OSS "Stinger" Covert Cigarette Guns
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- / forgottenweapons
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During World War Two, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) was the primary US clandestine operations organization. It was responsible for making all sorts of unique weapons, including these "Stinger" cigarette guns. They were single shot disposable .22 Short pistols.
The first pattern was contracted and manufactured entirely by the OSS, and 25,000 of them were manufactured early in the war. They proved to have a myriad of minor to moderate problems, though, including failures to fire and burst barrels. A second version was produced by the Ordnance Department in 1944, with a strengthened and improved design, and 25,500 of those were made.
I have not found any documentation of these being actually used, but then again not much documentation exists on the use of any OSS weapons. These sorts of things were often provided to infiltration agents who might never be heard from again, or dropped to partisan or resistance groups who weren't exactly writing field reports on their gear.
Many thanks to the collector who provided me access to these!
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704
"OSS catalog"
Now that would be one hell of a bathroom read.
I would buy the gun/camera
Can you imagine…..
They apparently concealed items in Woolworth's and Sears catalogs to circumvent discovery by the Germans
The gun that makes you wonder if you should actually just bring a knife to the gun fight.
A (somewhat) longer range single use ice pick.
@Ezra -- I suspect that a clandestine ice pick / spike could be more easily created. Since a knife is a common tool that is carried by many men, being found with one would not be looked upon as suspiciously as if you were found with this sort of single shot disguised firearm. I suspect that it is so that you would have a bit more range than you could achieve with a knife and that it could be used more covertly. To stab someone, you will most likely need to be the closest person to that person and it's going to be a bit more obvious than if you just shot them with this device from a bit further back. There are probably a few types of situations where it would be applicable and a knife / spike would not. Of course, this was back before x-ray machines scanning everything that comes into "secure areas". These days, it would not be practical.
Always bring a knife to a gun fight...along with a gun. (you never know...)
@Ezra Make sense, please.
@Ezra AhH..a game...talk about lame. get a real life.
I love how creative all this crazy OSS stuff is. A cigarette gun is right out of an old James Bond movie.
If memory serves, Bond had a literal cigarette gun in You Only Live Twice.
James Bond was based on OSS stuff
@@user-nz7cz2qz5vMI6, but close enough
"Vow, Hanz. Zees American cigarreten are mind blowing!"
“Wow Hans, diese amerikanischen Zigarren blasen dir wortwörtlich die Birne weg”
Okay couldn’t think of a better translation that still conserves the joke :D
Underrated comment.
"Franz, you are smoking vem backwards"
Yeah
Not only is it amazing that these things even exist, but that 25,000 were made.
+Sedan57Chevy Yup, you are correct. More than 50,000 were made :)
Clearly the OSS were catering to the heavy smokers amongst their ranks!
Where do I get one? Lol
I wouldn't think very many. A .22 short is most likely just gonna piss somebody off.
not if you got them in the back of the neck
“I can’t find any documented use for these.”
Yessssss.......exactly Mr. Bond. (Russian accent)
Funny but Bond was English, the OSS wasn't, and Russia was on the same side
It was primarily for long range sniping........
about 3 yards (or meters) 😉
Well that proves the Superiroty of Brtish Enginerring! The SOE Pipe gun V the OSS Cigarete gun! Though Q would probably have it firing a 40mm guided atomic bomb. Ian Fleming did make a lot a claims that HE was the originator of many plans and gadgets.
Ben: That would be the scope fitted bipod mount version then?
That's sort of like the 'greatest" murder ever, you never hear about it
OSS
Office of Sneaky Stuff
Love u man
well deserved, you get all the likes!!
office of strategic services
The only way to fight DIRTY
Ole Sneaky Squirrel.😃
*bad Sean Connery impression* He jusht stepped out for a cigarette.
"He jusht shtepped out far a shigarette"
* cue horn section *
Highland Outsider that's pretty good
Highland Outsider “SHIGARETTE”.... heathen
Of all the great stuff on this channel my favorite is always the OSS gear.
