Gerät 06 Gerät 06H drawings wanted

[GunKraut]

Part of the letter from Wirtgen to Vorgrimler, dated November 1977, with description and serial#

Thank you, this is really interesting. After reading Wirtgen's letter, I am convinced the Rastatt rifle he is referring to is indeed one of the Vollmer rifles. I have attached two pictures of the Vollmer rifle and one picture of S/N 2 located at Springfield Armory.

What immediately jumps out when reading Wirtgen's description of the Rastatt rifle are the distinguishing features setting it apart from Springfield Armory's S/N 2. First there are the wooden, screwed on hand grips. Then there is the selector switch which, besides being located in a different spot, has the locking detents and "D", "E" and "S" positions on the opposite side of the selector switch, exactly as Wirtgen noticed. The Vollmer rifle also has "G06H" stamped on top of the butt stock ferrule, again as described in Wirtgen's letter. Wirtgen goes on talking about the "massive feel and clean appearance" of the Rastatt rifle which in my opinion refers to the clean, sharp lines and smooth surfaces of the milled Vollmer rifle compared to the somehow washed out lines of the stamped Springfield Armory rifle.

Wirtgen also refers to the serial number of the Rastatt rifle as "02" while the Gerat06H in possession of Springfield Armory clearly only has the single digit "2" stamped into the magazine well. The original Gerat06H is equipped with a Heckler & Koch style trigger pack (well, for the sake of historical correctness, I should say H&K rifles are equipped with Gerat06H style trigger packs). You can see the tabs stamped into the grip housing which the trigger pack is supposed to rest on. You don't see the tabs on the Vollmer rifle, although there are dark shadow where the tabs are supposed to be. Also noteworthy about the Vollmer rifle is the shape of the ridges on the hand guard. The Vollmer rifle has very nice, square and straight ridges with pronounced, sharp ends. This is completely unsuited for stamped fabrication as sharp corners and edges tend to over stretch the sheet metal, causing it to tear in those areas. Stamping loves smooth corners and edges, like the ones we see on the Springfield Armory Gerat06H.

Lastly, and this is debatable, through the ejection port of the Vollmer rifle I see a line on the surface of the Vollmer bolt. This could be a scratch mark from operation although the hardness of the bolt should preclude any scratching. In my opinion, and I may be totally wrong on this one, the line is the visible edge of the anti-bounce bolt latching piece. We find this latch usually on the left side of CETME and H&K bolts but in the case of the Vollmer rifle, the latch would get into the way of the charging handle, thus the latch needs to be moved to the right side or, in the case of the repro rifle used by Forgotten Weapons, to the top of the bolt. Without the anti-bounce latch there is a chance of out of battery detonation. The original Gerat06H did not have this latch which was invented by Vorgrimler after WW2.

Thank you for posting Wirtgen's letter to Vorgrimler. Has there been a reply from Vorgrimler back to Wirtgen? It would definitely answer the question if the Vollmer rifles were indeed very early milled prototypes, or copies of very early prototypes or just poor copies of the Gerat06H altogether.

 

[Amberg]

Has there been a reply from Vorgrimler back to Wirtgen? It would definitely answer the question if the Vollmer rifles were indeed very early milled prototypes, or copies of very early prototypes or just poor copies of the Gerat06H altogether.

Sorry, I only have the Wirtgen reply to the Vorgrimler reply. Nothing about the gun in specific in that letter. :-(

PS: I know the present curator of the WGM Rastatt very well. Very nice and helpful person. I'll give him a call tomorrow. Let's see what comes out

 

[sprat]

I see some commonality with the STG 59 the east german design in 7.62 x 39mm there are differences but it is similar in the receiver design from the trunnion back, while the front of the stg 59 is like a G-3 ( cetme)

very interesting topic

 

[GunKraut]

Sorry, I only have the Wirtgen reply to the Vorgrimler reply. Nothing about the gun in specific in that letter. :-(

PS: I know the present curator of the WGM Rastatt very well. Very nice and helpful person. I'll give him a call tomorrow. Let's see what comes out

The letters you made available to us have been very helpful. I'm especially happy about the Vorgrimler report regarding the early CETME rifles. I knew that Vorgrimler had been conscripted after the war by the French occupiers to develop firearms for their army. His dislike for the job and his attempts to get out and leave for Spain were well known. But why did the CETME, originating from the radical looking Gerat06H, turn out to be such a Plain Jane rifle, almost looking like a gas operated system? For a while I thought it had to do with Vorgrimler's late arrival in Spain, courtesy of French passport delay tactics, at a time when the Rheinmetall folks were already in Spain and had already developed a conventional gas operated rifle which seemed to suit Franco's needs. My assumption was that in order for Vorgrimler to make inroads with his design, it needed to look like the already developed Rheinmetall rifle but with a roller locked bolt instead of locking lugs. After reading the report I now understand that the need for making the stock collapsible for use by paratroopers and tank crews was colliding with the original Gerat06H layout with its long recoil spring buried deep inside the butt stock.

