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Thread: 1904 Spandau GEW 98

  1. #11

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    Thank you Mr. Farmer! My own Gewehr is an Oberndorff with a 1918 date and was part of a Turkish contract. It has lots of lathe marks, the stock was unfinshed and still fat, as if it had just come off the rough-turning machine. The rifle was pretty obviously made in haste. I'm thinking it may have been made in the period between the armistice and the Treaty signing. There's a story there, I imagine. In any case the rifle seems to have spent most of its life in the armory, acquiring what some might call a "patina." I got it before this site wised me up about sanding and finishing stocks on a fine old milsurp. The rifle hits what you aim at and hits it hard.
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    Quote Originally Posted by jon_norstog View Post
    Thank you Mr. Farmer!
    No problem. That's an issue which has been full of smoke for a century. Early on it annoyed me enough, I'd acquired some very interesting GEW88s, that I finally said screw it and went to the German sources. What became clear was conversion from metric to standard was causing much of it. Then there was the barrel versus chamber issue. Just muddied it further. The old wives tale is some early GEW88 rifles were imported with the original barrels. American cartridges were then downloaded for those. Sounds like something invented in a bar discussion. Barrel size didn't matter. After WW1 ended the Germans couldn't make gun stuff. The Czechs, having broken off from Austria, could. They had the Steyr equipment. They did land-office business making replacement barrels for GEW88s for those countries having them (Ecuador to name just one) and, for whatever reason, used the original barrel sizes. Much later those guns were imported here and are interesting as they're clearly Czech post-WW1 manufacture and are, again, the early size. Those countries obviously didn't have issues. Chamber size is a different thing entirely and that clearly mattered.

    Mind if I make an observation on 1918 produced guns? The second book covers WW1 U.S. rifle manufacture. What's clear is, even given access to Pratt & Whitney (who was supplying rifle machinery to everyone on planet earth), it took a year to get a rifle into production. It's another 6 months before the first gun appears. Production - not tool room stuff. After that 1.5 year period they can crank them out like samples. Eddystone was clear that they could make rifles faster than supply of metal and wood could keep up. Eddystone and New England Westinghouse could each turn out 6,000 rifles per day. They could peak higher even.

    The rush to get guns, with respect to Germans, English, and French, was really 1914 right? By 1916 that was solved. Thus the Brits really didn't want the pattern 14s. Their own production of SMLEs had caught up and was doing fine. I'd have to expect the Germans had the same thing. From 1914 to 1916 it would be massive production expansion. A rifle shortage. After that everyone is armed. So just replacements. Not terribly hard. WW2, with respect to Germany, is something else as they were losing armies right and left. WW1 wasn't that way for them. So I'd expect 1918 production to be pretty sedate compared to 1915. Poor workmanship would be more a result of cost reduction. "Quit sanding and painting the axles for gob's sake. Didn't you know there is a war on?" Check fit and finish of an M-1903 and an M-1903A3....

    Gallipoli started in early 1915 right? I'd expect the Germans supplied the GEW88 based on that rapid need. Then, as GEW98 production continued to motor along, they could send GEW98s all day long. By 1918 the Turks would have been well supplied. So getting GEW98s as spares and replacements for GEW88s. Which were probably passed down to shipyard guards and the like.

  3. #13

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    My thought was that Mauserwerke knew the Treaty would put them out of business and were rushing to fill orders and collect their pay, as much as they could, before they got closed down.

    jn

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    Quote Originally Posted by jon_norstog View Post
    My thought was that Mauserwerke knew the Treaty would put them out of business and were rushing to fill orders and collect their pay, as much as they could, before they got closed down.

    jn
    Hadn't thought of that. That makes sense. It does assume the military would accept them though right? Except the Turks might have been willing to accept anything given it must have been obvious supply would shortly be ending.

  5. #15

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    There was a faction in the "Young Turk" movement that wanted to unite all the turkic-speaking peoples in a kind of emprie. The plan was to pick off all of Russia's central asian provinces. Enver Pasha formed a Turkish Legion and led it east, participated in the nastiness around Baku and met his end in a cavalry charge against mechanized Soviet Forces somewhere north and east of the Caspian Sea. They felt they might need LOTS of rifles at the time.

    jn

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    Quote Originally Posted by jon_norstog View Post
    There was a faction in the "Young Turk" movement that wanted to unite all the turkic-speaking peoples in a kind of emprie. The plan was to pick off all of Russia's central asian provinces. Enver Pasha formed a Turkish Legion and led it east, participated in the nastiness around Baku and met his end in a cavalry charge against mechanized Soviet Forces somewhere north and east of the Caspian Sea. They felt they might need LOTS of rifles at the time.

    jn

    an interesting piece of history that is largely forgotten in the west.

  7. #17
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    The rush to get guns, with respect to Germans, English, and French, was really 1914 right? By 1916 that was solved. Thus the Brits really didn't want the pattern 14s. Their own production of SMLEs had caught up and was doing fine. I'd have to expect the Germans had the same thing. From 1914 to 1916 it would be massive production expansion. A rifle shortage. After that everyone is armed. So just replacements. Not terribly hard. WW2, with respect to Germany, is something else as they were losing armies right and left. WW1 wasn't that way for them. So I'd expect 1918 production to be pretty sedate compared to 1915. Poor workmanship would be more a result of cost reduction. "Quit sanding and painting the axles for gob's sake.
    The concerted allied offensives in 1918 killed more troops on both sides than had been killed in previous offensives. The offensives of 1916 and 1917 get more publicity because of the waste and futility. But in 1918, not only people were being lost in massive quantities, so were material items. I am not certain it was obvious to anyone that the war was going to be over till October 1918 when Germany was in total economic collapse. I believe I have read of Allied predictions of victory in 1919, these were best guesses. I think the Germans had a better idea of their status than anyone else, and they were in denial. Would have been a bit bad for German public morale to cancel German production contracts based on the assumption they "were going to lose the war" in a couple of months. The German public was starving at the time, Germans were actually starving to death in 1918 and into 1919. But until the Armistice, the full resources of all countries were being applied to the maximum extent possible. I am certain someone, somewhere, guessed correctly and cut production early. Even after 11 Nov the Allies kept their troops ready to go on offensive because they really did not trust the Germans. It took awhile for everyone to realize that the war was really over, and the Kaiser was out, and so was his military.

    Springfield Armory (and I think Rock Island Armory) shut down in early 1918 because the rifles they were making were defective, the production lines were obsolete but there was no shortfall of issue rifles because of M1917 production. Hatcher and the US Army really don't talk about this, shutting down SA and RIA in the middle of a shooting war, because if this got out it would have been a major embarrassment to the Ordnance Department.
    Last edited by slamfire; 10-06-2017 at 10:42.

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