Russo-Ukrainian War: M1152 HMMWV with GSh-23

 

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

    A Ukrainian M1152A1 HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) belonging to the 1st. Air Force Combined Rifle Brigade fitted with a Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23 23mm twin-barrel autocannon.

    The GSh-23 first entered service in 1965 and was designed as a armament for fighter aircraft. It was the primary gun armament for late model Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighters (NATO reporting name Fishbed) and all versions of the later MiG-23 (NATO reporting name Flogger) among other aircraft. It is also used in some models of the Mil Mi-24 helicopter (NATO reporting name Hind), notably the Mi-24VP, Mi-24VM, and Mi-35M (export variant of the Mi-24V).

    Designed by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau, the GSh-23 uses a Gast principle action. The action works in that the recoil of one barrel firing loads and charges the second barrel. When the second barrel fires, it loads and charges the first. This permits a high rate of fire with the GSh-23 able to reach 3,400 rounds per minute. Empty, the weapon has a weight of 108 pounds.

    The GSh-23 can fire a wide range of 23X115mm ammunition. Two of the more common types are the OFZ which is a HEI (High-Explosive Incendiary) round and the BZ-A which is a API (Armor-Piercing Incendiary) round. The OFZ carries a .7 of an ounce A-IX-2 explosive payload and uses either an AG-23 or AG-23D fuze. The BZ-A is a solid shot round with a incendiary filled ballistic cap. When firing on ground targets, the effective maximum range is just under 1 mile (.9 of a mile). The BZ-A round, at 200 meters, is able to penetrate 10mm of RHA (rolled homogeneous armor). As such, it is only much of a threat to soft skinned vehicles and very lightly armored vehicles.

Primary Sources:

https://weaponsystems.net/system/416-23mm+Gryazev-Shipunov+GSh-23

https://kintex.bg/product-4-293

https://web.archive.org/web/20230201163056/http://www.russianammo.org/Russian_Ammunition_Page_25mm.html#8

Russo-Ukrainian War: The RPV-16 Thermobaric Weapon

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

     A soldier of the 30th. Mechanized Brigade “Konstantin Ostrozky” showing off a RPV-16. The RPV-16 is a Ukrainian designed and built rocket-assisted thermobaric weapon, akin to the Russian RPO-A Shmel. The RPV-16 first appeared around January 2022, just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then, it has seen continued combat though it isn't often seen in photographs.

     The 93mm thermobaric warhead is designed to engage enemy infantry, especially those within bunkers or hardened positions. It does this by generating a fireball upon detonation which can reach temperatures approaching 2,500 degrees Celsius (about 4,532 degrees Fahrenheit) in addition to causing a overpressure wave from the blast. What isn't incinerated at the epicenter of the blast, the lethality of the RPV-16's explosion extends out to a radius of 262 feet. In a more confined space, the overpressure wave is compressed by walls and other surfaces, increasing the effect against infantry. Besides death, the wave's force can cause internal bleeding and even break bones.

     The RPV-16 comes standard with a dioptric sight (seen here in the photograph) which permits targeting between 100 meters out to 600 meters which is the optimum engagement range bracket. The weapon can fire out to a maximum range of 1,000 meters (.6 of a mile). The sight can be replaced with more advanced optics for aiming. Firing is through a electrical circuit trigger and there is a safety switch to prevent accidental firing. While the launch tube is one-use, the rest of the RPV-16's hardware can be re-used by securing it around a fresh tube via three latches. Loaded, the RPV-16 has a weight of 24 pounds and a length of 3 feet.

     Usually, the RPV-16 is fielded by a unit's CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) company (which the 30th. Mechanized Brigade has) though it is not exclusive to such companies.

 

The Standschütze Hellriegel M1915: A Weapon Lost to Time

(Source: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

     Of all the small arms developed during the World War One years, none is as enigmatic as the Austro-Hungarian Standschütze Hellriegel M1915, or, in German, the Maschinengewehr des Standschützen Hellriegel. The existence of the weapon came to light from a handful of photographs dated from October 1915 that were found in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library). Unfortunately, there were no technical details about the Hellriegel M1915 included with the photographs and so all information regarding it are derived from examination of the photographs and making educated guesses. 

