- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
James explores just how effective German weaponry of machine guns and handguns was in battle conditions and uncovers the secret flaws the Nazis tried to hide.
He discovers that some of the weapons that were praised as "technically brilliant" have massive weaknesses that the Nazis tried to hide.
The German weapons technology of the time, from Luger pistols to machine guns of the type MG42 and anti-tank guns was often completely unsuitable for waging a long war of attrition.
James explores just how effective German weaponry of machine guns and handguns was in battle conditions and uncovers the secret flaws the Nazis tried to hide.
He discovers that some of the weapons that were praised as "technically brilliant" have massive weaknesses that the Nazis tried to hide.
The German weapons technology of the time, from Luger pistols to machine guns of the type MG42 and anti-tank guns was often completely unsuitable for waging a long war of attrition.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:03I'm James Holland, and one of the things that's always really fascinated me about the Second World War is the
00:09interplay between man and machine.
00:12In this series, I'm going to go inside the Nazi war machine.
00:17Travelling across Europe, I'll explore the extraordinary machines they produced and uncover rare archive to understand who built them,
00:25how they evolved, and why their technically brilliant designs were militarily flawed.
00:34The magnificent fighter planes no rookie could fly.
00:37The first time you fly a Messerschmitt 109, you just have to take that leap of faith.
00:42The power of the panzers.
00:44If I had come up against this, I would have been terrified, but I'm about to learn one of the
00:48biggest cons of them all.
00:50The weapons that couldn't cope with mud or sand.
00:5380 years ago, we did equality, which you can't beat today.
00:57We probably lost the war, you know?
00:59We used to much good stuff.
01:00The U-boats that were floating bombs.
01:03That was a suicide command.
01:05Absolute horror.
01:07A journey through the heart of the Nazi war machine.
01:20I've long been fascinated by the Second World War, but I have to admit, as a boy, it was the
01:26weaponry that really caught my imagination.
01:29The myth I grew up with was that German kit was best, whether it be a tank, whether it be
01:35a fighter plane, or even a humble rifle like this, the K98 Mauser.
01:39I'm going on a journey to discover what was myth and what was reality, and whether weapons like these really
01:46could have won Germany the war.
01:51That is an amazing bit of metal, isn't it?
01:54I'll find out why Nazi quality control delayed vital weapons production.
01:58I mean, it is just an astonishing waste of time, money, and effort.
02:05Revealed the secret flaws they tried to cover up.
02:09After more than two years of fighting the war, this is an absolutely incredible admission.
02:15How interference from the very top meant a game-changing weapon failed to reach the front line.
02:21And what they needed was just a little bit of extra firepower.
02:25And why Hitler was dead against it.
02:36The bedrock of any fighting force is its infantry.
02:42When Hitler invaded Poland and France, the shock and awe of the Blitzkrieg was provided by the tanks of the
02:48Panzer Divisions
02:49and the dive bombers of the Luftwaffe.
02:53But it was the infantry units, 80% of the Nazis' fighting force, who provided the boots on the ground.
03:01So the range and quality of weapons issued to these soldiers was key to either the success or the failure
03:08of Germany's push for world conquest.
03:18Well, this is my store. This is where I keep kind of overflow books, uniforms, bits and pieces, maps, a
03:26whole host of things.
03:27But perhaps my most prized possession is this.
03:30This is a German MG 34.
03:35It's probably one of the finest weapons ever built.
03:39And perhaps the apogee of German engineering on small arms from the Second World War.
03:45The thing about it, though, is obviously over here in the UK you can't actually fire this.
03:49This is deactivated.
03:50But you can still fire small arms in Germany.
03:53And that's where I'm headed.
03:54I'm going to be testing pistols.
03:57In the targets.
04:01Submachine guns.
04:05An assault rifle.
04:07Whoa!
04:08And of course, yes, machine guns as well.
04:11Because only by firing them can I uncover both the strengths and the weaknesses of the engineering design of these
04:18deadly weapons.
04:19It's just so beautifully made.
04:28I'm going to begin in Aachen, the westernmost city in Germany.
04:33It's a rather pretty spa town, but bordered as it is by both Belgium and the Netherlands,
04:38it was of the utmost strategic importance during the war.
04:43This is the frontier town of Aachen, the first to fall under the full weight of Allied military might.
04:49It was the first German city to be liberated by the Allies in October 1944,
04:55but only after massive casualties on both sides.
04:58Infantry troops fight in the streets for a week in a grim house-to-house battle.
05:05Today, it's home to an old friend of mine, Stefan Kerlin, who's going to join me for much of my
05:10journey through the world of Nazi weaponry.
05:13For a start, he owns an astonishing personal collection of small arms.
05:18Goodness me, Stefan, look at this. I've never seen so many Lugers.
