We Fired German Weapons of World War Two

From iconic pistols that have become synonymous with secret agents and steadfast ship actions at the core of the German war machine to cutting-edge assault rifles far ahead of their time, lethal automatic submachine guns that struck fear into the enemy, Vera had many options to choose from when it came to weaponry, it's time to find out why these firearms were so prized in royal armories and leads Jonathan, we're back at armories with more WWII

weapons

German edition yeah gimme a brief overview of what we have in front of us there is a good lineup yes a bit of picking the standard issue remains a standard issue despite several attempts to produce a self-loading rifle for German service many soldiers still they use the k98k if you are not. delivered with the rifle, you will most likely be issued with this one, the MP 40 or its immediate predecessor, the mp38 9mm pistol cartridge, the two complement each other, but that brings us to this which really is like crushing them. two together possibly with a bit of machine gun too that's debatable and that's what we know is the origin stmm of the term assault rifle in English and finally uh officers machine gun Crews, you know who they could be if not No, if you don't need any of those, they will hand you a gun, that's what I think of when I think of a Nazi officer, that's the first thing that comes to mind.

Well, as always let's get into the individual components. of each weapon and then we will have them shoot at the firing range, the feat of almost every World War II movie to date. The lever-lock blowback-operated luga pistol was initially developed to improve the BART c93, a semi-automatic pistol designed in the late 19th century patented by renowned Austrian firearms designer Gorg Luga. Five years later, the Parabellum 1908 pistol or p08, as it was officially known, would be adopted by the German Army and see extensive service during World War I and throughout the Second World. war the gun place Jonathan I always associate it with the Nazi high command, but it was actually used in the First World War, wasn't it?

What are the origins of the semi-automatic pistol? It's the first one that was introduced in Warfare, so it's not the first one? that will be produced, it probably won't even be the first to see action, but it's up there, it's one of the, it may be the first truly combat capable self-loading pistol, that's a subjective comment, you have the c96, famous for the handle of the broom, on which Mouser emerges first. produced in 1897 and sees limited military acquisitions by some nations, but the nations of the

world

are still experimenting with self-loading pistols, so in 1908 and 1904 the German Navy adopts a version of this 1908 for the p8 p08 Parabellum is his real correct name, but gorg Luger, the designer, is so associated with the design that everyone knows him as Luger, anyone who doesn't need a rifle, certainly, before the submachine gun comes in and before other things come in, will get issued one of these, so the Cruise machine gun would be an example of it being a defense weapon just as it is in other nations, so it goes back much further than World War I, in fact it is being replaced in the Second World War for the P38. and it's much broader than just officers, but yeah, we always think about war movies, tell me a little bit about the design of the weapon itself, it looks very different from what the US uses, very different design, so I admit that the P38 has that.

Sticking out the sticky barrel on the front as well and the look almost seems a little um Retro, certainly by today's standards, the all-enclosing slide of the Browning designs, the FN designs um The same guy from Cult that designs them all has been become the standard look for a pistol and So every time we see something thin sticking out of the front we think, oh, that's a little old-fashioned. I certainly don't think it would have been seen that way in the '40s. Although it's old, you know, it was introduced in 1908 and it became the standard pistol during World War I for almost everyone.

I don't think they would have necessarily seen it as old-fashioned, in fact, there would have been some affection towards it, um, it was the main difference apart from the cannon. It's the lever, so it's a lever locking system. I lift it partially, yes, you see it breaks like your knee joint does, yes, and it works the same way, so it resists the pressure of the cartridge that way, but overall a little. like a slide-operated gun when it gets to the back, these very distinctive switches here, these lugs hit this ramp and are forced up by the action of the cartridge to load it, you do it yourself anyway, so those two things . the slim barrel and the lever are part and parcel of each other and this is a refined version of the 1893 pellet gun that actually looks very steampunk and has the spring which is now very well hidden here and makes it look more modern.

