#M3

Photo Of The Day with a loud bang as U.S. Army Paratroopers assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, fire an M3 Carl Gustaf rocket launcher. This happened during exercise Rock Klescman 21 at Pocek Range in Slovenia, in September 2021. Exercise Rock Klescman was a bilateral training exercise with the Slovenian Armed Forces focused on the rapid deployment and assembly of forces and team cohesion with weapon systems tactics and procedures.

Diverse and dedicated, our Reserves are a valuable asset to our Defence Force. They’re well trained, highly skilled and ready to deploy when needed.

An American .45-caliber submachine gun on full-auto. I think most people would think of the Thompson M1A1 submachine gun, except this one came in service from 1943, and was much cheaper to produce. The M3 submachine gun (a.k.a. Grease Gun) is our Photo Of The Day.

In what is probably one of the coolest historical recreations to happen at a national machine gun shoot in recent years, the folks from the Bomber Camp program out of Stockton Aviation Field Museum actually got a Sperry Ball Turret (as used on the prolific B17 and B24 Heavy Bombers of the Second World) working with live ammunition at the recent Big Sandy Machine Gun Shoot in Arizona. What appears to be twin .50 BMG M3 aircraft machine guns were fed from several hundreds rounds of linked ammunition and as the saying goes, “Money was turned into smoke” on the plains of an Arizona desert. Perhaps the only thing cooler than shooting from the ball turret on the ground, is shooting live rounds from it in the air. Legally that would be near-impossible to accomplish anywhere in the United States as a private enterprise.

The United States Marine Corps is following in the US Army in the procurement of the Saab M3A1 MAAWS (Multi-Role Anti-Armor/Anti-Personnel Weapon System) recoilless rifle. The M3A1 is a lightweight multipurpose explosive projector weapon which can engage targets at much longer ranges than weapons currently in service with the USMC. The previous MAAWS version, the heavier M3, has been in US Army service since 2011, and was approved for general issue to Army platoons in early 2016.  Military.com’s Hope Hodge Seck reports:

Full Conceal is now shipping their Glock 19 folding pistol conversion called M3. The folding mechanism allows having a more compact carry package which in a matter of seconds unfolds and becomes a Glock 19 with a 21-round magazine. The reason why they advertise it with the 22-round capacity (21 round mag plus one in the chamber) is that the 21-round magazine most efficiently fits the slide length neither sticking out nor coming short of the overall length of the folded gun. The M3 pistol is available for purchase on Full Conceal’s website for $1,399 (the price includes one Magpul 21-round magazine).

Good things come in lightweight, 84mm packages: Following its fielding of the M3 MAAWS last year, the US Army has announced its decision to sole-source 1,111 improved lightweight M3E1 MAAWS recoilless rifles from Saab Dynamics, in a listing at FBO.gov. The new weapon is based on the Saab Dynamics M4 variant of the venerable Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, which improves over the previous M3 by reducing weight by 30% (22 pounds down to 15.4 pounds) and length by 14% (1,100mm down to 950mm). The M3E1 is expected to be type classified as the M3A1 Multi-Role Anti-Armor/Anti-Personnel Weapon System (MAAWS).

Forgotten Weapons’ recent video on the M3 and M3A1 “Grease Guns” ( http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/04/19/forgotten-weapons-covers-well-remembered-grease-guns/)  briefly mentioned the conversion kits built in limited numbers  – 500 or so, Ian says – to make the .45 ACP submachine guns capable of firing 9x19mm rounds when eventually (but, I think, rarely) needed. This prompted me to recall that much larger numbers of clones of the U.S. weapon were actually factory-made in that caliber… but in Argentina.  The whole thing began in the early fifties when State-owned Fábrica Militar de Armas Portátiles -“Domingo Matheu”, in Rosario, Santa Fé Province, acquired from the U.S. Government production rights for the M3A1, which was extensively demonstrated in that country in October, 1950.

I love it when Ian over at Forgotten Weapons falls off the actual “forgotten” weapons and delves into well-known and respected designs. His brain housing group is replete with an encyclopedia of facts and history on weapons and when applied to even well-known guns, I personally come away learning more.                 In this case, Ian takes a look at the M3 submachine gun fielded by the United States in World War 2 and slightly beyond. The M3, knick-named the “grease gun” for its external resemblance to

Quick: What’s the definition of “assault rifle”? I’ll give you a moment to think about it.

Released to collective “Huh?”, Magpul’s Sand colored magazines have been an odd duck. The “Sand” coloration scheme has been slow to grow on the market. In fact, I have never seen one on the range for the thousands of AR’s I have been around. My theory is that the color is too light to strike the attention of the tactical and tacticool crowd. It’s closer to white than it is brown.

While the primary consumer of PMAGs continues to be the general American shooting public, various companies and countries have paid close attention to the success of the polymer magazine “PMag” offered by MagPul. The magazine’s success has not been by accident. Its durability, reliability, and performance have become the metric by which other STANAG magazines are measured.

I asked this question a few years back, but decided to do a little redux for TFBTV:

After reading our founder’s article, “What would you buy, if there were no restrictions whatsoever”, I’ve really thought a lot about one of his questions:

Well, sort-of-not-really, although it makes for a pretty great title. The Bendix-Hyde Carbine was in fact one of the nine prototypes initially submitted to the Light Rifle program (not to be confused with the Lightweight Rifle program  that is the subject of my ongoing serie s), and it’s in many ways the most interesting one to me. First, though, a brief overview of George J. Hyde, the brilliant designer who invented it: