Did the Germans add any interesting stamps to their Gewehr 7.7 281(e)?
And if they did any nice photos?
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Did the Germans add any interesting stamps to their Gewehr 7.7 281(e)?
And if they did any nice photos?
Well this sadly sank without trace, I was expecting at least a, ”why didn't you check on Google? (I have tried) All the info is right here...” type response. Des any one know what markings where applied to captured lee enfield that where re used my the German army (or other units for that matter)?
I was waiting for an explanation of Gewehr 7.7 281(e). Now that I know it was captured British no1MkIII in German service, I would also like to know. I somehow doubt the Germans went to the trouble of marking them. It would be interesting to know more about their later use in German service, and where they eventually ended up.
Some were distributed to the pro-Vichy Milice forces. Some pictures also exist of Albanian anti-partisan forces with them, and of the Labour Service with them. Without a continuing source of ammunition they were not going to be very useful arms.
Whilst not a rifle, but of the .303 calibre; there's a well aired piece of footage from very late war of the Volkssturm marching through Berlin (?) armed with a motley assortment of weapons, one of which is quite clearly a Lewis gun.
Foreign used/impressed firearms (by the Germans in WW2) used to interest me greatly, back in the day when pistols were section 1. I had a small collection of 'Fremdengerate' (German speakers forgive me if I've misspelled the word); Hi Power (complete in its 1943 dated holster), P37 (u), Radom, FN Browning 1922, etc. Also had a couple of rifles, one being a Gew 24(t). All long gone once I restricted my collecting to Commonwealth items.
With the rifles the Germans captured millions of rounds. They had the capability to make many more I believe, but focused on their own.
Ammo? Pick up the phone and place an order.
The FN plant in Belgium was tooled up to make LOTS of .303 ammo, much of it either for export or their own Lewis, etc guns.
The Italians also used the same round in a couple of their own MGs as well and made quite a lot of ammo for themselves and (pre-war) for export.
Not being used as front-line arms, captured .303 rifles (and MGs) would have initially been issued to second-line garrison troops or reasonably reliable auxiliaries or "allies".
They picked up few "Bren" Carriers during the Dunkirk Handicap. Enough to type-catalogue them and impress them into service as SP mounts for light anti-tank guns or, later, on the Russian Front, as remotely-controlled demolition vehicles .
In the African Desert, The Australians and Kiwis ran the "Bush Artillery", pretty much completely equipped with captured Italian guns and ammo.
The German Ordnance system must have been really "interesting" by 1943, Ditto the Japanese, who had few qualms about redistributing captured equipment and using it until it broke or ran out of ammo, fuel, etc. The Japanese Navy and their "Marines" were big users of their exact equivalent of the .303.
During the previous Great Unpleasantness, the Turks took possession of a LOT of British and French materiel. Their 7.92 x 57 conversions of SMLEs are a case in point: Use them for training with original captured ammo, then, as that dried up, totally rebuild them to use "standard" ammo..
The Germans certainly did produce ammunition in calibres to permit captured weapons to continue in use, although I've never seen nor even heard of 'Nazi 303' ammo. Would be most interested to know if it existed. There's nothing mentioned so far as I can recall in the late Peter Labbett's 'bible' on the .303, although I'll double check. The Germans were lucky in a sense that a lot of central European countries that they overran used Model 98 Mausers in 7.9 x 57. I used to do some digging in the Channel Islands in my youth & found almost as many Czechoslovakian 7.9mm cases as I did German. Interestingly they had predominantly been loaded with the old lighter 154 gr 'S' Munition rather than the heavier boat tailed sS ball, yet they were all dated mid to late 1930's.
First, there is a typo. It reads "Gewehr" and not "Geweher" in German. Second, the Germans did NOT mark captured rifles in WWII with any ownership markings. The only thing you can find is when they captured rifle production plants they sometimes used their Waffenamt-acceptance control as supervisors to the production (e.g. WaA-marked Norwegian rifles and pistols), and in some cases they even modified the products as well as the inscription (e.g. Hungarian 35M -> G.98/40, Czech Vz.33 -> G.33/40, Czech Vz.24 -> G.24(t), Czech CZ27 -> CZ 27, etc.). Under certain circumstances (like 8x57 caliber as their own weapons) the Germans sometimes also outcarried repairs and overhauls to captured weapons. This weapons then often carry a Waffenzeugamt-stamp from a particular arsenal on the heel of the stock.Quote:
Originally Posted by Micheal Doyne
Germany during WWI however DID mark the captured rifles with a German stamp. This stamp reads "DEUTSCHES REICH" and is a roundel with an eagle in the middle. It is applied to the stock of weapons. Most commonly this can be found on Mosin Nagant rifles, sometimes also on French made rifles. And I recently was lucky to purchase a SMLE rifle that also has this stamp on the stock.
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The FN plant in Belgium was tooled up to make LOTS of .303 ammo, much of it either for export or their own Lewis, etc guns.
But that is capacity that could be producing 8x57 for YOU, and isn't.