Ian, according to OSS literature "ten pens were packed in a wood and cardboard box sealed in a moisture proof envelope". I think these were being used in some fashion otherwise there would have been just the one contract. I'm sure there were a bunch expended in training and a whole lot more probably still buried in Europe in caches that were never recovered. I'd be curious to know how much noise was created when one of these was pressed into someones neck and fired. The 1944 OSS weapons catalog says it can be used to shoot people "sitting at a table or passing in a crowd" whereas the 1945 edition just calls it a "personal protection weapon for agents" so I have to wonder about THAT change of description.
Three types - regular, low tàr and menthol.
wait till you find the Kretek Edition; it kicks like a mule
But with a fairly high amount of lead
Ian Macfarlane I wish they have made vape version too.
Ian Macfarlane Lol yes all equally deadly, super secret assassination devices. They take 20-30 yrs of daily use to kill you.
Ian Macfarlane next we'll get the Newport Magnum
Video length 5.56 on a gun channel..... well played sir.
And on a .22 gun, no less.
Totally on purpose.
(Taps fingers Conspiriatorially) EXCELLENT!
Next will be 7.62
+@Menachem Goldfarb+ MOST EXCELLENT!
Smoking really does kill!
Carry a carton full of these and watch a misfire set them all off. Gives a new definition to "chain smoking".
Fortunately, you won't get second-hand smoke issues.
Just snuff it out.
I wonder if they lost some good agents before going to the Ordinance Dept. It'd be really awkward to have one of those go **click** and then need to kill your target with your bare hands.
Or stab them with it
„Ich sage, gibt es einen Grund, warum Sie mich sind bedrohlich mit diesem Pen Kollegen Deutsch?“
sag Heinrich, was machst du mit dem Stift?
they probably had the bayoneted one in the design pipeline...
Even worse would be *bang* then killing them with what's left of your hands...
Zigaretten?
Danke!
Bang!
Smoking kills.
@@operator8014 ffs I can see it in a movie now
Dr no
Man darf überall nicht rauchen!
Rauchen
I like to imagine some big meeting room with a huge table and a bunch of glass bowls just full of these things on the table/on smaller tables at the edge of the room
No they were at the reception desk, please take one
The fact that the OSS already had a device in service named "Scorpion" is pretty funny.
I would bet 75-90% of these things were fired in training exercises. Can you imagine using this device without testing it first.
I also wouldn’t doubt that more operators were injured with them than potential targets.
A bit unsporting to shoot someone after inviting them for a cigarette.
coward gun
it's ok if you use it on nazis
remember that the OSS and is successor had a rather sordid history during and after WW2
So? Chances are, when not stabbing in the back or slitting someone's throat from behind, Britain's "Department of Ungentlemanly Warfare" may have used them.
They were also probably dropped, much like the Liberator Guns for use by Resistance forces, which were intended to kill a soldier in order to take their arms and supplies. Thereby, obtaining a useful firearm for yourself to use against those who oppressed you.
Thomas
Especially if that's _a postcoital_ cigarette.
According to the movies a request for a final cigarette was always honored.
It's a poor way to treat the gentleman who was doing you a solid.
2:19 "It basically renders the thing safe" - we should all pause for a moment...
Notice that the one that hadn't been fired (instead drilled out and rendered 'safe') had an O ring holding the trigger to the barrel, even though it has been apparently deactivated. I'm pretty certain safe was a relative concept with these things!
There were a couple of these in my Grandfathers collection of "cool stuff", a little different from these, but they shot a tear gas cartridge or a 410 shotgun shell. Never seen another one anywhere until this video.
Nice table cloth, looks like my grandma’s house.
"Oh Moose, you don´t believe it. I had such a nice young gentleman visit here. I showed him little souveniers I got..."
Former spy grandma is best grandma
Maybe your Grandma worked for the OSS... Chef Juila Child and actor Christopher Lee both worked for the British SOE, so it wouldn't be far fetched... :D
@@michaelfodor6280 Child was a secretary / code clerk for O.S.S. in China/Burma/India theater. Her future husband was probably closer to the Action. They met there.
When grandma says have another piece of cake...you have another piece of cake
How do we know it's actually Ian and not some OSS spy that replaced him?
Maybe Ian is an OSS spy.... it would explain his extensive traveling under the guise of "making videos" and his training with Karl.
An OSS-trained spy would have enough experience with recording devices to not have the mic peak every other syllable. It's definitely Ian.
