How come Gewehr 98s didn't feature the same cost cutting as K98s?

BishopofBling

BishopofBling

Senior Member
Both times Germany was at war, I guess the only really big difference was that Germany wasn't being bombed as aggressively and the war didn't really reach German soil in WWI, but still, it seems like Gewehr 98s still featured all of the milled and polished metal parts throughout the war. What gives? While in WWII the Germans had to severely cut aesthetic corners to produce more arms.
 
I find this Question also quite interesting, they all most did the opposite of cost cutting by adding more complex features later in the war ie : Grasping Grooves and bolt takedowns. I think the only thing the Germans did cut back on was wood. Later in the war Beech was used, as a substitute, but also two pieced stocks.

I tend to think that Imperial Germany just did not need to downgrade, due to it not having taken such a beating like it did during the Second World War
 
I tend to think the “psyche” of the German people, in the manufacture of anything of steel, was the basis of maintaining a high level of their engineering and products.
 
Fordism, scientific management, etc were widespread in the twenties and thirties, perhaps as result of WWI, but not during WWI.
Remember "Modern Times" with Chaplin ? It is from 1936.
 
BishopofBling said:
Both times Germany was at war, I guess the only really big difference was that Germany wasn't being bombed as aggressively and the war didn't really reach German soil in WWI, but still, it seems like Gewehr 98s still featured all of the milled and polished metal parts throughout the war. What gives? While in WWII the Germans had to severely cut aesthetic corners to produce more arms.
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That's the thing-- they did make changes. They never reached the WW2 rock bottom, but they did take shortcuts.

A few things:
1) You can see a marked decline in machining as the war raged on and as production quotas increase. So e manufacturers show this more than others.

2) The introduction of substitute procurement channels (Sterngewehren with out of tolerance, hand fitted bolts for instance)

3) As outlined in Storz, polishing of reworks was suspended and substituted for boiling and brushing.

4) Introduction of alternative (inferior) woods- beech being less durable than walnut. Maple and Elm were also experimented with

5) Changes in stock finish: While initially oil finish, in 1916 Trann(whale) oil was approved, in 17-18 Kronenol (thick ugly lacquer- looks brushed on) was approved.

6) In 1918 Amberg and Suhl (possibly others) began "bluing" receivers. By bluing, at least in Ambergs case, this was more a chemical darkening of a more grey color.

7) Muzzle caps were finished with an ugly green finish late war, versus early nickel or blued.

Just to name a few changes. If you line up various years you can see than changes- particularly ore-war to war time. (I've got 6 DWM for instance)


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Interesting...still though, why do you think they didn't drop as much in aesthetic quality as say late war K98s? Is it due to Germany not being bombed and the war situation being more favorable? Seems like that may have some validity as Germany wasn't fighting a two front war during the end of WWI when they knocked out Russia.
 
chrisftk said:
5) Changes in stock finish: While initially oil finish, in 1916 Trann(whale) oil was approved, in 17-18 Kronenol (thick ugly lacquer- looks brushed on) was approved.
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Funny I see that “Kronenöl” is still a thing. Their 'history' starts after WW2.

chrisftk said:
6) In 1918 Amberg and Suhl (possibly others) began "bluing" receivers. By bluing, at least in Ambergs case, this was more a chemical darkening of a more grey color.
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Blackening perhaps? Phosphoric acid without solute? Thanks for the great info Chris!
 
BishopofBling said:
..why do you think they didn't drop as much in aesthetic quality as say late war K98s? Is it due to Germany not being bombed and the war situation being more favorable? Seems like that may have some validity as Germany wasn't fighting a two front war during the end of WWI when they knocked out Russia.
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Years? ago when I was searching for a quality starting point for a rifle project someone suggested an Amberg made group. His arguement was they were never threatened or had to work under extreme pressures or terror. I'd never bothered to check the validity of that. I bet guys here have an opinion for sure.
 
heavy_mech said:
Years? ago when I was searching for a quality starting point for a rifle project someone suggested an Amberg made group. His arguement was they were never threatened or had to work under extreme pressures or terror. I'd never bothered to check the validity of that. I bet guys here have an opinion for sure.
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Of the arsenals Amberg was hands down the best. No contest. They kept quality high until the end with only minor decline.

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heavy_mech said:
Funny I see that “Kronenöl” is still a thing. Their 'history' starts after WW2.



Blackening perhaps? Phosphoric acid without solute? Thanks for the great info Chris!
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Storz described it as "chemical darkening" if I recall, but it reminds me a bit of etched metal, so you might be onto something. I don't own an Amberg 18, but I do have a bolt from one. It's a very distinct look.

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I would love to see a line up to visualize the Changes, especially the "Bluing" and stock "lacquering"
 
Germany was blockaded in WWI but not bombed, but the war effort was always the priority. During the first war the armaments factories did not have such a wide range of weapons to produce as in WWII when new semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons went into production. I suspect that these new weapons probably received priority over the old largely out-dated single-shot bolt-action rifles which were being down-graded and thrown together by workers who in many cases represented “slave labor.” That did not happen during WWI.

Quality control is always an issue when production quotas are increased and cost-cutting becomes an issue in any war, especially for the losing side.
 
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No mass bombing raids. No mass disruption of supplies of raw material. A war that was a stalemate for 4 years, versus a dynamic mechanized war on many fronts with the loss of enormous amounts of equipment.
 
Probably a question for Paul, Perhaps the cost of the technological changes to produce stamped parts was greater than perceived advances in production and/or lower costs.
 
