The National Interest

Charlie Gao

Security,

Key Point: The German manufacturer brings high quality to its weapons.

With the announcement of the H&K SP5, H&K has finally reentered the civilian MP5 clone market in the US. While the SP5K, an MP5K clone has been out for several years, most civilian shooters appear to be more interested in a proper MP5. Until now this demand has been filled by American manufacturers like PTR, or by imported guns from countries that have licensed MP5 production lines of their own, like Turkey or Pakistan.

But as H&K is the original manufacturer of the MP5, there is a lot of reputation that goes along with the brand. While H&K produced the HK94, a civilian version of the MP5 with a 16” barrel during the 1980s, imports of HK94s was halted in 1989 following George H. W. Bush’s semiautomatic rifle ban.

Due to changing German export laws and American gun control laws, H&K would be unable to important proper civilianized versions of the MP5 until 2019. But the latest SP5 isn’t just a reintroduction of the same old MP5 that was on the American market in the 1980s. The MP5 went through significant design changes for the military and law enforcement markets since then, and it appears that most of the new changes have been incorporated into the new SP5.

Though H&K probably planned for the 1980s MP5A5/MP5N to be the last variants of the MP5 before it was replaced by the UMP, continued demand for the MP5 lead to continued development on the design. One of the most substantial was the 1998 MP5F, an MP5 created for a French Gendarmerie contract. As the French planned on using increased pressure ammunition in their MP5s, the internals were revised and strengthened accordingly.

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Key point: The Model 39 is a capable gun that earned its spot in American firearms history.

One of the earliest American nine-millimeter pistols was adopted for wartime service to take out enemy sentries… and barking dogs.

The Smith & Wesson Model 39 semi-automatic handgun served U.S. Navy SEALs during the Vietnam War and then went on to become one of the American nine-millimeter high capacity pistols, the Model 59.

The Smith & Wesson Model 39 had its roots in postwar America. U.S. troops, encountering the Walther P-38 on the battlefield, had a favorable impression of the German pistol. U.S. gunmaker Smith & Wesson decided to make an Americanized version of the P-38 for the domestic market, and borrowed heavily from Walther’s design. Internally, the Model 39 was very similar, to the point where magazines could almost be swapped between guns. Externally there were key differences, including a 1911-type full barrel slide removed with a twist of a barrel bushing. The Model 39 went on commercial sale in 1955.

The Model 39 was a double-action pistol. It was 7.44 inches long and weighed just 26.5 ounces empty with a four-inch barrel. It was a recoil-operated handgun using a modified version of the Colt/Browning locking system used on handguns such as the 1911. Like the Walther P-38 the slim metal, single stack magazine held eight rounds of 9-millimeter Parabellum.

During the 1960s the CIA had experimented on a suppressor for the Walther P-38, a pistol which in the Agency’s opinion combined reliability, firepower, and a distinctive non-American lineage. The suppressor greatly reduced the Walther’s report, particularly when combined with a slide lock that prevented the slide to fly backward. The use of a slide lock turned the pistol into a single-shot weapon and caused dramatic wear and tear on the handgun’s components, but the result was a very quiet pistol.

Sebastien Roblin

History, Europe

On June 13, 1944—a week after the D-Day landing in Normandy—residents of the East London working-class district of Bethnal Green heard an unusual buzzing drone. 

Over the last four years, German bombers had intermittently rained death on the metropolis. But now Allied fighters reigned so supreme that Luftwaffe bombers were barely present over Normandy, let alone London. 

Nonetheless, a small dark object was seen flitting across the sky at 2,000 feet before it plunged into a railway bridge on Grove Road. Its one-ton warhead ruptured the surrounding buildings, killing six Londoners, wounding 30 and leaving 200 homeless. 

In fact, this was the only missile of 10 launched that day that drew blood. But thousands more “buzz bombs” would come droning down from the sky in the following months, as you can see in this wartime recording. 

Vengeance Weapons 

This first-ever operational land-attack cruise missiles was designated the Fiesler Fi 103 Kirschkern (“Cherry Stone”), or FZG-76. But they were better known as V-1s—as in “V” for Vengeance, in retaliation for Allied bombing of German cities. 

Earlier in November 1939, German scientist Fritz Gosslau began working on a remote-controlled flying bomb. Indeed, the first cruise missiles were anti-ship weapons remotely piloted into enemy warships by an observer in a nearby aircraft. 

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Key point: While not superior to the AR-15, this rifle is nothing to sniff at.

One of the most enduring and popular semi-automatic rifles in America traces its lineage to the battlefields of World War II and Korea.

The Mini-14 rifle, designed and developed by Sturm Ruger, is in widespread use as a ranch rifle, defensive weapon, and even a hunting arm. Now in its fifth decade, the Mini-14 shows no sign of going out of production anytime soon.

In the late 1960s, firearms designer Bill Ruger and James L. Sullivan went to work on a new semi-automatic rifle design. The new weapon was based on the M14 battle rifle then being phased out of service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. The M14 was a short-stroke gas piston, rotating bolt rifle that traced its roots to the World War II M1 Garand rifle. The M14 differed from the Garand primarily in being chambered for the NATO standard 7.62-millimeter cartridge and having a 20 round removable box magazine.

The new weapon was externally similar to the M-14 and would use the same operating system but was rechambered for the .223 cartridge. Just as the M14 in 7.62-millimeter was the M1 Garand scaled down from the .30-06 cartridge, the new weapon was scaled down again to handle the .223 cartridge. The .223 cartridge was nearly identical to the 5.56 cartridge adopted by the U.S. military with the AR15, then M16 and XM177E1 rifles. Ruger had evidently gambled production of .223/5.56 for the Vietnam War would give the cartridge staying power in the States long after the war ended. He was right.

The resulting rifle was smaller and lighter than its military cousin and was introduced for sale by Sturm Ruger Inc. as the Mini-14 in 1973. The Mini-14 weighed 6.39 pounds unloaded, a wooden stock, and iron sights. It weighed just 6.39 ounces empty. It had a practical rate of fire of 40 rounds per minute and could take both 20 and 30 round magazines. Like the M16, the Mini-14 had a right-handed twist rate of 1 in 12 inches, better to stabilize the .223 round in flight. The Mini-14 had an effective range of 200 yards, a distance primarily dictated by the ballistic performance of its ammunition.

Darien Cavanaugh

Security, Asia

Key point: It was a brutal war that included massacres and war crimes.

It’s difficult to try to keep up with developments in the latest round of saber rattling between the United States and North Korea. U.S. President Donald Trump and Korean “supreme leader” Kim Jong-un have repeatedly traded verbal barbs via Twitter and more formal avenues amid news of naval redeployments, massive live-fire artillery exercises, United Nations condemnations and rumors of troop movements by regional powers.

The United States would have an obvious and distinct advantage over North Korea in a direct military engagement. That doesn’t mean that a war wouldn’t be a grueling and costly endeavor. North Korea’s military is dilapidated and antiquated, but it’s still one of the largest militaries in the world. When the two countries clashed before, from 1950 to 1953, the conflict ended in a virtual draw along the 38th parallel.

Of course, the hundreds of thousands of soldiers China sent to save its North Korean ally played a decisive role in that outcome, but the Korean People’s Army itself put up a formidable fight against the much more powerful United States and its allies. The KPA inflicted considerable casualties in a blitzkrieg-like assault through the south and quickly seized huge swaths of territory, compelling the United States to implement a scorched-earth policy that inflicted a tremendous death toll.

Kyle Mizokami

Technology,

Key point: The rifle’s low cost makes it an attractive rifle not only for first-time long-distance shooters but also a compelling choice for those already in the hobby.

In the precision shooting world, quality and affordability rarely go hand in hand. The pursuit of accuracy means precision rifles can often cost in the thousands of dollars. One of America’s most prolific gun makers with a reputation for both quality and affordability has released a rifle that manages to combine both, shattering the entry cost for the precision rifle world.

