Did Hitler Cancel the Sturmgewehr?

Get Entered to WIN this legendary PTR44 Sturmgewehr! go.getenteredtowin.com/forgottenweapons DEADLINE to ENTER is 05/26/23 @ 11:59pm (PST).

YouTube demonetisation bot sweating seeing both guns and Hitler on one video 😂

The "ammo transition in the middle of a war" was a legitimate reason to refuse the idea.

The whole "let's not switch calibers in the middle of a war" thing is kind of a more important point than most people realize. Especially since even the people proposing the gun didn't know how good it would actually end up being.

On the other hand Hitler had to deal with people like Ferdinand Porsche being told repeatedly "no composite powertrains, definitely none" and still putting forward his Tiger prototype that used literally tons of strategically vital copper for a petrol-electric drive (I think a St Chamond must have scared Ferdy as a child) The antics of the Nazi industrial oligarchs are amazing to this day.

I like to believe the official SS weapon requirements were, in fact "Make it more Wolfenstein, and belt fed for more DAKA"

Hearing Ian refer to firepower as dakka put a smile on my face.

Hitler: "Nah, too complicated"; Hitler, later on: "Let's deploy the Maus!"

Ian mentioned "MacArthur's excuse", which was that the US had so much surplus 30-06 ammo left over from WWI that it made no sense to adopt the M1 Garand in .276 Pederson. According to "Hatcher's Notebook", all of the WWI ammo was gone by 1936, the year the M1 Garand was introduced, so "MacArthur's excuse" was not valid. Ironically, .276 Pederson was less expensive and used fewer strategic resources (copper and lead) than 30-06, so it ended up costing the US quite a bit more money in the long run.

Having just finished Volker Ullrich's 2 part biography of Hitler, this sort of "work around HItler's whims" thing happened all the time and got more common post-1939.

Interesting that this gun was redesignated MP to hide its true nature from Hitler, yet the Soviets later deliberately designed the AK as a submachine gun replacement and had the SKS as a rifle replacement. Of course, the Soviets later realized the AK could do both and adopted it universally, but it is an interesting observation. I remember Ian in his AK vs. Stg-44 video stated that the Germans viewed the Stg-44 as a rifle that can do the role of an SMG while the Soviets viewed the AK as an SMG that can do the role of a rifle, or something to that effect.

Speaking of Sturmgewehr, I visited a firearms/weapons exhibit at the historic Idaho State Penitentiary yesterday. It was the type of place I expected Ian to show up at to examine something in their back room. Yes, they had a Sturmgewehr along with a Stoner M63 that was Stoner’s personal rifle. Cool place, even more cool because I had no idea it was there. It’s in a re-purposed building within the penitentiary walls, the tour guide casually pointed it out at the tour’s conclusion.

As far as I read into the book "Sturmgewehr 44 Vorgänger, Entwicklung und Fertigung der revolutionärsten Infanteriewaffe" by Dieter Handrich the reason for the renaming from MKb to MP was following incident: The MKb was rejected, but moustache man requested other weapons, one of those weapons was a sub machine gun with better range. And some coordinators thought, what about this MKb thing? Let's skip this "all soldiers get one" thing and just use is as a SMG replacement. The MKb guys were happy because they were able to continue the development and the coordinators were happy because they thought to present moustache man an improved MP.

"Belt-fed-individual-intermediate-cartridge-assault-blasters" Sounds pretty dope, not gonna lie.

They really pulled the classic little kid/parent argument of, "Hey, can we have this?" "No" "Hey, how about now?" "I said no." "Heeeeeyyy....so....about the thing." "I said NO and it's final!" "You know, they have a good point, just do it." "*sigh* Okay, fine. Do the thing." "YAY!"

Nazis and their superweapons/experimental weapons could be a multi-part series all on their own.

Funny that it ended up being the first edition of what almost every soldier carries today lol

Hitler: I was a combat veteran of WWI who was awarded the Iron Cross! No one can tell me what is the best infantry rifle! Himmler: I was a chicken farmer with a club foot. If my field officers think this is a good rifle, I'll take their word for it. It's a weird situation when Himmler can play the role of the reasonable man.

Did Luger cancel Hitler?

I made a face when he mentioned thoughts of replacing the MG-42 with this. But then I thought about it. I mean, in modern times, the AR has become so universal that it can be anything from a standard assault rifle, to a compact carbine, to a DMR, to a light machine gun. It would actually be interesting seeing more specialized STG models, had it evolved like current assault rifles.