05:23That's the reason why you're here today.
05:26That's absolutely extraordinary.
05:30This is pistol wallpaper over here.
05:33Yeah, I decide instead of wallpaper, I put some pocket pistols.
05:38Stefan's been collecting and trading guns for over 30 years.
05:42He's very particular about what he collects.
05:44They have to be fully functional and in original condition.
05:48Ah, the Walter PPK.
05:50The PPKs or, you know, the...
05:52Look at that, these are the original boxes.
05:54Yes, that's hard to find, the original matching number boxes.
05:59Look at that.
06:01He's got around 1,700 weapons in his personal collection,
06:05many of them predating the Second World War.
06:09I have Lugers here.
06:12Oh, my goodness me.
06:15Am I allowed to pick one of these up?
06:16Yes, yes.
06:17That's an Imperial War Luger now.
06:20So what age is it?
06:21Let's have a look, see where it's got the date on.
06:23Yeah, you can look.
06:241913.
06:28Parabellum P08, the Luger, was first manufactured in 1908
06:32and yet was still in use by the German army well into the 1940s.
06:36It's one of the most iconic handguns ever built and very precisely engineered.
06:42But by the start of the war, it was largely superseded by the Walter P-38.
06:49Yeah, so we have here for incense like P-38s.
06:52Yes.
06:53So this replaces the P-08, which is the Luger.
06:57Yeah, the Luger was too expensive and we chose more for the P-38, it's much cheaper to produce, yeah.
07:04Right.
07:05The P-38 had several advantages over the Luger.
07:09It was smaller for a start and cheaper to produce in the numbers needed at the beginning of the war.
07:15With a range of 30 metres, it proved so reliable that it remained in service with the German military and
07:21police until 2004.
07:23Stefan and I have moved to his local firing range, where I'm going to get my first chance to assess
07:28its capabilities.
07:30So 1943.
07:31Yes, it's a Walter.
07:33Look at this, and this is Bakelite on the outside?
07:36Yes.
07:37Bakelite.
07:37I mean, it's really well designed, isn't it?
07:40Right, and this fire is a 9mm.
07:42It is 9mm Luger, yes.
07:44OK, so these are pistols and these are well made, well manufactured.
07:47So we're allowed to have a fire of some of these?
07:50Yeah.
07:50In Germany, I'm able to fire a range of Nazi small arms.
07:54Put the magazine in.
07:56As a historian, I strongly believe it's important to get a feel for original material first hand.
08:01Pull it back?
08:01Yes.
08:02We're going to start with the P-38.
08:04OK, go. Aim, aim, aim the target.
08:09The P-38 feels comfortable to handle.
08:12And even though it was cheaper to manufacture than the Luger, it's clearly still well engineered.
08:18Well, yeah, I mean, I'd be amazed if I hit the target once on that.
08:21And you could feel every time you shot that it was sort of snapping upwards.
08:25You didn't hit the target.
08:26Yeah.
08:26I have to tell you the truth, yes?
08:28No!
08:29You can't win the war.
08:30I tell you what, from the same rounds you got, you got one.
08:34And what I'm beginning to discover on this journey is that for the Nazis throughout the war, it appears that
08:39producing high-quality pistols was more important than getting the numbers out to the front line.
08:44And one of the things that I found is a document from the German archives, which is incredibly revealing, because
08:51this charts the number of pistols manufactured in Germany in 1943 and 1944.
08:57And what it shows is two lines on this graph.
09:00So the top line is how many are produced.
09:02The bottom line is how many are then sent to the front or sold on.
09:07And the discrepancy is really quite astonishing.
09:11For example, if you look at November 1944, 89,000 pistols produced, just a little bit more than that, but
09:16just 30,600 being sent on.
09:20In December, the discrepancy is even greater, 90,000 produced, just 25,500 sent on.
09:27So what is going on here?
09:29Well, what's happening is that the pistols are being produced, then they'll be tested, and then they'll be sent back,
09:35and the whole thing would be completely disassembled and inspected again.
09:40And even if there was the tiniest floor, either that part would be removed or the whole thing would be
09:46melted down and they'd start again.
09:48It is ridiculous over-engineering and over-attention to detail, and particularly at this late stage of the war.
09:56It's just astonishing.
09:57And I'm afraid to say it's not just related to pistols.
10:02It's a whole host of other small arms, too.
10:07It even applied to one of the defining weapons of the German army in World War II, the devastating submachine
10:15gun.
10:19This is the Maschinenpistola, the submachine gun known to the Allies as the Schmeisser.
10:25In its various models, it was to prove one of the most effective small arms of the entire Second World
10:30War.
