Allies, 1945:. The new German automatic carbine is inaccurate, too heavy, and not combat effective. Allies 1946: We need our own version of the new German automatic carbine ASAP.
@@Playing096 that was americas fault: .30 cal or bust and offered up the M14 which basically was just an updated garand and a BAR with the problems of the latter. The original FN FAL was supposed to use the .280 British which was an intermediate cartridge like the STG44's 7.8mm Kurz.
@@Playing096 not all is lost for the EM-2 because it went on to become the infamous SA-80 notably the L85A1 but the A2, and A3 is just as good as any other service rifle out there.
Heck, I remember seeing footage of Syrian rebels using them early on in the civil war. Apparently, they found a container with about 5000 of them back in 2012. Also, when the ammo ran out, they were selling them off for $50-70.
The design philosophy behind the StG-44 was to be cheaply mass produced, but reliable for combat conditions. The general idea was that if a soldier shot out the barrel or the receiver became damaged a new rifle could easily replace it. This didn't take into account late-war Germany's economy and logistical train, so the reality was far different. Still, the rifle is rather easily damaged, but a competent gunsmith could get it back into working order within a few hours of labor. The magazines and the receiver stampings are the most vulnerable parts, and even today many collectors are hesitant to fire their StG-44's because of metal fatigue.
Yeah but that doesn't explain the intel report, if the weapon was truly believed to be better you'd bet they'd push that up the chain to get something in the works. The goal is still to win the war, you can develop and similar weapon and lie to the boots on the ground.
-Reading these allied and Soviet Evaluations of the StG 44 is surreal. They're almost completely from a technical without tactical context. It's like criticizing a pistol or sub machine gun compared to a rifle for not having enough range without considering the benefits of weight and rate of fire. -The M1 Garand Rifle probably had the most powerful rifle round of any combatant yet the US Army regarded the M1 Garand when using Iron Sights only accurate to 250 yards. That's well within the ability of the StG 44 and I doubt a German Squad with StG 44 engaging an American with M1 Rifles would be at a disadvantage at 200m-250m. The US of course made great use of the M1 Carbine which had slightly less range than the StG 44 showing that the US itself had a practical need.
@@cefb8923 I think the internal politics of the U.S. Army Ordinance, its Springfield arsenal was Byzantine. Robert McNamara regarded them as stodgy, excessively bureaucratic and incompetent he had them disbanded. You just need to look at the decision to create 7.62 NATO and strong arm Europe into accepting it despite the British Enfield 281 round clearly being superior. The British even created higher velocity variants to address US army concerns over range. In many ways US Army Ordinance was “worse than Hitler” as Hitler at least allowed the StG 44 to go ahead as a long range (300m) submachine gun replacement for the MP40 and accepted. It took a U.S. Airforce General Curtis’s LeMay to finally get the M16 accepted into service and even then the U.S. army ruined it by 1 reformulating the propellant without testing leading to 10000psi increased pressure that caused jamming. Let’s also remember the M14 was in general so poorly made it dispersed 10 inches at 150 yards which eliminated any advantage of the more powerful round. Basically US army ordinance and Springfield were stodgy, over opinionated and incompetent. I wouldn’t trust them to a fair evaluation
Comment. It turns out that German Army Ordinance testing of the StG 44 versus the standard K98 rifle for accuracy indicated to StG 44 was MORE accurate at 600m than the standard rifle round for ordinary soldiers
I remember hearing about this, most of them weren't impressed bc it was the middle ground between an mp40 and k98, funnily enough that's why it was a great idea.
If they didn't already have a 'middle ground' carbine that weighed about half as much (as noted in the video), they probably would have been more impressed.
The primary purpose of the intelligence bulletins was to present stilted information to US combat troops in an effort to improve their morale. In the 1944 military, "improve morale" means "tell the farmboys why they're the best and the Krauts are all morons". This is really a shame because in modern times it makes them virtually useless for any kind of accurate data. They either don't include hard data at all, or when they do it's badly and intentionally skewed towards making the US soldier feel confident.
