple hits in the intended target area.

Credit: U.S. Army Ordnance Museum

Feel the Burn!

In WWI, the “diabolical Hun” (Germans) were the first with both poison gas and flamethrowers in desperate attempts to break the deadlock of trench warfare on the Western Front. Seen here in a photo probably taken in 1917 at the Stosstrupp (Shock Troop) training center in Sedan, France, a four man Flammenwerfer (flame thrower) team advances down a trench behind a horrifying wall of “liquid fire.” The forward man in the stack is the gunner, directing the flame and regulating it with a valve mounted on the igniter-tipped wand. The second man stumbles along behind carrying the 70-pound pressurized steel cylinder looking like a giant Thermos bottle and holding four gallons of a volatile oil and chemical mixture. The two riflemen right behind are there for both protection of the crew and ready to take over as almost inevitably needed.

Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps/National Archives

Birth of the Bazooka

While the handwritten notation, “1 inch recoilless gun” is the only caption information that accompanied a vintage cyanotype print the author discovered and copied in the National Archives, subsequent research has revealed that it almost certainly shows Dr. Robert H. Goddard, widely considered to be “the father of modern rocketry,” demonstrating his rocket launcher for Ordnance Department representatives at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, on November 20, 1918. One report from this obscure but seminal event predicted that such weapons “could be developed to operate successfully against tanks.” Unfortunately, in the aftermath of Germany’s defeat and the American disarmament that followed, further development by U.S. Ordnance lay dormant for more than two decades until the birth of the iconic U.S. “Bazooka” of WWII.

Spinning Slug Slinger 

Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps/National Archives

Using an electric motor to spin its mechanism at around 20,000 RPM, this remarkable contraption needs no gunpowder-packed cartridges and reportedly fires a continuous stream of 330 steel balls each second to punch through ¾-inch steel plates at several hundred feet! The hopper-fed, centrifugal force brainstorm of Earl Ovington and Levi Lombard is seen here in a demonstration for Ordnance Department officials at Aberdeen Proving Ground in October 1920. While exciting in its possibilities for defense against massed attackers, it destroyed itself in the demonstration and disappeared from official consideration.

Conclusion

Experimentation in armaments languished in the aftermath of the “War to End All Wars” but exploded once again in 1940, forced by naked aggression by a resurgent Germany and its allies. Developments in weaponry that followed over the next 5 years and beyond ranged from sublime to ridiculous. We’ll mine more from Robert Bruce’s archive collection to unearth and present additional Ordnance Oddities for the amusement, and perhaps amazement, of Small Arms Defense Journal’s discerning readers.

[Copyright 2019 Robert Bruce Military Photo Features.]

The museum was established by Royal Decree in 2007 and was inaugurated on January 29, 2018, by King Abdullah II. It has been built on a specially designed site which consists of a 20,000-square-meter building, an outside display area and a tank driving course.

The museum building is described as an “architectural concept that rises from the old desert fortress of the 1800s and 1900s with four pillars, modernized and made ‘stealthy’ for the 21st century.” It has a spacious interior with all the vehicles being on one level that is set up into 14 separate halls, covering tanks from Leonardo da Vinci’s concept tank to the latest Main Battle tanks. The vehicles in the museum have come from Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) military stock, sourced from around the world, and generous donations from 16 countries of 24 further tanks.

Each of the separate halls runs in chronological order from the Armouring Origins, World War I, Great Arab Revolt, World War II, Arab Legion, Jerusalem, Jordanian Armoured Forces (1950s–1960s), Al Karameh, Arab Israeli, King Abdullah II, Sectionalized Tank, Operations and Tank Support, Tank in Battle, International and KADDB which have tanks, armoured cars, tracked and wheeled artillery, armoured recovery, soft-skinned vehicles and small arms relevant to that hall.

Among the vehicles on display in the various halls are an Israeli 75mm Super Sherman M50, British Charioteer (a Cold War-era tank, that is fitted with an Ordnance QF 20 pounder gun and uses Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS) ammunition out to an effective range of 2,000 metres), French 75mm AMX-13, American 37mm Stuart, Russian 100mm T-54 and an Austrian SK-105 Kürassier. The SK-105 is fitted with a 105mm gun which has a semi-automatic, revolving magazine-type autoloading system with two revolving magazines holding 6 rounds each of Armour Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot (APFSDS) rounds.  These are an extremely accurate round out to 2000 metres. There were also the Chinese 100mm Type 59, Polish WZT-1 Armoured Recovery Vehicle and a German 75mm STuG III. The STuG III was mounted with a 75mm KwK L/48 gun which was the main anti-tank gun used by the Germans in WWII.  It fired a High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) round up to 1800 metres with great accuracy.

Small Arms are also on display and include a .30 Browning machine gun, 3-inch mortar, Bazooka, an M15A1 Jeep with a 105mm Recoilless Rifle and a very good example of the M45 Quadmount .50 BMG mounted on an M20 trailer, which is used to enhance the dioramas.