It's hanging out the back and looks really weird, so they took a very promising but too clunky design for combat and turned it into a very effective combat pistol. He may be getting older, but he is still very capable. He still has eight bullets. The downside is really the cost of making it and how we could differentiate between a WWI Luger and a WWII Luger, so there are no changes functionally speaking, sometimes you might see different baseplate patterns of the grip charger, the finish, so it's actually quite good. Once it's over, they get a little tougher and smarter as the war progresses.

The real giveaway is just in the detail of the markings, so we have that little eagle with the Nazi symbol there, yeah, the markings see amped uh, essentially inspection marks, acceptance marks. and we have a 42 in there which is 1942 yeah it tells us where it comes from and that code is a code for the Mouser company so we know this was made by Mouser and we know it was made in the '40s if we didn't have the date, so you wouldn't know what the answer is unless you really look at it in detail. The adoption of the pistol also marked the first widespread use of the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, smaller in height and diameter than the 45.

ACP developed by Luga specifically for the firearm, as you said, the bullet itself is ubiquitous today in day, but it's still different from the cult, the Colt is stronger with a 45, do you see any big discrepancies in terms of the effectiveness of this one? The lethality of the weapon compared to the cult, I really don't know and I think you know this is debated endlessly online and in real life it's stopping power and it all comes down to capability and in this case you don't really get much further. Capacity, you only get one more round than a 1911 um, but in a modern context, smaller diameter round capacity means more rounds.

You know, Glock 17 has 17 rounds, Baretta, 15 rounds, Browning 13 rounds and that's from an older one. period, as soon as it is possible to get more rounds in, it is possible with a million a lot more than with the 45, so you either want the big old round that you think is sinking people harder and faster It is debatable or you want a greater capacity and Often the idea was in Europe, both with the 763 Mousa and with a drill bit with 9 thousand more penetration, like with a sword. You know you want a long, pointed sword to penetrate the human body as much as possible because you are going to hit something vital.

So do you want a big hole in the enemy to put it bluntly or do you want to get to a vital Oran and is that an ongoing debate? 9mm versus 45 still with us today, well let's see how it performs in the Range Jonathan first. Above is the eight round semi-automatic luga, it is quite simple, isn't it easy to use? It's relatively complex for a modern pistol, yes, but that shouldn't affect me shooting it, it shouldn't affect your accuracy, look, four. let me see what you can do top target on your own time that's a pretty good grouping a shot was

fired

there in the bottom left that can be forgiven well i hope so please forgive me on the internet uh but you know what it's very very slow and deliberate fire which is more like target shooting rate of fire which is not really what you would ever want well I guess if you could if you had an enemy running away from you or coming towards you and you would have felt like you had time to take deliberate shots maybe yes, but yes, it is not really the main purpose P of a pistol, but it does, it shows that if we ignore the steering wheel, yes, it is capable of reasonable accuracy, but all pistols are used as such time in 10 You know, unless you are very skilled, calm and can make the most of them, they are self-defense

weapons

for small spaces, so you could shoot. that, you know three times the speed if you wanted to, but again it's that balance between accuracy and rate of fire.

Yeah, I mean, the advantage of an autoloader is that you can shoot it a little more accurately at a higher velocity with practice. You need practice to be able to do that, otherwise your shots will go off. Nobody shoots with two hands right now. I was going to ask you if you did it with one hand. Yes that's how it is. You come from Target. shooting essentially is long range fire um faban and Sykes, the people who trained in the UK and then in the OSS in America and also have their own equipment, are making the modern two-handed pistol grip pistol for shooting long range for a more stable shot, um, but it's just not done the way you do it now, you know universally, uh, now there's a feature that helps with the way I was shooting it, but it's even more Important for Rapid Fire is this steep Rak grab angle here. gives it the P, the iconic look of guns, yes, it's very pronounced R and that allows, in theory, a natural point, like if I point my finger, it should be very similar to pointing the gun, oh yeah, because you're not Yes, it almost allows you a more natural straight, yes, horizontal, as long as you hold it like it's strange, it makes it a little more difficult for a modern two-handed grip, but for shooting instinctively, uh, from the waist, the James.