In the 80’s I worked in a war museum in the Netherlands. We had quite often veterans from market garden visiting us.both sides. Being a gun nut I often talked about guns. On average the Germans liked the mp40, stg and, surprise, the handy dandy .30m1.
I also read that anecdotally during Ostwind/The Bulge, captured American weapons were sorted into piles and German soldiers were given their pick if they liked. The M1 carbine was the most popular.
@@alm5992 because in the 80’s I was early 20 and worked in a war museum. Not everybody here is 19 or 20. I’m actually 58. So yeah, in the 80’s is period correct for me.
They could have still learned from it quicker than they did though without openly admitting that these krauts had made some great guns. Instead, their troops in Korea were still armed with M1s and when they finally replaced that weapon they came up with the M14, which still wasn't great as an infanty weapon. Same with the MG42. They could have just copied the damn thing, chamber it in 7.62x51or even .30-06 and have in the hands of the troops a few years later. But instead they came up with the inferior M60.
the americans did that before: in the spanish-american war they faced a variant of the mauser rifle and were so impressed with it that they rushed to develop their own Mauser clone, the springfield
Well, either one of those responses would be inaccurate though. I wish they could just be honest and say it's a great gun, but it has some drawbacks that can be exploited during combat operations.
Not in an unclassified publication intended for the average soldier. Their mission was to soothe his morale, nothing more. I'm sure there were plenty of classified dox that accurately assessed both the MG42 and the StG and secretly demanded we start making copies. They just strenuously avoided telling that to the soldiers, because it was assumed most of them were clueless draftees who knew nothing about guns anyway and wanted nothing except to be patted on the head and told they were going to win soon.
Well they had to downplay how good it was to keep morale up. The STG was held back though by relatively low production numbers and some soldiers had difficulty obtaining magazines and ammo. There was times though in the eastern front when large units of soldiers were only armed with STG-44s.
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 I think you need to check the production numbers again. Every source I've ever seen about STG-44 production says about 400,000 were produced. That is still insane considering how late into the war they was being mass produced and how low Germany was on resources at the time. 1 million is not even close to being believable.
Like the American Training Film that teaches soldiers not to worry about the MG34.
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@@dancortes3062 True, the Germans did not make a million of them but there were parts to get to the 1 million mark completed by the end of the war.. I have heard that around 150k actually shipped to troops and less than 100k ended up in their hands.. Post war other countries assembled them from the parts and made new copies of this rifle.. Russia went one step further and used it as the basis for the AK-47 even though to this day they refuse to admit to this.. If Germany had 1 million of these in troops hands in 1943-44 the war would have had a far different dynamic and we would have been at a higher disadvantage.. Same goes for the jet engine ME-262, if Germany would have had several thousand in operation in 1943-44 with better metals for high temp engine parts we would have lost..
If you consider the number of rounds on target for something that is moving and you have a limited time to engage that target you can see the advantage of the MP-44 over the K-98.. This is the same advantage held by the M-1 Grand over the 1903 Springfield.. Can the shorter cartridge kill you just as dead as the longer one? YEP, the AK-47 and its .762/39 is a proven example of this.........
@@whiplash8277 Yep, aDolfy even wanted the ME262 off productions because he wanted more SMG's instead, like the JU87. But the geniuses rebranded the 262 as a SMG (with JU designation) and got the greenlight. But then aDolfy saw it being really effective in trials he greenlit the 262 officially with the nickname 'Sturmgewehrl', along with the ME designation again
Indeed. The Russians saying the MP44 underperformed the US M1 Carbine sounds like propaganda. The M1 is a great little carbine but it fires essentially a souped up pistol cartridge whereas the MG44 fires a scaled down rifle cartridge. The M1 is a decent 200 meter gun - 300 meters for good shooters under good conditions. But the MG44 is meant for 500 meters and even with scaled down performance will outdo an M1.
Curiously they took the .30 carbine round as a model for the 7.62x39, so... Even tho they saw some advantages in the 7.92 Kurtz, they opted to scale up the .30, why? Well, probably they indeed saw it as a better model.
@@Rrgr5 What are you on about? 7.62x 39 is bottle necked and longer. Longer bullet, longer cartridge with more powder. I cannot stress the world of difference in energy transfer the bottleneck does. 30 carbine is just a magnum round, cylindrical.
Not really, they initially saw the AK-47 as a 'submachine gun', and adopted the SKS as their 'battle rifle' (even though it was chambered in the same cartridge). It took a few years for them to get that the SKS was essentially redundant, and it still stuck about for ages after that.
So the Allie’s basically just lied out of their ass just like they did the mg42 lol. Sure, by no means is the stg amazing but it’s certainly better than almost anything on the battlefield at that time. You can see this is German combat reports
@@jamesgoldring1052 also stamped metal is cheaper and much quicker. desperate times call for desperate measures. when the 43 was designed things were getting desperate. hope this helps.
The British army were very impressed but thought it was a little fragile, very quickly the British Army wanted its own selective fire rifle and along came the EM-2, for a while anyway.
In the context of the time period and how novel of an idea it was, I wouldn't expect many people back then to fully understand the concept assault rifle.
@@kutter_ttl6786 doesn’t make it less true. Like the French general staff didn’t comprehend tank warfare before ww2 much to the frustration of de Gaulle who did.
here here! From what I've read, it was specifically designed for "close assault" (as 100 meters or less) where the MP-44 wasn't powerful enough and the M-98 was overkill and much, much slower rate of fire.
Well yes, almost nobody did. Even the Germans initially classified it as a submachine gun (MP 43/44), and the Russians did the same thing with the AK-47, adopting the SKS alongside as a 'battle rifle' (even though it was chambered in the same cartridge).
I know from experience shooting a couple of different full-auto StG44/MP44s that: * The foreend really does get hot after a couple of magazines. By the 3rd magazine you can't hold it that way and need to hold the magazine. I expect that in a Russian winter it'll be miserably cold as well. * The sights are terrible. The tiny rear sight makes aiming accurately difficult under any conditions than a neatly-kept range with black-and-white paper targets. * The triggers on the ones I've encountered were amazingly good, given the conditions they were made under. German small-parts fitting at its finest. Definitely not like an AK, which has a completely different sear mechanism but is designed to go *bang* no matter how poorly it's made or maintained. * It's remarkably controllable on full auto. FA is generally a way to turn money into noise *very* quickly, and mostly just scares the enemy (which is the point), but the StG44 really is much more controllable than most full-auto rifles. The stock being inline with the bore, and the generally high weight contribute to this. * The controls are *weerd* by modern standards. The cross-bolt is the fire selector, the swinging lever is the safety. Not unmanageable, just very different to anything you see today. * It looks vaguely AK-ish in shape on the outside, but the guts are very different and the controls are very different. If the AK is a copy of it, only the general shape is copied. * Really tho, given some small improvements to the sights and a canvas wrap around the foreend, it's still a perfectly serviceable fighting rifle today. Far from the best, but not bad. An impressive feat for a rifle designed 80 years ago.
I guess basically, the MP44 just wasnt what the allies wanted or needed based on their personal doctrines, experiences, and preferences, so it was unimpressive in their minds. They wanted the range and power of rifle cartridges and that's what they had, so a weaker round and a less handy platform to shoot it from didn't inspire any interest. Not to say that the MP44 was bad or good. I'm sure we can all agree based on how firearms have evolved that it was a step towards the right direction. They just needed to eventually appreciate the balance it offered.
And it's worth noting that the debate between 'battle rifles' and 'assault rifles' never truly ended, as illustrated by the US Army recently adopting the M5 Carbine.