There is also a Huey Cobra helicopter slung from the roof over the King Abdullah II Hall.

There is an upper level where there is a “World of Tanks” gaming area that all visitors to the museum can play for free, experiencing tanks that are on display in realistic computer tank battles.

You can get up close to most of the exhibits, and there is good use of dioramas, sound effects and laser graphics. Many of the vehicles have information boards on them, and there are less well-known examples of vehicles built in the area from the Middle East conflicts.

One unusual exhibit is a “sectionalized” American 105mm M60 Tank, which has been cut through the middle so that you can walk in-between the two sections, giving you an up-close perspective of the interior.

Outside there are six further Tanks/Armoured cars on display. The tank driving course is in its last stages of construction where they will be holding Tank demonstrations and Tank rides for visitors.

There is a large gift shop within the museum. There is no Café, and food/drink is not permitted in the museum.

The location of the museum is very convenient to the main hotels in Amman as it is only a 15-20 minute taxi ride.

Opening Hours: Every day except Tuesday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Entry Fee: 5 Jordanian Dinar ($7 USD) per person

Address: King Abdullah II Park, Amman, Jordan

Telephone: +962 4381881

Website: rtm.jo/en-us

Research History

TsNIITochMash, better known in English as the Central Research and Development Institute of Precision Machine Engineering, has a distinguished history of research and development in specialized cartridges and weaponry. In 1994, the little compound in the suburbs of Moscow started work on a prototype Vikhr, or Whirlwind, based around the institute’s home-designed cartridge, the 9×39. The project was originally designated as “MA Vikhr,” or at times “AM,” and was led by the designer trio of A.D. Borisov, V.N. Levchenko and A.I. Tyshlykov. The MA designation should not be confused with the Dragunov MA and the Kalashnikov Concern AM-17, which share this moniker. The MA/AM abbreviation is used to describe a small-sized Small Caliber Automatic rifle, or compact assault rifle. Serial production of the Vikhr commenced in 1996, named the rifle the SR-3 in fulfillment of the state request, with the FSB and Ministry of Internal Affairs quickly adopting the design in the same year.

TsNIITochMash designed the 9×39 per Spetsnaz requirements issued from the Soviet Ministry of Defense in the prior decade. They produced a subsonic cartridge for special purpose weapons designed for intermediate range, with improved penetration and stopping power against armored targets. Testing at the KSPZ Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant yielded a muzzle velocity of 925-958 feet per second with the 250-260 grain SP-5 and SP-6 projectiles (SP-Special Cartridge). Soviet designers developed improved subsonic ammunition based on the 7.62×39 case, necked up to 9mm. To achieve stability at subsonic velocity, TsNIITochMash loaded these cartridges with heavier projectiles. The SP-5 was loaded with standard ball rounds with a lead core and was intended for accurate sniper work out to 300-400 meters. The SP-6 cartridge featured an armor-piercing projectile with a machine-hardened steel core. This round could defeat all common levels of body armor up to 300-400 meters. Some reports suggest the round has successfully defeated body armor out to 500 meters, though this is outside the design parameters and has little official documentation. In current Russian deployment, the round is used against a target at no more than 300 meters to give sufficient accuracy and ballistic performance.

In mid-1997, TsNIITochMash was invited to the United States with some of their innovative products, to be tested and evaluated by some U.S. Military and Government agencies. The Vikhr or SR-3 was one of the weapons brought over, delivering an overall flawless and highly effective performance and gaining a lot of interest for the Russian 9X39 caliber.

Despite meeting the Spetsnaz technical requirement, the 9×39 came at a prohibitive price, which at times restricted availability and live-fire training for some less specialized units. Naturally, these problems did not affect training and deployment of the cartridge in the hands of the FSB. However, TsNIITochMash attempted to economize production of the 9×39 AP (Armored Piercing) cartridge with a new version designated as the PAB-9. This cartridge featured projectiles with a stamped steel core, instead of a machined steel core as in the SP-6. The result was unsatisfactory accuracy and performance, and the PAB-9 was officially withdrawn from service. It does appear, however, out of storage from security agencies from time to time.

The SR-3

The SR-3 was designed to fill the role of a submachine gun with distinguished armor piercing capability. It can be fitted with a silencer increasing the overall package length, though it is not typically seen with the suppressor affixed. This is because the weapon will cycle subsonic ammunition without a suppressor, a unique trait as most weapons will not function with subsonic rounds without the additional back pressure that a suppressor provides.

The SR-3 was built based on the VSS/AS Val weapon system, keeping to the closed bolt, gas operation and six multi-lug rotating bolt. The advantage of the six multi-locking lug bolt design in the case for subsonic ammunition such as the 9×39, is reduced rotation of the bolt to lock and unlock. This increases the locking lug surface area, reducing the amount of gas required to operate the weapon without a suppressor. Reducing the time required to lock and unlock also provides a high rate of fire. The gas block is mounted just forward of the chamber, giving maximum back pressure and expansion to operate subsonic ammunition properly. The weapon uses a floating hammer, which is a hammer with a separate spring assembly apart from the main spring and is held in place by the sear. This design is reminiscent of an open-bolt weapon.

