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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 think the only thing that has similar internals to the StG44 is the HK G3. The roller delayed blowback action is basically the only difference. I think how the rifle is taken apart is the same. First the stock, then the trigger group and grip swing open, then you pop out the action. In the AK you take the top cover off first, which is totally different.
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
@@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.
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..
@@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
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.
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.
@@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
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.........
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).
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.
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
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
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.
@@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
@@HarryHoffman-g4nThe STG outperforms the M1 carbine in most things besides weight and it also lead to the development of all modern assault rifles. I love the M1 Carbine but it was going nowhere.
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.
Despite its flaws everyone on both sides grabbed up every M-1 carbine they could. The only statistic soldiers cared about was weight, not all the crap we talk about today. The U.S. report "The MP43 is now the MP44" the weight of the MP44 when fully loaded was double(12 lbs to 6 lbs) that of the M-1 carbine which was considered a negative. Second, its construction: "The receiver, frame, gas cylinder, jacket, and front sight hood are all made from steel stampings. Since all pins in the trigger mechanism are riveted in place, it cannot be disassembled; if repair is required, a whole new trigger assembly must be inserted. Only the gas pistol assembly, bolt, hammer, barrel, gas cylinder, nut on the front of the barrel, and the magazine are machined parts. The stock and band grip are constructed of cheap, roughly finished wood and, being fixed, make the piece unhandy compared to the submachine guns with their folding stocks. "
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 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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
@@kirkstinson7316 Both the Germans and Soviets realised that intermediate caliber assault rifles were the way of the future in the early 1940s, while USA stuck with their outdated full power rifle mindset until the 1960s, which in turn forced most of NATO to stick with obsolete battle rifles into the 1980s and 1990s because they couldn’t just afford to change their infantry caliber on a whim. The M1 carbine doesn’t count because it was never mass issued to infantry, unlike the StG and AK.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1. they were allowed to use it, the whole idea was that it could replace the kar98k and the mp40 both so doctrine was semi at range and automatic during assault. there was even an idea that it could replace the squad MG if the whole squad had these, which is not really how it works, but they thought about it. 2. very savvy design choice actually, sheet metal stamping was optimised for the MP40 production, so the process was well understood by german industry and this ultimately led to the StG44 being cheaper in production than the Kar98k due to the absence of wooden parts 3. the magwell is long enough to grip and gets your thumb closer to the mag release button, which makes it a perfectly natural place to hold. was this intended? probably not but still. its in no way a perfect weapon, but they did think about why they did things the way they did them, the army loved them and wanted more, even though parts were produced in basically slave labor and were at times of terrible quality and material was short
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.
I mean considering they misrepresented the capabilities of most axis weapons to bolster the morale of their soliders (like slamming the mg 42 for not being accurate although that was never its purpose as a defensive machine gun) I wouldn‘t be surprised if they did the same with the StG 44
Interesting fact, the treaty of Versailles said Germany couldn’t use rifles, right, but IT FAILED TO MAKE CLEAR WHAT CLASSIFIES AS A RIFLE, so they began classifying all their guns(what were actually rifles)as carbines
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.
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...
@@HarryHoffman-g4n 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.
@@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.
For what it is worth, I have carried (the same) original, unmodified, live and legal, StG44 for 20+ years' of reenactments. The weight is negligible for increased rate of fire and ability to carry a 3.5 times the ammo load in the mags and pouches as you can in 98k pouches with taking up almost no extra space on your gear. Any other place in your gear you can store 2.5 times the rounds for the same space. Yes this is true for live rounds as well as blanks rounds. (No. No we do not use live rounds for reenactments! It just a factual foot note). My favorite feature is that GIs mistake the 500 to 550 round per minute "chug, chug, chug" cyclic rate for that of a Thompson SMG. There is a design flaw in the receiver that only becomes apparent after firing more than 100 rounds through one to "create content": the opening for the hammer in the underside of the receiver is often widely off set to one side or another causing uneven support for the bolt ending in a jamb and a broken bolt. This is because the slot is stamped through the receiver BEFORE folding the receiver flat around the trunnion. This should have been milled into he receiver after the folding to keep in centered and it could have been 40-50 % narrower. Are the delicate compared to their contemporaries? Look down into that trigger group sometime and see how many delicate little stamping and springs their are in there. Now remember the full auto sear and the semi auto sear both run simultaneously 100% of the time, all the selector switch does is connect one or the other to the trigger. I'd give it a 9.5/10, Most of that is based on being able to say, Why yes this is an StG44. Why yes it does work. and then see the looks on collectors faces @christineshotton824 10 months ago
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.
