Hallo!

It is not good to compare a semi authomatic rifle with a normal rifle like the Mauser. But in the time of the war, acording to my grandfather's words that made a difference. The German soldiers used to use captured Garands, because they were fast and lethal. The Mauser has glamour, but it was already old fashioned for the standard infantry fight. I have shot both rifles the Garand and a Mauser (owned by my grandfather)and I have experienced the nice and bad things about them.

What do you think?

[ 02. November 2002, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: General der Infanterie Friedrich H ]

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

I would agree that the K98 was becoming obsolete in only that it was a bolt action rifle where as the Garand (correct me if I'm wrong) was a semi automatic where you did not have to manualy load the next round. The speed is what makes the difference. I have also heard that alot of soldiers preferred rifles over submachine pistols because of the accuracy. I know my grandfather carried a Russian semi automatic because of the close combat in which that did come in handy.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

You guys will notce that the K 43 was a dsign patterned after the Russian semi autos as well as the Garand rifle . The Garand to me si a big heavy thing, but obviously could pump out quite a few rounds. On the Ost front the Garnad was not even heard of as far as I know. The K 98 was still the standard rifle of the Wehrmacht and was the chosen rifle by top snipers.

E

Well said and just check out the my foto of a German Oberstleutnant RKT who is in a posed foto with his Mauser Sniper Rifle. Case its not noticed--its located on the main page.

Oh and from a very good source--things are beginning to change around here--looking forward to them meeself--mateys!! Arrrrr.

[ 01 April 2002, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: C.Evans ]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Change is good.......

[img]smile.gif[/img]

E

I agree with all of you. The K 98 is an excellent rifle for snipers. It is accurate and lethal. More accurate than a Garand if you want... But in standard infantry fight, the speed made the difference. And of course that rifles are in a certain way better than sub machine guns like the famous Schmeisser. My grandfather has also one (he has got an entire collection of the arms he used. He does not have an 88 because it would not fit into the garage...) and it is not a powerful weapon and certainly not pretty accurate. He prefered to use an old fashioned Mauser. He hunted deers, so he was an accurate shooter, he did not need any fast weapon... When the Sturmgewehr came, the thing changed... It did not matter the Tommies, or the Granads...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

The sturmgewehr was awesome. I love that gun. A reenactor in my unit got one as a wedding gift.

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"Front leaning rest position"
"Move"
"In cadence, exercise....1, 2, 3" (My favorite thing to hear at 5 in the morning.)

My thought is...i'm sure they both are relativly accurate...one more than the other maybe but nothing all THAT significant i would guess, prob would mainly depend on the shooter frankly. They both were quite heavy and thus good for hand to hand fighting, you know, very solid. for use as a club if need be...that recoil pad on the garand wasn't just for recoil...that pad was metal and done intentionally for use as a club or what have you. BUT which was better...
well all i say is...if the K98 was better...all our guns in modern times would be bolt action not semi or plain automatic! So that's my 2 cents
also i wanna say the M-1 had a larger magazine...although that's a guess...on top of the semi-auto advantage.

Oh and what changes are supposed to be occuring soon Carl? is it that medal thing Otto mentioned? Because thats been going on for a year now! heh heh BUT that change or any is pretty cool!

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Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. -- Sir Winston Churchill

The medals and ranks will be back. Also I think he might be working on posting all the RKT fotos I sent to him as well as about 40 U 181 fotos and some others. Other than that--I have no clue what the Generalfeldmarschall has in store for us..... [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

BOY, THIS IS GOING TO BE A TOUGH ONE. I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ON THE SUBJECT. NOT SAYING IM RIGHT OF COURSE, BUT SIMPLY OFFERING MY OPINION.1. THE MILITARY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSERIIVE AND SLOW TO CONVERT TO NEW CONCEPTS, WEAPONS ETC.THE M-1 WAS THE FIRST PRACTICAL, MASS PRODUCED SIMI-AUTO. IT MADE ALL BOLT ACTION RIFLE'S OBSOLETE. IT ALLOWED INFANTRY DIVISIONS TO BE REDUCED FROM FOUR REGIMENTS, TO THREE, BECAUSE OF THE INCREASED FIRE POWER.ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT IS THAT IN THE MID 20TH CENTRY, MANY NEW SOLDIERS WERE NOT LIFELONG MARKSMEN AS MOST EVERYBODY HAD BEEN IN THE PAST.ITS ODD, BUT ITS THE SAME PRINCIBLE IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN, EVEN IN THE DAYS OF THE FLINTLOCK MUSKET, OR EVEN THE LONGBOW...WHOEVER GETS THE MOST ROUNDS DOWNRANGE....WINS ! THE GERMAN RIFLE WAS A FINE ONE.AS WAS THE 1903 SPRINGFIELD. IT WAS THE RATE OF FIRE THAT MADE THEM OBSOLETE, JUST AS THE M-14 MADE THE M-1 OBSOLETE....THIS IS KINDA RELATED, SO BEAR WITH ME.....BEFORE THE JAPANESE INVAISION OF THE PHILIPPINES, THE REGLUAR UNITED STATES TROOPS WERE ARMED WITH THE NEW M-1 GARAND, WHILE THE MEN OF THE PHILIPPINE REGIMENTS WERE ARMED WITH THE 03 SPRINGFIELD. ONE OF THESE U.S. SOLDIERS IN THE 31ST INFANTRY MENTIONED THAT HE AND MOST OF HIS BUDDIES TRADED THIER RIFLES WITH THE PHILIPINOS. IN OTHER WORDS, MOST OF THESE GUYS WERE OLD TIME SOLDIERS, AND RESISTED CHANGE. HOWEVER IM WILLING TO BET, THAT ONCE THE JUNGLE FIGHTING STARTED IN BATTAN....THOSE MEN WISHED TO HELL THEY HAD THIER GARANDS BACK.
JUST ONE LAST POINT, IF YOU WERE IN A BATTLE AND ARMED WITH A BOLT ACTION, AND THE ENEMY HAD A SIMI-AUTO WITH 8 QUICK & ACURATE SHOTS....WOULD YOU FEEL THAT YOU ON AN EQUEL FOOTING WITH HIM?...I WOULD FEEL PRETTY UNEASY.FORGIVE MY SPELLING.IM A RIGHT FAIR RIFLE SHOT, BUT CAN'T SPELL WORTH A HOOT....THANKS FOR LISTENING...WALT

