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23 Articles

This month is the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu, otherwise known as the Black Hawk Down Incident, which was popularised by the film of the same name. It started with the attempted seizure of two of SNA leader Mohammed Farah Aidid’s top commanders. Unfortunately for the Americans three Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, leading to an escalating battle in the middle of the city. We have the story of the battle and take a look at the collectables associated with the UN mission in Somalia. Well, the summer has come and gone, with a dismal July and August, only slightly redeemed by an early September heatwave. However, on the Bank Holiday at the end of August, the weather was decidedly changeable, but that didn’t put…

October at the National Army Museum

Here’s what’s coming up at the museum in Chelsea, London, during October, in addition to the long-running exhibitions. Art of the Crimean War Join Professor Meaghan Clarke as she examines some of the art inspired by the Crimean War, 170 years after the outbreak of the conflict. The events of the Crimean War inspired a range of artists to capture and reimagine the conflict in different ways and for different reasons. Iconic artworks like The Relief of the Light Brigade and The Thin Red Line not only offer insights into how the war was fought, but also the artists’ minds. • Date: 6 October • Cost: Free, but requires booking Uniforms of the Crimean War On this special guided tour, uniform curator Mel Price will reveal some of the stories…

October at the National Army Museum

Dawn of the tank revealed

A trove of unique documents relating to the design and development of the Mark I tank has been acquired by The Tank Museum. The collection contains hundreds of pages of documents, illustrations and correspondence that was once the property of Sir William Tritton – who with Major Walter Wilson – is regarded as the inventor of the tank. The museum team will now work through each document to record and catalogue them so that the importance of the trove can be fully understood. But a few gems have already been discovered. Among them, Sir William Tritton’s business card, a telegram sent by Fosters of Lincoln (Manufacturer of the Mark I tank) to the trademark office to ‘register the word tank’ and some sketches that appear to indicate that the rear…

Dawn of the tank revealed

In the sale rooms

Hermann Historica hits five Busy times in October for European auction house Hermann Historica with no fewer than five auctions, comprising Antique Arms and Armour; Fine Antique and Modern Firearms, on 11 and 12 October respectively; Orders and Military Collectibles until 1918; The Dave Delich Collection/private Californian collection/Italian SS collection; Orders and Military Collectibles from 1919, on 17, 18 and 19 October respectively. Let’s start with the antique arms and Lot 109, a gold-damascened Ottoman yatagan, dated 1826. It has a characteristically curved single-edged blade with slender fuller on both sides. Richly decorated with gold-damascened flowers, calligraphic cartouches on both sides, dated ‘1242’ (which means 1826). This can only be shipped within the EU and has a starting price of €3,000 (plus BP of 25%). This is an interesting lot,…

In the sale rooms

Military Odyssey 2023

This was always going to be an interesting year for the south-east based show. How much had it recovered from Covid? Would it profit from the demise of War & Peace, usually held just 20 miles miles away and one month earlier? Would it be a wash out thanks to the dismal summer (I’m looking at you Jetstream)? Well, despite showers over the weekend, I’m happy to report that by Bank Holiday Monday the sun was out (intermittently), the ground was dry and the crowds were there in force. Best of all, Military Odyssey had been boosted by the absence of its traditional neighbour and featured more trade stalls and re-enactors, to the extent that the Arena had been relocated to a new area to make space for them. With…

Military Odyssey 2023

Under the hammer

Premier Firearms at Rock Island The late August auction at Rock Island had a wealth of classic and premier firearms up for grabs. Let’s kick things off with the very first lot, an antique Winchester Model 1886 lever action saddle ring carbine with Juan Canedo Buenos Aires retailer marking. It was manufactured in 1894 with the desirable casehardened receiver that was standard until approximately serial number 108000. The top of the barrel on this example is marked with the standard two-line Winchester address, and the calibre marking at the breech. Just below the address on the upper left of the barrel, the retailer marking ‘Juan Canedo y Cia Rivadavia 611-Buenos Aires’ is hand engraved. It hammered for $11,750 (plus BP of 17.5%). If you wanted fancy though, then this next…

Under the hammer

Battle of Mogadishu

The Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia on 3-4 October 1993, involved a mixed unit of American soldiers who effectively held off a vastly superior number of Somali rebels. Originally planned as a 90 minute operation, the mission quickly turned into a 15-hour debacle after two American Blackhawk helicopters were shot down leaving the surviving soldiers surrounded in an urban atmosphere. Somalia was in a leadership power struggle for years eventually coming to a head when, in January 1991, then President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of dissenting clans in a civil war. There were four main opposition groups rivalling for political control of Mogadishu. The main rebel group in the capital was the United Somali Congress (USC), which split into two militarized groups; the first led by…

