#Nazi

The roller-locked* Heckler & Koch G3 rifles and MP5 submachine guns have become iconic weapons of the Cold War era, being used in conflicts everywhere from civil wars in Africa, to hostage rescues and counter terror operations in Europe, to anti-cartel operations in South America. The operating system of these rifles is as unique as they are, and dates back to the death throes of the Nazi regime at the end of World War II. Desperate to save their failing state, the Nazis tasked engineers with developing new weapons, and the engineers were all to happy to oblige, lest they too be handed an old rifle and sent to the front!

It’s a blunder so bad it makes you look twice: On the new sculpture dedicated to Russia’s most famous small arms designer, there is an unintentional homage to a weapon of Russia’s hated adversaries during the Great Patriotic War. Behind the tasteful statue unveiled last Tuesday of Mikhail “Mikhtim” Kalashnikov cradling his invention like a fine instrument, there lies a sculpture panel dedicated to his inventions themselves – and, by accident, the Nazi Sturmgewehr of World War II. While the majority of the panel is filled with models of Kalashnikov’s inventions and derivatives, nestled in the backdrop of the representation of the AKS-74U compact assault rifle is a slab depicting an exploded view of the MKb42(H),, a World War II German assault rifle which helped serve as the inspiration for the program Kalashnikov’s rifle was designed to satisfy.

Your chance to own a semiauto reproduction StG-44 is coming soon: Hill & Mac Gunworks recently announced that the first of their Sturmgewehr rifles would be shipping before the end of this month. In an announcement made through the latest InRange TV Question & Answer Session with the company, HMG founder Mac Steil explained that series production of the Sturmgewehr has, at long last, begun, and that the first rifles will be shipping to pre-order customers before the end of August. Further, he stated that HMG would be publishing a Sturmgewehr release calendar, so that preorder customers could figure out when exactly their rifles would ship based on their preorder dates.

We all know how awesome the A-10 and GAU-8 is in aviation history. It is a flying gun. Well apparently it is not the first plane built around a gun. The Germans made something similar back in 1942. Henschel built the HS129.

Quick: What’s the definition of “assault rifle”? I’ll give you a moment to think about it.

Thanks to Adam S. for sharing this.

After World War II, the nations of the world retired to lick their wounds and rebuild, but their arms engineers also began thinking about the next war. The war have brought forth a storm of new technologies and inventions, and one of the most significant in the field of small arms was the finally mature assault rifle in the form of the Nazi-developed “Sturmgewehr”, and its intermediate 7.92x33mm Kurzpatrone cartridge. One nation that took notice of this new weapon and its ammunition was the newly reconstituted Czechoslovakia. That nations engineers quickly took to copying and improving the 7.92 Kurz caliber, producing by the early 1950s a short-lived but unique round called the 7.62x45mm Kr.52, or more popularly the 7.62×45 Czech. The 7.62×45’s projectile was a near copy of the Kurzpatrone’s stubby, steel-cored one, but its case was much longer, while being slightly thinner, and having a greater internal volume. This gave the Czech round an additional 250 ft/s muzzle velocity versus the German 7.92×33 when fired from the barrel of the rifle that was designed alongside it, the strange but wonderful vz. 52.

Many would consider this next round to be the first intermediate cartridge ever, and while that isn’t really true, it is one of the most influential rounds of all time, and perhaps the most influential intermediate round ever developed. I am talking of course about the Nazi-era Kurzpatrone 43 Spitzgeschoß mit Eisenkern, or as it is more commonly called, the 7.92×33 Kurz. This round became the model – in one fashion or another – for numerous intermediate rounds developed all around the globe after World War II, including the promising .280 British, and ubiquitous 7.62x39mm Soviet, as well as several others we’ll discuss in later installments.

Found this gem on Instagram @axis_and_allies45

NRA National Firearms Museum has this Nazi Belt Buckle gun in their collection. It is called the Marquis Nazi Belt Buckle Pistol. Looks to be chambered in 7.65mm. I cannot seem to figure out how this pistol is fired. I suspect it is loaded when the barrels are folded there by exposing the chamber. Then once it is deployed, I see two springs that line up with each barrel. Possibly they are released and somehow the lateral movement is transferred and strikes the primers.

In 2013, SMG Guns announced their reproduction Type II Fallschirmjägergewehr FG-42 paratroop rifles. These recreated the late-model German FG-42s with some improvements in semi-auto form. Now, SMG Guns has released a promo video for their new Type I FG-42, reproducing the earlier, lighter, and frankly cooler-looking German paratroop rifle for the US civilian market. The video is embedded below:

Ask and ye shall receive – another Forgotten Weapon’s post, that is. It seems I am not the only one fascinated by unique and/or historically relevant firearms, and the recent run of daily posts on YouTube by Ian of Forgotten Weapons has been fantastic. I can only hope it lasts just a bit longer.

In the early summer of this year,  a car-full of gun nerds set out to capture the rare Pedersen rifle on camera for the first time. The passenger with the van Dyke mustache and ponytail had just mentioned how if he could own any machine gun, it would be an StG.44, the German assault rifle of the second World War. Upon this, the driver, a tall, blonde Texan in cowboy boots, rebounded that one of the other passengers was the only person he’s ever met who wasn’t impressed with the German ur-sturmgewehr, which caused a great deal of whiplash to the others as their heads spun around to look in surprise and incredulity at the overweight one with the unkempt beard and brown mop of hair.

A while back on TFBTV, we posted a field strip of a German WWII G43 self loading rifle. Requests poured in from folks wanting to see one of these German autoloaders in action, and we listened!

Hognose at WeaponsMan takes a look at an interesting photo in one of his most recent articles. He writes: