Category: All About Guns
Okay, now you folks remember which page we’re on, right? If not, go back to previous posts here and here, then rejoin us. This is the only way I can tell this, so get yourself a refreshing beverage, relax, and we’ll play “let’s pretend,” okay?
Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was a fair and fertile land festooned with lotsa bananas, bunches of Bad Guys, and some buses. The bananas grew mostly out in the countryside, and the Bad Guys did too. These Bad Guys used to be armed, funded an’ fed by an Evil Empire, but when its wheels fell off like a flattened Flexy Flyer, the Bad Guys just dropped their political pretensions and became freelance murderers, bandits and killer-kidnappers. They ’specially liked killing and kidnapping BananaLand’s judges, mayors and Deputy Assistant Ministers of Thus-and-So, because it was both entertaining and profitable.
A group of “Hard Hombres” was formed to protect these officials. About half of ’em came from the state police, a quarter from BananaLand’s army, and the rest were just really tough dudes with shiny hair and shinier pistols. All of the Hombres could shoot, though they tended to get kinda festive with the fireworks, and all were either very brave or too proud to ever back down from a fight, which is almost the same thing. What they didn’t have was “consistent tactics,” so they couldn’t dance well together while fightin’ BadGuys.
Far to the North, a country called YanquiLand heard about this and offered to help. YanquiLand sent four guys to teach the Hombres how to fight BadGuys, and how not to shoot innocent bystanders. This training would happen at The Big Bus Farm, upcountry from the capitol, Santa Mañana, on the edge of a dark, damp forest called The Yongle.
The Big Bus Farm
The buses — lots of ’em! — and some assorted trucks lived on a not-quite-flat crazy-quilt expanse of asphalt, grass and concrete patches behind some charm-free but room-rich government buildings. The buildings housed a vehicle maintenance facility, some s’posed-to-be-secret treasury offices and not enough bathrooms.
Training was fun, though some Hombres questioned the value of learning to fight as “fire teams.” Everybody played nice, and the coffee was excellent and plentiful. So, during a break, the whole happy group kinda wandered out amongst the buses an’ trucks, to go pee on the bushes at the edge of The Yongle. As the Hombres and YanquiDudes wandered out, they encountered some other dudes wandering in, like maybe they’d hadda go pee too, you know? But they didn’t.
They were BadGuys, and they had picked the wrong day for whatever mischief they had planned. Actually, they looked kinda like the Hombres, except not so clean and neat, and they had pistols like the Hombres, and some rifles, too! Everybody sorta looked funny at each other, an’ then some eyes got really big and others got really squinty, and then there were some shots, and then things got really weird.
Everybody scattered like a good break on a pool table, scrambling in and around an’ over those big buses an’ trucks, all the while shooting at each other. One Yanqui described it as “a disorganized, chaotic, drawn-out string of vicious firefights involving two, three, up to 10 participants, which would then break up and form different firefights — a helluva mess.”
Window Weirdness
Several BGs clambered aboard buses, and that was dumb. They trapped themselves. Most of the bus windows were two-piece, so they could be opened from top or bottom. One BG stood up and fired over a window’s lowered panes, as though the glass was “cover.” It wasn’t even concealment. He was shot lotsa times. Another stood up at a closed window, holding a pistol in one hand and fumbling to lower the top pane with the other. He got punctured plenty, too. Another fired at some Hombres and then just ducked down below the window. Bus skin didn’t stop bullets. Neither did bus seats.
Some guys on both sides stood and fired over the decks of flat-bed trucks and semi-trailers. They got shot a lot in their hips, groins and legs. About a dozen guys from both sides fell flat on their beaks or butts while traversing the uneven seams of those asphalt, earth and concrete sections. Some of ’em didn’t get up. It’s like they were only thinking and fighting from their belts up.
At one point, a glass-rattling godlike voice commanded Stop shooting! — and amazingly, everybody did. Then the voice went on, Stop! You’re shooting my buses! PLEASE stop! It was the motor pool manager, screaming over a PA system. Firing resumed.
The BGs, who had some rifles, began fighting in cells, while the Hombres, with only handguns, fought as individuals, pairs and amoebae. The BGs started winning. Then some Hombres returned from their vehicles with M-1 carbines and Thompson submachine guns, and the tide turned — hard.