     The weapon was named after a man with the last name of Hellriegel and he was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Schützenstand, or shooting club. Members of these clubs, whose men were called Standschützen, were committed to the voluntary, military protection of the state of Tyrol and Vorarlberg. When called to duty, the Standschützen were expected to supply their own rifles and often trained in civilian clothing. Officers in the Standschützen were elected, the maximum rank being Major. Standschützen officers had the same command authority as the regular military officers the latter of which, not surprisingly, did not look upon that with favor. In May 1913, those men who were already Standschützen were liable for service in the Landsturm (militia) and once assigned to Landsturm duty, these men were no longer volunteers. After August 1914, Standschützen were considered regular troops but could not be deployed outside Austrian territory (though this was later ignored). All told, there were some 65,000 Standschützen within Tyrol.

     Returning to Hellriegel's weapon, it isn't known if he designed it himself to interest the Austro-Hungarian military or if it was in response to a call for a lighter, fully automatic weapon. The ammunition used in the weapon was certainly of the pistol caliber but exactly what caliber isn't stated. The most likely caliber was 9x23mm Steyr as this was the standard pistol ammunition for the Austro-Hungarian military starting in 1911 and through World War Two. There were two means to feed the weapon, the first being a 20-round stick magazine with the second, shown here, being a drum that held approximately 160 rounds of ammunition. Unlike the stick magazine which could be fitted to the weapon, the drum magazine, at least in the photographs, could not or was only shown dismounted from the weapon. A novel feature of the drum magazine was the flexible feed chute which used a clip to secure it to the magazine well. The drum magazine was also provided with a stand (also seen in the photograph) which kept it upright if the firer did not have someone to support the drum. Another interesting feature of the Hellriegel M1915 was the fact it was water-cooled. The barrel was surrounded by the cooling jacket and the fill cap can be seen near the muzzle. A simple tubular fore-grip was affixed to the underside of the cooling jacket. Based on the photographs, the action is believed to be a form of blowback and this is because a blowback weapon doesn't require the barrel to move and instead, uses the expanding gas from the fired cartridge to push the bolt backwards, eject the round, then feed a new round as the bolt rides forward. Protruding out the back of the upper receiver were two posts connected by a central bar which was part of the return springs for the bolt. The wooden stock is believed to have been a cut down stock from a Mannlicher M1895 bolt-action rifle, the standard firearm for Austro-Hungarian infantry. The main difference was a deeper cut thumb groove. The leather sling was also derived from the M1895 rifle. Aiming was done by a iron front post sight and a rear flip-up sight. The rate of fire has been estimated to be between 650 to 800 rounds per minute though likely in combat, it would have been less. Also, the effective range of the Hellriegel M1915 isn't known. The 115 grain, full metal jacket 9x23mm round had a maximum muzzle velocity of 1,230 feet per second and when fired from the Steyr M1912 pistol, the range was 160 feet. However, fired from a longer barrel as used by the Hellriegel M1915, a more plausible effective range would be around 320 feet or more.

     The Hellriegel M1915, while it could be operated by a single man (ergo, the use of stick magazines), it could also be crewed by two men and this suggests that while classified as a submachine gun, the Hellriegel M1915 could be deployed as a light weight, light caliber machine-gun. In fact, one of the photographs shows a soldier wearing a special wooden backpack, open at the rear, with a fur covered leather flap to protect the contents consisting of five drum magazines and two pull-out drawers that may have been used for gun tools, loose ammunition, cleaning supplies, or additional stick magazines. The Italians, during World War One, used a similar concept, the twin-barrel Pistola Mitragliatrice Villar Perosa M1915, which fired the 9mm Glisenti round. Favored by the Italian “Arditi” (“The Daring Ones”), as Italian Army shock troops called themselves, the Villar Perosa was light and provided significant firepower at short ranges during assaults. A typical Villar Perosa crew was four men: a gunner and three ammunition bearers, the latter carried some 5,000 rounds between them to feed the ravenous weapon that had a maximum rate of fire of 1,500 rounds per minute, per barrel. Feed was by way of 25-round box magazines.

