"Machine guns" that aren't

Most people know what a "machine gun" is - it's one where a continuous stream of bullets is fired when the trigger is pulled, until either that trigger is released, or the weapon runs out of ammunition. In this sense, a machine gun is also described as being "full-automatic." What many do not appreciate, however, is that some weapons that were designed as machine guns can be constructed so that the are not capable of full-automatic fire. Most such variations are described as being "semi-automatic," in that each bullet fired requires a separate pull of the trigger, each round being fed automatically, ready for the next trigger-pull. It is also possible, but far less common, for even the semi-automatic function to be removed, meaning after each single shot the weapon must be manually re-cocked.

Many machine guns are large and heavy weapons that require more than one person to operate them, and are often permanently or semi-permanently mounted on fighting vehicles, aircraft, or ships. These are "heavy machine guns." At the other end of the scale, a short and relatively light weapon that can be carried and operated by a single person is often termed a "submachine gun." Falling between the two, full-size rifles such as the ubiquitous Kalashnikov AK series, the American M16 and derivatives, or the British SA80 that can fire full-automatic are not classed as machine guns, but are "assault rifles." Another term used is "selective fire," if the weapon can be switched between semi- or full-automatic modes.

The firearm shown below is a good example of a submachine gun, and will be familiar to many people from various action films, such as the Die Hard series, or many Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Designed in Germany in the 1960s, the Heckler & Koch MP5 is used throughout the world, especially by special forces such as British SAS. The model shown here is capable of three modes of fire using the visible selector-switch. The single red round in a closed box denotes semi-automatic mode; the three red rounds in a closed box for triple-round "burst" (i.e. each trigger-pull fires a burst of three rounds only); and the multiple red rounds in an open-ended box for full-automatic. The single white round is the "safe" position, in which mode the weapon cannot fire.


In Britain the MP5 is also used extensively by armed officers in regional police forces as a more accurate weapon with greater ammunition capacity than a pistol. All such MP5s are semi-automatic only, without the capacity to fire full-automatic. Since by that definition they are inherently not "machine guns," they are usually referred to as "carbines," a general term long used to describe a short rifle. IN H&K's model coding, such weapons are designated "MP5SF" for "MP5 Single Fire." The image of an MP5SF below clearly shows - in comparison to the one above - that the only selection available is between the "safe" and "semi-automatic" modes.

H&K also make larger assault rifles such as the G36 that are also used by British police, but again these are always semi-automatic only. Just about the only exceptions to this rule are five examples of a very short version of the MP5 - designated the MP5K (for the German "kurz" for "short"):


In 2002 the Metropolitan Police Authority noted that they were, "available for SO12-Special Branch Protection officers only," and required, "specific ministerial authority prior to its deployment and has very rarely been operationally carried." A few years previously, the distinction was discussed in Parliament:

Armed Police Officers
Mr. Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will make a statement on the presence of an officer with a sub-machine gun in Mansell street, Whitechapel, at midnight on 3 February; [14834]

(2) if he will make a statement on the arming of police officers with sub-machine guns in London. [14835]

Mr. Maclean: I understand that an officer armed with a carbine was carrying out counter-terrorist duties in the Mansell street area. The officer was part of a patrol exercising powers under section 13A of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 to stop and search vehicles and their occupants for articles which could be used for terrorist purposes. The weapon was not a sub-machine gun, but a carbine specially adapted to fire only one shot at a time. Such carbines are one of a number of weapons available for general issue to members of the City of London police tactical firearms group.

The City of London police have no automatic carbines. The Metropolitan police have a small number of automatic carbines. These are to be issued only under the most stringent conditions and in the most exceptional circumstances. It would not be in the interests of security for me to discuss any further details about the circumstances or conditions under which these weapons might be deployed.