Battle of Mogadishu

Kitbag through the ages

The second part of T our series on British personal kit moves us forward to World War II and for this conflict we are very lucky that the Imperial War Museum had the foresight to photograph a soldier’s complete kit, including the contents of his pockets, just days after he had landed on the Beaches of Normandy. This provides us with a unique snapshot of exactly what a man was carrying on him in 1944 and for collectors and re-enactors there really isn’t a better set of information than these images. Of course, these are just the items carried by one soldier and there would have been variations, ions, but it is an excellent starting point and is very representative of the personal kit carried. The World War I soldier…

Kitbag through the ages

Portable military radio

From the earliest of times, armies have used some form of signalling. Great Britain was one of the pioneers of radio innovation, having developed the first practical wireless technology system in the 19th century. Radio communication was a vital element of modern warfare, for which the previously dominant landline based telephone was inadequate. Britain invested heavily in radio research and development between the wars creating a well-established radio industry, so that by the time of WWII, radio communication between base and ground troops and their supporting armoured fighting vehicles was well developed to support efficient command and control. ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS WS No. 11. Wireless Set No. 11 was introduced in 1938 and is arguably one of the most successful British military radios of WWII. By 1940, the British Expeditionary…

Portable military radio

National Socialist Flyers Corps badges

The Deutscher Luftsport-Verband (German Air Sports Association), or DLV, was formed on 25 March 1933, absorbing all other private and national air associations in the process. Thanks to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was banned from building fighter aircraft so the Association initially used gliders to train pilots with a view to future military action. By 1937, with re-armament underway. it was dissolved in favour of creating the Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (National Socialist Flyers Corps), along similar lines to the NSKK (see September 2023 issue of The Armourer). The task of the new organisation was to train boys and youths, including from the Flieger-Hitlerjugend (Aviation Hitler Youth) in all aspects of aviation, prior to service in the Luftwaffe. That included theories of flying, aeroplane maintenance, wireless communications, hot air ballooning and…

National Socialist Flyers Corps badges

Regimental medals for the Napoleonic Wars

Although the East India Company had given basic campaign medals to its Indian soldiers since the 1780s, in Britain it wasn’t until the Waterloo Medal of 1815 that a campaign medal was issued to regular soldiers. That was supposed to be a one off, however, the need to give officers and troops a form of wearable award quickly became apparent during the course of the long French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815. The result was the appearance during the French Wars of a large range of regimental medals produced as immediate rewards, as and when necessary, by individual patrons, by groups of officers or by their commanding officers. The range of these medals is quite remarkable and must represent a real feeling that such rewards were necessary and deserved, a…

Regimental medals for the Napoleonic Wars

Badges of the Cold War

The post WWII-era of tension between the Eastern and Western Blocs is commonly referred to as the Cold War and is officially considered to have spanned the years 1947 to 1991. By the early 1950s it had become clear that evolving long range missile technology had consigned the age of the battleship and battlecruiser to history. The 1960s brought changes in operational ideas to meet the challenges of fighting the Soviet submarine arm in the Atlantic, by then considered the primary threat. During the later period of the Cold War, the Royal Navy centred task force operations around three aircraft carriers, now known under their new nomenclature of through deck anti-submarine warfare cruisers. These new carriers were augmented by a force of frigates and destroyers equipped to hunt and destroy…

Badges of the Cold War

The No.9 Mk.1/L bayonet

After the end of World War II in 1945 the various marks of No.4 Rifle continued to provide firepower for the British Army and many politically linked countries throughout the world. As the enormous surplus of firearms manufactured during the conflict far exceeded the requirements of the peacetime army some weapons were sold or donated to allied nations such as Belgium, Eire, Greece, Italy, South Africa or New Zealand and others were placed in storage. Rifles that were needed for active duty underwent the refurbishment necessary to ensure that they functioned efficiently. Modifications to trigger systems and similar components were carried out at the Royal Ordnance factories, such as Fazakerley near Liverpool, which wanted post-war work but had little on hand. As time went by and consumer goods had more…

