Just a thought. How many of the pieces produced between 1934/39 were for export? Spain and South American countries etc. If this was significant perhaps this would account for more pieces being made than required at the time in Germany.
Just a thought. How many of the pieces produced between 1934/39 were for export? Spain and South American countries etc. If this was significant perhaps this would account for more pieces being made than required at the time in Germany.
Yes, a good point the pre-war period would include the Spanish contract of 1935 and to Portugal in 1937. But then there is the other German State authority purchases and what is referred as "commercial" bayonets. Are these also lumped into Andy's tally. Hopefully he will detail it all out for us.
I'm afraid that the export situation might be a a little more complicated than has been outlined. For example with Spain getting some later (post Civil War) new manufacture Behörden type bayonets, the Japanese and Swedish contracts the possible but not verified "Tr" batch of bayonets, the 1941 Portuguese contract etc. Some of them specifying German Army inspections, some not, and even some taken from German Army stores. The Behörden types for entities inside Germany itself (and possible Allies) also complicated but for the most part made outside the purview of the Army inspectors. Best Regards, Fred
No one says the estimate of production from Serial numbers is fully correct, its only rough estimate on reported serial numbers from collectors.
-firstly the pieces could be missreported as not all have a photo evidence,
-some collectors didnt correctly designate the letter of series, mainly by script or sutterlin fonts,
-the reported numbers mainly on prewar production was lower quantity,
-there is minimum 5-10% statistical error,
-there was done approximation to 10000 pcs of the range, so when someone reported a 3194c it was assumed the complete c range was fullfilled,
-in case that only 4000 bayonets of that producer and year were delivered in range c as sample, so its automatically added 6000 pcs reported over real numbers.
-there are many difficulties in 1934-7 years as by some manufacturers were realised continously serialing in various years, not used letter by series and various others
Previous points are reason for publishing only the 1938-45 estimate because of production from war years was better reported as prewar years.
From mentioned source book and original german period documents of Kar98k orders ,i could say, the 1942 or 1943 years estimate of total numbers S84/98 corespond with numbers of rifles Kar98k, bayonets were always ordered in 15-25% higher ammount as rifles. So the overall ammount of bayonets is always higher as produced rifles. Same as this S84/98 were used on K29/40, G12/34, G33/40, G98/40 rifles too.
From reported numbers is clear 1935 production was highest production year of 1934-37 period, and the 1934 and 1936 production years are the lowest.
Is possible large ammount of 1935 marked production was already full ended in 1936 even G coded for 1935!
The ammount of 1934-38 was estimated for higher as 3 millions. Anyway as there are still errors its real the numbers are lower.
Merry Christmas to all.
Thanks Andy, your details of the methodology confirms what we all realized, that there was a fair sized margin of error built in to what could be called "best estimates".
But I'm still curious as to the actual yearly production "estimates" for 1934, 1936, 1937 and 1938. Be nice to see the numbers you are looking at for each year.
AWS ..please follow this link > 2 Numbered K98 Bayonets
I moved the posts to start a new thread separate and apart from this thread.
Regards Larry
It is not the size of a Collection in History that matters......Its the size of your Passion for it!!- Larry C
One never knows what tree roots push to the surface of what laid buried before the tree was planted - Larry C
“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” - Winston Churchill
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