Despite the above, the British media routinely describe police officers as being armed with "sub-machine guns," usually accompanied by a photograph of an officer carrying what is sometimes plainly visible as being an MP5SF. Perhaps the classic example of this type of willful misidentification was the near-hysterical reaction in August last year to Metropolitan Police armed officers having a stall at a local fete in Limehouse in East London explaining the nature of their work. Various pieces of equipment were on display, including an MP5SF, which members of the public - including children - were allowed to handle. The Daily Mail's report includes the photograph seen here, in which the semi-automatic only selector is clearly visible. This did not stop it from being describing as a, "submachine gun... which can fire at a rate of 800 rounds per minute." Bizarrely, the report acknowledged that it had in fact been deactivated, so was incapable of firing anything anymore!

A variation, of course, is a picture that is not of any sort of MP5 at all, such as the example below from the Daily Telegraph, which was captioned as, "A hand-picked team from CO19 will carry submachine guns in gun crime hotspots" accompanying a report that only mentioned MP5s. The weapons visible are, in fact, an H&K HK416 (front) and G36C (rear) carbines. As a further distinction, both fire a high-velocity 5.56mm rifle cartridge, as opposed to the low-velocity 9mm pistol cartridge of the MP5 series.


Such errors are now so widespread in the media, and the reality such a simple distinction, that it has become clear to me that they continue to be misused through either widespread ignorance, or a calculated desire to sensationalise the reports in which they appear. A pertinent question is whether newspapers will take notice of reasonable corrections?

On Thursday 22 October it was reported in the London Evening Standard that the Metropolitan Police were to mount regular armed patrols in gun crime "hospots" in Brixton, Haringey and Tottenham, stating:

"The officers — some on motorbikes — will be armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machineguns capable of firing up to 800 rounds per minute and Glock semi-automatic pistols."

In response, I sent the following e-mail:

"Subj: Metropolitan Police firearms

The apparent need of the media to persistently "big up" police weaponry never ceases to mystify me. The Heckler & Koch MP5s used by the Metropolitan police and other forces in the UK are semi-automatic only, and so by definition are _not_ "sub-machineguns capable of firing up to 800 rounds per minute" ('Standard', Thu 22/10/09). In the form used by British police, the MP5 is merely a short rifle or carbine, with each bullet being fired requiring a separate pull of the trigger."

The next day (Friday 23 October), a follow-up report headlined "Met ‘must rethink’ plan to put machine gun police on street" stated:

"[Members of the London Assembly] They said the Met's decision, which will see machinegun-carrying officers engaged in routine policing for the first time, was “unacceptable” and harmful to community relations."

Strangely, the editorial comment on the subjest in the same edition did manage to refer only to, "officers openly carrying carbines and pistols," but I figured a follow-up of my own wouldn't go amiss, and sent a second e-mail:

For the second day running the 'Standard' repeats the myth that the large firearms the Metropolitan police use are "machine guns" (Fri 23 Oct, page 6). A "machine gun" is a firearm that keeps firing as long as the trigger is depressed. The firearms used by the Met and other British civil police forces are semi-automatic, i.e. for each bullet fired there has to be a separate single pull of the trigger, so by definition they are not "machine guns." That the 'Standard' actually gets it right and describes them as "carbines" (i.e. short rifles, which is what they effectively are) in the Editorial Comment in the same issue makes the continued erroneous use of "machine guns" elsewhere all the more mystifying. The idea of the Met seeing the need to carry out routine armed patrols is alarming enough, without the press "bigging up" the weaponry at their disposal.

After a weekend off (the Standard is only published on week days), I was a bit disppointed to see that they had made the same mistake again on Monday 26 October in a report with the headline "Armed police patrols are a leap in the dark, says expert":

"The officers, some on motorbikes, will have Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machineguns capable of firing up to 800 rounds a minute, and Glock semi-automatic pistols."

Does anyone actually read e-mails sent to the newspaper, I wondered? Do they even care that they are misrepresenting the situation? The nest morning I sent another e-mail:

"For the third day of consecutive publication, the 'Standard' has again referred to Metropolitan Police officers using, "Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machineguns capable of firing up to 800 rounds a minute" (Mon 26 Oct, page 9). For the third time I find myself writing to point out that the MP5s used by the Met and other British regional police forces are semi-automatic only; each single pull of the trigger fires a single bullet and no more. By definition they are not "machine guns." Rates of fire such as those quoted are only meaningful when dealing with fully-automatic firearms, which continue firing as long as the trigger is despressed. I'm sure you are not suggesting that Met firearms officers are capable of pulling a trigger 13 times in a single second? The arming of the police is a serious subject that should not be sensationalised by "sexing up" the weapons they use."