The Bond thing existed when you shoot from the hip and look where you're aiming naturally, so you'll probably hit safely at this range and even if you take a more deliberate stance, the sights line up very naturally. We don't have to make too many adjustments to the aiming and it all comes down to the grip angle and today's pistols almost still chase that, but a lot of people prefer the 1911s, yeah, well that's a good start. Let's raise the anti. A bit of a bolt action, yes, from a flashy weapon to the proven primary weapon of the German Army's 98k Carbine, it was one of the final developments in the long line of military rifles produced by Mouser, the leading German arms manufacturer, an improvement over a previous model.

Developed from the version 998 rifle used during World War I, the 98k carbine immediately became the standard model of the verm, with nearly 15 million produced from 1935 until the end of the war. Jonathan the 98k car, this is the standard bolt action model. For the Germans now, interestingly, while America opts for the semi-automatic rifle, the Germans are sticking with their good old bolt action, why do they do it so well? The first thing to say is that they are working behind the scenes on autoloading. rifles as almost everyone is, even in the UK we were as attached to the bolt action rifle as the Germans were, if not more so, so testing and evaluation of current designs is still carried out every few years to see if it is time to jump gets on the self-loading rifle wagon and initially the Germans decide no, this is 1935, don't forget they know what's going on, so they're arming themselves first, yeah, and this is introduced in 1935 as an improved model of the G8 98 existing in 1898. which is when this was originally introduced, so it's very mechanical, it's a contemporary of the Springfield Enfield, um, it's really the latest iteration of that very good Bol action design, but now it's entering a era where you have faster firing weapons and of course you mentioned the ma 98 uh that's the rifle they're using in World War I uh very effective how does this compare to that rifle?

What are the improvements they make? This will happen much later. but the Germans realize the same thing as the British and Americans, namely that you don't need a full length 30 inch barrel rifle and a 20 inch barrel carbine or something like that for your cavalry artillery, with whoever you can manage. It's more than enough to have a 20 and 24 inch barreled rifle, um, the small one, that's how the British did it. In 1902, entering World War I with a short rifle, the Americans did so in 1903 with the Springfield, the Germans. I'm a little late to the party with the short rifle, usually called the short rifle or universal rifle, but thisbarrel length does the job, does almost all jobs, even for snipers.

You know, this is modified for sniper scopes just like the other rifles. do it too so there are some modifications that are made eh but for all hardcore purposes it's still a standard bolt action that takes five rounds why maybe they've gone to 10 rounds like Lee Enfields? Yeah, that's a really good question, um, boil it. Deep down, it matters to you and me, if we are recruited and sent to the front, we could start the battle. Starting the fight with 10 bullets, which seems like a no-brainer, why wouldn't you want 10 bullets once you've

fired

those 10? Rounds that are in that box you're reloading are five rounds, Eclipse just like that, so stick with that and give your soldiers that slight bottom advantage considering many other weapons in use on the battlefield at the same time.

Does it really matter if Private Jones has 10 rounds or five no for no on the macro level on the micro level yes please I want 10 rounds. The advantages of using 10 rounds are much slimmer so there is an aesthetic angle to this in that for exercise and parade you have a nicer rifle, that's a minor concern but it is a major concern yes Most importantly, you're losing out on using a little less metal to make that extended external charger less vulnerable to impact. Now I haven't read or seen anything about serious problems with dented mags, but in theory if you make a dent in an Enfield mag it causes a disruption of supply, so in the scheme of things it's a bit conservative try not to increase capacity now, in the second, in the first

world

war.

I had had 20 round magazines for these and for trench fighting, it was recognized that in trench fighting you do want a larger capacity, but for the traditional rifleman role, five seemed to be enough, so it's all about reliability, um and Of course, you mentioned before that they were at the same time, maybe in the background, working on these semi-automatic rifles, they're just, they're a lot rarer than this, this rifle right now, right, no, yet? It is not a standard question, is it so that they have armed themselves en masse for the great conflict that is coming?

