August Coenders' 9x19mm Belt-Fed MG 

it was too simple to be perfect, we need to over-engineer it first

Maybe it's just a part of a more complicated machine, like acoffee grinder, or something.

And it doesn't catch on fire after being transported 50km.

What are you talking about MP38/40 were the models of simplicity.

. . . . . marvellous marvellous!! I am a German and i must laughing!!! I mean it how i say, realy marvellous!!

and that owner happens to be the person I stole it from!

Huh, so I guess Malta has a Methhead problem too.

@@ironhead2008 probably sold it for scrap

@@ARF_average sad..

Surprised the owner hasn't hired a machinist to make a replica belt. They have all the Aberdeen photo's to go off of. Guess they never intend for it to be shot. Really I don't consider a feed belt a crucial 'original part'. A belt's a belt is a belt if you ask me. And this gun has all the parts that matter. Well, aside from the long lost top and barrel.

complicated is just another word for german

In USSR was similar project for belt-fed LMG in 7,62*25. For SAW-like use. It had 200-300-round belts. Gunner can cerry at liest 600 rounds in belts.

P.S. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAD_machine_gun

I recall a lot of early tanks with either excessive number of real machine guns, or a shortage of guns and just pistol ports. This type of firearm would of helped fill the gap.

It makes sense if this was, like Ian said, a point defense weapons meant for vehicles. No need for magazines if the weapons are not meant to move from position.

Underrated concept, a pistol caliber LMG.

I want my 22LR machine gun now.

@@Patrick-857 "Swarm of angry bees"

@@Patrick-857 imagine if someone fully worked the project out, and made a belt fed PCMG that was capable of several thousand rounds per minute. You'd need one hell of a gas port.

To play devil's advocate, it would suggest removing what makes a submachine gun/pistol/pdf so wonderful, which is the low weight and high maneuverability. As Ian mentioned, it could be a great weapon for a vehicle, especially ones for scouting. With that said, now you have to decide is it worth making a weapon with such a niche value? Yes, this would be perfect for a jeep but we can already put a browning on a jeep so why bother? Belt fed smgs actually came about during WW1 as a solution to clearing trenches more effectively. Now that it's WW2 and wonderful smgs like the PPSH are coming out, why bother? To me, this is one of those beautiful experiments that was made to solve an issue that would soon become obsolete. Yes, the Sega Dreamcast is very cool, it can clear trenches better than a shotgun or any other rifle but it came out a month after WW1 ended and now it's WW2 and we have Playstation 2s and Xboxes.

Or stalker, 😂

More like Fallout, but Metro is also a good reference.

@@markosofranic3905 I mean, it looks more similar to the Bastard than the pipe guns from Fallout.

It'd be so cool to find something like this in the new metro exodus game, maybe a belt feed mod for the bastard that replaces the feed strip

4:25 looks like something straight out of a original star wars film

Theres always more!

Agreed- I’ve never even heard of this one till now. It’s what makes this channel so interesting- the gun and the story behind it.

At least they will expend less ammo with the 9mm rather than the 7.92 :/

Chernobyl they had lights in their tanks in ww1 that’s pretty advanced for its time

Just mail it back, with no return postage, I don't think the collector will question it too hard.

Hell I'm pretty sure there's enough people here who would trade the stolen belt for a generic belt with no questions asked, just to recover the unique historical artefact.

Just mail it to Jeremy Paxman. It worked for that Enigma machine.

@@neilwilson5785 I had totally forgotten about that! But yeah, sometimes the recovery of the item is far far more important than any potential punishment....

That or just make someone do a repro. They have pictures, all they need is measurements.

I'm here mainly for the history. To me, the breakdown is a nice bonus. And interesting from an engineering perspective

Ian is such an articulate communicator. Glad he expanded to the historical site visits.

I watch it for Ian, he is so knowledgable and secure of his own knowledge that irradiates security while speaking, while never being pedantic.

yeah a lot of the breakdown stuff goes over my head but i love the stories of men with interesting ideas that just dont quite work out

Both

Can I see the Uzi in this gun? Looks like the Uzi was not that original after all!

@@Ofelas1 if he made it a grip magazine it could have been huge

@@soupbowl-jg6zb wrong group of people on the wrong channel to complain about political correctness

at less than 100 meters with no body armour, I would not want to be standing in front of it 9mm spraying everywhere that's a scary idea. people always underestimate the danger of pistol cal ammo.

A belt-fed gun is not ideal for an assaulter, you are not very mobile with a belt around your body. But a drum magazine version might works, like a PPSH very good for room clearing.

​@@macobuziWW1 tactics with belt fed weapons like this were that one or two persons carry the ammo and one person the gun.

Prolly someone just lost it and claimed it was stolen.

Crooks aren't too awful bright 😁

@@nunyabizness199 unless they're caught And I'm betting a one of a kind ww2 collectors item would be desired by collectors And I'm betting that's where it is right now

Braught his two buddies to dislike as well.

Why would you steal the belt of a gun that only one was made? What use would you have for it, its probably not even expensive

And six pranksters from 4Chan who didn't even watch the video.