     Unlike the Villar Perosa, the Hellriegel M1915 failed to make it into service. The exact reasons for this are not known. Issues with the drum feed system, overall complexity, lack of a bipod support (though had it been developed further, might have been added), and difficulty plus expense to produce the gun may have all spelled the end of the novel weapon. The photographs show a weapon that was clearly a prototype, lacking finish and it is believed only a single example was built. Following its demise, it disappeared from history, the prototype lost, until the discovery of the photographs brought the unique weapon to light once more.

Source:

Banach, M. (2017, November 27). Zapomniany Standschütze Hellriegel M1915. SmartAge.pl. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://www.smartage.pl/zapomniany-standschutze-hellriegel-m1915/. 

The Moschetto Automatico Beretta 38: Italy's Best World War II Submachinegun

     Designed in 1935 by Tullio Marengoni, the Moschetto Automatico Beretta 38 (Beretta Automatic Musket 38; MAB 38) would prove to be one of the best Italian small arms of World War Two. The MAB 38, better known simply as the Model 38, was a traditional blowback firearm. Other features included a recoil compensator fitted to the muzzle, a sliding dust cover operated by the bolt, and utilization of a floating firing pin. Unlike many select fire weapons, the Model 38 used dual triggers instead of a lever. The forward trigger fired the weapon in semi-automatic while the rear trigger fired the Model 38 in full automatic. The key advantage of this was that the operator could quickly change fire modes without having to take the weapon off target or potentially lose critical seconds by having to flip a lever. The Model 38 also enjoyed a longer range than most sub-machineguns thanks to the Cartuccia 9mm M38 ammunition. This was a standard 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge but the M38 round was a “hot” load, meaning, additional gunpowder within the cartridge in order to increase muzzle velocity which in turn produced a greater effective range. 

     The Model 38 was a high quality weapon, even when the war situation forced some changes to allow for faster and cheaper production. The Model 38 was widely used by Italian forces, many of them elite such as the Reggimento San Marco and 185ª Divisione Paracadutisti Folgore. So well respected was the Model 38 that captured weapons were quickly put into service with German forces as the Maschinenpistole MP 739(i) where it was preferred over their own German built MP 38 and MP 40 sub-machineguns. Not surprisingly, even Allied troops, when able, used captured Model 38s as this picture of a U.S. soldier with one attests to.
 

The Russian OSV-96: The 12.7mm "Burglar"

(Mustafa Karali, Associated Press)

     Taken in 2012, a rebel fighter in Syria took the time to pose for Associated Press war photographer Mustafa Karali. He is holding a captured Russian OSV-96 sniper/anti-material rifle which had been seized from Syrian army forces during combat actions in the city of Maraat al-Numan. The OSV-96 is the refined and improved result of the initial rifle designated the V-94 “Volga” which was designed in the early 1990s by the Instrument Design Bureau (KBP in Russian abbreviation). 

     The OSV-96 fires a special 12.7X108mm cartridge (with the nomenclature of 7N34) to ensure accuracy at long range. If need be, the OSV-96 can fire more standard 12.7X108mm ammunition but typically at the cost of accuracy at range. The weapon uses a free-floating barrel and a sizable muzzle brake to reduce recoil. The weapon has a nickname, “Взломщик”, which means “Burglar” in English. 

     Entering service with Russian forces in 1996, users today also include India’s elite Marine Commandos (MARCOS), Belarus, Vietnam (who makes the rifle under license), and as illustrated by this photograph, Syria (rebels and government).

