Warrior1354
ax - hole
I recently purchased this photograph. I have not found a period photograph showing luftwaffe personal with a captured Lewis gun before. Thought it was pretty neat!
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Luftwaffe personal with a Lewis gun
- Thread starter Warrior1354
- Start date
I wonder if it's a Belgian capture, or one of the Dutch guns in 6.5 caliber?
Looking up info on the Dutch M.20 (Lewis gun). Looks a lot like the one in your photo.
Looking up info on the Dutch M.20 (Lewis gun). Looks a lot like the one in your photo.
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Looks like the Dutch one.
Anyone have any idea how many unique kinds of small arms ammo that the German military had to supply during the war?
We had like four. (.45, 30.06, .30 carbine, 50 bmg). They must have had dozens, be it capture ammo or ammo they ended up tooling to make.
Anyone have any idea how many unique kinds of small arms ammo that the German military had to supply during the war?
We had like four. (.45, 30.06, .30 carbine, 50 bmg). They must have had dozens, be it capture ammo or ammo they ended up tooling to make.
It made sense to give many of those captured arms to police and rear echelon units, guards, etc. that had a more static supply chain with less ammo consumption than forward units needed. Still, the various calibers of weapons would require an effort to keep supplied correctly. I don't think they manufactured new cartridges for any of those non-standard calibers. I'm sure a fairly plentiful amount of ammo had been captured to keep those rear echelon units supplied for the most part.
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Stephan98k
aka 8x57IS
Congratulations, it's a very nice photo.
You are right Stan, it could be a 6,5mm (h). By the way, in Fall 1944 there is still a lot movement with 6.5 Dutch ammo at the FzJn and here is September 1944 as example:
Planned production quantity 2.5 million rounds. Actual production 200,000 rounds (in parts). The WaA acceptance was 500,000 rounds (in parts) that month. The FzJn received 400,000 rounds from new production and 100,000 from returns.
You are right Stan, it could be a 6,5mm (h). By the way, in Fall 1944 there is still a lot movement with 6.5 Dutch ammo at the FzJn and here is September 1944 as example:
Planned production quantity 2.5 million rounds. Actual production 200,000 rounds (in parts). The WaA acceptance was 500,000 rounds (in parts) that month. The FzJn received 400,000 rounds from new production and 100,000 from returns.
To probably no one's surprise, the 6.5 Dutch made by Hirtenberger is excellent ammunition
Absolutely, that would be a logical conclusion!
I think the decision to go ahead and tool up and produce ammo reflects the actual usage. The Luftwaffe were very active consumers of both captured small arms and ammunition. There's been some really cool work done by Dutch military archaeologists that's revealed LW use of captured Dutch small arms in the Netherlands in a training context at several small LW bases, some of which built their own ranges on which live and expended cartridges have been recovered.
Warrior1354
ax - hole
Yeah autocorrect sucks Georg lol.No clue on original topic, but it is Luftwaffe not Luftwaffle - Waffe not Waffle.
They also produced ammo for captured artillery. In particular, they made a good chunk of ammo for the Soviet 76.2mm Zis-3 antitank guns. They might have made 45mm too? I believe they also made a lot of ammo for obscure French artillery as well.
Despite being run by superhuman supermen, the German war economy really struggled with basic stuff. I mean, you don’t make obscure or non-standard ammo for guns if you’re actually able to build enough guns on your own.
The Germans could crank out fighters - too many perhaps - but they never had enough trucks. It was such an issue that at one point in the war the Germans offered to trade the western allies a large number of Jewish concentration camp prisoners for some trucks. The germans promised that they would only be used on the eastern front. The deal was declined, and despite all of the handwringing and defensive comments you’ll see, a lot of the prisoners ended up being killed by German and SS types, guys that probably didn’t face charges for their crimes.
Trucks for Jews
It was pretty clearly an effort to split the eastern and western allies - which is part of why it was declined - but I think it says something about the German military that they were willing to stop killing Jews if it got them a few thousand trucks.
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French materiel constituted 40% of the total captured goods from all conquered countries, so much so that by the end of the Yugoslavian and Greek campaigns (May 1941), the Wehrmacht was still trying to sort through all of the goods captured from France alone. That would comprise a pretty significant part of second- and third-line kit for Germany's occupation, security and reserve troops.
Warrior1354
ax - hole
Found another photograph of Luftwaffe personnel armed with a captured Lewis gun. After shooting one last weekend. Due to the courtesy of a good friend. They are definitely wonderful pieces of art.
