WWI German Heavy Weapons
Dated: July 18, 2005.
By Mr. Andy O'Gorman of New Zealand.
"Here are some pictures of the WWI German Heavy Weapons figures based for Great War Spear Head."
Andy O'Gorman
Webmaster's notes in parenthesis.
(Command stand with officer, field telephone operator and man's best friend.)
(The 1916 Granatenwerfer weighed 15kg, and it's base weighed 23kg. It's grenade weighed 1.85 kg, not something one could chuck overhand. It had a 2 man crew. Range of the grenade was 50-250m. The grenade was a bouncing type which bounced off the ground with a black powder charge before exploding.)
(Sniper and NCO. The NCO carries a MP18 submachine gun, one of the first to be developed. It has a round magazine to the left holding 32 rounds. The sniper carries the G98, a hardy and reliable weapon and accurate to long ranges. This one has a sniper snope to it, but it could also carry a 25 round trench magazine.)
(This rifle grenade launcher used the trusty G98, a special blank cartridge, a launching stand and a rifle grenade weighing under 1kg.)
(The 7.6 cm light Minenwerfer (mortar). It was muzzle loaded and threw a 4.7kg mortar bomb up to 1050m, all with the pull of a lanyard. The normal crew was 1-2 NCOs and 4-5 privates.)
(The light MG 08/15 was a modified MG 08 stripped down as much as possible. The MG 08 was 63kg and could not be easily carried around, so a lighter mg was needed. The MG 08/15 had a bipod, rifle butt and pistol grip, even so it weighed close to 20kg, but it had much better firepower than the Allied mgs of the time. A full crew would include an NCO, the 2 machine gunners and 2-3 ammo carriers.)
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(Flamethrowers were a new weapon for WWI. The Kleines Flammenwefer was carried by two, one with the fuel on his back and the other with the nozzle. It was powered by compressed nitrogen and was a roaring success.)
(Lewis machine gun. The Germans didn't have light machine guns at the beginning of the war but captured so many machine guns that they could form Musketen-Bataillone with the captured weapons. The British Lewis mg was a favorite, it weighed 15kg and had a 47round magazine, it was converted to German 7.92 ammo. A staple of the Stormtruppen. Because it was magazine fed it did not have the lasting power of belt fed mgs, we made ours with it's own ammo carrier, and it could be fired from the hip.)
(The 13mm caliber T-Gewehr anti-tank rifle was an extra long beefed up Mauser with a bipod. You did not want to be shot with this rifle. Front cover art shows it in all it's glory.)
MG08 heavy machine gun not shown.
Many thanks to Mr. Andy O'Gorman (New Zealand).
References:
WWI German Army, Stephen Bull, Brassey's
Stormtroopers, Ian Drury, Osprey