Pistol ammo ran low fast. A teenager wearing a Chicago Cubs cap appeared outta nowhere, passing out loaded Glock-17 and 1911 .45 magazines from cardboard boxes. That was nice. Afterward, nobody seemed to know who he was. Weird. The surviving BGs fled into The Yongle. Many lessons were learned, to be discussed later.
One YanquiDude wrote this in his book of “Evolved Practices”: “From touching distance to bus-bumper width, I’m gonna start shooting fast as soon as my muzzle covers meat — kneecaps, elbows, I don’t care, and I won’t worry about conserving ammo as long as an enemy is armed and upright. From front bumper to rear bumper distance I’m going for a straight point, a flash sight picture, a firm grip and trigger control. From there out to The Yongle, I want a crisp front sight and a rock-steady hold — or I’ll move closer, or get further away.” He called these “The Greyhound Rules.”
Connor OUT
Mas (left) on his last day as a cop, carrying Range Officer .45; then-Chief Walt Madore wears a department-issue S&W M&P .45.
I’m writing this while teaching a class in Arcadia, Calif. I was pleased to note the issue sidearm for Arcadia cops is the Colt Government Model .45 auto. Those who pack the company gun have nothing to apologize for.
The first American lawmen to pack the 1911 .45 appear to have been the Texas Rangers. I read that Ranger Paul McAllister reportedly carried one as early as 1912. The Rangers and Colt have always had a special connection; the Texas Rangers first proved the efficacy of Colt’s seminal Paterson revolver, and Ranger Captain Samuel Walker secured the order for the big .44s that later bore his name, kick-starting Colt’s empire.
During the violent 1930s, 1911s got another boost. Federal agent Charles Winstead used a “government .45 automatic” to kill John Dillinger outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago in 1934. Unfortunately, bad guys of the period used them, too. The 1911 was the favored pistol of not only Dillinger himself but Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Clyde Barrow.
In the late 1960s, LAPD’s trend-setting SWAT team chose the 1911 as their trademark sidearm. Los Angeles also armed their Special Investigations Section with 1911s early on, but not until the 21st Century were these SA autos authorized for rank-and-file patrol and detectives. A special course was required before authorization to carry on duty.
The 1960s saw a renaissance of the 1911 with some other departments in California. Hollow point bullets were just coming in during that decade, and the big .45 slugs were considered more effective “man stoppers” than the non-expanding .38 Special rounds of the period, with less recoil than a .357 Magnum. A seven-round magazine with an eighth round in the chamber constituted a one-third firepower improvement over the traditional six-shot service revolver, and in a time before speedloaders were common, they were dramatically faster to reload. Eight-round single-stack magazines came later, and higher capacity double stacks later still.
On NYPD’s famed Stakeout Squad in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Jim Cirillo’s partner Bill Allard killed more criminals in face-to-face gunfights than any other member of the unit. His preferred gun was the National Match .45 auto, which he had special permission to carry. Legendary DEA gunfighter Frank White was another famed 1911 .45 man in the late 20th Century. Gun expert Scott Reitz, late of LAPD SWAT, is another very satisfied user of John Browning’s classic pistol.
This silhouette is the shape of the future: a Staccato 9mm 1911 with carry optic.
Life-Saving Features
Many chiefs and firearms instructors disallowed the 1911 because it had to be carried cocked-and-locked, and they feared officers would forget to thumb off the safety in a fast-breaking defensive incident. One reason this is less of a concern today is the AR15 rifle, which has all but completely supplanted the shotgun as the standard patrol car long arm, has a thumb safety that works with the same movement as the 1911, and at least in theory this should make it second nature to a trained officer.
A cardinal 1911 advantage is found in weapon retention. A 1981 study published in Police Chief magazine found the average person could fire a double-action revolver in about 1.2 seconds, but the average person in the test group took 17–18 full seconds to find the safety lever on a 1911: The department in question accordingly adopted 1911s. This “proprietary nature to the user” feature is a proven lifesaver.
Its short, easy, straight-back trigger pull makes the 1911 a perpetually match-winning pistol. That same feature improves hit potential under life-threatening stress. The single-stack cartridge capacity mitigates against “spray and pray” mentality. The result seems to be a high hit ratio in police shooting incidents.