@@mihalytorley5480 probably to just be glad to have the only copy as a collection item

Exactly. A shock weapon with good ammo supply. None of that switching magazines thing in the middle of a fight.

I agree with you, this makes sense in an urban warfare situation for Volkssturm units, as a support weapon. Looking at the picture of the original prototype, we can see that it is meant to be carried, not fixed inside a vehicle, and it fits to the standards of Volkssturm weapons (as described in the book "Desperate Measures" by W. Darrin Weaver) : use of simple materials (tubes, no extrusion), fewparts, economical (if crude) manufacture.

Actually, there was, kinda It was a side by side, 2 gun, worn on the chest/abdomen via a neckstrap.

Earlier Calico style weapon. Totally awesome.

That's basically what the Villar-Perosa was meant to do when they adapted it for ground troops. The main thing is, during the first world war there were many feeding systems still in use, and belt feed was actually not entirely the norm. That combined with that many of the more ingenious designs in the war were weapons that were developed prior to the outbreak of war, that were later adopted by the military mid conflict once they saw their usefulness (like the Lewis gun). R&D is expensive enough that generally, if you were in charge it made more sense to make/buy more guns then waste money developing new designs. Submachine guns are a rare example of a weapon type that ended up being developed in the midst of the war, as prior to the outbreak of war the prevailing sentiment was that engagements would be all at long range, and require accurate, slower fire. You see that with all the powerful, long range guns everyone had going in to the conflict. They're all basically built for sniping, but without optics. If you were planning on developing a gun to sell to the military, it would probably be a waste of time to try and make a pistol calibur automatic. They wouldn't have bought it. While in the middle of world war 1, they didn't really have the time resources to develop a gun like that. It took till basically the last 2 months of the war for SMGS to even be fielded, and they barely made it in. TLDR It might have been a great concept, but it's a hard sell to the military so it's not surprising we dont hear of anyone developing something like that, or if they did they probably couldnt sell it and lost money in the endeavor.

Now I have the image of Ian cradling that MG and feeding it from baby bottle. Gun oil.

Taistelukalkkuna Also he has the gun Jesus outfit and is healing the gun and forgiving it's sins.

In the Aberdeen rebuilt configuration, it basically is. I love it.

When a daddy MG42 and a mommy MG42 love each other very much...

Tricked by Aberdeen

TugaAvenger The only difference is that this gun still exists and the Hellriegel is only present in pictures.

I don't get why some people are so upset by BF1 and BFV. I just think of them as alternate history, because unlike many inaccurate historical films such as Braveheart, those games never claim to be based on true story.

@@coolsenjoyer Well, when they try to say the games are accurate to history...

@@zelpyzelp What, you mean DICE and EA trying to say Battlefield games are historically accurate? Where have they ever done that?

EA/Dice said that they were trying to create a documentary about the era while also taking creative liberties... which defeats the purpose of 'documenting' it. It'd be like telling kids that 9/11 was committed by space aliens to 'make it more fun' for them to learn about.

Yeah. And here is some related pictures: www.kalashnikov.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ulanov-3.jpg www.kalashnikov.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ulanov-5.jpg

Mmh i wonder how usefuld this would be

@@junichiroyamashita it would be something like M249 with a weaker round, a WW2 SAW.

@@CruelDwarf yes,so lighter and easier to control

​@@junichiroyamashita The irony is that it most likely would have been in combat service. But when (summer 1943) the Soviet troops captured one MKb42(H)...with 4 catrigdes lol... "We must started to develop our, soviet guns for intermediate cartridges " was became a priority of the work. And all this things with developing the MG's with a pistol cartridge was stopped.

Exactly. For close quarters and a good ammo supply. Like was needed in Germany at the end. The fools.

It seems good for the time, all they needed was a sort of hard clip like some machineguns were issued and it would have been a fine and usable weapon

but at the same time you're loosing a lot of the benefits of a mounted gun in that you can fire a heavier round and not care because there's no recoil and that heavier round can do more than just anti personnel

@@DumbArse what?

Submarines

Great for urban or fortress defense, where you expect short ranges and need compactness but are interested in sustained fire.

Why not haha?

A lot of trouble was basically what they did then. After WWII everyone, America, Russia, France etc. wanted to make sure they got as much of the Research funded by the NAZI war machine as possible. Mostly the Allies had spent the War years on the back foot when it came to technology and it was only when the manufacturing capabilities of the US took the pressure off the issue of replacing lost materials they could move from "Must have" to "We'd kinda like" when it came to weapons and munitions. The iconic Spitfire is a good example, there simply weren't the facilities and the materials to make enough of them quickly so the Hurricane, which was designed to be made more quickly and far less expensively, bore the brunt of the fighting.

@@cptreech The British were producing like 400 fighters per month during the Battle of Britain where as the Luftwaffe was only producing about 170 ME109 per month.

