Very early and very rare World War I era shoulder patch for the 31st “Dixie” Division consisting of a triangle bisected with red and blue denoting a machine gun battalion with two “D”s back-to-back. This patch was very quickly changed to a white disk on which is a red circle within which are two red “D”s back-to-back. The 31st infantry Division was a unit of the Army National Guard originally established in early 1917 as the 10th Division with Alabama, Florida and Georgia national guardsmen. Later that same year, the 10th became the 31st. Trained at Camp Gordon, Georgia, the Division arrived in France in September 1918 and was designated as a replacement Division. The Division returned to the U.S. in July 1919 where the men were mustered out of service. The 31st Division was mobilized in 1940 with National Guard Divisions from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Russian Medallion

A Russian, large, bronze-clad metal table medallion commemorating Vasily Alekseyevich Degtyarev (1880-1949). The obverse has a raised relief image of Degtyarev with the inscription, in Russian, “In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vasily Alekseyevich Degtyarev 1880-1980.” The reverse inscription reads, “Russian Gunsmiths USSR,” with a central image of a DP-28 light machine gun that Degtyarev created and which was the main light machine gun of the Russian army in World War II. The medallion measures 75 mm in diameter and also has the original red plastic box/stand.

WWI Brodie Helmet

U.S. World War I Brodie helmet for a machine gun company of the 27th Infantry Regiment of the American Expeditionary Force Siberia (A.E.F. Siberia). Painted in white winter camouflage with the A.E.F. Siberia insignia painted on the front of an “S” (for Siberia) superimposed upon a standing bear within an artillery shell. On the right side of the helmet is painted “27th” over “MG.” The machine gun companies were issued Browning Model of 1917 water-cooled machine guns and Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR) Model of 1918. Nearly 8,000 men, mostly from the 27th and then the 31st Infantry Regiments, were sent to Russia during World War I after the October Revolution from 1918 to 1920 and suffered severely from the brutal Siberian winter.

They were sent to Russia to help rescue the 40,000 men of the Czechoslovak Legions being held up by Bolshevik forces as they attempted to make their way along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok and, hopefully, to the Western Front. Additionally, they were sent to protect the large quantities of military supplies and railroad rolling stock that the U.S. had sent to Russia in support of the war effort against Germany before the Bolshevik Revolution. They failed in their mission.

Cap and Collar Badge

South Waziristan Scouts officer’s cap and collar badge circa 1920s. The cap badge has the British king’s crown over crossed Vickers with “South Waziristan Scouts” banner below with four lugs to the rear. The collar badge has the king’s crown over a mountain goat head and two lugs to the rear. South Waziristan is the southern part of Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan. The region was an independent tribal territory from 1893, remaining outside of the British-ruled Empire and Afghanistan. Tribal raiding into British-ruled territory was a constant problem for the British, requiring frequent punitive expeditions between 1860 and 1945. The region became part of Pakistan in 1947.

Sweetheart Pin

A sweetheart pin for the 3rd Machine Gun Company, 1st Canadian Division has red, white and blue enamel on a brass badge, with the king’s crown to the top and a Vickers machine gun on tripod to the center. The top banner reads, “3rd M.G. Co.” and below is “1st Canadian Division.” Pin back.

Swedish Machine Gunner Badge

A Swedish 1950s-era army machine gunner’s silver metal shooting breast badge that has three Swedish crowns to the top with two crossed M45 submachine guns to the center. Pin back.

Ernest Vaux, grandson of the Brewery’s founder, Cuthbert Vaux, was a Major in the Durham Voluntary Artillery when he volunteered for service with the Imperial Yeomanry (a British volunteer cavalry regiment) during the Second Boer War. He was appointed Machine Gun Commander with the temporary rank of Lieutenant in the British Army serving in the Imperial Yeomanry, 15th Company of the 5th Battalion, a part of the Northumberland Hussars, from July 1900 to June 1901 in South Africa. He commanded a Maxim machine gun detachment that operated in the Transvall, Orange River and Cape Colony areas of South Africa (though mostly in the Transvall) and took part in over 80 operations there. Major Vaux was “Mentioned in Dispatches” no less than 7 times for his service in South Africa and was awarded the Queens’ South Africa medal with four clasps. In November, 1901 he was awarded the prestigious DSO (Distinguished Service Order).

Upon his safe return to Sunderland the brewery, in late 1901, created a new brand of ale, Maxim Ale, with a very distinguished looking label featuring the Maxim machine gun in recognition of Ernest Vaux’s exploits. The initial recipe for the ale (said to be created by Ernest Vaux himself) was so strong that pub landlords complained that it put their patrons to sleep so the strength was reduced. But in 1938 the brewery increased the strength and renamed the brand Double Maxim.

Founded in 1837 by Cuthbert Vaux, and run by family members for generation, the Vaux brewery was purchased by Wards Brewing Company in 1972. Nevertheless, after over 150 years of brewing history, it closed, along with Wards, in 1999. In 2000, two former directors of Vaux and the head brew master resurrected the brand and established the Double Maxim Beer Company purchasing the rights to both the beer recipes and brand names.

Alas, the historic and renowned North East England brewery name of Vaux, and the iconic image of the Maxim machine gun on a British ale label, are long gone and now exists in name only.

After the release of “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter,” movie studios were trying to release their own big fantasy hits. Many of these failed to excite the audiences on that level, including “Eragon” and this month’s film, “The Golden Compass.” It is based on the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, a book series that is known for its anti-Catholic and anti-religious perspectives. Needless to say it was controversial, but there were other problems that helped the film fail at the box office.

One of the characters in the movie is Lee Scoresby, played by Sam Elliott. One of his weapons of choice is a pair of Colt Single Action Army Pistols. Also known as the Colt 45, it is the gun of the cowboy and is one of the greatest handguns of all time. It was tough, easy to use and load and dependable. It shoots the .45 Cartridge, though there are a few other calibers available, like the .38 Colt and the .357 Magnum. To load, simply open the loading gate and pull the hammer back two clicks. For safety reasons, some cowboys would only load five rounds rather than six, because the hammer was always resting on the firing pin.

In 1872, the United States Army held a competition for a new handgun for its soldiers. In the end, it was the Colt that emerged the victor, and a legend was born. It saw action in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War and was used by range hands, sheriffs, marshals, outlaws and Native American warriors during the golden age of the American West. It was not the only gun in the west, but it became the most iconic, with men like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bat Matterson and Buffalo Bill Cody being among the men who used it. Both sides supposedly used it at the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and it was used by the troopers who rode with Custer at the Little Big Horn.

This gun is popular in movies, especially Westerns. Some of the most memorable films include “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” “Tombstone,” “A Fist Full of Dollars,” “Open Range” and “Shanghai Noon.” It is seen in countless John Wayne movies, like “Rio Bravo,” “Rio Grande,” “The Sons of Katie Elder,” “The War Wagon,” “True Grit” (1969), “Rio Lobo,” “The Shootist,” “Fort Apache,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and “Big Jake.” They were even in more modern themed films like “The Expendables,” “The Expendables 2,” “The Mummy” (1999) and “Red Dawn” (1984). These are all good movies, and I recommend all of them.

“The Golden Compass” is a mixed bag. The effects are well done; however, there are twists that are weird, and the ending battle is actually laughable. The anti-religious themes in the books were not really present in the movie, taken out in order not to offend people. Many critics argue that this hurt the film, but there are other problems with the film that play an equal part in its downfall. Some of the acting is not that good, and there are points of the film that came across as poorly done, especially the ending. If you are interested, check it out, but it just wasn’t for me.

SAR would like to thank the movie wizards at Bapty, Ltd in London, UK, for their help in this article.

Dominican Republic, April–June 1965 

On June 6, 1965, Col. Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó’s rebel forces suspended negotiations and moved to break free from the noose around their strongholds within Ciudad Nueva. Nine days later, at 0750 hours, they launched the most violent attack against U.S. and the Inter-American Force’s positions. “By 0915hrs they were directing continuous fire at American positions, and at noon they assaulted Brazilian positions with a coordinated use of mortars, bazookas, and tanks.”1 Spearheading the offensive was a handful of captured armored vehicles, which faced Brazilian and U.S. jeep-mounted 106mm recoilless rifles (RRs). U.S. paratroopers used a 106mm RR to knock out an L60 light tank, stalling the attack. It was the bloodiest battle of the intervention, with the rebels suffering a sound defeat and the lost 56 square blocks of territory. By the time it was over, there were between 500 regulars and 325 police officers killed on the Loyalists’ side, and 600 regulars, hundreds of armed civilians and five light tanks destroyed on the Constitutionalists’ side. For its part, the U.S. was to suffer 10 Marines and 13 paratroopers killed and 283 wounded, most of them casualties of sniper fire. 

As it happened, in early 1965 the Dominican Republic sank in a civil war between Loyalists and Constitutionalists, so the U.S. intervened to prevent another Cuba. The U.S. stability operation, later code-named “Powerpack,” took place in three phases between April 30 and May 3, 1965. The plan consisted of landing at San Isidro Airfield (about 10 miles east of Santo Domingo) then advancing 8 miles west to the Ozama River and finally establishing a line of communications to link the airfield with the International Security Zone (INSZ) around the U.S. Embassy thereby separating the two factions. The U.S. acted unilaterally and was nominally neutral, but it backed the Loyalists; however, the intervention took an international turn when the Organization of American States (OAS) authorized the formation of the Fuerza Interamericana de Paz (FIP / IAPF) on May 23, 1965. The FIP was under the command of Brazilian General Hugo Penasco Alvim, heading an 1,130-strong Brazilian Battalion and a Fraternity Battalion with a Brazilian Marine Company, and three other infantry companies from Honduras (250), Paraguay (178) and Nicaragua (164), plus a 25-strong police squad from Costa Rica. However, the U.S. continued to provide the bulk of the FIP, with elements from the 1st Brigade/82nd Airborne Division, 16th Support Group, 7th Special Forces Group and assorted U.S. Air Force personnel.2

The FIP started deployment on May 24, but before that, the Marines had come ashore in late April with all their tools of the trade, including the M50 Ontos, an ugly light tank-destroyer equipped with six M40 RRs. In addition, each Marine company had a section of 106mm RRs to bolster their firepower. Facing them were the Constitutionalists, led by Caamaño Deñó, with 1,500 soldiers with five light tanks and one gunboat, plus another 5,000 armed civilians. The Loyalists, on the other hand, had the CEFA, the Armed Forces Training Center, under general Elías Wessin y Wessin, at San Isidro barracks, collocated with the 19th of November air base. This meant some 4,000 soldiers and the General de Brigada Felipe Ciprian Armored Battalion, consisting of four armored companies, one with AMX-13 light tanks, another with the Scania L60 truck, one with Lynx armored cars and one more with mechanized infantry with halftracks. Soon after the U.S. Marines landed, the Constitutionalists’ armored forces clashed with an armored column, resulting in a Marine M50 quickly destroying an L60 light tank but also losing an M50 in the fire exchange. Another M50 is credited with blowing the turret off a rebel AMX-13, while another light tank was destroyed by an M48 Patton tank. It is not clear if the AMX-13 with the turret blown off was later recovered, but Captain Manuel Antonio Cuervo Gómez and mechanical engineer Lazaro Rosado developed the MAC-LR, which matched one AMX-13 chassis with an HS630 triple 20mm gun. The MAC-LR was also reported destroyed in those early clashes of April 1965.

After these skirmishes, fighting was largely restricted to dealing with the occasional sniper fire, to which U.S. troops discovered that their 106-RRs were excellent anti-sniper weapons. They also used a single 106mm round to sink a boat that shelled their position with mortar fire. The U.S. retired its M40A1 recoilless rifles in favor of guided missiles starting in 1970, but 54 years after the skirmishes in the Dominican Republic, the 106mm-RR continues to be the main anti-tank and fire support weapon used by the Mexican and many Central and South American militaries. Those manufactured in Spain received the denomination “CSR-106” or “CSR CETME” 105mm while those built in Israel were called “M70s.”

Latin America’s M40A1 RR

Mexico has about 102 CSR-106s still in use, distributed among Recoilless Rifle Groups, comprising the First at San Juan Teotihuacan, the Second at Queretaro, the Third at Puebla, the Fourth at Sarabia, the Fifth and Sixth at 1-A Military Camp, Mexico D.F., the Seventh at San Miguel de los Jagüeyes and the Eighth at Chicoasen. The first M40A1 examples arrived in the early 1970s from Watervliet Arsenal (NY), followed by Spain’s Santa Barbara models in the 1980s, and then again from the U.S. in excess in the 1990s. The Mexican Army mounted its M40 RRs on Willys M38A1C, or its local equivalent the VAM J-3M, while the Navy mounted some of them on Jeep CJ-7s. Mexico received hundreds of M151s and M825s (together with numbers of M40A1s) in the early 1990s from excess stocks and U.S. pre-positioned warehouses. By 1994 Mexico had also incorporated thousands of Humvees, and eventually the M825 MUTTs (Military Utility Tactical Trucks) were replaced with M1038A1 troop carrier models. These RRs’ carriers were slightly modified with short pedestals to raise the M79 tripod high enough for the M40A1 tube to clear over the soft-top cabin, so the windshield could remain raised for travel and shooting. In 2014, Mexico purchased another 3,335 Humvee M1100 series vehicles, to include M1152 variants. This is an improved cargo/troop transport version with an integrated armor protection;3 modified as TTP (troop transport protected), and with modifications similar to the M1038A1 RR, an M1152A1 TTP-RR would have made for an expedient and more efficient armored support vehicle.

