Non-standard, substitute standard, and captured weapons in British and Commonwealth service

Discussion in 'Weapons, Technology & Equipment' started by TTH, Mar 16, 2012.

  1. ceolredmonger

    ceolredmonger Member

    FB_IMG_1593358114845.jpg Saw this and thought of you... A recent Thames foreshore mudlark find (disposed of properly). 13.2mm Hotchkiss round.
     
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  2. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Thanks for pointing out the lettering on the armband, I was so focused on the rifles that I didn't get it. Have you found any other images of the Mk V in service?
     
  3. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Thanks. The big M1930 Hotchkiss is another story and an interesting one which I'll have to get around to at some point. Some were purchased pre-war for British trials. There was an aircraft version of the gun and this may have been considered by the RAF, and the strip-or-box fed version may have been trialed as well. I haven't found much detail on the M1930 yet but it was used as an LAA weapon by the Free French army and navy and perhaps by the Polish navy as well, the shipboard version being called the M1929. The Japs copied it and used it widely.
     
  4. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Was the 25mm Hotchkiss/Japanese Type 96 an evolution of the M1930? I always assumed the twin mounts I saw in Japanese navy videos were 25mm but it looks like they used many 13.2s as well. Learned something today.
     
  5. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    A quick online troll shows that the two guns used the same system of gas operation and similar box type magazines. I don't know if you could say that the 25mm was an evolution of the 13.2mm exactly--the authorities aren't clear on that point--but they did belong to the same family of weapons.
     
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  6. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

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  7. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    double post thanks to internet lagging
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2020
  8. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    fully explained development history:
    Patchett
     
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  9. AlanDavid

    AlanDavid Junior Member

    No unfortunately I have not but I would like to!
    Regards
    AlanD
     
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  10. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    UNIDENTIFIED ANTITANK GUN

    It's been a while since I've updated here. I have come up with an identification problem. The attached image shows two men apparently operating a captured anti tank gun. The place is given as Banneville la Campagne, which was south of Touffreville and about halfway between Caen and Troarn. I presume the image may have been taken during GOODWOOD, when 3rd and 51st Divisions and 27th Armd Bde seized the Banneville area from the 346th Infantry and 16th Luftwaffe Field Divisions. I cannot seem to identify the gun. I have looked at pictures of the Puppchen, the 2.8 cm squeezebore, the 25mm Puteaux, the Breda 47mm, and the French 47mm. I am leaning towards the 25mm Puteaux (to be distinguished from the earlier Mle 34 Hotchkiss), but I am not sure the wheel in the photo has the right number of spokes. Can anyone help?

    British_soldiers_man_captured_German_anti-tank_gun_Banneville.jpg
     
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  11. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Possibly a Solothurn S-18? 20mm Semi auto AT rifle ? Used by a number of WW2 armies on a variety of mounts (sometimes field impros). Using captured Solothurns not unknown for the British Army - there are photos of them mounted on carriers in Italy. The gun was in service with the Dutch so the Germans would have had them available.
     
  12. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    Just read 'A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia' by Hannes Wessels (pub. 2016). He refers on pg. 229 to being given in 1979 Mauser 98K rifles by RENAMO, an insurgent group in Mozambique they supported. The rifles had been brought home by Allied servicemen at the end of WW2, re-chambered to 7.62mm and used for hunting. Just how they appeared in Mozambique was unknown.

    Portugal was neutral in WW2, so perhaps the rifles were captured in North Africa / Italy where there was a South African contribution?

    Wiki refers to the rifles as Karabiner 98k and cites one source that the Portuguese military used them as m937. See: Karabiner 98k - Wikipedia A seperate Wiki refers to the Portuguese Army using them until mid-1960's mainly abroad - so in Mozambique would fit. See: Mauser–Vergueiro - Wikipedia
     
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  13. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Israel had a lot of 7.62 98s as well. They show up for sale at gun shows in the US from time to time.

    To standardize ammunition supply, the rifles in the first three groups were reworked and re-barreled to use the 7.62mm NATO cartridge. Those guns comprise the fourth group. They have finger-grooved beechwood stocks, new barrels, a large “7.62” hammered into the receiver top and an equally large “7.62” branded into the butt of the stock. Rework and acceptance/proof marks consisted of a Star of David and the Hebrew tsade letter in a circle, usually on the left side of the receiver. In addition, the reworked rifles were fitted with a front sight hood, peculiar to Israel, with two holes and a rivet to secure it in place.

