Something I have been looking for for ages, this is the Anti Aircraft Tripod or Dreibein that was used to convert the MG34 for light flak use. usually the wooden reinforcements are long gone but this one still has them as well as being unit marked for the 56th Searchlight Company, 273rd Army Flak Battalion. This makes my MG34 much easier to display and complements the Lafette I found for my MG42. Although this is likely a searchlight tripod it fits the MG perfectly.
Lately I have been finding a few artillery and mortar optics. I like them because they are precision equipment and are quite tactile. The optics viewfinder on this one is a bit different as it has a calculating mechanism for tracking a target traversing the field of view. This one was manufactured by Optische Werke G.Rodenstock in München and has their eso code. It is an Rbl.F.36, which stands for Rundblickfehrnrohr 36. It was used on the Pak-36, 38 & 40 as well as smaller artillery tubes.
Pretty standard but hard to find this size in Canada. This is the 8cm mortar projectile for the GrW34. It’s marked for blw 42, meaning it was manufactured in 1942 by Gritzner-Kayzer AG in Karlsrühe. It is obviously ground-dug but will make a great candidate for a restore.
You know if you are going to import the parts for a ballistic missile, you can’t beat Deutsche Post. This is the Oxygen Mixing Nozzle, from the burner cup of a V2 rocket. It came from a dig in Pennemunde on the Baltic coast of Germany, where these things were designed and built. Pretty much the smallest part but hey, it’s a bit of Vengeance Weapon!
Missing from my Panzerschreck rebuild was the adjustable front sight. Luckily Bergflak, a fellow on the internet here, had made some up to fit his own Panzerschreck. I got him to send me one and here we go.
I was over the other side of Ontario on the weekend picking out of a guys retirement plan when I saw this magazine. It’s unmarked but clearly WW2 vintage, it has the painted zinc button on the base. It was super cheap and since you can never have enough magazines, well here we are.
Here is a mid/late war phosphated anti-aircraft sight ring for the MG34 machinegun. The gun was placed on the drelfuss tripod mount and this sight attached. The sight is unmarked.
This box is exciting only if you have four Tellermines and need a way to store or display them. If you are this person then you need to ask yourself why you have four German anti-tank mines and do the RCMP ever slow down as they pass your house. Obviously I am such a person. Below is the case and the 4 AT mines included in the sickness that is my collection. There is a Tellermine 35, Tellermine 35(S), Tellermine 42 and Tellermine 43 sitting in this case.
Interesting item of Pioneer kit. This is a Nebelkerze 39 smoke pot used by both AFV’s and Pioneers as a means of quickly laying down a smoke screen during the attack. These were setup with the BZE39 fusing (found also on the M43 & e39 hand grenades) or with a zunder as seen in the photos below.
This one is stamped kun 1941 for the manufacturer J.F. Eisfeld GmbH, Werk Cunegonde.
This is the holster that I just sourced for my 1944 Walther P38 pictured below. By 1944 they had pretty much stopped making hard shell holsters (they do exist). Instead they supplied the pistol with a breakaway style holster as here. Folks call them a soft shell holster but that is incorrect.
This example is stamped bla 1944 and has the waffenamt WaA159. BLA is the code for the manufacturer E.G.Leuner GMBH in Bautzen. Interestingly the holster is also personalised to the U.S. Army soldier who captured it (or won it in a card game). Inside the flap is the name Henry J. Lavrich and his ASN 33688587. A quick googling reveals that Henry came from Pennsylvania, enlisted in 1943 and served in the 2nd Armoured Division in Europe. He passed away in 2011. An additional modification on this example is the cutting away of the upper, underneath the flap. This is common in these holsters and I expect it was an act by the user to make the holster easier to draw from.
The holster also contains a e/359 stamped magazine which is the correct magazine for this pistol.
This flag is a single sided National Flag, designed to be tied to the roof of German vehicles to allow for recognition from the air and hopefully avoid nazi-on-nazi sexy times. The flag has a grommet in each corner where it would be tied.
Here is the last Walther P38 semi-automatic pistol I needed for my accumulation. I wanted one made by each of the three manufacturers, Walther, Mauser and Spreewerk. This one is marked AC44 meaning it was manufactured by Walther in 1944. It also is well stamped with the E/WaA359 acceptance stamps for Walther. Now I have to find another 359 marked magazine for it and a holster. By this stage in the war the Jerries had pretty much stopped making the hard shell holsters and this would have come with a breakaway soft holster.
