Interesting facts on the weapons of WWII

Does anyone know what type of machine guns were used by the 101st airborne division and also I've always wondered how the men jumped with their guns? Were they attached to them or in their foot bags and if they were attached how were they so that they wouldn't fall off?

 

Here are some 'Garand' pictures:




And a photo of Soviet 'Tokarev' and 'Simonov' rifles:

 

OTF,
I believe the guns were broken down and split up between the gunner and assistant gunner. As for how they were attached, I think it was up to the person. There are a lot of accounts of gunners losing their bipod or actual gun because they lost their footbag, but I think it would make sense to strap it to your chest like a regular rifleman would with his garand or something. As for the gun itself, I'm really not sure. I'll look some more.

 

Okay, after looking for a bit more I know that they were 30 cal. machine guns and I'm guessing they were Brownings?! I dunno...here's a great model I found on another forum...pretty nice.
there's tons more models, but I'm saving em for the weapons quiz

 

I hear you Ike but thanks for the info. I was wondering about that because I'm now reading Band of Brothers, all this talk about Ambrose has got me interested in his other books I haven't read.

 

Band of Brothers isn't really that bad. I enjoyed reading it. A lot of funny events in that book. One part actually shows Winters as not a God, I can't quite remember the page number or anything, but it shows him being stubborn (for once) as a veteran.

 

The text also shows that Winter's assertion that Easy company was "the finest light infantry..." is completely false.
Just reading their actions in the Ardennes convienced me of that. There they were dug in in a fixed position for an extended (several days) period of time. Yet, the troops failed to improvise overhead cover for their positions. Experianced / veteran troops with lots of field time do this as quickly as possible. This prevents casualities from tree bursts (Easy suffered several in their foxholes) as well as makes the positions more livable, lessening exposure to the environment.
From the photos one can make the judgement that Easy's soldiers also failed to move dirt and debris away from their positions to enhance camoflauge. Again, seasoned troops do this quickly. A pile of freshly dug dirt is a sure sign of a foxhole next to it.
Their junior officers (platoon leaders) were derided at several points in the book for their less than inspired leadership on patrols and offensive actions during this period.
All this adds up to a well trained but inexperianced unit that has seen limited combat action.
These are little things that the casual reader might miss. But, they are also indicators that the 101st (mostly not engaged after their use in Normandy) had limited field time compared to many infantry divisions like the 28th (often morbidly called "the bloody bucket" division due to their high casualities from heavy continious engagement in the front lines).

 

TA, what about Operation MARKET GARDEN and Bastogne. If the 101st wasn't plugging the gap in the Battle of the Bulge then the Germans had their opportunity to cut the line. Although they might have done some things that were "inexperienced" the saw alot of action after D-Day and were on the front lines up to Berchtesgaden.

 

In Normandy the 101 only stayed (as with the 82nd as well) in France for just under a month and was then withdrawn back to England where they were held until Market-Garden. In Market-Garden the 101 was again in action for roughly a month before being withdrawn. The same goes in the Ardennes.
Line US infantry divisions generally remained in combat continiously once committed in the ETO.
The difference in performance is that the parachute divisions never had the lenght of service on line the regular divisions had to build up their combat skill levels. Now, by this I don't want to imply that they were poor units in action. That is contrary to the record. What I mean is that truly 'veteran' units learn many small lessons about what works in combat and is necessary to win that less experianced (however well trained) units don't.
The points I made above are small ones in nature but, at the same time they show the 101 didn't know about them. Did it effect their performance? Yes, but not sufficently to cause them to fail in combat. It did however, lead them to have more casualities than otherwise would be the case.

 

I can see T. A. Gardner's points and I agree with them. But I think we'll have to consider that if the 101st airborne division didn't see as much action as regular divisions it is because it was not REGULAR. The division was created, trained and used only for special purposes or critical situations. If the US Army would have been short of units and equippment they would have used it as a regular division as did the Germans with their own airborne units.

 

In Ambrose's book he also talks about how the 101st couldn't be landed because Patton was moving to fast and reaching their drop zones before they could get to them. How much truth is in this statement? I think that if there is even a little truth: Ike knew what he had 'resting' in England and wanted to get it out but he just couldn't do it in time.

 

hahaha
that's a pretty funny story. dropping behind friendly lines would have been a change...

 

The Maschinengewehr 34, or MG34, was a German machine gun first issued in 1934, considered by many to be the first modern general-purpose machine gun. It was used as the primary infantry machine gun during the 1930s, and remained as the primary tank and aircraft defensive weapon. It was intended that it would be replaced in infantry service by the related MG42, but there were never enough of the new design to go around, and MG34s soldiered on in all roles until the end of World War II.

The MG34 was designed primarily by Heinrich Vollmer from Mauser Werke, based on the recently introduced Rheinmetall designed Solothurn 1930 (MG30) that was starting to enter service in Switzerland. The principle changes were to move the feed mechanism to a more convenient location on the left of the breech, and the addition of a shroud around the barrel. Changes to the operating mechanism improved the rate of fire to between 800 and 900 RPM.

The MG34 could use both magazine-fed and belt-fed 7.92mm ammunition. Belts were supplied in 50-round single strips or 250-round boxes. The drums held either 50 rounds in the standard version, or 75 in the "double drum" version. Early guns had to be modified to use the drums by replacing a part on the gun, but this modification was later supplied from the factory.

