Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i The Armourer

The museum is situated next to an almost complete and high section of Hadrian’s Wall, in beautiful sweeping countryside, at the site of Magna Roman Fort. It’s worthy of a two hour visit and with a day’s worth of exploration nearby it makes for an informative prelude to the archaeological sites further along the Wall. Although the main focus here is life on the British military frontier, the influence of global campaigns puts the Roman presence in Britain in a wider perspective. There is a Saver ticket available which includes the nearby Vindolanda Fort and Museum, boasting recent archaeological finds, as its Trust manages this museum too. The Roman Army Museum opened in April 1981 but has been completely modernised since then. There are three galleries and a 20 minute…

COVER STORY By the winter of 1944 Nazi Germany was retreating on all fronts. Driven back to the very borders of the Reich, Hitler, the arch-gambler, threw the dice in the heavily-forested Ardennes region, betting a surprise offensive by Germany’s last major reserves could capture Antwerp, split the Western Allies and turn the tide of the war. Launched on 16 December, Operation Wacht am Rhein soon floundered in the dreadful terrain and from stiffer than expected American opposition. Desperate to kickstart the stalled offensive, Hitler once again went on the attack, his eye settling this time on the disputed region of Alsace-Lorraine to the south. Hitler knew that to help stop the Germans in the Ardennes, Eisenhower, as Supreme Allied Commander, had detached Patton’s Third Army from Jacob Devers’s 6th Army…

On 4 August 1914 the day Britain declared war on Imperial Germany planning immediately began to ensure sufficient reserves of fighting troops to match the scale of the coming conflict. The Admiralty in 1914 enjoyed a manpower surplus of between 20,000 and 30,000 sailors and marines, the majority serving in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Senior officers considered this enough to form three brigades, one consisting of troops of the Royal Marine Light Infantry and Royal Marine Artillery, with two further brigades of Royal Navy personnel. Initially, the Admiralty planners focused on the Royal Marine brigade which was to consist of four battalions and to be deployed as an Advanced Base Force to establish and defend naval bases from which to launch fleet operations and for use as stores and…

Under the authoritarian ruling of the president Porfirio Díaz, a slow but steady industrialisation of Mexico began. The military was also given more support and new developments were pushed forward. Thanks to this support, the officer and amateur weapons designer Manuel Mondragón experimented with improved bolt action rifles to increase the rate of fire. A path that would eventually lead him to a semi-automatic rifle. One of his early models from 1893, a straight bolt action rifle in calibre 6.5x53mm, had an unusual fire mode selector. It could be used to deactivate the trigger function so that the bolt was no longer caught by the sear. The operator then pulled the bolt back and when released, it rushed forward, fed a cartridge from the magazine into the chamber and ignited…

The Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) was formed in 1881 from the 57th (West Middlesex) and 77th (East Middlesex) Regiments of Foot. Both the bracketed titles had been adopted in 1782, the 77th also adding Duke of Cambridge’s Own in 1876. On 31 December 1966 the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) was amalgamated with the other regiments of the Home Counties Brigade - the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment, the Queen’s Own Buffs, The Royal Kent Regiment and the Royal Sussex Regiment to form the Queen’s Regiment.…

EXHIBITIONS Hurricanes at Duxford IWM Duxford is looking ahead to two new openings this winter with a celebration of World War II’s most hard-working fighter aircraft, the Hurricane. Opening to visitors in December the Conservation in Action hangar will welcome the public back through its doors after eight months of closure. Meet members of IWM’s Conservation Team as they set to work on new restoration projects and get up close to seven airworthy Hurricanes, brought together under one roof for the first time. After the success of last year’s Spitfire: Evolution of an Icon, this December will see the Hawker Hurricane take centre stage with the opening of Hurricane: Unsung Hero in the Conservation Hall in AirSpace on 27 December 2022. With only 14 airworthy Hurricanes remaining in the world, this…

Ratisbon’s in America The German auction house recently finished its second USA auction, with all lots open for overseas shipping and unsold lots now available with a BP of just 5%. So let’s take a look at what tickled the buying public’s fancy. First up were some award document for winners of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with the highest price going to Oberleutnant d. Res Gerhard Türke. Together with his unit, Infantry Regiment 29m he was deployed on the Eastern Front as part of the 6. Armee. near Stalingrad. He participated in the battles with 3. Infanterie-Division (Motorisiert) and was named Chief of 3. Kompanie. Shortly before 6. Armee capitulated, he was promoted to Hauptmann der Reserve and flown out of the encirclement around Stalingrad. In Biarritz,…