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 .
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.
@@cyb-m1g 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.
MP44 and Stg44 are not the same, there are differences between the two. Source: Jonathan Ferguson in a video where he goes through and fires German ww2 weapons.
Weird thing: Was Hitler right? He hated the Sturmgewehr? And according to contemporary enemy intelligence, the MP43/44 STG44 was nothing special. The exciting thing is that everybody copied more or less the design and concept.
2:19 Am I the only one who thought it was pretty unsafe, watching a bunch of soldiers load their rifles cock, and then put it down to the left side so it’s now loaded barrel is facing towards your head and chest?
@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.........
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
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…
Very Briefed And Summarized Ideas: I think it wasn't the ground breaking as it's promoted throughout the history of the wars and the firearms... the only real development is the introduction of the intermediate rounds, but as a project its roots can be traced to other nasty germans assault guns such as the mp38 and the mp40 beside the smaller size and lighter in weight the Soviet ppsh41, ppsh43 both classified as submachine guns firing pistol rounds with 9×19 parabellum for the nasty germans and 7.62×25mm tokarev for the Soviet machine... and its ideas can be even traced to the svd40 and other semi-automatic battle rifles... the nasty germans faced problems in equipping its soldiers with the suitable personal weapons systems to counter the Soviet Union overwhelming manpower superiority, the k98 (caliber 7.92×57) although it possesses the ranges and the stopping power but it is a self loading rifle and thus lacking the density of fire power offered by the semi-automatic firing mechanisms, beside it comes with only 5 rounds it has a very small size loading capacity, this package when coupled with an appropriate scops maybe making the k98 rifle suitable for snipers and marksmen roles... from the experience of nasty germans on the eastern front, all infantry engagements happened from distances ranging between 200 and 400 meters, although the mp38/mp40 offered the fire density but the 9×19mm parabellum pistol caliber rounds does not offer this ranges or the stopping power, even if it is fired from a longer barrel guns, while the battle rifle k98 should be considered an over killing for the regular infantry soldiers although it was much cheaper to produce and much easier to clean and maintain... the nasty germans stg44 fired a shortened rounds of the 7.92×57mm utilized on the k98 and the mg34/mg42 general purpose light machine guns, the nasty germans assault rifle fired the 7.92×33mm instead of 57mm length thus its lighter although its shorter in range but still offer at least double the ranges of the pistol calibers submachine guns and with much better stopping power... it took from the nasty germans a few years to cock the solution or come up with this recipe of combining the firepower of battle rifles with the features and advantages of the rapid firing of the sub-machine guns to engage the waves or the echelons of Russian infantry at medium range and not at closer ranges by the machine pistols like the mp38/mp40, this solution came to late and to complicated to change the course of the war...
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.
It honestly sounds like a bunch of cope. I dont think that the the soviets for example wouldve tried to get their own version of such a weapon out if it didnt convince them. Yet they tried with the AS-44.
Ofcourse the allies have to downplay the gun. You can't be telling your soldiers that the enemy that they are about to fight have a gun that performs equally or better than the guns previously fielded by that country.
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.
@@HarryHoffman-g4n 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.
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.
Allies 1950's: This Fabriqué Nationale Herstal made this FAL rifle that is twice as heavy and uses a 7.62x51mm cartridge, that'll do!
@@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.
@@BoostedMonkey05 unfortunately in search for gold we lost diamonds (EM-2)
@@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.
@@BoostedMonkey05 I know, but it would have been so cool if the Brits adopted it earlier..
Though it still lives on the L86 series and the SA80
seeing that they told their troops that the MG-42 was not a threat (all bark, no bite slogan), of course they are going to downplay the MP-44.
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.
the nazis lost its okay to just admit it bro
@@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.
@@jic1 The 30 carbine is an underrated rifle if that's what you're referring to.
@@MasterOfDestructionX Yes.
@@jic1 if the M1 carbine was that much better, everyone would use Mini-14s today
@@jic1 M1/M2 carbine is unfortunately still weak to be called "middle ground" due to its short barrel.
They're so "delicate", that original MP44s are STILL being used by Rebels in North Africa !
Ammo has to be a nightmare.
I think there is a serbian ammo factory still producing the ammo 😂
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.
If Khyber pass gunsmiths can make 7.92 Kurtz, I think they can make one too
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.
