Weapons 04/03/20 How to shoot the best rifles of world war II is the Perfect rifle — the three-line or Mauser?
At the beginning of the Second world war, all participant countries had similar basic army rifles. The Soviet Union, it was the carbine Mosin 1891/30, the legendary three-line, the Nazi — Mauser 98. These two rifles were developed in the nineteenth century, passed the test of the First world war. They were reliable, inexpensive, and powerful.
Mosinka had a longer range and stopping power, however, weighed more, were sometimes cumbersome, especially the early versions with integral spike bayonet, which was longer than two meters. And the Mauser was much more convenient for the arrow design, and this applies to both dimensions, and more enjoyable trigger and bolt.
Both guns were easy to manufacture and low maintenance, but in the three-line this property was brought almost to the ideal: in wartime factories could collect and women, and children. To choose the best of these two guns is impossible: each of these rifles is consistent with the national spirit of the people she fought. Simple, unpretentious and powerful three-line and calibrated, accurate and reliable revolver.
the armies of other countries have fought similar, but not quite perfect store-bought rifles with manual reloading. The exception was the US army which automatic carbine Garand was adopted in 1936. But the war revealed all the flaws of the Arsenal of the warring countries, has led to rearmament. In the end, at the end of the war, the soldiers of the armies of the countries-participants were armed with dozens of different automatic and non-automatic rifles and carbines.
a Favorite of snipers and the coveted trophy — SVT-40
In the Soviet Union, the development of quick-firing rifles was conducted in the second half of the 1930s, along with the development of submachine guns. Tokarev created the project my automatic rifle and 1938 won the army competition. His draft military Commission chose an automatic rifle, created by another great gunsmith Soviet Union Simonov.
In 1939, the rifle SVT-38 was put into service in the red army. New weapons were tested during the Finnish war. Experience has shown that the gun is good, but needs work. Interestingly, with a great love of captured SVT treated the Finns. 13 APR 1940 SVT-40 in the final version was adopted. The Soviet leadership was set up to completely replace the new rifles obsolete trehlineyki.
Re-started from the Western border of the red army units that first met the Nazis. Sometimes this gave superiority: combination of full-power rifles and high rate of fire allowed Soviet soldiers to hold back the Nazis on the distance at which their useless submachine guns. Of all self-loading rifles of world war II at SVT the highest accuracy and precision. In the early days of the war, the Germans noted that their army is superior to the Soviet in all but rifles. By the way, the entire war the Germans and Finns loved captured SVT. In 1943, the Nazis even tried to copy this rifle and developed Shturmgevera-43, which, however, its characteristics were far worse than SVT.
But a great gun failed to help the Soviet army to contain the German blitzkrieg. When it became clear that this war will last long and will require the mobilization of all resources, the Soviet command decided to cease production of SVT and to alter the factory lines on mosinki. SWT were quite expensive, their production cost is almost two times greater than the output mosinki. Even SVT required a more careful care, to which the Soviet soldier was not ready. Rifles are often lost in the army simply because no one can teach soldiers to use these guns. Not to say that SWT whimsical, but rearmament during the war will always be faced with such costs. So the Soviets are afterstovali was the best on the fronts of the Second world accuracy and rate of fire for the sake of reliability and simplicity. However, half a million SVT was released during the war. Loved them, many Soviet snipers: although SVT is not as accurate as the three-line, but almost as long-range and allows you to make multiple shots without looking away from the sight. Legendary snipers Lyudmila Pavlichenko who killed over 300 Nazis, fought it with SWT.
the Universal rifle of the Nazi forces — the FG-42
the Germans did not successfully copy of SVT, but they managed to create their original product. In 1941, after a disastrous landing on Crete, where almost half of the German paratroopers the British shot still in the air, the Third Reich began to develop a universal rifle to assault. She was supposed to be a long-range, rapid-fire like a machine gun, and, most importantly, easy to parachutist could jump her in hand — to FG-42 German assault weapons discharged in the operation area in the boxes, and the soldiers jumped with pistols. The office of weapons of the Wehrmacht abandoned the project, and then personally Goering announced a competition for the creation of such a rifle. In the end, a miracle happened, and the designer Louis Stange was given to the head of the Luftwaffe the project, which fully meets the requirements. A new weapon had a magazine of 20 rounds, able to fire bursts, weighed всего4 pounds and could be used as a grenade launcher and as a sniper rifle. Its effective range — 500 m, was less than the Mauser, but was still impressive and fully satisfy the needs of skydivers. Modification of this rifle with a telescopic sight was highly valued by Nazi snipers — no weapon of that time did not allow to conduct such a well-aimed fire bursts. But the project appeared in the midst of war, when all the factories of the Reich produced a simple and reliable weapon to the front, to the FG-42 simply not found capacity. Therefore, it was made only about 6 thousand samples. Nevertheless, they made history. For example, the FG-42 was armed with a squad of Nazi commandos, led by the legendary Otto Skorzeny during operation “Oak” to rescue Mussolini. And yet these rifles were armed personal protection of Hitler.
Alexander Artamonov
Source:
© Russian Seven
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