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| Forum Home > General Discussion > Info wanted on French small arms.. | ||
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Member Posts: 325 |
Yeah, the 7th Tirailleurs, was part of the 3rd from the beginning of the formation to March 1945 when they were replaced by the 49th Infantry. BTW, I hope you don't mind my asking, but would the 3rd Algerian have all American arms and equipment by the time of RG, or would they still have some British? | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
My mistake. The Brazilians did indeed have the Garand after all. However, they seemed to have preferred German rifles to it. I don't know why, after all the Garand is a pretty good rifle. Maybe they think that anything German is of superior quality.:) | |
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Member Posts: 2 |
It's a very complicated issue and strangely the data gets less reliable in the later years of the war. Essentially the French were using three sources: - 1:captured equipment which obviously varied by unit, time and desire (note that all armies except the US tended to turn a blind eye to the use of enemy equipment by combat units - British Panthers are a classic example) 2: British weapons: Initially assigned to the Free French forces notably the 1st FF Division but in practise used by other units as well, notably the Moroccan goumiers (they preferred Lee-Enfields). 3: US equipment: During and after the fall of North Africa a massive re-armament programme using purely US weaponry was undertaken. This equipped all of the units of the FEC except the ones listed above. and of course French equipment. This was not applicable until 1944 due to the shortage of ammunition. But once areas were liberated these were used - not incidentally the maquis (sadly a badly divided and ineffective force until the last moment) but by units formed from the disbanded Vichy French formations. Many of these, RI Piedmont being the best example, had hidden their equipment and colours in 1944, and used them in late 1944 when they converted into the new raised divisions. But how long these were used is questionable - as always the issue was ammunition and spares and factories to supply these did not operate until 1945. David Hughes | |
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Site Owner Posts: 916 |
Im trying to research french manufacturing capacity in the RG time slot. proving very difficult! | |
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Member Posts: 2 |
They might not have much left over, after the Germans came then were push back. How much do tyou think was left standing? | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
Well, the French were able to still produce MAS 38 submachine guns. In fact, the Germans oftentimes spared industry in occupied nations so they could put it to use for themselves. | |
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Member Posts: 2 |
True but would they leave those industries standing as they were retreating and the allies were advancing. Then how much pressure would the French feel to restart there armament production or rebuild France | |
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Site Owner Posts: 916 |
From what I can presently gather, there was considerable production available for vehicles such as cars and lorries, as these had been exploitd by the Germans. SOme had been destroyed by the Allies, but not all. Not sure why that was. Converting some of that to AFV manufacture would take time. The dies etc for pre-war AFVs were available, as they showed with the ARL44, which comprised many parts of pre-1940 tanks, and was then manufactured using some very basic techniques. I think that, in itself, is the most significant thing. de Gaulle wanted to put France back on the main stage, and so the French did what they could, AFV and vehicle wise. Small arms were easier to manufacture and we know that they did so. Uniforms would have started rolling off the lines quickly. Aircraft would certainly not have been produced for some time, at least none of any use, save political expediency. | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
Would the ex-SS Legion have any weapons other than German? | |
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Site Owner Posts: 916 |
I havent given them any yet. But there will come a time I suspect. | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
Didn't Hoffman use a Colt .45 to kill some Russians during the battle of Stuttgart in Breakthrough? Also, DerBo gave a French reporter a M3 grease gun during the battle of La Pierre Pointe in Impasse. | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
Will we see weapons like the MAS 44 semi automatic rifle in upcoming novels? http://www.virdea.net/french/mas-auto.html Also, I was hoping to see more French designs in action, like the MAS 36 rifle, or the FM 24/29 LMG. | |
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Site Owner Posts: 916 |
That's very interesting, because I replied to your post and my answer isnt here? The truth of teh matter is that French weaponry issue is not a high priority for me at the moment. I had forgotten about the.45 use, but they were found in many places. The grease gun is a fair cop. Much will depend on how the French industry gears itself up, and its priorities. If US arms are available in numbers then they might be better directing manufacturing ability elsewhere. If not, then they woudl make their own, or at least recycle old. Its just not something Im hung up on at the moment to be honest. | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
I forgot about your answer. Sorry about that. I guess I was hoping to see French designed arms in use. | |
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Member Posts: 2 |