What they wrote in reports vs what the troops thought fighting against it are 2 different things :)
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.
Yup, reports tend to underestimate to bolster morale of own soldiers, while troops may overestimate cuz "grass is always greener on the other side"
They're hardly going to say "he German new rifle is way better than anything we've ever had, and we're all doomed chaps!", are they??
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.
@@BrianDgreat123 They weren't being dishonest, they just didn't have the context to see the full benefits of the concept yet.
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.
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.
Why does 90% of anecdotal stories on TH-cam start with "in the 80's..."? Starts to feel like BS.
@@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.
@@Robin6512Which museum if you don't mind me asking?
@@Indylimburg bevrijdende vleugels in Veghel. Liberating wings in English.
It moved to a different location. So did I 33 years ago 🤓
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 think the only thing that has similar internals to the StG44 is the HK G3. The roller delayed blowback action is basically the only difference. I think how the rifle is taken apart is the same. First the stock, then the trigger group and grip swing open, then you pop out the action. In the AK you take the top cover off first, which is totally different.
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....
Badges? Who needs stinkin badges!
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
So, so true. “Where’s the friggin’ big hammer on this thing?? Doesn’t even look like a rifle!!”
It was so terrible every country followed suit....
It’s the most influential gun in the past 100 years. It has influenced post war assault rifle designs.
I'm sorry but in a world where the AK, the AR, the 1911, and the Glock exist, I'm going to have to disagree with you.
@@davidhoffman6980 1911 is more than 100 years old.
@@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.
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.
Funny how they pumped out 1 million of them isn't it? (check the production numbers)
@@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.
They were selling part kits into the 1990's
Like the American Training Film that teaches soldiers not to worry about the MG34.
@@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..
German infantrymen LOVED it and wanted more of them.
Soldiers generally prefer semi-auto weapons over bolt action.
The Soviets thought it was an ineffectual weapon. That's why they practically copied it. Excellent video. Thanks You
They really didn't
@@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
@@dragonstormdipro1013 Sarcasm
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.
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
Why didn't the gun have a better front grip, like did they run out of trees or were they fine holding onto some metal
@@jamesgoldring1052 what like the MP 38/40 / 34 PPSH41
@@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.
"Certainly better than almost anything on the battlefield at that time" sounds very much like the definition of "amazing" to me.
@@ropeburn6684it was heavy enough without more furnture on front grip
Wasn't this hampered by Hitler insisting that it should be used as a bomber rather than a fighter.
In his defense it was a logistical nightmare
You got it, Bruh. And then Adolf ruined the ME262 by insisting it be semi-auto only.🤕
@@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
Insisting that the STG44 should be a bomber?
This video saying it's more accurate than the k98 is absolutely absurd
Yep. Something got lost in translation. 😢
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.........
When you write that it lacks range and accuracy you don't understand the concept of an assault rifle
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.
@@jp-ty1vdpull that Turdeo out of you hearing... And actually learn what it can do.
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).
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.
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
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
Yes and firing full auto means only the first few rounds might hit the target, the rest were going to be firing high.
All experts agree that rapid single shots are superior to full auto anyway in most situations, so that’s just a stupid point in the report.
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.
More like that they didn't understand it back then.
Ruskies were the first ones who understand the importance of an ARand abandoned SKS very quickly.
when a former DELTA FORCE OPERATOR, Larry Vickers, drolls over the STG and claims it could have won the war, it is a good gun.
@@johndoe-ek6vl Nobody said it was a bad gun, and with all due respect to Larry, no small arm could have changed the outcome of WWII
So why do you think some American soldiers used captured StG 44 during world war 2?
Is it documented that they did? I mean actually used them in combat, not just ran a couple of mags through a captured one for fun?
@@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
@@TARFU The Russians captured alot of them and used them on their front as well .
All the best from Texas
The STG 44 was clearly the best individual weapon of WWII.
It was unreliable heavy and expensive
I’d say it was the M1 Carbine. Could kill things out to 250-300 yds. Carry 5 lb more ammo than with an STG.
@@HarryHoffman-g4nThe STG outperforms the M1 carbine in most things besides weight and it also lead to the development of all modern assault rifles. I love the M1 Carbine but it was going nowhere.
So bad, nobody copied the concept! You're right. Not the Brits, not the Americans, not the Russians,.....
The Russians saw a need for it in the AK 47
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.
Something funny, Kalashnikov's statue isn't holding an AK47, it's an MP44. Somebody had an oopsie moment!