The No.9 Mk.1/L bayonet

The Battle of the Coral Sea

Heading into the summer of 1942, Imperial Japan had reached the zenith of its victorious march across the east and was in possession of virtually the entire Western Pacific Basin. British forces had been ignominiously ejected from Hong Kong, Malaya and Borneo and were finally forced into a humiliating defeat at Singapore. Sumatra and Java, with their crucial oil fields, had been lost by the Dutch and in April, 75,000 Philippine and US servicemen were taken prisoner at Bataan, the greatest surrender of American troops in US military history. At the beginning of May, British soldiers had been pushed out of Burma and were retreating to the border with India, and the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay was besieged and finally taken on 6 May by the Japanese 14th…

The Battle of the Coral Sea

Collecting Black Hawk Down

The Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 was not the US military’s finest hour, with the battle leaving 18 dead and 73 wounded. Like many military defeats, however, it has become a source of fascination to historians and collectors alike and the release of a blockbuster movie, Black Hawk Down, in 2001 ensured enduring interest. As a more recent conflict, collecting items from the US Army and its allies at this time is an affordable option for the collector, although finding genuine items from Operation Gothic Serpent is far harder due to the small numbers of men involved. Here, then, are a few collecting ideas based on the operation that are currently available. It is of course the Black Hawk helicopters that are most closely associated with the battle and so…

Collecting Black Hawk Down

THE MEN BEHIND THE GUN: The Hamilton Pistole

The advent of effectual self-loading pistols at the end of the 19th century (the Swiss army adopted the Parabellum (Luger) in April 1900) persuaded the Swedish army’s Generalfalttygmastaren (Quartermaster-General) to seek a suitable self-loader to replace existing service revolvers. In April 1903, therefore, trials began in the lnfanteriskjutskolan, the infantry school of musketry at Roserberg. Participants included two 7.65mm 1900-pattern recoil-operated Parabellums with 12cm barrels, submitted by Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken of Berlin. The detachable box magazines each held eight rounds. Two Mle 1900 blowback Brownings, known in Sweden as Browning-Pistoler Nummer 1, were submitted by Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre of Herstallèz-Liége in Belgium. Both chambered a short 7.65mm cartridge (7.65mm Browning or .32 ACP) and the detachable box magazines held seven rounds. Browning pistols came from Colt’s Patent Fire…

THE MEN BEHIND THE GUN: The Hamilton Pistole

The Photo Inspector

This month is the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu, which came about when an operation to grab senior members of the Somali National Alliance in the centre of Mogadishu escalated into a full-scale urban battle. We’re going to set a few questions about this, starting with the photo below. So, here are the questions: 1. Condor APCs, as seen below, were part of the relief convoy sent to extract the Rangers, but which country were they from? 2. There wasn’t room for all the troops on the vehicles, necessitating some of them to march to a recovery point. What did this become known as? 3. What was the total number of United Nations forces killed in the battle? 4. Who was the manufacturer of the Black Hawk helicopters?…

The Photo Inspector

reviews roundup

Battle of the Cities ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES If you want an overall view of the conflict on the Eastern Front then look now further than the latest effort from the prolific Mr Tucker-Jones. It’s split into four parts which cover the initial invasion, the turning points, the liberations and the final onslaught outside Russia. As the title implies, it’s done city by city, with an overview of the battle and/or relief for each one. This is an awful lot of ground to cover and while you get some background detail on the place being fought over, there’s little in the way of the personal accounts. But then that’s not the purpose here, it really is a general guide and as such packs a huge amount into a short space. It’s very…

reviews roundup

Facebook: www.facebook.com/armourermagazine Twitter: @The_Armourer Post: Letters Page, The Armourer, Warners Group Publications, West Street, Bourne, Lincs. PE10 9PH Email: armourer@warnersgroup.co.uk HITLER’S PHILOSOPHIES In The Armourer (July 2023) edition, page 3, you mentioned: ‘… Hitler’s far right philosophies.’ despite Hitler being left-wing. He did not have any right-wing philosophies. Please reply. William F. Sheehan, Toronto, Canada Ed says: It is untrue to say that Hitler was left wing. Hitler despised the Marxists and communists, which is why the SA and SS were formed in the first place. His economic viewpoint could best be described as centrist, as he stated in a 1934 interview that Nazism favoured neither the left nor right wing. The NSDAP only won power in the end thanks to support from land owners and big business, ie right…