In Central America, Guatemala received a few U.S. examples, but ended up acquiring more than 56 M40A1 CSR-106s from Spain along with ECia 120mm mortars. In 1998, El Salvador organized the “AT Battalion” within the Cavalry Regiment, equipped with 18 AIL M-240 Recce Storm Jeeps and 18 M-240 Anti-Tank models. By 2019, only 12 operational CSR-106s were available, all mounted on repowered M-240 AIL jeeps. In 1977, Honduras obtained 16 160mm M66 mortars together with the first nine 106mm M70 RRs4 from Israel, and eventually amassed some 80 M40A1s to include U.S. and Spanish models. There were eight M70s on RBY-MK1 light armored vehicles, while others were mounted on M606A2 Jeeps, and Israeli Matmar Industries’ Jeep CJ-5 or CJ-6 Tolar versions.5 Honduras also adopted the Israeli practice of providing an anti-tank squad to each infantry battalion, and each brigade received an anti-tank company. Some 50 remain, mainly mounted on M825 or M998 vehicles.

In 1994, the Colombian Army restored 40 M3A1 Scout Cars, replacing the gas engines for diesels and mounting the M40A1 in the open bed. Within a decade, the Scout Cars RRs had been retired and replaced with M462 Abir Portee light trucks. The Portee was a dedicated weapon platform developed by AIL and fitted with ammunition racks, an additional fire extinguisher, equipment for the recoilless rifle and a rack at the rear for additional jerry cans, while the Colombians added some armor. Although local sources indicate that there are 75 M40A1s still operational, officially there are 63 of them.6 As a side note, Colombia has been the recipient of hundreds of Humvees, mostly M998s and M1097s, and the maintenance battalion (BAMAN) has reconstructed at least three of them to Buffalo VLBB standards. These are upgraded HMMWVs with an armored capsule that brings MRAP Level 1 protection for the crew. One of the capsule’s designs fits the two-cabin M1097 cargo variant, which, with further modifications as an RR carrier, would be an ideal fire support platform and an ideal replacement for the Abir Portee. 

The ground version of the M40 is mounted on an M79 “wheelbarrow” tripod, with a single front wheel and two solid legs while the M40A4 uses a conventional 3-leg M27 tripod. Either way, the weapon is not easily emplaced by hand. As result, Norway mounted its M40 on a two-wheel carriage and called it the Rekylfri Kanon 106mm M40. Austria built its own trailer and named it 10.6 cm rPAK (also rPak-66), and in its original form, the M40 was mounted on a simple two-wheel carriage towed 106mm RR M79 trailer. In August 2019, the Venezuelan automobile industry (ENSOVEN) developed a rolling platform for the weapon. It is similar in shape to the U.S. Marine M274, but unlike the Mule, the platform has two wheels and is not self-propelled. A number of Venezuelan RRs have been mounted on the Tiuna 106, a shortened version of the UR-53AR50 light truck, similar in design to the South Korean KM424 106mm recoilless rifle carrier, and developed by CENARECA (military auto industry). The Venezuelan Naval Weapons and Electronics Directorate (DAE) recovered four M40A1s in June 2016 for the 22nd Mariscal Antonio Jose de Sucre Marine Battalion, and by September 2019, the Military Industry complex (CAVIM) had refurbished the remaining 171 M40A1s. The weapons then were tested by the 12th Caribes Brigade before redistribution. 

Brazil has been a large user of the M40A1, retaining some 160 pieces that are operational today. The M40A1 is used by Bolivia, and there are some 24 with Ecuador. Uruguay has 69 M40A1s in use, some of them mounted on OT-64C/OT-93 APCs, and has deployed them with their forces serving with MONUC. In 2013, it was reported that Peru had deployed 36 M40A1s along the southern border with Chile.7 At one-point, Chile deployed some 500 M40A1/ CSR-106s. In 1978, when Chile’s Beagle Conflict with Argentina became acute, the No. 14 “Caupolicán” Infantry Regiment was the southernmost military unit of the Chilean Army facing Argentinean forces. It was the sole unit permanently based in Tierra del Fuego, so reinforcements came from the No. 10 “Pudeto” Infantry Regiment and from the “Cochrane” Marine Corps detachment. The M40A1 was the most important Chilean anti-tank weapon against the Argentineans, so these were supplied in quantities. The No. 145 regiment became the Reinforced Regiment No. 11 “Caupolican” on January 13, 2003, having as its headquarters El Porvenir. Currently, these regiments have become known as motorized detachments (DM), and the No. 11 DM still comprises one RR anti-tank company, together with the No. 11 “Caupolicán” Infantry Battalion, and the No. 13 “Tierra del Fuego” Artillery Group. Today, Chile has some 213 M40A1 RCLs in inventory, but only a handful are in service with the mentioned anti-tank company and the 106mm “Karut” Anti-tank Company, a unit subordinated to the No. 14 “Aysén” Reinforced Regiment based in the city of Coyhaique, under the IV Army Division. Some of the Chilean models have been upgraded with Simrad LP101 locators, computerized laser sights (CLASS) and MVS-800 night-vision systems, which allow accurate shots between 1200m and more than 2000m. The M40A1s are mounted on Jeep M-240 Storms, a multi-mission vehicle based on the Jeep Wrangler YJ and the CJ-6/CJ-8 wheelbase, built by the Israeli AIL. The M40 is used by conscribed soldiers, and familiarization is provided at “Las Bandurrias” training camp. The troops practice tactical use and combat doctrine. 

Paradise Was Hell,8 1980-1993

The offensive started with some 3,000 FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberación Nacional) guerrillas descending from the mountains to San Salvador, occupying the neighborhoods of Mejicanos, Ciudad Delgado, Soyapango and San Jacinto, and then taking positions in the upper-class neighborhoods of San Benito, Maquilishuat, Lomas Verdes and Escalón. They also attacked the eastern cities of Zacatecoluca, San Miguel and Usulután. In their wake they overran the 1st Infantry Brigade’s positions, pushing the troops inside the Capital.9 Soon after the initial firefights, there were skirmishes in the north, east, and to a lesser extent, west of the Capital, and within 48 hours, San Salvador was a battlefield. Meanwhile, at El Paraíso Camp, in Chalatenango,10 everything was quiet—too quiet … .

El Paraiso Army Camp was one of the most besieged military garrisons in the country. The camp came into intensive fire in January 1981, when elements of the “Modesto Ramírez” guerrilla front, part of the FMLN, assaulted it and besieged the zone. In the early hours of December 30, 1983, 25 elements of the Selected Special Forces (FES), led by Dimas Rodríguez, had cleared a path through the trenches and mine fields of El Paraiso Camp with Bangalore torpedoes. Another 150 fighters of the X-21 battalion of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), who were hidden along the outer fence, charged through the openings, occupying and destroying the base. The attack had been executed perfectly, with the FPL’s K-93 battalion deployed west, occupying positions in the area of the Troncal del Norte highway, and attacked units at nearby El Refugio, El Barrancon in La Reina and the Colima bridge to block relief forces. The FPL’s SA-7 battalion besieged an infantry company stationed at the town of El Paraiso, setting up containments along the road to Santa Rita while the SS-20 battalion set siege to Military Detachment 1 in the city of Chalatenango. The guerrillas occupied the base for 2 days, ironically surrounded by companies from the Atlacatl and the Paratrooper battalions. As they threatened to kill the survivors, a compromise allowed them to leave on a convoy of 17 trucks and buses.

On March 31, 1987, guerrillas penetrated the perimeter once again,11 killing 64 Salvadoran soldiers and wounding 79. Their attack also killed SFC Gregory A. Fronius, an element of the 3rd Battalion, 7th SFG (A). El Paraiso was subjected to another attack in March 1988, and on September 13, 1988, another attack to the base was repelled by Army troops and U.S. advisors, Major James Parker, SSG Michael Roth, Captain Gilberto Aguiar, SFC Mario Orozco Torres and 1st Lt. Byron Castleman.12 In one of those assaults, the rebels decimated the crew of an M40A1 recoilless rifle (RR), seizing it but then failing to find the trigger to fire it against Army positions, allowing the soldiers to retake the piece. Another attack had taken place in September 1989, so upon the news of the offensive in San Salvador in November of that year, the garrison commander, Colonel Ciro López Roque cancelled all leave, while Colonel Gilbert Cáceres, S3 Officer, ordered a defensive posture. 

El Salvador, November 12, 198913

In the darkness of the early morning of November 12, 1989, on one of the defensive hills, Lieutenant Geovanni Hidalgo, Battalion Azmitía/2nd Company commander, kept watch along with a renewed crew of that same 106mm recoilless rifle momentarily lost to the enemy in a previous fight. Lt. Hidalgo watched the top of the mountain in front of him; he was aware that there was a bunker manned by local Special Forces at the crest and that previous attacks originated from that mountain just outside the base perimeter. Expecting any movement to come from the same place, Hidalgo decided to test fields of fire and calculated a point midway up the hill. After calling and checking with the nearby patrols, and lacking 12.7mm ammunition to use in the recoilless rifle’s aiming device, he, along with the gunner, simply measured the distance by sight. Hidalgo then ordered the crew to open fire. With orders to be silent, the gunner hesitated, but Hidalgo repeated, “I am telling you to shoot.” The gunner responded immediately and fired. The quick gunner’s reaction and the backblast cached the lieutenant by surprise, blinding him. While he wiped his eyes trying to recover, the radio came alive. Initially, it was feared that the round hit a nearby patrol but then they realized that the officer on the other side was asking for additional fire since the patrol had detected movement at the site of impact. Hidalgo then ordered another shot as he was recovering from his blindness; the gun crew was ahead of the order and fired, catching Hidalgo off-guard again and blinding him one more time.14 The crew and officer had forgotten that the 105mm projectile follows a curved trajectory, and instead of the side, the rounds were smashing at the foot of the mountain. The first round landed on top of the guerrilla concentration. To everyone’s surprise, as the second round landed, the base of the hill lit up. The round had smashed right on top of the guerrillas’ ammo and explosives, causing a catastrophic reaction at the point of impact. The survivors attempted suppressive fire against the recoilless gun position, but that ended quickly. At day light, the troops found the disabled mortars, traces of blood and signs of casualties.15 

From that point-on, all continued to be really quiet at the 4th Brigade while hell rained on San Salvador, where the fight was house to house. As elements of the 1st and 4th Paratrooper Squadrons broke the siege around Ilopango Air Base, they were joined by elements of the Arce Reaction Battalion pushing against a Soyapango suburb, where they engaged some 1,500 rebels of the PRTC and RN factions. As the troops advanced on rebel strongholds, the fight centered around the neighborhoods of Santos-I, Las Brisas and Reparto Guadalupe. The guerrillas finally relinquished their dug-in positions on the 16th, and were in full retreat on the 17th, with the paratroopers on their heels. The troops dragged an M40A1 RR with them to the edge of Venecia and Prusia areas, where some rebels were trapped, shelling their positions and decimating their strongholds until the fight finally ended. The battle continued elsewhere in the Capital for another 2 weeks. The CSR-106 had proven its worth, disrupting the fight in El Paraíso and helping to subdue enemy positions in Soyapango. 

A Place Called “Paradise”

It is important to dispel claims that El Paraiso base in El Salvador was devised by American advisers. “Paradise” Camp, located 64km from San Salvador and 24km from the departmental capital, Chalatenango, actually took shape in 1968-1969 as an advanced Salvadoran Army depot and as a blocking strongpoint against any Honduran incursion. It gained importance after the July 1969 war between the two countries. In the mid-1970s, the Salvadoran Army reorganized and consolidated its maneuvering units, with the 1st Infantry Brigade at San Carlos Camp (cuartel/barracks) in San Salvador, comprising the 1st Regiment, the Engineer Battalion (detachment) from Zacatecoluca, and the 4th Infantry Regiment from Chalatenango. It deployed troops along the border detachments housed at El Paraíso, Chalatenango, El Refugio, Arcatao and El Guayabo Dam. 

El Paraíso Camp was located on an esplanade not very strategically located in the municipality of El Paraíso, Chalatenango. The base covered a square kilometer of flat land while its installations occupied a hollow between Loma (“hill”) El Espinal to the north and Loma Lisa to the south in Columbia. The small town of El Paraíso is approximately 1.5km (by road) to the northeast while the Guayabo is less than 2km northwest. A main entrance to the Cerrón Grande Dam is approximately 1km southeast. The development of the Camp continued until November 4, 1980, when it was established as headquarters for the 4th Infantry Brigade, and with U.S. assistance, the defensive perimeter was established with barbed wire, fortifications and night lighting, in addition to the usual mobile patrols, fixed posts and a prevention guard. The base was neither impressive nor impregnable. 