A 1911’s cocked and locked carry, as seen on this Springfield Ronin, is a proven lifesaver.
Perspectives
I started carrying a 1911 Colt .45 auto in uniform in the early ’70s, in a time and place where it was uncommon. I heard other cops mutter, “He’s a maverick! He’s a radical!” By 1990, I was lecturing for the Washington State Law Enforcement Instructors Association, and a young police trainer in the front row spotted the Middlebrooks Custom Colt Government .45 on my hip and said in a stage whisper, “Look! An old 1911! Hasn’t this dinosaur ever heard of GLOCKs?”
I wore a Springfield Range Officer .45 on the day I retired from police work in 2017. Today I see young cops with the Staccato 9mm and optical sight — currently seen as cutting edge in police sidearms and standard issue for the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group — and realize the 1911 design has come full circle from state-of-the-art to “geezer gun” and back to cutting edge again. The 1911’s place in modern American law enforcement is not predominant but still secure and here to stay.
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BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — A ban on dozens of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature on Wednesday and the governor is expected to sign it into law.
The high-powered firearms — once banned nationwide — are now the weapon of choice among young men responsible for most of the country’s devastating mass shootings.
The ban comes after multiple failed attempts in the state’s Legislature, and amid the most mass shootings during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009.
The Washington law would block the sale, distribution, manufacture and importation of more than 50 gun models, including AR-15s, AK-47s and similar style rifles. These guns fire one bullet per trigger pull and automatically reload for a subsequent shot. Some exemptions are included for sales to law enforcement agencies and the military in Washington. The measure does not bar the possession of the weapons by people who already have them.
The law would go into effect immediately once it’s signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who has long advocated for such a ban. When the bill passed the state House in March, Inslee said he’s believed it since 1994 when, as a member of the U.S. Congress, he voted to make the ban a federal law.
After the bill passed, Inslee said the state of Washington “will not accept gun violence as normal.”
Inslee said lives will be saved because of the semi-automatic rifle ban and two other measures approved by the Legislature this session: one that introduced a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases and another to hold gunmakers liable for negligent sales.
Republican state lawmakers opposed the ban, with some contending school shootings should be addressed by remodeling buildings to make them less appealing as targets and others saying it infringes on people’s rights to defend themselves.
“HB 1240 clearly violates our state and federal constitutions, which is why it will end up in court immediately,” Sen. Lynda Wilson of Vancouver said.
The U.S. Congress reinstating a ban on semi-automatic rifles appears far off. But President Joe Biden and other Democrats have become increasingly emboldened in pushing for stronger gun controls — and doing so with no clear electoral consequences.
Nine states including California, New York and Massachusetts, along with the District of Columbia, have already passed similar bans, and the laws have been upheld as constitutional by the courts, according to Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
In Colorado, lawmakers debated on Wednesday about similar gun measures, but a sweeping ban on semi-automatic firearms faces stiffer odds.
Lawmakers in the Texas Capitol set aside a slate of proposed new gun restrictions without a vote after hours of emotional appeals from Uvalde families whose children were killed last year. The hearing didn’t end until the early morning hours Wednesday.
During debate on the Washington state bill, Democrats spoke of frequent mass shootings that have killed people in churches, nightclubs, grocery stores and schools.
Sen. Liz Lovelett of Anacortes said that kids’ concerns about school shootings need to be addressed.
“They are marching in the streets. They are asking for us to take action,” Lovelett said. “We have to be able to give our kids reasons to feel hopeful.”
Another gun-control bill that passed in Washington this session would allow people whose family members die from gun violence to sue if a manufacturer or seller “is irresponsible in how they handle, store or sell those weapons.” Under the state’s consumer-protection act, the attorney general could file a lawsuit against manufacturers or sellers for negligently allowing their guns to be sold to minors, or to people buying guns legally in order to sell them to someone who can’t lawfully have them.
A second bill would require gun buyers to show they’ve taken safety training. It would also impose a 10-day waiting period for all gun purchases — something that’s already mandatory in Washington when buying a semi-automatic rifle.
