Sniper duel in Stalingrad

J.

Help me out here, what is the German name of the wepaon..... ? this would make it so much easier to look up and see if this was operational in the field.

E.

 

Erich, I havent seen the vidoe of the snipers, but want to.

Also, I think the weapon you are talking about is the STG-44 (Sturmgewehr) This is the one that had the barrell extentions for firing around corners. They were also known to have searchlights mounted for night fighting, and scopes. I saw examplesa of these in Solothurn, Switzerland. This is my absolute favorite German weapon of ww2--excluding the barrell extention. BY the way, they wore out after just a few hundred rounds were fired....

 

Carl :

Yes, that is what I mentioned in an above post....Sturmgewehr 44 or STG 44. Initially with the 43/1 unit and then production in the 44 series, the end result was the Russian AK-47 piece of junk.......
The Sturmgewehr is the only German weapon that I know of that was fitted with 2 different type of around the corner barrels.
I just to think almost 60 years later the US armed forces are now figureing it out on how to see around corners......geez

E.

 

Arg !

Ich verstehen nicht.

I type before I think sometimes......the Sniper video has been offered through a firm that has been around for many years.

International Historic Films, Inc.
P.O. Box 29035
Chicago, Il 60629

Can't find their tele, but I do believe they are on-line. They also Americanized the famous Deutsche Wolkenschau series into "Through Enemy Eyes". I have the German version for all of 1945. An incredible series of video clips protraying all of the German armed forces on all fronts. Another must have.

E.

 

Thanks Erich!

Now for some good news for you thanks to Otto.

The sniper photo I gave Otto, is now back up in the circled area at the top left of the title page. He is the Oberstleutnant that I was talking about. Was he the one you were thinking of? or it is someone different? Check it out and let me know what you think?

Anyway, just thought I would let you know its back up on this site.

A N D T H A N K Y O U

O T T O, for reposting the photo.

[ 24 June 2001: Message edited by: C.Evans ]

 

Carl :

Actually no, it wasn't him. shame on him, not wearing a helmet ! Sniper, hmmmmmm ? Ah, think it is a propaganda posed shot or as you were saying possibly at a training centre, and could be lining up sights to target.

E

 

Dear Erich,

German soldiers crouched behind the shattered houses and walls of a Stalingrad suburb. Advancing Soviet soldiers edged closer, covered by a curtain of friendly small arms and anti- tank fire. Every time a member of the Wehrmacht tried to aim his rifle around a corner, a deadly firestorm greeted him.

What was needed was some type of weapon to fire around those corners. They found themselves fighting vicious street battles, and the need for concealed firing was hammered home.

Krummer Lauf (bent/curved barrel) is the answer! The barrels were made to adapt to the MP .43. This was devised the Col. Hans-Joachim Schaede who worked to Albert Speer. Schaede's device featured a special clamping apparatus that enabled the barrel to be fitted to the MP .43 muzzle & bolted into place.
The original K/L sported an actual barrel length of nearly 19". The barrel's diameter was just under an inch, bored and rifled in standard armory fashion, then cold-bent to a 90* angle. These original versions initially appeared w/o sights.
Because of the weapon's heavy recoil, the K/L appeared destined for use on panzers and self-propelled guns.

For infantry use: K/l had an 11" barrel model that featured a lesser bend. Only
.787" in diameter, this model was bored and rifled, then cold-bent to 30* downward angle.
It also featured an adapter so that a special grenade launcher could be used.

Next, was a sighting apparatus for the Wehrmacht by Zeiss optical. The orders for the K/L outstripped the Reich's ability to manufacture them. 10,000 were actually produced: 5,000 to the Wehrmacht & probably
4,000 to troops fighting the Russians.

A 40* bend never made it past the experimental stage. The Germans intended to eventually arm every soldier with a submachine gun outfilled with a 30* bent barrel and Zeiss sight. The combination of the machine pistol's fire power and the K/L's around the corner capability would have devastating in European street fighting.

Hope this info. helps to answer the ?

Janice

 

Janice :

The common name was MP 43. The Native and proper name was Sturmgewehr 43. We are talking about the same weapon, but the story/idea of the curved barrel goes back to 1941 not the Battle of Stalingrad. It was based on the need for an improved method of proof firing heavy a/c machine gun mounts.

Thenfirst firing took place at Guben in 1942. A 50mm barrel was curved/bent to produce deflection of 55 degrees and a 13mm MG 131 was fired into the device from very close range, the muzzle of the mg being about an inch from the rear end of the deflector........and on the information goes for another 7 pages of technical data.
German barrel extensions for 7.92mm Rifle(V.G. 1)FMAR 945A was 9 inches. The 5 inch was FMAR 945B.
The MP 43/1 mit Vorsatz P, a unit taking a 90 degree barrel extension unit. A ball mount for fitting for a Tank mounting was FMAR 1079.

E.

 

Dear Erich,

Thanks for the ordinance lesson. Not being an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I'm sorry for the confusion. I did not know that we were talking about the same gun. No where in the WW II magazine article does it refer to at by the name you mentioned.

The article on line is w/o a picture, but I have the article in front on me @ home. There is a good picture of it. If you would like me to send you a copy, I will.
mshx@optonline.net

J.

 

Dear Erich: Rats--it would have been nice if it were he. I wish I had access to all my books--most have been in storage for the better part of 5 months now Grrrr, and I NEED them. I have a few good books dealing with this subject, and all are in storage.

 

Dear Erich,

I reread the Krummer Lauf article in WW II magazine from 2/96. The paragraph that lead me to believe that the MP .43 & the Gewehr .43 were different weapons is all follows:
"The call for a weapon to allow defensive fire from concealed positions went out to the German arms industry in LATE 1943. By that time, the Wehrmacht had slowly begun adopting a pair of Automatic weapons as standard issue for its troops."

"The basic Mauser 98k bolt action 7.92mm rifle had been an excellent infantry weapon during the war's early stages, but it lacked firepower. The TWO new weapons were the Mascinenpitsole 43 (MP .43), known to the GI's as the "burp gun," and the Gewehr 43 (G.43) There remained the problem of modifying these automatic weapons to fire around corners."

The caption under the picture of the K/L states: " A drawing by Peter Gaut of the Krummer Lauf, with Zeiss prismatic visor-sight, mounted on a Maschinenpistole MP.43/1.
Perfected in 1945, the "around the corner" barrel was added to the German arsenal too late in the war to be of much help."

J.

 

Janice :

Send me a copy of the article please !

The G.I. version.....burp gun was the MP 40 with a straight clip. The MP 43 and 44 or Sturmgewehr 43 and 44 had the long curved ammo clip. The gewehr 43 which was sometimes used for sniper duty and equipped with the ZF 4 scope and 10 round magazine was somewhat of a heavy rifle, and snipers issued with this rifle traded it in many times for the tried and true 98K.

E. I'll write you off list tonight.

Thanks !

 

Dear Erich,

The article is at:

thehistorynet.com/worldwarII

Go into article index, into WW II, then down to Krummer Lauf.

Hope this is informative.

J.

 

Just thought I'd tack on to the end of this old thread......several years back there was a lot of discussion and interest on this Forum about 'Enemy At The Gates', especially the 'Zaitsev/Konings Duel'.

The recently published book by Frank Ellis, 'The Stalingrad Cauldron', contains a quite detailed overview of Russian and German sniping methods at Stalingrad. It makes for interesting reading and includes a discussion of the various elements of the mythical duel. The consensus is that the duel was indeed a myth, but sniping in Stalingrad certainly wasn't.......