Great story--I couldnt agree more--very nicely done. [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

very nice! The fire speed makes an important difference. If you were a German soldier with a Mauser and faced an American with his Garand. There was a problem! As if an American with his Browning 0.30 machine gun faced a German with a MG-42...

There was another story in the Pacific... Japanesse hand guns were awful. The damned Japanesse standard rifle (I do not remember the name or the year now) is huge! With the bayonet on it is taller than me! As I have said, my garndfather has a huge collection of hand guns. It was not practical for soldiers who were 1.60 metres high average...

He has also a Lee-Enfield 1907 and it is great. It is much better than the Mauser 1913 he has... ten shots to five. That's an advantadge also! ten shots instead mauser's and Springfield's five shots!

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Friedrich my friend--you are talking about the Japanese Ariska Rifle and bayonet.

The Ariska fires a 6mm round--NOT very effective but still worked.

I have an Ariske bayonet--15 inch blade. You can get mint unissued Ariska rifles for about $50.00 to $80.00 depending on who you get them from. Many still have their Chrysanthemum stamps on them making them worth maybe $80.00.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Hello Friedrich,
thanks for the comeback.I guess this is getting off the subject of "war in Russia" ...but what the heck.
Speaking of the Japanese, I guess when they moderized thir Military in the 1920's and 30's they had first French, then German advisors, and set up their new Military on their patterns. Everything from Battleships to Aircraft...to rifles. I think it's really interesting, that no reduction in size was taken into account when it came to designing their rifle. But the Japanese soldier by all accounts was a tough, skilled, and disiplened fighter, and watching war time footage, they seem to handle their rifle's right smartly. But of course, you are right, the gun seems to be out of proportion to their body size.
Another interesting point. unlike most other Countries in the great conflict, many Japanese weapons were made not in large factorys, but in peoples houses, or by the "cottage industry", at least near the end of the war anyway. I think this accounts for the crude workmanship.
Thanks for listening...Walt

Walt, I have no idea why did I post it here... I was not paying much attention, I think...

Thanks, Carl. As I said, my grandfather has one of those rifles with the Chrisantemus still on it.

Despite the Japanesse weapons were manufactured by non-experienced workers and in awful conditions, (everything except what is necessary to be a good weapons factory). All the guns, even the ones at the beginning of the war had no quality at all. And their ammunition was an horrendous thing. They had a lot of calibers, and each caliber had a lot of presentations, like 19 different bullet types, not exchangable for every damned gun!

But despite all of that, the Japanesse thought (rightly in a certain way) that the weapons had a second place in warfare. The most important thing was the Samurai spirit of their soldiers... They showed (? My English sucks, I know...) that they were a tremendous adversary, enemy, opponent.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Quite welcome my friend. [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

I'd have to say that I'd list the Mauser a distant 3rd as an infantry weapon in WW II, it may have made an excellent sniper weapon. The Garand was almost flawless, I say almost because there were problems with its enbloc clip. Second in my mind would definatly be the Lee Enfield by a fair margin, 10 rounds beats 5 every time. Well if it were more wide spread I would have listed the Gew 43, a fine weapon at least 2nd, maybe first. Have you ever fired one Walt? I'd be interested in knowing if others who are familiar with it think it is the same catagory as the Garand.

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Ain't no rocket scientists in the firehall

Ive never fired a Gew 43, but have all the other rifles mentioned.

I like the 98 because its just so much a better work horse than the .303 L-E. The only faults with the L.E. I have is as you mentioned--the sorrowful lack for massed fire power. The garand had an 8 round internal mag--the L.E's mag was 5 rounds--(Or at least as wwas on the Lithgow L.E's I once had) and the '98's also had only a 5 round internal magazine.

Now--had the Germans massed produced their 98s with interchangeable magazines with a much larger capability, I think things would have been somewhat tuffer on the men they were fighting against. Also, had the 98s been more like the Garand--meaning a shot fired with every poll og the trigger instead of having to do the bolt action each time--things would have been very diffenert. Strictly my own opinion of course. Same can be said for the L.Es too.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Carl, as far as I can find the Lee Enfield never had a 5 round mag,There were some carbines designed for cavalry that had 6 rd mags, and the original Lee Metford had an 8 round Mag, but Lee Metford and Enfield rifles issued since 1892 have had 10 round mags

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Ain't no rocket scientists in the firehall

Thanks for the info but....the last 3 Enfields I owned--two being Lithgows, all only had 5 round cap magazines. I dont know much more about Enfields except what mine had or were capable of doing.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Lithgow is the Australian plant is it not? Were the mags the same size, if so they may have been plugged as civilian hunting rifles, to allow only 5 rounds, I believe that is the law here in Canada and may well be in Australia too.

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Ain't no rocket scientists in the firehall

You are correct, Lithgow is in Australia--and the Lithgows are the most sought after Enfields by collectors. When the average Enfield sold for $60.00--these sold for $250.00 on up.

You might be correct about the Mag capacity being plugged up--I dont know--im only familiar with the Enfields I used to own.

[ 24 May 2002, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: C.Evans ]

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.