Traditionally, the bar to becoming a quality, long-range precision shooter has been a high one. In order to shoot at exceptionally long ranges of 700 yards or more, an enthusiast has typically needed a relatively expensive, high-quality rifle. Companies such as Accuracy International made purpose-built precision rifles (also manufactured for military sniper use) or highly trained gunsmiths would take an unexceptional rifle, such as the Remington 700, and extensively customize it. The cost of such a rifle could easily range into the thousands of dollars—and that’s not even counting the cost of the scope.

In 2015, Sturm Ruger shook the precision rifle world with the introduction of the Ruger Precision Rifle. Founded shortly after World War II by William Ruger and Alexander McCormick, Ruger has concentrated on producing quality but relatively inexpensive firearms. Generally speaking, Ruger is to firearms what Ford is to the world of automobiles. Ruger has become known for such weapons as the Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle, the Hawkeye hunting rifle, and the GP100 double action revolver.

Charlie Gao

Security, Europe

Key point: The influence of Western small arms ergonomics is obvious.

In early 2018, the AK-12 made by Kalashnikov Concern was officially recommended by the Russian Ministry of Defense for adoption by the Russian Army. This marked the probable end of a long search for the next rifle for the Russian military. But the adopted rifle was completely different than the original AK-12 showcased back in 2013, sharing likely less than 10% of parts, if any at all.

But the long search may have created a lot of questions for outside observers. Why did two different rifles share the same name? Why was the AK-12 developed instead of the earlier AK-107? What happened to the A545 and A762 that the AK-12 competed alongside? What are the AK-400 and AK-200 rifles and how are they related to the AK-12 program?

The story of the AK-12 begins with the last of Izhmash/Kalashnikov Concern’s AK-100 series of rifles: the AK-107 and AK-109. These rifles were designed with the “balanced automatic” recoil system that was in development since the 1970s and used a moving counterweight to reduce the recoil impulse of the rifle.

During factory tests, the AK-107 was found to simply be not good enough. Its balanced automatic action was only of limited use: it only provided benefits in certain shooting positions and made the rifles significantly more complicated: adding weight and difficulty to reloading.

These same issues were found in the first balanced automatics: the Konstantinova Koksharova SA-006 also was found to be harder to charge than the A-3 (the prototype of the AK-74) it competed against. The balanced automatic system also made creating carbine versions of the rifle significantly more difficult, if not impossible, due to the need to fit the balanced recoil mechanism over the barrel.

Sebastien Roblin

History,

Key point: Germany's anger at the Treaty of Versailles would still have been present.

Legend has it that on September 28, 1918, a wounded Private Adolf Hitler lay in the sights of Henry Tandey, a British soldier who would receive the Victoria Cross for his daring actions in engagement in Marcoing, France.

Tandey supposedly took pity on the limping German soldier, who nodded in gratitude and made his escape.

While historians believe this incident was fabricated by Hitler himself, the apocryphal legend nonetheless poses a provocative question: how differently might world history have turned out with just one more pull of the trigger amidst the senseless slaughter of World War I?

In other words—was World War II bound to happen due to larger economic and political forces? Or was it uniquely a product of a monstrous yet charismatic leader bending the streams of history in his wake?

Would the Nazis have risen to power without Hitler?

The Nazi party’s earlier incarnation was the German Worker’s Party (DAP), founded by a locksmith named Anton Drexler. In fact, Hitler was originally assigned by German Army intelligence after World War I to infiltrate DAP, but ended up a convert and became party leader in 1921.

Therefore, a working-class far-right party was likely in the cards for Germany even without Hitler, carried by the same currents of economic distress and revanchist anger that the supposedly “undefeated” Imperial Germany had been “stabbed-in-the-back” by surrendering in World War I.

But on the other hand, there’s decent evidence that the Nazi’s rise to power came from unusual circumstances tied to Hitler himself. That’s because even with Hitler, the Nazis received only 37 percent of the vote in the 1932 election. 