They've sort of made the decision for the moment, so by default they won't be able to introduce a self-loading rifle at scale because you've already put your eggs in this basket, yeah, um. Now, in 1941, you know, there's troop testing going on with the G 41, which is their first attempt at a self-loading rifle, there's all sorts of politics and and failures and delays to get a working service rifle. and that it is semi-automatic and we don't see that until the G 43 in 1943, which then takes time to be produced and get into the hands of soldiers and then we have another The gun goes well, two actually complicate the picture even more, yes, in the meantime , the German soldier is literally welding with essentially Victorian technology.

Yes, it's shorter, lighter, more practical, faster to aim, and has open sights so you don't have to. Focus your eye on that ring, which is more of a target site thing, they've gone the simple route of an open sight, so at the 100m combat site range, just place the thing on the thing and pull the trigger a little simpler and then you still have the ability to scale it up to a downright fun 2000M, eh, but that's not unusual for a service rifle of the era, the idea is that if you don't have a machine gun, you can still shoot. mass with rifle shots at incredible distances, the same is in the final field and of course you can also add the sniper scope, so this is also used by German snipers.

Basically, a common theme is that the standard. Each nation's service rifle is adapted as a sniper rifle. Now it's not like in games, you can't just place a crosshair. No, this has to be modified at an Arsenal or factory to take a scope. You can't just push. X unfortunately not, no, and you know that the same thing happens with any other, there are no, the only accessories are the standard bayonet that we do not have here today, a bit of hazard on the range for bayonet, and that's all. there are accessories developed for rifles, even suppressors, grenade launchers, that kind of thing, the only one that has any significant use is the grenade launcher and of course the cloth, and you know there's obviously going to be a big debate, you know, in war it's never a In case it's a one on one, but I'm interested in how this compares to the M1 Gar, you know you have, on the one hand, a semi-automatic rifle that fires eight rounds and then you have your bolt action. action with five rounds, I mean, it seems obvious, but I guess, as you mentioned, with the reliability, it was maybe more of a fair fight than we give it credit for, we tend to boil it down to one on one because it makes intuitive sense but, of course, you're going to be facing an army, a squad, a platoon, whatever with your squad or platoon or whatever, so yeah, you're going to be engaging with individuals and that individual might be engaging you, but they might as well be. shoot one at one of your friends or not shoot at all or whatever, so it's not exactly the Smith Spitfire comparison or a video game where you're one on one, yeah, which is dangerous enough to make us, but it's definitely not that the differences matter much less, but having said that if you're a soldier or even at the squad level you want to be armed with a self-loading rifle, I'd guess that if you have the choice, you'd probably choose On the Ground, yeah You could choose from absolutely captured G Gars, we used them, as were all captured Allied weapons in one form or another, and of course, as self-loading rifles, G 43 filters are used on a significant scale. but they are not ubiquitous in the same way as the Garand, so there would have been an element in the psyche of the German soldier.

I think the allies are terrified that some of them will at least face the German soldier's devastating mg42 defensive machine gun. You might be thinking that I don't really want to take on this 12-man squad of semi-automatic riflemen because I have this, so maybe it's more of a psychological thing than most soldiers who had no choice but to stick with their trusty bolt-action rifles. given 50 to 60 rounds of Mouser 7.92 cartridges divided into eclips strips of five fed into the receiver wanting to test my aim with this weapon that stands out for its accuracy, it was time to set up some targets and increase the range, okay . this is the bolt action that I can shoot the 98k auto uh let's see how it loads yeah well it's very similar to the US Springfield stripper clip on top yeah five round stripper clip, you have a guide there for the clip and then we close the bolt on the top round I put it in a safe place so I can hand it to you, yeah, okay, that's where I give the most push to this one, I'm sure you think, yeah, I think it's very interesting, you're the expert, but that's what it feels like it's very subjective I think I was very wrong about that it's still in the right place well there we are right in the middle it's working well Bullseye maybe maybe no no that's good you don't you don't necessarily want the Bulls, you want a smaller group, okay, we're clear here, okay, give that back to me, I'll do it, so I certainly felt a bigger kick in that one, uh, you said it's all subjective, right?