SR-3 Modernized

In current production, the SR-3M (Modernized), utilizes an ambidextrous charging handle moved from the top of the handguard to the right side of the bolt carrier, resembling a Kalashnikov. Unlike the SR-3, which has an ambidextrous safety similar to the Heckler & Koch MP-5 selector and a separate selector, just behind the trigger, the modernized design used a simple lever safety in the right side of the receiver. This also simplified construction of the VSS series and allowed for easier cross training from the standard issue AK-74M. Without a left-side ambidextrous safety, an enhanced side optics rail was added. Additionally, a further updated SR-3MP is fitted with M1913 rails on the left and right sides of the rifle, forward of the handguard, for use with mountable lights and infrared devices. The rifle features a two-position rear sight and a front sight adjustable for windage and elevation. A button on the left side of the front sight block deploys and locks the vertical foregrip. A separate button on the bottom of the front sight block is used to attach or remove a suppressor.

Each SR-3M is issued with a serialized suppressor matched to the weapon. It is a three-piece, baffle core with a cover and end cap. The stock was standardized on the side folding AS Val stock, away from the top folding prototype variant, similar to an SR-2. The SR-3MP stock can be flipped downward and attached to the bottom of the pistol grip, allowing the stock to not obstruct a face shield. An M1913 rail on top of the dust cover allows for the use of optics and red dot sights, without the need of a side rail mount.

The SR-3 uses a common magazine to the VSS, Val and the new Kalashnikov AMB-17. SR-3M magazines, however, are uniquely stamped with the parent rifle’s name, while other magazines are not. The rifle uses 10- and 20-round magazines, though a steel 30-round magazine is in circulation. The newest magazines are 30 rounds and polymer and were designed for the newest ASM (special automatic rifle modernized) Val 6P30M as of 2018.

Overall, the Vikhr concept is unique and adequately achieves the goal of creating a subsonic, hard hitting and highly compact package. When firing the rifle, it is easy to see how controllable its automatic fire can be in no small part due to its ergonomics. It is still a shock to see how it handles subsonic ammunition with ease on automatic fire without a silencer. This is a Russian rifle that will continue to see dramatic mission sets in the coming years and be a quick identifier for Russian elite forces.

Material and manufacturing advances accompanied or were sometimes driven by arms advances. Alloyed steel over Damascus steel, precision machining over handmade components, production manufacturing over single build, CAD and five-axis CNC milling over blueprints and manual machining operations, etc.

These weapon advances, while vastly American and European in origin, developed the tenets of warfare more generally. Weapons’ lethality drastically increased, as did the need to provide logistical support to maintain warfighting and material readiness. Wars were fought, some successfully, some not, using an array of weaponry, some advanced and much not. The result was a battle theater hodgepodge of weapon types and calibers. Fast-forward to today.

Today’s weapons are a derivative mix of calibers and operating systems that were largely used in wars fought during the 20^th century. Most weapons in military use do not possess the future warfighting attributes required to win anticipated theater-size conflicts in the 21^st century. While many firearms are newly manufactured, they’re little more than new versions of old technology with cosmetic updates. The analogy here is a 2^nd or 3^rd edition book that has the same old story, reprinted in a new font with updated cover art. This is to say that the weapons and ammunition in use today are not purposefully designed with the capabilities necessary for today’s warfare, much less the anticipated warfighting demands of the future.

The warfighting requirements of the future should also drive next-generation weapon and ammunition advances. This means thinking ahead in relation to long-range detection and engagement, sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), robotic autonomy, hypervelocity projectiles, stealth, metallic 3D printing of firearms replacement parts, directed energy and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons.  Even the high-end weapon technologies like hypervelocity projectiles and fully autonomous stealth unmanned aerial systems (UAS) will be part of the total reckoning, both from an offensive and defensive perspective.

The U.S. can no longer claim a monopoly on long-range detection of opponent forces. Open source availability of commercial space sensors’ data has increased to the point that developing nations can easily acquire and exploit it to their advantage using commercially available analysis tools. Correspondingly, the capabilities of nations possessing distributed networked sensor fields, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, sophisticated weapon and intelligence-gathering space programs can also be exploited by an opponent. The challenge is keeping our technology from the hands of competitor nations and non-state actors.

For example, sensor capability is advancing exponentially faster than the capacity to physically counter an attack. Long-range precision-guided weapons have advanced in speed to the point of hypervelocity; they are stealthy and possess superb lethality.  They can be especially effective if brought to bear in swarms against hard or soft targets. Such weapons are capable of evading or overwhelming today’s detection technology and counter-weapon defensive systems’ ability to defeat an attack. This has changed the face of future conflict and thus the capabilities future weapons must possess.