In the role the mp44 was designed to do it did it's job well, the problem comes when you put a given weapon platform outside it's intended role that's when problems begins to arise. The Germans had concluded most of their engagements were happening in between 100-300 meters, not 800 meters which is what most rifles were designed for nor 50 meters which was the limit of the smg, in those medium engagement ranges that is where the Sturmgewehr shines & that's what it was designed for, hence the name "Storm Rifle" or as we call it nowadays "Assault rifle", a weapon platform that has the best traits of both rifles & smgs but for the most part none of their weaknesses capable of decent accuracy at range but able to lay down a much higher volume of fire but ergonomic enough to be easy to handle chambered in a intermediate cartridge, the stg44 was a fantastic weapon in it's given role but they never made enough of them it came too late in the war & small arms was only one aspect of the war there was a whole lot going on than just infantry battles. Back then most allied nations were still rigid in a much more older doctrinal ways of fighting as well as weapons, but yet as soon as WWII was over it didn't take long for all major nations to adopt the doctrines as well as weapons the Germans were utilizing/experimenting with in WWII from things like small arms such as the assault rifle which inspired the ak47, G3, & M16 as well as squad automatics like the MG42 which inspired the m60, medium tanks like the panther which may have inspired the Main Battle Tank concept, jets, ballistic missiles, as well as rockets. While I wouldn't go to the extreme to say the Germans were light years away from everyone but they most were certainly going/experimenting in the right direction in certain areas such as doctrines & technology.
@@dragonstormdipro1013 Yes, I know that the AK was a totally different & much improved design. My point was, when you hear that the German weapon wasn't given a good assessment, this is apparently not how they actually felt. Some Soviet soldiers were sent to the Gulag for praising German weapons.
@@robertsansone1680 You are correct. Often time the war-time dissing of enemy weapons is just propoganda. The reality could usually be the exact opposite, but the placebo effect on the soldiers that propoganda wouldve had would confirm the bias. In the end, even if STG44 was that good of a rifle, it didnt see much post-war success except for some vague visual resemblances to some of the most succesful platforms that followed it.
@@dragonstormdipro1013The Soviet Union was built on lies. They had a propaganda department telling us how good it was until the fall of the Soviet Union. Now we find out it had a breakdown rate worse than Panther in its first year and a half. -Anyone that believes that Mikhail Kalashnikov invented the AK47 in hospital 1942 while conversing is being duped. -The MKB42(H) was the basis of the StG44 did use the long stroke piston just like the AK-47 but a tilting breach Instead of a rotating bolt. The tilting bolt is a good mechanism and it was used by the FN FAL. The competitor for the STG 44 was the mkb42(W). This guy used a long stroke piston and a rotating bolt just like the AK-47 about 10,000 were trial in combat and the Russian captured a lot. So the Russians didn’t quite copy the ST G4 four but they made their own version of it probably more based on the MK 42W
German troops were used to handling over heated/hot weapons. The MP40 was notorious for this problem as it also became incredibly hot, incredibly quickly. For this reason German troops were issued heavy wool or leather gloves. If you look at videos/pictures of German troops firing MP40s you'll see that they are always wearing gloves...
This is complete rubbish. The MP40 has no overheating problems. It has a small cartridge (9mm Para) and it fires from an open bolt (good ventilation). The major problem of the MP40 was the unpredictable loading jamming.
The British considered it "fragile". The Argentines wanted to use it, but disliked the gas tube. The StG-45 is the ancestor of the G3. Cheaper to make, probably more reliable than the StG44. Prvi Partisan continues to make the 7.92x33 round to this day. Wonder who for?
@@robertblack1116 "there's still a fair amount of stg44s in eastern europe and the middle east being used today. pretty wild" I think it's the Art Deco design of the sheet metal. The AK outclasses the MP44/StG44 in every way except looks. If the Soviets had migrated to a 6.5 to 7mm round instead of the 5.45 it would have been a sweet companion.
@@vforvendetta275 The British were in a panic mode when they fielded the Sten. Especially that for crap magazine. Why the Anglosphere refused to just steal the AK47 in toto mystifies me. If we Americans had reverse engineered the AK with a 7mm round, we could have had something nobody would dismiss.