Well, it is partly. It has to do with the length, well, the length of the stock, your proportions, how well you place it on your shoulder, what you are wearing, yes, all factors on paper, this should be a very similar recoil, but it is very subjective and how it looks, huh. My view isn't very good from this distance, but honestly, it's very similar to what you did with the similarly sized group from Springfield. You chased him around a bit and then hit two in the middle to finish, so it's a decent group. to stand when you haven't shot one before, that's what you get with bolt actions, you know, it's good accuracy now, you and I should probably be able to put them through the same hole.

Yes, but we need some training so certainly real training was needed for the introduction of a new weapon that had the ability to change the course of war, while attempts were made to produce a fully automatic combat firearm. At the beginning of the conflict, the year 1944 saw the world's first Genesis. successful assault rifle when you said that this weapon was not only available to go out but also to shoot, I was extremely excited, uh, the stg44 or the mp44 is the same as the mp43 is almost the same, there are a couple of changes throughout the time, but they are all three are the same weapon functionally speaking and I mean, the huge elephant in the room is that it looks like the rifles that modern militia groups use today and it was introduced in 1944, more or less yeah, I mean, I guess we have to remember that the um the famous Kalashnikov that it's often compared to is kind of the first one, first made in 1949, prototypes in 1946 47, so there's not a big gap between something that then becomes the standard, the world standard for automatic rifles, assault rifles, you name it. call them, but yeah, at the same time, somehow, within that time period of 3945, we think it's too modern looking, yeah, and that's because it was the first, this is where we get the term rifle assault, which is not a very useful term in a technical sense, but it has stagnated and is the idea that it is a rifle that you can attack with like you would with a submachine gun or any other rapid-fire weapon, but typically a submachine gun, literally in the assault phase of an attack, but you can also use it with single target fire like a rifle, so it's a combination of those things.

There is even serious talk that this could mean less mg 42 in the squad or well, not in the squad, sorry, but in the platoon in general. so you might have squads made up of just these guys because they can fire off enough rapid fire and full auto to make up for a machine gun. It turns out that you can't replace a machine gun with an assault rifle, but pistols are certainly becoming more popular now. they are going to become less relevant than they already are and the important thing is that even if you just look at it as a kind of improved submachine gun, it is still worth having and if it replaces the bolt actions and self-loan rifles that by some Armed Forces later of war is the way it works, so this becomes almost a do-it-all weapon, it almost tells me about the origins of the conception and production of this, when did they finally take this to the front lines? almost too late by the time they get to the front line, it's definitely one of those German wonder weapon types that's a little late to the party, um, so we have troop test models, the mkb42, that went on sale in 1942 in small quantities, not enough to cause any kind of impact enough to be captured by the Soviets and develop EMP power in the AK, but um, nonetheless, and it's not until late '43, I think we'll get significant amounts of mp43 so that it is more developed. as part of the kit you know you could take this to war now, it doesn't even have it sideways, it also has an optic rail for a 4 power scope, which would bring it completely back to the basics over the last two decades. anyway, you can still fight with it today, it's a little bit heavy, it's a little bit heavier even than the Kalashnikov, this is the AK-47 variant, you know, it's heavier than the AKM, heavier than most modern rifles, but it's not that bad, it's so close.

I know you're so close to it that I'm familiar with the fact that these don't cost much more to produce than regular rifles. I mean, that's crazy. I guess at this point in the war. with the German war machine it's not exactly what it was in the late '30s, no, but in terms of cost, you know it's substantially sheet metal, you have a cannon, you know, solid steel tubular cannons are standard for all the rifles, so that's no additional cost, um, yeah, you have to put all the design into research and development on the working parts, the gas parts to make sure they work reliably, which they did, but substantially it is sheet metal and they already have it.

