This is a look at how Mosin-Nagant rifles, the USSR’s main longarm of WWII, came commercially into the United States at the height of anti-communist sentiment.
(Soviet soldiers with Mosin-Nagant rifles during WWII.)
(A “sign of the times”; a typical 1950s disclaimer for Mosin-Nagants being sold commercially in the United States)
Some years ago I wrote on the Tokagypt, Hungary’s postwar version of the WWII Soviet TT-33 originally for an Egyptian order, but later as the Firebird notorious within European law enforcement as “the terrorist’s delight”. In passing I mentioned the Tokagypt’s forgotten brother, the Walam.
Below is a look at the Walam, and information about postwar PPs / PPKs in general including odd meetups of a WWII firearm and modern trademark infringement.
During WWII the Mosin-Nagant was the Soviet army’s standard longarm. After WWII, all of the client communist nations in eastern Europe used it. The case of Romania is interesting in that its run predated WWII itself, and continued right to the end of the Cold War in 1989.
(Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine of Romania’s brief post-WWII production run.) (photo via National Rifle Association)
(“Instructie” stamp on a Romanian Mosin-Nagant.)
(Members of Romania’s Gărzile Patriotice (Patriotic Guards) march with WWII Mosin-Nagants during the 1970s.)
Thailand’s two Thonburi class warships of WWII were very unique and interesting designs, but very little has been written about them.
The second ship of the class, HTMS Sri Ayudhya, was later sunk in one of the strangest situations of post-WWII naval history; a big-gun capital ship fighting in the downtown of a major inland city. Outside of Thailand even less has been written about that. So, perhaps this will be of value.
(The Thonburi class as they appeared during WWII.)
(The old dredge Manhattan, which lent its name to the failed 1951 rebellion which resulted in the loss of HTMS Sri Ayudhya.)
The most famous German surface warship to survive WWII was the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, studied by the US Navy after WWII and then expended as a nuclear target.
The only large WWII German warship to see active duty in its intended role during the Cold War was the light cruiser Nürnberg, which served on in the Soviet navy.
(The light cruiser Nürnberg of the WWII German navy.)
(The Soviet light cruiser Admiral Makarov, the former Nürnberg, during the mid-1950s.)
One of the more remarkable re-uses of WWII tanks was Bulgaria’s Krali Marko defensive line along its southeast border during the Cold War.
(Bulgarian Panzer IV and T-34 tanks.)
(T-34 turret in the Krali Marko Line.) (photo via uniconbg website)
(Panzer IV after being exhumed out of the Krali Marko Line during the 2010s.)
The Tokagypt, Hungary’s odd Egyptian-contract post-WWII TT-33 half-clone, is somewhat known in the firearms community. It appears in any number of books from the relatively entry-level Small Arms Visual Guide up to professional-grade publications. Yet in either case, the level of information is often similar and very brief: it was a 9mm copy of the Tokarev, it was made for Egypt, they didn’t want them all, some were used by terrorists…..and little else is usually explained. So perhaps this will be of value to those interested.
(August 1983 American intelligence photo of a Tokagypt.)
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