That's what I was getting at. Capacity within Nazi-occupied Europe for producing .303 ammo existed, but was any ever made? I've certainly neither heard of nor seen any.
I highly doubt this. As previously mentioned the Germany mainly bothered on the rifles that were in the identical 8x57 caliber as their own rifle (or pistols, where they anyway had a few more calibers in usage). The rifles not in 8x57 caliber were mainly put into storage. This storage was handed out in the last days to the Volkssturm - pictures proof the poor old and kids to carry many different weapons, including commercial hunting rifles (even shotguns).
The only difference to that is the usage of Soviet rifles on the Eastern front. But this was nothing officially done but rather the persons at the front used captured enemy material with the ammo they also got. Plus these also didn't got marked in any way.
He certainly lists, about half a dozen French ammo factories that made 303 ammo from WW1 until the late 30's, and they don't appear to have been making 7.92x57 ammo after a quick cross check with the known 7.92x57 ammo factories.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Payne
Labbett also list a pre-war Norwegian 303 ammo factory, which again would have come under German control, which also doesn't appear on the 7.92 list, and Spain which was making 303 ammo during the civil war, which could have been a poss source as well.
Labbett lists DWM – Deutsche Waffen Und Munitionsfabrik, Karlsruhe as a 303 ammo maker as well.
So, there's certainly possible Wehrmacht 303 ammo sources.
I agree, numerous possible sources, but has anyone ever seen anything? I think Promo is probably right in that, being a non-standard calibre, Enfields would have gone to rear echelon troops, or even into storage, & so would have been little fired, with captured ammunition stocks deemed sufficient, maybe?? I would imagine a lot of SAA would have been left behind on the beaches at & around Dunkirk.
I think the question though, should be were any of those factories producing 303 during the war, or did they change over the production lines to other calibers? A machine making 303 could be easily switched to running other rifle cartridges. Were the occupied factories engaged in production of ammunition for 7.5mm or 8mm French weapons? Or ammunition for the Italians? Were the machines shipped to Germany to be run in a more loyal factory? My understanding is that the number of serviceable .303 rifles captured was very low, as many had been disabled by the expedient of breaking the striker and loosing the bolt head. Would the handful remaining have been worth making ammunition for in excess of what was captured?
Ammo? Pick up the phone and place an order.
The FN plant in Belgium was tooled up to make LOTS of .303 ammo, much of it either for export or their own Lewis, etc guns.
The Italians also used the same round in a couple of their own MGs as well and made quite a lot of ammo for themselves and (pre-war) for export.
Not being used as front-line arms, captured .303 rifles (and MGs) would have initially been issued to second-line garrison troops or reasonably reliable auxiliaries or "allies".
They picked up few "Bren" Carriers during the Dunkirk Handicap. Enough to type-catalogue them and impress them into service as SP mounts for light anti-tank guns or, later, on the Russian Front, as remotely-controlled demolition vehicles .
In the African Desert, The Australians and Kiwis ran the "Bush Artillery", pretty much completely equipped with captured Italian guns and ammo.
The German Ordnance system must have been really "interesting" by 1943, Ditto the Japanese, who had few qualms about redistributing captured equipment and using it until it broke or ran out of ammo, fuel, etc. The Japanese Navy and their "Marines" were big users of their exact equivalent of the .303.
During the previous Great Unpleasantness, the Turks took possession of a LOT of British and French materiel. Their 7.92 x 57 conversions of SMLEs are a case in point: Use them for training with original captured ammo, then, as that dried up, totally rebuild them to use "standard" ammo..
The same could be said of the British as well, in reverse, as although we were making our own 7.92x57 ammo for our BESA MG's, use of captured German ammo stocks was actually encouraged to supplement the small quantities of UK made 7.92 ammo supply, given the demand for 303 ammo for almost everything else.
It would be interesting to see any example of FN made 303 ammo with a 1941-1944 date stamp, which would likely be evidence they were making it for zee Germans.
I used to be a keen collector of both 303 & 7.9mm ammo in my teens & twenties & I never heard of let alone saw any 303 cases/rounds with head stamps suggestive of production under Third Reich control. I know they had the capability to do it, as Bruce & others have pointed out.......but DID they? Does anyone have a 303 round head stamped ch 42, aux 43 or similar, or even rounds with civvy head stamps in a wrapper or box suggesting they were produced in a factory in Germany or under German occupation? They could exist but I've never seen any evidence of it up to now. In fact it would be fascinating to be shown one.
I can imagine it being worth there while to produce .303, if you have the rifles with ammo issue the a unit not expected to fire much, ok. However uk hardly want to complicate your supply line for something as cheap as bolt action rifle long term surely. Hence the point above about them going into store and being issued out to last ditch forces
There is a film of a German battalion in WWI marching down a sunken road and all carrying SMLE's at the shoulder.