Ahead of its time. Rushed into service, due to the desperate position the Nazis were in, so had some teething problems. However, this was the kernel of the future of battlefield infantry weapons.
A brief overview of western European and often US weapons procurement: 1860 "We don't need breechloaders"- 1870 'oh my god we need breechloaders!" 1871: "We don't need repeating rifles"- 1880 'Oh my god we need repeaters!" 1886: smokeless? wtf is that? its a fad" 1888- "we don't have smokeless??! oh no get on it!" 1919: 'Submachine guns? only Germans and gangsters use them" 1940- "We need millions of cheap SMGs-NOW!" 1945- Strumge-what? more Teutonic nonsense- cant hit anything at 2000+ yards with it" and so on....
Except Prussia they adopted breach loaders in the early 1840s... then decided it was a good idea to keep using the archaic design in to the early 1870s
Underestimating the Sturmgewehr did not hinder the US in adopting their own (hastily developed) assault rifle M-16 after the M-14 proves far less adequate in replacing the M-1 Garand and M-1 Carbine, M-1 Thompson, M-3 Grease Gun, and the BAR in the offensive full autofire role.
Yeah, though the Americans only adopted the M16 due to the AK. Though, of course, the Russians developed and adopted the AK due to the influence of the Stg-44. Not a copy of the design (ironically, the AK is mechanically quite similar to the M1 Garand) but a definite influence in doctrine.
@@gameragodzillaeh Ak has more in common with us design than German and no German engineers worked on the ak like ak safety gas piston and bolt all come more from us than Germany
@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 That's what I said. The AK is mechanically more inspired by the M1 Garand. But the doctrine of an intermediate caliber assault rifle was definitely influenced by the German Stg-44, even though the design wasn't.
@@jic1 I have only seen a couple of photos where a soldier is clearly are on patrol with a StG44. but i don`t think it was that common since it was a lack of ammo for the StG44. It`s more common to see soldiers with MP40, Luger and P38
Official assessments of enemy ordnance will always disparage it, as it might lower morale if the troops are told that the enemy is better armed. What I hoped to hear was what Allied soldiers put in harm's way had to say about the Sturmgewehr.
If the soldiers were told to use the MP44 in semi-auto mode, it wasn't only because heating problems. The main reason was the German troops always lacked ammo for this gun, and the best way to spare them was indeed the semi-auto mode. The problem of ammo waste has always been a concern for the top brass of every army. And that's also why some 50 years before so many rifles had cut-offs devices
0:39 Textbook authoritarian tendency: Creating a thing with a mode that its users aren't "allowed" to use. Why give it a full-auto mode in the first place only to tell your troops that they can't use it?! 0:47 Not a savvy design choice. 0:59 Which is known to cause feeding issues. A way around that would have been to incorporate a simplified forearm into the mag well. Maybe something made of bakelite, possibly with grooves for better grip.
@@alexbowman7582 so what? In the last hundred years it's influenced so many gun designs, and not just the dozens of 1911 clones, but the tilting barrel design is one of the most common for handguns.
The guys I knew that fought in Europe during ww2 seemed to have talked about the mp40 being a handy machine gun but also thought the mp43 was junk easily broken and cheap …most just commented that the mp43 was kind of a novelty during the war
@@Diedwhilemakingwaffles You do realize they HAVE to be experts with their and enemy weapons if they want to survive in combat? Obviously these opinions arouse from experience gained in combat and if several guys had their captured STG-44 jam and several guys had their captured MP-40s work flawlessly, one can easily draw a conclusion.
@@dobridjordje they do not have to be experts. They need to know how to clean and disassemble a gun. They do not need to know how the enemy gun works. If they need to know anything about the enemy gun it is the sound na dbasic info like the rate of fire and maybe weight.
StG-44 having the cocking handle on the left-hand side so it could be cocked with the left hand was a good idea. I think the only other weapon of that era to have its cocking handle on the left so it can be cocked with the left hand was the BAR M1918A2, but I may wrong.
