Good thread guys ! As to comparisons of several types of infantry rifles. One must also look at weather conditions, types of ammo used.....AP, ball, etc. Also the Wehrmacht by late 43 was realizing it was being out done in the matter of infantry rifle firepower and new concepts were on the drawign boards. The G 43/K-43 as example whcih has already been dealt with briefly as well as the rapid fire Sturmgewehr. My 1st Inf, Diviosn friends while on the Ost Front in Prussia in 45 would of given anything to have their assault parties equipped with more of the Stg 44 instead of an MP 40 or two and many karibiner 98's.
Having only 1/2 Stg 44's was a bit disconcerting trying to defend old houses and then short brief ctirical counter attacks. One reason my waffenmeister friend made shure that his small assault unit had 4 mg 42's in hand and pleanty of Panzerfaust 100's to take on the T-34's and JS Stalin's. They did always mention that the K 98 never seemed to freeze up like other weapons. Easy to clean and strip in a matter of minutes.

E

Just caught this thread and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth.

My brothers and I have owned and used all of the rifles you guys have been talking about.

My favourite is the old K98. Mine was in near mint condition made in '43 at Oberndorf, and after the war used by the Israeli's. Amazingly, they missed removing all the eagle manufacturing stamps on my rifle (many K98's used by Israel had the stamps obliterated), and I loved it.

We used to compete in military rifle competitions and having fired K98's, Lee-Enfields, Garands, Moisin Nagants, Springfields, Carcano's and even an Arisaka at various ranges and types of man targets, my favourite for accuracy, was always the K98, followed by the Lee-Enfield.

I always found the K98 "fitted" into my hands easier. The Lee was a bit bulky for comfort. The Garand was fine as a semi auto, except you couldn't reload mid magazine, you had to wait until the clip was ejected before reloading.

The Springield was a good rifle too, balanced like the K98, easy to handle. The Moisin Nagants, Carcano's and the Arisaka, were good solid rifles, accurate, but,I found slower to fire and reload than the K98 or Lee.

And yes, I had a G43 (sniper) also, and a Tokarev semi auto. I loved the G43, it's only drawback was the extractor. Mine had the extractor but no extractor retaining pin. Had to have one made up and unfortunately it wasn't quite up to original standard. Every 10 shots the retaining pin would jump out, and so would the extractor. Pain in the you know what.

The Tokarev was very accurate, but the ammo was disgusting. Russian ammo was very dirty and left a heap of junk in the barrel and receiver. So much so that after several shots, this russian semi-auto rifle turned full auto, and needed a good clean before returning to semi auto. I would not have wanted to go into combat with it, way too susceptible to dirt getting in the wrong places.

Overall, the K98, despite it's 5 shot mag, proved to be the easiest rifle to handle, reload and shoot.

Currently, I am on the look out for a K98 sniper, in good condition, in 7.92 calibre. Very hard to find, most K98's around (at least in Australia) seem to have been re-chambered for 7.62.

As an aside to the smaller modern calibres. It's true, the modern calibre weapons are designed so that the bullet stops at it's target and doesn't go through. But, a friend of mine was a sniper with the Australian Army in Vietnam, and used to patrol with US forces occasionally. He has said that quite a few US soldiers were not happy that it took several shots from their M16's, with their smaller calibre, to stop a Viet Cong, where as my friend firing his SLR in 7.62 could stop them cold with one shot.

Mind you his favourite story is the one were they ran into a VC ambush. Once they had the VC beaten and on the run he started to pick them off one at a time as the they across a rice paddy. There was one VC he fired at and who just kept running, so he fired again, and again, and again. Now, my friend was very good sniper, and couldn't understand why this particular VC wasn't being hit. Eventually the VC fell, after 5 shots, and my friend went over with the other soldiers to check it out. Turns out every shot had hit, it wasn't the VC running, it was the impact of the SLR's bullets pushing him along, that kept him moving.....

There's something to be said about a heavy calibre. Give me a weapon that will stop the enemy first time.

Agree about the k98 sights, they're a pig to use in poor light. Takes practice to work the bolt quickly - it can be done but you have to move your head slightly each time.

I'm amazed that the German and British generals didn't press for the development of the automatic rifle between the wars. The M1 Garand is just so superior to the k98 and Lee Enfield. Both Britain and Germany make excellent guns, they could have done it if they had tried earlier.

Having an automatic rifle when the enemy has a bolt-action model gives you the same kind of advantage that the Prussians had with the needle rifle over the Austrian muzzle-loaders in 1866 - you can fire two or three times as fast!

Germany could have had the StG44 much earlier too.

Unfortunately the American generals were so impressed with the Garand that they downplayed the need for light machine guns, and had too few of them, relying on the BAR at squad level for fire support. The German MG42 more than made up for the k98's deficiencies.

Oh, Sniper, talking about large calibre weapons, have to come back with another Vietnam story, by a US Marine in '65.