There are seven related categorical assumptions that guide weapon advances: defense, offense, affordability, autonomy, connectivity, logistics and distribution. Many requirements writers and weapon developers fail to understand or fully appreciate the importance of connecting the dots of these characteristics. Here is a brief summary of the thinking (remember, we’re looking at the future) for each:

Defense. U.S. forces will most certainly face opponents armed with formidable new weapons and ubiquitous sensor coverage. This will require that U.S forces possess the capability to operate on a dispersed basis without losing survivability or combat effectiveness. Defensive weapons will very likely include high-volume/high-lethality, highly mobile/portable and compact short-range systems to reduce the cost, platform size and magazine demands of large, long-range defensive systems.

Offense. Our forces must have the capability and proper weapon capacity to inflict immediate offensive punishment rather than managing a time-buying force rollback. Initial offensive operations must be readily available for immediate use and tailorable to adequately counter the range and lethality of the hostile threat. Offensive operations will be largely conducted with long-range missiles and strategically distributed unmanned systems, not by land- and carrier-based manned platforms penetrating defended areas, followed by infantry and armor, as is the current U.S. modus operandi.

Affordability. Today’s uncontrolled federal deficit translates into constrained defense funding in the future. The realistic result is the Department of Defense’s (DOD) purchase of less expensive new weapons and the service life extension and modernization of select existing weapons. The purchase of any new weapon system(s) is always compared to the cost of the system(s) being replaced. New weapons must be comparably affordable, and therefore capability advancement almost always comes second to affordability.

Autonomy. We have become a data-centric world. Increases in both computing power and speed exponentially expand the variety of missions that can be conducted by unmanned (robotic) systems. AI is the key to full autonomy, and it will make us ever more reliant upon unmanned systems as integral warfighting elements. AI will also give our forces speed of action in combat and will fulfill the demand for connectivity while providing the cutting edge in both offensive and defensive operations.

Connectivity. The increasingly complex world in which we live results in an equally complex warfare environment. This drives the necessity to rapidly and correctly disperse friendly forces geographically, while at the same time overcoming the threat to communications satellites and networks. Demands on secure over-the-horizon, high-capacity data fusion and exchange networks that link dispersed units will only increase. High-flying, long-endurance unmanned aircraft and perhaps readily launched constellations of low-orbit cube satellites will be necessary to provide broad-area sensor and communication support among dispersed friendly forces.

Logistics. Historically, U.S. warfighting strategy has focused on far-forward force basing and deployment to augment in-theater allies. It is no secret that survivable logistics must be maintained to successfully conduct and sustain global operations. Our competitors’ focus is precision attack against our fixed bases and capital assets afloat. A distributed supply chain of the future will undoubtedly require the capability to rapidly manufacture most critical repair parts on site. This can only be achieved by having a robust 3D printing capability for parts (or the weapons themselves) to augment the logistics supply chain (and it can be done robotically).

Distribution. To justify force reductions, the U.S. has consolidated more capabilities into fewer assets. This redistribution and consolidation of U.S. warfighting capabilities increases target value and subsequently increases the risk of attack from precision weapons on those targets. The U.S. Navy best reflects this trend by making each new warship class more capable (and subsequently more expensive) than the predecessor. The U.S. Air Force does the same thing with its new fighters and bombers. While this concentrates more capability into a single asset, it also increases each asset’s target value within a theater of conflict, making individual asset loss a potentially greater factor to mission success. At the same time, reducing the number of assets diminishes the capacity for geographic coverage in warfighting. It is a conundrum that will require careful play on game day.

An additional consideration is almost always overlooked. Our forces must be as capable of conducting electromagnetic spectrum warfare as they are of conducting kinetic warfare. This means our forces must be capable of deploying their own signature management and deception measures to limit their identification and targeting by adversaries. Friendly forces operating closest to the threats must be able to employ a mix of both manned and unmanned ground and air weapons with secure C4I linking them to one another to assure critical control of unmanned systems.

Thus, when looking at weapon advances, we should not think in singular terms of ballistic weapons (guns and bullets). Rather, we should think in terms of interoperable weapons systems and how their advances factor into the future warfighting environment.

In an effort to address these issues, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing an AI-based semi-automated system that can identify and draw correlations between seemingly unrelated events. In turn, this analysis will be correlated to create broad narratives about global events of interest that can have a significant impact on national security. DARPA calls this program KAIROS, which is an acronym for Knowledge-directed Artificial Intelligence Reasoning Over Schemas.  The AI used in KAIROS is called “schema-based AI.” It works by analyzing multimedia information, correlating complex events and organizing this information into schemas.

“Schemas” refer to units of knowledge that organize events into commonly occurring narrative structures to aid humans’ comprehension of the information. Schema-based AI enables computer-generated contextual and temporal reasoning about complex, even abstract, real-world events and predicts how they will likely unfold. Schema-ordering provides both understandable and actionable predictive analysis of complex events, and the very powerful KAIROS analyzes and makes sense of the all-source picture.

