See posts #9 and #10 in this thread.
Does the USMC still issue it?
Hawkeye, I see you here from time to time. I’d like to know more about the piece in your collection that is the submachine gun on the far right. That was used in small numbers by the Marine Corp in WWII. No?
Its a Reising M-50 smg. here is a little paste up on it.
The Reising submachine gun was designed by American Eugene Reising and patented in 1940. Production of the new submachine gun commenced in 1941 at Harrington & Richardson (H&R) arms factory. In 1942, US Marine Corps signed first contract for delivery of Reising M50 submachine guns, and several tens of thousands of Reising M50 SMG’s were delivered to USMC during the war. It must be noted that USMC weapons were slightly different in appearance from original version, having different trigger guard, larger takedown screw head, and other minor changes
I’ve read an article about a 4th genertion sten chambered 9mm NATO still in service. There’s even a semi-auto civillian model.
Not sure about a ‘4th generation sten’ but the Stirling SMG was in use with the British Army until the mid 90’s and is confused at times with the Sten.
There weapon could be selected for semi or fully automatic and a version was produced for use by police services (used in NI by the RUC) that could only fire single shot and had a 10 round magazine (we used the 10 round mag when driving in civvy vehicles there as it was easier to use in a restricted space)
WWII Soviet m91/30 PU is still still used in the Russian Army,mostly by Spetsnaz
Interesting. I thought the Dragunov was the main sniper weapon. Is the old bolt action Mosin Nagant still more accurate?
Hello,Ive heard it is more accurate than the SVD - my Russian Army friend tells me lately Russian snipers are not too happy with the SVD,
m91/30 PU was also used to a good extent in the Soviet Afghan war in the 80’s
Not to be a nit picker but a MP-40 is not a Schmieser…the magazines for the MP-40 were mostly made by the Schmieser company and had the name stamped on them…so when captured by G.I.'s it picked up that name.
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Today in Russia you can order a kit to transform old Mosin Nagant in new bullup rifle, this model is named OTs-48K sniper rifle.
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of this. I guess it goes to show that there is no one catch-all wonder weapon for all situations. The U.S. military has essentially done something similar in reverse and supplemented their bolt-action M24 rifles with “intermediate marksmen” semi-auto sniper systems, I think largely based on having to contend with the Dragunov in Iraq…
I think that Soviet Army found that SVD is not a true sniper weapon but a designated marksman rifle. It means that his accuracy above 600 meters is questionable. In urban and jungle warfare is not a problem, but in mountain terrain, when you try to shot across a valley SVD accuracy is not sufficient.
However while new version of M24, the XM2010, is pressed into service the Army is shifting to M110. I think that is not M24 but M14 that is knowing a reborn: normal units cannot use SPECOPS Scar-H, so they use every weapon that shots 7.62 they can get. The choice is using M14 from depot or get AK from enemy.
Although not a WW2 gun, the M14 is a a direct descendant of the M1 Garand. Though not the main battle rifle anymore, they are still used by special op’s forces needing a more duel purpose sniper/assault capable rifle.
mtclimber, during my tour in 83-84 we had responsibility for overseeing the Korean Security Guards used on the Camp Casey Perimeter. These guards used M-14’s which were kept in our arms room. There was a list of many of us “old timers” who, if the “balloon went up”, wanted the M-14’s instead of our M-16’s.
I probably would have preferred and M-14 to the M-16A1/A2’s I had in terrain like Korea (open fields with limited forested areas). But the M-14 is also heavy and the ammo load is limited, and infantry armed solely with M-14’s had difficulty dealing with NVA/VC armed mainly with AK’s in Vietnam in close engagements…
I agree - but we were the staff of the 1st Bdg (Armor and Mech Inf) and the weight issue was not much of a consideration. I had trained with the M-14 and had great confidence with it out to a much greater range that the 5.56mm of the M-16.
As I’ve said before, and essentially what the Army and Marines are doing now: they should have kept one-or-two M-14’s per squad while issuing everyone else M-16’s, GPMG’s, SAW’s, etc.
US Troops in Iraq apparently found a few STG44’s in working condition, not with the Iraqi army but with civilians.
Can only imagine the ideas thought up about trying to ship them home.
It would certainly be worth the effort if the military sent them back here, even if its just for museums. Things have changed since I was in that business, perhaps a business, or individual could import them to the U.S. for the civilian market. Being selective fire weapons, the rules are different than for bolts, or semi auto.