Jarlaxle wrote:The Panzerfaust/Panzerschreck--the forerunner of the modern RPG and LAW.
The Stg44 is good...but late to the party. The first "machine rifle" (as its designer called it) beats it by more than twenty years!
The Panzerfaust and the range of disposable anti-tank weapons of that style were quite an inovation. Handy, light weight, good for ambushing, had a remarkable punch - after a test firing between the Panzerschreck and a Bazooka against a Panther, Patton remarked that he was about ready to take after the enemy with their own weapon!
The Stg44 was the first true assault rifle in function and form - although previous "trench brooms" had been made, they were ether too large and bulky like the Browning that was more a limited machine gun than rifle, as compaired to the smaller sub-machine guns. The Stg44 seems to be when the form and function come together just right.
Grassroots1 wrote:If the stg 44 counts as hand-held, do bouncing bettys qualify as well?
The Stg44 was certainly hand held.
As for if a Bouncing Betty or German S-Mine (Schrapnellmine) counts as hand held, I made the stipulation that devices must be hand held to avoid the torrent of dim-wits posting that the atomic bomb was the most innovative item of the second world war - since I was more intrested about looking at the objects soldiers in the field might use, rather than vastly complex devices that require a crew to opereate.
I'd class a Bouncing Betty as very inovative in form and function as compaired to other landmines.
Although when deployed you would certainly did not want to have it in your hands, it is certainly a device that is operated by a single soldier. The mine could be deployed as a pressure operated device, or a device that was triggered by tripwires, or both! The trip wires really have the mine the ability to deny an area to the enemy and create confusion as a trick that was employed was to bury S-mines with Barbed wire entanglements, with trip wires attached to the barbed wire. So if the barned wire was moved, the attached trip wires would set off the S-Mines.
Hollywood has really stereotyped the landmine as being an object you step upon, few people know of the use of trip wires with land-mines.
Killim wrote:Tha major German hand-to-hand combat weapon was used in both world wars and wasn't really a WWII innovation, even if the design of the Klappspaten 38 was a renewed one.
I agree, but the shovel was just as important a tool in WWII was in WWI.
Quantum wrote:The 18 litre - 4 gallon containers were mainly manufactured in the third world, that's why the containers ruptured easily. However, the British had a 9 litre - 2 gallon container made of pressed steel but they were too expensive to produce. The jerrycan is yet another fine invention by the military that was beneficial for the civilian population.
The quality and the thin thickness of the steel didn't help the British 4 gallon containers. The German design was far more robust.
That might not work out so well!
. Someone had to hold them at some point, didn't they?
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