Hi B.B.
They were the same nature as captured k98s with miss matched parts. The Russians didn't use them as such, but were kept in reserve in case of WW3 so they wouldn't find themselves in the same pickle as in 1941 and not having enough firearms. As we all know, no WW3 so the Russians supplied captured German guns to allies and alike so they could deny who supplied the weapons. ie German made not Russian, nothing to do with us honest!
Jonathan.
An interesting piece of information. With the amount of firearms the USSR produced, it's a testament to the size of the country and its army that they still often came up short.by severin
B.B.
Truly an awesome piece and your's was a great history lesson for me. Quite a machine gun for it's day. I believe there is a site in a state close by to me where one can actually fire one of these guns. Ain't cheap but would be a thrill to experience the cyclic rate of fire of one of these. Thanks for showing yours.
Glad to show it. I believe the cyclic rate on these was reduced from that of the MG42, but still a regular bullet hose.
B.B.
M53 850 rpm
Mg42, very early (not for long) 1500 rpm
But normal rate of the Mg42 was 1200 rpm.
Jonathan.
Agree, no German weapons were produced in the former Yugoslavia. That claim was also used by a Canadian importer to sell M48 rifles years back. The closest facilities were in Austria.
Pat
This is because as any body who has ever used any type of MG in the light or sustained fore role knows that the rates of rire initially performed by MG42 are actually ludicrously wasteful and even damaging to the weapon. With such a high rate of fire many rounds are wasted as for every one that hits a target (say an infantry section in extended line perhaps) several pass between into nothing. Again, in the light role a gunner who fires bursts of more than of 3 - 5 rds is probably mis-employed and won't hit much with anything after his first five rounds. Also wear is excessive and barrel overheating a major problem. Most light MG eg FN MAG , British L7 series GPMG, US M60 and the remanufactured MG3 (former MG42) operate at between 500 - 750 Rds per Minute. Not as dramatic but much more effective in most criteria!
MG42 can however be considered at least to be the father (or mother) of most MG that followed, a very impressive design that just needed "tweeking".
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Quite if the Russians ever intended to use the thousands of K98's, P38's, MG34 and Thompsons etc. which came out of the Ukraine in the 1990's is questionable. They also clearly had thousands of Brown .30 Machine Guns at one time supplied with Lend Lease Tanks. Some say they were for supply to friendly countries within the Communist Sphere of Influence. It would have made no sense to issue them domestically.
The reason they stored so much war-time small arms was because I was told in the case of invasion they wanted to be able to equip every able bodied man with a weapons system they used to using during their military service. The Ukrainan store is presumably one of many dotted round the old Russian empire so huge amounts of rare weaponry must have been cut up in recent years. A very knowledgeable MG Belt Collector I know got very excited when he noticed in some of my pictures WW1 Marlin MG Belts being used as holding open straps on some of Ryton's Sokolov Boxes. Unfortunately by that time they had dumped all their remaining boxes.
The Yugoslavs did refit assorted German made arms as the first task of the post war rebuilt arsenal that had originally been set up by FN pre WW2 so that Royalist Yugoslavia would be self sufficient in small arms-it then made a wide variety of adapted and original designs-the Yugoslavs under Tito were very obsessed with being self sufficient and independent of the Soviets under Uncle Joe-highly unlikely that they accepted R/C stuff from his regime when large quantities of ex German equipment was captured by Tito's Partisans during and at the end of the war-they had also received large quantities of US and British equipment during the war and post war as well-the Western Allies had wanted to keep influence with Tito and much of this stuff was packed away in local arms depots in places like schools. factories and govt buildings so that a militia/guerilla force could be armed if needed-Tito feared a Soviet invasion due to his refusal to toe the Soviet line-much of this stuff was pulled out in the bitter civil wars of the late 80s and 90s
Lithgow,
The factory at Kragujevac was heavily damaged during the war and many if not most of the repairs and reworks of pre-war and wartime rifles were done at smaller workshops and facilities, like Radionica 124 and 145, T.R.Z. 5, Zabod 44, and other smaller shops. Reworked Yugoslav Model 1924 rifles (later designated 'M.24/47') appear to have outnumbered the reworked K98k rifles.
Pat
Similar Threads
Posting Permissions
.
Bookmarks