Weapon advances are often defined in the context of weapons development. Weapon advances are usually quantified by using an arbitrary measure of accuracy, destructiveness or lethality.  During development, weapons are evaluated by their technical ability to achieve a set of quantifiable outcomes, such as affordability, maintainability, interoperability, availability, reliability, etc. That said, the operational nature of warfare is scenario-contingent. Consequently, any list of weapon advances will always be inherently incomplete. The best we can hope for is to highlight trends in warfare technology and assume they will be with us for decades to come, even though they will only affect the long view of weapon advances for several decades or less.

Sentient unmanned vehicles, or fully autonomous drones, as they are often called, constitute one such advancement. The emergence of unmanned fully autonomous and semi-autonomous air, land and sea (surface and subsurface) vehicles is the single most important development in the defense industry in the past several decades. This technology is intended to take over many of the warfighting roles traditionally occupied by humans. Things like piloting fighters and crewing bombers, ships and mini-submarines, conducting EOD operations, even ground combat operations will someday soon become the domain of AI-controlled fully autonomous robots and drones.

These platforms have no fear, require no rest and don’t suffer from PTSD. Their boundaries are only limited by purpose-built software and mechanical design. Endowing AI with life and death decision-making will, at some ultimate point, replace today’s human decision makers in key mission elements like target acquisition and the split-second decision, based upon best opportunity, to fire. This reliance on AI-operated (computer/machine) warfare will certainly diminish the human psychological threshold for using force and ultimately mean that confrontations will happen exceedingly fast and have devastating outcomes, with clear winners and losers. Thus, the side deploying the most advanced AI-controlled weapons that require the least human interface, human inputs and human decision chokepoints, will most likely prevail.

Electromagnetic (EM) rail guns are also a significant step forward in kinetic warfare. Unlike conventional guns (artillery) that use chemical propellants (such as gunpowder or fuel) to thrust a projectile on its ballistic path, rail guns thrust either a guided or dumb projectile over a long range (currently over 120 miles, even engaging orbiting space targets) at hypervelocity (4,500 to 5,600 miles per hour) by using a magnetic field (32-plus megajoules). The rail gun has numerous advantages that eclipse its range and precision strike capabilities. Because of its attributes, even the most advanced area defense systems are no match for it. Rail guns additionally eliminate the requirement to store the high-explosive propellant materials necessary to launch conventional projectiles.

The U.S. Office of Naval Research has had a working EM rail gun system in development since 2005. The eventual goal is to extend the range to 200 nautical miles by upping the launch power to 64 megajoules. This translates to each shot exceeding the electrical pulse apparent in a naturally occurring aurora.  Currently, rail gun capability is only limited by our material science, not by the laws of physics. For example, today’s hardiest capacitors are not capable of storing and releasing that volume of energy, and gun materials that will survive the firing pulse do not exist. That notwithstanding, EM rail gun development is proceeding in the U.S., China and Russia; it will certainly be a factor in any future conflict.

Weaponization of space is outlawed under international treaty, but that hasn’t stopped some of the countries that signed the treaty (and those who didn’t sign it) from continuing to explore technologies that might turn space into the next theater of battle. There are some outlandish weaponization schemes that have been postulated on this subject, ranging from moon bases that can launch missiles at earth to the redirection of small asteroids to impact an opponent’s homeland.

A more achievable plan is to arm orbiting space planes and satellites with nuclear or non-nuclear EMP weapons. When talking about EMP weapons, size matters. EMP weapons work by generating a massive EMP that overloads electrical grids, satellite circuits and just about everything else that relies on digital control. EMP can additionally destroy command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture necessary to conduct military and civilian infrastructure operations.

If appropriately sized, an EMP attack could easily take out large portions of a country or surgically target a specific area of operations. For countries that don’t have space capabilities, an EMP could also be deployed from aircraft platforms at air breathing altitudes or carried by land- and sea-based missile systems. Regardless, EMP weapons, if strategically employed, could theoretically end a war before a single shot is fired, by nullifying adversaries’ C4ISR capabilities.

As rogue states like North Korea and Iran develop or acquire the means to deliver nuclear-tipped intercontinental (long-range) ballistic missiles (ICBMs), interest in developing high-energy space-based lasers (SBL) designed to deactivate enemy ballistic missiles during the boost phase (known as “boost-phase intercept” or BPI) will continue. The boost phase occurs right after launch, during the missile’s ascent. It is the slowest and most vulnerable phase of missile flight and the time when the odds of successful intercept are the highest.

The advantage of space-based laser platforms over BPI theater defense systems (like the Aegis system in current use) is that they can operate at orbital altitudes far exceeding an adversary’s capability to shoot down. Comparatively, to be in striking range, Aegis BPI systems must be positioned close to the targeted missile launchers, and this puts our BPI launch platforms (mostly on board USN ships, although there are several shore-based Aegis launch systems) in range of enemy attack. That said, the greatest remaining challenge in realizing an operational SBL defense system is the development of sufficiently powerful chemical megawatt-laser systems suitable for orbiters. The required science and technology is certainly within our grasp, but the cost is prohibitive.