2cm Becker M II: Anti-Aircraft Success Story

     Somewhere on the Western Front, a crew poses with a 2cm (20mm) Becker M II automatic cannon. The Becker design actually predated the opening of World War One, development having begun in 1913 based on an earlier 1.9cm (19mm) model. Thus, when the German War Ministry issued a specification in June of 1915 for an aerial weapon under 3.7cm in caliber, weighing under 154lbs., and having a ten round burst, the Becker M II was already well advanced and thus at the right place and time. Unfortunately, when the weapon was mounted on Gotha G.I heavy bombers for testing in action, the Becker did not perform well. Still, potential was seen in the design and so the Spandau Arsenal was asked to lend their expertise to the weapon and after some modifications, an initial purchase order of 120 examples of the M II was placed. The Becker had a rate of fire of 325 rounds per minute and utilized a curved, 10-round or 15-round box magazine. Empty, the M II weighed 66lbs. and had a muzzle velocity of 1,600 feet per second. In service with the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte (German Air Force), the Becker was used on the Friedrichshafen G.III heavy bomber as well as other bombers in the Großflugzeug (“Large Aircraft”;G-Klasse) category. In addition, some of the zeppelins utilized by the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) were also fitted with Becker cannons. The Germans also sought to use the Becker as an air-to-ground weapon and fitted it to prototype ground attack aircraft such as the Albatros D.VI and the AGO S.1. This latter use would see the Becker adapted as an anti-tank weapon for ground troops under the designation 2cm Tankabwehrkanone Becker M II. The gun was fitted to a heavy tripod though the recoil of the M II was still more than the tripod could handle and given the muzzle velocity, despite the caliber, the M II showed up poorly against tanks. In fact, the M II had a lower muzzle velocity than the Maschinengewehr 08 (MG 08) machine-gun which was 2,953 foot per second. Disliked by the troops, the Tankabwehrkanone M II saw production halted after some 200 were built and issued. The Becker, however, had better luck with the troops as a anti-aircraft weapon. Given aircraft were built of thin metal, wood, and canvas, the Becker's round, if it hit, could inflict significant damage, especially if it struck a critical component, such as the engine or control surface. However, there was no official anti-aircraft mount for the M II and so troops had to make improvised mountings such as that seen in the photograph.

     The gunner and the two loaders all wear the Infanterie Panzer (Infantry Armor) which debuted in mid-1917 and so this at least dates the photograph to that period. The armor was proof against small arms fire from 550 yards but it was more intended to protect the wearer from shell splinters and shrapnel. It came in two sizes, small and large, weighing 22lbs. and 24lbs. respectively. The smaller plates were secured to the chest plate by web straps with felt pads underneath the edges to prevent metal-on-metal noise. The armor was not popular with troops as it made shouldering a rifle and throwing grenades difficult and dug into the armpits when crawling. Thus, the armor became trench equipment rather than issued to individuals. When a unit left a particular trench line, the armor stayed behind and was then issued to the next unit to man the trench lines. Given the mobility restrictions, the armor was usually worn by machine-gun crews in static emplacements or as we see here, an anti-aircraft crew. It is likely the photograph was posed given the gun and crewmen are completely exposed. In actual combat, it would be better concealed with some form of cover, be it earthen berms or sandbagged emplacements. The M16 helmets they wear were first issued in January 1916, the shape inspired by the sallet helmet from the 15th. century. Of all the helmets made during World War One, the M16 was the best design of them all. The shape deflected away shrapnel, covered the neck and much of the head, and used a padded liner system which made wearing the helmet more comfortable. The lugs on the sides were ventilation holes and were also used as the attachment points for an armored plate. At 6lbs., the plate was not popular and was almost always used by static gun crews and snipers. Finally, the crew have donned their M17 Lederschutzmaske (leather protection mask) gas masks for the photographer.