DaveDavis said:
No mass bombing raids. No mass disruption of supplies of raw material. A war that was a stalemate for 4 years, versus a dynamic mechanized war on many fronts with the loss of enormous amounts of equipment.
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Very good points.
 
Probably more or less the demand for the Gewehr 98 rifle by the year of 1917-1918 shows the change in tactics and warfare. You have to remember by those war time years rifles were being left in the depot centers. The military had alot of rifles just sitting in the depots. When the Gewehr 98 rifle even started it's service life you could clearly tell this big long rifle was a product of Napoleonic warfare. Remember the tactics during those times was to soften the enemy with long range volley fire and then mass bayonet charges across the battlefield. But trench warfare and the machine gun changed those tactics really fast. By the years of 1917-1918 the war of movement was more important. Soldiers wanted more carbines, pistols, more machine guns, sub machine guns, etc.

You can see this effect in Gewehr 98 production in Germany for these years too. For starters Spandau stopped production of the Gewehr 98 rifle early in 1917 to concentrate production efforts on the MG08 and MG08/15 machine gun. The Erfurt factory stopped production in 1916 to focus efforts on almost most of the Kar98a carbine production, P08 Luger, and of course machines guns. The Suhl Consortium finished up most of their rifle contracts in 1917 besides V. Chr. Schilling Suhl in 1918. Even though JP Sauer stopped rifle production they made a decent amount of machines gun in 1918. See the thread here? Might also be the reason why rifles contracts in 1918 were so low too. You also have to remember another reason why 1918 dated rifles are so scarce to find. Is not only low production, but these were the rifles left in the depots and the first ones destroyed in the post war period.
 
From reading Volume 1 and 2a: it appears to me that the idea of "cost cutting" was actually "manufacturing time cutting". These two ideas are very similar in nature but one is more dependent on the other. The new technology and shortened parts were more to save time and labor vs price. Of course though saving time and labor helps with cost. Mauser tracked cost per rifle, but what they really tracked was minutes per rifle. They went from 975 minutes per rifle to 527 minutes (45% reduction) (Volume 2a p 122-123) They had to replace extreme field losses and equip a massive army. Some quick googling research shows that the size of the German army in WW1 was 3.8 million. WW2, about 13.6 million served. I am not certain how it breaks down by year, but that is a lot of weapons that need to be produced.

At Mauser in WW2 specifically bombing did not help either, in fact most of the rail hubs were wiped out so deliveries of rifles, raw materials, and components were mostly made via truck (v2a p109).
 
Are there any figures on equipment losses during WW1? Because in WW2 they're not only having to churn out rifles hand to new recruits and replace weapons damaged/lost at the front, they're also having to make good some pretty huge material losses due to capture and surrender. By the time you get to 1943 you have some pretty sizable chunks of the Wehrmacht that were eliminated, and it just gets worse from there. For example, between April and August 1943 the number of POWs being held in the US jumps from 5,000 to 130,000 with the bulk of that representing the remnants of the Afrika Corps laying down arms in Tunisia in May '43. February '43 is, of course, when von Paulus finally throws in the towel at Stalingrad. Over the course of Stalingrad you're looking at a LOT of POW and KIA, and since the Germans don't control the battlefield afterwards all those rifles end up stacked up behind Soviet lines. That only gets worse as the war goes on. (I just got off my butt and hit the bookshelf because I thought I remembered something about this - Vol IIa mentions on p.43 that by 1944 losses of small arms were outstripping production.) WW1 has a lot of casualties for Germany but you don't see those kind of mass surrenders where you lose an entire army's worth of weapons and equipment. And, as others have already said, you have production slow downs due to bombing, plus as the war wears on they also start losing factories (notably FN in '44). Not a concern in WW1.

Another thing to consider is that the Germans were already a bit over the barrel in terms of rifle numbers at the beginning of WW2. They had to re-arm following Versailles. In comparison Imperial Germany in 1914 had a pretty long stretch of G98 production behind it, plus existing stocks of Gew88s that, while not ideal, were still serviceable, PLUS stocks of older weapons like m71/84s that they issued to rear-area soldiers and occupation police etc. IIRC they were already experiencing serious rifle shortages in mid-'41 with the invasion of Russia.

All that is of course made worse by the fact that the German economy never got onto a full wartime footing until the fall/winter of 1941. Dec 4, '41 is when Hitler decrees that weapons production be simplified to increase the efficiency of production. Before that the assumption was that his wars would be short with peaceful periods in between to re-arm at a more leisurely pace.

This is all just conjecture, but it seems like the material situation in WW2 is just much, much worse than WW1. I'd really have to see solid numbers on rifle attrition in WW1 to argue firmly for it, though.
 
To tell you the truth there was a massive rifle shortage in 1914 for the German Armed Forces believe it or not. I mean the German Army basically took all the modern rifles from the German Navy to make up for that loss. And the German Navy had to make do with obsolete equipment. By the year 1915 they weren't even making enough rifles for the amount of rifles the military needed. There's a reason for that year you see the Suhl Consortium, kornbusch & co, and Simson starting their first rifle contracts. That's five new manufacturers to keep up with the demand of rifles that the state-run arsenal's, DWM, and Mauser could not fill that demand. When enough modern rifles were available older obsolete rifles like the gewehr 88 was moved back to rear echelon troops. But in the early days of the war those rifles were used substantially especially at the Battle of Tannenberg. I've seen plenty of pictures in 1914 and 1915 seeing German soldiers armed with those weapons. If you look at the loss of manpower and equipment around 400,000 soldiers of the German Army were killed just in the Battle of Verdun alone. That is a major loss of equipment and manpower for that time. And that was just one battle.
 
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