Seems like a bullshit report tbh. The only significant downside it had when compared to rest was the weight. That matters a lot if you have to carry it. The range and accurracy? Only if you're comparing it to a rifle shooting at ranges on which it's rarely used.
In the last days of WWII, a couple of Wehrmacht weapon engineers escaped to Franco's Spain. They bring, as their only possession, the blueprints from Sturmgewher and M42 that they sold to the Spanish Army. Spain created a statal factory, CETME, (Centro de Estudios Técnicos y Materiales Especiales, Technical Research and Special Materials Center)for developping both the ligth/medium machine gun and the assault rifle. I used both in my military service, compulsory at this time, back in the 80's, and both were fantastic, solid, accurate and reliable. A little bit heavy, certainly. In 1983, I think, Spain recognised the autorship ando sold the patent at the price of 1 DeutscheMark to Germany. The mechanism is exactly the same in Heckler & Koch for that reason.
The allied reviewers were still stuck in the past of a rifle being capable of killing at extreme long range. For some reason they were not taking note that the European theater was getting in closer with fighting becoming more frantic with the need for faster easier to wield firepower. I could go on, but I hope you know what I'm trying to say.
And Axis weren't? They ALL started the war with full power, long range , rifles. The US DID go to the M1 carbine during the war. K98K for Germany the the G3. Mossin for USSR then SVT. SMLE for England. ALL were for long range.
I think this is something modern fire control and aiming optics have tried to address. Much better than iron sights for longer ranges (350m and out). And MoA for many semi-autos of the period were seldom better than 3 to 4.
Its pretty funny that US Army sources were claiming that a low pressure cartridge firing a pistol bullet had superior accuracy and ballistic performance to a bottle necked rifle cartridge firing an aerodynamically superior bullet at a higher muzzle velocity.
Conscript armys unlike the regular british army they found out that 300yards was about all they conscripts could hit With any degree of precision.prewar regular army were good up to 600yds as they had a lot of range time than any conscript.
@@dennisfraser6896 actual US firing tests after the war showed that experienced infantry were pretty bad shots too: 50% failed to hit 200 yd targets half the time.
The M1 weighed HALF as much as an STG and fired a round that was about as effective under 200 yards. The STG had additional range and a fun switch, but by 1945 the FA M2 was also coming off of production lines. If you matched a US platoons against a 1942 German platoon and a 1945 German platoon with STGs the American platoon’s biggest problem would still be the same: the MG42 was a superior support weapon. By adopting the STG the German army merely caught up to the semi auto capabilities of the GI. In practical terms the M1 Carbine may have still been the better weapon. Lighter, handier, more reliable, and issued with plentiful working magazines. It’s at least capable of holding its own. I’m surprised by the German testing of STG’s against 98k’s. STG’s were never considered accurate, a tilting bolt and sheet metal receiver limited that. Also the much shorter site radius should at least give some advantage to the bolt gun. Maybe the 98’s had a batch of factory sabotaged sites or barrels?
Absolutely, totally agree! At least SOMEONE gets it! Now if they’d only developed the Carbine with a better, pointy ( higher ballistic coefficient) bullet…
My uncle liked his . I never seen him shoot it . I was probably 11-12 It was a cool gun . Seems he and my other uncles liked guns . They had some cool stuff they returned home with . But the coolest thing one had was a pet Skunk . I can remember he gave it ice cubes . It been 50 years since that time .
These were the same people who lied about the MG42 and MG34. Yet somehow the intermediate caliber rife and man GPMG concepts have been the standard across the world for the last 60 years.
The weapon itself wasn't that novel, but the manufacturing process-using many steel stampings-made it easier to produce than conventional machined forgings. I'd be interested in seeing a production cost comparison between the Sturmgewehr and the M1 Garand/M1 Carbine.