Sounds more like making use of weapons that were in dire need and ammunition at hand. Weapons don't last very long in those conditions, testimony from men that were there show destruction of weapons in short order. They have to be replaced somehow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
Yes, that's exactly what they were doing and of course it was done in a thorough and organized manner; it's the German army isn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
We know from the photographic evidence that use was made of captured Vickers and Lewis guns; that may have been purely local at times. In fact even if there was a policy of collecting such weapons centrally, we know that soldiers in many armies often retain captured weapons for their own use, if their immediate superiors overlook or permit it.
The SMLE probably held little attraction for the average German soldier; they would naturally tend to believe the Mauser was superior. A Maxim-type MG or Lewis gun would be much more attractive.
Obviously rifles would not have been issued to formations until they had been cleaned and inspected and the troops trained in their use. That doesn't happen on the way to the front.
There are WW1 accounts that make clear the Germans' appreciation of the Lewis. It was even known on occasions during informal truces for not only the wounded to be carried back from No Man's land by German stretcher bearers!
In WW1 the Germans most certainly used captured machine guns and were particularly fond of the Lewis.
At first just used as another machine gun, but rapidly adopted for use in "assault teams" and as portable support for trench raiding and "rapid reaction forces". There were apparently enough savvy armourers and "engineering" types to keep a small fleet of them going as long as ammo could be "obtained". See also their use of captured Vickers as "supplements" for the MG08 / 08-15 fleet. Anyone have any info on what the Germans did with the substantial number of Russian Maxims acquired in the Eastern Front in WW1? Changing out the barrel, breech block and a few parts in the feed mechanism on a gun generally the same dimensionally (and often made in the same factories), would seem like a feasible project.
Long-term, reliable ammo supply would be a deciding factor, especially once warfare became much more "mobile" from late WW1 onward to the mass (ish) mechanization of WW2,
Thought I might take a shot at finding the video and it was the first one I clicked on. Start at 0:58
Drei Lilien | German army WW1 footage in Color - YouTube
Just noticed there is currently a WWI German captured SMLE for auction on eGun: https://www.egun.de/market/item.php?id=12811955
There is a documentary film made shortly after the war re-enacting battles of the 1914 campaign, of which there was very little genuine footage due to the all-pervading spy mania, with British troops providing the 'Germans' and naturally using their own smallarms for the purpose. Pieces of this can get cut together with other stuff, and generations of writers just copy the attribution.
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Originally Posted by Mk VII
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Originally Posted by Mk VII
That makes more sense than this other. At that point I would have thought there would be enough of their own rifles around still.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mk VII
Yes, can't have been any lack of Gew98s around in 1920.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
Came across this quite quickly too. Every man appears to have a box of drums. Obviously a training scene.
Illustration pictures right "Out of the book" to demonstrate positions of assistant gunners...Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
And of course, the camera man is positioned almost in front of the muzzles of the guns....;)
On a related thread, I seem to recall reading that captured .303 Bren guns were used by the Germans in POW camps.
It would make sense to use captured SMLE's for similar duties, i.e much carried but very rarely used.
The only British service firearm I've seen being used more widely in various old clips is MK2/3 Sten guns. Obviously ammunition being no issue, it makes sense to issue these for rear echelon units etc.
Saw a photo that reminded me of this thread and figured I'd share. It's this second slide of the second most recent post on this profile. Normally I would link the photo, but because it is of the poster's relative, and I don't have his permission this is the most I feel comfortable doing. It shows German soldiers marching with smles in drill uniform. So I guess they definitely used them for drill.
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Well the photo is safe, I can't get at it.
If you want I could email it to you, I just don't feel comfortable posting it until I get word back from the page owner.
Just got permission from the poster, here is the photo in question.
German shoulders marching with smles - Album on Imgur
I thought that was a work uniform? Looks more to me like they're moving into a field position, the letter even suggests they're in combat. I know we saw footage of the very end where Volkssturm was moving off in basic civilian hunting garb and carrying captured weapons exclusively.
I have always seen them refered to as drill uniforms, although I am no expert. He also had a picture of his great uncle in combat his uniform in the same post.
German soldiers - Album on Imgur
I also noticed that in the photo where they have smles they aren't carrying ammunition or anything else to suggest they are actively engaged in anything aside from drill, although that's just my 2¢. Mostly just wanted to share the photo as it's the only one I'm aware of.
Agreed, no ammo pouches even...maybe field training to account for plainly dirty knees and such? Also this must be an earlier picture as the uniform was changed in color soon after war's start to a darker shade and these were used up. They would be issued on a need basis and then returned after weather no longer demanded. The "Drill" suggestion is translation, these are actually an HBT (Herring bone twill)type of material such as the Marine uniforms were for so long. It's well worth reading up on the use of this uniform...and prices of existing examples of remaining pieces.
Hitler Youth in training? They're singing, but from the state of their fatigues, they are probably fatigued!Quote:
Originally Posted by lithgow1918
"Tomorrow Belongs to Us"?
Next week someone else! :p
You can almost hear them singing:
I don't know but I've been told
These Limey rifles are really old
Sound off........