British weapons used by German army. DAK

[Keith Brooker]

2 of my original photos of a German with a Bren and a AT gun. Did the german Army make any use of the 303 rifle ie. use in the german dads army?
The germans did make a copy of a sten.

[maple_leaf_eh]

It is a well documented fact that the German military reissued captured small arms, artillery, tanks and vehicles to its troops. They had nomenclature for each item that usually had the first letter of the country of origin in the name. A 'T' for Czech, an R for Russian, and likely an E or I for English.

Generally, second line and minor fronts had the oddball weapons. The one that comes to mind were the troops in the Balkans had Austrian Steyr rifles and Czech light machine guns.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Keith Brooker

The germans did make a copy of a sten.

Really, did they? I am surprised as I am sure it was in the same category as the T34 tank. When the German military asked industry if they could copy the T34 the answer was "no: it will not pass our quality control systems".

H.

[horsa]

Not Germans, but they were friends...

Still not sure if these are late pattern ZB guns or British Mark I (M) pattern based on the non-adjustable length bipods and the simplified butt stock and flat butt plate while retaining the early pattern barrel and dial site.

If British guns, it would follow along with what I've read where non-German support units would get the captured weapons and older pattern German weapons.

[Keith Brooker]

German with a ZB Bren ?

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Really, did they? I am surprised as I am sure it was in the same category as the T34 tank. When the German military asked industry if they could copy the T34 the answer was "no: it will not pass our quality control systems".

The German copy of the sten was the MP3008. It was an emergency measure towards the end of the war. There is a modern reproduction available today as the BD3008. It was not a direct copy, as it had a downward facing, non rotating magwell.

There were also some 28,000 stens made in Germany in 1944. These were exact right down to the markings, and were meant to be used for clandestine ops.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by rob love

The German copy of the sten was the MP3008. It was an emergency measure towards the end of the war. There is a modern reproduction available today as the BD3008. It was not a direct copy, as it had a downward facing, non rotating magwell.

There were also some 28,000 stens made in Germany in 1944. These were exact right down to the markings, and were meant to be used for clandestine ops.

Thanks, never heard about it before. Interesting to see the Germans copying this non-typical design, I read it's intended use was as a Volksmaschinenpistole ("people's submachine gun").

H.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

I am surprised as I am sure it was in the same category as the T34 tank. When the German military asked industry if they could copy the T34 the answer was "no: it will not pass our quality control systems".

See! The Germans could not resists re-engineering it and making it better. And it turns out the Sten was a copy of a German design to begin with, of course. . .

From hza-kulmbach.de:

On the first view, the construction of the "MP 3008" - also called "Neumuenster device" - is very similar to the british Sten submachine-gun. However there are small but important differences in design. The Brits earlier had copied the german constructions "MP 18/I" and "MP 28/II", then however those were modified. The Mauser-engineers took the simple concept and even improved it, adapting it to the changed manufacturing-environmemt found in the "German Reich" anno 1944. The simple frame, receiver, the easy and pragmatic trigger-group & -housing as well as the functional skeleton foldable stock made of cheap stamped profiles, resulted in higher stiffness and lower weight and being even less-costly to manufacture than the british original, showed the genius in german end-war-engineering.

[sapper740]

Originally Posted by Keith Brooker

2 of my original photos of a German with a Bren and a AT gun. Did the german Army make any use of the 303 rifle ie. use in the german dads army?
The germans did make a copy of a sten.

Here's another picture of the Boys Anti-tank rifle in German hands. I found this photo while surfing ebay for Boys paraphenalia. Don't know much about where and when the photo was taken unfortunately.

Cheers, Derek.