Hotchkiss Machine Gun Handbook

Reprint of the WWII 1940 edition handbook. Manual for the 1928 and model M1 Thompson SMG 58 Pages on the Model 1928 8 pages on the M1 World War 2 version

This authoritative guide to post-war machine-guns covers a vast array of weapons from the Gatling gun to the six-barrel Vulcan. In addition to outlining the history of each weapon type and its development, this guide cites the caliber, ammunition, length, weight, feed, rate of fire, and muzzle velocity of each weapon. Includes weapons manufactured in Britain, the US, Germany, Russia, Yugoslavia, China, Italy, Israel and Czechoslovakia.

More than 130 years after its introduction, the Gatling is a force to be reckoned with. After being declared obsolete in 1911, it staged an impressive comeback as the Vulcan in the 1950s, terrified the Vietcong in the jungles of Vietnam and contributed to the swift defeat of Iraqi troops in the liberation of Kuwait. It will no doubt play a vital military role well into the 21st century, and this is the definitive book on its history, development and technology.

The legendary British, World War II STEN submachine gun is featured in this concise, illustrated book. Famous for its use by British elite forces, as well as the French underground during WWII, variants of the STEN were manufactured and used by many countries during the war and up through the 1970s. Beginning with its initial design and construction, the Mk.I and Mk.I*, Mk.II, Mk.III, and Mk.5 versions are presented in detail, including up-close images of manufacturer’s markings. Superb war-era photographs show the various STEN models in combat use. Select foreign variants also discussed include French, Polish, and German types. STEN accessories such as magazines, ammunition, silencers, and bayonets are featured throughout the book, as well as rarely seen WWII-related uniform and equipment items.

The propaganda view of the German Army as being the first modern army fully equipped for war in 1939 is far from historically accurate. The Treaty of Versailles left Germany weak and unable to produce more than token weapons. Germany entered WWII using a variety of obsolete and captured weapons. These, and the more advanced guns that followed, are described in detail and fully illustrated here by noted historian Terry Gander. Includes all types of field and heavy artillery, coastal guns and anti-aircraft guns.

Describes the mechanics, functions, and operations of the model 50 and provides troubleshooting information and parts diagrams plus disassembly/assembly illustrations.

Book in good cond, some bumping to spine, slight foxing to some pages.
No Dust cover. 1st Edn. Mylar covered.
The Lewis gun, invented in 1912, served with honor through several wars. The author chronicles the development and employment of this much loved and trusted weapon, in the early decades of the 20th century. Exhaustively researched, now in its second edition, this is a pictorial history to further illustrate a colorful story.

In this book, weapons experts Maxim Popenker and Anthony Williams present a study of the development of the sub-machine gun and its ammunition, before undertaking a country-by-country survey of the weapons designed, built and used across the world. With data tables giving details of ammunition and hundreds of photographs, this is an authoritative account of an essential infantry weapon.

This is the last copy we have as Paladin is no longer
Available in Hardback $110

In Machine Guns: A Pictorial, Tactical, and Practical History author Jim Thompson offers useful information on machine guns and how they actually function in the field, enough history for you to understand how and why the guns were developed, and advice about the machine gun's best friend and worst enemy, ammunition. Detailing the models by country of development, Thompson includes weapons from the World War I era through today, and provides hundreds of photographs and illustrations. .

Richly illustrated volume covers the development of modern German rifles and machine pistols, as well as their ammunition, and includes many rare and experimental types. Covered are the Werder rifle, Mauser rifles, the various M/71 rifles and ammunition, the 88 cartridge, the Infantry Rifle 88, the 98 rifles, the Fallschirmjäger rifle, the 41 & 43 rifles, ERMA and Walther machine pistols and many more.

The Browning Machine Gun Volume II -Rifle Caliber Brownings Abroad


by Dolf L. Goldsmith
Deluxe First Edition 2006
392 pages, 486 illustrations

This second volume of Dolf Goldsmith's series on Browning machine guns proves beyond doubt that the rifle-caliber Browning was simply the most popular and most-used machine gun ever designed.