And remember, it's bark is worse than it's bite!
Despite its flaws everyone on both sides grabbed up every M-1 carbine they could. The only statistic soldiers cared about was weight, not all the crap we talk about today.
The U.S. report "The MP43 is now the MP44" the weight of the MP44 when fully loaded was double(12 lbs to 6 lbs) that of the M-1 carbine which was considered a negative. Second, its construction: "The receiver, frame, gas cylinder, jacket, and front sight hood are all made from steel stampings. Since all pins in the trigger mechanism are riveted in place, it cannot be disassembled; if repair is required, a whole new trigger assembly must be inserted. Only the gas pistol assembly, bolt, hammer, barrel, gas cylinder, nut on the front of the barrel, and the magazine are machined parts. The stock and band grip are constructed of cheap, roughly finished wood and, being fixed, make the piece unhandy compared to the submachine guns with their folding stocks. "
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 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?
there's still a fair amount of stg44s in eastern europe and the middle east being used today. pretty wild
Fragile coming from the makers of the Sten gun
@@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.
@@jamallabarge2665 given what federov was doing with 6.5 pre-war, it's a little surprising they didn't.
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...
Except they didn’t?
@@MLG_MAN_1223 sorry buddy, it's a well known fact...
If period pictures and videos isn't doesn't prove it for you. Why don't you google it...
They wear gloves because of Russian winter, brrr. There are also many pictures where they were NOT 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.
@@macobuzi There were no gloves with the MP40, but with the MG42 for barrel changing.
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 .
They said the MG42 was no more than a joke, so they already lost credibility......
Who said that?
@@rebmerf5622
He got that from a US army training film, which would obviously downplay the effectiveness of the MG42.
Well the other side lost the war so…
It had a practical firerate of about 150 rpm since the user had to constantly reaquire the target
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.
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.
Do you really think that "the troops" ever get to read those official assessments?
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.
@@kirkstinson7316 Both the Germans and Soviets realised that intermediate caliber assault rifles were the way of the future in the early 1940s, while USA stuck with their outdated full power rifle mindset until the 1960s, which in turn forced most of NATO to stick with obsolete battle rifles into the 1980s and 1990s because they couldn’t just afford to change their infantry caliber on a whim. The M1 carbine doesn’t count because it was never mass issued to infantry, unlike the StG and AK.
2:02 Was he the same who stated that the bark of the MG 42 were worse than its bit?
Lots of propaganda from both sides in their reports 😐
propaganda is another weapon of war.
fr bro all of them saying its bad but after the war they used it to make their own automatic rifles lol
@@Kushi420 you think that's bad don't dare look into the chimney that was built after the war......
@@Kushi420 Not all used it to make they own rifles Kalashnikov never saw an STG44 when he devolped his AK.
@tnoomsk5897 also the 7.62x39 was a scaled up .30 carbine instead of 7.92 Kurtz.
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.
Despite it's drawbacks the MP43/44 was an innovative design. The forerunner to the modern assault rifle.
Most effective firing in WW ll happened at middle and close ranges with firearms
In a Soviet hospital a young convalescing sergeant wondered why the Red Army couldn't have something as cool as the MP44...
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.
Finally...somebody gets it. Thank you.👍
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.
I mean they also lied and claimed the germans were shrinking heads and making lamp shades with human skin but yeah.
@@johndoe-ek6vl Israel is doing the same thing w their propaganda
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.
Hmmm- I see no interviews with the men who faced it in combat, as usual!
Does anybody remember "the bark is worse than it's bite"?
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.
I love the slow, melodic cyclic rate they have…
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.
1. they were allowed to use it, the whole idea was that it could replace the kar98k and the mp40 both so doctrine was semi at range and automatic during assault. there was even an idea that it could replace the squad MG if the whole squad had these, which is not really how it works, but they thought about it.
2. very savvy design choice actually, sheet metal stamping was optimised for the MP40 production, so the process was well understood by german industry and this ultimately led to the StG44 being cheaper in production than the Kar98k due to the absence of wooden parts
3. the magwell is long enough to grip and gets your thumb closer to the mag release button, which makes it a perfectly natural place to hold. was this intended? probably not but still.
its in no way a perfect weapon, but they did think about why they did things the way they did them, the army loved them and wanted more, even though parts were produced in basically slave labor and were at times of terrible quality and material was short
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
one thing I know after being in the military, is most enlisted don't know shit. Larry Vickers opinion > rando bragging ww2 vet.
