Post ww2 AHC: Army hardware dozen-a-dime

..that gets acquired/'liberated'/copied by a non-major country, so they can outfit their armed forces on the cheap. Major countries being USA, USSR, UK - they already have more than needed, while Germany, Italy and Japan will have to wait a bit more to build or rebuild their armed forces. So typically it is France, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Yugoslavia, Spain, Denmark, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Poland etc, a host of Latin American countries, as well as a number of Asian and African countries.
Gear should be useful for a decade to two decades. Don't choose too many different designs - maintenance and training are important, too. Slight modifications are allowed.
Countries are not picky - anything from either Allied or Axis arsenals can be looked onto, with quirk that stuff from 'major' countries will not be easy to copy as-is in a legal way, while LL stuff needs to be paid for, returned or destroyed.

Please note again - thread is about Army hardware - small and big guns, vehicles armored and unarmored, tracked and wheeled.
 

Deleted member 1487

I mean we can look at what they got IOTL. Soviet occupied countries got heaps of Soviet gear that were good for decades. North Korea and China fought wars in the 1950s with it and even the North Vietnamese had some in the 1960s. StG44s are even being used in the Syrian civil war and have popped up across the world since WW2 courtesy of the Soviets; the East Germany army started with those left over and new production weapons, while the Czechs IIRC also manufactured it for a bit. For the Czechs (and Swiss it turned out) the Hetzer was a fine weapon for at least 10 years after WW2. The Israelis and various Arab armies used German and Allied WW2 equipment into the 1960s. The T-34/85 was probably fine for a generation after WW2, same with WW2 artillery.
 
The T-34/85 was probably fine for a generation after WW2, same with WW2 artillery.

Depends what you're doing with it, and who you're facing. If you're expecting to fight a first-line or even second-line NATO or WARPAC force, then forget it - they're as dead as fried chicken. But if all they have to do is overawe the restless natives of Umbogostan, well, even obsolete hardware can still kill them as dead as they're going to get, and it'll laugh off anything they can throw at it (although admittedly, some of those sticks can be very sharp...). As of 2006 I think the T-34 was still in service in some places - admittedly in military backwaters, but a few T-34s and a handful of surplus artillery pieces can make an entirely disproportionate difference in those places even today.

So it would help to know about who might be acquiring this gear and what their threat environment is like. Do you have something specific in mind?
 
They were using T-34's in Bosnia, hell in the Ukraine the were reactivating old gate guards. I saw a vid of some blokes driving around on an IS-3 :s
 
The T-34 has seen combat in the current war in Yemen and is still in the arsenals of several countries. The M4 Sherman was finally retired in Paraguay, the last country to use them, last year.
 
I could see the Comet seeing a fair amount of use in Africa as it becomes surplus for the UK - smaller and lighter than the Centurion, faster and easier on fuel than the Churchill and the 77mm gun is going to be useful against pretty much any other armour in Africa for decades. It seems fairly ideal for larger ex-British colonies that might be able to afford a small armour force.
 
Possible items for French arsenal:
Panther + 90mm US cannon
Self-propelled guns on Pz-III base - 105mm, 120mm mortar, 2x40 mm
APC based on the Hetzer
StG-44 with .30 Carbine ammo, lightened up, later a version with folding stock

Possible items for Swedish arsenal:
buy off all Comet tanks from the British, up armor them a bit
Pz-38(t)-based everything
FG42 in 6.5mm
 

Deleted member 1487

StG-44 with .30 Carbine ammo, lightened up, later a version with folding stock
Wouldn't that require so much additional modification that it would just make more sense going with an M1 carbine and modifying it to be select fire like the prototype?
 
Wouldn't that require so much additional modification that it would just make more sense going with an M1 carbine and modifying it to be select fire like the prototype?
Maybe not that much
075e101e7d3ad5363a3b41c68b57d59c.png
but then the *STG would have like a 40 round capacity from the Magazine, and would likely to be shortened to hold 25 or 30.
 
Wouldn't that require so much additional modification that it would just make more sense going with an M1 carbine and modifying it to be select fire like the prototype?

M1 Carbine was someone else's property, that needs to be returned, paid for, or destroyed after the war. Meaning that you stil need to pay for the guns, so why not start with a better weapon. The M2 (full-auto version), unlike the StG-44, was awful when we talk about suitability for controlled bursts.
 

Deleted member 1487

Maybe not that much
075e101e7d3ad5363a3b41c68b57d59c.png
but then the *STG would have like a 40 round capacity from the Magazine, and would likely to be shortened to hold 25 or 30.
Between number 1 and 3? That is a lot of difference in thickness that would have to be compensated for in the receiver...plus with how heavy the STG44 was, why not go with the M1 Carbine???

M1 Carbine was someone else's property, that needs to be returned, paid for, or destroyed after the war. Meaning that you stil need to pay for the guns, so why not start with a better weapon. The M2 (full-auto version), unlike the StG-44, was awful when we talk about suitability for controlled bursts.
So why not just make 7.92 Kurz ammo and use that? It was a better round as well, what value does the .30 carbine have to something built to handle a more powerful round with longer range? If you want weak ass .30 carbine ammo (relative to 7.92 kurz) why not just use the lighter gun? Plus you'd still need to buy that ammo or the equipment for it from the US anyway, just get the package deal.

Not that bad from my experience. The only real problem with the Carbine platform was reliable magazines
Magazine reliability was a problem for all WW2 guns from what I've gathered. The biggest issue with the M2 Carbine full auto is conscripts in Korea tended to panic and fire long bursts instead of tight, controlled ones as they should have been taught to do in training, and then only at relatively close targets. Of course there were likely also issues with the .30 carbine ammo in Korea, so that might have played a role in their notorious inaccuracy or lethality.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So why not just make 7.92 Kurz ammo and use that? It was a better round as well, what value does the .30 carbine have to something built to handle a more powerful round with longer range? If you want weak ass .30 carbine ammo (relative to 7.92 kurz) why not just use the lighter gun? Plus you'd still need to buy that ammo or the equipment for it from the US anyway, just get the package deal.

Actually yes, - going with the StG-44, as-is, is a better idea than mine of the .30 Carbine ammo for it.
 
Between number 1 and 3? That is a lot of difference in thickness that would have to be compensated for in the receiver...plus with how heavy the STG44 was, why not go with the M1 Carbine???

If you look in many semiauto designs, sides of the receiver aren't used for the feed, that's all on the magazine lips, feed ramp and bolt face. It's just wider than it needs to be.

But it's best to go with an M1 Carbine, with improved magazines. That, (besides the cartridge itself) is the only real problem of the M1 Carbine.

Now to me, best to make the jump to the .22 Spitfire Wildcat, and you get an 80% 5.56 Nato, and you get an excellent PDW with a decent folding Stock
 
Yugoslavia, a poor nation that needs plows, not swords:
Continue production of Mauser 98 (M48 as per OTL), introduce the MG 42 clone (M53 as per OTL), no SMG development but go with M2 Carbine. 105mm artillery (German, US). I'd go with M4 as a standard tank, especially once the Soviets pull out the plug in 1948. Instead of 20mm M55, try and copy the MK103, or at least the VJa-23 (from JRV Sturmoviks). Use Stuart tanks as base for non-tank tracked AFVs, the M8/M20 for wheeled AFVs.
Modify captured 88mm and Italian 90mm to US 90mm ammo.
 
Top