The Raketenpanzerbüchse 54: Germany's Bazooka

(Author's Collection)

     Two men from the Panzer Lehr Division form a team to practice with the Raketenpanzerbüchse 54 (RPzB 54; Rocket Anti-Tank Rifle Model 54) which was better known as the "Panzerschreck" or "Tank Terror." The RPzB 54 was the German response to the U.S. Army's M1 "Bazooka" and fired an 88mm rocket propelled shaped-charge grenade designated the RPzB. Gr. 4322. With an effective range of 150m, the grenade was capable of penetrating 216mm of face-hardened armor at an angle of 90 degrees. Typical engagement range was around 70m but because of the smoke created by the rocket once fired, the weapon was often called the "Ofenrohr" ("Stove Pipe") and it forced crews to quickly abandon their firing position before enemy fire was brought to bear. The photograph depicts the first version of the RPzB 54 which lacked a protective face shield of later makes. Thus, the firer is wearing winter mittens (of which the white lanyard connecting them can be seen) to protect his hands, a gas mask without a filter to protect his eyes and face, and a hood (likely also a winter one) to protect the rest of his head from the rocket's back blast. The loader, having taken a knee, has lowered his head in an effort to protect his face from both the blast and the dirt that the rocket would kick up after leaving the tube. The wooden crate next to the loader could hold two RPzB. Gr. 4322 grenades. The loader is armed with what appears to be a Maschinenpistole 43/1 (MP 43/1) judging by the stock shape and size.

     That the men belong to the Panzer Lehr Division is denoted by the schulterklappen (shoulder boards) visible on the loader. The cypher in the middle of the bottle-green colored schulterklappen is the letter "L" of "Lehr" which means "teach." The piping around the board was a light green. The Panzer Lehr Division was first formed on December 30, 1943 and was made up of instructor personnel from Panzertruppenschule I, Panzertruppenschule II and other Panzerwaffe training and demonstration units (hence the unit name). Thus, from the very beginning, the unit was considered elite due to the vast experience of the men within its ranks. Because of this status, it was the only panzer division to be completely equipped with tanks and half-tracks for the mechanized infantry. The division saw extensive combat on the Western Front.

The Erma Maschinenpistole: Soldiering into World War Two

     A Waffen-SS officer, cigarette in his mouth, smiles for the camera from his dugout. Where he is isn't known but given the extent of both the foxhole he is reclining in and the prone fighting position dug near it, it may be a defensive line location in which he and his men had the time to make more substantial fighting positions. The sticks driven into the ground near his head were likely for securing his camouflage zeltbahn (shelter quarter) to as a means to provide a more complete covering for his position since it appears that he has simply flipped half of it back. That he is an officer can be determined by the round belt buckle (Koppelschloss) that holds the black leather belt (koppel) around his waist as well as the white braid on the feldmütze (field cap) on his head.

     The photograph is of interest because of the weapon sitting next to his stahlhelm (steel helmet), the latter fitted with a camouflage cover. The weapon is a EMP, which stood for Erma Maschinenpistole, and this was a pre-World War Two weapon built by the Erma-Werke. The EMP, which was sometimes also called the MPE (Maschinenpistole Erma), was derived from the VMP1930 that was designed by Heinrich Vollmer. Vollmer had originally sold small numbers of the VMP1930 to Bulgaria under his own company, Vollmer Werk. However, financial difficulties forced Vollmer to liquidate and Erma-Werke bought all of his intellectual properties, including the VMP1930. Vollmer himself became the chief weapon designer for Erma-Werke.

     The VMP1930 was modified by adding a cooling jacket around the barrel and the name was changed to the EMP. Erma-Werke started to produce the weapon in 1932 and offered customization to customer specifications. Despite this, there were generally three common models. The first had a 11.8” barrel, a tangent rear sight, and a bayonet lug. The second had a shorter, 9.8” barrel, no bayonet lug, and either a tangent or flip-L rear sight. The third make did away with the characteristic front grip and instead, used a grooved stock. Customers, in addition to Bulgaria, included Mexico, Spain, and Yugoslavia. It was not until 1933 that the German Heer (Army) submitted a purchase order for the EMP. In addition to the Heer, the EMP was also obtained and issued to the SS as well as German Polizei (Police) forces. In all, some 10,000 EMP weapons were built when production ceased in 1938 to make way for producing the Maschinenpistole 38 (MP 38). By 1942, the EMP had disappeared from the ranks of the Heer, replaced by the MP 38 and its successor, the MP 40. However, the SS, Waffen-SS, and Polizei continued to use the EMP throughout the war. Interestingly, some 3,250 former Spanish EMP weapons ended up in French hands after being confiscated from Spanish Republican fighters who fled from Spain following the Republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War. Unfortunately, there were only 1,540 usable magazines and so between 700 to 800 EMP weapons were actually able to be issued and the majority of these were provided to the 638 Infanterie-Regiment, better known as the Légion des Volontaires Français Contre le Bolchévisme (LVF), a combat unit made up of French volunteers that fought for Germany on the Eastern Front. After the LVF was disbanded in September 1944, some of the former LVF members transferred into the Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS Charlemange (Franzönische Nr. 1) and took their EMP weapons with them.

