WWII Weapons Available in 1990s

[mpipes]

I've often wondered just how many weapons from WWII are still floating around in government and police arsenals. Apparently, there are still plenty. On Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday, about 20 minutes in just before a commercial break, there is a photo of two French policemen clearly carrying 1943 era German G43s.

[pmulcahy11b]

The Thompson is still floating around some national guard armories, and the M-3 Grease Gun was still standard issue to some tank and vehicle crews until the 1980s.

[aspqrz]

There was a news article recently (within the last 12 months) that mentioned ISIS had captured a Syrian Government Armoury ... somewhere ... which contained thousands of StG-44s (MP-44s) and ammo for them, and had issued them for use.

And why not? A perfectly serviceable weapon.

The Australian Government had thousands of Vickers MGs and millions of SMLEs from WW2, many in their original cosmoline packing, stored around the country at least until the mid to late 1980s. The SMLEs, so I was told much later, were eventually scrapped at some point thereafter, but my informant wasn't sure about the Vickers'.

The Russians allegedly keep everything. I fully expect that there are Russian Armouries full of millions of Moison-Nagant Rifles still around. I suspect the Chinese are much the same.

Phil

[StainlessSteelCynic]

In regard to Australia, I can tell you from personal experience that the SMLEs that were held in warstores, were disposed of in the early 1990s. Many were sold to gun dealers in North America, lesser amounts were sold to gun dealers in New Zealand and Australia and other countries. Apparently there was a bit of a 'thing' amongst US collectors to acquire Lithgow SMLEs (Lithgow was the government smallarms factory until it was corporatized in the 1980s and then later sold to Thales Australia).

However (and I am kicking myself for this now because I didn't buy one), a number were offered to Australian military personnel for between Au$100 and Au$300 per rifle, depending on condition. There was an order form sent around to various military units to make your selection and in some places (where firearms regulations were stricter), agreements with the local police to arrange for mass registration/licencing were put in place.
It was understood that the SMLEs in the poorest condition were going to be scrapped and whatever was left over after trying to sell those in better condition, would suffer the same fate.

As for the Vickers Guns, the story we were told was that a particular number were going to be rebarrelled for 7.62mmNATO and the others would be kept as spares. They would then be used for the Sustained Fire MachineGun role, SFMG is basically using machineguns like artillery i.e. using them for indirect fire.
However, while I have heard stories for many years before the 1990s that the Army was going to rebarrel the Vickers Guns, there never seemed to be any commitment from the Government to do so and their actual fate is still unknown to most of the military - in fact most of the soldiers today wouldn't even know what a Vickers was except that it's some sort of machinegun.

[Legbreaker]

There were Vickers being used at the Jungle Warfare Centre at Canungra in Queensland as of 1991 (when I was there). They provided live fire battlefield noise simulations - fired on fixed lines over the top of us while we were assaulting a position with blanks.
I still have painful memories of that little exercise - the platoon before us had managed to set the grass on fire and the entire range was still smouldering with ash and cinders everywhere. There's nothing like the feeling of burning grass stubble impaling your forearms while you're crawling along choking on ash and smoke!

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by aspqrz

There was a news article recently (within the last 12 months) that mentioned ISIS had captured a Syrian Government Armoury ... somewhere ... which contained thousands of StG-44s (MP-44s) and ammo for them, and had issued them for use.

And why not? A perfectly serviceable weapon.

The Australian Government had thousands of Vickers MGs and millions of SMLEs from WW2, many in their original cosmoline packing, stored around the country at least until the mid to late 1980s. The SMLEs, so I was told much later, were eventually scrapped at some point thereafter, but my informant wasn't sure about the Vickers'.

The Russians allegedly keep everything. I fully expect that there are Russian Armouries full of millions of Moison-Nagant Rifles still around. I suspect the Chinese are much the same.

Phil

The Russians did indeed, a lot of Thompson parts kits plus Mitchell's Mausers.

[Olefin]

From what I remember reading several recent Russian WWII films used weapons, uniforms, vehicles,etc.. that were from those depots - i.e. you arent looking at reproductions you are looking at the real weapons and equipment that have been held in storage the whole time

and there was a lot of WWII armor around as well into the 90's - the Yugoslav's had operational Hellcats and Shermans (they fought in the civil war in the 90's), the Mexicans and Paraguayans have Stuarts and Shermans (Mexican Shermans were engineer vehicles only, not tanks), Chile had Shermans in service into the 90's, the Uruguayan Army still has M24's in service, the Albanians had T-34/85's, lots of countries still had Greyhounds, let alone all the guys who bought and preserved equipment in the US, UK, France, etc.

[.45cultist]

M1911's and M1911A1's still soldier on.

[mpipes]

Regarding the Russians....very true. A friend of mine that got into the AKM parts business was shown ONE salt mine storing captured WWII German weapons in about 2005 after the ban went away. The weapons had been inspected and packed away in preservative and were all in relative untouched conditions and serviceable. He saw THOUSANDS of K98Ks, Lugers, MG42s, MP40s, and STG44s in perfect operating condition. These were in Belarus and he wanted to import them, but the "fees" aka bribes that were asked for made it too expensive. He has kept tabs on them and last time I talked to him there were still safely stored.

In my campaign, there are several security divisions active in Siberia using Lendlease M4A3s. And a lot of East European militia uses K98Ks and MG42 as well as MP40s and even STG44s. Looks like Western European militias may need to carry a few as well.