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Author Topic: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War  (Read 7997 times)

Offline twrchtrwyth

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« on: April 28, 2008, 11:10:07 PM »
Can't remember where I found this now, thought it may be of interest. My favorites are the buckle pistol, one shot flame thrower, chocolate bar grenade and the anti-tank donkey! :lol:
http://www.greyfalcon.us/Weapons.htm
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Offline revford

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2008, 11:26:02 PM »
The Donkey is a classic, there is just something so bizarre about heavily armed animals.

The Soviet anti-tank mine dog springs to mind as another example.
Gav Ford
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Offline Helen

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2008, 02:42:27 AM »
Thanks for the link.  8)

Very interesting designs judging from the photos the Germans came up with.
Best wishes,
Helen
Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well (V van Gogh)

Offline assi

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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2008, 05:02:20 AM »
Quote from: "twrchtrwyth"
one shot flame thrower


The Bundeswehr still equips one shot "flame cartridges" which are , naturally, way smaller than the bulky thing from these days.  

Oh sure. Everybody's in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a Great White Shark, ooh, suddenly you've gone too far

Offline PeteMurray

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2008, 11:06:08 AM »
I'm struck by two things - half of those weapons are complex SMG/assault rifle/LMG types, full of complicated machined parts. Inevitably they are quoted as being intended for the politically-connected units, the ones with the repeated letter. The other half of them look like you could make them from plumber's fittings and a sheet-steel stamping machine: fast, cheap, and they'd have to do. It seems like a metaphor for the Wehrmacht of the final days of the war: Precious resources being poured into complicated toys, while ersatz guns go to the hands of defenders ordered to stand to the last.

What a waste. What a maddening, futile, stupid waste.

Offline JollyBob

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2008, 11:23:41 AM »
Good lord!  :o

Some of that stuff is disturbingly thrown together. Krieg-bicycle? What is that in German? Its been a while since I had to speak it.

I echo Pete's sentiments. The people using this stuff must have thought it was the end of the world if this was all they were being issued with.

Offline Aaron

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2008, 12:28:40 PM »
Nice link to German discus grenades from there. Thanks. I've been wanting to see a picture of the WW1 version since I read about it in my WW1 engineers' manual.

Offline archangel1

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2008, 05:02:46 PM »
Love the Donkeyfaust!  :lol:

The belt buckle gun reminds me of one I had as a kid.  It was a metal derringer on a mount that swung out and fired a plastic bullet when you released the 'secret catch' and pushed your stomach out! I seem to remember it was connected with 'Have Gun Will Travel' for some reason.
Why take Life seriously? You'll never get out of it alive!

Offline Vanvlak

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Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2008, 05:41:55 PM »
Poor old donkey :(

Explosive  chocolate bar! Good grief, I'd fall for that.The ice mine is the most ingenious of the lot.

Offline bob and his dog

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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2009, 08:39:36 PM »
I'm struck by two things - half of those weapons are complex SMG/assault rifle/LMG types, full of complicated machined parts. Inevitably they are quoted as being intended for the politically-connected units, the ones with the repeated letter. The other half of them look like you could make them from plumber's fittings and a sheet-steel stamping machine: fast, cheap, and they'd have to do. It seems like a metaphor for the Wehrmacht of the final days of the war: Precious resources being poured into complicated toys, while ersatz guns go to the hands of defenders ordered to stand to the last.

What a waste. What a maddening, futile, stupid waste.

So were you rooting for the Wehrmacht to win????  I would prefer more such waste, earlier :)
I am interested in land warfare throughout history and beyond, except the Seven Years War, in Europe.

Offline Doc Twilight

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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2009, 08:48:42 PM »
Great link!

Just a friendly word of warning. Greyfalcon has a very definite political agenda. I would advise those going through his site to do so with a grain of salt.

-Doc

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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2009, 10:35:45 AM »
Thank god the Nazi administration was so tied up with not concentrating ressources and wasting them.

Of course this general tendency of military research highly contradicts the general view of germans being efficient and well organized - but this is the difference between reality and cliché.

And it provides us with weird ideas....

I remember the one-shot flamethrower and the blatant "misinformation" of it being a device to blind crews of AFV.....

I just took a flight over the site linked, and my personal view is that apart displaying NS symbols at closer view and propagating the ubiquitous Nazi cliché of wonderweapons, it is grossely misleading.

The rarity of the displayed weapons is often due to their unawareness according to the standardized movie version of the german army and also due to the improvisational character but frequent use.
Misconceiving bicycle attachments as weapon mounts is really stupid.
Many were also standard issue for specialized troops and thus in small series.
Animals were used as "one-shot" devices, but believing that someone would fire a Bazooka from the back of a donkey....  give me a break!
The fact that WWII soldiers could not post silly prank pictures on the internet surely did not keep them from shooting them....


And finally, there are many examples of western allied troops improvising whatever was at hand, and also discarded weapons concepts and unused prototypes.

An interesting example is a mechanized american infanty regiment who's commander was hunting for downed allied aircraft in France in order to equip all his AFV with .50 cal MG....


PS : with "stupid" I meant the above linked site and in no way any of the users here - so no offence intended.....
« Last Edit: October 29, 2009, 11:08:31 AM by bedwyr »

Offline postal

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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #12 on: October 29, 2009, 11:28:02 AM »
very nice the donkyfaust was awsome

Offline answer_is_42

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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2009, 02:07:21 PM »
The site these are from is called "STRANGE VEHICLES OF PRE-WAR GERMANY & THE THIRD REICH". I'd post a link to the home page, but I've a feeling the German Police might not be quite so happy about that...
Google it.
I told you so. You damned fools.
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Re: Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War
« Reply #14 on: October 29, 2009, 02:29:46 PM »
better not

the first one was already.....
though an interesting collection of ideas

 

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