Ammunition has been flying off the shelves of  of retail dealers for a while now. Some of the reasons are:

• The fear of economic chaos spilling over into political and social chaos.
• The memory of the Clinton administration gun grabbers, and the presence of a somewhat like minded administration in Washington.
• Events South of the border, and the fear that they might migrate into the U.S.

Left wing political and economic pundits have been busy trying to find some way to blame the economic problems on the Bush administration, and since he did basically open the door to nationalizing the banks as a parting gift from the White House, there is some truth to the left wing theory.

Right wingers are busy trying to blame the Obama administration for the problem, but, the poor guy hasn’t been in office long enough for his mistakes to have much effect.

The source of our current economic woes dates back to the Clinton administration, and the loosening of the restrictions on F.M.

In truth it goes back much further…

Military Small Arms Of The Cold War

Bomb shelters, protests in the streets, the Berlin wall, the iron curtain, so much was changing, and about to change. It was a time of transition.

Military Weapons Of The Cold War

The same was true of military rifles. It was the personal weapons for combat use that were really making a change. That and the heavy equipment and air craft. One oddity, that hasn’t really changed to the present, was the good old “Ma Deuce” M-2 H B .50 cal. machine gun, which like a large number of Browning weapons, was way ahead of it’s time, and has incredible staying power. The powers that be have been looking for a replacement for it, almost since it’s development, but nothing has been found to match or surpass it yet. That was off my subject, but I just wanted to mention it.

The U.S. had been using the .30 cal. M1 rifle from the early days of the second world war, the soviets had developed the Tokarev Rifle 7.62X54 R, during that period, and the German military had made some substantial progress, with a shortening of their 7.92 cartridge, in the development of a fully automatic rifle, the M43. In Sweden, the AG 42 had been developed, and there were pockets of other interesting developments all over the world.

The problem with developing a self loading, or fully automatic rifle for a full sized cartridge was parts breaking.

The search for an intermediate cartridge was well under way, and the lessons of the 7.92 kurz by Germany had not been lost on the designers in the Soviet Union. They were busy developing an intermediate round which became the M-43, and designers were told to design a weapon around it.

The weapon that eventually came to be the staple of millions of troops and terrorists around the world, was developed in that way, the AK 47.

The transitional cartridge, also had a transitional weapon before the advent of the Kalashnikov. It was the Type 45, a Siminov design, semi automatic, now known her in the U.S. as the SKS. I want to focus on it for a while.

It was designed along the lines of another Siminov developed weapon, an anti tank rifle. In fact, there is little difference except size caliber and weight. It has an attached box magazine holding 10 rounds, that can be fed through the use of spring steel clips.

The Type 45 was a bulky, but efficient weapon, which was used by several Soviet “Client States”, and was reproduced extensively in China. There is one thing I like about it that made it a good weapon for conscripts, the self contained box magazine. When combatants get nervous, detachable magazines can be easily lost. This one stays put, and even without the aid of stripper clips, can be loaded fairly rapidly by pressing them into the magazine with the thumb. If you lose all magazines on a detachable magazine rifle, you have a single shot, a bayonet, and a club!

Barrack Obama: A Cold War Kid Introspective Perspective

Whether you agree with Barrack Obama’s political viewpoint or not, you have to have noticed his drawing power! The last time I saw young people take such an interest in politics at this level, was during the Robert Kennedy campaign. I was only ten years old at the time, but I recall the excitement, and the electricity, and even at that age, you could understand something different was happening. That has been a missing component of every presidential race since!

Welcome to ColdWar Kid, a website for ColdWar Kids, and anyone else interested! This site will contain things of interest to the coldwar generation from the perspective of a child of that era, along with a little social commentary, and whatever else suits our fancy.

So, “Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear!” ( remember that line?)

Some of the stories related to coldwar events are hitting the top of the news these days. The U.S. Navy has been ordered to target a satellite for destruction. The satellite is on it’s way to collide with the earth soon. The first man made satellite to be put into orbit around the earth was “Sputnik,” and was launched by the former Soviet Union (It feels good to write “former Soviet Union!”).

Vietnam has been bitten by the capitalist bug, the money is just too good for them to pass up. My thinking is, that facing down one ideology with another ideology on the battlefield, although sometimes necessary, is rarely as successful as facing it down in the real world, the world of economics! It may be slow, but it works

Let me start by saying that this is not a site about the rock band “Coldwarkids.” Not that I don’t like them, because I do like their music a lot. If you have never heard them, you should check them out.

As I am writing this, I just reached my 50th birthday, and about a day ago, Fidel Castro resigned his post as leader, or dictator of Cuba. I was beginning to wonder if the guy would ever go!

Fidel Castro is one of the strange icons of the cold war era. A bit more of a pragmatist than his revolutionary, “true believer” buddies, he became ruler of the island nation after the overthrow of Batista in 1959, and has held power in one capacity or another since that time.

U.S. policy toward Cuba during Castro’s reign has been less pragmatic and more symbolic, and like the ruler himself it shows some signs of the somewhat confused nature of the coldwar period. In principle, the idea was not to deal with Cuba, so as not to support a communist dictator. This was to be carried out by means of an embargo. In practice, the best solution might have been to deal with them on an economic basis, and let the market win out.

One of the interesting side issues to the Castro saga, is that before the revolution, and probably as a result of the fear of the revolutionary spirit of the day, Batista had ordered the registration of all firearms in the country. By doing this, he effectively removed any means of ongoing resistance to the dictatorship since the new ruler now had access to the registration information, and was able to confiscate the tools of a counter revolution!