STG-44, MP 43 and MP 44

The B.A.R. doesn't fit any standard weapon definition and it's somewhat of a hybrid between a LMG and an assault rifle. It's not a true LMG because it lacks the magazine capacity and quick barrel change for sustained suppressing fire and it isn't an assault rifle because it's too heavy and it fires a full-power rifle cartridge. Assault rifles are defined as lightweight, shoulder fired, select fire weapons that fire an intermediate cartridge such as a 7.62X39mm or a 5.56X45mm. Therefore, the Stg.44 is the first weapon that meets all of the above criteria and is recognizable to the modern military enthusiast as an assault rifle.

 

Voted....Sorry if this is a bit off topic...Had always thought the shotgun was a trench broom. Knew the Thompson was great for close fighting, but the term "trench broom " was first used for the Tommy and not shotgun? Did other countries specifically use the term "trench broom" for weapons in the trench?

 

The M1897 Winchester 12 gauge was originally referred to as a trench broom but it's not a technical term and instead used to denote any weapon that was effective in close-quarters combat in the confined spaces of the trenches. The Thompson, being a slightly post-war design, was created to be an ideal "trench broom", ie a weapon that would wreak havoc in exactly that sort of situation since mobile warfare still wasn't envisioned as the wave of the future. And it was still highly effective even when faced with the changing face of the WWII battlefield. A bit heavy and with serious recoil for a smaller or inexperienced shooter, but reliable, manageable when going cyclic, very potent in terms of stopping power, and to me, the ideal cyclic rate of fire.

 

Thanks for confirming the term. So is "trench broom" purely an Americanism?

 

As far as I know, yes, but don't quote me on that one. It might have been a generic term used by all the English-speaking soldiers of the Great War. That being said, I doubt it, given that the others didn't have that sort of weapon in their arsenals.

 

C96 "broom handle" mauser was the first trench clearing weapon, used by Hindenburg's Stormtroopers in 1916, which transferred to the western front in 1917 and made both names infamous within weeks. Trench broom sounds suspiciously like a term that came from this weapon, as it was known widely at the time as the "broom handle gun" because of the wooden holster/stock. It was quite deadly in this job, with the cavalry barrel it hits like a .38" super cartridge at close range and will penetrate metal like any good .38 special, not bad for the little .32 90gr round. Apparently it was extremly handy in hand to hand combat, the little thing sat snug under your armpit and just spewed death with good accuracy and damage, but the next obvious step was a submachine gun. I suspect the MP18 was designed with this in mind, but it was the Mauser that started the trend.

I believe the resistance to swapping out the 98K came from the Prussians, not Hitler. They were old school and refused to be convinced by ostfront field commanders that this big game hunting rifle was unwieldy and entirely overpowered for modern (urban and close combat) warfare. The idea was to keep it within a relatively small group of like minds, I'm highly suspicious and dubious of all these claims that Hitler sat like a God over every materiél development in Germany, in one sense he did, but in another he was just a visiting VIP that handed out requirements and sought to conclude they were being achieved.
Some of the old guard had a problem with downsizing the standard infantry rifle cartridge, people like von Paulus' ilk still thought they were fighting in WW1 trenches. They wanted 1km lethal range, the field commanders were recommending no more than 600m lethal range for a more handy weapon.


Jim Winchester also says it was a direct copy of the soviet SVT (tokarev). The original german ideas for self loaders were ridiculously overweight and the action ridiculously overcomplicated. So they copied the soviet action, which was already in mainstream service by then. Captured SVT were also popular.

As an aside, the Mauser 7.63mm can be fired from soviet PPSh 7.62mm submachine guns without trouble, as it was discovered.

 

Here is an interesting section on the "Tommy Gun", and don't be put off by the "Unofficial Tommy Gun" moniker, it simply distinguishes it from any site sponsored by Auto Ordinance "officially". The history, as told on the site seems to be valid.

At the start, Auto Ordnance Corp. was pretty much a corporation in name only. They had no offices, property or machinery. So all prototypes and machine work had to be contracted out. For help, Thompson turned to his friends, W.R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey; whom Thompson had come to know from the contracts that their Cleveland, Ohio based machine tool business, the Warner & Swasey Co. had with the Army Ordnance Dept. Warner & Swasey were very interested in the project and provided Thompson with several of their best engineers and machinists. They also provided a testing room in the basement of their plant at 5809 Carneige Ave.. By 1919, Auto Ordnance Corp. would occupy office space in the Meriam building on Euclid Ave., and move it’s operations to a larger machine shop at the Sabin Machine Company, also on Carneige Ave.

By late spring in 1917, work at the Cleveland plant was going full pace. But it wasn't’t long before a series of problems were discovered with the Blish Lock. First, the lock would work fine for several shots, then jam up. Then it was found that under the pressure of high powered rifle ammunition, in a short time abrasion would wear out the lock. Finally, and worst of all, cartridge cases would not extract reliably unless they were lubricated before being chambered. This was an unacceptable requirement for a military firearm that would be expected to function under the most adverse conditions. By September 1917, tests confirmed that the only military service cartridge, currently in use, that would work reliably with the Blish Lock, was the .45 Colt Automatic Pistol Round. Eickhoff dreaded the thought of telling Thompson the bad news.

To Eickhoff’s surprise Thompson took the news very well. Eickhoff remembered Thompson saying "Very well. We shall put aside the rifle for now and instead build a little machine gun. A one-man, hand held machine gun. A trench broom!" (underline mine) Thompson’s comments obviously aimed at the trench warfare being waged in Europe. What Eickhoff didn't know, was that Thompson had already been thinking about the need for such a weapon. The War in Europe was stalled and causalities were mounting. 19th century tactics and 20th century weapons did not mix. The traditional cavalry charge was ineffective against the modern machinegun. But the contemporary machinegun was too large and too heavy to be used offensively. Thompson realized that firepower, and hit and run tactics were what was needed to end the War. He envisioned troops carrying compact machineguns rushing from trench to trench, sweeping the enemy with bullets, while firing at them from the hip. So, under Thompson’s direction, Eickhoff changed the project to work on a class of firearm that never before existed.

