Crookedness

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An assault rifle 44 with 90 degrees curvature
Assault rifle 44 with crooked barrel for use in tanks ( Defense Technical Study Collection Koblenz )

The Krummlauf is a special, extended, curved metal attachment (attachment / attachment barrel) for the assault rifle 44 , with which you can shoot around corners at 30, 45 and 90 degrees, depending on the model.

description

The Krummlauf was designed out of necessity. Ferdinand Porsche had produced 90 chassis for the Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger" , which was not built in his factory , but at Henschel . In order to still be able to use the chassis, they were used for a new tank destroyer and were given the designation "Ferdinand" later " Elefant " with improvements such as an MG-34 in the bow. Since the "Ferdinand" had no machine guns for close range, Soviet infantrymen on the Eastern Front could approach the tank destroyers relatively safely and fight them. So the Krummlauf was developed for the assault rifle 44 so that the tank crews could fire through the hatches of the tank and thus better repel approaching infantry ; there were also designs for insertion into the gun barrel.

Due to the curvature in the barrel, the fired projectiles were exposed to strong friction and heated up so much that they ultimately burst when they emerged. The charge effectively corresponded to a shotgun charge , which was not a disadvantage in close-range fire fighting. The wear on these barrels was high. In order to be able to aim around the corner, a furrow in the curvature (from the height of the actual muzzle of a normal assault rifle 44) was necessary in which a mirror device ( prism attachment ) was attached.

The Soviet Union took over this idea on a test basis for the PPSch-41 .

The principle of curvature was also applied by the US Army to the M3 submachine gun and in the 21st century, albeit in a modified form, was taken up again for assault rifles in order to fire around walls and house facades in house-to-house wars - for example in Afghanistan and the Iraq war to be able to. These assault rifles are short, can be folded and swiveled in the middle, have a camera and a screen so that you can safely see around corners and aim at targets.

Media reception

  • Miracle weapons and gunshots - inventions in World War II ( Weird Weapons of WWII ), documentation, USA (2006).

literature

  • Layne Simpson: Layne Simpson's Shooter's Handbook, Verlag Krause Publications, 2005, page 7, ISBN 978-0-87349-939-2
  • Bernard Fitzsimons: The Illustrated encyclopedia of 20th century weapons and warfare , Volume 16, Columbia House, 1978, pages 1679, 1681, 1682
  • Chris Bishop: The Encyclopedia of Weapons of WWII: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,500 Weapons Systems, Including Tanks, Small Arms, Warplanes, Artillery, Ships, and Submarines , Verlag Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2002, page 218, ISBN 978- 1-58663-762-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Experimental PPSh with curved barrel
  2. ^ Image credits M3
  3. ↑ Where soldiers pop around the corner
  4. ↑ Special equipment - The soldier of the future, shooting around the corner ( Memento from November 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ See CornerShot and POF Eye , article on the English language Wikipedia