Isegoria

Range is seldom important in a sub-gun, Dunlap notes, but sometimes it’s nice to have:

A guy I know ran into a couple of Japs on Luzon, while carrying a Thompson. They were 200 yards away and had rifles. The Japs got away and he got a bullet-hole through one of his best legs. He could shoot fair, too. But he did not have a gun to shoot 200 yards with, though he said he scared hell out of them.

Germany started the war with bolt guns and then developed a semi-automatic rifle, the Gewehr 41, that was, as Dunlap puts it, “not a production-line weapon.” They also developed some submachine guns:

The submachine gun appealed to the German mind as a fine weapon, though they fooled around and never put out any one model in any quantity excepting the Schmeisser Models 38 and 40. This is the familiar machine pistol, the all-metal and plastic “burp” gun with the folding stock and Buck Rogers styling. Originally intended as an in-between weapon, to replace pistols and rifles in the hands of special units such as paratroopers, motorcycle and bicycle troops, tank men and special guards, it became so popular that it seemed just about every fourth Kraut had one. The other three? One had a Mauser with a telescopic sight; one had a Spandau all to himself, with unlimited ammunition; and the fourth man had an 88. If you think I am exaggerating much, just ask the nearest guy who lived through Italy. Jerry really had firepower.

The MP 38 and MP 40 were known as Schmeissers — to us, that is:

The MP 40 was often called the “Schmeisser” by the Allies, after the weapon designer Hugo Schmeisser. Schmeisser had designed the MP 18, which was the first mass-produced submachine gun in the world, and carried some resemblance to the MP 40. He did not, however, have anything to do with the design or development of the MP 40, although he held a patent on the magazine.

A Spandau was any German machine gun:

The [MG 42] (like the MG 34) was sometimes called “Spandau” by British troops, a traditional generic term for all German machine guns, left over from the famous Allied nickname for the MG 08 Maxim-derivative used by German forces during World War I and derived from its manufacturer’s plates noting the city of Spandau where some were produced.

An 88 was an 8.8 cm Flak gun:

Paul Fussell wrote that American troops “knew that the greatest single weapon of the war, the atomic bomb excepted, was the German 88 mm flat-trajectory gun, which brought down thousands of bombers and tens of thousands of soldiers. The Allies had nothing as good”. The 88 mm was used in two main roles: as a mobile heavy anti-aircraft and as an anti-tank gun. Other uses included firing in support of the troops at the front; and as a more static anti-aircraft gun for home defence.

Dunlap had a few things to say about submachine guns:

The little squirt gun, which is the only German gun to our notion that deserves their name of machine pistol rather than be known as a machine carbine or submachine gun, has been ridiculed by a lot of people who should know better. Sure, it is no long-range gun and it shoots too fast and it looks funny, but it killed a lot of people just the same. There is nothing amusing about the way one sounds when the proprietor holds the trigger down a second or two.

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The M40 was simply the 38 with all possible machining and manufacturing operations omitted or simplified.

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The Jerries had trouble; a lot of them managed to snag that handle on the back of the belt or the shirt or bandolier, with the result that it pulled out of the safety notch, the bolt flipped forward, scooped up a cartridge on the way and finished by shooting our superman in the leg or the seat of the pants, depending on how he had hung the gun on himself.

It was even rumored that sometimes the bolt received a little unofficial help. In a lot of spots a nice clean 9mm hole through the calf of the leg or a gouge across the fanny can look like a damned good ticket out of a front line hole.

Prewar Germany went in for shooting, Dunlap notes:

Prewar Germany went in for shooting, everything from smallbore prone work to the schuetzen game, with emphasis on the military training angle of course. One of the training aids was a conversion unit for the Mauser military rifle and consisted of a complete .22 caliber long rifle bolt action and barrel which could be inserted into any 1898 Mauser.

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Mauser and Walther were the principal suppliers of such “Wehrsportgewehren,” though Germany had literally dozens of small arms plants that turned out all sorts of weapons.