Instead of attaching the recoil spring guide to the back of the bolt as in the Gerat06H, Vorgrimler turned it around so it would extend out to the front, hollowed it out and welded it to the top of the bolt. It traveled inside the charging handle guide, a tube installed atop the barrel which looked just like a conventional gas tube, reminiscent of an MP44. The recoil spring assembly was mounted to the receiver back plate and extended into the tube welded to the bolt. Now the receiver needed to be only as long as the total travel of the bolt during cycling, allowing the stock to be made collapsible and voila, the grandfather of the H&K G3 was born.

Another interesting aspect I found in Vorgrimler's report is a statement to the tune of "think sheet metal right from the beginning and design accordingly", essentially ruling out prototype fabrication using milling techniques. This was a lesson learned from Haenel's development of the MP44 where the first prototypes were made from milled and machined steel instead of sheet metal. Afterwards, drawings, design processes and work instructions had to be painstakingly revised and updated in order to be used in the production of stamped parts. Again, this puts the Vollmer rifles in questions as they have multiple parts that look like sheet metal and should be made from sheet metal but in reality are milled or machined parts.

 

[Amberg]

more photos from the Vorgrimler report.

 

[GunKraut]

I found this picture online which is of the Gerat06H at the Koblenz museum.

The caption specifically mentions it's a Vollmer "Nachbau" (Reproduction) of the Gerat06H. The pictured bolt is a typical H&K bolt with modern anti-bounce latch, modified to look like a Gerat06H bolt. Since the pivot pin for the anti-bounce latch is situated exactly where the Gerat06H charging lever would be, Vollmer had to relocate the charging handle farther to the back, ending up right above the magazine eject button. The original Gerat06H had the charging handle almost centered above the mag well.

Heinrich Vollmer passed away in 1961 and Ludwig Vorgrimler in 1983. The Wirtgen letter to Vorgrimler was written in 1977.
Some time after Vollmer's death in 1961, the rifles were sold to the Koblenz museum by Vollmer's son for a substantial amount of money. Going back to Wirtgen's letter to Vorgrimler about the museum's S/N 02 rifle, it now reads to me as if Wirtgen's request was a desperate attempt to get Vorgrimler to confirm that the museum's odd-looking exhibit was actually a Mauser-made pre-production rifle and not a reproduction. I assume this request came in the aftermath of the discovery by a third party that the two rifles acquired from Vollmer's son were most likely reproductions. At the time of the purchase, the museum's administration was convinced the rifles were the real deal and Vollmer's son obviously didn't indicate otherwise (for whatever reason). To the museum's defense it must be said that at the time of acquisition, no other Gerat06H was available on hand for side by side comparison and most original documents were in Allied possession.

 

[Amberg]

That is really strange, since Wirtgen mentioned that they went to the range and testifired the Rastatt gun. I assumed that the Koblenz gun is complete, not only (repro) parts.

Yesterday I talked to the present director/curator of Rastatt. He told me that all the full auto weapons were given away in 1996 to Koblenz. That was before his time in Rastatt. He will have a look through their archive for the Wirtgen Katalog and the photos Wirtgen took back in 1977. He can not remember having seen them. Little hope. :-(


PS: ..... and what happened to the parts from the Vorgrimler collection he had obtained in the 1950s in the USA??

 

[Amberg]

The director of the Rastatt museum looked through some old inventories. They had a MP44, a CETME, but no MP45, Gerät 06 H or STG 59 in their files. That sounds strange!
But a staff member found some old b/w photos from the 1970s showing some rifles from the museum. Hopefully I get some scans next week.
I'll keep you updated.

BTW: somewhere I have a manual for the Mauser G35 semi auto rifle, also from the Vorgrimler estate sale. Any interest in that one?

 

[sprat]

Thank you. this is getting more interesting as this thread progresses

 

[Amberg]

With friendly permission from the director of the WGM Rastatt, Dr. Alexander Jordan.
http://www.wgm-rastatt.de
The photos show the gun #02 in 1979.
More to come.

PS: The gun was listed in their inventories as MKB43

 

[Wilhelm]

Prototypes always have such FINE machining!! Those pictures are absolutely wonderful.

 

[Wilhelm]

I found this picture online which is of the Gerat06H at the Koblenz museum.

The caption specifically mentions it's a Vollmer "Nachbau" (Reproduction) of the Gerat06H. The pictured bolt is a typical H&K bolt with modern anti-bounce latch, modified to look like a Gerat06H bolt. Since the pivot pin for the anti-bounce latch is situated exactly where the Gerat06H charging lever would be, Vollmer had to relocate the charging handle farther to the back, ending up right above the magazine eject button. The original Gerat06H had the charging handle almost centered above the mag well.

Heinrich Vollmer passed away in 1961 and Ludwig Vorgrimler in 1983. The Wirtgen letter to Vorgrimler was written in 1977.
Some time after Vollmer's death in 1961, the rifles were sold to the Koblenz museum by Vollmer's son for a substantial amount of money. Going back to Wirtgen's letter to Vorgrimler about the museum's S/N 02 rifle, it now reads to me as if Wirtgen's request was a desperate attempt to get Vorgrimler to confirm that the museum's odd-looking exhibit was actually a Mauser-made pre-production rifle and not a reproduction. I assume this request came in the aftermath of the discovery by a third party that the two rifles acquired from Vollmer's son were most likely reproductions. At the time of the purchase, the museum's administration was convinced the rifles were the real deal and Vollmer's son obviously didn't indicate otherwise (for whatever reason). To the museum's defense it must be said that at the time of acquisition, no other Gerat06H was available on hand for side by side comparison and most original documents were in Allied possession.

WoW!! Compare that triggerbox to an HK. Amazing.

 

[Amberg]

According to a file note found at the WGM Rastatt from July 1979, Vorgrimler identified this gun as one of the four prototypes from the pre production run.
"It can clearly be seen, that original Mauser tools and machinery was used to produce that gun." ......" but with some post war modifications".
Vorgrimler pointed out the details, that make this an original prototype and what are the post war modifications.
Since I have no permission to show this file note, I have to accurately translate it.
Thanks for your patience. ;-)

 

[GunKraut]

According to a file note found at the WGM Rastatt from July 1979, Vorgrimler identified this gun as one of the four prototypes from the pre production run.
"It can clearly be seen, that original Mauser tools and machinery was used to produce that gun." ......" but with some post war modifications".
Vorgrimler pointed out the details, that make this an original prototype and what are the post war modifications.
Since I have no permission to show this file note, I have to accurately translate it.
Thanks for your patience. ;-)

Thank you for providing these interesting historical documents. Personally, I'm very curious about Vorgrimler's assessment of S/N 02 as the bolt contains features that were not invented until 1950 and the receiver needed to be modified accordingly to accommodate the aforementioned features.

 

[Amberg]

...... as the bolt contains features that were not invented until 1950 and the receiver needed to be modified accordingly to accommodate the aforementioned features.

that is about what Vorgrimler pointed out to be not original.

 

[GunKraut]

that is about what Vorgrimler pointed out to be not original.

Are there any notes about the stock? The MP44 was designed to be controllable in F/A mode by bringing the tail stock in line with the barrel. This way, the straight line between muzzle and stock/shoulder contact point prevented muzzle rise in Full Auto. Early blueprints of the Gerat06 stock followed the same principle.

In contrast, the S/N 02 rifle in Rastatt/Koblenz and the S/N 2 rifle at Springfield armory both have stocks that slope down towards the shoulder contact area, actually supporting muzzle rise during F/A. I can't wrap my head around this as this stock design seems to defy logic.

 

[Amberg]

Nothing about the stock. Sorry.

 

[sprat]

amberg

is there anymore info forthcoming from the director??

sprat

 

[Amberg]

I don't think so.
Dr. Jordan never saw that gun, and since I know him for some years, I know he did his very best to search the archives from the museum for any information about it.

 

[sprat]

I don't think so.
Dr. Jordan never saw that gun, and since I know him for some years, I know he did his very best to search the archives from the museum for any information about it.

Thank you for asking and please thank the doctor