Wilshire

A rare Vespa TAP150 scooter has been put up for sale in France. This is a unique military scooter, manufactured in a small batch. It was reported on the Rideapart website. The combat scooter was created and manufactured by the French company ASMA, which acquired a license from the Italian Vespa to manufacture motor vehicles. About 600 of these scooters were manufactured from 1956 to 1959.

The Vespa TAP150 is equipped with an American recoilless gun M20 with a caliber of 75 mm. It is capable of firing cumulative shells at 6500 m. The 145 cc engine accelerates the Vespa TAP150 to 66 km/h.

The Vespa scooter could be dropped with a parachute, so it entered service with the French airborne troops. The TAP150 crew consisted of two people - a gunner and a loader. The scooter could not fire while moving - it had to stop.

https://focus.ua/auto/672766-ih-vypustili-vsego-600-na-aukcion-vystavili-unikalnyy-boevoy-skuter-s-pushkoy-foto

In spite of the fourteen-nation conference, which declared at Geneva in 1962 that Laos is a neutral country, and the agreement was signed by the three fractions competing for control of the country, no real progress towards unification and pacification has been made, and fighting is continually breaking out. American sources admit that armed reconnaissance flights are made over communist-controlled Pathet Lao part of the country, in the east, along the Vietnamese border, and occasional shots are exchanged. The caption to our picture, received from Hanoi, states that it shows anti-aircraft troops of the Laotian Peoples Liberation Army, and claims they have helped to bring down 102 U.S. aircraft since 1965.

Source

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam (AFNS) -- U.S. military forces from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command wrapped up exercise Valiant Shielda 2018, Sept. 23rd, around the Marianas Island Range Complex and on Guam. Participants included the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), 15 surface ships, more than 160 aircraft and approximately 15,000 personnel from the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army and Marine Corps.

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https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1843340069501055427

Update:

The Schwarzlose M.07/12 is an early 20th-century machine gun designed by Austrian engineer Andreas Schwarzlose. It was adopted by the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1907, with improvements leading to the M.07/12 version introduced in 1912. Here are some key details:

• Design: The M.07/12 is a water-cooled, belt-fed, recoil-operated heavy machine gun. It is known for its unique delayed blowback system, which uses a wedge-shaped lock to delay the opening of the bolt, allowing chamber pressures to drop before extraction.

• Caliber: Typically chambered for the 8×50mmR Mannlicher cartridge, the standard Austro-Hungarian military round of the time.

• Rate of Fire: It has a relatively slow rate of fire compared to other contemporary machine guns, around 400-580 rounds per minute, due to its delayed blowback system. This was seen as an advantage in conserving ammunition and maintaining barrel life during prolonged firefights.

• Water-Cooled: The gun has a water jacket around the barrel to prevent overheating during sustained fire, a common feature in machine guns of that era.

• Service: It saw extensive use during World War I by the Austro-Hungarian military, as well as by several other nations after the war. The Schwarzlose was also used in modified forms by various countries during the interwar period and into World War II.

The Schwarzlose M.07/12 was appreciated for its simplicity and durability, though its relatively low rate of fire and weight were drawbacks compared to later machine guns.