To be continued...?

One step forwards, two steps back

My incurable obsession with the film Things to Come dictates that I regularly (i.e. pretty much every day!) check eBay for related items, so it was with some surprise that in doing so I recently found the DVD release seen here.

From the cover it was clear that this was a UK release of the American Legend Films "colorized" version that came out in 2006. Things to Come was for many years in the public domain in the United States, and whilst it and other non-American films were supposed to have their copyright reinstated in 1996 under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the situation has still not been legally settled for sure. Many distributors continue to release such films as "public domain," and this includes the Legend Films DVD, bolstered by their claim that their colorisation makes it a new work of which they own the copyright!

Regardless of the situation in the United States, though, the film remains in copyright in the United Kingdom, and will remain so - for reasons too complicated to detail - until 2150. The current owners of the film are ITV Global (previously Granada Ventures), and the only licensed DVD UK releases are those put out by DD Home Entertainment in 2006, and the Network DVD special edition that came out in mid 2007.

My first reaction on seeing this new release was that it was a bootleg, with faked British Board of Film Classification certificates, but a quick search of their database showed that it had actually been classified by them in April this year. More surprising was that the publisher was listed as E1 Entertainment, the new guise of the large and established Contender Group. Acquiring a copy of the new release showed that the only copyright information on the disc or the packaging is to Legend Films, with ITV Global mentioned nowhere. Whoops!

The whole issue of colourising films is, of course, a contentious one. Some people regard it as a way of giving new life to films that were made in monocrhome; others - including myself - consider it vandalism of the highest order. Regardless of either position, Legend Films hasn't exactly helped itself, since as noted in my webpage on various releases of the film, the print they used for their effort is an exceptionally poor one. On the right is a comparison of the Network DVD in originaly monochrome, the Legend colourisation, and - as an interesting counterpoint - the faux coloured American lobby card of the same scene. As can be seen, the definition on the Legend print is very poor compared to the one used by Network. If that were not bad enough, it's not even complete, since beyond the four sequences reinstated in the Network DVD release, there are other seemingly timing cuts, for example in the opening Christmas Eve montage. Overall, the film on the new release runs to just 88m, rather than the 89m of the "standard" print, and the 92m 38s of the Network Special Edition.

As the title of this post says....

When ATMs get greedy!

My relationship with cash machines is fraught at the best of times, but I think this one last night in Balham was conspiring with my bank in a deliberate ploy to make me go overdrawn! Exactly what notes was it dispensing if it could only do so in multiples of £200?!

Tube tourism

By any standards, the London Underground has its fair share of cod folklore clinging to it, regardless of a paucity of connection to any degree of reality, and a recent edition of The London Paper added to this. The story seems to have had its genesis in a more measured piece on the BBC News website (and then followed up by Time Out), but expanded on the fantasy factor several-fold:

FORMER BANKER HOPES TO OPEN DISUSED STATIONS

London tourism goes down the Tube

By Dominic Tobin

DOZENS of abandoned stations on the Underground could be opened for spooky tourist trips if a former banker's idea is given the green light.

There are around 30 disused stations on the Tube network along its 255 miles of track which have closed due to lack or use or station and line relocations.

They became known as "ghost stations" because they have been left in exactly the same state - except they are eerily empty and silent.

Entrepreneur Ajit Chambers wants to run tours of the stations and allow visitors to walk along unused tracks.

He plans to set up exhibitions of the larger-than-life characters and bizarre stories behind the development of the Underground. Aldwych/Strand on the Piccadilly line and the old Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross are already available for use by film crews, but Chambers' company would pay for safety improvements to the 26 other stations for visits by tourists. He also wants to open 40 shelters on the network used during the Second World War.

Chambers told BBC London: "I'm opening them up as a tourist adventure... you go to a small door and literally go down into something that hasn't been opened since the 1940s."

