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Another survivor from WW2 that is still in heavy use today is the C47(DC3) Dakota transport plane. These are still widely used around the world for transporting cargo into less than perfect airfields. We even have one in use in Northern Maine for dropping cargo to the Forest Service and other oganizations.

Another carry over would be most of the artillery pieces, especially the mortars. Most of these would still be viable for todays battlefield. I beleive the current US 81mm and 60mm mortars are very similar to the WW2 originals with the exception of new level sights.

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USMCGrunt

-When it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight.

Hi, Lets see many grenades have not changed that much. Sniper rifles, most late war inf AT weapons would still work against all but the heavy modern tanks, (lets face it a lot of small arms would still be good)

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

Scary someone mentioning the DC3 Dakota. I flew in one in 1982 in Zimbabwe, was part of Zimbabwe Airlines but had just been transferred from the Air Force, was used up until 1980 as a troop transport and paratroop carrier. Was very weird getting in this plane setup as a passenger aircraft and looking up and seeing the parachute line and red and green lights over rear door. When we landed I had a look round and found a plaque with aircraft history. THIS aircraft was used during Operation Market Garden and dropped British Paras on the first day. I just checked with family in Zimbabwe and they still fly at least 4 Dakotas over there.

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peter@myhelliconia.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.myhelliconia.freeserve.co.uk

Originally posted by Igor:
...and there are still puddle jumper airlines out there which fly DC-2s.

As recently as 1994 I jumped out of a DC at Ft Bragg, NC flown by the NC Forest Service. They are still going strong.


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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Originally posted by ZinZan:
Scary someone mentioning the DC3 Dakota. I flew in one in 1982 in Zimbabwe, was part of Zimbabwe Airlines but had just been transferred from the Air Force, was used up until 1980 as a troop transport and paratroop carrier. Was very weird getting in this plane setup as a passenger aircraft and looking up and seeing the parachute line and red and green lights over rear door. When we landed I had a look round and found a plaque with aircraft history. THIS aircraft was used during Operation Market Garden and dropped British Paras on the first day. I just checked with family in Zimbabwe and they still fly at least 4 Dakotas over there.

ZinZan, At last, a fellow Whenwe! U is baie welkom, hier!

troopie

ex-South African




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Pamwe Chete

A Swisse airline still uses Ju 52.

The Bundeswehr still relies on the good old 2cm Flak, the Bundesmarine uses the quadriple version on landing vehicles.

I do not exactly know about the artillery pieces, eg mortars 81mm.

Originally posted by Jonathan1945:
Well, there's always the G11 and P90 -- something on the order of 50 rounds a clip, caseless, rounds designed to pierce armor; though admittedly it's not the difference between a bolt action and a semi-auto, it's still a bit of a difference.

The G-11 is a radical improvement - especially as it is able to fire a 3-shot burst into 60mm cirlce at 500m (or something like that), using caseless 4,47mm highspeed ammo - no, armorpiercing it is not.

However, the whole thing is !*&%!! expensive to buy, to maintain and to supply ...
IIRC some Fallschirmjaeger and Gebirgsjaeger units got it ...

All IIRC .. I would point you to the homepage of H&K, but there isn't anything to find about it anymore .. ?!?!

Arralen

Sorry Arralen, that performance doesn't qualify as a radical improvement. Compare the issue weapons of 1840 (single shot black powder muskets, the same basic design as had been in use at the beginning of the century) to the issue weapons of 1900. Now _that's_ a radical improvement in the same span of time as we're looking at. (And, I note, that many of the issue weapons of 1940 were not much changed from 1900; the same situation that had prevailed 100 years earlier.)

A couple of additions.

In the mid '90s in the finnish army I still handled some old weaponry.

88mm Pak the german one as a training weapon
76mm basically the same
Suomi smg
The modified mossin nagant rifle
152 mm coastal guns from 1914 but modified in the 30s and 60s, but locks still sporting the sign of obuhoff factory in st Petersburg.

Also fires with many of them. All are useful in the archipelago and with rear echelon troops.

As for WW2 weapons I think just about all of them are still usefull in some capacity.

These remind you of anything JTGEN?




Here are some my M-1's and they work just like they day they were made.


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Semper Fi!

Overlord

[This message has been edited by Overlord (edited February 07, 2001).]

Speaking of old weapons, I've been thinking of starting a WW2 rifle collection. Any recommendations or comments on some of these cheap bolt action rifles floating around in sporting good stores? I'm in Los Angeles area, and I've seen some old Enfields and Russian rifles, but they seem to be rechambered for more popular ammo. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

hhsohn,

Go here: http://talk.shooters.com/

They've got several forums on collecting military firearms.

Originally posted by USMCGrunt:
The Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun is still around and still in use in the US military.

Also, the Thompson SMG and the M3A1 grease gun were used as recently as Vietnam by US forces.

