The StG largely influenced the Soviet AK-47, introduced two years after the war concluded. The StG 44 fulfilled its role effectively, particularly on the Eastern Front, offering a greatly increased volume of fire compared to standard infantry rifles. ![]() Other rifles at the time were designed to hit targets of over a thousand meters, but this was found to be in excess of the range in which most enemy engagements actually took place. The StG 44 was the first successful assault rifle, with features including an intermediate cartridge, controllable automatic fire, a more compact design than a battle rifle with a higher rate of fire, and being designed primarily for hitting targets within a few hundred metres. The StG 44 was an improvement of an earlier design, the Maschinenkarabiner 42(H). It is also known by its early designations as the MP 43 and MP 44 ( Maschinenpistole 43 and 44). The StG 44 (abbreviation of Sturmgewehr 44, "assault rifle 44") is a German assault rifle developed during World War II by Hugo Schmeisser. You can follow him on Twitter: This piece originally appeared in October 2018 and is being republished due to reader's interest.Adjustable sights, rear: V-notch front: hooded post In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. Although it lived for only a short time in the wrong hands, the StG-44 inspired small arms development for decades to come. The same characteristics drive the British SA80 assault rifle, Chinese QBZ-95 assault rifle, and American M4 carbine. The true legacy of the StG-44 is its design philosophy, of an intermediate cartridge mated to a fully automatic weapon with a detachable magazine. Some firearms enthusiasts believe Huge Schmeisser, imprisoned after the war by the Soviet Union is the true father of the AK-47, although this is an unproven and likely untrue theory. It was no doubt an influence for Mikhail Kalashnikov, father of the AK-47 assault rifle. The StG-44 was a truly revolutionary weapon, bringing firepower down to the individual soldier level. A large amount of German war resources were spent on the Krummlauf, far outstripping the theoretical value of shooting Red Army soldiers through firing ports, and few guns were actually produced. The objective was to create a weapon that could be poked through the firing ports of halftrack armored personnel carriers, firing on enemy infantry attempting to place magnetic anti-tank mines on the sides of friendly vehicles. The oddball project involved a MP-44 fitted with a curved barrel and mirror sights attached to the muzzle. One unusual variant of the MP-44/StG-44 produced during wartime was the MP-44 Krummlauf. ![]() Despite wartime shortages, German industry produced 425,977 StG-44s for the German Army. After the weapon’s success on the battlefield, it was renamed the Sturmgewehr-44 (“Storm Gun”), reportedly by Hitler himself. The weapon was produced under the “machine pistol” (“MP”) designation after Hitler had decreed development of rifles was to cease and production of machine pistols was stepped up. In April 1944, the weapon was renamed the MP-44. The MKb42(H) prototype was reworked by Schmeisser and turned into the MP-43 operational weapon, entering service in 1943. The weapon was easy to field strip, breaking down into six different parts, the upper and lower receivers connected by a hinge behind the magazine well. The weapon had a pistol grip, wooden stock, hooded front sight and a 30-round magazine. Schmeisser’s weapon, the Haenel MKb42(H), was a piston-driven gun with frontal locking lugs on the bolt. Early in World War II, however, it became clear that the nature of warfare had changed, a point that became painfully clear as Germany began losing the war.īy 1942, the famous small arms designer Hugo Schmeisser had produced an early version of the required rifle. The combination of bolt action full-sized rifle and submachine gun was useful in the trenches of World War I, with the former valuable for aimed fire between trench lines and the latter useful for clearing trenches during ground offensives. The guns weighed approximately nine pounds, fired from a 32 round detachable magazine and had effective ranges of approximately 200 yards. The MP series, including the MP-38, MP-40, and MP-41, were a new design of compact, folding stock submachine guns. It weighed 8.2 pounds, had a five round internal magazine, and an effective range of 600 yards. The 98k was a shorter, handier version of the Gewehr 98 rifle used during the Great War. ![]() At the outbreak of World War II, the German Army fielded two infantry small arms: the Karabiner Modell 1898 kurz, otherwise known as the 98k bolt action carbine, and the MP series of submachine guns.
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