world of guns gun disassembly shooting range 5

What makes Barnitzke’s design unconventional though is the use of a delayed-blowback action, whereby gas pressure vented into the operating slide briefly delays its rearward movement just long enough for the bullet to leave the 14.9' barrel.Ī closer right-side view of Gustloff-Werke VG1-5 Th 8895.

Aside from a few rivets and screws, everything else on the gun was either sheet metal or springs, and that made it comparatively inexpensive and simple for a self-loading rifle. Photograph by Jeff Hallinan of Collectors Firearms in Houston, Tex.ĭesigned by Karl Barnitzke of Gustloff-Werke in Suhl, Thuringia, the Volkssturmgewehr 1-5 was assembled using just 39 metal parts, only 12 of which required milling. Right-side view of Gustloff-Werke VG1-5 Th 8895. In addition to conventional “last ditch” type bolt-action rifles, the Primitiv-Waffen-Programm also introduced a decidedly unconventional self-loading rifle designated the VG1-5. This program developed the kind of simplified firearms needed at this late stage of the war, including a German copy of the STEN submachine gun designated MP3008 Volksmaschinenpistole. Photograph by Jeff Hallinan of Collectors Firearms in Houston, Tex.Īlthough Germany maintained a significant stockpile of older service rifles like the Gew 98, as well as battlefield-captured foreign rifles, a need still existed to arm Volkssturm troops, so the Primitiv-Waffen-Programm was created. They were organized into battalions and lightly armed with the infamous Panzerfaust to fight Allied armor and an assortment of substitute standard small arms to fight Allied infantry.Ī closer left-side view of Gustloff-Werke VG1-5 Th 8895. German boys and men between the ages of 16 and 60 years were conscripted into the Volkssturm–some of them having been previously rejected for military service, and many of them being convalescent veterans. 12th Army Group began its attack on the Siegfried Line.

Photograph by Jeff Hallinan of Collectors Firearms in Houston, Tex.Īccordingly, in September 1944, Adolf Hitler authorized the establishment of a national militia called the Volkssturm, and he did it just as the U.S. Left-side view of Gustloff-Werke VG1-5 Th 8895.

After staggering battlefield setbacks in North Africa and the Soviet Union in 1943, and the retreat on all fronts that began during the summer of 1944, the time had come to mobilize the element of Germany’s male population that was not already in uniform. The ongoing development of small arms over the course of the conflict therefore became a process of not just building better guns, but also building them as economically as possible. By late 1944, the Third Reich had to confront certain emerging realities about manpower as well. But when the demand for resources began to outpace the available supply, Germany eventually had to cut corners like everybody else. On the one hand, that is certainly true when you consider German innovations like the general-purpose machine gun, the intermediate cartridge, and the roller-delayed blowback operating system. The military firearms produced for the government of the Third Reich are generally recognized as being some of the finest of World War II.

World of guns gun disassembly shooting range 5