Keeping the SBL system in mind, there are advanced megawatt-laser systems being tested today on ships, aircraft and land that can defeat incoming sea-skimming hypervelocity anti-ship missiles, both manned and drone aircraft, cruise missiles and ICBMs through BPI. Like the SBL systems, these terrestrial systems also require megawatt power sources, but that is far easier to achieve at much less expense than for their space-borne SBL cousin. These systems show great warfighting promise and are being designed into many future military platforms, such as aircraft, ships and mobile ground vehicles.

The development and use of hypersonic vehicles cruising at speeds of Mach 5+ is now a priority for both the U.S. and its competitors. Warfare has evolved to the point where mere minutes can make a difference between victory and defeat. The cruise missiles we have relied upon over the past two decades are, by future standards, too slow to meet the time on target requirement or survive opponents’ state-of-the-art intercept measures.

The requirement to strike anywhere and do so within minutes of target identification has led to a hypersonic (cruise) vehicle developmental program initiated by the U.S. DOD in 2001, named “Prompt Global Strike.” A multi-agency consortium composed of DARPA, NASA, the U.S. Air Force (USAF), the USAF Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne has centered its combined efforts on the X-51A hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV). As an adjunct, the U.S. Navy is also reportedly exploring the development of submarine-launched hypersonic missiles.

Our competitors, like Russia, China and India, are also developing hypersonic cruise missiles. Because of their extraordinary speeds, hypersonic cruise missiles can serve multiple purposes, ranging from surgical attacks against command-and-control systems and other key high-value targets, to attacks against ships under way at sea, ports and harbors, critical infrastructure, etc.

The natural complement and response to both vehicle and missile hypervelocity is concealment through stealth technology. Quantum Stealth, also known as “adaptive camouflage,” is one such weapon advancement. While under development by a Canadian firm, it’s still far from operational. The goal is to use light wave-bending materials to significantly reduce or eliminate the thermal and visible signatures of weapons platforms, such as tanks, artillery, aircraft and ships—even individual troops. Its science is right out of a science fiction movie, yet its physics is relatively straightforward. By bending light around an object (quantum mechanics), the cloak renders what lies inside it invisible. The ability to operate unseen in enemy territory or airspace has enormous tactical (and even strategic) military capability implications.

The previously discussed developmental programs are all intended to keep the U.S. military winning in future conflicts, but for some forward-thinking military planners, the future is in sight. They know, for example, that soldier-carried weapons will truly advance when directed energy and hypervelocity weapons are miniaturized and become battlefield-mobile and/or soldier-carried and AI-controlled unmanned space, air, surface and subsurface warfare takes the man out of the loop. That will mark the next “generation” of weapon advances.

Based in California, JetPack Aviation (JPA) has developed a user-friendly ILD for U.S. Special Operations Command, the JB-10 jet pack, that will begin endurance, speed, service ceiling and payload suitability evaluation during the summer of 2019.   The JB-10 employs twin air-breathing turbine engines to provide lifting thrust with speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour. Burning commonly available jet-A fuel, the JB-10 currently carries enough fuel to remain aloft for 10 minutes, but that can probably be extended using disposable fuel bladders. It employs an electronic auto-flight stabilizing system widely used in the drone market.

JPA is driving the JB-10 technology in two related directions. The JB-10 is characterized as foot-launched, because the pilot carries the weight of the jet pack. This may work fine for high-speed missions of short duration, but one size may not fit all. When heavier payloads and greater ranges are mission-essential, the company has also developed a prototype ground-based variant that uses a rigid frame which rests on the ground and carries the total weight of the device and payload. This development has led to additional interest from the DOD and even the first responder community.

Weighing in at just 20 pounds, the SLMG is easily configured for either right or left side feed and charging, making it ideal for both dismounted and mounted operation. It comes suppressor-ready with an adjustable gas block, so its pressure can be “tuned” so that it will operate reliably with any suppressor.  Reportedly, SIG is also developing a drum-style magazine that could be optionally used to feed the SLMG. SIG has held those details close, as well as those for its side-opening feed tray option that allows the gunner to modify the gun’s loading profile from a top-opening to a less observable side-opening version.

Iron Dome is a comprehensive missile defense network that includes the David’s Sling system, intended to protect against mid-range missiles, and the Arrow Interceptor system, designed to provide defense against long-range ballistic missiles. One of the most advanced features of Iron Dome is its fire-control system, which provides the capability to accurately calculate the incoming rocket trajectory and predicted point of impact and only intercept the incoming projectiles that pose the most meaningful threats.

While Iron Dome batteries have recorded a success rate of over 90% in the past decade, the intercept range to successfully engage is limited to about 30 miles. It was not designed to be, nor is it capable of, defending against the emerging Chinese and Russian hypervelocity cruise missile threat that may soon menace U.S. and allied forces deployed overseas. A hypersonic countermeasure is needed that can “hit a bullet with a bullet.” The technology under development to accomplish this is the railgun and the high-power laser.