Some gun-control legislation in other states has been struck down since last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws. The ruling says the government must justify gun control laws by showing they are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
What I think is that only the lawyers will win out of this! 
Don’t have medical gear or training? Code “IAN” gets you 10% off med kits and training classes:
About 6 years ago, I had an accident at the range. We talked about it at the time, but didn’t say what the gun involved was, in order to keep the discussion focused on safety and first aid issues. Well, I think it’s been long enough now that there’s no reason to keep it obfuscated.
The rifle I was using was a reproduction 1860 Henry in .45 Colt. I loaded the magazine tube about half way to get a few shots on camera for b-roll, and just dropped the follower instead of gently lowering it down onto the top cartridge. When it hit the rounds in the tube, the top two detonated, spraying powder and some brass shrapnel out the open slot in the magazine tube. I got a bunch of powder sparkling up my face, but my shooting glasses protected me from any eye injury. One piece of cartridge case about a centimeter long hit me right about at the top of the sternum, and embedded itself in the flesh. We weren’t filming at the moment, so there is no video of this happening.
We had a first aid kit on hand, and knew how to use it. Fortunately, the injury was actually pretty minor, although we didn’t know that at the time. I was fully conscious and responsive, and I held pressure on a bandage over the injury while Karl drove us to the nearest hospital.
One hears unpleasant stories about hours-long waits in emergency rooms, but if you walk in with a trail of blood down your chest, someone tends to take a look at you right quick! After an x-ray and a CT scan, they determined that the shrapnel was not in a position to do any real damage, although it would cause more tissue damage to remove than to just leave it alone. So I got a couple stitches, and was sent on my way. It’s a small enough piece (and non-ferrous) that no, I don’t set off metal detectors. 🙂
While my experience here is simply a single anecdote, it does bring some significance to the periodic trials reports of tube-magazine detonations in trials or in service. The ammunition that exploded here on me had flush-seated primers, and flat-faced bullets. This was not a pointy bullet lined up with a proud primer. “Not only can malfunctions be stranger than we think, they can be stranger than we can think.” (Werner Heisenberg, probably)
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From the Vault: Colt Boa Revolver
The British STEN submachine gun was born from desperation. Early June 1940 had seen the British Expeditionary Force ignominiously kicked off the European Continent. A herculean rescue effort pulled 340,000 men from the Dunkirk beaches, but all their equipment had to be left behind for the victorious Germans. France was two weeks away from total capitulation and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Adolf Hitler would quickly turn his focus to the island nation across the English Channel.
In a June 4 speech before Parliament, Winston Churchill declared “We will never surrender!” His nation needed to hear that, but the truth was they had little with which to back it up. The threat of a German invasion was very real at the time (it wasn’t practical but that wasn’t evident just then). The British needed arms for those rescued soldiers and they needed them yesterday.
Desperately Seeking a Submachine Gun
The British Army entered World War II without a domestic submachine gun. The short campaign on the Continent showed the need for such a weapon, especially after seeing the German MP38 in action. They had some American Thompsons, but not nearly enough. Thanks to the isolationist sentiments of the United States, Congress stipulated that any war material sold to belligerents had to be paid for in hard currency, meaning actual gold. Thompsons were expensive to produce. In 1940, one Thompson cost about $200 to make. That’s a little over $4,000 in today’s money. For a nation that needed lots of everything, spending their limited gold reserves on submachine guns was more than impractical.
A couple of German submachine gun copies were tried after acquiring some examples from Ethiopia. Fifty thousand units of the Lanchester submachine gun, a direct copy of the German MP28, were produced, but they were heavy, complicated, and expensive. Most ended up with the Royal Navy and many served into the 1970s as an anti-boarding weapon. But that was not the answer. A cheap gun that could be mass produced quickly was needed.
The solution was provided by Major Reginald V. Shepherd and Mr. Harold J. Turpin. The new design was made of stamped sheet steel components welded together. The only machined parts were the bolt and the barrel. The gun was called the “STEN.” The “S” and “T”came from the first letters of the last names of the designers and the “EN” came from Enfield, the famed firearms manufacturer where the weapon was developed. It worked well enough, could be produced at a prodigious rate, and was affordable. Following the trend of copying German models, the STEN was chambered in 9mm Luger.