The entrepreneur said he had given up a career in investment banking to sink his money into forming The Old London underground Company. Chambers says of the panel of BBC's Dragon's Den had expressed an interest in the project and at a public meeting last month, Mayor Boris Johnson said of the plan: "It is brilliant. I love it."

A Transport for London spokeswoman said: "The cost of reopening the stations would be huge. We have no plans to reopen them."

THE GHOSTS OF TRANSPORT PAST

Northern Line
King William Street
North End
City Road
South Kentish Town

Piccadilly Line
Aldwych/Strand
Brompton Road
Hounslow Town
Park Royal & Twyford Abbey
Down Street
York Road
Osterley & Spring Grove

District Line
St Mary's
Mark Lane
South Acton

Metropolitan Line
Lords
Marlborough Road
Uxbridge Road
Quainton Road
Waddesdon Manor
Granborough Road
Winslow Road
Verney Junction

Jubilee Line
Charing Cross

East London Line
Shoreditch

Central Line
British Museum
North Weald
Blake Hall
Ongar

Hard to know where to start with something as preposterous as this, but in the first instance it's worth pointing out that around half of the 28 stations named above are surface ones, so the "Underground" element is fairly low, and in most cases there is little evidence that there was a station at all. The trackbed may widen in places, but the platforms are long-gone, whilst station buildings - if they still exist at all - have since moved onto "other duties." The most questionable inclusions on the list are the final three Central line stations, as the route covered by them (sans Blake Hall station, now a private residence) is now run as the heritage Epping Ongar Railway.

When it comes to the actual below-ground stations, most are situated on lines that are still in operation, so there would be no, "walk(ing) along unused tracks." In almost all cases the platforms have been removed, the freed-up space often being used for maintenance storage, e.g. City Road, between Old Street and Angel. Most importantly, virtually none of the closed stations are the 1940s time capsules that the article suggests, since other uses for all of part/s of them were found. York Road, on the long stretch between Caledonian Road and King's Cross-St Pancras, is a a designated emergency exit, well-lit and visible from passing trains. Parts of other stations, such as City Road, are used for ventilation purposes.

Having estensively researched the history of the Underground during the Second War war, most mystifying is the reference to, "40 shelters on the network," used during the conflict. A number of the above-named disused stations were repurposed as air raid shelters, but in addition most of the deep-level open stations were also designated as civilian refuges. In the vast majority of cases, however, this was merely utilising the existing working platforms that are still in use today. There were eight purpose-built deep-level shelters, each adjacent to a working station, but almost all of these are now leased to secure storage companies, making them even less accessible than parts of the Underground system proper.

The only exceptions I can think of would be the former King William Street, Brompton Road, and Down Street stations. King William Street was the original terminus north of Borough on the Northern line that closed in 1900 when a new alignment running via London bridge was constructed. During the Second World War the former running tunnels north of Borough were used a public air raid shelter by the local council, while King William Street station itself was refurbished as a private shelter for the office building above it. That building was subsequently demolished, but access to this shelter is retained from the office complex that replaced it.

Brompton Road and Down Street were both used by the military/government during the War, and in each case the walls blocking off the platform areas from the running tracks remain in place. Such wartime usage makes both locations very interesting, yet at the same time alterations that enabled that usage make there conversion to tourist attractions more difficult. At Brompton Road, for example, the operations room for the 1st Anti-Aircraft Division still exists, but it occupies part of the original lift shaft. Lift access would be a prerequisite, but it would be almost impossible to reinstate them without destroying this key historical feature!

In conclusion, it seems to me that there are very few locations that even fit the requirements of Chambers's plans, and almost all of them would be beyond use for a variety of reasons - primarily cost - even if Transport for London saw it worth their while.

Not forgotten

[Bowes Park railway station, close to Bounds Green
Piccadilly line station, morning of 8 July 2005]

Things to Come Photo Gallery mega-upload

After a gap of over two years, I've finally got round to uploading all the various Things to Come photographs acquired since January 2007. There are 46 is all, although a few are upgrades of previous poorer quality and/all magazine-sourced pictures. I've also split the Photo Gallery into four sections, as the load time was getting a bit much as a single page.