The technology for the MP 40 for the mg42 is already perfected, it's not going to cost you much, you have to shell out to scale up all the tools, once you're there you're running these things at a rate that becomes less than what it costs a Mouser and that's partly because there is very little wood in this thing, that's something the Germans perfect, aren't these types of weapons mostly metal? I want to talk a little bit about the functionality itself, obviously, fully automatic, what rounds it uses, how big the magazine is so good that you can see we don't have a bullet on hand, but it's a short rifle cartridge, so you're getting into in the rifle ballistics ballpark in terms ofpenetrating wound effect, but has reduced power and More than the automatic function, it is the low recoil and reduced weight you can carry.

You know, a lot more rounds, you know, shoot more rounds. You don't need every shot to be, ballistically, the best of all time. This turns out to be a great compromise for the infantryman and is a 30 round magazine like an MP 40. We have the magazine release button and dust cover of an AR15 decades before the AR-15 that keeps the action nice and sealed against you. Know that bad weather, dirt, and quick charger changes are starting to become possible. charger off, we even have a left-handed charging handle, yes, that's not as good as a two-sided or interchangeable one, but it's still good enough to keep your hand in the grip.

You have the safety where you need it, you even have your fire selector up here, where you need everything to be without taking your hand off the pistol grip. A very modern idea, but already at the moment we can do it from the He left and then put it into action immediately, so even from an ergonomic point of view it is not bad. I guess unfortunately a lot of the people producing this may be PS people in concentration camps and unfortunately yeah that's a very important point um just a general slowdown in the industry from losing the war uh people who are, let's say, far from being motivated, possibly even certainly an active sabotage of like I'm not going to heat treat this bolt properly because why should I and maybe help save someone's life on the battlefield, all of that plays into there , so we must keep in mind that they are not only designed to kill people, but in some cases they are made by prisoners, by people who are going to die themselves. without even knowing it, without even firing a shot, potentially good, anyway, I guess the allies could be grateful this hasn't been introduced sooner, uh, let's take it to the range and, uh, well, I can't wait to seeing this thing shoot, it's certainly interesting using the 7.92 by 33 intermediate bullet that was right between the 7.9 2x 57 mile bullet used by the 98 car and the 9mm bullet used by the MP series .

The stg44 was pumped 450,000 times by the German war industry until the end of the conflict. Now we are about 3 or 4 M from the target. I'm going to see how fast you can shoot this thing or it is before it heats up and explodes. Yes, there is the assault or waste position, the classic hip position. Shoot if you enter a trench or building, you may be using it. I'm going to see what I can do from the shoulder with some short bursts, cool down, go, that was another thing I won't do. I won't watch that, uh, that's a real once in a lifetime experience.

How did you feel? First of all, I know my cameraman felt it. It's a little obvious to say in a way, but it's like. a Thompson slammed into an MP 40, yeah it doesn't feel like a rifle. I have fired modern automatic assault rifles in burst and it is much more controllable than those, actually, yes it is so slow that it is not you. I don't understand what I mean, modern militaries don't normally use automatic fire and that's an emergency thing in close quarters. They're more about fast semi-autos, which this one is also capable of, but you can see why they released it like that. 600 rounds per minute, a little faster than a Sten or something, but much more controllable smooth shooting now still has that cumulative recoil effect.

I felt myself moving off target, so I'd say a 3-5 shot burst is probably optimal. That's like the Goldilocks Zone, isn't it from the shoulder? Yeah, if you could do a half MAG or something potentially with the hit, but God knows where those rounds go. Well, your grouping is pretty good. I mean, that was really one time. in a once in a lifetime experience, thank you very much for showing me that you are welcome from one gun enthusiast favorite to another, the MP 40 or machine and the Pistol 40 remains the firearm most associated with the German Army of the World War II, one of the first weapons made entirely of stamped steel, aluminum and plastic components.

The submachine gun was mass produced more than 1 million times by the end of World War II and gained a reputation for its portability, efficiency and accuracy. Jonathan last but certainly not least, MP 40, another iconic weapon of World War II, before I talk about it I want to go back a little to World War I, the Germans are the first to introduce any type of submachine gun, the mp8, how do submachine guns really change? The war, obviously. could not have the desired impact in the first world war, that's right, the advance from the Western Front was achieved through the most effective use of artillery radio communications, especially um and machine guns, effective use of appropriate machine guns.

