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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Meet the G3 Battle Rifle (And It's a Legend for a Reason) |
| 2018-12-11 |
| [The National Interest] In the late 1950s, the Bundeswehr, West Germany’s armed forces, needed a new infantry rifle. Part practical endeavor and part rebranding effort, the adoption of the G3 battle rifle was a symbolic establishment of the West German Army as an independent military force. The sturdy, beefy 7.62-millimeter rifle would serve nearly forty years, first on the Iron Curtain’s frontier and later as the first rifle of a reunified Germany. The armed forces of West Germany were founded in 1955, ten years after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The breakdown of the wartime alliance between the United States, United Kingdom, France and Soviet Union divided Germany into two states, West Germany and East Germany, separated along ideological lines. The large number of Soviet conventional forces in Eastern Europe, particularly East Germany, could not be effectively countered without some form of West German remilitarization, and once established the Bundeswehr quickly evolved to become the backbone of NATO’s defense plan. The West German army was originally supplied with surplus American small arms, including the M-1 Garand rifle . The Soviet deployment of the AK-47 assault rifle was an alarming development, sounding warning bells across a NATO that had largely neglected small arms after World War II. The AK-47 was chambered in 7.62x39-millimeter, capable of fully automatic fire and fed from a thirty-round box magazine, A Red Army unit equipped with the AK-47 could generate far more firepower than one equipped with the M-1 Garand. In the event of war, Bonn’s army‐and most NATO infantry, for that matter‐would be outgunned at the small unit level. West German officials cast their eye to Spain, where the Spanish CETME rifle held great promise. Ironically, CETME had been developed by German engineers working in France and Spain after the war, engineers that had developed the wartime Sturmgewehr-45 (StG-45) assault rifle. The CETME resembled and used many of the features of the StG-45, including a delayed blowback operating system designed to reduce recoil. The Spanish weapon was chambered in 7.62-millimeter, at the time fast becoming the standard NATO rifle caliber, and utilized a twenty-round detachable magazine. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #1 The Germans have always made really good rifles. I love the old bolt action Mausers. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2018-12-11 09:26 |