Although I've tended to concentrate on stills from missing or truncated scenes, it's surprising the details that are apparent in even the familiar parts that can be missed in a fleeting glimpse in the extant footage. My favourite is the Thompson Sub-Machine Gun - the classic gangster's weapon - leaning against the wall in the background in this shot of the Boss's bedroom (just to the left of Rudolph's crooked knee). It's a real shame Ralph Richardson didn't get to wield that in the character's death scene!

Once you know the gun is there, it can be glimpsed at the start of the scene, when Richardson flops onto the bed, but it's missing later on, when a similar camera angle is used. This is probably explained by one of the cuts made to this scene. After the Boss says, "I don’t bully. I just handled the man," there is a brief cutaway to Cabal in the "detention room" under the Town Hall, before cutting back to Roxana saying, "He’s the first real aviator that has come this way in years." The sole surviving London Films editor's cutting/continuity script documents what's missing:

502. LONG SHOT 11ft. 0frs.
The two.

BOSS: I don’t bully. I just handled the man.
ROXANA: No. You bully. And you bully too soon.
     Boss gets up and goes over to get himself a drink.
BOSS: Ah, I don’t seem able to please you today.

503. CLOSE UP 12ft. 13frs.
Boss, Roxana joins him, as they walk back to M.S.

ROXANA: Well, if you must go from one tactless thing to another. Weakening your authority, sacrificing dignity.
BOSS: Here, what’s the matter with you?
ROXANA: Oh, I saw....

504. CLOSE SHOT 33ft. 8frs.
The two.

ROXANA: There’s your head mechanic - the essential man for the job, and you can’t keep your eyes off his wife.

505. MEDIUM SHOT 33ft. 8frs.
The two, they walk to CLOSE SHOT.

ROXANA: Don’t I know you? But never mind that, I’m accustomed to over looking that sort of thing. What I’m asking you now, whether you bully or not - was it wise to take this man in this way?
BOSS: How else could I have treated him? How else?
     They sit on the bed in C.S.
ROXANA: Well look at it. He’s the first real aviator that has come this way in years. Think of what that means, my dear. You want aeroplanes don’t you? You want your aeroplanes put in order?

506. LONG SHOT 4ft. 7frs.
The two sitting on the bed. Roxana rises.

ROXANA: A really clever man could have had some of those machines up long ago...

The cuts between the surviving fragment of Shot 505 and Shot 506 is noticeably abrupt, the reason being that Roxana had even more dialogue in between, that didn't make it into the scripted version of the film:

ROXANA: Well - I've always doubted if that young man Gordon was up to the job. He's good-looking in a weak sort of way - but is he really skillful and scientific? He - fumbles. He just goes about with this girl of his - whom you think so good-looking.

This dialogue really clarifies the dynamic between the two characters, and sets the scene for Roxana effectively offering to transfer her allegiance to Cabal later on.

And the machine-gun? I would hazard a guess that when the Boss goes for his drink in Shot 502, he moves the weapon in the process.

Picture this

Although it's fairly well known that what exists now of the film Things to Come is not the entirety of what was originally planned, or even filmed, it is not so widely appreciated that some of the extant footage appears in a different order to that originally intended by scriptwriter H.G. Wells. This is particularly true of the third act of the film, set in the year 2036. In the published Film Story - essentially the shooting script from mid-1935 - following the little girl's video history lesson, part of this segment plays out thus:

(1) Oswald Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(2) "A quarter of an hour later," Cabal arranges to meet Raymond Passworthy
(3) Cabal meets Passworthy in the City Ways; they travel outside to the "Athletic Club in the hills"
(4) At the Athletic Club, Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(5) Cabal meets with his ex-wife, Rowena
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(7) World audience reacts to (6)
(8) Three days after (4), Passworthy meets with Catherine and Maurice
(9) Cabal discusses the growing rebellion with "Controller of Traffic and Order" Morden Mitani
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

The surviving footage and the slightly expanded surviving editor's script, hocwever, has the following arrangement:

(1) Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(4) Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(X) Theotocopulos and followers discuss public reaction to speech
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

Most significantly, what are two different meetings between Cabal, Passworthy, and their respective children - i.e. 4. & 10 - separately by a gap of three days and a number of other events, are effectively merged together to give the impression of a single meeting, punctuated by a brief cutaway to Theotocopulos and his followers. The latter does not appear at all in the Film Story, and it feels very much like an addition to explain the changed timeline. In the original version there are at least a couple of days for the discontent to grow after the broadcast, but in the surviving footage it seems that all it takes is a few choice soundbites from the rebel artist to provoke an instant reaction, hence the need for one of his entourage to declare that his words, "have struck fire!"