The submachine gun had the potential to really help with that, but there weren't enough of them being used and the tactics weren't really developed yet to make that much of a difference, but you can imagine waves of troops armed with submachine guns taking over more effectively. take ground trenches sweep pillboxes those kinds of things if they had been more available and that's really what one of the most important things we see in the second world war, the other side is the mechanization that actually wasn't there at all In the first world, yes, we have trucks that carry ammo and stuff, but no, there are generally no troops going in and out of them, and that's where something as compact as this with the firepower of something bigger really comes into its own, so which will always have that trench broom potential, whether it's actually a trench or a bunker or something very, very short, aimable, you can shoot from the hip, you can shoulder it for more deliberate shooting and at this point you can also retreat . raise the stock, yes, intentionally to facilitate storage in a vehicle or something and simply to carry it to the paratroopers strapped to them so that they always have an automatic weapon instead of having to rely on boxes, yes, yes, my weapons there .

I need it here um and in the movies, of course, they never bother with stock, no, but that's cooler, well, mostly, yeah, I mean, it looks cooler when it's dubbed, um, that's the only one important innovation of this. Call it a second generation or maybe even third generation submachine gun. I'll debate that in the comments, um, the other one. Innovations are in manufacturing to make it more affordable. um, to mass produce these things, it's the same round as the Bergman, it's the same type. rate of fire, you know, 500 600 rounds chugging, controllable, the other innovations are, as I say, either way of manufacturing, so the use of polymers you know once you have scaled it up, it is cheaper than wood, I'm sure it's also a little lighter.

The lower receiver here is made of plastic, not quite a lower receiver, uh, sheet metal. The Germans are really pioneers in the use of sheet metal for firearms, which becomes the way to go for the entire Cold War, basically, almost the entire Cold War, the magazine has moved on the side that the The British still prefer to put themselves in a prone position like a rifleman, that's not what they're good for, so the Germans have also put them underneath like the Thompson, exactly parallel to the Thompson, um, but the interesting thing about the magazine is that they don't hold exactly the magazine when they shoot, they hold it right above, yes, exactly, so you will see extras in war movies, especially some actors.

In addition to swinging the magazine now, I don't know if you can see that, but it's especially if we can see there that it actually changes the angle of the rounds substantially and the more you swing it, the more it will wear out and the more it does that, which combined with maybe not the best grip could end up causing it to stop, it's also a lot less precise to hold it down here, that's what's fine, first you're supposed to grab it here where it's slotted for the purpose, okay? I mean, go and find some images and photos of a foot old and see what you think, but this clearly to me is also designed to capture U and at this point we have these RIs.

We're reinforcing ribs for manufacturing purposes to make it lighter, but they also help with grip and you'll usually see German soldiers gripping it here, which also means it's quicker to lift your thumb to change magazines, but we have to remember. which was designed to be used this way, which makes it quite front heavy, yeah, so yeah, there are pros and cons with every weapon, um, I mean, the first thing that catches my eye when holding this is which is completely metal, I mean these things. They were designed to be mass-produced, yes, for a weapon produced on such an industrial scale, the MP40 has a lot of intricate detail and adjustable properties along with a handy folding stock and a U-shaped rear sight mounted above.

The receiver the site has two mixed configurations, a permanent sight calibrated for 100 m and a folding sight calibrated for 200 M, an impressive effective range for a submachine gun of its time and as always I am going to ask this question, how does it compare? for your Thompsons, your grease guns, all those types of weapons are interesting because it has characteristics of all of them in a way that it does, it has the folding stock of a grease gun and the sheet metal construction of a grease gun, but it's in 9 thousand um, has the rate of fire equivalent to most weapons of the time, but less than a Thompson or a ppsh.