Or that's what they want you to think. Lol
"An OSS-trained spy would have enough experience with recording devices to not have the mic peak every other syllable." LOL. You give the intelligence community _way_ too much credit. Especially at this point in time, they were likely to be adult rich kids with too much time on their hands and an inflated sense of their own competency and importance.
So yeah, they made cool toys and nifty gadgets. But these were more or less the same guys who planned, among other things, the Bay of Pigs invasion and persuaded JFK that Vietnam would be a fantastic idea. Things aren't much better today, unless you glean your understanding from watching movies like Zero Dark Thirty.
It turns out lack of oversight and accountability isn't a great formula for engendering competency, or successful outcomes. That's why no business works this way except cartels.
True, but maybe that's actually part of his cover!
Congratulations on the eight hundred thousand subs Ian. Very well deserved!
Thanks! Next stop, one million. :)
"Wanna smoke?"
"Sure."
And we never saw him again...
Can have a smoke then smoke someone
I'm going to take up smoking, and be a carton a day man.
You know what they say, “Smoking Kills.” :D
Saarn1823, Blintz and a Bong?
That was probably brought up in the conversation that hatched the idea for this gun xD
I'm just imagining a James Bond moment where he's at the firing squad and says the same thing to the soldier who offers him a ''cigarette''.
Stuff like this always makes me wonder; Why dont just use good old knife or other stabby thingy ?
Sharp piece of steel wont explode in your hand when you try to use it ;)
this is easyer to hide that being said there have been some absurdly small knifes made for the same reason.
Shad8x My guess is practicality. Successfully stabbing in the right place to avoid resistance and a quick death is tricky, not to mention messy. By comparison pressing a gun to a skull and firing is less of a science and generally provides immediate incapacitation.
Knives are a more personal weapon and there would be greater psychological barriers to use for many prospective users.
A knife the size of these guns would be not especially lethal, and it would be very difficult to kill someone quickly with one (ie. before you get incapacitated in return and the target gets first aid). Killing quickly and effectively with a knife (especially a tiny one) also takes skill and training.
On the other hand, .22 bullets can happily penetrate skulls and cause lethal wounds, so at close range, this thing could be more reliably lethal to a target before they (or bodyguards) had chance to respond. At least in theory, they may have an unreliable mechanism in practice. It also has a little bit more range, so you could maybe do it from a window or crowd at the side of a road. Also doesn't rely on user strength at all, so even kids could use it effectively.
Either way, you are looking at a one-shot attempt at killing an assassination target before being swarmed by enemies or something, and the OSS reckoned this was more dangerous than a tiny knife.
I was gonna say you can't stab someone with a knife from 5 feet away but SOME fucker would have to say ballistic knife.
Super cool episode ! But IIRC the term "cigarette gun" also applies to Filipino insurgency firearms where a lit cigarette is used pretty much as a matchlock, to ignite the internal powder charge (very Renaissance, with a modern twist)
This clandestine stuff is absurdly interesting.
It should be noted that cigarette holders were quite fashionable back in the days before filtered cigarettes. While the long opera and theatre length are more famous for women 10-20 inches... these OSS guns are very similar in length to most men’s as well as cocktail length women’s. Brands like Kristen are similar enough that without getting a good look it would be hard to tell and it’s not an item that would be out of place
I really like these OSS guns! I imagine them being used for all sorts of thrilling spy stuff... But they probably were not that practical :(
Yeyito Even if only one of them got used for its intended purpose it would be cool.
Can't...stop...watching forgotten...weapons...
"Thats the Whole point of the Secret Service, old boy, you not hearing of them". 4:27
*_Remember kids. Don't smoke._*
terminator6267
....or you'll end up getting smoked!
Remember, kids don't smoke!
terminator6267 funnily enough I’m smoking a cigarette right now
Thank you so much for constantly making videos on guns I've never seen or heard of. Even when you post a video of a firearm that I think I know about you provide a lot more information and I always learn something new.
I love how your videos are very entertaining, an I don’t have to watch a commercial every intro. Thank you for keeping them pure, keep em coming
After seeing some of the things OSS made on this channel I have to wonder: Were all OSS engineers guys who had been reading too many pulp spy novels as impressionable kids?