Documents captured in 1990 indicated that the guerrillas’ attacks in November 1989 pretended to overrun the Ilopango Air Base, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 6th Infantry Brigade bases, the Engineer Detachment and the Arce and Atonal Battalion camps. Therefore, the failed attack on the 4th Brigade was diversionary in nature and was prepared by “only” about 100 rebels. Two well-placed—and lucky—105mm shots from the M40A1 were sufficient to thwart their intentions in 1989.

1. history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/dominican.html.
2. dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/mexico-m1152-high-mobility-multi-purpose-wheeled-vehicles-hmmwvs.
3. United States Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1979.
4. pmulcahy.com/light_uv/israeli_luv.htm.
5. Colombia: A Country Study. Edited by Rex A. Hudson, Library of Congress (U.S.), Federal Research Division.
6. elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2013/07/15/los-desconocidos-preparativos-militares-en-chile-y-peru-previos-al-fallo-de-la-haya.
7. soc.mil/ARSOF_History/articles/v3n1_paraiso_page_1.html.
8. cambridge.org/core/books/the-salvador-option/guerrilla-second-final-offensive-november-1989/6562240F43C7C91E92901ABA8788AF36.
9. contrapunto.com.sv/archivo2016/cultura/literatura/romper-un-candado-asalto-al-cuartel-el-paraiso-1983. cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90- 00965R000200730001-2.pdf.
10. cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00965R000200730001-2.pdf.
11. fas.org/irp/agency/dod/socom/2007history.pdf.
12. From LA F.A.E.S. a Fierro y Machete: Recopilación de Detalles Históricos de las Fuerzas de Tierra de El Salvador, draft presented to the Salvadoran Ministry of Culture, July 2019.
13. Testimony provided by Geovanni Hidalgo.
14. From LAF.A.E.S.aFierroyMachete:RecopilacióndeDetallesHistóricosdelasFuerzasdeTierradeElSalvador, draft presented to the Salvadoran Ministry of Culture, July 2019.

The Dirty Dozen & The Wild Geese

“The Dirty Dozen” hit theaters in 1967 and was a big success. It was well liked by audiences, though there was some criticism for the violence, which was pretty rough for the time. It stars Lee Marvin, a World War II Veteran who was once awarded the Purple Heart. In fact, the film is full of WWII veteran actors, including Robert Ryan, Clint Walker, Telly Savalas, and Charles Bronson of the “Death Wish” series. It is the story of a group of criminals in the US Army being recruited to take out a group of top German Officers, hoping to make the D-Day Landings easier in the process. It is actually based on the novel of the same name, written by E. M. Nathanson, who took inspiration from the Filthy Thirteen, a real fighting unit from WWII. Unlike “The Dirty Dozen” from the film and book, Filthy Thirteen got their name because they wouldn’t shave or bath for weeks, and were not a collection of criminals who were promised a better sentence.

“The Dirty Dozen” is a classic guy movie. In the movie “Sleepless in Seattle,” after a woman has stopped crying over a movie she had just watched, the two men in the room suddenly recall the death of a character in “The Dirty Dozen” and start tearing up, much to the woman’s enjoyment. In 1985, a made for TV movie aired staring some of the original cast, called “The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission.” It was soon followed by “Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission” and “Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission.” The movies aren’t great and are obviously made for TV, with parts fading to black at certain points for the commercials. The last two movies see the return of Telly Savalas, though he plays an entirely different character from the one he played in the first movie.

In the first of the sequels, “The Next Mission,” Lee Marvin’s character, Maj. John Reisman, recruits a new Dirty Dozen to infiltrate behind enemy lines disguised as Wehrmacht soldiers. They are armed with the MP40 submachine guns, one of the finest guns of the war. Maj. Reisman is actually given a special gun, an MP40 with a shorter barrel than the others. In reality, no such gun existed during WWII and is entirely movie magic made by the machine shop at Bapty, Ltd in London, England.

The MP40 was one of Germany’s best and most prolific weapons during WWII, with over one million guns made. It was light, easy to shoot, and carried a 32 round magazine. The MP 38, its precursor, was actually slightly more expensive because of the milled receiver (MP40s are stamped) but was not as well received. Both were actually designed by the same men, Berthold Geipel and Henrich Vollmer. Much of the action it saw was on the Eastern Front in Russia, with some sent to North Africa where the allies got their hands on them. The MP40 was such a great gun that it was used well after the war by Norwegian tank crews and the armies of the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, and Austria. The Soviet Union even took the countless MP40s they captured in their war with Germany and sent them to their satellite states and to numerous rebel groups around the world, including the North Vietnamese.

As mentioned before, the “Dirty Dozen” sequels are not that great. “The Next Mission” does have an interesting idea in that the dozen are being sent to assassinate a top SS Officer who is planning to kill Adolf Hitler, because the Allies are worried that someone more dangerous and “much more competent” will take his place. The plot of the “Deadly Mission” is to rescue a group of scientists from the Nazis and destroy a dangerous weapon of mass destruction. The plot of “The Fatal Mission” is to capture a group of German intellectuals who are trying to start a Fourth Reich in the Middle East. If you enjoy these movies, by all means, enjoy, but they are nothing compared to the original “The Dirty Dozen” classic.

During the cold war, the Ak-47 was found all over the world as the weapon of choice for the USSR and its Communist allies, as well as countless rebel and terrorist groups. To counter this, the US had the M16 assault rifle, but many of its allies depended on another weapon, one that had come out of Belgium. Created by the company FN Herstal, The FN FAL (or Fusil Automatique Leger, French for Light Automatic Rifle) was at one time the primary assault rifle for over ninety countries, including Israel and most of the NATO countries.

Designed by Dieudonne Saive and Ernest Vervier, the FN FAL is an excellent rifle that has stood its ground against the arguably more popular AK-47. Its usual caliber is 7.62x51mm NATO although the British tried it in .280, and has an effective range of 200 to 600 meters with open sights. It comes in many variants, including the L1A1, or SLR, which saw service in the UK and most of its Commonwealth Nations, including Canada, the first country to order the rifle in large numbers (The Commonwealth Nations used the “Inch Pattern” FALs while the others basically used the “Metric FALs”). It has been replaced in some of these countries by the SA80, the C7 Assault rifle, and the Steyr AUG, but is still used in a few areas of Law enforcement and is popular with civilians.

The FN FAL saw service in many conflicts, including the Vietnam War, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Rhodesian Bush War. It was used on both sides of the Falkland War and saw service in the Israeli army throughout the Suez Crisis, the Six Day War, and the Yom Kippur War. It is even being used today with the Syrian and Libyan Civil Wars, and the Mexican Drug War.

Though it is a great rifle, the FN FAL has a few problems. One problem is the weight. It is heavier than the AK-47 by two pounds or more, and that is without the ammo, which is also heavier. The Israeli rifles tended to jam because of the sand that got into the gun. It also has a strong recoil that feels like somebody is punching you in the shoulder. Perhaps the weirdest problem is the firepower itself. The bullet tended to go through walls and enemy combatants alike.

In the film “The Wild Geese,” the FN FAL is one of the most common guns used. One of them is the FN FAL with a shortened barrel that was carried by Tosh Donaldson, portrayed by real life professional soldier Ian Yule, who served with Colonel “Mad Mike” Hoare in the Commando unit which inspired “The Wild Geese” and all over the world. He was also a stunt man on the movie Ben-Hur. In truth, this Shortened FAL is movie magic from Bapty, Ltd, for there was no FAL that had a shortened barrel at the time. The Bapty FAL is made from a British L2A1 rifle. There are a few that do have them in recent years, including the Armtech L1A1 SAS and DS Arms’ OS-58.

“The Wild Geese” is a good movie. It stars Richard Burton, Roger Moore, and Richard Harris as a group of mercenaries hired by a private mining company to rescue a political prisoner in Africa. It had a bit of a controversy because it was filmed in apartheid South Africa. Despite this, it did well in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world, but did poorly in the USA for a number of reasons. The Wild Geese is also the name used by many of the Irish fighting units that fought for Spain and France during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and the eighteenth centuries. If you have time, look up the history of these units and, of course, the movie “The Wild Geese.”

SAR: When you say the cocking handle is wrong, what do you mean?

Visser: In the end we made it underneath, so that the left or right handed person could use it easily. Anyway, Gene got interested in other things, and I hired Hans Sturtz, a German who worked for Gene Stoner. He was fantastic at making things….he worked for us in Holland, and we changed the Stoner rifle in various ways, small things, but important, like a good folding stock – one that locks. We made a good bipod too, a sturdy bipod, one that locks on the gun. I kept all of the documentation about what we did. We made a barrel with flutes, a thicker barrel, and we arranged for the sling swivels on the right place.

SAR: This is the Stoner 63 we are discussing? Let me go get some examples from the vault. (Dan gets some Stoner 63 and 63As to put on the table for Henk to point out things.)

Visser: Actually the 63A but improved. We did several things for the 63A. This was now the 63A1 when we were done with it. As I said, we improved the bipod and made it mount on the rifle, which was my idea. In the beginning, Gene Stoner didn’t have a flash hider with the right dimensions for the international rifle grenade launching requirements. The original CETME was even missing that by design. They just had a barrel sticking out making a hell of a flash, and noise. I designed the flashhider for the CETME (G3). We changed the Stoner 63A to be able to fire Rifle Launched Grenades (RLG), a very important feature even today in many armies. We changed location of the charging handle, the bipod, the stock, and many other minor changes.

SAR (Dolf): Henk, I thought that originally you were involved with the AR-10, with the 7.62 Stoner rifle?

Visser: No, Dolf, I have heard this before but I had nothing to do with that. The AR-10 was our competitor, the government plant Artillerie Inrichtingen (AI) at Hembrug, in Holland. They got so upset that we had the Stoner 63A license – first we had the CETME rifle then the Stoner – that when the Director of AI read in TIME Magazine about this lightweight rifle from ArmaLite, he and his secretary got on a plane and flew to Costa Mesa to make a deal on the AR-10. He was not liked by the Dutch generals because of the way he treated them. In reality, the AR-10 was a fantastic rifle for 7.62 NATO. Director Jungeling invited all the top generals to his plant and they were getting coffee and cake, and while they were eating he reached next to his chair and holds up an AR-10 and announces, “Gentlemen, this is your new rifle! This will be the future!” Those generals decided at that moment in their minds that nobody was going to adopt the AR-10. They didn’t want to be told by a civilian what would be the new Army rifle. He killed it with that. It’s a very sad story because it was a good rifle. They wanted to do their own testing and make their own decision and like most generals, they do not like anyone telling them what they will have for weapons.

SAR: You had the rights to the Stoner 63 outside of the United States?

Visser: Outside of United States and Canada. We had a very optimistic view of our opportunities because we and Cadillac Gage thought that the US Marines would adopt the system. We took the Stoner Rifle to Ecuador, Chile, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and, Israel. I went everywhere. We spent millions, and I told the top people in my company, “This is it. This is what the soldiers want.” I never told the customers that – I simply showed them the quality and let them test the rifle. Standardization, a cheap machine gun…the main parts are all the same. Maybe I overdid it a little bit at times. We had the Inspector General of all of the forces in Holland and his Royal Highness Prince Bernard; he had seen it and liked it, and he tried to push it in NATO. Again, I think maybe there was too much support in this way, these guys all wanted to do it themselves and make their own decisions. I was instrumental in the standardization of the rifle grenades as well. Because of me, all of the rifles have the flash hider with the 22mm diameter. I was close with MECAR in Belgium, and we developed a whole series of rifle grenades, including a new small hollow charge which would puncture a 5cm hole in a steel plate at 160 meters.

SAR: So this was a shaped charge system. What was the launching platform – bullet trap, bullet through or launching blank?

Visser: It was a special blank cartridge at the beginning. We had, even for the Stoner, a short magazine that was colored green that could be loaded with this gas cartridge, so that there would be no mistake of putting a live cartridge in the gun.

SAR: Did you get any sales of the Stoner 63A1 in the countries you just mentioned?

Visser: The biggest thing was that the United States Marines were going to adopt it. I was at Quantico almost weekly, and they wanted these, so after the first lots of prototypes they ordered 3,000 or so from Cadillac Gage and shipped the Stoners to Vietnam. They wanted a live combat environment to test them. The Stoner was very successful and the Marines liked it. Then the U.S. Army stepped in and said, “No. We will all have the same weapons. You take the M16.” The Marines got mad, and talked about bent barrels and this and that, and the cocking handle they did not like and the rifles needed a heavier barrel, etc. We were offering this gun that we demonstrated as the future U.S. Marine weapon. We really pushed that, you know? Because who was this tiny little company in Holland, and Cadillac Gage was not known either: they made a few armored cars. Nothing to show manufacturing ability with small arms, but the Marines with Stoners, that was another story and it was our sales pitch to our customers.

Gene Stoner was very bitter about many of the issues that occurred then. In the Stoner 63 rifle he had tried to fix what he saw as the problems in the M16, which was also his design originally.

The big blow was when the decision came that the U.S. Marines were not going to take the Stoner system. This made it difficult for us, because the people we were trying to sell it to thought something must be defective with the guns since the U.S. was not adopting it. I had sold 12 to Singapore after a demonstration and sold some to Thailand, Japan and South Korea. We were a nice company, we didn’t bribe anybody. The same in the Philippines. I still remember the offer for the Philippines. We had trained them so that they could work on the guns themselves. It was a $35 million deal. Then Colt got in and they got the order instead for $58 million. Their agent had better “contacts” – almost $20 million extra above what our program was. I was with the top man there, the commissioner, and if I had said that we could raise it to $55 million or whatever, we would have had that deal. But that would have never occurred to me. The same thing happened on the deal in South Korea.

