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Science & Technology |
Learn About the Nazi Assault Rifle That Got a Second Life in Syria |
2019-12-11 |
[The National Interest] Key Point: The old rifles were sold by the Eastern bloc to the Middle East decades ago. In 2012, rebels of the Free Syrian Army posted a video in which they uncovered an arms cache containing five thousand assault rifles. Though not an uncommon episode in a civil war then in its early stages, what was truly bizarre was that the rebels had uncovered a cache of Sturmgewehr 44s‐an assault rifle designed by Nazi Germany seventy years earlier. How did a weapon only produced in the final years of World War II begin appearing in a Middle Eastern civil war seventy years later? |
Posted by:Besoeker |
#7 There were PzrKpfW Mk. 4's used by the Syrians in the Golan Heights in the 1967 6-Day War. They were dug-in and basically used as pillboxes ... kind of a sad end for a tank but better than being used as a bazooka target, I guess. |
Posted by: magpie 2019-12-11 12:49 |
#6 And... they made this movie. |
Posted by: Dron66046 2019-12-11 05:26 |
#5 ...At least a couple WWII German AFV's were spotted and confirmed there as well. Mike |
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2019-12-11 05:23 |
#4 Available in Pakistan. It's called 44 bore there. The Baloch liberation rebels still have some MP44s, and modded AKs to fire it. And neck-turned .323 inch casings are also reused. |
Posted by: Dron66046 2019-12-11 05:17 |
#3 Now they've shot all the ammo, so the rifles are being discarded. Privi Partisan still makes 8mm kurz in limited quantities, but not enough for a war. |
Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-12-11 03:01 |
#2 Well, Sturmgewehr 44 IS the basis for Kalashnikov. |
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-12-11 02:41 |
#1 Ended up the the armories of Warsaw Pact nations, who never threw weapons away. Got sent to the Middle East to help in liberation movements. Come with cases of ammunition headstamped 1944 and 45. |
Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-12-11 02:23 |