Geweher 7.7 281(e)

[Micheal Doyne]

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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[Micheal Doyne]

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)?

[Daan Kemp]

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.

[Mk VII]

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.

[Roger Payne]

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.

[Daan Kemp]

With the rifles the Germans captured millions of rounds. They had the capability to make many more I believe, but focused on their own.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

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..

[Roger Payne]

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.

[Promo]

Did the Germans add any interesting stamps to their Geweher 7.7 281(e)?

And if they did any nice photos?

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.

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.

[Mk VII]

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.