10:32So this is MP40. You can kind of either aim it, it's very balanced, or you can shoot it from
10:38the hip, sort of spray and pray, as it was known.
10:41But this is close-quarter stuff. It's like a pistol. I mean, the ranges are, you know, very, very small.
10:47This is house clearing, that kind of thing. That is when you're using this weapon.
10:53The model number of all German weaponry indicates the year it was first manufactured.
10:58So as the war progressed, the machine pistol MP28 became the MP38 and then the MP40.
11:06That evolution, and the thinking behind it, is a fascinating demonstration of both the strengths and the weaknesses of German
11:14weapons design and Nazi production priorities.
11:18And here, look at that, Schmeisser.
11:21Yeah.
11:23Unsurprisingly, Stefan has examples of all these weapons and is giving me a crash course in their differences.
11:29So, Stefan, why is this one so much more expensive than that one?
11:32That's a, the pre-war it's carved and, where this is from one piece of metal and costs five or
11:39ten times more time and three times more money to produce it.
11:43So this is a solid bit of metal which is then being tooled out, hollowed out, and the grooves put
11:49on. I mean, you know, that is just, that is purely for aesthetic reasons, taking out a bit of weight
11:55and, you know, just to make it look good.
11:59Whereas this is, this is stamped metal.
12:02Yeah.
12:02Mass production.
12:03Mass production and it's, and it's much cheaper to, to make.
12:06I can, I can completely see that.
12:08But, you know, it, it underlines that, you know, this is just completely pointless, isn't it?
12:12I mean, that's a, you know, you're not going to mass produce weapons like that.
12:15No, no.
12:15Far too expensive and the problem is, um, uh, you don't have the time, yeah?
12:20If this takes three, four times the time, how can you start a war with?
12:26Yeah, yeah.
12:26You need mass production stuff.
12:28Yeah, you do.
12:31Seeing the quality of the handcrafted detail on the MP38 in particular makes me wonder why it took so long
12:38for the Germans to realise that they couldn't win a war with such incredibly refined weapons.
12:45So I've come to Hamburg.
12:48The city was one of the centres of German weapons production throughout the war.
12:52And at the end of July 1943, it was on the receiving end of Operation Gomorrah, one of the Allies'
12:59most devastating bombing operations.
13:02For more than five relentless years, these Allied bombers have been pouring destruction upon the vital centres of the Nazi
13:09war machine.
13:11On four missions over eight nights, the RAF sent over 3,000 heavy bombers to hammer the city.
13:22These first pictures of Hamburg reveal the indescribable destruction wrought by repeated air attacks.
13:3080% of Germany's second city was destroyed.
13:34Nearly 43,000 people were killed and over a million left homeless.
13:52Today, the city is the home of Hartmann & Weiss, a company producing handmade sporting guns.
13:58To take me back to the origins of their craft, I'm meeting up with one of its founders, Otto Weiss.
14:06This is probably one of the finest military rifles ever been made, and this is over 100 years ago.
14:12If you can see this, how smooth this operates.
14:18Try, try, let's see.
14:23Oh, yeah, that's really smooth, isn't it?
14:25But is it possible to fire this and see what it's like to fire?
14:29I'll have a look if I can find some ammunition for this.
14:38The K98 Mauser, of which this is the predecessor, was adopted as the standard infantry rifle of the German army
14:45in 1935.
14:47And although other small arms were introduced during the war, it remained in active service throughout.
14:58Wow.
15:02Also, I've got to say, it's incredibly smooth.
15:06This 100-year-old rifle set the gold standard for the production quality of the K98.
15:12Oh, it just clicks in beautifully, doesn't it?
15:15Right, see if I can improve things.
15:35OK, Otto, let's see just how badly I've done.
15:39The K98 was a single-shot bolt-action rifle like this, simple but effective.
15:44So what have I got? Five shots.
15:47It had a range of 500 metres, more with sniperscopes, and some 14 million were produced between 1935 and the
15:54war's end.
15:56Well, could have been worse.
15:59You don't need to take a shot of that target.
16:01No.
16:04So, Otto, during the war, how good was the quality of German engineering of weapons?
16:12All the designs, I think, were pre-First World War.
16:17As the war went on, they had to hire people who were not so skilled any more, and so the
16:24quality, of course, went down.
16:27But as the quality went down, a surprising thing happened.
16:32Because the really good quality was actually, for some seasons, too good.
16:40What, because they were so finely produced?
16:42The quality was so finely produced.
16:43The fittings were so good.
16:46During the wintertime, when Russia, they were fighting there.
16:50The soldiers, sometimes, they couldn't move their rifles anymore, yeah?
16:54Because it was full of, it got ice and snow in it, and even in Africa, if there had a
17:00little bit of sand in there, it didn't work anymore, yeah?