The most recognizable feature of the STEN series is the side-mounted magazine well. It made the gun easy to fire from the prone, but it made it difficult to grasp properly with the off hand. Soldiers often grasped the mag well from the top, though they had to be careful not to put pressure on the mag. The mags were not especially reliable to start with since they were double stack single feed models, which causes feeding issues. They held 32 rounds and the feeding problems were mitigated by downloading them to 30. Exerting pressure on the mag while in operation could easily cause a failure to feed. Soldiers were taught to grip the gun under the heat shield, like a regular rifle, with the mag resting on top of their arms. Some did that but many continued to grip the mag well from the top.
Different Versions of the STEN
Eventually, the STEN series yielded five official versions, Mk I through Mk VI. The Mk IV was a proposed airborne version that was never adopted, so there was never an actual Mk IV produced. There was also the Mk I* (read as “Mark I star”) which was a simplified Mk I and doesn’t count as its own version. The Mk I* served as the basis for the Mk II, which was the most produced version by far and is considered the “classic” STEN gun.
The STEN underwent a series of evolutions that, somewhat ironically, seemed to go almost full circle in terms of the gun’s features. The Mk I had a sturdy skeletal stock, wood handguard and “pistol grip,” barrel-length heat shield, flash suppressor, and a folding vertical foregrip. The side mag well could be rotated down for storage and transport. The rotating mag well also served as a dust cover for the ejection port. A large barrel nut allowed the barrel to be easily removed for cleaning or storage.
The Mk I* lost the wood, foregrip, and flash suppressor, creating the bare bones look of the eventual Mk II. As noted earlier, the key thing to remember with the STEN’s development is that the British needed lots of them at the cheapest price in the shortest time possible. There was little thought given to ergonomics other than basic functionality and aesthetics were not considered at all. Having a Nazi knife at the national throat will do that.
The Mk I was adopted in March of 1941 and about 300,000 were made. 200,000 of those were Mk I*s. The development of the STEN was so fast that five months later, in August, the even simpler Mk II went into production. Keep in mind that Britain was still fighting Hitler alone until June 22 of that year, when the Nazi warlord stabbed his Russian allies in the back with Operation Barbarossa. Even then, the best estimates predicted a Soviet collapse by fall. The British kept producing weapons as fast as they could turn them out.
And turn them out they did. At the height of its production, a complete STEN Mk II required five and a half man hours to make. Factories could build 500 units in a single shift. They were cost effective too. Fifteen Mk II STENs could be produced for the cost of one American Thompson at the 1940 price. Over two million STEN Mk IIs were cranked out during the war. Even accounting for its two-year head start, STEN production dwarfed that of its American equivalent, the M3 “Grease Gun.”
1943 saw the introduction of the Mk III, which simplified the Mk II by axing the removable barrel, making the gun a monolithic sheet metal tube. Mk III parts, however, were not always interchangeable with other STEN models and the one-piece gun made maintenance difficult.
Even so, 876,000 Mk IIIs were made. To put that in perspective, the United States only manufactured 655,390 Grease Guns of all configurations, ever. The British Army was literally awash in STEN guns by the end of the war. Even the Germans used captured STENs. Their version of the Mk II was the MP 3008, and the Mk III was called the MP 750 (e).
The STEN Mk V came along in 1944, by which time the threat against Britain had eased considerably and the Germans were on the defensive. The Mk V reflected those changed conditions in that it was built more with quality and ergonomics in mind, though it was still a cheap submachine gun. The new gun had a proper wooden stock and pistol grip. Some had a wood vertical foregrip, hearkening back to the Mk I just a bit. The rear aperture sight was retained but instead of the crude triangle front sight, the Mk V sported a Lee Enfield Rifle front sight. The Mk V also had a lug for a Lee Enfield bayonet. 527,000 were made from February 1944 until the end of the war in 1945.
In my research I saw several examples of what appeared to be STENs with parts from other models, mostly the Mk II and especially the stocks. I can’t say why that is, other than the number of models and the need to slap them together quickly may have led to some overlap of production or maybe they were modified later with available parts.