     The EMP had a overall length of 35.5”, had a weight of a little over 9 pounds, and used a blowback action. Weapons used by Germany were chambered for 9mm Parabellum. Internally, the weapon used a telescoping mainspring casing designed by Vollmer. This same casing would be used in the MP 38. A simple tubular receiver carried the bolt and casing. The weapon used a side-mounted feed which accepted 25- or 32-round detachable box magazines. The magazine well had a slight forward angle to improve ammunition feed. To set the EMP on safe, the bolt handle was pulled back and secured into a slot on the receiver. In the photograph, the officer has his EMP on safe based on the position of the bolt handle. Muzzle velocity was 1,250 feet per second with a cyclic rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute. The effective range was 150 meters with a maximum range of 250 meters. Without being able to see the rest of the officer's EMP, it is difficult to say for sure what model it is but chances are good it is the second model.

The Model of 1941 Johnson Rifle: Domestic Failure but Foreign Success

(Photograph from the Dutch Nationaal Archief)

     Very much overshadowed by the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle was the Model of 1941 Johnson Rifle. The designation Model of 1941 is no grammatical mistake as the naming was meant to convey that the rifle had been accepted by the U.S. military even when it hadn't. Melvin Johnson developed the rifle and after informally demonstrating the weapon to the U.S. Army in June 1938, the rifle was seen favorably to give it an official testing in August 1938 at Aberdeen Proving Grounds by the U.S. Army's Ordnance Department. The Johnson rifle was put up against the new M1 Garand and for the most part, found favor save a few minor concerns that Johnson rapidly corrected. The revised rifle was again put to the test in December 1939 but following the Ordnance Department's official final report on the testing issued in February 23, 1940, the Johnson rifle was found to have no significant advantages over the M1 Garand. This did not spell the end for the Johnson rifle as the M1 had some early “teething” problems of its own which made public headlines that even had Congress threatening to withhold funding for further M1 Garand purchases. Yet another competition between the M1 and the Johnson rifle was held on May 5, 1940 but once more, it did not win out against the M1. Some felt Johnson was dealt a bad hand and the competitions were rigged to the point in December 1940, the War Department had to issue a statement proclaiming there were no shenanigans and the testing between the two rifles was fair. Shot down twice by the U.S. Army, Melvin Johnson went to the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) to interest them in the rifle only to be denied once again following a shoot-off between the M1 Garand and the M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifle (used as a control rifle) in which the M1 was deemed superior. With no U.S. military orders, Johnson had little option but to push export sales, the rifle often being called the M1941 Johnson Rifle in pitches to foreign buyers.

     The M1941 Johnson Rifle was chambered for the .30-06 Springfield round and a rotary magazine held ten rounds. The magazine could be fed singly or it could use the five-round stripper clip of the M1903 Springfield rifle to more quickly load the weapon. Total length of the M1941 was 3.8 feet long and had a loaded weight of 9.5 pounds. The M1941 used a short-recoil action with a rotating bolt. The usage of a short-recoil system was one of the main problems with the M1941. In short, upon firing, both the bolt and the barrel travel backwards. The barrel is stopped and the bolt continues backwards, ejecting the round. As the bolt rides back forward, it feeds a new round into the barrel and then pushes the barrel back into battery. This type of recoil system led to wider shot dispersion and while the M1941 could be fitted with a 8 inch triangular “spike” bayonet, attaching the bayonet to the barrel added enough weight to cause stoppages. In truth, the bayonet was an afterthought, included only as selling point for potential customers. The M1941 was unsuited for bayoneting as it risked damaging the rifle, the bayonet had no use outside of being attached to the rifle (and it had no true handle at all), and it was sometimes referred to as a “tent peg”. Muzzle velocity was 2,840 feet per second and the round was suitable for shots up to 1,000 yards using the rifle's iron sights.