The Stoner is an excellent weapon, and the only complaint I ever had was that if the soldiers have the rifle, and then they give the company armorer some cigarettes or something, they’ll quickly have a belt-fed and a heavier barrel, and before you know it everyone in the whole group has a machine gun. (Visser laughs.)

SAR: That’s a complaint? If they trained a platoon with all belt fed Stoners, it would have been pretty formidable.

Visser: Yes, but these armies aren’t trained that way. Riflemen should be riflemen, and the machine gun is restricted to certain personnel with specific machine gun jobs. It would have been very simple to make things so that you couldn’t make a machine gun out of a rifle, but that would get rid of one of the beautiful things about the Stoner – the adaptability. The only complaint I ever received was that it was too easy to make a machine gun out of it.

SAR: Henk, you were involved in many of the post World War II arms deals. What about the surplus deals?

Visser: I got some surplus 20mm ammo from our Air Force and I sold it to Israel. I worked with Tom Nelson’s company and went on some trips with him, but we were not very successful in obtaining surplus guns.

SAR: Was there any surplus in your time in Vietnam?

Visser: Only the RPGs and other items we discussed earlier. Of course there were much more US military leftovers from Vietnam that were surplused out, but not through our company. I should tell you that I was given the rank of Colonel in the US Army so that I had an ID card. If you got captured by the North Vietnamese, the US Army figured that an officer would be treated better. I still have the ID today. (Henk shows us a Vietnam era US Military ID card with his picture and the rank of Colonel.) We wanted to know how the testing went with the 3,000 guns for Vietnam, but secondly we had to be involved in the MECAR rifle grenades. The Marines were very interested in these rifle grenades, the shaped charges that punched 5cm holes. There was one demonstration where the armored plate was at 160 meters, and as I was a good shot, I could stand there and whop it, and they could see the hole was there. I came upon the idea of mini hand grenades then. In Vietnam, I saw the soldiers go out with only two hand grenades, and if the grenades got wet then they had to be destroyed. With the help of MECAR, we made very small hand grenades and the inside was ribbed in little squares. We used RDX instead of the normal high-explosive. I designed a special short ring that you couldn’t pull, you had to twist it, and then you could get it out. This prevented a lot of accidents. I had a special detonator made by Dynamit Nobel and we sealed the grenades in plastic so you’d have a bandolier with ten mini hand grenades. This weighed as much as two standard hand grenades giving the soldiers a lot of waterproof hand grenades for their missions. I also had them make an aluminum tail with an old-type beer bottle closer; you could stick the hand grenade on there and close that. There was a thin wire, so when you fired it from the rifle, the wire would break and the lever would jump off and at 200 meters you had an explosion.

Then MECAR said, “Nice, but let’s make a rifle grenade that’s just the same in arming, but the standard size.” We also had parachute flares. Then there was a request from the Americans and they said, “Listen, we have had cases where we bombed our own people in the deep jungle cover. We want a flare that goes through the canopy and explodes at 100 meters with a big flash and a brown cloud.” They wanted a test quantity of 200 or so, and three weeks later they were on a plane from Germany to Vietnam for testing. It was really successful; there was a big flash and a bang after it exited the jungle canopy. We were working to design a bullet trap in the grenade tail so you could fire with live rounds. Around that time the owners of MECAR decided to sell the whole shebang to an American company. I had a contract with them that said I received a commission on everything that was sold, regarding the rifle grenades and such. They tried to talk me out of it, and I said, “Gentlemen. You’ve just told me that I am going to make millions from these mini-grenades, but give me one hundred thousand dollars and it’s yours.” I wanted out of the company and the new owners. A lot of yak-yak and I got my hundred thousand dollars.

SAR: But not the millions in the future…

Visser: No, I would get none of that. The Marines bought a lot of those rifle grenades, and they tested them and decided to adopt them. Again the same thing happened. The U.S. Army was working on the 40mm launchers and they didn’t want the Marines to have something else. The Marines adopted the 40mm, not our multi-purpose hand and rifle grenades.

SAR: That sounds like the end of the Stoner 63 and MECAR projects. Where did you go from there?

Visser: We were into developing a “breakup” training round. It was an idea that I had in Germany after seeing how they had to have tremendous ranges when they were shooting at air targets. We had a plastic bullet with compressed iron powder parts in it that gave the same recoil – everything the same as a ball round, but it caught the rifling and because of the plastic jacket, after 50 meters or so, it would burst and there was just a cloud of powder. What they also wanted to test was putting a round that wouldn’t function in the magazines; something which would cause a stoppage. It was for the soldiers learning to fix the stoppage. We sold millions to the Germans. Really, many millions in numerous calibers as it turned out. This ammo functioned perfectly in the German 20mm gun and the twin 20mm AA guns.

They had thousands of these twin-barreled 20mm guns used for AA defense and the troops had to train with them. For training purposes, a plane came flying past with the target sack. They had to aim and they fired like mad and it was really something exciting to see: a whole row of twenty twin 20mm guns. From there we went to the 40mm Bofors round 40 l 60 and 70, also with the break up projectile.

One problem occurred when the Dutch Navy wanted the 40mm Bofors too. They went out and shot it at sea, but there was so much wind out there that the powder would blow back and immediately started rusting the ship. “Oh my God, our beautiful ship! You are ruining our beautiful ships” they cried. (Laughter.) For land based use, though, we sold a lot of these.

Around that time the Swiss company Oerlikon asked me to come and work for them. Singapore asked me to get them 120 20mm cannons for the armored cars they bought from Cadillac Gage. I just walked in to Oerlikon and said, “They want an order from you for 120 cannons.” Oerlikon couldn’t believe it. They had never done much business in the Far East, only Japan. I got the offer and flew out to Singapore. They looked at the prices and thought it was ok, and they went up to the boss, who had a Dutch name, and he signed the contract. I was amazed. I came back and walked into Oerlikon and said, “Here’s your contract.” They almost fell over. After the war they hadn’t had any big contracts like that, 120 20mm guns. The big boss said to me, “What do you want as a commission?” I hadn’t even thought about it. I thought, “Maybe one percent? Do I have the guts to ask for two percent?” Then the boss says, “Is six percent enough?” I got a million Swiss francs commission, and that was the first time I’d ever done anything like that. I started working for them and became the boss for the whole Far East. I sold the South Koreans all of their 35mm AA guns, and also sold to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. That made me a rich man, you know, because besides the big salary they paid me a two percent commission as well. When you get a $900 million order, that’s really something. (Laughter). I was with Oerlikon for about fifteen years, from 1975 until around 1990.

SAR: Not bad for a little Dutch kid who started his cannon ammunition career making 20mm detonators while a slave laborer in a German prison.

Visser: Yes, a very, very, long way from that.

SAR: What are you working on today?

Visser: I spend most of my time working on restoration of historical firearms, major projects to save many of these works of art. There was a big restoration project in Russia. I came to Russian in 1988 with Dr. Arne Hoff, the director of the Tojhuseet museum in Copenhagen. Even before the war, it was known there were many historical Dutch guns in the Kremlin Armory. We went there, and we were received well but they didn’t even want to give us their last names. It was forbidden to give your last name to a foreigner. I liked them, and they liked me, and we got off on good footing. Each time I came there, I brought them suitcases full of Dutch specialties of coffee, “cup-a-soup” packets, an electric water heater, and 200w light bulbs. They had 40w light bulbs in the depot and you couldn’t see anything. I brought them nice mugs to drink from, and we had a very good relationship.

I knew all the guns they had, and they had about 350 beautiful guns, of which 120 needed serious care. Pieces were broken off, pieces to be repaired, and I asked, “Why don’t you restore them? You have a lot of wonderful pieces here.” They said, “We have no money to do this, Russian things must come first.” I said I would do it and would pay for it. It took two years of negotiation, and I became friends with the Minister of Culture, who must have studied at an American university because he spoke fluent English. They eventually let 120 guns go to Holland where I could have them restored. We had the best restorer in the world for antique arms, Herman Prummel, he can do anything. I thought it would be half-year project, but it took two and a half years to finish. In the meantime, a good friend of mine, Helena Yablonskaya, wrote up all the Dutch guns in Russia; about 120 at the Kremlin Armory, some at the Historical Museum, some at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage, 350 in all. In the series of my books, there is one book about all of those.

SAR: It sounds like you are very dedicated now to restoring these historical Dutch firearms.

Visser: Yes, very much so. I am full of crazy stories on this. When I was younger, before the war, our high school made day trips to different places. One of the trips was to Emden in North Germany and there was an armory in the Rathouse with lots of suits of armor and guns and pistols. The first battle with the Spaniards in our Eighty Years War was in 1568 in ‘t Heiligerlee, a village near Groningen. There was a wooden case closed with mesh steel wire, and inside it were musket balls from the first battle to get rid of the Spaniards. We had a Nazi guard with us in a black uniform, and when he wasn’t looking I took my pocketknife and lifted up the steel wire and stole one musket ball. I still have it today. (Laughter.)

Emden was flattened during the war and I always wanted to go back. I went to the Meppen Army testing grounds nearby, but I never got to go back to Emden. Finally, about a year and a half ago I go with Herman Prummel who told me that a lot of pistols were rotting away in the depot. I went over there….and it was horrible. There were the most beautiful Dutch wheellock pistols full of wormholes, half the stock gone, and the metal cleaned with emery paper. My big mistake was not to take the whole pile for an offer of 50,000 euros because they’re never going to show this stuff, but I said, “Why don’t you restore them?” They said they had no money, so I said I’d do it. They said, “Why don’t you take them? We’ll talk to the director, and come back in two weeks.” So I came back in two weeks and instead of having 10 ready, they had 50. We took all 50, and it took more than a year for Herman Prummel to restore them. They are in fantastic condition now. Fortunately, they had saved all the metal parts that had fallen off. If the buttstock had been eaten, they still had the metal ring. Those Dutch wheellock pistols were very light and elegant. These are at my house right now, waiting for the museum to open. We are now working on a catalogue with pictures of them.

I guess that my passion today is the works of art that are in these old firearms. I have spent a lot of time making them whole again.

SAR: Henk, I want to thank you for sharing these stories with SAR’s readers.

Visser: Yes, I have enjoyed this, and I hope to come to the SHOT show and see old friends.

We discussed many more stories of the old days and the arms trade, as well as current restoration projects that Henk Visser is involved in, but those must wait for another day. – Dan

Hinderikus (Henk) Lucas Visser was born in the City of Groningen, the capital of Groningen Province in the northeast of the Netherlands, on 5 August 1923. Henk was very involved in the CETME rifle project, the original HK G3, Stoner’s projects (most notably the Stoner 63A1), Oerlikon, Mauser, and many other historical events that impact on the small arms community today. Smallarmsreview.com is pleased to bring this lengthy and comprehensive interview to our readers from our 2006 issue and will be presented in two parts. – Dan Shea, SAR Editor-in-Chief

SAR: Thanks for joining us, Henk. I guess the readers would like to know what got you started with firearms – what was your first gun?

Visser: My first gun was an old pinfire revolver, which you could buy for about two bucks in those days. I was maybe fifteen years old. Pinfire ammunition was very rare so I just collected these and enjoyed looking at them and I would hide them from my mother who did not approve. My father had died when I was ten years old. Later in life my mother would complain about my gun collecting habits, but I would say, “Mother, it’s your own fault. You never bought me an air rifle.”

SAR: And your interest in military firearms?

Visser: I had wanted to be in the military, so as soon as I could ride my bicycle, I was always around the barracks in Groningen and the nearby airfield. After the German occupation of Holland, May 10, 1940, there wasn’t much hope for me to join the Dutch army. I was still in high school, and was definitely not a Nazi sympathizer. With friends, we harassed the occupying military units, and I was arrested by the Germans but managed to talk my way out of it several times. I was eighteen years old when the SD (German Sicherheitsdienst) finally arrested me.

SAR: What were the charges? And, I suppose, were you actually guilty?

Visser: Guilty as charged. Sabotage, gun possession, those were the main charges. It was May 5th, 1942 when the German SD arrested me. It was in the classroom, in front of all the other kids. (Laughs) It was quite something! On one occasion I had broken into the German barracks and put a match to a wooden building that the Germans were setting up for storing radio transmitters. It was at the airfield next to our town that the Germans had expanded and made into a bigger airfield. They held me, because the last thing I did was to break into the Navy officers’ mess, and I stole a K98, a machine pistol, a pistol, ammo and some of their papers. We had a small group of people that had gotten together to do this, and there was one man who was a traitor, he tried to blackmail me. Anyway, the Dutch police got involved, and I got arrested. Then in July I had a Navy court-martial in the town of Utrecht.

SAR: So, your first machine gun involved getting a Navy court-martial from the Germans while you were in high school?

Visser: (Laughs) Yes, and they condemned me to death and also three years for another break-in in a Dutch Nazi gunsmith shop in town.

SAR: An additional three years?