By the summer of 1918, all of the major design problems had been resolved. What was left was to address the guns durability and external features. The Annihilator I, as it was code named, was now capable of emptying a 20 rnd magazine in less than a second. Work continued until the fall of 1918, when the final prototypes were completed. Ironically, the first shipment of prototype guns destined for Europe arrived at the docks in New York city on November 11, 1918, the day the War ended. Thompson now faced a huge problem. What do you do with a trench broom, now that the trenches no longer need to be sweeped?

In 1919 Thompson gave Auto Ordnance the task of modifying their new gun for non military use. Eventually the question arose, of what to call it. Thompson wanted something different. Something that would distinguish the weapon from it’s larger bulky machinegun predecessors. They considered the terms "Autogun" and "Machine Pistol", but finally decided on "Submachine gun" to denote a small, hand-held, fully automatic firearm chambered for pistol ammunition. So, at a meeting of the Auto Ordnance Corp. board of directors, the gun was officially classified as a Submachine gun. And, to honor the man most responsible for it’s creation, the Annihilator was officially named the "Thompson Submachine gun".


Goto:


The Unofficial Tommy Gun Page

 

I appreciate then the term "trench broom" may very well be an independent one for the tommy gun or any trench clearing weapon of the day, like the various carbine-pistols used for the purpose which effectively sparked the smg.

It just seems concidental to have a term like "trench broom" for a trench clearing hand to hand weapon and the Mauser is known as the "broom handle gun" being the first to feature is specific trench clearing tactical formations in 1916, the Stormtroopers.

I always find coincidences in war to be suspicious. The Ki-61 looks a bit like a Heinkel, well that'd be the engineers having been trained by Blöhm and Voss. Stuff like that, coincidences may not be an obvious correlation, but I rarely find true coincidences about war stuff.

 

It's more than likely a coincidence because the term "trench broom" was routinely applied to the M1897 because, like a broom, it swept things out of the way post-haste. If it was truly correlated to the C96 it would be about the shape, not what the weapon does, and doughboys clearly used the term in reference to what the shotgun functioned as. John Thompson then applied this common slang term to his new design which was supposed to be the epitome of a trench broom and there you go.

 

Mauser C96 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As an aside...Didn't know the Mauser was the most powerful handgun cartridge until the .357 in 1937.

 

It was the highest velocity cartridge, big difference between that and the "most powerful" cartridge.

 

Quite possible. There were a number of occasions (pz III main armament being a good example) where Hitler's orders about materiel were ignored and someone else was pulling the strings for their own reasons. OTOH, a number of memoirs like Guderian's do have examples of Hitler personally micromanaging programs.

The what was a copy of the SVT now? I've personally examined a G43/K43 if that's what you're talking about. Parts of it (the gas piston system) are copied directly from the SVT, but other parts (the flap locking bolt) are carried over from the older German autoloading designs. IMO they would have been better off making a copy of the SVT or even seeing if they could retrofit SVTs to fire German ammo. The G43 is a looker, but from an engineering perspective they made some really suspect choices.

The innards of the STG-44, with the tilting bolt and solidly attached piston are kinda reminiscent of the Bren. The SS was using Czech-produced ZB-26s for a long time. I do wonder if Haenel drew inspiration from that design.

 

Have to admit, myself I really know so very little about the technology of firearms and there is much more to know than I can imagine I'm certain (as with most things). I like throwing things I've read or assumed out there, but will always defer to the expertise available, in many cases members of the boards here.

WRT poppy and devildog's posts just above, the ballistics figures I have for the Mauser 7.63mm return the same as a .38" (win) super cartridge fired from a heavy frame 4" class revolver, and the energy-momentum (penetration capability) of a .38" (s&w) special cartridge. A 9mm (bergman-bayer), .45ACP or a .455" (webley) would outdo it comfortably, a 9mm parabellum is slightly superior and less stressful in the breech area (using my limited speculae)...you know postwar it was popular to rechamber the C96 for 9mm parabellum. The weapon actually found it a harder hitting, softer cartridge.

It'd want to be, with that crazy luger action.

 

I have since found some answers in this book.

1) The tilting bolt lockup of the MKB-42(H) is indeed copied from the ZB-26. The Germans were using a lot of those Czech light MGs, especially in Waffen SS formations, and the WaA was apparently so impressed that they requested Haenel re-use it.

2) There was an ongoing effort, going all the way back to the 20s and 30s, to develop small arms that would require less use of high-quality alloys, since the alloying elements for these are somewhat rare in Germany. That is why the STG uses so much stamped sheet metal; sheet metal is mostly mild steel that requires nothing exotic.

3) There were a bajillion and a half subcontractors involved in STG-44 production. Obviously, Haenel was responsible for the design, but components were manufactered at Steyr-Daimler-Puch, Merx Werke, Mauser, Erma, Sauer & Sohn, and AEG to name a few.

4) Mauser suggested a number of simplifications to the STG-44, but their STG-45 was a new and different design that operated around their semi-rigid (roller-locked) bolt rather than the Haenel gas-actuated, tilting bolt. Confusingly, there was also a Haenel design called the MP-45 that appears to have been an improved STG-44.

 

So you finally bought it?

 

Hey, it's dangerous to start buying those Collector's Grade titles! Soon you have shelves full of thick and expensive books, and an unending desire to acquire more.

But yes, I did.