Most Germans (53 percent) reelected general and statesman Paul von Hindenburg, who was supported by German center-right- and center-left parties, into the presidency. Despite personally disliking Hitler, the 84-year-old Hindenburg struggled to form a coalition and was eventually convinced to appoint Hitler chancellor. Following a staged attack on the Reichstag, Hitler then persuaded Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag, allowing Hitler to rule by decree.

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

Key Point: The navy has judged that a mixed force is better suited to its current needs. 

In June, the U.S. Navy released a budget allocating $264.9 million towards upgrading its roughly six hundred FA-18E and F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fighters to the new Block III standard, which includes some of the enhancements proposed for the Advanced Super Hornet. This is intended to coincide with a service-life extension program (SLEP) meant to increase the type’s flight hours from six thousand to nine thousand. The first of the upgraded aircraft are expected to enter service in 2019, and the Pentagon is now talking about keeping its Super Hornet fleet active through 2046.

A few days later, the Navy also announced plans to purchase an additional eighty Super Hornets over the next five years for $7.1 billion. All in all, it would seem that Boeing has successfully redirected defense dollars away from the expensive new F-35 stealth fighter by emphasizing the lower price of maintaining the Super Hornet fleet.

However, it would be mistaken to say the Super Hornet proved it could replace the F-35. In fact, the Block III upgrade should help the Super Hornet team up with the stealthier Lightning when taking on tougher opponents.

The single seat F/A-18E and two-seat F/A-18F are larger, higher-performing evolutions of the 1980s-era F/A-18 Hornet attack plane. Though comparable in many respects to such excellent fourth-generation fighters as the F-15 Eagle, the Super Hornet has a lower maximum speed and is slightly less agile due to the engineering compromises necessary for taking off and landing on Navy carrier’s. On the plus side, the Super Hornet does come with more modern avionics and a unique advantage baked into its airframe: a reduced radar cross section estimated to be around one square meter from the front, a fraction of that of an F-15 and one of the lowest on any fourth-generation jet fighter.

Kyle Mizokami

Security, Asia

Key Point: It is not clear why China produced the CQ rifle.

Some weapons are so ubiquitous they are manufactured even in countries one might not associate them with. One example of this is the M16 rifle series. In service with the U.S. Military for more than fifty years, it has fallen into the hands of many groups that were not originally issued them, such as the Viet Cong, communist guerillas in the Philippines, and now the Islamic State. Only one of America’s potential adversaries took the step of making their own M16s, however: that distinction belongs to China with the production of the CQ rifle.

The Cold War saw large numbers of M16 style rifles issued to America’s allies worldwide, from the South Vietnamese Army to the Israeli Defense Forces. Lightweight and reasonably effective once a series of embarrassing—and deadly—kinks were ironed out, the M16A1 rifle was also a visual symbol of a country’s alliance with the United States, just as the AK-47/M assault rifle was a symbol of support by the Soviet Union.

The M16 series rifle, adopted by the Pentagon 1965, was a gas operated, direct impingement weapon designed to fire the new 5.56-millimeter round. Weighing just seven pounds with a twenty round magazine, it was a handy weapon for ground forces facing both conventional, World War II-style warfare and counterinsurgency alike. The lighter rounds were easier to transport in bulk by helicopter, and the 5.56 seemingly had magical lethality against human-sized targets.

After the Vietnam War, the People’s Republic of China began manufacturing a number of American small arms that played a prominent role in the war. The M14 battle rifle, M16 assault rifle and M1911 .45 caliber handgun all went into production, likely the result of copies of the weapons handed over by the victorious People’s Army of Vietnam in 1975 to their Chinese allies. The surrender of South Vietnam flooded former North Vietnam with weapons which it distributed far and wide, sending captured military equipment as far away as the Soviet Union, East Germany and likely North Korea.