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Air rifles came in all prices and classes, most if not all being far above the American “BB gun” and capable of fair accuracy at short range. However, I doubt if the Germans equalled the British in precision pneumatic guns, either rifle or pistol type.

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I believe these arms were furnished in both 4mm and 6mm, known in this country as .17 or .177 caliber and .22 caliber, the projectiles being either round lead balls, darts, or spool-shaped pellets, generally known as pells, or skirted pellets, made of chilled lead.

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However, the old-time European indoor favorite was the 4mm rim fire cartridge, which we would probably call a .17 caliber. There were several different cartridges in this class and innumerable rifles.

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These rifles were always singleshot falling or drop-block actions, with set-triggers, fancy adjustable target sights, heavy barrels and schuetzen buttplates, deeply curved for holding on the upper arm rather than resting against the shoulder. Palm rests, for the left hand, were almost universal. The rifles were of the type familiar to us as “Swiss” although the German guns were usually not of as high quality as the true Swiss weapons. The receivers or frames were not required to stand high pressures and often they were of plain cast-iron. Most of them had some engraving of sorts for decoration.

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Stocks were normal allround types, rather than the special-purpose schuetzen style, and some of the later ones were of plastic, made of fine and coarse woven cloths impregnated with phenolic resin and pressure-moulded to size and shape at an angle, which gave them an appearance of grained walnut.

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The 4mm ammunition was available in many types—rim fire, center fire rimless (bottlenecked case) light loads, full loads, short, long, et cetera. German gun cranks could purchase cases and bullets separately and assemble their own. Most of the cartridges used no propelling powder, utilizing only the primer to expel the bullet, as done in our original .22 Bullet Breech Caps.

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The 4mm class of arm was principally a sporting item and the .22 was the military training caliber. In the U. S. from 1840 to 1890 indoor rifles for very light percussion loads and .22 rim fire “caps” enjoyed a limited popularity as “parlor” or “salon” rifles, but such equipment never reached the use here that the “Kleinkaliberbuchsen” did in Europe.

I was not familiar with the schuetzen game. This Shooting USA piece explains the sport:

The Germans had variety in their weapons also, but for a different reason than Italy, Dunlap notes — they were utilizing captured equipment:

Having Europe pretty well pocketed in 1941, the Nazis could afford to be choosy. After 1942 they could not be quite so hard to please. However, the Afrika Korps did have quite a collection of small arms, which we persuaded them to turn over to us, bit by bit, in the course of time. Being wise in matters of ordnance, Jerry did not devote much of his time to second-rate stuff, or items which were hard to supply. No French or Russian rifles ever came in, for instance. If such equipment was kept at all, it probably went to the German home guard, along with their own obsolete rifles and machine guns.

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The eagle-and-swastika Nazi stamp will be al’ over everything.

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The 98K’s started out with stocks of good European walnut but ended up with anything handy to the sawmill. I have a new rifle, dated 1942, which has a stock of beech. One of my friends sent home a later rifle with a laminated, or plywood stock.

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The German rifle is practically a twin in dimensions to its cousin, the 1903 Springfield.

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For some reason the Germans were addicted to installing a metal fitting in the buttstock, with a small hole passing completely through the stock. This aperture was originally invented for the purpose of providing a perfect fitting for passing a rod through to lock in rifle racks at night. It can and has been used for many things, including that purpose, but also to receive organizational insignia; spring catches to hold the weapon tight in vehicle racks; to hold the point of the firing pin when taking apart the bolt mechanism; and to hang the damned gun on a nail when you have a wall with a nail in it. This aperture fitting does not weigh much or take much of a cut in the stock, but it cannot help but tend to weaken it a certain amount.

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Later on they may have gone to web slings. We did. They are better, in my opinion, for military use than leather, though the best of all materials was the Japanese rubberized canvas. It won’t rot, mold, mildew, get slippery or stretch.

Once he gets going on guns and ammo, Dunlap really gets going:

If you are interested, barrel life with steeljacketed projectiles, copper or gilding-metal plated, runs approximately 60% of that when softer alloy jackets are used. Unplated steeljacketed bullets cut barrel life 50%. This when fired in standard barrels with Mauser or Enfield type sharp-land and sharp-groove rifling; with segmental rifling or with radius-groove type, barrel life can be prolonged perhaps 15% to 20%.

