Volkssturmgewehr

The Volkssturmgewehr ("People's Storm - Rifle") is the name of several rifle designs developed by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II (February 1945-May 1945). They share the common characteristic of being greatly simplified as an attempt to cope with severe lack of resources and industrial capacity in Germany during the final period of the war. The Volkspistole was a partner program, almost identical, but for pistols instead. The weapon's name can be translated directly either as "People's assault rifle" or "Volkssturm rifle." Volkssturm, the German late war militia home defense force, means "People's Assault"; Sturmgewehr translates as "assault rifle". As a last-ditch measure in the nearly lost war, on 18 October 1944 the Deutscher Volkssturm was mobilized – a German national militia. To arm them under conditions of depleted manpower and limited available production capacities the Primitiv-Waffen-Programm ("primitive weapons program") was initiated. It called for weapons that were as easy as possible to produce. Walther designed the Volkssturmgewehr VG 1 rifle, Spreewerk Berlin the VG 2, Rheinmetall the VG 3, Mauser the VG 4 and Steyr the VG 5 (a.k.a. VK 98). Best known is the Volkssturmgewehr by Gustloff which was a gas-delayed blowback semi-automatic rifle. The Walther Volkssturmgewehr VG 1 is a manually operated bolt-action rifle. It uses a simple rotating bolt, with locking provided by the two frontal lugs; the crude bolt handle engages a cut in the cast steel receiver to provide additional safety. The feed is from detachable 10-round box magazines, originally developed for the Gewehr 43 rifle. The manual safety is also very crude, and consist of a stamped steel lever pinned to the trigger guard just behind the trigger. When engaged, the safety lever blocks trigger movement. To disengage the safety the user must turn it sideways with a finger. The stock is crudely made from wood, and non-adjustable iron sights are provided for close-range shooting only.