I feel like OSS were the guys who willingly took the job of testing every stupid idea for a covert weapon and showing why exactly it is stupid
Serious question- what sort of stopping power does .22 short have? Would you need to press it up to a sentry's temple to guarantee a kill?
I expect that is exactly the intended use. Right in the most critical area of the head. Eye-nose triangle, temple, brain stem, etc. Then you don't need much power.
Firearms of any caliber are extremely potent anti-personel weapons. This might not kill you out right but it can give the user enough time to kill you by other means. It is surprising, causes some noise and can put a hole in a human body. A combination of these can give enormous advantage to the attacker.
Then again why not just use a blade put into the frame of a pen?
My guess is this was intended for assassinating a more unsuspecting target than a sentry. The only shot I'd bet my life on (assuming this thing even fires) would be at the back of the neck at the base of the skull, in line with the brain stem; probably from a foot or less away. .22 Short can be surprisingly effective, but with this cigarette gun you've got no follow-up shots and I think the barrel is a bit too short to get nominal muzzle energy.
There is a commonly held belief (I say it that way because I don't know the veracity of the claim) that more people have died to .22's than any other caliber. Considering that a 22 long leaves the muzzle at over 1000 fps, I'd be hesitant to stand in front of one.
I don't think you'd absolutely have to make a contact shot but yeah you would have to be very close and would likely either go for the temple or the base of the skull. Or you could jam it upwards into someones solar plexus like you where stabbing them in the heart (which you are essentially, only with a bullet) and fire.
Very cool.
Thanks again to the collector who let you
display these.
Do not know how practical these are but I would rather have one or two if I needed it.
Would give you options in planning. Something easy to get rid of after the deed had been done.
God help anyone at the factory who needed to sign something and thought he spied a box full of pens.
I'd imagine if they weren't used they probably wouldn't have bothered with revising the design and producing another batch. Even if they weren't used in the field i could see someone carrying one as a "just incase" kind of thing.
I can't imagine anybody carrying it just in case when there are plenty of Pocket pistols available, also if you are caught with this you are pretty much guaranteeing being shot the next day for being a spy.
Just like the Liberator pistol the programme to build this built up a momentum before anybody had a chance to say maybe this is a waste of time and resources.
Tbh, i see this as a suicide gun. Agents that are about to be caught by the enemy shooting themselves to avoid interrogation.
it would be funny to see these in a movie where the protagonist gets stuck in a room with a box of these and has to fight his way out with nothing but them.
Wouldn't mind a miscelanious desk mug with a few of these tossed in among the hi liters and paperclips
The strange things covert ops will come up with, safety being a tertiary item! Thanks Ian
...Probably handed out like candy... I believe you are right. The CO, We have a new weapon available, it's a one shot 22 pen pistol. Men are like: I need some of those...Me too...
CO: What mission do you have in mind?
The Men: I'm not sure but I Know I can use some of them!
Great Video!
2:21 "it basically renders the thing safe, these two arms hold the wire in and you can carry this around" then says at 5:16 "these things are incredibly dangerous, it would be very easy to inadvertently fire these" does Ian literally just say whatever the hell he wants as he goes along with no forethought?
That is so incredibly cool. I love spy weapons. Real life James Bond stuff. Keep up the good work Ian.
honestly with such covert, single use, low caliber power, they could have gone for a piston design
I remember seeing a picture of one of these in a book when I was a kid. I had no idea they were so tiny, in a photo without scale references they looked to be more like the size of an AA maglight or something similar.
Excellent !!!
I’ve always been fascinated at the lengths operators will go to , to be armed , even slightly , in adverse conditions .
I love the whole “ spook “ aspect ...
trench coats , secret messages , and hide-out weapons ... ingenious , if somewhat fanciful and ineffective items our forefathers carried into a shadow war .
Cold comfort indeed , if these were all you had .
By the by , the one time I actually got to look at one personally , it was a T2 type , I believe ... still loaded , and the owner was very nervous to allow anyone to handle it .
I’ve seen the old metal emergency flare guns , the ones where the tiny flare screws onto the front of the launcher , and issued in pilot’s survival gear , converted to fire .22 ammunition as well .