17:05What Otto is telling me is totally counterintuitive, but utterly fascinating.
17:10That even the humble rifle was so finely crafted, it couldn't cope with ice, mud or sand in battle conditions.
17:18Germany had developed blitz warfare, mechanised warfare, armies on wheels.
17:25The German tradition of war was to fight its battles fast, strike hard with overwhelming firepower, and win the war
17:32rapidly.
17:34The Nazi machine brought the back of Dutch resistance in four days.
17:38So you can afford your hand-tooled, exquisitely designed weapons.
17:44But the Russians found a way to drag them out of their travelling fortresses.
17:48They used their cities as strongholds, and made the flits come to them down alleys.
17:54But if you're drawn into a long attritional war with extended supply lines, it's a different matter.
18:02Odessa, scene of an heroic siege of more than two months, held up the whole Nazi trust into the Crimea.
18:19I've headed back to Arken and Stefan's shooting range.
18:23I want to see if I can spot any differences in quality between the pre-war model submachine guns and
18:28the ones made during the war.
18:30You feed it in like this? Yes.
18:32First up, the MP-28.
18:35Aims a target. Yep.
18:40Oh, this is really nice.
18:42The MP-38.
18:47That is very impressive.
18:49It's just so beautifully made.
18:53If you're only fighting wars that last a few weeks, you can afford to make weapons like this.
18:59Click ten.
19:00And two years later, the MP-40.
19:02Aims a target. Yep.
19:05Oh, my good, that is super smooth.
19:11James, the target.
19:14Please, the target.
19:19You're getting better.
19:21Wow.
19:22It just feels very smooth, very solid, and it just feels like it's not going to let you down.
19:28And you hit the target.
19:29I'm proud about you.
19:32Well, I have to say, in my untrained hands, I thought all three of these submachine guns were pretty impressive.
19:39I suppose if there was any, the MP-40 clinches it for me, but to be honest, I wouldn't want
19:45to face any one of them in battle.
19:48Those submachine guns were, however, designed to operate at short range, and the German military needed a weapon that would
19:55have an impact over a much greater distance.
19:57They came up with this.
20:02The Sturmgewehr.
20:04It's the kind of first proper assault rifle that was issued to the front line, and it really is incredibly
20:11innovative for the era.
20:12It came about because what they were discovering is, although they had rifles, rifles had incredible range, but you would
20:17very rarely use them at the maximum of their range, unless you had sniperscopes or something.
20:22And that, in actual fact, for the most part, combat was happening at about no more than 300 yards or
20:28so.
20:29What they also noticed was that the Russians were using an incredible number of submachine guns, and what they needed
20:36was just a little bit of extra firepower and a little bit more lead in the battle zone.
20:41So they wanted something that would operate like a rifle, but at greater ranges than a submachine gun, and this
20:48is how this came about.
20:52The Sturmgewehr could fire its 7.92mm bullets some 400 meters, compared with a mere 80 for the MP40.
21:00But innovative as it was, it took an age to get into production, and at least in part its slow
21:06development was because Hitler was initially against it.
21:10He felt that it required a different ammunition, he felt that rifles had worked in the First World War and
21:15before, that to start up on this would be expensive, they didn't have the materials, they didn't have the time,
21:23they didn't have the machine tools to make vast numbers to replace the K98.
21:28So he was against it. First of all, they kind of changed the name from machine carbonate to machine pistol,
21:35but Hitler found out, and eventually he said, OK, fine, you can research this a little bit more, but I
21:42don't want this to go into production.
21:43When he finally saw it being fired, he was, of course, converted, because Hitler always liked innovation, and said, no,
21:51this is a Sturmgewehr, an assault rifle, and they've been called assault rifles ever since.
21:58The truth is, they were just a little bit too late and a little bit too small numbers to actually
22:03make much of an impact.
22:05The greatest effect it has is in its legacy, because out of this came, of course, the AK-47.
22:13The AK-47, the Kalashnikov, was created by the Soviets in 1947, and aped many features of the Sturmgewehr.
22:24I'm going to find out why it's still in active use today with Ben Simmons, a former major in the
22:29British Army.
22:31He's served on numerous tours to Afghanistan, and got first-hand experience of the Kalashnikov in action.
22:39Ben, I'm holding the Sturmgewehr 44. You've got an AK-47. You can see where Kalashnikov got his inspiration from,
22:47can't you?
22:48Well, certainly, and there are a lot of things on these which appear similar at first, but actually Kalashnikov made
22:54a much more robust weapon,
22:58as was always the case with the Germans, massively over-engineered.
23:01The biggest problem they had at the start was they had a wooden buttstock, and they had a spring that
23:06ran all the way through here.