    Israeli K98: How the Jewish State Acquired German Rifles After WWII
     
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  14. ceolredmonger

    ceolredmonger Member

    After the war Czech arms factories carried on making Mauser Kar 98 and other ex Nazi small arms. They then refurbished stockpiled wartime made ones. Initially a commercial concern - they sold a lot of small arms to Israel when Western embargoes were in place. They later became the favourite conduit for Warpact military support to supported regimes and insurgents. This is how MP40s, Stg44 and MG34s found their way into Africa. I would suggest the Portugese Mausers were from this source.
     
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  15. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    There is also an alternative possible source. Post War a number of small and medium sized Belgian arms dealers made a point of acquiring large amounts of German small arms often at very little unit cost. Whilst significant numbers were sold back to the original owners (when West Germany was permitted and encouraged to form new armed forces) at a handsome profit, newly emergent countries were also a good market (for example the Congo).
     
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  16. George Blake

    George Blake Member

    The muzzle looks like one from a 20mm flak piece, could this be a lower profile version for anti-infantry/light vehicle use?
    muzzles - Copy - Copy.JPG
     
  17. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Yes, I was thinking it might be a 20mm. Is that a Flak 30 muzzle or a Flak 38?
     
  18. George Blake

    George Blake Member

    I believe it's from a 38, I think the 30 used the cylindrical variant.
     
  19. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    OK, this is a funny story. I suspected that the image came from the IWM so I checked their site and I was right. First of all, the location was not Benneville but a village called Banneville which was cleared on 8-2-44 by 1st Worcesters (43rd Div). The still image I found had a caption on the back which said the weapon was a 5.5 cm gun with a particularly good AT performance. There was of course no such gun in the German or any other European inventory; I suspect this was just a cock and bull story the Worcesters told to the newsmen. I also found a film clip which showed the same weapon from a different angle, and the IWM description of the clip identified the weapon as a 20mm Flak 30 on a field carriage. So, George here was right. The wheels I think are the same as those on the 28mm sPzb 41.
     
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  20. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    Chattelerault FM 24/29 LMG

    I've been neglecting this thread lately, I'm afraid. I have accumulated a lot of information about coastal artillery, German half-tracks, and Italian artillery, but sorting through all that and organizing it before posting takes time. So, I will post on something simpler. As some of you may be aware, the French FM 24/29, a product of the Chatellerault arsenal, was the standard French LMG for decades. The FM 24/29 was essentially the US Browning Automatic Rifle adapted to French requirements, the most important difference being a top-mounted box magazine holding 25 rounds. The FM 24/29 was very popular in French service and must be rated one of best of the traditional magazine-fed LMGs, its only real weakness being the lack of a quick-change barrel. Unlike most interwar French small arms, the FM 24/29 was made in sufficient quantity to be general issue by 1939. The FM 24/29 was good enough to compete in the British trials which eventually led to the adoption of the Bren Gun. Large numbers of French troops came to the UK as a result of Dunkirk, and as already mentioned here they brought large quantities of Berthier and Lebel rifles with them. They had the FM 24/29 as well, and according to a 2009 post on gunboards.com by the late and much lamented Tony Edwards some FM 24/29s from this source went to the Home Guard along with the aforementioned Berthiers and Lebels. FM 24/29s captured from the Vichy French may also have been used by the Australians in Syria. According to the Australian official history, the pioneer battalion of 7th Australian Division lacked .303 LMGs and employed "French automatics" instead. (The type is not specified, but if they weren't old Chauchats or stray Hotchkiss LMGs then they would most likely have been FM 24/29s.) The Free Poles brought much French equipment to Britain when they were evacuated from France, FM 24/29s included, and the Polish Carpathian Brigade did the same when it crossed the border into Palestine and joined the British after the 1940 armistice. IWM photographs show that the Poles in the Middle East retained some FM 24/29s post-1940 for cadet training. Others came into British hands in Madagascar. I have attached an image of Royal Marines at Madagacar with an FM 24/29. This is one of a series of the same group of men with the same gun, though it's not clear to me whether they have actually been using the gun or not. Royal Marines Madagascar with FM 24-29.jpg
     
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