In some ways this book is even more engrossing than Volume I, as it describes and illustrates in considerable detail the many variations on the basic Browning which were manufactured and/or used by over twenty countries, in virtually every corner of the world, in both World Wars, in Korea and in Vietnam.

Of particular interest is the focus on the aircraft Browning, beginning in the Interwar years, in Britain and particularly in Belgium, where Dieudonné Saive, John Browning's erstwhile chief assistant, twice increased the rate of fire of the FN Browning aircraft machine gun, first in 1932 to 1,200 rpm and again in 1938 to 1,500 rpm, in order to keep pace with the ever-faster airspeeds of the best new fighters and pursuit aircraft.

It may seem strange to feature an aircraft, even one so famous as the British Spitfire, one of the best all-round fighters of World War II, on the cover of a book about Browning machine guns. However there are really eight Browning machine guns in this picture!

As discussed in Chapter Two of this book, the crucial decision to equip each British fighter with eight Brownings was of no less than monumental importance. On this subject the late Col. George M. Chinn USMC (ret.), the author of the authoritative five-volume series of books titled The Machine Gun, commented decisively,

"Students of warfare are generally in agreement that the most far-reaching single military decision made in the 20th century was when a small group of British officers, shortly before World War II, decided to mount eight caliber .303 Brownings on their Hurricane and Spitfire fighters. This single act undoubtedly brought about a turning point of the war".

The Browning Machine Gun Volume IV - Semper Fi FIFTY!


by Frank Iannamico and Dolf L. Goldsmith
Deluxe First Edition, 2008
448 pages, 510 illustrations

This is the fourth and final volume in Collector Grade's monumental series on the Browning machine gun.

Volume One, subtitled Rifle Caliber Brownings in U.S. Service, published in 2005, covers the invention, development and manufacturing history of all models of rifle caliber Brownings in the United States, and their use by U.S. forces in two World Wars and Korea.

Volume Two, Rifle Caliber Brownings Abroad, published in 2006, covers the offshore production and use of rifle caliber Brownings in 35 other countries.

Volume Three, subtitled Supporting the Rifle Caliber Brownings, contains expert, in depth coverage of an exhaustive number of important technical topics, useful for shooters and collectors alike.

Volume Four covers the same basic topics as the three previous volumes, but from the exclusive standpoint of the .50 caliber Browning, which has been in continuous service longer than any other weapon in the U.S. arsenal, and is still in use today in the inventories of 86 countries worldwide.

2008 marks the 90th anniversary of John Browning's first .50 caliber prototype, which, after a shaky start, came into its own with the introduction of the M2 "universal receiver" in 1933. A total of eight prime contractors - three of them divisions of the General Motors Corporation which had never produced a firearm of any kind before - manufactured nearly two million .50 caliber Brownings, of six basic types, during WWII.

By the late 1970s U.S. Army requirements had exceeded available stocks, and today a number of modern contractors are again producing standard and enhanced versions of the venerable M2 in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere.

Presented in Collector Grade's usual in-depth fashion, WAR BABY! is the complete story of the design, development and production of all models of the U.S. military carbine, from the inception of the program in 1940 through to its termination at the end of World War II. The carbine is the most popular military shoulder arm in American history. The carbine program was a major achievement in many ways. First of all "nothing succeeds like success", and over six million U.S. carbines were produced from mid-1942 to mid- 1945, nearly five million of them in 1943-44 alone.

Secondhand, mylar covered, V G Cond.
Follows on from War Baby!, with coverage of production and US contracts from 1940 onwards, as well as Accessories, ancillaries and ammunition. Also covered are the commercial models and other military productions. 414 illustrations.

Long out of print.
Story of the Life and times of the Thompsom Sub-machine Gun