The Black Hornet 3 possesses the lowest size and weight of any UAS available today. Weighing in at 1.16 ounces, the Black Hornet 3 has a line-of-sight range of about 1.25 miles at speeds exceeding 20 feet per second. The 6.6-inch-long Black Hornet 3 carries the FLIR Lepton^® thermal micro-camera core and a visible sensor that transmit live high-fidelity day/night video and HD still images back to the operator. The Black Hornet 3 also employs a military-approved encrypted digital data link that enables a secure communications and imagery transmission format. This format seamlessly integrates into the military’s Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) to provide battlefield networks for the distribution of surveillance information to anyone on the network.

The Black Hornet 3 pocket-size field kit consists of two UAV sensors, a controller and a small flat-screen display. It is sold directly through FLIR and available today to military, government agencies and law enforcement customers.

PRL’s ROWS consist of a highly mission-configurable, lightweight, precision-aimed, dismounted remotely-operated weapon system they call the TRAP® T360, which can stand alone or be mounted on unmanned ground or waterborne vehicles. The TRAP® T360 integrates with sniper detection technologies, surveillance systems or other sensors for automatic hand-off and slew-to-cue operation. Its aim is achieved using a ballistic reticle that compensates the aim point for ammunition type, range and camera parallax. It will additionally store multiple target locations for quick recall. It possesses a unique high-speed/precision 360° drive system that allows faster target engagement and effortless tracking capability that provides a broad elevation range of 60° up to 20° down. It can also be equipped with a target tracking option and can be securely networked to multiple TRAP® T360 systems; these can then be networked to indigenous command centers.

During the early spring of 1966, the U.S. Navy Department contacted Smith & Wesson representative Mr. George Ersham to inquire about the possibility of the U.S. Corporation designing and manufacturing a weapon that would be similar in concept and operation to the Swedish K. By the fall of 1966, the Development Section of Smith & Wesson received an official written request from the Department of the Navy for the development of a new 9mm submachine gun. Corporation officials met with SEAL Team One at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego, California, to discuss the project. During the meeting Smith & Wesson officials were provided with a list of the characteristics desired in the proposed submachine gun:

• Need is urgent
• Reliable
• Rugged
• Select-fire operation
• Cost-effective
• Ease of maintenance
• Magazine capacity of 36 rounds
• Cyclic rate of 600-800 rounds per minute

Mr. Dwayne Charron of the Research and Development Section of Smith & Wesson was chosen to head up the project. Mr. Charron was well-qualified for the task, having a lot of experience with the development and design of many of the company’s firearms. S&W issued the number 76 as the model designation for the project, simply as a control number, having no other significance.

The S&W 9mm caseless round used a standard 9mm .355-inch diameter, 124-grain projectile with a stud at the base. The propellant was a solid mass that was attached to the base of the bullet. The propellant was covered with a protective coating for resilience to the elements. (Springfield Armory Historic Site)

Although the exact number of S&W submachine guns procured by the Navy is unknown, the total was believed to be limited. When Smith & Wesson discontinued manufacture of the Model 76 in July 1974, it presented a problem for the Navy in obtaining spare parts necessary to maintain the weapons. By late 1982, the Mark 24 Mod 0 (the Model 76) was phased out of the Navy inventory. The Smith & Wesson Model 76 was eventually replaced by the Heckler & Koch 9mm MP5.

Caseless Ammunition Program

The research and development for a suitable caseless cartridge has been ongoing for years. A successful design has yet to be developed. Several foreign and domestic cartridge and firearms manufacturers as well as the U.S. government have initiated programs to develop and perfect the caseless round, only to achieve limited success.

Prior to the caseless Model 76 program, Smith & Wesson experimented with an m/45 Swedish K submachine gun they converted to fire caseless ammunition. (Springfield Armory Historic Site)

A successful caseless round would provide many advantages over conventional ammunition. The caseless cartridges would be smaller and lighter, allowing soldiers to carry a larger ammunition load. The mechanisms of firearms could be made much simpler by eliminating many parts like firing pins, extractors and ejectors. One of the disadvantages was the problem of clearing misfires. One rather low-tech means is to use a cleaning rod to push the defective round out of the chamber.

The original caseless cartridge concept can be traced back to Smith & Wesson with their Volcanic Cartridge, patent number 14147, dated January 22, 1856. The cartridges consisted of a conical lead projectile with a hollow base. The base was filled with propellant, which was held in place by a cork or brass base. The mixture was ignited by a separate primer, propelling the projectile out of the barrel. Although the Volcanic Cartridge was not successful, it did eventually lead to the partnership of Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson. Since that era, there have numerous attempts to perfect a caseless cartridge. During World War II the Germans experimented with a caseless 7.92mm rifle and machine gun ammunition, but their attempts were largely unsuccessful. The U.S. Army had attempted to convert an M14 rifle to use a caseless 7.62mm NATO cartridge. Most of the work was carried out at the Frankford Arsenal. Insurmountable problems and lack of funds forced the Army to abandon the program.

