Grossfuss Sturmgewehr was a prototype assault rifle designed during World War II by Kurt Horn at the Grossfuss company better known for their contribution to the German arsenal made with the MG 42.
In the closing stage of the war, nine of the Grossfuss Sturmgewehr prototypes were captured by the advancing Red Army; five of these were found at the Kummersdorf testing site. These guns were given the name "Avtomat Horn" (Horn assault rifle) in the Soviet documents analyzing them. The Soviets also captured schematics for the gun[1] and the designer himself. (Horn spent most of his time in the USSR at factory Number 74, later known as Izmash, where other famous German weapons designers were held, including Hugo Schmeisser, etc.[2])
Although the total number of Grossfuss Sturmgewehrs manufactured is not known, the numerous differences (noted by the Soviets) in part dimensions between the blueprints and the captured exemplars pointed to the experimental nature of the guns, suggesting that design adjustments were still being made.[1]
According to the personal notes of Horn, the Heereswaffenamt requirements for this gun were as follows: it had to use the blowback principle of operation, use the ammunition and magazines of the MKb 42(H), have a cyclic rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute, a mass of 4kg, and have the same barrel and overall length as the MKb 42(H). The requirement to use blowback as principle of operation was interpreted as asking for a gun that was cheap to build, because it translated in a simple design with few parts. The 7.92×33mm Kurz cartridge was however considerably more powerful than the pistol rounds used in submachine guns, so it would have normally required a bolt weighing about 1.5kg, which was difficult to reconcile with the target weight for the gun.[1]
Kurt Horn found an innovative solution to this problem, the gas delayed blowback (German: Gasdruckverschluss). The idea was relatively simple: part of the gases escaping from the chamber were redirected in the direction opposite to the rearward movement of the bolt; their pressure pushed against a piston connected to the bolt itself, thus decelerating the rearward movement of the latter. This method of operation allowed Horn to reduce the weight of the bolt to about 0.8–0.9kg.[1]
More or less the same idea was employed by Karl Barnitzke in the design of the better known Gustloff VG 1-5 (MP 507). However Barnitzke's design was far less efficient. Whereas Horn's design captured gas escaping from the breech, in Barnitzke's the gas was collected through four small holes near the muzzle, far too late to have much impact on the initial rearward acceleration of the bolt, which in the VG 1-5 weighted 1.4kg.[1]
Kinematics of the Grossfuß Sturmgewehr's operating system
In Horn's gun, one end of the piston is connected to the bolt by a joint and the other end is connected to the receiver by a small spring. The piston also exhibits an interesting sideways motion. As the bolt moves further backward, the piston moved slightly sideways as well, allowing most of the gas to escape without exercising further pressure. The role of the small spring was to ensure the return of the piston's head into position on the counter-recoil.[1]
The gun's sights are fixed to 300 meters. It has a three-way selector between single, automatic fire, and safe position. The bolt has two handles, one on each side and these resemble horns. They were found rather unergonomical by the Soviet testers because they could hit the hand on automatic fire. The length of the draw for the bolt in order to cock the gun was also found to be unpleasantly long, especially from the prone position. The weapon would have been cheap to manufacture en masse. The only milled parts were the barrel and the bolt head.[1]
One of captured Grossfuss Sturmgewehrs was tested by the GAU. It fired about 1,900 rounds without stoppages. Its accuracy was basically on par with the MP 43, even though the length of its sighting line was considerably shorter (266 vs. 418mm).[1]
Although the existence of the Grossfuss Sturmgewehr and its basic principle of operation became known in the West in the decade following the end of the war, hardly anything else transpired from behind the Iron Curtain. According to a 1958 book of the Army Ordnance Corps:
The firm of Grossfuss in Dobelin produced a unique retarded blowback gas-actuated system, no specimens of which has ever been seen. The Grossfuss weapon was reported exhibited to the Spree [sic] Ministry Waffenkommission, but apparently never reached WaPruf 2 [Dept. for Development and Testing of the Heereswaffenamt]. Development was dated late 1944 or early 1945.[3]
Immediately after the war, the gas-delayed blowback principle was used by some Soviet prototypes, for example the TKB-454 made by the Tula designer German A. Korobov.[4]
In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breech-loading firearm that handles the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock.
The StG 44 is a German assault rifle developed during World War II by Hugo Schmeisser. It is also known by its early designations as the MP 43 and MP 44. The StG 44 was an improvement of an earlier design, the Maschinenkarabiner 42(H).