NEXT MONTH: DECEMBER 2023 ISSUE

100 years ago, on the night of 8 November 1923 Adolf Hitler and his supporters launched the Beer Hall Putsch against the Bavarian government in Munich, attempting to seize power in order to then march against the national government in Berlin. Over 600 members of the NSDAP supported Hitler as he launched the putsch at the Bürgerbräukeller, interrupting State Commissioner Gustav Ritter von Kahr’s speech. He declared that the Bavarian government had been overthrown and he would form a new one in conjunction with WWI General, Erich Ludendorff. The attempt was not well supported, eventually ran into a cordon of armed police which resulted in a firefight, killing 16 NSDAP members and four policemen. Hitler and the co-conspirators were captured and as Hitler languished in Landsberg Prison he decided to…

NEXT MONTH: DECEMBER 2023 ISSUE

Auction & Fair Diary

AUCTIONS 11 October 2023 C&T Auctioneers T: 01233 510050 www.candtauctions.co.uk enquiries@candtauctions.co.uk 12 October 2023 C&T Auctioneers T: 01233 510050 www.candtauctions.co.uk enquiries@candtauctions.co.uk FAIRS 8 October 2023 Wolverley Militaria Fair T: 07816 853878 www.facebook.com/wolveryleymilitariafairs 15 October 2023 The Hertfordshire Militaria & Medal Fair T: 01923 448903 OR 07425 155876 www.hertfordshiremilitariamedalfair.com sovereignfairs22@outlook.com 22 October 2023 Malvern Militaria T: 07976 777117 www.militariashows.com info@militariashows.com 29 October 2023 Stratford Upon Avon Militaria and Medal Fair T: 01753 534777 OR 07871 777062 www.milweb.net/dealers/trader/markcarter.htm markgcarter6@gmail.com 12 November 2023 The Bedford Militaria Fair T: 01832 274050 www.arms-and-armour-uk.com info@arms-and-armour-uk.com 19 November 2023 The International Birmingham Antique Arms & Militaria Fair T: 07955 826009 www.birminghamarmsfair.com info@birminghamarmsfair.com To advertise in the next issue please call Kristina on 01778 392096…

AUCTIONEER LISTING

BEDFORDSHIRE ■ Southams Auctioneers Bedford, Tel: 01234 266366 guns@southamsauction.co.uk www.southamsauction.co.uk BERKSHIRE ■ Special Auction Services Newbury, Tel: 01635 580595 mail@specialauctionservices.com adam@specialauctionservices.com www.specialauctionservices.com BUCKINGHAMSHIRE ■ Bosleys Marlow, Tel: 01628 488188 sales@bosleys.co.uk www.bosleys.co.uk DEVON ■ Greenslade Taylor Hunt Tiverton, Tel: 01823 332525 www.gth.net antiques.saleroom@gth.net ESSEX ■ Reeman Dansie Auctions Colchester, Tel: 01206 754754 auctions@reemandansie.com www.reemandansie.com KENT ■ C&T Auctioneers and Valuers Kenardington, Tel: 01233 510050 enquiries@candtauctions.co.uk www.candtauctions.co.uk LONDON ■ Morton & Eden London, Tel: 020 7493 5344 info@mortonandeden.com www.mortonandeden.com SOMERSET ■ Greenslade Taylor Hunt Taunton, Tel: 01823 332525 www.gth.net antiques.saleroom@gth.net STAFFORDSHIRE ■ Marlows Stafford, Tel: 01785 214100 or 07789 628030 mail@marlowsauctions.co.uk www.marlowsauctions.co.uk SUFFOLK ■ Durrants Beccles, Tel: 01502 713490 AuctionRooms@durrants.com ■ Bishop & Miller Stowmarket, Tel: 01449 673088 www.bishopandmillerauctions.co.uk enquiries@bm-auctions.co.uk WARWICKSHIRE ■ Warwick & Warwick Warwick, Tel: 01926 499031 www.warwickandwarwick.com WEST SUSSEX…

AUCTIONEER LISTING

Book competition

WIN 3 copies of… Day Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe Discover all the German fighter aces who were awarded the Knight’s Cross. Here are details of their early lives, pre-war careers, how many aircraft they shot down and where they are buried or what they did after the war. The action that led to their Knight’s Cross award is described and each entry gets a head and shoulders photo. Now, thanks to the generosity of specialist military book publisher, Pen and Sword we have three copies to give away. Simply answer the question below and go to the website to enter. WORTH £75 WIN 3 copies of… The Royal Navy and Fishery Protection From the 14th century to the Cod Wars, this is the story of the Royal Navy division…

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