Not Always Reliable
The STEN had a reputation for jamming, in large part because of the poorly designed magazines. Even more alarming was the propensity of the open bolt guns to fire if they dropped and sometimes keep firing until the mag was empty. There are accounts of British soldiers cocking a STEN and chucking it into a roomful of enemy soldiers, knowing it would run itself in a circle until it was empty.
It sounds like Hollywood stuff, but the stories are out there. The most credible account that I saw was from a Canadian officer in Korea in 1953 who tells the story of one of his men dropping his STEN and he and others trying to avoid it:
At first we did some shy polka steps to avoid getting hit, but as the rotation speed increased so did our dance. With about 10 rounds to go the muzzle of the weapon started flipping up, as if looking for a larger target. It was then that the first primitive steps of what would later become known as break-dancing came into being… (Quote: Legion magazine, April 1994)
You can decide for yourself, but I tend to believe it based on seeing similar things in many different places.
Suppressed STENs for Special Ops
A suppressed version of the Mk II was developed for special operations, most notably the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE was the British version of the OSS. They operated in occupied Europe assisting resistance fighters in every nation. The STEN Mk II (S) was intended not only for SOE operatives but was dropped by the hundreds, maybe thousands, to those freedom fighters. The “S” stands for “Special Purpose,” not “suppressed” or “silenced.”
The suppressor system was fairly simple, with a 12.25-inch suppressor threaded onto a barrel shroud/expansion chamber. The suppressor had eighteen baffles separated by wire mesh rings. To allow the use of standard supersonic ammunition, six holes were cut in the barrel, directly in front of the chamber, to allow enough gas to escape that the bullet would stay subsonic. This, combined with the fortuitous decision to chamber the STEN in 9mm Luger, allowed SOE and resistance personnel to use captured German ammo.
The baffle system wasn’t especially durable and the suppressed STENs were meant to be fired in single shots or, at most, small bursts. Even one magazine on full automatic could ruin the baffles, defeating the purpose of the suppressor. Since the suppressed guns were intended for missions like sentry elimination or assassinations, as opposed to hard front-line combat, this wasn’t usually a problem. Some were produced in semi-auto only. The guns came with a canvas handguard, over horsehair or asbestos string, on the suppressor.
The reduced energy from the cartridge meant the action needed attention as well. The danger was that the gun could short stroke and jam or, even worse, cycle just enough to pick up a round without engaging the sear, resulting in a runaway gun. This problem was solved by slicing off some of the bolt, reducing its weight from 600 grams to about 493. A coil was also taken from the recoil spring, making it a bit longer. Interestingly, each spring seems to have been tailored by the armorer at the factory to its particular bolt and suppressor. These were not precision parts by any stretch. So, the length of each spring may vary a bit, making the suppressor, bolt, and recoil spring a set that is not necessarily interchangeable with other guns.
Another interesting thing about suppressed STENs is that, despite the mostly standardized Mk II (S), there were numerous guns modified for suppression by the SOE and operatives in the field. If you run across a suppressed STEN that doesn’t match the description above, that doesn’t mean it’s not authentic. Very late in the war, a suppressed version of the Mk V was implemented but it saw little action in World War II. This was the Mk VI. It used the same suppressor system as the Mk II, just with Mk VI everything else.
There are also modern suppressed STENs out there.
The sheer number made, and their adaptability, make it easy if you know what you’re doing. SilencerCo haa a Mk II that is threaded at 1/2×28 and runs with the Omega 9K and Omega 36M on. I’d imagine this setup is more durable and reliable than the World War II versions. So, if you’re looking to suppress your STEN, I say go for it.
Good Enough
The STEN gun, while not perfect by any means, was good where it had to be. Despite being officially replaced by the Sterling, it stayed in British Service, in one form or another, until 1971. The STEN’s cheap but ruggedly simple construction meant that it was easily produced and attractive outside Britain. It was copied by the Germans during the war and afterward by France, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Austria, Argentina, and Belgium. Many resistance units, most notably the Norwegians, produced their own STENs during the war. Hard post World War II service was seen in Korea, Vietnam, and the India-Pakistan Wars.
Despite being a desperate wartime expedient, the basic soundness of the STEN design served Great Britain, and the Allied cause, admirably. It deserves to ranked among the great war weapons of World War II and the Twentieth Century.