Roslyn Layton

Politics, Americas

Recently some of my AEI colleagues argued that “strong encryption is crucial to both Americans’ personal security and US national security.” They critiqued the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) renewed push for lawful access to encrypted products and services. But a closer look shows that so-called 256-bit “strong” encryption, while valuable and important in certain cases, plays a minor role in cybersecurity. Encryption’s downside, however, is that it makes the communications of gang murderers, drug traffickers, terrorists, and child sexual abusers inaccessible to law enforcement.

There is no single solution to privacy or security

In July, Attorney General Barr observed in a keynote address on cybersecurity that he was “not endorsing any particular solution” and asked America’s tech industry to “turn their considerable talent and ingenuity to developing products that will reconcile good cybersecurity to the imperative of public safety and national security.” Barr referenced virtual alligator clips, exceptional access keys, and layered cryptographic envelopes as examples of possible solutions. The field of homomorphic encryption holds promise in the ability to process components of encrypted data without revealing users’ identity.

Kevin Mooney

Politics, Americas

No one told Jack LaPant that he could be in violation of the Clean Water Act for farming his own land.

That’s mostly because the federal law includes a clear exemption for “normal” farming activities. But it’s also because the government officials LaPant consulted didn’t view overturned dirt that has been tilled and plowed as pollution.

In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the Clean Water Act with the Environmental Protection Agency, began legal action against LaPant for plowing he did in 2011 to plant wheat on a ranch property he owned in Northern California. 

But in March 2012, LaPant had sold the property, located in Tehama County about 4 miles south of the city of Red Bluff.

Before plowing his field to plant wheat, LaPant conferred in person with the Farm Service Agency in California, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

“All of these government officials I spoke with, and they have all been deposed, they never once suggested that I should go meet with the Army Corps of Engineers,” LaPant said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal. 

“I asked them if it was OK to take this piece of land and grow wheat and they all said it was OK,” he recalled. “Even today, you can go into these offices and they will not tell a farmer that he needs to go and see the Army Corps to farm on his own land. It makes no sense and the Department of Agriculture doesn’t understand any of it, and we are talking about the same federal government.”

LaPant recalls visiting “four different government folks” with expertise in soil conservation when he was researching the history of the farm.

“They all gave me the same answer,” LaPant said. “They told me, ‘Jack, if you’d like to go ahead and plant it the same way it’s been planted in the past, go ahead. But if you want to go in and plant a permanent crop, then maybe we’ll go back and study it.’ So, I went ahead and planted 900 acres of wheat.”

Gun News Daily

Security, Americas

Key Point: The Glock 18 simply fires too many bullets, too quickly.

You’ve heard of the Glock 17 and the Glock 19…but what about the Glock 18?

The Glock 18 is a full-sized automatic pistol with a 9mm chambering… only it’s capable of firing up to 1200 rounds a minute.

It’s a bit like the Glock 17, but has a switch to change between semi-auto and full-auto firing. This big difference is actually due to a very simple mechanic. A raised extra tab on the cross of the trigger connects with a metal piece that is lowered when the full-auto switch is flipped.

This allows the sear to remain engaged and you can continue firing over and over and over on the same trigger pull! The fact that the Glock 18 has fully automatic capabilities, while also being easy control, makes it easy to see how it can be effective as a sidearm.

A neat variation on the G18, the compensated 18C model, allows gas to escape and reduces muzzle climb with a ported barrel and cutouts in the slide.

History of the Glock 18

Originally, the Glock 18 was introduced as a select-fire 9mm for military and police use in 1986, and was originally designed at the request of an Austrian counter-terrorist unit. The main thing that visually separates the Glock 18 from its predecessor is the rotating, lever-type fire-control switch which is placed on left side of the slide towards the rear. Indented dots indicate the selected firing mode when the switch is in different positions. A single dot located above the switch indicate the semi-auto mode while dual dots below it indicate full-auto firing.

The compensated version, the Glock 18C, was introduced in 1996 in order to make firing more manageable. The 18C is basically a full-auto version of the Glock 17C pistol.