We all laughed about someone carrying around a CIA “ zip gun “.
I think you may have done more damage actually shooting someone with the flare instead .
Nowadays the issue item is made from plastic , to preclude such things .
You might cover the “magazine guns” ... which were rolled in a magazine or newspaper , used to fire poison or projectiles at close quarters, for assassination purposes , and actually used in operations , I believe .
The precursor to the umbrella gun used to kill Georgi Markov .
Romeo Whiskey In the US military field manual on improvised weapons. There is a section on how to make a 12 gauge single shot from rolled up magazines.
Not that I would want to have to fire it.
Shawn R
Oh yes , I believe it was made from pipe , and slam fired .
You shoved it against your target and bang ... the target acted as a muffler , if not a silencer , absorbing the projectiles and gas as well , at contact range .
Those were used to good effect in Central and South American operations , I believe .
Definitely will make you pay attention to someone walking toward you in a crowd , with something in their hand other than a cell phone .
Romeo Whiskey Cell phone gun.
True Flameslinger
Indeed !
A full auto , electronically fired , suppressed , tactical iPhone .
Using sub-caliber, hypervelocity projectiles tipped with curare , shell-fish toxin or ricin
Aimed with the on-board camera , and initiated by the use of the touch screen .
Target GPS tracking .
Infrared and thermal camera options .
Yes !
Our new 007 iPhone ... discreet , concealable , light , user friendly , and deadly .
For all your communications and assassination needs .
Extended warranty , extra ammunition and data plans available .
Offer void where local laws and restrictions apply .
Order yours today !
The new 007 iPhone , for the operative with class , style and sophistication....
Romeo Whiskey The full auto part is unrealistic.
Now a video on irish cigarette bombs with mercury switches.
I've held a better1 from late 60's-70"s that looks like a pen. Good videos though thanks.
This should be a warning to those in the habit of not returning pens and subsequently chewing on them...
It seems like they'd be really easy to reactivate, just pull them apart and then recrimp them with a new round in them and they probably still work.
So I spent the whole video thinking they were the size of a pen, then I looked at Ian's hands. Those things are the size of a finger! That is tiny!
Good guy: Here, hold this up to your ear and squeeze it and listen to the music it plays.
Bad guy:
What I'd give to be a fly on the wall at an OSS quartermasters' meeting. These gadgets look like the product of a gaggle of schoolkids given two bowls of sugar and James Bond box set.
Love your clandestine vids!
Dale Dye relates a story on the training experience for the Easy Company actors. He yells, "Gimme a magazine !", and one of the kids tries to hand him something made of paper.
Ian uses the word clip to refer to the trigger mechanism/pocket clip. This clip just ain't used for reloading cartridges. Thus exposing one of the real weaknesses of the English language. You simply have to understand the context of so many usages and words. God help those trying to learn English as adults. When those of us using the language as a milk tongue have to think about the usage of a word,the idiosyncratic nature of this mishmash of a language is exposed.
Fascinating little gadget. WOW,when the democracies finally decide to get mean,we can come up with some real nastiness. As well as that Sam Hughes idiocy of the shovel with a hole in it for soldiers. There sure is a mean streak buried in most of us. That is both a good thing and a bad thing,as with most human behaviours.
paul manson Yes, English is a very convoluted language. The language was affected by a great deal of politics and there were many changes to the languages based simply on "Well they say and spell it this way, and we refuse to be like them in absolutely any way, so we will now change it, even if the change makes the language more clunky and awkward than it already is!!" She's not a perfect language, far from it in fact, but it's what we've got.
Daniel Thompson If interested, there is a 1986 book by Robert McNeil,The Story of English. Also here on YT,the PBS companion series to the book. As well,BBC did a similar series years later. Both well worth watching.
Ian, you have coolest job in the world. You get to fly all over the world and examine/shoot unicorn rare firearms. Where the hell were you on career day?
I'll take the cigar model in .357 - though on second thought, not sure I'd want to fire something like that directly in the palm of my hand.
And suddenly I’m reminded of that scene from You Only Live Twice when Bond smokes then shoots the guy
Thanks for showing those.
>We already have a gun named scorpion.
Ah, the OSS.