@@user-yx8nr8qz7g M1 Carbine was first major use of a carbine caliber cartridge in WW2, not the MP43. While the .30 Carbine cartridge was less powerful than the Kurz round the GP-43 used, both were mid-power cartridges. The M1 Carbine cost about $ 45/unit to manufacture, similar to the last model Thompson SMG. The M3 Grease Gun cost about $ 15/unit, I'm not sure what the GP-43 cost.
Allied report claims that the Germans were forbidden from firing it in automatic then shows combat footage later in the video of them doing it, lol. German doctrine and manuals laid out explicitly how it was meant to be used, with full auto intended for suppressive and close combat situations just like all future assault rifles, thats literally the whole point of the rifle's concept to be in semi most of the time and then switch to full auto when you need it. German troops had overwhelmingly positive responses to the STG and wanted more of them.
Yeah thats what I was sort of thinking as well. Those evaluating it at the time, did not seem to grasp what the weapon was designed for. Its like saying the P51 was the worst tank of the war lol
gun was ahead of its time at 2350 ft per secound it would take some time for a barrel to wear out it is very controlable on fullauto fire good up to 300 yards jus think we where stuck using the old m1 clean into the late 50s
By the mid 50s the M2 Carbine had mostly replaced the M1 Carbine(M2 Carbine is able to shoot full auto and usually issued with 30 round mags). It's less powerful than the STG-44 but substantially lighter as well and I believe a lot cheaper to produce.
@@oldhag2881 No, he (and other soviet engineers) used only following things: - tactical concept of an "assault rifle" (aka Sturmgewehr) ---> the most important - intermedium cartridge - pistol grip - selection between automatic/semi-automatic fire - (may be the look in total) They didn't use: - housing (they used a housing cover) - removeable trigger - tilting block as locking system The most important things was: They understand the tactical concept of an assault rifle with an intermedium cartridge.
Only natural that allies would down play the effectiveness of the StG-44. After all, other than US infantry, the rest of the allied troops were stuck using bolt-actions.
@MinutemenGeneral9974 it is the only movie to showcase green tracers, it helps distinguish enemy forces, reminiscent of Star Wars. I totally believe that the first German civilian in the town would be the priority target for the German sniper vs War Daddy exposed out the Sherman hatch. Don't forget that eternal potato masher fuse at the very end.........
US intelligence also reported that the MG42’s bark was worst than its bite and even made a training film to play for soldiers about to face them in combat saying just that! I wouldn’t believe anything they said about it .
you have to take into consideration that this was a military briefing and they would play down the weapon as much as possible. The simple truth is that the STG44 was a force multiplier and if hitler had allowed the military to arm their soldeir with this in 1943 it could have change the ending of the war. The K98 was a great marksman rifle but the germans needed an intermediate rapid firing rifle and they would have been unstoppable.
I don't agree. I feel like a military briefing would be the most truthful. Because the only eyes that will see it are people that need to know the exact limit of the enemy's firepower to properly counteract it. Downplaying it would do the opposite of that and cost lives.
You have to think how much ammo that would use. They were low on resources they couldn't just have people blasting away full auto all day. I bet the k98 has a much higher death rate vs ammo used compared to the stg44
Or course the Americans and Soviets didn’t want to Alarm their troops that the Germans had just produced and combat tested the infantry firearm of the future. Stamped metal receiver, semi and automatic fire options, a 30 round magazine. The M1 Garand was out classed then just like it was further outclassed when the Soviets produced the AK47. The U.S. knew it and refused to modernize. Just like when the Americans tried to convince everyone that their Sherman Tank was better than any German tank until the burning wrecks of Sherman’s on the battlefield proved it wasn’t. Propaganda is a marvelous tool up til the moment when the truth upends it.
Except we know that the Sherman was just fine. It's the wrecks of Shermans proving that they are shit is a myth. Like duh if you mass produce a single model of tank to include varients of it, of course you're going to have tons of wrecks of it.
@@rainyvideos3684 That was the silliest explanation for many losses I have ever heard! And to be clear... you only won the war through an endless stream of troops and material. And exclusively through the USA alone! Or as the American Senator Thomas put it immediately after the war when he visited German research institutes: "We didn't win this war through brains, but only through pure muscle power. That must never happen to us again..." Maybe that will change your mind cranky worldview stimulated by Hollywood, right again...