Visser: With the Germans, you were condemned separately for each crime and punished that way as well. I had a friend in jail, a cadet from the Dutch military academy, who was condemned separately to death three times, plus ten years, and four months. His father was very rich, and he started paying people off, so the Germans took off two of the death sentences and shot him for the third. My uncle, who was a director of the Dutch Philips electronic company, knew one of the German supervisors of the factory and tried to get me off. He told the supervisor, “You have to go and see if you can get the boy pardoned since his mother is a widow and only has one other younger son.” The supervisor went to see Seis Inquart, the German ruler of Holland, who said that this was a job only for the military. He suggested that my uncle should talk to General Christiansen, who was the military commander in Holland…but he also said no, and he said that Dutch high school boys who think that they can make a joke out of the German Army will be shot. So my mother was quite desperate, and she went with our lawyer to see the German Navy commander herself. Just to let you know how these Germans were; he lived in a big villa…my mother and our lawyer passed the guards at the gate, rang the bell, and a Navy sailor opened the door. He took the letter that my mother had brought asking for a pardon, and left my mother and the lawyer standing outside in the rain for half an hour. Then the door opened again and the same sailor gave the letter back to my mother, torn in half.

My mother was very desperate at this point. Her father had a butcher shop in town, and next to that was a vegetable shop…our two families were good friends. One of the children of the vegetable shop owner, Kees Veening, had gone to live in Berlin to be a speech therapist, teaching them how to breathe, etc. Kees Veening had a neighbor, and they became good friends. The neighbor was a historian, a reservist in the German army and was called up for duty in 1938. He had become a general and was responsible for the daily historical facts in Hitler’s headquarters, the “Wolfschanze.” This man had an idea: if he could get a hold of my file from the Dutch prison and keep it, the Germans in Holland would not be able to shoot me. So I sat for three months in the section of the prison where they kept the prisoners who were condemned to die, and oftentimes at 5 in the morning you would hear the Germans with the steel-toed boots coming up to take one or two of us out to be shot. So the question was always, “Who’s next?” I was there for three months.

SAR: On a German death row cellblock for three months, waiting to be shot every day?

Visser: Yes. You had to take all of your clothes off at night, so that if you escaped during the night you’d be naked. One night, there was a tremendous row and shouting and a group of drunken German guards came knocking on my door. I was sleeping on a straw bale, so I got up and ran to the window, stood at attention, reported myself and my punishment. The Germans shouted “Visser, who was condemned to death…You swine, our Führer has pardoned you!” After repeating this several times they threw my door closed, and I thought, “Oh, this is wonderful,” and went back to sleep on my straw bale. The next morning I realized that I had made it, and had gotten 15 years in a German prison instead. Later I learned that the German historian had waited until the Germans were throwing a party for their successes in Russia. They had taken over a million prisoners at that occasion and were celebrating. They were extremely pleased and were drinking champagne in Hitler’s headquarters. As Hitler was sitting at the table, the historian, General Scherff, approached with the letter from my mother and explained the story. Hitler looked up and said, “A friend of yours, eh?” and Hitler himself crossed out “Death Penalty” and wrote “15 years Zuchthaus” instead. When the people at my prison got the telex message from the Wolfschanze, they got drunk and came to my door at 2 or 3 in the morning to tell me that I had made it.

SAR: Well, there’s a project for some of our better connected readers. Somewhere, there is a piece of paper with Adolf Hitler’s handwriting on it that freed Henk Visser from a death sentence.

Visser: Yes, yes, I would pay $10,000 for that piece of paper! I was then transported to prison in Germany, a prison with small factories inside. There I had to work very hard, we had to make little aluminum cylinders. After the war, while taking apart a 20mm shell, I found one of those little cylinders. It was an aluminum detonator. We had to fashion them and drill a hole through them and of course thread them. We would make 5,000 of these per day and if you didn’t make 5,000 then you only got a liter of cabbage soup instead of 1.5 liters. Cabbage soup may not sound very special, but in the prison, an extra 0.5 liter of soup was important! So we made 5,000 per day.

We were in a very old prison called Zuchthaus Reinbach, near Bonn. Then I was moved to another prison called Zuchthaus Siegburg, on the other side of Bonn, and there I also worked for my dinner. I repaired military uniforms, and worked in a tool making shop. We worked about twelve hours a day in shifts, sometimes during the day and sometimes during the night. I must say I was lucky; in a concentration camp I would have died. In these prisons you had a roof over your head. It was a big building with thick walls, and if it was 20 degrees below zero outside it was only just freezing inside, which was cold but you didn’t freeze to death. We had guards who had been guards for all of their lives, they were professionals and so there were not many beatings or much abuse. We had some new guards who came in from the Eastern front missing an arm or something, and since they really couldn’t do a good job they would sometimes beat us to take revenge.

Anyway, I got very ill. I had tuberculosis in my lungs, intestines, on my vocal cords, and on a heart valve. I was dying and my weight was 100 pounds. Still, I was always treated a little differently from the other prisoners.

SAR: You must have had some pull from somewhere.

Visser: They knew I had received a pardon from Hitler himself, and the General Scherff sometimes inquired about how I was doing, so yes, they were careful with me. I was taken to the prison hospital. It was unbelievable, there were 3,000 prisoners with half of them sick and there were only 14 beds in the hospital. I got one of those beds, and I was dying. My uncle, who’s company Philips also owned a lot of factories in Germany, started inquiring about how I was doing. He was told that I was ill, but treated very well, and that I was cared for by nuns and that every day I would get an egg, but my uncle didn’t trust them. He sent someone who talked to the director of the Zuchthaus who reported that I couldn’t talk anymore and that I was dying. So he had his lawyers look over the German law regarding prisoners, and they found an old law that said if you were incarcerated and dying, you could go home to die. All of the judges that condemned me would have to sign off for my release, so my uncle went to see all five of the judges, at that time they were dispersed all over Germany because of fear for an invasion in Holland. When all of them signed I was sent home, but because of my contagious disease, I wasn’t allowed to go back by train. They didn’t want me infecting anybody else. The Phillips people had an ambulance that ran on propane, but since the gas stations were so far apart in Germany, they put the ambulance on top of a truck and trailer which ran on a wood burning gas generator. They came with a nurse to the prison, and through my uncle managed to rescue my hospital cellmate as well, another Dutch student from Groningen. We drove back through Germany and I was very happy to see buildings still on fire from Allied bombings. We got back to Holland and they hid me in a Roman Catholic sanatorium in Bilthoven. I was there for two and a half years, recovering.

SAR: Was that the end of the war?

Visser: On the 18th of May, 1944 I got out of Germany. The liberation of Europe happened while I was convalescing, and at the end of 1946 I went home.

SAR: It must have taken a long time to build your strength back.

Visser: I felt ok, I did what I had to do, and I could even bicycle a little bit. My mother made me go back to high school; she said I needed a high school diploma. (laughs) Of course the military was out of the question for me, because of my weak lungs. I wanted to go to the police academy, but was offered a job as a sales inspector in Java, in the East Indies – formerly the Dutch East Indies – and I accepted. The company had me tested to make sure that my health was alright, it was, and I was approved to go and work in the tropics.

SAR: Was this a firearms related job you were looking for in the tropics?

Visser: No, it was in the tobacco industry. I was in Java for five years where I worked and hunted; wild boar, mostly. I had a German 7mm rifle with a 12 gauge shotgun barrel. My job was inspecting the cigarettes sold by our company in Java. We manufactured the cigarettes, and wanted to make sure that the cigarettes weren’t being sold or bought on the black market. There were many Chinese sales outlets all over Indonesia and the islands that needed to be inspected. I traveled a lot, all over Java, and for a while I lived in Jakarta, Malang and Semarang. There were about five Europeans running the factory, and for a year and a half I was the chief purchasing agent. This was from 1950 until 1955. (Dolf mentions that he was there at the same time, too bad they hadn’t met at that point.) It was a fantastic time; the company was really well run. The Dutch people who were running it were no-nonsense and everything was always ok. Holland had given up Indonesia in December of 1949, and the bad thing was (and I’m very pro-American) that under American pressure, they pushed the Dutch out and threatened to stop the Marshall Plan for Holland. There were millions of dollars going into rebuilding the Netherlands. So you can understand that our government gave in.

SAR: (Dolf) The Americans pushed the Dutch into giving up the country. My father was very bitter about that, too.

Visser: Yes, yes, the Americans had the idea of instituting liberty and democracy and everything Western, but we were not ready for it! Our Queen Wilhelmina had already said in 1942 that Indonesia would be a free country in the future; the process would have only taken about 15 years to complete.

SAR (Dan): In America we tend to think that there’s a magic wand for those who’ve been under colonial control or subjugation or despotic control, that they can suddenly handle freedom. I don’t want to get too far off the subject, but I’ve seen it too many times in too many places. Often we think we can touch a country and suddenly it’s free. It’s certainly not that simple. Henk, you lived right through the middle of the Jakarta incidents? Is this the point where you started to develop more of an interest in machine guns?

Visser: No, Dan, I have always been crazy about weapons. But going through the war years changed my perception of the world. When the Germans first “arrived,” they acted nice and very friendly. Holland was very wealthy and a rich booty. When it came to food I saw German soldiers go into Dutch shops to buy and eat an entire stick of butter, they hadn’t seen real butter in so long. Other things too, pastries, breads, all sorts of foods, they took them back home to their families. So in the beginning there wasn’t any ill treatment, but as every good Dutchman, I hated them from the very first moment. It wasn’t until later that the Germans showed their real character. They cleaned out the whole country. I actually started my collecting interest with military weapons when I got home from prison and the sanatorium. There was a gun in almost every home, taken from the Germans when they fled. I had friends at the police department, so if they had a really nice machine gun I was able to shoot it or buy it if they didn’t require it.

SAR: This was before your journey to Indonesia? Were you able to pick up many rare guns?

Visser: Yes, this was from 1947 to 1949. My interest in collecting military firearms was very intense, starting then. In those days it was all the common guns, also French guns that the Germans used. For instance, the first French machine gun that I got was a Hotchkiss 1914. It was a great big machine gun with cooling fins and a huge tripod. I was very interested in German sniper rifles at the time. When I went to Indonesia, I had to hide my collection in my mother’s house, since I had no license for these guns.

SAR: Are we seeing a pattern of youthful disregard for gun laws here?

Visser: (laughs) Yes, yes, and they were all cleaned very well before I left, so that when I returned there wasn’t a spot of rust on any of them.

SAR: When did you get involved in arms trading?

Visser: On my way to an appointment I stopped at a gun shop in a small street in Groningen. The guy that owned the shop had also spent some time in a German prison, as well as a concentration camp. In the shop I met a gentleman who was on the board of an ammunition factory in the south of Holland, he invited me to come and see the operation. I went there; it was a small factory that had just received an order for .30 carbine ammo from the Americans. The factory itself was a mess. I was told that the chairman of the board from the factory would like to talk to me; he offered me a job as director. He told me that the founder of the factory had died and that his younger brother wasn’t doing a good job running things. I said no, I didn’t want that job; I wanted to go back to Indonesia.

My boss back in Indonesia was a colonialist. He worked us to death, we never got enough salary, but we still led a wonderful life. He would always say, “Do this and I’ll give you a raise and a promotion.” I learned that even if I got a promotion, there would be no raise for me. He told me to go to Jakarta for a year and if I did a good job there, I would get a raise and a promotion, but when my review came up, I got a good promotion but no raise, as usual. He always had another task for me but I never got a raise. After five years, I got 8 months furlough. Usually when people went on furlough they would go straight home to Holland, but I asked if I could go to America. My boss agreed to pay for it, saying that I wasn’t such a bad guy. I flew to the Cocos Islands, Australia, lots of other small islands, Samoa, and then on to Hawaii, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Boston to visit a friend, and down to Washington D.C.

SAR: That doesn’t explain your start in the arms trade…

Visser: I am getting to it, Dan, patience. Before I went on vacation my boss in Indonesia began to worry about the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, which was getting more and more attention in America. He asked me to see how the American tobacco companies were dealing with it. I went to Philip Morris, and they told me that more and more people were buying mentholated and filtered cigarettes because the public thought that they were not as bad. I wrote back to my boss what the Americans had told me, and he quickly started ordering the machinery to manufacture filtered cigarettes. These of course are more dangerous than unfiltered cigarettes because it allows you to smoke the cigarette all the way to the filter. You end up inhaling far more tar, etc. than you would get from smoking a cigarette without filter.

My boss had told me that upon my return from furlough I would become the Inspector for the Island of Sumatra. And so again I asked him if I would get my raise, he said that we would discuss it when I returned. He was in Holland at the same time, so I traveled to Eindhoven where he was with his family and had dinner with him. I asked him during dinner if I would finally get the position I wanted, with a higher salary and the ability to sign for the company as a representative. (Editor’s note: In Europe, the right to sign documents in the name of the company puts you in a much higher level socially. You generally get a much better salary.) He said that if I did a good job working in Sumatra that I would get the position I wanted. At that moment I realized he was lying, and the next morning I started talking to the people from the ammunition factory again. I asked for what was at that time a fantastic salary, not at all contingent on how the company did at the end of the year. They accepted!

SAR: So your international weapons career started in the ammunition factory in Hertogenbosch in Holland.