Grunt is even righter than he knows. Up until the mid-80s at least US Army M60 tanks had an M3A1 grease gun on the turret wall by the loader's station in case the crew had to bail.

Our APCs were equipped with the WWII-vintage "Ma Deuce" .50 machine guns. The M60 had a different model (the M85) -- but the Army revived the M2 again to become the commander's MG on the Abrams.

Thinking about the M85 being replaced by the older but more reliable "Ma Deuce" gets me to thinking about other weapons failures -- like the excrable M219 coaxial MG in the M551 Sheridan.

What other modern-era weapons are/were *worse* than their WWII counterparts?

Originally posted by Blackhorse:
Grunt is even righter than he knows. Up until the mid-80s at least US Army M60 tanks had an M3A1 grease gun on the turret wall by the loader's station in case the crew had to bail.

Our APCs were equipped with the WWII-vintage "Ma Deuce" .50 machine guns. The M60 had a different model (the M85) -- but the Army revived the M2 again to become the commander's MG on the Abrams.

Thinking about the M85 being replaced by the older but more reliable "Ma Deuce" gets me to thinking about other weapons failures -- like the excrable M219 coaxial MG in the M551 Sheridan.

What other modern-era weapons are/were *worse* than their WWII counterparts?

The M85....who designed the links for the M85's ammo belts ? That has to be one of the biggest ,short-sighted blunders ever !!!

During a CAX in 1988 I had the pleasure of being on a working party breaking the M85 ammo belts apart and relinking them to be used by the M-2s on the BLT's AAVs.

To top all off, the slackers...oops I meant trackers...threw the relinked ammo overboard so they wouldn't have to shoot most of it and dirty their weapons.

Originally posted by Blackhorse:
Grunt is even righter than he knows. Up until the mid-80s at least US Army M60 tanks had an M3A1 grease gun on the turret wall by the loader's station in case the crew had to bail.

Blackhorse,

Thanks for the info. I thought the M3A1's were kept around past the Vietnam era, but I never had any first hand info on the fact.


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USMCGrunt

-When it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight.

Originally posted by hhsohn:
Speaking of old weapons, I've been thinking of starting a WW2 rifle collection. Any recommendations or comments on some of these cheap bolt action rifles floating around in sporting good stores? I'm in Los Angeles area, and I've seen some old Enfields and Russian rifles, but they seem to be rechambered for more popular ammo. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

As far as Enfields go, check out the Enfield collectors digest, or some of the collector web pages. When they start talking about the five long Lees that are stored in Tibet, it seems that every Enfield ever built has someone keeping track of it. I bought a Lithgow built (Austrailian) smle, though it is a JJ co import and currently has a replacement bolt with odd markings. If you want a collector piece, stay away from Enfields, all the really good ones were bought up years ago. If you want something to shoot, or hang on the wall, that is a different story. Personally I think the smle was the most attractive bolt action rifle to ever make it to war, and that fact that my 60 year old rifle still shoots ok is a bonus.
thanks, John.

Blackhorse,

Thanks for the info. I thought the M3A1's were kept around past the Vietnam era, but I never had any first hand info on the fact.

Actually, during that last Persian Gulf flareup when they deployed some troops over there to use prepositioned equipment (in '96 I think) I saw a tanker get of the transport with a M3A1, so I'm sure there are some still active.

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Semper Fi!

Overlord

Originally posted by Overlord:
Actually, during that last Persian Gulf flareup when they deployed some troops over there to use prepositioned equipment (in '96 I think) I saw a tanker get of the transport with a M3A1, so I'm sure there are some still active.

Not sure about that one Blackhorse. All the tankers I worked with while I was in (89-94) carried the M16A2. I could be wrong though. We'll have to run that by 1stSgtUSMC to check. He's a tanker and was in at the time (and still is).



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USMCGrunt

-When it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight.

That was me, not Blackhorse. I should have clarified, those were US Army tankers with the "Grease Guns". You are correct we (USMC) haven't used those in years.


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Semper Fi!

Overlord

Thanks for the mentions of the grease gun. During my two years as an enlisted 11B with 2nd Bde, 8th ID in Baumholder, Germany, 1974-75, I was a track driver (M577) for brigade hqs. My personal weapon was a grease gun. I recall we didn't qualify with it, only "familiarized," which means we got to fire it at targets for fun. And it was great fun.

The final time I fired a weapon in the Army was when I qualified in 1992 at Ft. Polk, La., with my trusty M1911A1 (I think the A1 is correct; I'm sure someone will correct me if I screwed it up.) .45. I never could hit crap with a pistol, although I was always a very good shot with a rifle, so the NCOs running the qualification range "helped the major" through my qualification, if you know what I mean. If you don't, that means we kind of kept at it until I had enough holes in the right place in the target and kind of lost track of how many rounds I fired. The moral: If you're an officer, always treat your NCOs really, really nice.