A few weeks back I hooked an MP28/II submachine pistol. Just after that I was lucky enough to find a magazine pouch produced for the same weapon. When I accumulate these things I do my best to get the appropriate pouches, sling, magazines and bayonets for them all. It’s part of the joy of having OCD. This pouch is marked Otto Sindel, Berlin, 1935.
This scope was designed for the G/K43 series semi-automatic rifles as well as the MP43/44/45 series assault rifle. A late war design, it was not very robust or very popular. The mounts for these are stupidly expensive so I won’t be going down that path right away. The left side of the scope is marked “Gw ZF 4”, “dow” the code for Opticotechna, Czechoslovakia. There is a triangle stamped and coloured for the type of grease applied to the internals. In this case it is blue meaning cold weather.
These scopes were blued like this one originally. Later war production was parkerised. The optics on this scope are muddy at one end. I have another example to use as a donor so if Don the optics guy can’t clean them up I will be getting him to swap them out.
Update: The scope came back from Don and he has done an outstanding job. Complete, clear optics and functioning as designed.
Another small piece for my K43 rifle rebuild. This rubber eye piece fits over the end of the ZF4 optics as it is mounted on the K43 rifle. The eye piece is intended to prevent injury to the user caused by recoil driving the scope back into the shooters eye.
This rather boring little cardboard tube is intended for the German Mod 40 Rifle Grenade (Große Gewehrpanzergranate). This tube is not marked for a manufacturer, just for the model grenade it contains. The grenade can be found here.
This is the transport container for the German Mod 30 (30mm) high explosive rifle grenade (Gewehrsprenggranate). My friend James is big into ordnance and insists on talking me into buying this stuff. The type-A in me agrees but I have to say that old cardboard gets right stinky. The grenade it held is here. The container is stamped COS 44 for Merz-Werke Metallwarenfabrik in Frankfurt.
Basic bit of kit but still tough to find an original. This is the scope cover for the ZF-4 scope manufactured to fit on the G/K43 rifle and the MP-44 series assault rifle. There is a version of the scope that was built for the FG-42 as well. This is part of my project to reassemble a full K43 sniper setup.
This fairly humble set of bits and pieces are the components that would make up the spare parts and maintenance package placed in the butt cavity of the Walther K43 Main Battle Rifle. You can see below the manual, oiler bottle, firing pin, firing pin extension, extractor, extractor retaining pin and extractor spring. Do not ask me how an infantryman, under fire and in the middle of a -20 snow storm could be expected to make use of these parts. The frequent failure of the K43 under use must have made the users of it loathe the Walther company.
Here is a second manual for the K43 semi-automatic rifle. This one is in perfect condition so I won’t be rolling this up and stuffing it in the butt compartment. I have a rougher one that I will use for that here.
This butt plate is designed to fit a German K43 semi-automatic main battle rifle. I got it from a bloke down in the States because I am restoring a K43 from a shooter to as close to original as I can get. The butt plate is the earlier ribbed type which is a little early for my rifle but it will do nicely. It’s clearly original but is missing the small dent on the hinge plate where the Landser would press a bullet into to assist with opening the door.
This is a late war production K43 marked magazine for the K43 semi-automatic main battle rifle. The manufacturer is gcb (Grohmann und Sohn Ad, Metallwarenfabrik, Würbenthal/Süd). The magazine has the two correct WaAB92 stamps along the lower part of the body as well as the simplified two ridge floor plate. This is for use on my K43 rebuild here.
This is the small oil bottle and firing pin/firing pin extender usually found in the butt pocket of a K43 semi-automatic rifle. The K43 was notorious for being over-pressured and snapping the firing pin under heavy use. It was an indication that the design was not quite ready for primetime. That would have been worked out over time, something the Germans just didn’t have to spare. This oiler is the bakelite late-war type.
Here is a great pair of 1944 dated K43 magazine pouches. These are stamped ROS44 on the inside the left pouch and correspond to Type 11a on Claus Espeholt’s site. These are made from rubberised canvas. The ros code is presumed to be E.G.Leuner, Bautzen.
In the middle of a reassembling of my K43 shooter, I found this K43 manual designed to be rolled up and placed in the butt cavity (ooh err) along with the oiler and spare firing pin parts. These are hard to find in good condition because they just were not made to last. This one has suffered from exposure to gun oil, but it’s all there where it counts.
Kiwi Medals 