Visser: You might say it started when I was making those fuzes in a German prison (Laughs). But, I’ll tell you, my first day as director there, I almost cried. There were two secretaries, and neither one could write or type a letter without mistakes. Everything looked horrible and unprofessional from that office on down to the factory. I had to fight to straighten out that company. When I arrived, there were 63 people working there, and when I left there were over a 1,000.

SAR: Did this job lead to you becoming a member of the 7.62 NATO council?

Visser: After the cigarette factory in Indonesia, I think this was a really big start for me. I got a call one day from an American friend at the Pentagon who said, “Henk, we know you’re working on blanks with a lengthened case so that they feed automatically. We don’t have that, and this morning during a mock battle in Panama the American side had to shout “Poof! Poof!” because they had no blanks that would function automatically in their weapons. The general who was responsible for Panama got mad and demanded immediate delivery of the special blanks.”

I said to my friend that I could get some of my guys and some of our new blanks, cases, powder, tools and the necessary weapons, and fly over to see what we could do. We flew to Washington and went from there to Frankfurt Arsenal, where testing began on our ammo. Whether fired from a gun that had been in a freezer or not, our blanks worked perfectly! The guys from Frankfurt Arsenal wanted to inspect our blanks and see how they could copy them, but they didn’t have the time. The Pentagon wanted 45 million blank rounds in cal. 7.62 NATO, and we would get one-third of the order, which for us was a very, very big order. We were very excited until one day I got a call from them with sad news. They said that Congress refused to release the money needed for that big order and instead specified that only 30 million rounds would be purchased, with the order going to Frankfurt Arsenal, so we lost out. This was a big blow to our company, but there was also good news. They told me that they understood that we wanted to make 20mm aircraft ammo. They offered me a 20mm ammunition factory for free, with new machinery and everything, in St. Louis, that had been used to manufacture .60 caliber ammo and later 20mm aircraft ammo. It had been “mothballed” for use in an emergency.

SAR: The early M39 revolver cannon series, the T161s, were T130E3 .60 caliber machine guns before they were moved into the 20mm range.

Visser: Yes, it was the plant for that ammunition. We went to St. Louis to look at it, and we were flabbergasted. Everything, the machines, the tools, etc. was brand new, and just for us. I went back to Holland to arrange for transport. I came back to the Pentagon (which was very easy to just walk into in those days) to talk to Colonel Moor and a couple of other officials, but they had sad news again. “We cannot give you the plant,” they said. They saw my reaction…and after a long pause continued, “But we can sell you the plant for a $1,000.” We paid the thousand dollars and brought all of the machinery back to Holland. The end result was that once we got operational we supplied every NATO Air Force with the 20mm rounds: the Brits, the Norwegians, the Germans, the Dutch, everybody. Later, when the Vietnam War began, the US Air Force realized that they did not have enough 20mm rounds. They requested an order for 10 million 20mm rounds. Our Holland plant could fill that order so a meeting took place at the pentagon. One of the officials said, “This is crazy! Lake City is not the only ammunition plant we have. Don’t we have one in the South?” Colonel Moor pointed at me and said, “Yes, and HE has that plant.” (Visser laughs) So we used the plant from St. Louis to fill a 23 million dollar order for 10 million rounds.

SAR: Like all good arms dealers, I love a story where you get a plant for surplus and then get to sell the product back to your source (laughter). Henk, that probably would have been 1967 or 1968 and jumps us too far ahead in this story. When did you first get involved with Armalite?

Visser: Ah, patience, Dan, patience. First we must address the CETME (Centro de Estudios Technicales de Materiales Especiales) program. When I started to work in Holland for NWM in 1955, they had an advisor that was a retired Dutch rear admiral who became a very good friend of mine. He had been in Spain recently (he spoke fluent Spanish), where some Spanish and Germans had been working on a new gun made from sheet steel. I knew of some of the developments that had been done in Germany with the Sturmgewehr, and I flew to Madrid. The operations there were very isolated from the outside world. The main operation was on the CETME rifle. They showed me the whole factory, and pointed out some of the small tools and things that they were missing which I could supply, so I told them I’d help out. I became very friendly with them, and pretty soon I had my own CETME rifle to take back with me to Holland. That rifle…that’s a whole other story.

It was made for special ammunition, an aluminum bullet with a copper jacket…a very long bullet with a short case. The man who designed this ammunition was Dr. Voss, and he was the German Air Force ballistician, and he was also the ballistician for the CETME group. He was very knowledgeable about recoil and automatic fire and the physics of holding a gun. During that time, the first German armed forces were the Bundesgrenzschutz who were supposed to guard the German boarders. There were 20,000 soldiers armed with German K98’s and the MG42’s, as well as 100 new 20mm Hispano guns and of course the P38 pistol, and nothing else. The boss was Colonel Naujokat, and he had been in charge of the two flat cars before and behind Hitler’s quarters on his train (during WWII). These open cars had 4-barreled 20mm automatic cannons on them.

The Spanish went to the Colonel and demonstrated for him in Bonn. The Colonel liked the new Sturmgewehr and the ammo very much, but told them they had the wrong caliber. The standard caliber was cal. 7.62, but this new Spanish ammunition was cal. 7.92. So they went back to Spain and changed the gun, the magazine, and, of course, they had to make new ammunition. They also made new firing tables, it took a year. After which they had their new CETME ammunition in cal. 7.62.

SAR: This was not yet 7.62 NATO ammunition, correct?

Visser: Correct. After the Spanish finished their new ammo, they brought it and the guns back to the German Colonel, who turned white and said, “Oh my God. I should have told you that 7.62 also requires a new case: the T65 case.” The Spanish group was beside itself, returned to Madrid and decided that it was all over. The gun was mathematically designed for a low powered cartridge and the 7.62 NATO had much more power, so it needed a totally new gun. But one of the bosses at the Madrid factory pointed out that the factory had good relations with the American military attaché, since they had just received an order to develop caseless rifle ammunition and caseless 20mm. The boss said, “Go and get a barrel and 1,000 7.62 NATO rounds.” Which they got from the U.S. The CETME with that barrel fired 600 7.62 rounds before the gun fell apart. The cartridge was far too powerful, since the gun was designed for a lighter round. The German engineers rebuilt and strengthened the housing as the German army wanted to arm their soldiers with them.

They had contact with the Heckler & Koch people, who were all old Mauser people working in two wooden barracks, making tools for pressings and so forth, and that’s how I came into contact with Heckler & Koch. The Germans at the Weapons Department in Bonn were always making changes in the gun, and it was Heckler & Koch who made the changes on the CETME. I told the CETME people, “You guys have no sales organization….let NWM have the rights to act for you all over the world.” They told me I had to pay for the right, which was no problem for NWM. They gave me the world rights for the CETME rifle, excluding Spain, Portugal and Germany. The rest of the world was ours. They also said that if I wanted to set up production elsewhere, they would help us get started.

In the meantime they were still working on the guns…making a new grip and so on…they had spent millions making the guns and making the changes. I went to the Dutch army, who agreed to test out the gun with all kinds of different ammo, including French steelcased ammo. They fired the steel ammo. When the trigger was pulled, there was a BIG noise, the rate of fire was 1,800 rounds per minute, and about half of the empty steelcases got stuck in the wooden wall. I told the Colonel to stop the test…it was a hopeless case. As it turned out, they never actually manufactured the steel ammo, but it was a hopeless case nonetheless.

To make the gun work, they had added grooves in the chamber, so that some of the gas would press on the exterior of the case to release it. The main fault of the CETME rifle is that as soon as the climate gets moist, firing the gun without immediately cleaning it results in sticky cases. This design of the roller locking system is only good for lightly-powered ammunition. We had a very fortunate thing happen; the Germans had improved the gun enough so that it functioned, but later on I learned that Heckler & Koch had a trick up their sleeves. All of the guns were tested, and they had seven different-sized sets of rollers, so that if there was a problem they would put other rollers on the locking mechanism. They would change the rollers until everything worked properly!

SAR: Very pragmatic from the point of view of a demonstrator. What year was that?

Visser: 1958 as I remember. Because the Germans had changed the rollers and had gotten the first order for 400,000 rifles, the whole world wanted the CETME rifle in the form of the G3. They had to say no to worldwide orders, because they didn’t have the rights to sell outside of Spain, Portugal and Germany, I did! We did have plans to make the rifle outside of Spain, but I stopped those plans because I felt the design was not good. I got a call from Bonn, it was my good friend from the Ministry who said, “Henk, we cannot have this. Here we are, a great nation, and we cannot sell our own rifle. I’ll offer you a deal: I know you want to make 20mm ammo for those thousand Starfighters we have bought.” They were so far back, they bought 1,000 Starfighters and they didn’t know what gun was in it! He said, “You’ll get 33% of all orders for 20mm ammo if you relinquish the rights to sell the CETME rifle.” I said, “OK.” He immediately went and got his secretary to type up a document saying that I would forever get 33% of all the 20mm orders for the Germans. ANY 20mm ammo. It saved our neck. It was one of the best days of my life…I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the end of our CETME involvement.

SAR: You were the link between CETME and Heckler & Koch?

Visser: Partly, yes. Heckler & Koch were not big shots. Their company wasn’t large enough at that time to make the big deals. They grew because of all these orders that came in from everywhere. Later they designed many important weapon systems. It was really something to see.

SAR: Henk, I would like to come back to the rifle design programs in more depth, later. If you share your experience as a collector with our readers, I am sure they would be interested. This may seem somewhat insensitive, but to obtain your collection must have cost a fortune; far above the income of a young Dutch boy who was on the Nazi death row.

Visser: Yeah, that’s about right. I have been very fortunate in my business decisions and made some very nice commissions. We can come back to that business later.

SAR: So, what was your passion?

Visser: Collecting guns. Well…really the military guns. That was the start, anything military I could get. Later it was the Dutch firearms and I sold my military collection to Bonn, it was the beginning of the museum they have now in Koblenz. 849 of my guns are still there – even my Gatling gun – the beautiful brand-new Gatling gun with the carriage and the ammunition car.

SAR: What was the Gatling, a British one?

Visser: No, an American one. The Colt 1883 model with the jacket around the barrel, and the tripod. One day in a military base, somewhere in America, near Picatinny I believe, a sergeant was cleaning up the attic, and he found this Gatling gun. It was brand new but completely taken apart, no one had ever looked at it. He went to his Colonel who said to get rid of it. And there, magically, was Val! (laughs) And who do you think bought it on the spot?

SAR:(Dolf) Yes, Val would certainly have been there! (We are discussing the late Val Forgette of Navy Arms, another international arms dealer of the good old days.)

Visser: I knew Val very well and he sold the gun to me. Very cheap, I might add. It was really a big affair, and when I left NWM they wanted to take it, but instead I sold it to Bonn, and the Gatling is in their museum today. Two of the magazines disappeared, it is sad that there are always people in museums stealing things. There were many rare guns in the military collection. One that I thought was very rare was a 7.62 NATO Gatling gun from GE. I was the only private guy in the world who had a brand-new one.

SAR: Gatling Gun, you mean an M134 Minigun?

Visser: Yes, I got it out of Vietnam…I had so much stuff there….I was working for Dutch intelligence at the time, so they arranged for a Shell tanker to haul all the stuff I had gotten to Singapore. I had 10 RPG-7 anti-tank launchers, with 200 rounds of HE grenades. The Dutch and the Germans wanted to test them.

SAR: And how about the testing?

Visser: Well, we finally got the shipment and it had to go on the deck of a Dutch destroyer in Singapore. They loaded it from the tanker onto the warship. I had managed to get a lot of interesting items for the collection during my time in Vietnam. With the RPG-7, we had to do some testing for the government. They decided that this test they wanted to run was too big for them and they made a deal with the Germans, who did a tremendously detailed testing. They even tested the glue on the wooden cases, they checked the labels to see where they were made, in Russia or East Germany. I still have one RPG-7 and an inert rocket at home. I was very interested in the American M72 LAW. I once owned six LAWS.

SAR: When did you get into the antique guns?

Visser: Slowly I got more and more interested in the antique guns…I had always hated them, so crazy and ugly they seemed to me…but then, because of my historical interests, I decided to get rid of anything that was non-Dutch. I had the best automatic pistol collection in the world, all the early Mausers, Bittners, Schonbergers, Borschards, Gabbit Fairfaxes, etc, etc. I sold them all in one lot to Dr. Sturgess, a good friend of mine. He came to my place the first time and I opened drawers for him, and he started sweating, he was going crazy. He was…really, I’ve never seen anybody so excited by my collection.

SAR: (Dolf) Even the Maxim automatic pistols came from you? I have them in my latest book.

Visser: Yes, Dolf, the Maxims as well! I was collecting automatic pistols when nobody was interested. I went to every gun shop in Switzerland where they hadn’t had the German occupiers to take everything, and there were a hell of a lot of people saying, “That old gun there, 150 francs and you can take it, with ammo too.” Those days are gone, you know. There was a gunsmith who I was talking about Lugers with, about how the prices of the Lugers had started going up, and he said, “You know, I have Luger serial number 0001, which was presented to my neighbor, an officer, in front of the troops.” It was the first Luger that the Swiss Army officially adopted. I said “That’s interesting, can I see it?” and he brought it to me in the holster. He said, “The normal price for this is 225 francs, but if you give me 275 then it’s yours.” Those were better days, you know? You would go into a gunshop and there would be a Mondragon rifle with special bayonet. It just doesn’t happen like that anymore.

