Reichswehr Training MG08 Mock-up.

[MilitariaOne]

Greetings all,

This is not an actual firearm and is not a World War I item, but I figured this would be the best category to list it in. I visited a private collection (it will stay that way, so there’s no need to inquire on the 5Ws) this past weekend and out of all the actual weapons displayed, I found this training device the most interesting.

The owner informed me that it was a Reichswehr era training device to replicate the MG08 during training exercises. When I asked about the device’s function, he operated the visible wooden handled crank at the rear and out came a loud metal on metal plinking sound. It remains a very neat item of which I had never seen or heard of before. You can see the angled metal flaps on the top which focuses the sound of the device like a megaphone towards where it is pointing. I have seen wooden mock ups and replicas weapons for training before, but never something so functional and robust.

Regards,

Lance

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