What if STG44 was...

Correct, C. Hitler thought that giving most trops full-auto weapons would lead to much wasted ammunition. In fact, at one point Hitler was shown one of the early prototypes of the weapon (not StG44 at that point- mp43?), he dismissed it and ordered all research and production stopped. But since the designers had heard about how much the troops liked the weapon, they simply re-named it so in records it would show that they were researching a new machinegun, something Hitler did approve of.
He finally found out about the continued production when a general at a meeting requested more "of those new amazing rifles our troops have been getting"! Hitler relented upon hearing about the weapon's performance, and only then did it go into full production.

Not sure what you mean with teh Seelow heights comment...

 

Seelow heights, Carl. Seelöwe was another thing...

Yes, Erich. I had read that too. I think he met with Walter Model, one of his favourite commanders and asked him with a smile in his face: 'Tel me what you need and I will give it to you' Model (it was perhaps another one) 'Well, more of those new rifles...' Hitler asked 'Rifles? Which rifles?' Model explained better and described the rifle, the Sturmgewehr and then, Hitler took his order back of not manufacturing it.

 

Not sure if it was Model specifically, but that's the story I read..
Interesting- I would have thought Hitler would have loved the StG44.
It's also kind of interesting that production did keep going even before Hitler changed his mind. That was quite a risk for Hanael (initail production company) to take. They must have really had some good foresight...

 

That article sounds interesting, Crazy.

Any excuse to play with my MP44 - as everyone's said, the fire-selector switch is the milled 'push-through' button.
I must say that every filmclip I've seen of German troops firing the gun - they're using full auto !

Absolutely right that the weapon is impossible to disassemble in the field due to 'crimped' construction, particularly in the frame/receiver area. On the other hand, basic field-strip is very quick and simple. The ejection port does have a spring-loaded cover but when in action - it's wide open leaving the entire, fairly complex dropping-bolt assembly vulnerable to dust and grit.

I still just lurrve it, though !

 

It is a really interesting article, although it does only focus on technical info- no history or action. here's the info- Full Auto (yearly pub.), Volume 2, #1, 1985, Harris Publications.
I've seen the same thing- seems the german troops only really used full-auto.

Nice- you've got one! How hard was it to find, and what condition? And out of curiousity, what about the kick/climb? Or is yours semi-only?
And what about England's notoriuosly strong gun laws (good for England!)?
(sorry for all the questions! )

 

England's notoriously strong gun-laws means it's a deact !

But it's an 'early' deact, which means that it hasn't been totally vandalised and is complete with recycling bolt etc. It's a nice, very clean 1944-dated gun bought in 1996 from a dealer I know very well who always lets me have the pick of his stock. He'd fired a couple of the guns prior to deactivation and said that it was a delight to fire, low recoil and little muzzle blast. Refer also to R. Bruce's 'Live Firing - German Automatic Weapons' book for a good description.

The joke is - there are now none available in the UK and re-enactor groups are going crazy to find MP44's. My dealer friend recently sold one for £1,000 and another was advertised last month for £1,200. If only I'd bought half-a-dozen, I'd be sitting on a 500% profit !

Sure beats WorldCom shares.....

 

Hi Crazy, my Seelowe Heights comment was a sort of what if.

If those men there all had STG-44s, I think not only having given the russians a bloody nose and sore chin, that also might have given Heinrici more time and might have been able to bring in some reenforcements to stop this russian attack towards Berlin. Now I well know that at that stage of the war--they would not be stopped, BUT, had these been much more mass-produced--I think that at that time--they might have given the russians much much more than they had bargained for.

The average russian unit strengths at that time, were almost as bad as the German unit strengths were. Its possible that the attacking russians would have been hit harder than they ever thought, and might have made them stop this advance and rethink their strategies. This might have aklso given the Germans more time to get more people and forces--to the West for surrender.

 

Gotcha, Carl. I actually got back on the Seelow Heights battle on the under-appreciated on the ostfron thread. I haven't read too much (see comments there!), but from what I've read I wonder about the StG44 making TOO much of a difference there. The ammo consumption probably would have been an issue. I wonder how many troops there DID have an StG44?
But more to the point, I get the idea that the germans were just really overwhelmed by that point. How were the defensive positions at Seelow? Was that a good part of Heinrici's success- his use of the terrain?

Nice find, Martin! That's a great collector's item for us ww2 nuts! Especially if the action cycles and, like you said, it's still in good condition.
And you know, I can't say I disagree with the deact part. Although you do sound repsonsible and whatnot , it gets a bit ridiculous when civilians can out-gun any law enforcement. Look at the US! I love this country, but the gun problem in the US really gets to me, despite my interest in military history (do guns really play an important role in wars? hmmm ). I've seen some pretty crazy stuff, often in the hands of people who should definetely not own ANY weapon...

Anything with a "com" in it seems to be a losing bet right now!
Oh, except of course "ww2n.com"!

[ 03 August 2002, 02:03 AM: Message edited by: CrazyD88 ]

 

There are a couple of points I would like to make.

The concept of the stg44 was first tried in combat with the mkb42 in cholm in russia. It worked very well. In fact the russians wanted to make a assault rifle of their own. That's why the 7.62x39mm round is designates m43 which means it came out befor the stg44. the only problem is that it takes a long time to desing a new gun and trials were done from 1943 untill 1947 when the ak 47 came out.

Also Adolph hitler did not care for experimental hand held full auto weapons other than sub machine guns. WHen he first found out about the stg44 he whent into a rage that it was developed with out his approval. Only when it was demonstrated befor him did he change his mind. so up untill then it had to be kept relativly secret and wasn't deployed in massive quantities.

Third point

There was talk about changing to a simi/full auto rifle with a smaller cartridge as early as the 1930's but the idea was dropped because there was over a billion rounds of 7.92x57mm ammo on stock and to make it obsolete would be very costly.

William P.

 

True. There was even a sort of proto-assault rifle built by 1935 called the "Vollmer MKb" or something like that. Nice weapon. But expensive.

It's a bit like the modern German army's choice between the G11, G36 and G41. They went the middle way this time.