SAR: Basically Henk, all the money you made you put into collecting guns?

Visser: Everything. I had no capital, no shares; I only had substantial commissions from sales. Eventually I sold my pistols and all my special ammo to Geoff Sturgess…but…it’s like a sickness, you know? I was at the Las Vegas Antique Show and there was a very rare Dutch gun there. It looks like a single-shot pistol, but it’s a three-shot pistol with a little channel where the powder goes for the first, second and third shot, and there is a Maastricht mark under the barrel. It was from the Funderburg Collection, a very famous collection. It’s in a catalog. I bought it for a lot of money! It’s crazy!

SAR: You’re preaching to the choir when you talk to Class 3 owners in the United States. You did a series of books on your collection of Dutch guns….

Visser: Yes, they are available commercially, but are out of print at the moment. The set weighs 22 kilos. Now I’m writing more books, one with the names of all of the Dutch gun makers, about 1,400 of them. Another book project that I was working on with two technicians, both specialists with Master’s degrees in History Drs. Martens en Drs. de Vries, was to write the story of Dutch weapons starting at the Napoleonic era. As these books were written in Dutch they will be translated into English and the 3 volumes will be condensed into one. There is another book in English, almost finished, about a very special German – who later became an American – Otto von Lossnitzer, the father of the modern aircraft revolving guns.

Look for a link to the second half of our smallarmsreview.com interview with Henk Visser in an upcoming SAR newsletter when we look at Vietnam, Oerlikon, the changes to the Stoner 63 system and the innovative Mecar rifle grenade programs, as well as Visser’s work to restore Dutch firearms in Russian museums. – Dan Shea

It has been a hero’s journey of sorts for the legendary AA-12 “Sledgehammer” automatic shotgun. In literature and mythology, the “hero’s journey” occurs when the protagonist springs from humble beginnings, encounters numerous obstacles, stays in the fight through challenge after challenge and emerges evolved and enhanced. That the hero of this story is steel and polymer versus flesh and blood, makes the story no less compelling.

Sol Invictus Arms, LLC, is a new gun manufacturer located in Melbourne, FL, born of Tactical Superiority, Inc., a multi-million dollar company that builds high-quality OEM parts used in nationally known firearms. The fledgling Sol Invictus will specialize in small arms for law enforcement and military, as well as in resurrecting and updating historic firearms of yesteryear. I had the opportunity to test the AA-12 full-auto and speak with Sol Invictus Arms’ CEO Mike Conn about the semi-auto’s redesign.

The Full-Auto AA-12

Shouldering the AA-12 in its full-auto form is vastly different from swinging up a modern tactical shotgun like the Mossberg 500 or even a bullpup variant like Kel-Tec’s KSG. For starters, the gun is heavy. My biggest initial concern was being able to keep it aloft long enough to shoot. The gun is designed for military use, with stainless steel construction that makes it tough to damage or foul, even under the most adverse conditions. Unfortunately, the military has also balked at the weight issue.

For those of us used to deer or duck hunting with a semi auto or pump shotgun, the AA-12 is truly unique and just a little unnerving. Sure, you’ve read that the recoil is mild but what does that really mean? The AA-12 spits out about 5 rounds per second (or 300 a minute). At that speed, with a drum that holds just 20 rounds, the whole experience is over in a flash, leaving you with a sensation akin to your first intimate physical encounter. You feel a delicious afterglow accompanied by an adrenaline-infused rush of thoughts like, “wait … what? That was cool … I think … .”

The day I shot the AA-12, we were using standard 00 buck shells, but one of the gun’s strengths is that it supports a wide variety of projectiles, including the Frag 12, a high explosive armor-piercing round.

Having shouldered a variety of shotguns over the years, ranging from an Ithaca 10 ga to a Browning Citori 12 ga and a rare Parker 28 ga side-by-side, I understood the kick I might expect and how to nestle the stock into my body for maximum recoil management. The AA-12 doesn’t feel exactly like a hunting shotgun or even a tactical variant. It looks more like a Tommy Gun, with the round drum dangling from its frame (it is, however, also designed to use an 8-round stick magazine) while the gun’s hard synthetic shell gives you a sense of bulk that most shotguns don’t have. The weight is distracting, but only until the shooting starts. Then it becomes an asset that seems to assist in absorbing what should be a significant kick.

When the gun fires, you immediately feel the push-back that is typical of an automatic, but the sharp smack against your shoulder, so familiar to generations of hunters, is oddly absent. Even wearing high heels (I had NOT planned to shoot that day), I stayed easily upright and was able to comfortably lean into my shooting. I shot the gun in two bursts … tentative at first, being a novice at shooting an automatic. But once I confirmed the muzzle was not rising dramatically and that the kick to my shoulder was nothing compared to your average duck hunt, I pressed the trigger with more confidence. While it took only seconds to expend the 20-round drum, the overall experience could best be described as exhilarating. I wanted more. Unfortunately, on that particular day, I was one of about dozen people shooting. My chance came and went.

But it left me eager to not only shoot the full-auto AA-12 at the next available opportunity, but to try out the semi-auto version. Sol Invictus Arms assures me that the recoil and overall operation of the semi-auto version will feel “comparable” to the original model. If that’s true, then the fledgling manufacturer may have more than a one-off successor to a mythical beast—they may have a winner. And, indeed, the story continues to unfold.

The AA-12 Semi-Auto

The new variation of the AA-12 will roll off the production line before 2019; a semi-auto model that combines the fun and ease of the full-auto design (and yes, it is truly a “fun” gun to shoot) with the mass appeal of a semi-auto. Orders are already being taken for this limited run production, according to CEO Mike Conn.

Conn says the AA-12 was a logical project for the company to pursue, given its mythic role in video games such as “Call of Duty,” “Medal of Honor,” “Combat Arms” and “Grand Theft Auto,” in television shows like Justified and Breaking Bad and such films as “GI Joe,” “The Expendables” and “Predator.”

Conn notes the gun was the brainchild of Maxwell George Atchisson—a prolific designer of firearms and firearms accessories—whose original design was dubbed the Atchisson Assault 12 Gauge. The drum-fed automatic shotgun (which can also be stick-fed) spent a number of years as a curiosity, never really living up to its inventor’s vision before Atchisson sold the patent to Jerry Baber’s Military Police Systems in Piney Flats, TN, in 1987. Baber began limited production and eventually brought on board German-born machinist Boje (boy-A) Cornils (cor-neels) who became a co-owner of the AA-12 and is now widely considered to be the genius behind making the legendary gun commercially viable. Working from his shop down the road in Russellville, TN—in a facility that had once repaired Model T’s—Cornils assembled and refined the AA-12s, making over 150 changes and enhancements to the gun, which became legendary for its manageable recoil and maintenance-free performance (Baber claimed that cleaning was only necessary after 10,000 rounds).

Baber served as “front man” for the AA-12, trumpeting its benefits to the world, especially the military community, where he had brief flirtations with the Marine Corps as well as several robotics companies that envisioned a role for the unique firearm in unmanned warfare. Meanwhile, Cornils labored in virtual obscurity, refining the weapon and patenting the parts necessary for the open-bolt and gas-block design which contribute to the shotgun’s robust reliability with the multitude of differing ammo types the platform is designed for. That, coupled with the gun’s recoil spring design, which absorbs significantly more kick than the average shotgun, serve as a testament to Boje’s engineering skills.

While Cornils’ lack of name attribution on the AA-12 redesign may have made the German craftsman feel left out, it was probably for the best, especially when Baber began telling news outlets that the U.S. military was “brain dead” and “pathetic” for not adopting his weapon for combat use.

In fact, a 2009 article in The New Yorker seemed to make light of Baber’s fascination with a “robot army,” painting him with an unflattering brush that probably didn’t endear him to the Army any further. But Mike Conn acknowledges there is still legitimate interest in the warfighting capabilities of the AA-12.

“We’ve had some requests to make full autos for law enforcement, and we’ve had conversations with SOCOM members about what we could do to change the original full-auto design and make it viable for the military. The military likes the fact that it has virtually no recoil. It pushes you, but it doesn’t give you that smack and a bruise that you can get from a standard 12 gauge,” Conn explains. “But it’s heavy—it weighs 10 pounds—and the military is used to something lighter. The other issue is that it doesn’t have a selector switch to take it from semi to full auto. You just can’t tell a bunch of 18-year-old kids in training, ‘if you squeeze the trigger this much, it fires one round, but if you squeeze it this much, it shoots continuously … .’ That just doesn’t work.”

Conn says that once the new semi-auto model has hit the streets, his company will look at ways to modify the automatic design for military use.

Preparing for Civilian Consumers

After much negotiation for the AA-12’s engineering plans, Boje Cornils and Sol Invictus came to an agreement, and Sol Invictus ended up moving his entire shop and all of his equipment to their facility in Melbourne. “We even set up an office for him here so he can come down whenever he’s feeling creative and continue to design,” Conn says.

The purchase included numerous hidden gems that Sol Invictus wasn’t anticipating, which dovetail perfectly with the company’s desire to reengineer and re-release firearms of yesteryear.

Marketing Director Michael Rivera pops open a battered gun case housing a crude but oddly familiar revolver. “It’s a Thunder 5,” he says, turning it over in his hand. “It’s the precursor to the Taurus Judge and the Smith & Wesson Governor. The blue prints for it were included in Boje’s collection, along with hundreds of others … parts for the FAL rifle, for 1911s…stacks and stacks of stuff, old school … hand drawn. We still haven’t gotten through everything.”

But they will…just as soon as they complete the AA-12’s journey toward civilian ownership.

Reverse Engineering

Sol Invictus engineers and designers have been using the AA-12 blueprints to reverse engineer the semi-automatic version.

“We’ve got a full-time engineer getting the blueprints into CAD and CAM,” Conn explains. “Getting this shotgun rolling off the assembly line is our first priority before we move on to some of the other projects that have evolved through Boje’s collection. Because we didn’t get any of the molds, we’re building everything from the ground up. We’ve sent the stock out to a place that is creating precise three-dimensional drawings by scanning it with a laser. Once those laser scans are done, we’ll give them to a plastic mold maker and get those molds made. Meanwhile, Boje is remaking molds for some of his cast parts. We’ve got other companies that are building additional molds in order to meet our time schedule for deliveries in late December.”

 “We’re also changing parts in the design that probably didn’t make sense in the first place, and we’re machining parts here in our shop that were cast on the old version of the gun. There was a lot that Boje wanted to do with this design that Jerry didn’t want to bother with.” Conn admits that the biggest time-eater has been building all the molds, whether for plastic or metal components. But he also stresses the importance of getting it done right the first time.

“We’re taking into commercial production something that was previously hand-fitted. This gun has to be consistent from part-to-part. We’ve got to make sure we have all the necessary tolerances that will allow these guns to work every single time. It is a tremendous investment of time, money and sweat equity, but we are getting it done.”

Conn says, adding that they are about three weeks behind where he hoped to be, but remain optimistic that the first semi-automatic AA-12s will begin production before 2019.

Design Modifications

Among the changes to the original design is the addition of a functional firing pin along with a hammer in order for the mechanism to fire from a closed bolt. 

Like any hero’s journey, the road continues to be fraught with complications and challenges to be overcome.

Conn notes, “There are more than eight different major structural changes involved in taking the gun into a semi-auto design, and we’ve worked with engineers to create overlays that show the differences. We’ve also been in contact with the ATF to make sure all our T’s are crossed and I’s dotted.”

Sol Invictus plans to pay tribute to the creative genius who refined the fully automatic AA-12 and paved the way for the new semi-auto model by releasing the limited production run under the name “Boje Signature Model.” A nice tip of the hat to a man who has labored in anonymity for far too long.

The new semi-auto carries a price tag that is not for the faint of wallet, coming in at $3,000 with A-frame sights and $3,250 for the Picatinny rail version with optic. Sol Invictus has established two pre-order portals where customers can gain more information regarding the AA-12 and place an order for the shotguns.

armslist.com/store/6850

gunbroker.com/All/search?IncludeSellers=4581887

And, of course, the company welcomes phone inquiries and orders at: 321-428-4466.

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V22N10 (December 2018)

The bloodiest conflict in human history brought unthinkable hardships and suffering to the Soviet peoples. The Eastern front of World War II, forever known as “The Great Patriotic War,” instilled a horrific lesson. Victory can be won with tragic heroism and sacrifice, but ultimately without technical and tactical innovation, it is a cruel waste of life. This lesson was already being learned partly through WWII and in command style and tactical abilities—the Red Army in 1945 was a far cry from the Red Army of 1941. Nonetheless, the war’s atrocities and the shock and awe of fighting a technologically and tactically superior force still haunt the region to this day. New developments were still needed in every aspect of modern warfighting, including small arms design, to offset loss of life in future conflicts and to prepare the Soviet Union for emerging threats in the new atomic age.