In the light machine gun role it was used with a bipod and weighed only 12.1 kg, considerably less than other machine guns of the era. In the medium machine gun role it could be mounted on one of two tripods, a smaller one weighing 6.75 kg, the larger 23.6 kg. The larger included a number of features making it useful for a number of roles. The legs could be extended to allow it to be used in the anti-aircraft role (and many were), and when lowered it could be placed to allow the gun to be fired "remotely" while it swept an arc in front of the mounting with fire, or aimed through a periscope attached to the tripod.

The new gun was accepted for service almost immediately and was generally liked by the troops. It was used to great effect by German soldiers assisting the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. At the time it was considerably more advanced than guns being used by other forces (with the exception of the MG30), both in terms of rate of fire, and in being easily man portable by a single gunner. However the MG34 was also very expensive, both in terms of construction and the raw materials needed (49 kg of steel) and it was unable to be built in the sorts of numbers required for the ever expanding German army. It also proved to be rather tempermental, jamming easily when dirty.

By the late 1930s an effort had started to simplify the MG34, leading to the MG42. The MG42's square barrel cover made it unsuitable for use in tank cupolas however, and the MG34 remained in production until the end of the war for this role.

The MG34 was also used as the basis of a new aircraft gun, the MG81. For this role the breech was slighly modified to allow feeds from either side, and in one version two guns were bolted together on a single trigger to form a weapon known as the MG81Z (for zwillig, twin in German). Production of the MG34 was never enough to satisfy any of its users, and while the MG81 was a huge improvement over the earlier MG30-based MG15 and MG17, those guns could be still found in use until the end of the war.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG34

 

The Maschinengewehr 1942, or MG42, is a German machine gun, first manufactured in 1942 as the successor to the MG34. During WWII, the MG42 had the fastest rate of fire of any weapon, at 1500 rounds per minute (up to 1800). At this rate it becomes impossible for the human ear to discern the sound of individual bullets being fired, and thus when in use the gun makes a sound described both as "ripping cloth" and "Hitler's Buzzsaw". During the war, over 400,000 were manufactured.

In the late 1930s the MG34 was arguably the best machine gun in the world at the time, but was expensive and time consuming to construct. In order to arm the increasingly large German army, an effort was started to build a simpler gun that could be built much faster. The winning design was offered by a newcommer to the contest, Metall-und-Lackierwarenfabrik Johannes Grossfuss AG, experts in pressed and punched steel parts. Their efforts resulted in a dramatic reduction in complexity – it took 75 man-hours to complete the new gun as opposed to 150 for the MG34, and cost 250RM as opposed to 327RM.

The resulting MG39 remained largely similar to the earlier MG34, a deliberate decision made in order to maintain familiarity. The only major change from the gunner's perspective was dropping the drum-feed options, leaving it with belts only, and the further increase in the rate of fire. Although made of "cheap" parts, the prototypes also proved to be considerably more rugged and resistant to jamming than the somewhat tempermental MG34

Given the success of the prototype, it's somewhat mysterious that the gun did not enter production until 1942, thereby requiring a renaming to MG42. As soon as it was introduced it garnered intense demand by field units, a demand that German industry was never able to meet.

The MG42 weighed 11.6kg in the light machine gun role with the bipod, lighter than the MG34 and easily portable. The bipod, the same one used on the MG34, could be mounted to the front or the center of the gun depending on where it was being used. In the role as a heavy machine gun it utilised a newly developed Lafette 42 tripod that weighed 20.5kg on its own. The barrel was lighter than the MG34s and wore out more quickly, but could be replaced in seconds by an experienced gunner.

In 1944 the acute material shortages of the Third Rheich led to a newer version, the MG45 (or MG42V), which used steel of lesser quality, reduced weight to only 9kg, and yet further improved the maximum rate of fire. First tests were undertaken in June 1944, but development dragged on and eventually only ten were ever built.

Even today it is still regarded by many experts as the best machine gun ever. The MG42, with minor modifications, is still the primary heavy machine gun of the modern German army, now called the MG3. A number of other armies around the world have adopted versions of the original, and guns looking similar, or identical, to the MG42 remain in widespread service today. The US Army's M-60 is based upon the FG42 paratrooper rifle (Fallschirmjaegergewehr) and MG42.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG42

 

Question.....I have heard that although the Luger P-08 was the most commonly used pistol of the German army during WW2 (and later on - the Walther P-38) that the "SS" used a Belgium? made pistol that resembled the venerable M1911 of the U.S......anyone???

 

There were 2 Belgian highpower's produced. .32 cal and 9mm.

Also the Norwegian model 1914 which looks like a copy of the Browning in at 11.25mm, with at least 7,000 produced

~E

 

Actually, Erich, the Norwegian M1914 pistol is a near-exact copy of the American M1911, even to caliber.

Yours,
Paul

 

I know........that's why I posted particualrs on it, but the Belgian Browning was used more and not just by W-SS truppen

~E

 

The M1-A1 folding stock carbine was a weapon unique to the paratroops in WW2. Manufactured by the Inland Arms division of General Motors, this weapon utilized a small, specially designed .30 caliber bullet which was considered a compromise between a pistol and a rifle. The side-folding stock of tubular metal has a leather cheek plate on the left side. Early models were made without a bayonet lug. The carbines, which were usually issued to officers and men assigned to crew-served weapons like M.G.s and mortars, were the subject of many complaints. They lacked knockdown power, even at short range, and were frequently discarded in disgust.

http://www.101airborneww2.com/index.html

 

Some facts on Panzers:

The following names were never German code names:
Königstiger, Coelian, Bison and Brummbär

Furthermore, 'Hetzer' was not the code name for the Jagdpanzer 38, but for the E-10