On tracers:

Color of the trace may be green, yellow, white, red, or a combination, green changing to red as the composition burns in flight.

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German tracers were the best put out by any country; ballistics were excellent and the white and yellow colors were perfectly visible in the bright desert sunshine against buff-colored sand dunes as a background.

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One explanation for the variety of tracer colors was that for night use it was possible to identify particular guns, and to signal with them and otherwise improvise special communications in the field according to locally prearranged plans. This was done quite a bit in Italy, German scouts pinpointing Allied points with long-range tracer crossfire from either rifle or machine gun.

On the 9-mm cartridge:

The standard loading for the regular cartridge called for a 124-grain bullet at approximately 1,050 FPS out of the short-barreled M’08 pistol. It is known throughout the world as the Parabellum cartridge.

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The German ‘08 alternate cartridge appeared in the field in 1941 in small quantities, but within two years was the only type in production. This is the “black” cartridge, officially the “M’08 mit Eisenkern,” or “with iron core.” The case is steel; bullet is steel-jacketed, with mild steel core; the jacket is plated with copper inside and out, and the entire bullet and case are blackened for identification and rustproofing. The bullet weighs only 98-grains and has a heavier propelling charge than the standard load, but contrary to previous reports, this cartridge is perfectly safe to use in any 9mm caliber ‘08 pistol in good condition. I have shot hundreds of them through Lugers and Walthers. Velocity is quite high—I do not know the exact figures, but breech pressures are no higher than in the standard loading, due to the light bullet. The cartridge was intended primarily for the machine pistols, or submachine guns and does not give particularly good results in handguns, but is not dangerous.

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Winchester loaded some 9mm Luger ammunition during the war, using 115-grain bullets. This was the finest ammunition we could locate in early 1943, and the only kind equal to the older (prewar) German stuff.

On the Italians:

The Italians went off the deep end on ordnance. Apparently anybody’s brother-in-law could sell his pet caliber or model or modification. And as previously stated, they never got rid of anything. It might die a natural death, but as long as it was not actually broken, it stayed in service even if it was the only one of its kind. Anything collected in a war was kept for use in that and all future wars, regardless of whether or not it was worth keeping, using or supplying.

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Undoubtedly some of the confusion in velocity figures on Italian ammunition is due to their nonchalant use of any propellant handy at the time they were loading a batch. I broke down many cartridges, and sometimes found different components in the same rifle clip.

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Ballistically it was OK; the long bullet had good range, was accurate enough, gave great penetration, but had failed to stop angry Africans.

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Two different 8mm rimmed cartridges were loaded by Italy. One was the old 8mm Mannlicher, formerly the Austrian service cartridge, called by the Germans the 8mm Austrian M93 cartridge, Ogival; Italy collected quite a few Austrian rifles and machine guns as her part of the loot in the World War I settlement, and decided to use them till they fell apart.

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From Italian ammunition we can go to Italian weapons. Rifles: Lots of them, all different in some respect or other; to cover their endless modifications would take a bigger book than this can be and there are only about a dozen true models.

Roughly one-tenth of the way into Ordnance Went Up Front, Dunlap gets to the supposed topic:

The old .303 British Mark VII is still about the best man-stopper in a service rifle cartridge. Why? Well, I’ll tell you, but you’ll probably have to cut one open to convince yourself. That 174-grain flat based bullet is very scientifically balanced, or perhaps, unbalanced. The lead core does not fill the jacket completely; the first ³/₈” inside the tip is aluminum (some wartime loadings have tenite or other light plastics). Result, the bullet spins on its axis and is accurate enough, but when it hits something it flips over on its side and causes a little more trouble than it ordinarily would; not always, but usually. The Germans haven’t squawked too much about it being a dumdum so it must not have been too vicious. It slaps men down quite satisfactorily, and is considered usable on game of the deer class as a fairly effective hunting bullet. Not recommended, but then not bad.