Two new 2nd Ed. weapons books for T2k

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

AFAIK, it was solely an in-house design test gun that was a normal 9mm SMG put into a G11 shell to test various optics options for installation on the G11.

Solely out of curiosity, does it mention the IWK G11?

Ah, yes that makes sense. Thanks for the information

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I was of the understanding that IWK had teamed with Mauser for the G11 project?
Regardless of that, from the brief check I've made so far (there's a lot of firearms included in this book!), I haven't found any other prototype or experimental weapons listed. The other submissions for the G11 were never well known so I am not surprised there is no mention made of them.

I have found a few more factual errors and although not game breaking, they are frustrating.
Listing the MP40 as the MP40 "Schmeisser" and stating it was named thus after its designer perpetuates the false belief that Hugo Schmeisser designed it. Schmeisser had no involvement what-so-ever in the MP40.
The AR-10 is confusing as it presents a 2020 model civilian AR-10 but talks about the original AR-10 as being "Practically the first modern assault rifle even though it's classified as a battle rifle. A predecessor of the AR-15.
The AR-10 replaced all of the older battle rifles like the Browning M1918 BAR in the US military."
While I understand that the author's original language is not English, the statement that the AR-10 replaced older battle rifles in the US military is poorly worded. It infers that the US military took the rifle into service when they clearly did not.

I find these sorts of errors frustrating, not simply for the transmission of bad information, but because it's very easy to check the web these days and find out the correct information.
Being presented in a book like this, by a person stating they are a "gun enthusiast", for use by gamers who might not have the same level of interest in firearms, is a problem because those gamers are likely to accept the author's information as accurate without checking for themselves.

The author has chosen to have images of each weapon facing to the left. From a design perspective I can see the appeal however this has resulted in some images of AR-15 pattern rifles being horizontally flipped, i.e. showing their right-hand side as if it was the left.

There's an interesting design choice made, where he places the Modern Outfitters MC6 shortened carbine into the Pistol section because in some online sources, this firearm is listed as a Pistol due to various classifications under US gun laws. Modern Outfitters themselves appear to advertise it as a PDW.
Regardless of all that, the firearm is to my mind very clearly a carbine and would be more suitably placed in his SMG & PDW section rather than with Pistols.

While I have found a few more problems with the books, I still feel they are a reasonable purchase. They are entirely fan-made by just one person so I can overlook a few of the problems. There are others however that I feel should never have made it into the final product (the factual errors).

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Ah, yes that makes sense. Thanks for the information

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I was of the understanding that IWK had teamed with Mauser for the G11 project?

The Mauser G11 was based on a 1974 IWK patent (I'm a little fuzzy on exactly how they were related, but I believe IWK owned Mauser as the successor company to DWM). The year before the Mauser G11 was tested, IWK had made their own rifle for the project, which had three barrels vertically aligned and staggered. It fed caseless ammunition from a 51-round drum, and fired either the barrels either sequentially or simultaneously, but with no capability for fully-automatic fire. The US patent dates to 1976 and has expired. Apparently it was very heavy (probably unsurprising for a triple-barrel rifle), and there's not a whole lot of information commonly available on it.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Ahhh, okay. Thanks again for information
So much of this knowledge is getting lost over the years, I've seen various books that claim to be the last word on firearms yet they are little more than an update of another author's work.
The author of the new book does very little extra research and just builds on the knowledge readily available in various other firearms books.
So in the case of the G11 project, it's only because the wikipedia entry was updated a few years ago to include some small information about the development of the project, that people even know of the Mauser submission.

I've found the same situation occurs with books on armoured vehicles, if the author of a new vehicle book is unaware of a particular vehicle, it never gets mentioned simply because they do not do any real research and use previously published books as their research source.

Okay, rant over