@@user-yx8nr8qz7g Sure their days were numbered after world war II, but the weapons themselves were by no means outdated during the war. The M4 Sherman was constantly upgraded during the war and could effectively engage almost anything thrown at it during and even in the early cold war, as evident in its use in Korea. The M1 Garand was also a very solid firearm that I'd argue better suited standard infantry and was less prone to problems than the stg-44. I agree the move to the M16 was obviously the way to go though and ordinance being so slow with the change was pretty odd.
Dumb US Ord dept vetoed the idea of putting the same detachable 20 round detachable BAR mag on the M-1...troops will loose them all over the battlefield...and use too much ammo...
@@user-yx8nr8qz7g same group, different people of course, refused to arm the Union army with repeating rifles during the Civil War..would use too much ammunition.
@@user-mu9bz6bg7s It was a joke, bro. Every side of a conflict is always going to downplay how well each others weapons performed in combat compared to their own. Heck, even the US shat all over the AKM as nothing but Eastern Bloc garbage, when in reality, it was much more rugged and reliable then the Mattel 16 in Vietnam. Now since the end of the Cold War, numerous US Manufacturers like Century Arms, Palmetto State Armory, and Kalashnikov USA, are selling AKs across the US.
Don't get your facts, education or opinion about firearms from video games. I owned a STG 44 and though it was fun to fire, I would have strongly preferred an M1 Carbine in combat.
Let me put it this way, the same stupid american military chiefs who adopted the krag over the mauser, also insisted at the beginning of the spanish american war in " arming the troops with trapdoor springfields, and advancing through clouds of smoke." Used the Garand until hopelessly outclassed as well, insisting on accuracy over volume. The Brits used the #4 Enfield in the belief it was" the fastest bolt action, and therefore needed no replacement."( no doubt the Atlee government had a role in this)...so, of course, on that mindset, western arm development fell behind the Soviets, who armed several puppet states with the mp44 prior to the sks and AK, seeing its usefulness. Now, go watch the multipart documentary on eugene stoner and his battle from the mid 1950s to get the american military interested in his AR package....hoo, boy! Add to this, the americans forcing nato to use the 7.62x51 standardized, and how it affected all others weapons development such as the FAL...the lesson here is, .....never rely on americans for weapons, unless you need them by the millions
What scares me the most in this whole clip is the opening image. Good old American propaganda, all butter and honey. Most of those poor kids, back home, would have faced a much worse enemy, unemployment, especially blacks ... 1-2 years of life lost, cut off from the world of work. There was no other option than to hope for a next war.
Well the Russians copied this weapon and he Americans were obsessed with accuracy the m1 carbine was really an accurate sub machine gun with less stoping power I’m not some krut lover but the gun was fine and lighter than the m1 rifle. Americans don’t like to admit to something better they also commented poorly on the mg42 but the the soldiers knew better
I am curious as to why the US and NATO countries aren’t currently experimenting with a modern take on the Soviet M43 cartridge. We’re swiftly heading back to .30 rifles bc of concerns with the 5.56 against body armor, but the Soviet-era cartridge is lighter, cheaper, and delivers similar energy on target.
Or even a cartridge similar to the 6.5mm Grendel. High BC as well as very good energy on a target. The Army ordinance and their obsession with battle rifles.
A big downside of the StG-44 was its poor construction quality. It was fragile and broke easily compared to other weapons made of forgings. While it was an effective weapon in concept, its poor quality in construction ensured that it would not be copied, but would rather be used as an inspiration for other development. The AK is not a copy of the StG-44, rather it is a competitor.
Interesting. You shared various relevant, contemporaneous opinions, a few relevant facts, and then ended your video. . . without promoting your own opinion and attacking the mental capabilities of anyone who would foolishly disagree with you. What are you, crazy?!?
