Or he hit 20 different guys but never could tell them apart.

Bloody out of context page topper.

edited 7th Feb '16 6:51:04 AM by AngelusNox

^ Given some of the disproportionate losses the PLA had in Korea...that might actually have a grain of truth to it. Chinese vs UN forces (especially American) had a tendency to be hilariously lopsided. Chinese would kill 500 of ours but lose like 8000 of theirs.

Stu G is an acceptable abbreviation for Sturmgewehr.

There's an anecdote in the book We Were Soldiers Once... And Young' where an American paratrooper fighting at LZ Albany spotted an NVA trooper peeking out from a forked tree. He quickly raised his rifle, sighted right on the fork, and shot the guy in the face.

Then the guy popped his face up in that fork again. Repeat.

Then a third time. So the story goes, the paratrooper, confused for a moment, assumed a firing-range stance to make sure he didn't miss this time.

Repeat a couple more times. After the fighting had ended, he investigated that tree, and found a half dozen NVA troopers who had evidently thought that tree was an ideal position to try and get a clear shot at the Americans from.

But yeah, I've heard similar stories about 5.56 being deflected by bushes and such, spoiling a soldier's shot. The consensus is that they would not have spoiled his shot if he had aimed at the part of the bush the enemy was actually hiding behind, but then that's the point of concealment.

Applying the Identical-Looking Asians stereotype, I can see how a GI might assume he shot (at) the same guy a half-dozen times, rather than shooting (at) a different guy each time. Plus, uniforms don't help to distinguish them either.

edited 7th Feb '16 10:09:51 AM by pwiegle

It is pretty easy to lose track of who you are fighting unless you are face to face. Night attacks that would be even worse.

edited 7th Feb '16 10:11:39 AM by TuefelHundenIV

So does that mean Wehrmacht troopers who were issued it or its prototypes like the MKb-42H were living the "Stug life"?

Flat Yep.

Cross-post from the OTC Gun Thread:

DWM 1902 Luger Carbine.

http://www.phoenixinvestmentarms.com/1475Carbine02C.htm

That's the purtiest Luger I have ever seen. Doesn't look like it's been out of its case much since it was made, and hard to believe it ever got used in anger. Wonder what stories it could tell though.

I had a question for you guys. What is the difference between arquebuses and muskets?

maybe this should go to the history thread?

edited 18th Feb '16 11:53:23 PM by pepimanoli

The Arquebus was created in Hungary and actually came before the Musket, they got their name from the shape of the stock and older Arquebus sometimes had hooks near the muzzle. The Musket was created in China, and started out as pretty much a heavy version of the Arquebus before replacing it.

So it's mostly a difference of size and origin then? Thanks for your answer!

The arquebus was used for hunting and target shooting, while the musket was a military weapon.

Actually, nope on that. The arquebus was mainly a military weapon at first - it was way too expensive for commoners to get hold of, and the powers that be at the time didn't like the idea of such power being among the peasantry. Especially since a good one would send its heavy ball ammunition right through even the best steel breastplate that a knight could afford. And knights, being basically gangsters, thugs and cowards like all nobility at the time, (and most of the nobility of the present day derive their titles from them, so fuck 'em) despite their "chivalry" bullshit, really objected to that being done to them.

Wikipedia has a reasonably good and well-sourced article on the subject, but like a lot of the time misses the social aspect of the weapon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus

For comparison, here's their article on muskets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musket

I was looking at those articles and I saw that this photo◊ is called arquebus in one and musket in the other. This sort of things are why i am so confused about this two weapons, their names are often used as if they were synonyms.

Anyway, I don't know if early firearms were used in hunting by commoners, but it does seem unlikely.

Commoners usually used bows, be they self-bows, which are pretty simple as far as archery goes, the so-called "English longbow", and the short bow, as well as slings shooting lead shot or stones.

You are all more or less right.

The problem here is we are describing two weapons with a lot of developmental cross over and shared history before they diverged more thoroughly later. In Europe a musket initially was basically larger more powerful arquebus firing heavier shot. Otherwise it is effectively identical to an arquebus at this point. It even had the same style of stock and match lock mechanisms and used a forked shooting rest to be fired for a while. They existed side by side for some time. The musket because it was the more effective weapon got more love and development than the arquebus and eventually supplanted it and became the flintlock based weapon folks are more familiar with.

In Japan when you look at Tanegashima you have to remember the Japanese made a lot of their own modifications and improvements to the designs.

And now a moment of silence for all those service weapons whose time has come and gone.

edited 25th Feb '16 6:01:07 PM by MajorTom

I always wondered where those weapons that were not demilled on site went to.

I just figured they gave them to the Marines once they were unservicable.

Nope we get air force rifles, only fired and dropped once otherwise brand new.

^ Are you sure you don't have it backwards? They dropped it once and caused it to fire once?

I work at a foundry, and I've been told that the local police department melts down the guns they've confiscated in our furnace. So if you buy one of the radiators or boilers we make, it might have a bit of ordnance-grade steel in it somewhere...