The FG 42 is a selective-fire 7.92×57mm Mauser automatic rifle produced in Nazi Germany during World War II. The weapon was developed specifically for the use of the Fallschirmjäger airborne infantry in 1942 and was used in very limited numbers until the end of the war.
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gas created by the ignition of the propellant charge.
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent case and insert a new cartridge into the chamber. Energy from the gas is harnessed through either a port in the barrel or a trap at the muzzle. This high-pressure gas impinges on a surface such as a piston head to provide motion for unlocking of the action, extraction of the spent case, ejection, cocking of the hammer or striker, chambering of a fresh cartridge, and locking of the action.
The TKB-408Korobov was a bullpup assault rifle prototype by Soviet designer German A. Korobov presented in 1946. The TKB-408 was submitted to a set of official trials conducted in 1946 to select an assault rifle for the Red Army. The Soviet Army commission found it unsatisfactory, with the trials eventually selecting Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK-47.
The Steyr GB is a double-action 9×19mm Parabellum caliber, large-framed semi-automatic pistol employing a gas-delayed blowback action. As such the GB abbreviation stands for Gasbremse. It was designed in 1968, intended as a replacement for older handguns in Austrian military service.
The Volkssturmgewehr is the name of several rifle designs developed by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. 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 StG 45(M) (abbreviation of Sturmgewehr 45, "Assault Rifle 45") sometimes referred to as the MP 45(M), was a prototype assault rifle developed by Mauser for the Wehrmacht at the end of World War II, using an innovative roller-delayed blowback operating system. It fired the 7.92×33mm Kurz (or "Pistolenpatrone 7.9mm") intermediate cartridge at a cyclic rate of around 450 rounds per minute.
The evolution of German military rifles is a history of common and diverse paths followed by the separate German states, until the mid-19th century when Prussia emerged as the dominant state within Germany and the nation was unified. This article discusses rifled shoulder arms developed in or for the military of the states that later became Germany; it excludes firearms of the Austrian Empire, except where they were used substantially by German troops.
An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate-rifle cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42. While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles, the development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and submachine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives.
The MG 45 was a machine gun based on the MG 42, which was developed but not fielded in significant numbers by the German Army in World War II.
The AS-44 is a series of prototype Soviet assault rifles designed and developed by Alexey Sudayev in 1944—1945, they were produced in limited numbers and tested in 1944—1945, but its development ended in 1946 due to the death of its designer.
The 7.92×33mm Kurz is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate rifle cartridge developed in Nazi Germany prior to and during World War II, specifically intended for development of the Sturmgewehr 44. The ammunition is also referred to as 7.9mm Kurz, 7.9 Kurz, 7.9mmK, or 8×33 Polte. The round was developed as a compromise between the longer 7.92×57mm full-power rifle cartridge and the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge.
The Garanin machine guns were a series of general-purpose machine gun prototypes developed by Soviet designer Georgy Semenovich Garanin at OKB-575 in Kovrov. These guns were developed in the context of a contest, started in December 1955, for replacing the company-level RP-46 light machine gun and the battalion-level "heavy" machine gun SGM with a single new machine gun that could fulfill both roles using different mounts.
The Vollmer M 35 consisted of a series of experimental automatic rifles developed by Heinrich Vollmer in the 1930s. The Vollmer rifles were chambered in an intermediate cartridge that was co-developed with Gustav Genschow and Co. (GECO) starting in 1934, under a Heereswaffenamt contract.
Tilting bolt action is a type of locking mechanism often used in self-loading firearms and, rarely, in straight-pull repeating rifles. Essentially, the design consists of a moving bolt driven by some mechanism, most often a piston with gas pressure from the gas port behind the muzzle. The bolt drops down into receiver recess and locks on bolt closing. Tilting the bolt up and down locks-unlocks in the breech. This tilting allows gas pressure in the barrel from firing the gun to lower to safe levels before the cartridge case is ejected.
The Maschinenkarabiner 42(H) or MKb 42(H) (machine carbine Model 1942 (Haenel)) was an early German assault rifle firing an intermediate round of World War II. Designed in 1940 – 1941 by Hugo Schmeisser working for C. G. Haenel Waffen und Fahrradfabrik, several thousand were made and the gun was used on the Eastern Front in 1943.
The Maschinenkarabiner 42(W) (German: "machine carbine model 1942 (Walther)" ) or MKb 42(W) was an early German assault rifle designed in 1940-41 by Walther during World War II. The Mkb 42(W), and the more successful Maschinenkarabiner 42(H) designed by Haenel, were predecessors of the Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44) assault rifle.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