@@cptreech Your example of the spitfire is not apt at all. The reason the Hurricane was used more widely is that it was adopted for service earlier and so was tooled up faster, many Spitfires used during the Battle of Britain had been privately purchased. During the battle of britain Hurricanes where delegated to attack bomber formations to allow the Spitfires to engage any fighter escorts

@@bengrogan9710 The Spitfires engaging the 109s is what allowed the slow and sluggish but much faster to produce Hurricane to engage the bombers. Without the Spitfires NATZI losses would have been negligible leading to badness things.

That would make for a really high rate of fire, or at least the potential for one. The ShKAS could run at up to 3000 RPM...

@Marcus Bralic The MIKROMI.

which game? Is it on steam? I have loads of ugly gun design pictures and a lot of cursed guns pics.

But this gun looks cool enough to me. Some games already implemented this gun, like in Enlisted.

You know how the Maltese can be.

So much happiness the you would only steal the belt

@@bananawhisperer6929 I wish they could at least find a scrap of the original belt. For posterity you know.

Brrrt, brrrt

A different approach would be 50 to 75 round, disintegrating link belt. Simpler to mfg. and smaller than a drum and does not protrude like a high capacity stick.

@@hrentr Yeah, that would work if you have the manufacturing capacity to spare, but this was towards the end so i´m sure a re-usable belt would have looked more enticing.

I was thinking of not having a long tail flopping around in close quarters.

@@hrentr Makes sense, could have it disconnect every 50 rounds like the belts of today perhaps?

Good night fighting gun for infrared equipped troops

neodoc1976 Must be german.

Like a orgy with MG-42 , STEN and Sa vz.23

+neodoc1976 The bolt meets up with the barrel in front of where the trigger is, so I don't think it can be considered a bullpup.

Feed system is in front of the trigger

I know, the most important part of the story wasn't told.

Caliber has nothing to do with rate of fire.

@@rcbif101 True. I just guessed a weapon in 9x19 would be more controllable with 1500 rpm than a weapon chambered for lets say 8mm mauser or any other full power rifle cartridge with the same rof.

william sullivan a Maltese collector bought it.

@@flatsurfaces1913 Well, that was anti-climactic, but likely the whole story.

How did this leave the hands of the US Arsenal that tested it?

@@John1911 money changed hands...

Not the question I am asking. Did Aberdeen clean out their reference collection? Was it surplussed? Did this happen once in history or was it an on-going process every so often? It's hard to get the GOV to give up anything. That's gotta be a story in itself.

There was a video on youtube years ago where someone made a belt fed 12 Gauge upper receiver for an AR15. I believe it was entirely home/shop made.

That was a Dyshka turned into auto shotgun Im pretty sure, still never used it in that game, pure garbage Id say.

@@reanukeeves4436 That gun is pretty good actually, especially when dozen of mutant running toward you.

@@crocholiday409 That gun looks badass, it just like a scale down auto cannon

There was a video about a belt-fed shotgun. The thing is...it had a LOT OF STOPPAGES....probably, because of the short casings

@yasya 1991 r\whoosh

Maybe the blade was horizontal, so if you're out of ammo you'd swing it in the port from side to side.

No, it's German, so obviously the missing top cover has a slide mount for an overly complicated optics system, while the barrel originally had a Lafette adapter and a slot for an anti-aircraft sight...

Alex Vogel that would be freaking crazy to shoot down a plane with a 9 mm. I could see that happening!

@yasya 1991 no we're is the m203 grenade launcher. Maybe a gp 25 launcher if you like that

I was wondering that too. As you say the only thing that could been interesting about the gun would have been the feed mechanism., and they had to make that themselves. Someone did a nice job on it though. Possibly they were thinking that if they make it work and try it out, it may become obvious what it could be used for. It's also possible that they had people hanging around looking for things to work on.

They found a 9mm SMG being developed in a country with several better, established weapons of that category in current production. Doesn't that hint that there may be some non-obvious advantage to this design?

Why not? They get to have fun, and can say they kept it for a purpose

The idea is the same premise that led to the aircooled Browning 1919 a aircooled belt fed machine gun for firing from a tanks ports with a maximum required range of about 100to200yrds! Only this thing would weight alot less than a 1919!

Because that's what they do at Aberdeen, test weapons, not just US made but any they can get their hands on.

William Sager Germans and Soviets both used green tracers. Soviets used red and other colors too. Japanese tracers were blue. Americans started using 15 or 20 white tracers at the end of 50 cal links in p51s to warn pilots when they were low on ammo. german interrogators, who were probably the best in the world at the time, figured this out via interviewing pilot POWs. That's all I really know...

NATO and the US military in other theaters use Red Tracers. Usually 1 in 5 is a tracer. North Korea used to use to use green tracers. Although that could have changed. During WW2 in the Pacific theater after a certain point tracers were removed from the belts of Aircraft guns because tracers and ball ammunition have different ballistics. At long range if the tracers are hitting, the ball ammunition is missing. Air to air combat kills went up.

It's an excellent book.

Only belt fed with the belt missing :DD

Isn't it a submachine gun instead?could it be a new weapon category??

Like a cheap water pistol's

So in English, it's pronounced as Coonders. Like moon and spoon etc.

Hummm yes, that would be best, or at least much better. Dastardly English, making language simpler losing sounds and fowels..