Nearly at the end of the 19th century Spain’s vast colonies had shrunk to Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea and the Philippine, Carolina, Marshall and Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. As with most aspects of Spanish rule, conditions for indigenous inhabitants were harsh causing unrest and revolt. Politicians in the USA, partially concerned about millions of dollars invested in Cuban sugar production and trade, observed events and awaited a chance to intervene. After a Cuban insurrection began in February 1895 US public opinion began to harden against Spain. Matters were aggravated in 1897 by General Valeriano Weyler’s draconian treatment of Cubans, that included forced resettlement. American media began to equate the situation with the War of Independence. When pro-Spanish Cubans began to protest in Havana during…

Medals at Noonans The Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria auction at Noonans kicks off on 7 December, so let’s have a look at what’s been consigned. Let’s start with this rare group of five awarded to Chief Petty Officer Mechanic 2nd Class, H Little, Royal Naval Air Service. He was one of Commander CR Samson’s ‘Dunkirk Circus’ or the ‘Motorised Bandits’ as they were also known, who was later commissioned in to the Royal Air Force, and served as a Wing Commander in the Technical Branch during WWII. The medals include the 1914 Star; British War and Victory Medals; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted for wear, with brass RNAS Armoured Car Division cap badge; two buttons and a cloth RNAS insignia. Estimate is £500-£700. Here’s an interesting lot. It…

Fine militaria at C&T Lots of medals at the Fine Militaria auction at C&T. Let’s get things started with an unusual pair of Victorian campaign medals for the 60th Rifles for service in the Third Kaffir War and in the 2nd China War. There’s the South Africa medal 1834-53 impressed naming, ‘THOS. DEVERILL, 2ND BTN 60TH RIFLES’, contact marks and wear to both ends of the naming, suspension post loose. Then the Second China War Medal 1856-60, impressed naming ‘THOS. DEVERILL, 2ND BN 60TH RIFLES’, contact marks and wear to naming. Came with two clasps for ‘PEKIN 1860’ and ‘TAKU FORTS 1860’. Winning bid was £660 (plus BP of 26.4% in the room or 32.34% online). Crimean War medals are highly sought after and here we have one awarded to…

Sitting on the River Elbe, the ancient Hanseatic city of Hamburg had always been a bustling centre of commerce and industry. Dubbed ‘Red Hamburg’ after World War I, the city was a bastion of left-wing politics – it’s 14,000 Communist Party members staged a short-lived uprising in 1923. The advent of World War II saw it become a key hub for German industry with its oil refineries and shipyards, especially the mammoth Blohm & Voss yard where almost one in five U-boats were built, making Hamburg a target for Allied bombers. 1940-June 1943 RAF Bomber Command first attacked Hamburg on the night of 17 May 1940, although according to the author William Shirer the chief impact seemed to be ‘that the British raids robbed them [Hamburg’s residents] of their sleep’,…

Many collectors will be familiar with the South Africa medal of 1877-79, awarded with various dated clasps for a complex series of campaigns on the frontiers of the British and Boer colonies in south Africa. These varied campaigns have received little attention in the way of accessible books until recently and many of the dated clasps to the South Africa medal (like ‘1877-8’ or ‘1878’) are, probably as a result of this lack of information, not so highly collected. The one exception, the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, is of course very well known and its medals highly collected. There is perhaps a tendency amongst collectors to think that the defeat of the amaZulu marks the end of the long period of frontier wars that had raged on and off since…

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 EGYPTIAN INTERESTS I enjoyed the article on the Suez Crisis in the October 21 issue. I was at school at the time and we didn’t have a TV so I haven’t read anything about the Suez Crisis, unlike the Falklands Conflict, which had some TV coverage and we had a TV by then. I would like to say that although the Hakim rifle was copied from the Swedish rifle during this time, the actual bayonets were made in Egypt locally. Your contributor incorrectly pointed out that the bayonets were made with plastic grips! No bayonet manufacturers used plastic grips in 1896. They look like wood in the illustration. These bayonets…