Was the Mauser 71/84 Rifle used by the Volkssturm?

Cyrano4747 said:

Das würde mich doch interessieren. Ich habe keine Ahnung, ob ich es benutzen würde (Ich habe schon viel Schwarzpulver), aber trotzdem würde ich gern die Info haben.

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Schicke ich heute Abend durch!
Grüße

Hallo
Hier meine Daten zur .43 Mauser Patrone!
Die Messungen sind vom Beschussamt München und haben mich sehr viel Zeit u auch Geld gekostet!Bis diese gepasst haben musste ich sehr viel ausprobieren ....und das ist das Ergebniss!
Ich hoffe, dass alle, die sich dafür interessieren, damit anfangen können!
Druck und Geschwindigkeitswerte sind zur Schwarzpulverpatrone identisch!
Es kann noch Kapok zum Füllen benutzt werden, um noch gleichbleibendere Werte zu erreichen!
Grüße

Vielen Dank. Zum Glück ist Vihatvuori für uns ziemlich leicht zu finden. Ich hatte angst, dass die Pulver etwas in Nordamerika nicht verfügbar sein würde.

edit: Normalerweise ist N120 mit kurz Patronen benutzt - z.B 7.62x39. Ich dachte, dass es etwas so wäre.

Ja, da haben Sie Recht!
Es gab mal Ladedaten von Lee und da habe ich dann ein NCPulver genommen, das bei uns zugelassen ist und von den Daten ähnlich ist!
Ich schieße zb Sportlich die 30-06 mit n110!
Wenige Hitze kein Flimmern des Laufes!

Anhang

Cyrano4747 said:

What's the context of that photo? Doesn't look like VS to me, looks more like some kind of Party event, likely pre-war.

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The uniform cap looks more Italian to me but I'm no expert. Anybody belong to The Company of Military Historians. Those guys know all about the material culture.

Blackpowderresearcher said:

The uniform cap looks more Italian to me but I'm no expert. Anybody belong to The Company of Military Historians. Those guys know all about the material culture.

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The guys with the flat tops are SA. It's a pretty distinctive hat. They came in a bunch of colors on the upper bit that could indicate rank or the part of the country the SA unit was from. That changes over time, though. Things are very different pre-1933 and post-1933, for example, and they went through other major uniform changes in the early 40s.
Knowing when that was taken would go a long way to explain what's going on in it.

I'm not sure what the guys in the soft caps standing in line are. They're clearly some kind of party-affiliate what with the armband, but the uniforms aren't catching anything with me yet. The lack of any collar tabs would seem to rule out both the SA and the SS (edit: keep in mind pre-Röhm purge the two were much more closely linked and shared a lot of uniform similarities). The uniform looks military-ish although not quite spot on for the actual Army, though, which is very much on brand for the various party orgs that tried to adopt military trappings. They look military-aged though. Too old for HJ at any rate. I half wonder if they're something like RAD.

edit: SA uniform, hastily googled

Hrm. Looks like my guess that the other guys could be RAD might not be too off the mark. (edit: nope, see next post) I'm not liking the caps 100% still, the device on it in particular doesn't look right for RAD, but they did do the military-ish uniform with no collar tabs for the rank and file. If not RAD it could be something similar, and good lord there is no shortage of those kind of crappy little organizations to choose from.

It would really, really help to have any kind of context. Even just the year.

Some RAD folks.

Ah, I think I've got it. I'm pretty sure it's an SA Wehrmannschaft doing training. They were kind of a pre-basic training for all military aged men established right after the war started.



Note the lack of collar tabs for the rank and file.

Also note the cap has a kind of ride or seam running up the middle of the hat from the temple to the crown, which the ones in the above pic also have.



Also check this out. Doing some reverse image searching popped some interesting hits, and I'm about 75% sure that the officer with his face to the camera is Wilhlem Schepmann, the leader of the Dresden SA district and the final Chief of Staff of the SA in the last year of the war.

When the Germans pulled out of Italy they took with them 440,000 Carcanos and 2.5 million rounds of ammo. I'm with the 12thSS NE, and we've a side impression of VS Gau Bayeruth (German/Czech border). From my research, here is their armaments table. There is very limited information available, but there are a couple of good books out there. A special duties battalion. Zb/V was formed, with all German weapons, on the East bank of the Oder in January, 1945. None came back. Even though the Hague convention recognized the VS arm band as combatants, the Russians considered them partizans and shot them out of hand.
t

Sehr interessant!
Sehr gut!

plymouthmauser said:

When the Germans pulled out of Italy they took with them 440,000 Carcanos and 2.5 million rounds of ammo. I'm with the 12thSS NE, and we've a side impression of VS Gau Bayeruth (German/Czech border). From my research, here is their armaments table. There is very limited information available, but there are a couple of good books out there. A special duties battalion. Zb/V was formed, with all German weapons, on the East bank of the Oder in January, 1945. None came back. Even though the Hague convention recognized the VS arm band as combatants, the Russians considered them partizans and shot them out of hand.
t

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Do you have a source on that? I love the info, but I would like something to tie it to. Was there a published TO&E somewhere or correspondence about what they had on hand or something similar?

Thank you Cyrano4747 - I know the SA uniform and even saw the historical documentary The Blue Brothers that had illinois Nazis, but the other guys with different caps baffled me. I knew it wasn't ReichArbeitDienst (look at the dustjacket to the book, A Tale of Two Soldiers and the German guy has a RAD hat on - post-war the German immigrated to Estados Unidos). I've read plenty of books but never heard of the Wehrmannschaft. You nailed it.

