Posted on 04/10/2015 6:35:03 AM PDT by C19fan
If theres any weapon that deserves the most credit for beating back Nazi Germany, it might be the legendary bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifle.
The Soviet Union made them in absolutely huge numbers and theyre still available and rather cheap compared to their contemporaries. Whats more extraordinary is that the basic design is more than a century old.
Even now, rebels carry Mosin-Nagants alongside more modern weapons as in conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Most people come to FR to argue
Or complain
This thread like many gun threads
Which I love anyhow
Is why I avoid clubby gun stores and organized ranges
Too much personality extension through weaponry
I took my 14 year old to a local black gun style shop
All the brass heads not very friendly know it alls
My sons understands guns are TOOLS for self preservation food and liberty
Some are art.... Purdey Citori etc
They don’t make you a man
(Wish I could...)
pingaroo
Wow, great subthread! This comes up once in a while.
KIA figures vary; the total German military war dead ranges all over, KIA and MIA through 1945, all theaters, adds up to over five million. Civilians killed in the war probably exceeded a million, and postwar civilian deaths due to murder, suicide, starvation, other privation probably exceeded a million.
Allies of Germany drawn from most of the countries of Europe are also sometimes counted, as they served in the Waffen SS, and they experienced high casualty rates and perhaps 25 percent KIA. It's difficult to figure that (and it's been studied a lot) mainly due to desertions being counted as MIA, and the volunteers/conscripts who'd deserted weren't likely to step up after the war and say, "yeah, I was in the Waffen SS".
Eastern front KIA and MIA figures work out to about 2.5 million -- but the campaign started in 1940 and went on until late November 1944, over four years. It should be obvious that the length of time the fighting went on had pretty much everything to do with the greater casualty figures.
The African front resulted in about 100K KIA/MIA (mostly the latter, but the WWII MIA figures for all theaters barely budged after the war, they were largely KIA but remains were never found, or generally even looked for) and the Germans only committed two Panzer divisions to the Afrika Korps (one of Hitler's remarkably stupid blunders).
Russian tactics were extremely tolerant of manpower losses (ahem), including friendly-fire, and relied on massive formations and massive firepower -- an idea ironically learned from the Germans in both WW. There weren't any great Red Army commanders, merely successful ones. Officers right on up to the top generals of the were nearly universally hated by the rank and file, right to the surviving veterans to the current day.
“Your rifle’s finish is low grade shellac, cosmoline and Olga’s toe nails.”
‘Interesting. Had never heard of those. The article doesnt indicate they were deployed a whole lot, but it would seem the classic assault rifle definition of lower powered cartridge firing with select fire option.’
In fact Soviets deployed a number of semi-auto and select fire rifles en-masse since 1930s. They also were the first automatic rifles the Germans seen and they’ve put captured ones to their own service.
Avs-36, Svt-38, 40.
Mila Pavluchenko the most celebrated Allied sniper of WWII had one of these.
Very good, I'd not heard that quote........ :^)
I found the quote, I remembered hearing it in “The World at War”
Colonel Berndt Von Kleist in 1941, “The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone.”
Cute woman.
Respect the gal who can fire a *3-line*!
And extractor/spring.
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