23:08Because they milled that hole to perfection, as soon as they took this to the Russian front, and it got
23:13cold and wet, that wood would expand, and it jammed the spring.
23:15Whereas the AK-47, massive gaps between all of the parts here, so that this can be dunked in sand,
23:21mud, grit, dirt, anything else, and will still continue to fire.
23:25These are very robust.
23:28The German weapons designers had come a long way in the journey from the K-98 rifle to the Sturmgewehr.
23:35But the Allies also had to face a weapon whose rate of fire surpassed anything seen before.
23:40The MG-34 machine gun.
23:44This is the real stuff. Capture German film showing their automatic weapons in action.
23:51These are the weapons we're up against in the European and Mediterranean status of operation.
24:00The MG-34 was a truly fearsome infantry weapon.
24:04It produced an immense weight of fire and a terrifying noise previously unheard on the battlefield.
24:12How do they sound?
24:14Well, here's their 34.
24:19It was an incredibly intimidating weapon to face.
24:27Firing up to 900 rounds a minute, it introduced an entirely new concept in automatic firepower.
24:34And it was a remarkable piece of engineering.
24:38This is superbly engineered, isn't it?
24:41Yes.
24:41Look at all the detail on this. I mean, this is just, look at that there.
24:44I mean, this is just not something that you can just knock off, is it?
24:48Yeah.
24:48I mean, it's absolutely seconds to none.
24:50I can't believe, 80 years ago, we did a quality which is, you can't beat today, it's unbelievable.
24:59Even the ammunition belt is extraordinarily detailed.
25:03The US Army made its belts out of canvas, much cheaper and easier to make.
25:08The Germans used metal.
25:10We used the good stuff, yeah?
25:12Yeah, but, you know, it's...
25:13Too much of it!
25:15Yeah, that's probably, we probably lost the war, yeah?
25:18We used too much good stuff.
25:20Too much good stuff and not enough mass produced.
25:24Like so much else we've looked at, the MG 34 was produced to a quality of engineering that made no
25:31sense in prolonged wartime conditions.
25:35And in the course of my research, I've uncovered some evidence that at the very top of the Nazi High
25:41Command,
25:41it was dawning that this concentration on quality over quantity was completely unsustainable.
25:50You know, every so often, when you're pouring through countless numbers of folders in archives,
25:55every so often, you come across a bit of absolute gold.
25:58And this document here is one of those.
26:01It's dated the 3rd of December 1941,
26:04so this is about 36 hours before the Red Army counterattacks against the Germans just outside Moscow,
26:10and just a few days before Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the Second World War.
26:16It's actually signed off by Adolf Hitler, although signed on his behalf by General Thomas,
26:22who is the head of the economics division.
26:24And it's on this second page here, in this paragraph, this is the key bit,
26:28where they admit that up until this point, they have been making highly technical, highly engineered,
26:35and schoenheitlich, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing weapons up to this point, quite knowingly.
26:41Now, this is an absolutely incredible admission after more than two years of fighting the war.
26:48What are they talking about?
26:49Well, I reckon they're talking about things like this.
26:51This is the MG 34.
26:53And you've only got to look at it.
26:56It's just an absolute work of art.
26:59Deadly, yes, but an amazing bit of engineering.
27:02But is it what you want in the middle of a long-drawn-out attritional war,
27:08where numbers actually count a little bit more than quality?
27:13And I've got another document here, and it's really interesting,
27:16because it lists here the weight of steel that is used for the construction of each of these weapons.
27:21And if you take the MG 34, for example, the amount of steel needed to make one is 49 kilograms.
27:29The finished weapon weighs 11 kilograms.
27:32And that's because they're starting with a solid bit of steel, and then they're having to kind of drill it
27:39out.
27:39And so it's no wonder that the MG 34 takes 150 man-outs.
27:45Now, the British Bren, which is a kind of rough equivalent, takes about 50.
27:49So you could have three Brens for every one MG 34.
27:55And it's just not an efficient way to fight a war.
27:59A brilliant weapon, very amazing, but perhaps just a bit too amazing for the task that's been given them.
28:06And they are still making these MG 34s right up to the very end in 1945.
28:15The engineering response was to come up with a new model and new production methods.
28:22In 1942, the MG 42 was introduced.
28:28The latest German machine gun is the MG 42.
28:32New production methods, which employ pressings, riveting and spot welding,
28:37give it a less finished appearance than the MG 34 without affecting its efficiency.
28:43Made out of stamped metal, the new design required considerably less machining and less high grade steel.
28:51An astonishing three quarters of a million were produced between 1942 and 1945.
28:59Same type of feed mechanisms are used.
29:02It took 75 man-hours to build.
29:04Still more than the Bren gun, but half that of the MG 34.
29:09And loading is accomplished in the same way.