     Johnson's efforts to obtain foreign sales paid off when the Netherlands ordered 70,000 examples in late 1941 to equip the Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (KNIL; Royal Netherlands East Indies Army) in the face of the looming Japanese attacks on Dutch holdings such as Java and Sumatra. The only change to the rifle was using meters instead of yards on the graduating sight. However, just under 2,000 M1941 rifles reached the Dutch East Indies before the Japanese completed their domination of the region by March of 1942. The Dutch government in exile (Nederlandse regering in ballingschap) embargoed some 33,000 rifles to prevent them from being captured by the Japanese while the remainder of the Dutch order was completed by Johnson (via the Cranston Arms Company) and kept in storage by the company. 

     Some of these rifles, however, were distributed and used to equip the Surinaamse Schutterij, the Surinamese Militia. At the time of World War Two, Suriname (located on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America) was a Dutch colony and the country was an important exporter of oil, rubber, and bauxite, a rock that contains a high content of aluminum. Aware of the Japanese threat, the Dutch government in exile (as the Germans had conquered the Netherlands in May 1940) permitted the deployment of U.S. troops in November 1941 to Suriname (as well as the Antilles and Dutch Guiana) to protect these vital industries. The presence of U.S. troops in the Dutch colonies was seen by some as a threat to colonial rule by the Dutch governors of the territories, thinking the troops would remain permanently. In Suriname, the Surinaamse Schutterij was raised and supported U.S. troops in protecting important industrial facilities and ports. These men, photographed in Paramaribo (the capital city of Suriname) in 1942 during a visit by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, are dressed in the Dutch M1937 service uniform which was made of gray-green cotton material (called Garoet-B). The tunic was closed by seven brass buttons, had two pleated upper pockets and two lower patch pockets with all of the pockets having pointed flaps. Their headgear, however, isn't Dutch but looks to be patterned after British army side caps. For equipment, the men have brown leather belts and Y-straps to which a single M1931 ammunition pouch (normally used for the 6.5mm Mannlicher M95 carbine) has been fitted. None of the visible men have any rank. The rotary magazine of the M1941 Johnson Rifle is very much evident here as is the bayonet fitted to the barrels. The lack of a true handle and the spike nature of the bayonet is clear and illustrates how useless it was for anything else. Ultimately, neither the Japanese nor the Germans threatened Suriname though German U-boats shelled an oil refinery in Aruba (another Dutch colony) in February 1942. In September 1943, Suriname was deemed safe and the regular U.S. Army troops were replaced by Puerto Rican troops from the 65th. Infantry Regiment. These men were the last U.S. forces in Suriname, finally leaving in October 1947. 

     As for the M1941 Johnson Rifle, the USMC ultimately made a small purchase of the rifle to equip the 1st. Parachute Battalion on account the M1941's barrel was easily detached which made it shorter, important for combat drops. The unit was never deployed as airborne troops and saw action in the Solomons in 1942. However, they were rapidly replaced by the M1 Garand. Other U.S. users included the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the 1st. Special Service Force (the “Red Devils”). Other foreign users included the Free French Forces (Forces Françaises Libres) during World War Two and after the war, the largest user was Chile who equipped her navy with 1,000 M1941 Johnson Rifles chambered in 7X57mm Mauser.

     Following World War Two, most of the M1941 Johnson Rifles were demilitarized by destroying them. The fate of the Dutch weapons stored by Cranston Arms is believed to have been one of destruction or shipped to the Dutch after the war. The embargoed weapons were purchased by the Winfield Arms company sometime in 1953 and were sold into the 1960s before their supply ran out. Today, the Model of 1941/M1941 Johnson Rifle is much sought after by collectors and commands a high price when in good condition.