Gun question: other assault rifles?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I've read estimates that production of the MP44/StG44 was as much as 5000 a month and as mentioned by Panther Al, it started to be seen in western Europe particularly during the time of the Ardennes campaign. I think however, that by the time they appeared in enough numbers on the Western Front, it was "too little, too late" for Nazi Germany and so the impact wasn't going to be anywhere near as significant as it was on the Eastern Front.

And speaking of the Ardennes campaign, enough StG44's were available on the Western Front that some of them showed up in Spain and were available for filming of the movie Battle Of The Bulge in 1965, (filmed in and around the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains near Madrid).
Internet Movie Firearms Database page for Battle Of The Bulge
There were also enough of them available in the US during the 1970s/1980s for them to appear, highly modified, as weapons of the Rebel Alliance on the planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back movie.


The StG44 may even have made an appearance in the Western Desert with the DAK, there's one on display in the El Alamein War Museum (although knowing how little effort is actually made by the Egyptians to research WW2, it's also possible that the example on display came from a post-WW2 North African conflict).

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

There were also enough of them available in the US during the 1970s/1980s for them to appear, highly modified, as weapons of the Rebel Alliance on the planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back movie.

Good eye. I'd noticed other examples of RW weaponry used in the original trilogy, but not that one. The ones I recognized where the Sterling SMGs used by the Storm Troopers, the MG34 used by Stormtroopers and IG88, the Mauser pistol upon which Han Solo's blaster is built, and the Luger Leia carries in Return of the Jedi.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The StG44 may even have made an appearance in the Western Desert with the DAK, there's one on display in the El Alamein War Museum (although knowing how little effort is actually made by the Egyptians to research WW2, it's also possible that the example on display came from a post-WW2 North African conflict).

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that several hundred StG44s were sold to Syria in the '50s or early '60s (from stocks captured by the Soviets?), but I can't find a reference in any of my books. I did find a color plate in a uniform book of a Cypriot EOKA fighter carrying a StG44 in 1956. I've also seen a couple in photographs of African guerrillas in Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from the '60s and '70s. It's crazy how far and wide weapons- especially relatively rare ones- were proliferated during the Cold War.

[Matt Wiser]

Recall that StG-44s were captured in Iraq from insurgents. The weapon did get around, IIRC. The East Germans, Czechs, and Yugoslavs did make ammo for it up until the late '80s.

[Panther Al]

Not only captured, but used by US forces as well as long as we had ammo for them. Its insane how wide those spread after the end of WW2, and how well they have held up over the decades. If you look at other threads, you'll get my take on the one I toted for a brief while.