Opinion
Military historical tidbits:
Camo
British soldiers (and others) wore bight-red uniforms throughout most of the 1800s, as red made the sudden appearance of blood from wounds less visibly shocking than would a contrasting color, like white! The interior of gun emplacements on British navel ships was painted bright red, for the same reason.
“Khaki” translates (from mid-eastern dialects) to “soil-colored.” However, the subject of camouflage (a French term meaning “to disguise”) of military utility uniforms was hotly debated, even after World War One.
The French, for example, were hard to convince. During WWI, French response to the suggestion was:
“To clothe the French soldier in some muddy, inglorious color, to banish all that is colorful, all that gives the soldier his vivid aspect, is to go contrary to both French taste and military function” ~ The Guns of August.
Hundreds of thousands of French soldiers lost their lives—their bright red pants turning them into clear targets for German machine guns—before the national consciousness began to change.
The tactic of “hostile boarding” of one ship by “naval infantry” (Marines) from another, as well as naval marksmen from positions high in a sailing ship’s rigging picking-off officers on a nearby ship, became obsolete during the early 19th Century with the introduction of coal-fired and (later) oil-fired naval vessels and the simultaneous quantum increase in range of naval guns.
The focus of Marines then turned to “landing operations” on foreign/hostile shores!
In British-controlled India in the late 1800s, dehydration was a common problem among British soldiers due to the hot climate and the fact that much of the water naturally available was contaminated with sewage and thus unsafe.
To address this dilemma, lime juice or whiskey was added to the water intended for drinking.
This killed some of the bacteria, but it also introduced otherwise uninitiated British soldiers and colonists to ethyl alcohol and started many, including Winston Churchill himself, down the road to alcoholism!
“Flying kicks,” practiced by some contemporary martial artists, were actually developed many centuries ago in order to give someone on his feet the ability to knock an opponent off his horse.
They have scant relevance outside that circumstance, although they are seen in movies today, but strictly for the purpose of (irrelevant) drama and fluff.
The Israeli “Uzi” SMG, designed by Maj Uziel Gal, came into prominence in the late 1940s, shortly after the establishment of the Nation of Israel. It was officially adopted by IDF in 1954. It saw much service in Israel thereafter, and around the world, and is in active service in many places to this day!
The Uzi is famous for its compactness and reliability. Semi-auto versions (closed-bolt) were manufactured in Israel and exported to many nations, including the USA
In the early 1990s Koncar in Yugoslavia (through its military-products division, called “Arma,” located in Zagreb) started manufacturing exact copies of the Uzi, called the “ERO,” for use by the Croatian Army during the Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995, ending with Croatian victory), when Croatia broke-away from Yugoslavia, even while the Serbian minority organized (unsuccessful) military opposition to oppose the detachment.
Arma subsequently manufactured the APS-95, which is a copy of the Israeli Galil Rifle, designed by Yisrael Galili, (which itself is mostly a copy of the Soviet Kalashnikov)
There are a number of prominent Jewish families in Croatia, and there is little doubt that they were instrumental in arranging for Israeli technology to be rapidly imported into Croatia!
Today, Croatia enjoys a stellar reputation for manufacturing high-quality military weapons, like the VHS2, which is currently imported into the USA as the Springfield Armory Hellion Bullpup.
/John
Live Inventory Price Checker
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Springfield Armory Hellion Bullpup 18" 5.56 Rifle (1) 30rd Mag - Black | Bereli | $ 1575.00 |
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Springfield Armory Hellion Bullpup 20" 5.56 Rifle (1) 30rd Mag - Black | Bereli | $ 1575.00 |
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Springfield Armory Hellion 5.56x45mm Bullpup Semi-Auto, Black | Palmetto State Armory | $ 1979.99 $ 1799.99 |
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Springfield Armory Hellion 5.56 NATO Bullpup Rifle - 16" Black | Rainier Arms | $ 1999.00 |
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Has anyone shot a Hellion? Is it great, ok, bad?
Huh. I had always heard that the French wore brown pants. It was for the same reason the British wore red coats.