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Old 10-28-2020, 06:35 PM   #31
Sam Baughn
 
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Default 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.
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Old 10-28-2020, 06:43 PM   #32
johndallman
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Default Re: Illegal WW2 modifications

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Originally Posted by Sam Baughn View Post
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.
The extra 8lb of weight would do that. Needing different ammunition would also have been a problem.
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Old 10-28-2020, 08:16 PM   #33
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Illegal WW2 modifications

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Originally Posted by Sam Baughn View Post
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.
The drum magazines were known for being finicky, and that was in civilian use. In a jungle war... yeah.

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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Old 10-30-2020, 05:10 AM   #34
The Colonel
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Baughn View Post
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.
… getting your hands on a "privately acquired" kukri would seem to cause more trouble than it would be worth, especially if you ran into Ghurkhas later, but goloks, parangs and various other native machetes were fair game.
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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Old 10-30-2020, 12:58 PM   #35
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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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Last edited by Polydamas; 10-30-2020 at 01:58 PM.
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Old 10-30-2020, 01:21 PM   #36
RyanW
 
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Default 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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Old 11-01-2020, 10:07 AM   #37
Tessen
 
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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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Old 11-01-2020, 11:10 AM   #38
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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.
You can certainly get one - aside from post war surplus, Gurkha units often gifted them to their support troops - but questions, probably in Urdu and likely disturbingly polite - might be asked if one popped up randomly where they could see it.

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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.
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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Old 11-01-2020, 12:16 PM   #39
johndallman
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what modifications, against regulations, did soldiers do to any of their weapons, equipment and uniforms?
"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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Old 11-01-2020, 12:22 PM   #40
Tessen
 
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What about dum dum bullets?
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