The OSS stinger or as I like to call it: The Kolobri Panzerfaust
What you use when somebody steals your Liberator
Ribbentrop had a conversation with Hitler saying that some phoney cease fire treaty could be done with Stalin and during the signing he would pull out this pen gun and kill Stalin .Probably the bravest fantasy “Rib”ever had !
Crazy history of that...
Soldier, "Do you have any last words?"
Me, "Yeah let me smoke one last cigarette."
Soldier, "Alright, you have 1 minute."
Me: *pulls out stinger cigarette pistol* **BANG**
me: runs away singing James bond theme.
Thank you
I can see something like this being very useful in VERY limited situations. Those situations a spy or other such operative would be the only one to find themselves in, so actually this gun...thing makes all kinds of sense.
You know these are actually pretty over engineered, they could've just made a .22 long rifle cartridge wrapped in a metal tube. The firing mechanism is contained in a device that appears to be a cigarette lighter. You stick the rear of the tube inside of the lighter making a full on hand gun, and the enemy would be non-the-wiser.
A spring-loaded triangular dagger disguised as a cigarette would've been more reliable.
Can you imagine needing this 1 shot disposable firearm and then because it is a .22 it just doesn’t work when you need it most.
I would be curious to know how effective these were in the field - how many HVTs were taken out by them.
That's real last ditch, I would really want a knife also, but they should have came up with an end cap that made it look more like a ballpoint pen.
Maybe something like .32 magnum would have been better to make it more pen like but your limited.
I have often heard of smoothbore .22lr screw down pen guns some crudely made some made nicely with rifled barrels handed out during many many conflicts.
Better than nothing
Obvious thing to point out - clearly enough of them were used that feedback was passed back to the manufacturers, and a second production run ordered.
Ian was sick today and had to be replaced by Stuart Ashen. I must say, he does a reasonable impression of him!
22 short? What where they trying to assassinate, a squirrel?
I think they chose .22 for ease of concealment, and Short because it's subsonic. Long Rifle would have a significantly louder report. It's certainly stealthy, and I never thought I'd ever say this, but; I'd rather use a Liberator.
Bit I know why they used it but does that bullet really have the power to kill, even if you hit like in the eye? Could have poisoned them for maximum agent points.
.22 Short can definitely kill, but would take some ludicrous shot placement. That's why I mentioned the .45 ACP Liberator.
cigarette holder suppressor?
Bit close range as these are I imagine that you press it to the head or neck to use it
I would not want to have this one me, someone stole my pen today at work 😂😂😂😂
"I assure you, nicotine is not going to be what kills you..."
*BANG*
I read that in the tf2 spy’s voice
More of these weird tiny guns please!
Why was this not in Metal Gear Solid 3? "Just havin' a smoke here, nothing to see", then Snake takes out the guard and infiltrates the facility to find Sokolov.
Sera well they had cigarettes that dispensed knock out gas.
Everyone says how everything is disposable in 2020....
“Disposable WWII Cigarette Gun”
Getting hit by a .22 short would make for a very bad day, but unless you hit someone in the heart I don't see the lethality.
mark: "where's bob"
Steve: "he's taking the long smoke break"
Just awesome, thank you sir!
Guns like the wellrod have a point with the suppressor. With something with such prohibitively short range, would it not be better simply to have a knife? Even if it is .22 short, it is still a gunshot.
Can I have a Fairbairn Sykes instead?
From your top pocket to Fritz's neck, nab his mp40, grab the maps, place a bomb and bail. Awesome!
Operative, your mission is to find Herr Feldmarshal Helmut Otto von Kartoffelnpanzerung and... write him off
If that were pressed against flesh, it probably wouldn't make much noise.
I saw them displayed on spy exhibition in San Antonio.
A cigarette that can kill you.....seems the oss was a little late in the game.
Without some prior training, I can't imagine how quickly you would need to arm this standing almost right next to your target.
I'm from Australia, there's no chance you could run your channel from here
I always get OSS (from ww2) and OSI (from the Venture Bros) confused .
Wow, the crazy and clever things the OSS thought of.
You light it. And it fires a bullet. Better than exploding cigars.
Now make it full auto.
Gotta love OSS tools.