When Hitler’s fascist forces invaded the USSR in June 1941, the largest invasion in history, patriots came from all walks of life to do their part in answering the call to defend their motherland. One such patriot was a peasant from Kurya, in the Altai Krai region of Western Siberia. Born on November 10, 1919, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov had a particular mechanical aptitude and was conscripted as a tanker into the Red Army in 1938. With the peace broken in 1941, Kalashnikov’s direct action was limited as a tank mechanic, but he was quickly elevated to command a T-34 tank in the following months.

In October 1941, Kalashnikov’s company came in contact with the flank of a German line near the Bryansk, a small town, as part of a greater Soviet counter offensive to slow the charge of the German Army Group Center’s blitz toward Moscow. Suddenly, his tank was struck with a loud blast, and a ringing echo shrieked in his ears paired with a dizzying flash of bright light. He fell unconscious, shell shocked and with lacerations from shrapnel across his body. His body was recovered from the knocked-out tank and transported east toward a field hospital.

“In the hospital, I seemed to re-live everything that happened during the months of my participation in the fighting. Again and again, I returned to the tragic days of getting out of that environment. The dead comrades rose before my eyes. At night, in a dream, automatic machine guns often occurred, and I woke up. There was silence in the ward, interrupted only by the groans of the wounded. I lay with my eyes open and thought: why do we have so few automatic weapons in our army, easy, quick-fire, trouble-free?” – Mikhail Kalashnikov

Motivated by a burning sense of purpose to equip Soviet soldiers with better firepower, he started designing small arms in 1942, once recovered from his wounds. In three months, working from a railway shop in Kazakhstan, he produced the PPK (pistolet-pulemyot Kalashnikova—machine pistol of Kalashnikov) as his first production sample, and in 1942 he submitted his design to a government trial. Although it did not progress, his skills as a weapons designer caught the eye of Soviet authorities, and they saw to it that he was placed where his talent would be demanded. Though never developed past prototype phase, by 1944 Kalashnikov had designed two self-loading carbines and a support machine gun.

In 1942-1943 the Red Army came in contact with a new German Machine Carbine, known as the MKb42h (H-Haenel/Schmeiiser), firing a unique 7.92×33 Kurz (short) intermediate cartridge. In the Eastern front, Germany was testing the weapon in small batches and later fielded the MP-43, an improved design off feedback from the test reports. Following the MKb42h were the MP-43/1, 43, & 44 (machine pistol) and final iteration, the Sturmgewehr StG44; although changes from the MP to the StG series (a name change requiring Hitler’s approval) were only minor, such as barrel diameter and a stock design. 

By 1943-1944 the MP and Sturmgewehr were in limited use due to production shortfalls. Germany equipped entire units with the rifle, rather than spreading several rifles to many units across the army. Combat reports from test units noted the drastic improvement in firepower over the K98k, reduced reload time, increased ease of firing while moving and increased range over the only comparable shoulder-fired automatic arms, the MP-38/MP-40 submachine guns. This gave the Germans an edge in highly mobile warfare across urban environments.

The first examples of the German automatic carbine MKb42h and ammunition were reported to have been captured near the Leningrad region in 1942. They were sent in secret to the Soviet Army small arms proving range at Shurovo outside Moscow for testing and evaluation. The results of the testing surpassed all Soviet expectations, and after studying captured 7.92×33 in 1942-1943 the Soviet Union requested their own intermediate cartridge.
Shortly thereafter, the Soviet high command requested its own intermediate cartridge comparable to the 7.92×33. In 1943, engineers produced 7.62×41, the first Soviet intermediate cartridge. It was adopted the same year as the M43 and entered production in March 1944. 

The Soviet Union began work on assault rifles capable of using the new intermediate round as early as November 1943. The research and development group was quickly issued an official state request to produce a rifle in the M43 round for the upcoming 1944 trials for a new general purpose service rifle. Designers Tokarev, Korovin, Degtyarev, Shpagin, Sudayev, Simonov, Aleksandrovich, Ivanov, Prilutsky all submitted designs for the new “Avtomat.”

Alexei Sudayev, designer of the famed PPS-43, led the initial competition with the AS-44 prototype. In 1944, the AS-44 (Avtomat Sudaeva) satisfied the specified tactical and technical requirements of the trials. A small batch was order at the Tula Arms Factory for further military testing in 1945 as part of state mandate (GAU No. 3131-45) to field a new assault rifle in the M43 caliber. Alexei Sudayev died in August 1946, and development of his prototype was halted.

The M43 intermediate cartridge was updated in 1946 at the Ulyanovsk machine building plant with a shorter casing by 2mm. The round was also modified from a flat backed lead core projectile to a boat tailed steel core projectile. The new 7.62×39 retained the M43 designation. 

In 1946, a second competition was launched with updated tactical and technical requirements (TTT) of the 1945 GAU No. 3131-45, and interested designers had to adjust their prototypes for the new caliber.

In October 1946, after reviewing design sketches of 16 present entries, the commission narrowed selection down to 10 designs, including Kalashnikov’s work, and requested revised drafts. That same month, the Ministry of Armaments of the USSR sent Kalashnikov to the Kovrov weapons plant to make his prototype with the assistance of a design team.

Kalashnikov’s first sample was the AK-46 No.1 with help from the Kovrov team. The AK-46 No.1 is a select fire, short-stroke, gas-operated system. The fire control group consisted of a safety lever and a separate semi- and full-auto selector lever on the left side of the receiver. More noticeable features are the left side charging handle and receiver construction. The receiver was manufactured in two sections, a lower and upper receiver very similar to the StG. The upper portion was removable via two non-captive pivot pins just rearward of the magwell and a pin securing the pieces together held at the upper rear of the receiver. The AK-46 had a small dust cover rearward of the bolt, and the bolt carrier charging handle was on the left side of the carrier. The bolt design carried over from his earlier semi-auto carbine from 1944.

In December 1946 the first round of tests commenced, conducted at the NIPSVO (scientific and test range of shooting and mortar weapons) with 5 samples of Rukavishnikov, Korobov, Bulkin, Dementyev and Kalashnikov rifles. By May 1947, new samples of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, named AK-46 No. 2 with fixed stock and AK-46 No. 3 with an under-folder stock were produced at the Kovrov factory. The AK-46 no.2 was the second iteration of Kalashnikov’s prototype. The upper receiver and lower receiver were redesigned. The upper receiver did away with the short removable dust cover, closing the excessive openings to eliminate ingress of foreign debris. An ejection port was added on the right side as well as a left-side charging handle with a cover tightening up openings for dirt to get in to the receiver. The upper receiver also had a magwell extension. The bolt did away with a directly attached charging handle; instead the upper has an attached left-side charging handle attached to a track with an arm that engages the bolt carrier. The lower safety and separate mode selector were made more ergonomic, making it easier to manipulate compared to the No.1 AK-46.

The AK-46 No. 2 was tested in August 1947 against Sudayev’s AS-44, Shpagin’s PPSh 41 and the StG44 as comparative controls. At the time, the AK-46 was not showing signs of promise. Kalashnikov along with the design team at Kovrov were redesigning the entire weapon both in construction and operation, borrowing ideas from his rival, Bulkin, to create a new prototype. Design aspects included gas piston/bolt carrier, recoil spring assembly, a long receiver dust cover, a rear trunnion attached using three rivets and possibly a modified selector/safety from the AS-44. By November 1947, the first three samples of Kalashnikov’s new design were made at the Kovrov factory, known under the factory index KB-P-580 and closely resembling what we know today as the AK. Final testing knocked out Bulkin’s and Dementyev’s prototypes, leaving Kalashnikov ultimately the last contender in the competition. Kalashnikov’s rifle also did not meet the requirements for full-auto accuracy but was chosen due to improving promise overall and was recommended for production.

In January 1948, the Kalashnikov assault rifle development package was sent to the Izhevsk plant along with the designer himself for initial production, changing the city forever.  Early AKs struggled with full-auto accuracy, not meeting the standards of the competition, so work was done to improve the production model’s accuracy without delaying the production date. There were a total of 228 changes to the design and another 214 changes to ease manufacturing for serial production. Serial production of the AK was finally mastered at the Izhevsk plant in early 1949, updating the manufacturing facility and processes to manufacture the new weapon. The Izhevsk machine-building plant’s priority was to develop the weapon with the simplest design, but with the most modern production techniques. The High Soviet Minister of the USSR finally adopted the “7.62-mm Kalashnikov assault rifle” on June 18, 1949—the work of many engineers, designers and gunsmiths over years of development, in the form of what is commonly called the Type 1

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V22N10 (December 2018)

Hollywood has a tendency to glorify pistol carry methods. Many actors and actresses use guns in movies and don’t realize or care that the carry methods they promote may be risky. Small of the back carry may be particularly “sexy”, but if you choose to carry this in this location, please do your own research before spending the money on a holster and finding out that it may not be for you.

The holster industry has picked up on this popularity and made this style available to the public. In promoting the curve of the lower back to be ideal for the carrying of a firearm, it is considered one of the “coolest places” to concealed carry How many times do you see the firearm “whipped” out from behind the actor or actress followed by a smooth and accurate shot? In the prior scene, you didn’t see the pistol on the character’s back, but sure enough, there it was when needed. It was then returned to that location after the “bad guy” had been dealt with but is absent in the next shot of the “good guy or gal” walking away.

When I was 14, I fell off the back of a motorcycle. I hit my tailbone and permanently rotated my pelvis. I say permanently because nothing was done about it at the time, it was allowed to “cement” in place, and I will continue to receive therapy (adjustments) for the rest of my life. The pelvis rotation misaligned the vertebrae between 1L and 5L (L = Lumbar Spine). Between age 14 and age 22, there was slight irritation but when I went through a police academy, the damage became known to me. The constant running required at the academy and its continuation while with the department, along with carrying equipment on my hips, left me in a slight state of paralysis of the lower extremities. I had suffered a serious subluxation at the age of 14 and didn’t know it or even know that it needed immediate correction. Who really knew about “subluxation” in the mid-1960s?

A spinal subluxation is a misalignment of the vertebrae on the spine. The small of the back is a very fragile location where a slight bump or a hard fall could render you seriously injured or paralyzed. Initially, carrying  a handgun in the small of the back may not create discomfort, but continued pressure applied by sitting against the pistol, or falling on your back may cause a subluxation, irritating the vertebrae. If left uncorrected it can change the body’s response to stimulus, or the lack of it.

I realize that besides my own experience, a subluxation can also occur with simple activities such as carrying a heavy backpack, wearing poorly fitting shoes, changing a tire, martial arts, or any competitive sport where twisting, turning of the spine occurs. According to Dr. W. Keith Horne, D.C., a Chiropractic Physician and a Palmer Graduate who has been practicing for 35 years, “Studies have been conducted on the effects of children’s heavy backpacks on their skeletal system. There is a correlation between balance changes, pressure applied at certain points and the body’s reaction to the pressure.” This could also apply to firefighters, construction workers, and Police Officers who carry all of their equipment on the waist.

 If this misalignment of the spine is not corrected, compression of the nerve root will occur. The nerve root sends messages throughout the body. It controls and coordinates all organs and skeletal functions. If you’ve ever experienced tingling of the legs, backaches, or bowel or digestive disorders, you may have a spinal subluxation. As an example, the area between 1L and 5L (small of the back) controls the ileocecal valve (the valve at the opening of the ileum into the large intestine), large intestines, appendix, abdomen, upper leg, sex organs, uterus, bladder, knees, prostate gland, lower back, sciatic nerve, lower legs, ankles, and feet. If the nerves supplying these areas are pinched, you’ll experience a malfunction of these organs and issues with movement of your lower extremities.

Between 4L and 3L in the following photo, you will see a swollen disc. Pressure was applied in this area either because of a traumatic incident, or a continued application of pressure over time. The swelling is the tissue between the discs which assist in the movement of the vertebrae. The disc may heal if the subluxation that created the swelling is corrected. This would require readjusting the vertebrae to its’ correct position within the spine and exercises to strengthen the muscles to hold it in place. If not corrected through adjustments of the vertebrae, a surgical procedure may be necessary.

It is my opinion that if you choose to carry on the small of the back, the constant pressure on the lumbar spine may not readily appear to be a problem, but may contribute later to back issues. The ache may at first appear to be a “breaking in period” with a new holster and you’ll ignore the discomfort. Over time, however, the pressure exerted on the lumbar spine will push the skeletal structure, compress nerves and create discomfort. If you fail to pay attention to the warning signs your body is sending, permanent difficulties may manifest.

I am acutely aware of my body and I know when I need an adjustment. When I experience lower back discomfort or I have the sensation that my walking is awkward, I know that my right leg is shorter than my left leg and my pelvis has rotated. This has a ripple effect, as I also experience digestive issues and sometimes a headache. Imagine the ripple of a wave and this explains the ripple effect a subluxation has on multiple parts of the body. If left untreated my mobility is affected, my health is compromised, and no amount of chocolate or wine will treat my headache or my irritability.          All forms of pistol carry have a certain amount of discomfort associated with them, particularly for women who have a waist, hips, and a bustline that interfere with most carry methods. Finding what works for you is an investigation into comfort first, not popularity. What may be “cool” in the movies may not be “cool” for you. Consider the risk before you consider the method. Small of the back carry whether concealed or open, may be what’s popular, but not necessarily a safe or practical solution for you.

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V25N5 (May 2021)