10-28-2020, 06:35 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
According to my grandfather, he and his friends sent to fight the Japanese were very disappointed in the quality of loot available compared to the European theatre. Japanese handguns and knives were apparently far inferior to German ones. I get the impression that almost everyone had at least one bit of foreign kit; usually smaller stuff like sidearms, knives, canteens, etc. Bayonets being traded for local jungle knives (such as the famous kukri) seems to have been a major theme. My granddad traded his sten gun to an American for a tommy gun with a drum magazine (which would itself presumably have been a non-regulation item bought on the civilian market). I'm not sure if it was a very bad tommy gun, or just the magazine, but according to him it was far worse than the sten and he bitterly regretted the trade, especially having to carry the thing on the march.
Troops stationed in exotic locations would take some fairly ridiculous souvenirs home. Apparently one guy in my granddads unit took an entire palm tree back to Britain. I'm sure pornography has been popular with soldiers at least since the invention of the woodcut. In WW2 I believe a lot of propaganda porn was produced, so that enemy troops would actually collect it and read it. I expect being found with something like that would lead to some form of reprimand at least. |
10-28-2020, 06:43 PM | #32 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
The extra 8lb of weight would do that. Needing different ammunition would also have been a problem.
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10-28-2020, 08:16 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
Quote:
My godfather and his mates had a good trade going - they were aircraft ground crew in the Pacific, and they'd trade for combat knives from the GIs, re-handle them with disks of perspex salvaged from (USAAF or USMC) aircraft, then trade them back to the GI for cigarettes. They also used to strip written off aircraft and trade any parts they didn't need themselves back to the US units that the aircraft had belonged to. A joke from that time and place: Q: What's the definition of a Kiwi? A: A flightless bird that hops from island to island shrieking "Loot! Loot!"
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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10-30-2020, 05:10 AM | #34 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
Quote:
I understand the favoured loot in the Pacific theatre were Japanese swords and senninbari belts - almost no-one looted Japanese kit to use it. Since we're doing illegal, there was also a rather grim trade in the body parts of dead Japanese people, although it's difficult to gauge how extensive this was. |
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10-30-2020, 12:58 PM | #35 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
I think Matt Easton owns a standard Commonwealth army issue kukri from WW II, it was just a chopper. The Royal Nepalese Arsenal still had 14,000 to 15,000 in storage when it was sold in 2003.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 10-30-2020 at 01:58 PM. |
10-30-2020, 01:21 PM | #36 |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
Adding extra protection on a tank (sandbags, wooden planks, etc.) was usually frowned on, as it added little actual protection, could reduce the effectiveness of armor at deflecting angled hits, and added weight that put extra strain on the suspension.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
11-01-2020, 10:07 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
A very pistol its flare loaded with very little gunpowder. Flare cannister is filled with a map or message inside. Used by spies from street locations , who fired it short distances at house up though their contacts window.
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11-01-2020, 11:10 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
Quote:
The Germans actually made an official version of this - their version of the Very Pistol had a massive range of specialist cartridges available (although how many of these were on general issue is open to doubt). |
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11-01-2020, 12:16 PM | #39 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
"Illegal" is a loaded term. Different armies had different attitudes to this, but none of them would pull someone off the line and court-martial them for using something non-standard. That's just too easy to abuse.
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11-01-2020, 12:22 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Re: Illegal WW2 modifications
What about dum dum bullets?
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wwii |
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