29:12It also had an even faster rate of fire.
29:15A frightening 1400 rounds a minute.
29:2223 bullets per second.
29:25For an Allied rifleman facing a German machine gun nest,
29:29it was a truly terrifying prospect.
29:35In this test, each weapon will fire 30 rounds.
29:39The US Army training films did their best to debunk its fearsome reputation,
29:44testing it here against the American equivalents.
29:48There's a lot of lead down there.
29:50Let's go see how much of it hit the target.
29:5216 hits for the German 42.
29:55For the American light 30, 22 hits.
29:59The German gun is good, but ours is better.
30:04But the very thing that made the MG 42 so devastating was also its greatest weakness.
30:10And another thing about that high rate of fire.
30:15It eats up ammunition.
30:17And that meant its gun barrel got very hot, very quickly.
30:23I'm unable to experience the full rate of fire,
30:26since in Germany today, automatic firing is forbidden,
30:29and all of Stefan's machine guns have been converted to semi-automatic.
30:35But even firing just single shots,
30:38it produces a significant amount of heat.
30:49Don't burn your fingers.
30:50Yeah, but it's amazing. Already that is really hot.
30:53I can just about touch that.
30:5623 rounds per second when it's firing at kind of full whack.
31:00Then you have...
31:01I mean, that's phenomenal, isn't it?
31:02I mean, you can understand how very quickly that would go red hot, then white hot.
31:06Because if you fire too many rounds too quick...
31:10Your barrel's gonna...
31:11Yes, the barrel is gone and...
31:13You can't do it.
31:14The accuracy is gone, yeah.
31:17And that meant the barrel itself had to be changed.
31:20Not always an easy task under fire.
31:24To change the barrel,
31:26a barrel change lever hinged on the right side of the barrel jacket is provided.
31:30The MG 42 was designed with an internal removable barrel.
31:34So the machine gun crews carried no less than six spares,
31:38which they changed over when things got too hot.
31:41So it enables you to put down an incredible weight of fire.
31:46But the flip side of that is you do have to constantly change the barrel all the time.
31:52Yes. Of course, the barrel has to be cooled.
31:56Otherwise, you can't fire accuracy.
32:01It's important to understand that there is a difference between actual rate of fire,
32:05which on the MG 42 was around 1400 rounds a minute,
32:09and practical rate of fire,
32:11which is the rate of fire you can do in a minute without it all going kaput.
32:15And, you know, it was verboten in the German imagery manuals to fire more than 250 rounds consecutively.
32:22Otherwise, you're spending your whole time changing the barrels.
32:24I mean, there is a reason why modern machine guns don't fire at the same rate as the MG 42
32:31did during the Second World War.
32:36It remains one of the defining weapons of the Second World War,
32:39and was swiftly capitalised upon by the Russians.
32:46At the end of the war, the original technical drawings for the MG 42 were captured by the Soviets.
32:52This meant the German firm Rheinmetall had to reverse engineer an MG 42 into what became the almost identical MG
33:013.
33:02It's now in use in over 30 countries around the world.
33:07So, Ben, although there were sort of problems with the MG 42,
33:11in actual fact, this whole design is pretty enduring, isn't it?
33:13Because there's a version of this weapon still being produced today.
33:16Yes, so the MG 3 is still in service with the German army at the moment.
33:21And, obviously, lots of the design points from this have influenced things like the M60,
33:26which was in service with the US, and the GPMG, which is still in service with the British today.
33:31OK, so what is the difference between, you know, an M3 and an MG 42?
33:36Well, practically, not a lot. I mean, they function in exactly the same way.
33:40A lot of the parts are actually interchangeable. They're essentially the same weapon.
33:43But, presumably, not quite the same rate of fire that it had in the war.
33:46No, I mean, that was one of the weak points of the MG 42,
33:51is the high rate of fire would cause it to overheat.
33:53We're talking 1,400 rounds per minute, something around about that.
33:57This version slowed down to about 800 or 900 rounds per minute,
34:01much more manageable, meant it didn't overheat nearly so often.
34:04But that's still pretty decent, isn't it?
34:05Yeah, still very good. I mean, that's all you really need.
34:07I mean, anything more than that, and you're having to carry far too much ammunition.
34:10Yep. So how do you kind of reduce that rate of fire, if the design is much the same?
34:14So with this, it's heavier parts, stronger springs, so...
34:18It just slows it down.
34:18It just slows it all down, yeah.
34:20And what about the barrel in here? I mean, is that made of a different metal today?
34:24Well, at the time in World War II, when the Germans were manufacturing the MG 42,
34:29they had no access to things like manganese, which enabled to make much stronger metals.
34:33So they went for much cheaper stuff like carbon steel.
