What German WW2 weapon is this???

I believe it was an anti tank rifle. I fired a recoil less armor piercing shell and was an effective close range anti tank weapon.

El Almien ( sp ) was a strategic port that Rommell needed for crucial resupply from Italy to continue his offensive against New Zealand, Austrailian and British troops. This port city to my knowledge changed hands at least four times during the war.
 
CowCop said:
What is it called?

View attachment 119719

It is shown in use in this video @ 2:15

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiwSSYQcew8

I don't recall ever seeing this weapon...kinda looks like some type of grenade launcher?
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Ha! My specialty of mortars (an old 11C:D). I'm a big WWII German buff, and the breach loading mortar you see in the youtube video is actually an Italian 45/5 Modello 35 Brixa (45mm or 1.77 in), fired a projectile just over a pound. It was breach loaded and fired by the lever which you can clearly see in the video. The Germans in the Afrika Korps actually fought beside the Italians and due to logistical issues, often used their equipment. They used the same mortar with a couple slight modifications and it was labeled as the 4.5-cm Granatwerfer. It wasn't the most effective and it was pretty complicated, but that's a rare find for a video. That really took a few minutes to dig that jewel up, thanks:D

ROCK6
 
Thank you Rock...I was doing a web search for Italian arms but couldnt come up with anything...that you tube poster has great vids on Axis WW2
 
I was an 11C too. :thumbup:

When I was in Mosul 03-04, we never used our tubes, some :jerkit: about collateral damage. We were never issued frag or 40mm either :jerkit:.
 
CowCop said:
Thank you Rock...I was doing a web search for Italian arms but couldnt come up with anything...that you tube poster has great vids on Axis WW2
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There's a great book by Chris Bishop; look up Encyclopedia of WWII Weapons...there's also an online viewing of the book and it'll give some good historical data on it (that's where I dug it up).


solidsoldier said:
I was an 11C too.
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I hear ya brother! My 11C days are long gone ('88 to '93).

ROCK6
 
I watched the video before reading the thread and I was going to say that there were a lot of Italian troops and equipment in that clip so it wouldn't surprise me if the weapon was Italian rather than German. The 2 soldiers using it certainly look to be wearing Italian helmets to me, though I'm not really an expert.
Over half of the forces under Rommel on November 1942 were Italian. About 300 of his total of 500 tanks were Italian.
Montgomery disposed of about 1,400 tanks though and roughly double the numbers of men and guns. Not to mention complete air superiority.
I expect the film of an allied soldier surrendering was either faked or, if genuine, relates to an earlier campaign. The Axis weren't capturing any allied positions in November 1942. The Italians definitely made propaganda films using fake surrendering allied soldiers on other occasions.

Andy.
 
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