@@johndoe-ek6vlOne saw combat in WW2, other one didn't, nuff for me.
@@dobridjordje the fact that one saw combat doesn't make one a firearms expert
@@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.
I mean considering they misrepresented the capabilities of most axis weapons to bolster the morale of their soliders (like slamming the mg 42 for not being accurate although that was never its purpose as a defensive machine gun) I wouldn‘t be surprised if they did the same with the StG 44
They Said WTF we want one😂
The Allies liked it so much they refitted the M-1 with a fully automatic kit, and a 30 round magazine.
The original M1 Carbine 1940 spec was selective fire. The M2 was being built in 1944.
Interesting fact, the treaty of Versailles said Germany couldn’t use rifles, right, but IT FAILED TO MAKE CLEAR WHAT CLASSIFIES AS A RIFLE, so they began classifying all their guns(what were actually rifles)as carbines
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.
@@redtra236 highly under appreciated
the M1 rifle is the garand not the carbine
They’re both designated m1
@@Idk-vv1oz yes and one is a rifle and one is a carbine. Comparing a carbine to garand is wrong
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.
Both the M1 Garand and the M4 Sherman performed just fine though?
@@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...
@@gabriel.b9036 they certainly did. But their days were numbered. US ordnance did have a bad habit of stifling innovation…
@@HarryHoffman-g4n 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.
It looks like the Ak47, i wonder why.
This is a joke, i know the AK47 was modeled from the STG 44.
And it also takes inspiration from the M1 Garand’s action.
@@tangerinepaint3643 Oh yeah i forgot about that.
Right. Kalashnikov didn't invent the AK. He refined the STG 44.
@@oldhag2881 The design was that of an STG i know that the internal parts are from the Garand, you could have just asked me if i knew that.
@@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.
For what it is worth, I have carried (the same) original, unmodified, live and legal, StG44 for 20+ years' of reenactments. The weight is negligible for increased rate of fire and ability to carry a 3.5 times the ammo load in the mags and pouches as you can in 98k pouches with taking up almost no extra space on your gear. Any other place in your gear you can store 2.5 times the rounds for the same space. Yes this is true for live rounds as well as blanks rounds. (No. No we do not use live rounds for reenactments! It just a factual foot note).
My favorite feature is that GIs mistake the 500 to 550 round per minute "chug, chug, chug" cyclic rate for that of a Thompson SMG.
There is a design flaw in the receiver that only becomes apparent after firing more than 100 rounds through one to "create content": the opening for the hammer in the underside of the receiver is often widely off set to one side or another causing uneven support for the bolt ending in a jamb and a broken bolt. This is because the slot is stamped through the receiver BEFORE folding the receiver flat around the trunnion.
This should have been milled into he receiver after the folding to keep in centered and it could have been 40-50 % narrower.
Are the delicate compared to their contemporaries? Look down into that trigger group sometime and see how many delicate little stamping and springs their are in there. Now remember the full auto sear and the semi auto sear both run simultaneously 100% of the time, all the selector switch does is connect one or the other to the trigger. I'd give it a 9.5/10, Most of that is based on being able to say, Why yes this is an StG44. Why yes it does work. and then see the looks on collectors faces
@christineshotton824
10 months ago
250fps? No way.
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.
Not quite. The Red Army had the Tokarev SVT-40.
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 .
The world’s first assault rifle
It was basically ahead of it's time, doctrine had not catched up to it yet...
Excellent video. Your the audio fades in and out though, may need a better mic.
Musta luved it. Why Stoner came up w/the M-16.
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.
Nothing but Allied Propaganda.
the nazis lost sorry bro
@@cyb-m1g 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.
@@M1GarandMan3005 nazis still lost tldr
MP44 and Stg44 are not the same, there are differences between the two.
Source: Jonathan Ferguson in a video where he goes through and fires German ww2 weapons.
That's why they all rushed to make one after the war
Weird thing:
Was Hitler right? He hated the Sturmgewehr?
And according to contemporary enemy intelligence, the MP43/44 STG44 was nothing special.
The exciting thing is that everybody copied more or less the design and concept.
2:19 Am I the only one who thought it was pretty unsafe, watching a bunch of soldiers load their rifles cock, and then put it down to the left side so it’s now loaded barrel is facing towards your head and chest?
War Daddy in Fury obviously had buy in. That film is so true that its widely considered a Documentary.
Buy who?
Who considers that a documentary?? Good grief!