34:35So actually the MG 3, the reason why it's still in service today is because it's a much better version
34:42of the MG 42,
34:43which is a pretty good gun to begin with.
34:50It's time we moved on to something a bit bigger than these infantry weapons.
34:55The firepower of Nazi field artillery.
35:01The threat posed by Allied tanks, first on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union,
35:06and then the Allies in the West, led the Germans to come up with a new type of artillery.
35:13Designed to pierce enemy armour with larger high-velocity shells,
35:17anti-tank weapons were developed both for supporting the infantry...
35:21This is the result of our tank destroying weapons, is the boss.
35:25..and for specialist artillery units.
35:33And that's what we're going to take a look at now.
35:37And that's what we're going to take a look at now.
35:45Surprising, not everything the Nazi war machine produced was over-engineered and incredibly complicated.
35:52Take, for example, the Panzerfaust anti-tank launcher.
35:59This is just breathtaking for its simplicity and is exactly what you wouldn't expect from the Germans.
36:05They could do it if they really had to.
36:07So what you do is, you know, this is a hollow charge.
36:10It's just a simple steel tube. There's nothing more to it than that.
36:13It's a one-shot wonder.
36:15You lift this up and you can see it's got kind of ranging on here.
36:18But as the warning on here says, you don't want to be firing this more than 60 metres.
36:23In fact, you don't really want to be doing it more than about 15 or 20 metres.
36:26I mean, this is almost a point-blank range thing.
36:29You hold it like that, you aim and you literally just press down on this.
36:34This bit of it then comes out.
36:36In here are some fins which expand as it is released from the tube.
36:41That hits your target, explodes and causes really a pretty large amount of damage.
36:51The key, though, as I said, is to get as close as you possibly can.
36:56So this is jumping out of a hedgerow, firing it point-blank at the side of a tank or something
37:02like that.
37:03And, of course, therein lies the rub.
37:06You know, this is almost a suicide weapon.
37:09Not quite, but not far off it.
37:11Because the only way this is going to be effective is if you're really, really close to your enemy.
37:16And the problem is, if you're incredibly close to your enemy, you're also incredibly vulnerable as well.
37:31Back from Germany, I'm now at the Weald Foundation in Kent, which houses a vast collection of restored Nazi war
37:38machines.
37:38I've also got a Pac-40 here, an anti-tank gun.
37:42It's one Stug.
37:43This is a kind of, you know, one of the main anti-tank weapons they had.
37:48What a collection.
37:49This is absolutely amazing.
37:54On the Eastern Front in 1941, the German army came face to face with the almost indestructible Russian T-34
38:02tank.
38:03They needed a weapon that had the power and velocity to take it on and win.
38:10The answer was the Pac-40 anti-tank gun.
38:17This was a low-silhouetted, easy-to-conceal weapon that could fire its 75mm armor-piercing shells up to five
38:24miles.
38:25It required a crew of six.
38:30History hasn't been especially kind to the Pac-40.
38:33It's earned a reputation for being cumbersome in the field.
38:36So I'm going to test that out with the Weald Foundation's enthusiastic band of brothers.
38:43One of the criticisms about the Pac-40 is that it was kind of too difficult to maneuver and too
38:48slow to get into position.
38:50I'm not sure I believe that, so I'm quite interested to see how long it's going to take us to
38:55un-hitch it, open up the forks and get it into position.
39:03The clock is ticking.
39:05The speed with which these anti-tank guns could be deployed in the field was vital.
39:10Any delay in taking out the enemy meant the difference between advance or retreat.
39:15Oh, now that one, like that.
39:16Right, let's open this up.
39:18So the Pac-40 had to be easy to maneuver if it was to pull its weight in battle.
39:23I'm lining that up.
39:24Up a little bit.
39:26Round a little bit.
39:29Shove it in.
39:30Where's the firing button?
39:33Well, I'm sorry, but that was less than a minute.
39:35It was.
39:36Less than a minute.
39:37The driving force behind the Weald Foundation is Mike Gibb.
39:41The point, I think, Mike, is this is a really versatile weapon.
39:44It's high velocity.
39:46It's an anti-tank gun.
39:47It's not massive at all.
39:49And the thing is there is if you are offloaded or unloaded in the wrong spot, then you've got that
39:54very wide traverse.
39:57Jeepers, I'm still going here.
39:58Yeah.
39:59God, your whole herd is about to go.
40:03I think that's really impressive.
40:05For me, this is a really, really top piece of kit.
40:08Because it's all very well having a powerful gun, but you need to be able to maneuver it.
40:11You need to be able to use it practically.
40:14And this is something you can do.
40:15Five of us were able to maneuver this really, really pretty easily.
40:19Yep.
40:19And we're not trained for the job.
40:21No, we're not.