The main issue of French arms actually goes back to the Wedermeyer plan of 1941 and the huge amount of logistic planning that was done directly after Pearl Harbor in the United States. The US logistics war plan literally had every ounce of steel, every foot of shipping space, and every yard of growing soil for crops accounted for and was still coming up short in terms of manufacturing capacity versus resources to feed it. Every month they were robbing Peter to pay Paul, or some industrial disaster was blowing up a million tons of ammunition at some dock. It turns out that the United States was being overly cautious as it likely had the war capacity to defeat the Axis twice over considering the strength of the Commonwealth and the Soviet Union into the equation, but in 1943 there were a lot of spot shortages in U.S. logistics which had significant effects on French and Brazilian thinking with regards to arming their troops. The initial US plan called for US and US supported allies to work from a standard division template. The template would need x number of rifles, y number of pistols, and z number of tanks, and must have a certain tonnage of supplies delivered to corps depots each day for each given type of operational status. Recognizing the importance of the Commonwealth, the standard commonwealth division also had a similar figure for weapons if only to sync logistic chains, British supplies could run on the American supply chain and vice versa even if the type of bullet in the boxes was different, because logistic people at Army level and above simply swapped tables. The French when they were first forming their divisions were promised as many division packs as they had people. The theory was that French attached to British chains would use British division packs, and when they were attached to American units they would use American packs. This ran into problems because the French turned out to be more than capable of forming twice as many divisions as anyone thought they could. The second problem was the French were very nervous about attaching French divisions to British corps. In WW1 that had been a recipe for disaster as the British had a bad habit of spending foreign troops (or even commonwealth troops) lives a little more freely than British lives. The French wanted to, if possible, go into battle as integrated armies. Faced with a large French organization, a desire for national cohesion, and a little Franco-phobia caused by US officers having to deal initially with some pretty lame French generals in Algeria, The US did not end up handing over many division packs as it was intended. Instead they asked the British to hand over excess weapons from 1940 to the French, so the French ended up getting a lot of stuff. M1917s, Enfield's, blown out 03 rifles. They did get enough to be considered division packs, this went to their armored divisions. However, if they were going to be handed US weapons they wanted Garands - or else they wanted to go back to their effective sniper-grenadier-automatic rifleman model from WW1 and use their own stuff. After a couple of disappointments (meaning not many Garands) the French decided that as soon as they hit friendly soil to rearm themselves. They were aided in three ways here. They had great designs for both a standard infantry rifle and their tried and true MG, and France had large stockpiles of metal being abandoned by retreating Germans that could be used to rearmament, and they had a large number of trained people who were out of work and might as well be making rifles. So as soon as Saint-Étienne fell the factory at MAS, which had never stopped making the basic MAS 1936, simply tooled up for the new MAS 1944. The pans were to run all of its lines three shifts deep to get to 20,000 rifles per month with a target of 20,000 weapons in the first months of 1945 and 100,000 by mid-year. This idea ran afoul of the allied commission to keep logistics going. They saw the opening of French armories as not a good investment, and since the fighting would move to the Pacific soon throwing weapons at the French territorial army was a waste. Finally they agreed to rearm the French with more Garands if they would hold off on any craze rearmament programs. The French agreed, feeling that the threat posed by the Soviet Union was not going to be an issue. It was revisited in December of 1945 but victory at the Bulge soon caused them to back off. So a threatened France could have, by spending resources and going all out. been equipped with a very modern rifle, had they wanted one. As it was they bent to the (reasonable) US argument that those resources should be prepared for use in the Pacific. They also started to receive more Garands and were able to make things work with what they had. Only if they were threatened by some major threat would they have actually kept making the MAS 1944 for more than use in the Pacific. The Brazilians by the way were in the same condition. The Brazilians were promised 4 division packs for a large self-sustaining Army corps that could later become its own Army, but problems happened right away and it turned out that the US could not even provide a complete division pack. Some things, like Garands, were constrained. The Brazilians wanted to use either their own 1908 rifles, or to build their own rifles at Itajuba - their preference was the G43 German rifle (and indeed, they would test it after the war and adopted it in small numbers).
Although the Brazilians type adopted the G43 as the Itajubá Model 954 Mosquetão it is doubtful that they could have had it in service in numbers before 1954. The vast majority of the Brazilian army would be carrying Mauser 1908s until the FAL came in. | |
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Site Owner Posts: 916 |
Excellent post, for which I thank you. My knowledge has been expanded very considerably. | |
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Member Posts: 2 |
You are welcome. | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
So what do the French have during Endgame? I don't have the book yet, but I was able to get a peek at Amazon.com. It looks like the Legionaires and the Tiraileurs have a mix of German and US arms. Do they have any others? What's their standard? | |
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Member Posts: 325 |
Namely German and American machine guns. Does that apply to personal weaponry as well? | |
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Site Owner Posts: 916 |
Basically, the same rules apply for the Legion. the suspicion is that the Germans gave them Schwarzpanthers et al to make them more effective and help more with their own plans. the French were already manufacturing their own ST44 which is present in Endgame in numbers. In the first instance, the reasoning would probably be make French weapons for the new French units being reconstituted and, with a mind to logistics, keep the ex-German stuff with the Legion, although things like the M2 had no equal in Wehrmacht or French inventories anyway. The same goes for the MG42 of course, and by don't of association makes the retention of the 34 sound for logistics. Handguns are what they are, and if you have one, steal one, or find one, you keep it, regardless of its parentage. | |
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