98K Drill Rifles. Anyone?

[Griff Murphey]

I enjoy military pageantry of all eras but especially German stuff. I prowl You Tube for it. Particular favorites are the East German VolksArmee parades which used a lot of AKs and particularly for changing of the guard stuff, the SKS. Of course, as of October, 1990, they goose-stepped their last goose.

The Bundeswehr, or Federal German Army, uses a heck of a lot of 98Ks for drill teams and parades. In fact all of their ceremonial drill shows 98ks, exclusively. They have even marched a drill team in a parade in Moscow with them! My question is are these dummy guns, or perhaps old welded up WW-2 Wehrmacht.

BTW...They still do the torchlight parades, the Grosse Zapfenstreich, like the German armies of old. But their formal march today is a high kick like an American college band. I miss the old "Stritt Steffe!"

[dave]

Have no idea, but why would they have been de-activated?

[Griff Murphey]

Why are the U.S. Drill rifles deactivated? Perhaps security.... Performance in public places... Travel across national borders...

[musketshooter]

I was recently in a German gun shop in Bamburg and observed a deactivated K98. The head of the bolt was cut off in front of the locking lugs and the barrel had holes drilled in it under the wood line. Cost was $400 Euros. I would guess that their drill rifles are similar.

[Griff Murphey]

One thing is certain, the Bundeswehr owns a large quantity of them. They do not seem to carry any current-type service weapons in any public parades, ceremonies, or drills, such as the British do with the SA-80 outside Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

[dave]

De-activated rifles in civilian gun shops in Germany probably have more to do with civilian gun laws then anything else. If the guns are owned by the military I see no reason they would be de-activated. Unless they are laws put in place during the occupation. I think most of our 'drill rifles' were usd by ROTC, military schools, etc. The VFW and Legion rifles were/are usable. Drill rifles used by Army drill teams had many things done , such as sights removed and other mods to make them easier, safer to throw around like they do, no sharp edges or 'snags', so to speak.

[Griff Murphey]

I think the opposite. These rifles are totally useless for anything but exhibition drill and public military pageantry. The ammunition hasn't been used by the German Army since 1945. The rifle is totally dissimilar to anything they need to train with... hence, having it fireable is a liability that would make the chain of custody and weapons security more exacting and demanding... necessitating armed guards on storage facilities and always raising the possibility of a loose nut slipping live rounds in. I, in fact, see ABSOLUTELY no reason at all why they WOULD want those things to be capable of firing. Remember that the people making those decisions are not gun fans but bureaucrats.

However as we have no ex-Bundeswehr drill team members to speak up so far it's just my guess...

The other funny thing is that the Germans seem to preferentially march at left shoulder arms. The East Germans
carried the SKS vertically, held in the palm of the left hand, with the elbow locked, and honor guards stood for
hours with the rifles held like that. Impressive. One factoid which is interesting is that the funny helmet the East Germans used was NOT Russian-inspired. It was a late WW2 Wehrmacht pattern and had the war continued it probably would have gone into service then.