I think the selling point is probably the buffering here so you can see it even without taking it apart. There's a concertina plunger arrangement here, a three part recoil spring system and that means the bolt almost doesn't even hit the back, okay I think technically it does, but you don't feel the impact and that Impact is what throws your aim off so you can literally keep it on target chugging like that with unlimited recoil, yeah very, it's almost constant recoil, which is the technical term for when the Vault doesn't hit back, so it's the same recoil, it's just handled a lot. better then you're more likely to hit on auto which is all this does with this than probably any of the others well jonan you've whetted my appetite let's take this to the range let's do it Jonathan MP 40 You got it ready to shoot, you're going to use the folding stock, yes, you always want to use the stock, yes, okay, and that's just an emergency, it's an emergency, similar to the Thompson, we're going to shoot semi-automatic. to start with, but this doesn't have the exact mechanism, doesn't it have a semi-automatic mechanical function, but it's slow enough to be able to take single shots, which five of us do.

I'll try to do five. semi-automatic or equivalent and then we will do bursts, you go to the bottom. Target and I failed, that's what I should have done. What an experience shooting all these guns, I mean, especially this one here. I mean, you don't. You can do that many times in your life, right? No, and there are only so many of them in so many spare parts, and how did it feel to shoot all these guns? I mean, would you say that Germany in general if you keep in mind that you know their submachine guns across the board, they have some of the most powerful firearms of World War II.

I think it's fair to say, I mean, it's almost a cliché that you know the Third Reich builds the best equipment there. Certainly the most, I don't know, I guess there's a kind of strange mystique to this too, but they're technically excellent, there's no way around it, you know, they go into war with a very common but competent bolt action. rifle, the good old Luger that is celebrated, you know, we have more of this than almost anything else, we have two almost 300 296 luger because every gii, every Brit, every Tommy brought one, you know, I'm still surprised they decide to keep that.

This bolt action as standard felt good to shoot, but obviously by the time the hard G comes in, you know it's so Superior, it's just a case of too little, too late, late to the party with a short bolt action. action rifle 20 years ago 30 years ago um it would have been the time to do that but for obvious reasons that didn't happen it's not like they were going to rest on their laurels it wasn't even really like they were going to do it Keep it up, they were working on the replacement, but they were already committed to this for a period of time and that ended up being the entire war for a lot of soldiers and, of course, at the end of the war, a lot of these weapons are being made in these, you know, training camps. concentration, P fields and it is not in your best interest to be perfectionists, okay?

In the end you have everyone, you have everyone, from dedicated artisans who want to continue doing what they do. did 10 or 20 years ago to get to people who are going to die and know they're going to die and why the hell should they do anything other than Bas's most basic job or the worst job possible. The real sabotage that is happening in this. Time too and weapons can besee in weapons. You know, the British start the war looking terrible and it's possibly not the best weapon ever made, because that will potentially be the last ditch for Britain, but Britain is coming. she recovers from that with the help of the allies and stands on her own two feet and ends up with better weapons.

Germany ends up copying the foot weapon. That's the situation they find themselves in in 1945. They need them, can't make enough guns, and end up copying the tubular sheet steel St gun, which is just an indicator of how bad things were. individual weapon what is your What is your preference here if you are a German infantryman but you want to be armed with a good one? I think our fans at Gamespot especially would be remiss, well, I'd think I was remiss, miss, if I didn't say the s2g, the mp44, I just have a feeling you're going to choose that one, well, I can choose it anyway, but There is also a reason why you will have to go watch the gaming sports channel to find out, but it will surely come up again, but not in all seriousness, it is the original assault rifle in the scam in terms of the concept. intermediate cartridge, you can argue about earlier assault rifles, but you are effectively redefining what assault rifle means.

This is, by definition, the first because it is the first to be called the first to use a cartridge truly intermediate between a pistol and a rifle, just a head away from any comment. Personally, I think you'd have to be an idiot not to want to go into action with 30 semi-automatic or fully automatic rounds instead of five rounds. Yes, it is a much heavier weapon and is the model not only for the Kalashnikov, which it resembles, but also for all the others, almost all other modern infantry rifles. All you know, some counts stick to that full power rifle cartridge and to this day, some of them, the vast majority go for that concept, it has a good legacy, yeah, ultimately, Jan, what a privilege it was to not only shoot these guns, but also see you shoot them.

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