That movie is Hollywood propaganda and has unrealistic tank tactics and ridiculous plot armor.
@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.........
@Blitzmagee They literally had a whole army with panzerfaust bazookas vs a broke down sherman tank. If this was real Fury and its crew would be toast.
German soldiers who used it considered it a very effective weapon. Then consider the AK-47 and M-16 are logical evolution of this rifle.
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 agree
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
"...it could have change the ending of the war."
Only the date, but not the results.
Small arms don’t win wars
For heating instance german troops used leather gloves
Army Intelligence also said the term "assault rifle" was just a chest-thumping term invented as part of their wonder weapons propaganda.
Gotta love how some people still take this obvious propaganda for a fact.
The ones actually doing the fighting were probably thinking why are we using obsolete inferior small arms??
Trying not to scare the troops
Well, no matter what they said about it, they ALL later copied the Sturmgewehr's concept and basically all assault rifles to this day do so.
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…
Very Briefed And Summarized Ideas:
I think it wasn't the ground breaking as it's promoted throughout the history of the wars and the firearms...
the only real development is the introduction of the intermediate rounds, but as a project its roots can be traced to other nasty germans assault guns such as the mp38 and the mp40 beside the smaller size and lighter in weight the Soviet ppsh41, ppsh43 both classified as submachine guns firing pistol rounds with 9×19 parabellum for the nasty germans and 7.62×25mm tokarev for the Soviet machine...
and its ideas can be even traced to the svd40 and other semi-automatic battle rifles...
the nasty germans faced problems in equipping its soldiers with the suitable personal weapons systems to counter the Soviet Union overwhelming manpower superiority, the k98 (caliber 7.92×57) although it possesses the ranges and the stopping power but it is a self loading rifle and thus lacking the density of fire power offered by the semi-automatic firing mechanisms, beside it comes with only 5 rounds it has a very small size loading capacity, this package when coupled with an appropriate scops maybe making the k98 rifle suitable for snipers and marksmen roles...
from the experience of nasty germans on the eastern front, all infantry engagements
happened from distances ranging between 200 and 400 meters, although the mp38/mp40 offered the fire density but the 9×19mm parabellum pistol caliber rounds does not offer this ranges or the stopping power, even if it is fired from a longer barrel guns, while the battle rifle k98 should be considered an over killing for the regular infantry soldiers although it was much cheaper to produce and much easier to clean and maintain...
the nasty germans stg44 fired a shortened rounds of the 7.92×57mm utilized on the k98 and the mg34/mg42 general purpose light machine guns, the nasty germans assault rifle fired the 7.92×33mm instead of 57mm length thus its lighter although its shorter in range but still offer at least double the ranges of the pistol calibers submachine guns and with much better stopping power...
it took from the nasty germans a few years to cock the solution or come up with this recipe of combining the firepower of battle rifles with the features and advantages of the rapid firing of the sub-machine guns to engage the waves or the echelons of Russian infantry at medium range and not at closer ranges by the machine pistols like the mp38/mp40, this solution came to late and to complicated to change the course of the war...
Need more videos!!!
PLEASE 😁
And Kalashnikov studied it and came up with AK47
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.
@@princesofthepower3690 what IS a battle rifle, anyway?? Big, heavy? If you want really long range?
Gives us more of an insight in how propaganda worked from both sides than anything about the gun itself...
It honestly sounds like a bunch of cope. I dont think that the the soviets for example wouldve tried to get their own version of such a weapon out if it didnt convince them. Yet they tried with the AS-44.
They thought "Oh, SHIT!!"
all that negative review is just propaganda. USA loved it's design
I liked it in medal of honor but nothing beats BAR since that sounds like If The God had a nail gun.
Gimme a call when you start posting again.
Ofcourse the allies have to downplay the gun. You can't be telling your soldiers that the enemy that they are about to fight have a gun that performs equally or better than the guns previously fielded by that country.
G2(army intelligence) The new German weapon is useless.
Gi: Man, I gotta get me one!
'F' for this contribution.
But Call of Duty told me it's the bestest gun ever, even in modern warfare!
The Americans already had the m1 carbine and m2 carbine thats why they didnt care. They probably thought the Germans were copying them.
The MP-44 was the first time Stoner and Sullivan saw constant recoil..
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.
The carbine was pretty cheap- made by typewriter companies a sewing machine firms. The M3 grease gun was all-stamped/welded too.
@@HarryHoffman-g4n 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.