His platoon were being terrorised every night by what they called 'the boom-boom sniper'. The rounds fired by this guy didn't crack, they BOOMED! Bamboo was being cut down all over the place. Never hit anyone, but scared the hell out of the Marines.

So they went after him one night. From a good position of hiding, they saw this NVA sniper raise this ENORMOUS rifle to his shoulder and fire it at very long range, and the recoil literally knocked the little guy off his feet. There was an officer with him and they just fell about laughing after each shot.

The hidden Marines opened up and killed the two Vietnamese, before having to run for it back to their own lines. They took an expended shell from the sniper's rifle with them, and get this - it turned out to be from a Russian anti-tank rifle of approximately 14.5 mm calibre!

The ultimate sniper weapon? One hit from that would put a hole in a Marine you could shove a football through! If you could hit him, that is.

Well, we have discussed that a lot. That the K98 was used because it was fitted for support to the machine guns. Certainly, the German soldiers did not need semi automatic rifles with the average infantry tactics.

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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

15 aimed rounds per minute, to hit a 2ft target at 300 yards was the level to which recruits were instructed. This is a standard level, which already defeats the K98, (and I have heard of one marksmanship instructor scoring 37 hits in one minute). The Enfield was capable of much faster rates of fire than the one officially required. If you look at some of the opening battles of WWI, many Germans believed themselves to be under machine gun fire, such was the firepower a Lee Enfield-armed division could lay down. General von Kluck at Le Cateau believed himself to be fighting 6 Divisions (instead of the 2 he actually faced) due to the fire he encountered. Given that the Enfields of both world wars are mechanically very similar, it is not unreasonable to deduce that a soldier of the Second War was capable of a similar rate.

Quote:

The caliber of the Enfield is smaller than the Mauser's.

True, but the 0.2mm difference is rather marginal, wouldn't you agree?

Quote:

The Lee-Enfield rifle was extremely unaccurate in bad conditions. Example: North Africa, where the sand and dust made the bullet change its course. The K98 did not have that problem.

I have not heard this before, and while I cannot disprove it at moment, I am sceptical. Why should a 0.303 round travelling at 738 m/s be much more inaccurate than a 7.92mm round travelling at only 8 m/s faster? Incidentally, I have read various accounts of the bolts of German soldiers' K98s freezing solid during Russian winters and becoming inoperable.

Quote:

And certainly as a sniper's rifle, the Lee-Enfield is not very suitable for it in my opinion and the Garand, definately is not a sniper's rifle.

I presume you have not heard of the Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk I (T), the sniper variant of the No. 4. It was used very successfully during WWII, so successfully in fact that Mk I (T) rifles, rechambered for 7.62 mm NATO ammunition remain in service by police and military marksmen.

Quote:

Do you realise that Germany defeated Poland, France, the low countries, France, the Balcans and nearly the Soviet Union and North Africa with K98s, Stukas, Me-110, Me-109E, Pz I, II, III and IV? And we lost with V2s, Sturmgewehrs, MG42s, Panthers, Tigers, Me-262, etc.? That shows you that tactics and general strategic circumstances win wars, not the weaponry.

This is not in dispute. That a single rifle may not be a war-changing weapon does not change the fact the Enfield No. 4 was a superior weapon to the K98.

[ 22 October 2002, 09:04 PM: Message edited by: Greenjacket ]

Just thought I'd *bump* this old thread for BratwurstDimSum and others who are thinking K98 thoughts recently.....

There are some interesting comments in some of these vintage WWII Forums postings !

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Yep - the PTRD and PTRS Russian anti-tank rifles fired a very powerful 14.5x114 cartridge. This was later adopted for the KPV HMG and is also now available again in some anti-materiel rifles. It develops around double the power of the .50 Browning. See the picture below (from the Ammo Photo Gallery on my website). That weedy little 12.7x99 is the .50 Browning!

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

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Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website

The Garand's capacity is 8.

If you were a soldier being overwhelmed by hoardes of Russian soldiers and being forced to reload every 5 rounds, you'd probably care quite a lot. [/QB]</font>[/quote]I remember talking about this one a while back and being put in my place so lets set a record straight. The infantry platoon of the German army had k98ks which were single shot bolts but we are comparing them with semi-shot garands.

Most of you are forgetting, that there was a different ratio of rifles to light machine guns in both armies. The tactics of both armies around the MG were also different.

What the k98 lacked in rate of fire was replaced by more machine guns per platoon than in the American equivalent.

Ergo, a Rate Of Fire comparison of these rifles in combat is meaningless. We should concentrate of aspects such as single shot accuracy, weight etc.

oh and C.Evans ... sorry I have to say "Frainch" is spelt "French". [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Der große Stoß Büstenhalter auf Ihrem Kopf!!

We aren't comparing squad firepower, however, and how a squad derived it's firepower isn't relevant to a discussion of individual riflemen.

Yes mate I know...I was trying to make that same point when I saw this quote previously on the thread:

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Der große Stoß Büstenhalter auf Ihrem Kopf!!

Fair enough, rather grasped the wrong end of the stick there.