Still trying to verify that the Mauser 71/84 actually saw use by the Volksturm. Big plume of white smoke from discharge shouts, "Shoot here!"

Blackpowderresearcher said:

Thank you Cyrano4747 - I know the SA uniform and even saw the historical documentary The Blue Brothers that had illinois Nazis, but the other guys with different caps baffled me. I knew it wasn't ReichArbeitDienst (look at the dustjacket to the book, A Tale of Two Soldiers and the German guy has a RAD hat on - post-war the German immigrated to Estados Unidos). I've read plenty of books but never heard of the Wehrmannschaft. You nailed it.

Still trying to verify that the Mauser 71/84 actually saw use by the Volksturm. Big plume of white smoke from discharge shouts, "Shoot here!"

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As I said earlier ITT, I don't think it actually saw use in any kind of meaningful way. Maybe in ones and twos because someone found one and a few boxes of ammo in an old Forster hut and the Soviets are right over there, but at that point we're into the weeds with questions like "did the Volkssturm ever use SxS hunting shotguns?" The answer is going to be sure, somewhere, sometime, because it was a big war and they were getting overrun, but it's not something that would be routine enough to note.

I said earlier that some kind of context for that photo would help a lot, including a date, but I suspect that it would be sometime around 1939 or 1940 right after the Wehrmannschaft was established. That's a basic rifle training thing (you can find similar pics of recruits in front of 98ks on tripods like that). I don't know what, exactly, but I suspect it's illustrating proper sight picture. Given that I've never actually seen someone touching a gun in those pics I'm going to guess that it was non-firing orientation, in which case using the old single shot carbine that someone found in a closet works fine. It's not like you need ammo for it. The SA was always strapped for equipment post-purge, so that would track.

Here's another example of that kind of setup, it's pretty clear that this is what they were emulating. Which makes sense, as the purpose of the Wehrmannschaft was to get this kind of super-basic training out of the way before they got inducted into the military.



If anyone knows exactly what this was about I'm all ears, I'm just speculating on the exact reason for the rifle on a tripod in a fairly clear non-shooting position. My guess is non-firing weapons orientation before the actual start of shooting instruction.

Was Wehrmannschaf just for SA men? I ask because marksmanship training began with the HJ with the top shot getting the Honor Rifle (some 22) which he was allowed to take home along with ammunition to practice with. I don't think they got any rifle marksmanship under RAD b/c they were digging ditches (never read an account of marksmanship training in RAD). After their six months in RAD, it was Wehrmacht (unless one volunteered for the SS, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine first). The frequency of Allied bombing required 16 year olds to become a flak auxiliary for a year and then RAD. As times got tougher, even BundDeustchesMadel were pressed in as Flak Auxiliaries (like smaller boys, they did'nt serve on big gun (88 or 12.8 flak) as they were not strong enough to pick up a shell quickly. BDM did searchlights and smaller things (and as late as Battle of Berlin 20 mm flak).

The tripod was to teach sight alignment and not the shoot from. It's use dates back to the French School of Marksmanship (eta: Vincennes) which the English School of Musketry at the Hythe adopted in the 1850s (see Lt. Hans Busk's Handbook for the Hythe). The Germans also had shooting platforms that were used to teach prone shooting. Have to check the manual to see if it was used for sitting or kneeling position (but being inclined, I doubt). Off hand was taught on level ground.

ETA II: Just checked. The Germans used a flat platform to learn to shoot from the sitting/kneeling position. It could also be taught on the ground. In the kneeling position the soldat was expected to learn forward (help absorb the recoil).

Waffen und Schießtechnischer Leitfaden von 1943

The earliest VS were armed with personal hunting rifles and shotguns. I had a list somewhere from November for Bayeruth, but can't find it.

Very hard to get specific info on the VS; everything was falling apart. Specifications were made but almost never fulfilled. I chose Gau Bayeruth as it was the only Gau I found numbers and any kind of history when I was researching a couple years ago. My quick and dirty history has a couple citations at the end. The trouble with the Gew88s I gather was the chambering between the old round nose 8mm and the SS patronnen. However, if the 88 in question had at least the S chamber reaming it could fire the longer neck spitzer bullets, and with the 05 modification it could stripper clips. I didn't see any reference to the Gew71 but wouldn't be surprised if one made it into the field. One particular blurb I read, with photo documentation, was a propaganda photo set up in Berlin, October or November of 44, where new VS men were presented Austrian 95 rifles with great pomp and circumstance. The men weren't issued any ammo, as there wasn't any. When the men marched around the corner away from the public, the rifles were recollected!

The only promise that was fulfilled, as it was the winter of 44-45, every man who needed a great coat got one.
t

Das Dreibein diente denk ich wirklich nur um Verkanntungsfehler Kimme Korn zu lernen!

S Patrone cartridges were higher pressure than the Gew 88 cartridges.

Blackpowderresearcher said:

Was Wehrmannschaf just for SA men?

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It was a part of the SA, yes, but my understanding is that they were tasked with providing a sort of basic pre-military training to people who were not yet in the military or normally unfit for military service. You'll see them compared to the Home Guard a fair bit. In a lot of ways it was a pre-war (established Jan 1939) look at what the VS eventually became.

Sorry I don't have more on them, they're not exactly a focus of mine.