Crew Served Weapons

[Jeffry Fontaine]

It is an odd looking design for sure.  Wonder why they did not try to use one of the Infantry Hand Carts for this purpose? 

Links:

The Liberator > M3A4 Infantry Hand Cart
Hand Carts . Com > U.S. Army Hand Carts
Small Arms Review > M3A4 (M4A1) Hand Cart included on this site is an image of an hand cart configured to carry M2 .05" Browning HBMG broken down for transport on the cart. 

From Wikipedia

Group "A" (Automatic weapons, small mortars, carts, and light artillery
A42 - M3 and M3A4 hand cart, general utility.

M4 hand cart, M3 cart configured for transportation of .30-caliber M1917A1 Browning Machinegun.

M4A1 hand cart, M3A4 cart configured for transportation of .30-caliber M1917A1 Browning Machinegun.

M5 hand cart, M3 cart configured for transportation of .50-caliber M2 Browning Heavy Machinegun.

M5A1 hand cart, M3A4 cart configured for transportation of .50-caliber M2 Browning Heavy Machinegun.

M6 hand cart, M3 cart configured for transportation of 81mm M1 Medium Mortar.

M6A1 hand cart, M3A4 cart configured for transportation of 81mm M1 Medium Mortar.

[Story]

My guess is that it's a one-off made from something scrounged.

The frame is made from tube stock not box stock (as the US trailer was)

The wheel hubs don't look like those for the US 37mm AT gun, but neither do they look like those for a German PAK 37.

So, could it still be from non-US origins?

[ChalkLine]

Cold War MG-3 GPMG Multi-Mount. Bonus if you get the funky aviator sunnies on the crew

[ChalkLine]

Another to go with the above and quad mount. These would look good on the bed of a Mercedes Wolf

[ChalkLine]

My editing skills need some work

[ChalkLine]

37mm Infantry Gun
https://i.imgur.com/beldNRp.mp4

https://www.thearmorylife.com/m1916-37mm-infantry-gun/

 

This uses the standard barrel from the FT-17. I think the rest could be turned on the dremel at very low revs. As it's essentially a mini-Canon de 75 modèle 1897 on a Hotchkiss HMG mount there's a lot of data on the weapon and mount to work from.

[Story]

BRITISH FORCES IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 1945-1947
E 32044. A corporal of the 6th Airborne Division carries a First World War Austro-Hungarian Schwarzlose machine gun from a chicken shed where part of a hidden cache of weapons was found in the Jewish settlement of Doroth near Gaza


Note: that Schwarzlose weighs in at 41.4 kg (w tripod), so that's one strong paratrooper.

[ChalkLine]

Vz.53 Quad Mount DShK - Czechoslovakia

I was totally unaware of this system until now.

At 560kg weight this thing will fit on most vehicles. It does have a crew of of 4; gunner, loader x2, commander/spotter but really it can be fired by one and especially in the ground-to-ground role.

I'm seriously thinking this might go on a Czech gunboat in the future.

[GTX_Admin]

Lots of dakka-dakka!!

[Story]

Japanese 74-mm Type 4 anti-tank rocket launcher
https://en.topwar.ru/159322-protivotankovye-sredstva-japonskoj-pehoty-vo-vtoroj-mirovoj-vojne.html

[ChalkLine]

I never knew this existed

[GTX_Admin]

Neither did I

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Add me and that makes three that were unaware of this weapon system. 

[Story]

3,000 made in 1944

[GTX_Admin]

3,000 made in 1944

Now you are just rubbing it in....

[Story]

3,000 made in 1944

Now you are just rubbing it in....

Start on page 7 of this Technical Intelligence bulletin from 1946, doesn't mention where the sample was acquired.
https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/Pearl%20Talk/US-Naval-Technical-Mission-to-Japan-February-1946-US-Navy-World-War-II-Technical-Intelligence-Japan-O-56(N).pdf


Further doing the pages is a Japanese version of the Nebelwerfer that looks like it could be cobbled from spares box parts.



And for thread drift, here's a Jap rocket launcher on a triple 25mm AAA gun mount
https://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ%20Reports/USNTMJ-200F-0651-0662%20Report%20O-50%20N.pdf

Tell me it's not an easy build to add to some Australian Armor early 1945 vignette?

[ChalkLine]

8.8 cm Pak 43/3 from a Jagdpanther on a ground mount. Seems to be a combat mount and not a training mount by the nearby trenches.

[ChalkLine]

37mm Auto Cannon System McClean ("Maklen" in Russia)

One of the first if not the first gas-operated autocannon. Built by the same McLean who did the original design work on the Lewis Gun, this weapon was built in the standard 37mm, 47mm & 57mm calibres although only the 37mm saw use as far as I can find out. Used only by Imperial Russia and everyone in The Russian Civil War and the wars at that time on Russia's periphery. In Russia it was called the 'ZTD Maklen Gun' and used on ground mounts and on armoured trains, usually on improvised mounts.

This weapon did not fire the ubiquitous Hotchkiss 37x94mmR round but the far more potent 37x137mmR used by the US Navy and could perforate any 1919 combat vehicle out to 3,000m. It was fired from five round clips at either single shot or 100rpm.

As far as I know the only existing weapons are all in Russia.

[ChalkLine]

For silliness here's the monster 57mm version.

[ChalkLine]

For completion, here's McLean's HMG, this being the name for purely heavy mount MGs at the time. It's one of the very few MGs that scavenged the waste steam, condensed it and fed it back into the cooling jacket as nearly all water jacket MGs are constant-loss water systems. Definitely the most steampunk weapon ever made. I don't think it was ever used by anyone.
McLean didn't create that gas system, that was a Hotchkiss patent.

[GTX_Admin]

8.8 cm Pak 43/3 from a Jagdpanther on a ground mount. Seems to be a combat mount and not a training mount by the nearby trenches.

Another shot:

[GTX_Admin]

Someone modelled it

[ChalkLine]

Someone modelled it

How cool is that?
I like the basing method too.

[Dr. YoKai]

For silliness here's the monster 57mm version.

 I knew of the 37mm McClean cannon, but the larger versions are a revelation.

[perttime]

Somebody posted a postcard on FB: an Oerlikon gun at Lohtaja, Finland, in 1978.