It is notable that whilst in most cases the dialogue in existing footage is almost word-perfect when compared to the Film Story, the only major deviations are in the scenes involving Theotocopulos. The role was originally played by Ernest Thesiger, but Wells was so dissatisfied with his performance that he personally approached Cedric Hardwicke as a replacement. Thesiger was so unaware of this that he actually turned up at the film's premiere in February 1936 with a group of friends, so clearly the change happened once all of his scenes had been shot the first time around.

When the restored Network DVD was being planned, the question was how to integrate script extracts from the missing footage in the "Virtual Extended Version" of the film, and it was decided to include as much as possible, but to retain the chronological arrangement of the extant footage, thus:

(1) Cabal meets with Space Gun engineers; introduced to Maurice Passworthy
(6) Theotocopulos's televised speech
(4) [At the Athletic Club,] Cabal and Passworthy meet Catherine Cabal and Maurice
(5) Cabal meets with his ex-wife, Rowena
(X) Theotocopulos and followers discuss public reaction to speech
(8) Three days after (4), Passworthy meets with Catherine and Maurice
(9) Cabal discusses the growning rebellion with "Controller of Traffic and Order" Morden Mitani
(10) Cabal meets with Passworthy, Maurice and Catherine

The decision to drop Cabal and Passworthy's actual first meeting and subsequent journey through the City Ways was a difficult one, but at the time what was known of the film as a whole suggested that this was one sequence that had probably not been shot, let alone included even in the rough-cut. Whereas most lost scenes are represented by production photographs proving that they were at least rehearsed, if not actually filmed, there seemed to be absolutely nothing of what was quite a convoluted journey through and then outside of the Everytown of 2036. In his 1995 book on the making of the film, Christopher Frayling suggested that the technical requirements of the Athletic Club - with its huge flexible windows and complex sporting water-chute - may have been too great. Although there was much dialogue between Cabal and Passworthy, there didn't seem to be an easy way to incorporate it into the "Virtual Extended Version" of the film on the DVD, so it was omitted.

Last week I finally got round to scanning and preparing for upload all of the almost forty additional production photographs I had acquired since the DVD was put together. These come from various sources and in a variety of formats, requiring some precision in lining up on the scanner, but still some trimming of the image electronically. It was while I was doing the latter on the still shown here - one of the iconic images from the film, frequently used to illustrate it in books, magazines, and on video or DVD covers - that something fleetingly caught my eye. I blinked, thinking "surely not," as I peered at the figures just visible along the bottom edge of the photograph. I zoomed in one in particular, the image now more pixelated, but more compelling. I grabbed the still itself and a strong magnifying glass, and the results were even more conclusive. Finally, I put the photograph back on the scanner, homed in on the portion in question, and cranked the resolution from the usual 100 to 900 DPI:


So there he was, Oswald Cabal amongst the crowd in the City Ways, and to his right (i.e. on the left of the photograph), the almost unmistakable top of Raymond Passworthy's head! In retrospect, while I'd only recently acquired this particular still (in a job lot of seven from Australia), I wondered how I'd not spotted this detail before. A quick check of examples I have of it used elsewhere, however, showed that in all cases the bottom edge of the image had been trimmed off, so that Cabal's head was barely visible, let alone that of Passworthy.

Finally we have some evidence that Cabal and Passworthy's journey through the city was actually filmed, but it will probably take the discovery of more photographs (the actual footage is too much to hope for!) to clarify the situation. Based on the codes that appear on each still, there are at least 520 or so of them, of which I already own 91, and am aware of a further 41 - around a quarter of the total.