It was not until 120 years after the Volcanic Cartridge that the engineers at Smith & Wesson would again attempt to perfect a caseless round. Development was initiated during November 1966. The key personnel assigned to the project were Chief of Research and Development, Dwayne Charron, Harold E. Sibley, a research engineer and an Austrian inventor, Hubert Usel. Mr. Usel ran an electro-chemical research laboratory in Inzing, Austria, where he had been developing caseless ammunition for several years. He was hired by Smith & Wesson in 1966 to assist in their caseless project.

(Springfield Armory Historic Site)

Smith & Wesson’s parent company, the Bangor Punta Group, owned a company called EXPLO in Lorena, Brazil, that manufactured explosives. The factory had a well-equipped laboratory and other facilities to (discreetly) develop a caseless cartridge. The 9mm bullets used were manufactured by CBC Global Ammunition–Magtech of Brazil and modified at EXPLO.

The first weapon for caseless ammunition experimentation by S&W was the venerable Swedish K 9mm submachine gun equipped with a battery box with a sliding on-off switch. Supplying electrical power from a magneto was attempted, but a battery had proven more reliable. More than 50,000 rounds were fired through the prototype without a battery replacement. Eventually, the emphasis was shifted to developing the Smith & Wesson Model 76 submachine gun to use caseless ammunition.

The S&W 9mm caseless round was slightly over an inch in length; it used a standard 9mm .355-inch diameter, 124-grain projectile with a stud at the base. The propellant was a solid mass that was attached to the base of the bullet. The stud that extended from the projectile’s base was designed to give additional mechanical strength to the propellant compound. The solid propellant was covered with a protective coating that served to provide some resilience to water and heat. Producing a suitable coating to effectively protect the propellant was one of the problems encountered during the caseless ammunition program. The Smith & Wesson caseless cartridge employed a primer that was activated by an electric charge. The small disk of priming composition was very thin and attached to the back of the solid propellant; the primer was insensitive to percussion. Upon firing, the primer and propellant were completely consumed. The muzzle velocity of the 9mm caseless round was the same as a conventional 9mm cartridge. The caseless round was 30-percent lighter than an equivalent conventional cartridge.

Smith & Wesson engineer with the caseless ammunition Swedish K.

Two Smith & Wesson submachine guns X186 and X219 were adapted to fire caseless 9mm ammunition by the addition of a Burgess 30-volt, U20 dry-cell photoflash battery inside a battery box mounted just forward of the trigger guard. The weapon was configured so that the cartridge could not be ignited unless the bolt was completely in the forward position. The chamber of the barrel was considerably longer than the cartridge itself. The front of the breech bolt provided a tight seal giving the necessary obturation to allow the burning propellant to build sufficient pressure to launch the bullet. A pair of electrodes was mounted inside of the bolt to provide an ignition source. The power was transmitted to the electrodes by a switch, which also acted as a safety. There was no firing pin or extractor on the bolt. A conventional box magazine was used to feed the cartridges. Reportedly, there was less recoil than found on the Model 76 that fired conventional 9mm ammunition.

The first public demonstration of the caseless Smith & Wesson Model 76 submachine gun was held on November 2, 1967, at a firing range near Lodi, New Jersey. The many newspaper reporters attending the demonstration were told by company representatives that the caseless ammunition concept was the biggest advance in firearms technology since the invention of metallic cartridges cases—which rendered previous muzzle-loaded weapons obsolete. Development of the new caseless rounds was the company’s first venture into the ammunition field.

Bolt in a partially retracted position. Note the long “nose” of the bolt that is necessary to provide a tight seal, giving the necessary obturation to allow the burning propellant to build sufficient pressure to launch the bullet. Upon firing, the primer and propellant are completely consumed.

The Smith & Wesson Company and the Model 76 submachine gun received a lot of press coverage and publicity from the caseless ammunition program, with articles appearing in virtually every gun-oriented publication of the day. Eventually, the caseless program was shelved. The fragility of the rounds and the inability to stand up to the elements were just a few of the reasons for the cancellation of the project. Despite the best efforts to solve the problems, the caseless ammunition was unsuited for a military environment.

Special thanks to Curator Alex MacKenzie and the entire staff at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

Drawing and dimensions of the CBC bullet modified for S&W’s caseless ammunition project. (Celso Valente and John Moss)

Model 76 serial number X219 was one of several Model 76 submachine guns converted to fire caseless ammunition. The ammunition was fired electrically. Power was supplied by a 30-volt dry cell battery located in a compartment forward of the trigger guard. The magazine release lever was redesigned to clear the battery box. Note the on-off safety switch on the pistol grip. (Springfield Armory Historic Site)

Smith & Wesson President William G. Gunn firing a caseless Model 76 submachine gun. The ammunition proved to be fragile and the project was abandoned.