40:22And we're a little bit long in the tooth as well.
40:23Exactly, yes.
40:24We're not as young as those guys would have been.
40:28The Pac-40 had other strengths as well.
40:34It became the staple cannon on the artillery's tracked anti-tank vehicle, the Sturmgeschutz-40, or Stug.
40:44Conveniently, Mike has a working example of one of these as well.
40:50The first thing that strikes you is just how low the profile is.
40:55And yet you've got the big 75mm anti-tank gun on it.
40:58This was a very, very potent fighting machine.
41:05These would normally be operating in tandem with the infantry.
41:10They had such a good reputation amongst the Panzer Grenadiers that often when they'd run out of ammunition, they were
41:16told to keep driving on, even without ammunition, because it gave everyone around them that feeling that they would be
41:23far more effective.
41:24It actually had quite a talismanic effect on the troops that operated with this.
41:31To protect the gun from mines, the Germans developed a unique anti-magnetic coating.
41:38The Germans developed this anti-magnetic mine paste, which, when applied to the outside of a vehicle, would result in
41:46the magnetic mines which were being used at the time, by the Russians primarily, to not stick on the superstructure.
41:55But the paste, a mixture of sawdust, pine resin and petrol, brought its own problems.
42:01The German crews were talking about these bursting into flame when they hadn't actually been penetrated.
42:08So the rounds hadn't even gone through the side.
42:11So what's happened, the kinetic force of the round hitting it has caused spark...
42:14Or even just a tracer.
42:16Tracer, yeah.
42:16A tracer round.
42:17It ignited the fuel and it's all just gone whoosh.
42:20So this stuff is only partially successful.
42:21It stops you having mines on it, but...
42:23Correct.
42:24Because there's a whole load of other problems.
42:26And because of all of that, this was discontinued then in, you know, just after mid-1944. Gone.
42:33This is one of the problems I've come up against time and time again.
42:37There you go.
42:38There we go.
42:39As the war drew towards its close, the Nazi regime simply didn't have the time, the manpower or the resources
42:46for research and development.
42:47So they were just having to take a punt and hoping that it would work.
42:56The Pac-40, with its 75mm high-velocity shell, was a very effective weapon.
43:05But, of course, the Nazi regime couldn't let it rest there.
43:09As usual, they had to go one bigger.
43:12I'm off to the tank museum at Bovington to meet the Pac-40's successor, the Pac-43, which is mounted
43:21with a massive 88mm cannon.
43:25The first thing that strikes me is just how big this is. I mean, it's enormous, isn't it?
43:31I mean, look at it. Look at the size of these wheels. This huge, long gun. I mean, this can
43:37hurtle a shell at a kilometre a second.
43:40So what's that? About 3,400 feet. You know, that is some velocity.
43:45The 75mm Pac gun, the Pac-40, I mean, that can do about 3,000 feet a second, 2,900
43:52feet a second.
43:53So not a huge amount in it. Obviously a slightly smaller shell, 75mm rather than 88mm, but a fraction of
44:01the size.
44:02So much easier to put into position. You know, you could tow that in with a horse if you needed
44:07to.
44:07Not this. So whether this has the kind of practicality by the latter part of the war, I'm not sure.
44:15But if you can get it into position, then this is going to really cause some damage.
44:21But overall, I wonder whether it's just a bit too big.
44:35We've looked at a lot of different weapons in the course of this episode.
44:40From tiny handguns...
44:43..to massive anti-tank guns.
44:51Back in Otto's workshop, it's time to take stock.
44:55I suppose what I've learned is that the quality of German engineering
44:59when it comes to weapons cannot be doubted at all.
45:02I mean, you look at this Mauser and it's just...
45:04The craftsmanship is incredible.
45:06I can't stop thinking about the mechanism of the MG34 and the MP38.
45:12Just absolutely wonderful pieces of engineering.
45:15And yet perhaps it was just too good.
45:17Perhaps it was over-engineered.
45:19And it's interesting that although later in the war they're introducing cheaper MG42s
45:25and right at the end the Sturmgewehr,
45:27it feels just a little bit too late to help the Germans.
45:32Their legacy is still being felt because, you know, out of the Sturmgewehr
45:37came the Kalashnikov, still being produced in vast numbers to this day
45:41and a version of the MG42 is still being used as well.
45:44So there is a legacy for those weapons.
45:46But they didn't work for Germany in World War II.
45:52The German weapons designers and engineers have certainly left their mark on history.
45:57But I have to say, the gap between the legend of the mighty Nazi war machine
46:01and the reality for the infantry on the ground has been well and truly uncovered.
46:06The German weapons designers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers and engineers
46:08and engineers?
46:36Transcription by CastingWords
46:45CastingWords
Comments