Post-Crete jumps with weapons

[Willi Z.]

Here is one.

[corporalSteiner]

next time an mp 40 is dug up at an old FJ drop zone -with a completely bent barrel...we'll know it may have slipped out of the harness during the journey down. fascinating thread and superb original question!

[Heinz Steinkopf]

Here is one.

This way he would have definitely lost it I guess he is just posing. It seems quite tempting not to pack the weapon under the harness to be able to fire during the descent. But due to design features of the RZ systems and the height of the jumps, firstly you will have no time to fire and secondly you will get some exciting spinning around

[Heinz Steinkopf]

Good discussion. I have seen some video from the jump into Sicily. Some photos as well. Jumping with weapons was very widespread during that campaign. I will check for photos and which video.

I will appreciate your help

I knew a veteran who was in FJR10 and was part of a mortar team. He jumped with the mortar tube in his harness during training. He once jumped and it fell out. It was almost completely buried and he was punished for that.

I hope 5 cm Or 8.1 ?
By the way, in Soviet Army during WW2 it was a textbook jump with light 5-cm mortars. I will try to post a picture.

My only experiences with weapons during a jump was a M16 in a jump bag strapped to my leg.

We still have it tucked under the harness But our D-6 allows a much softer opening than RZ.

[Heinz Steinkopf]

What I could find by simple search in YouTube
In this video
At 00.53 we see an FJ on the left sitting with a K98
At 01.13 we see a paratrooper throwing what looks like an MG ammo box. So we can presume he was simply holding it in his hand.

Another example of equipping for the jump can be found in Branislav Radovic's book Fallschirmjaeger in Portrait.
But we still cannot see how to leave an aircraft

[David Fettes]

The Veteran from Lehr Batl also told me about a training jump they did once. After they had landed they saw one of their number sitting down by his chute. When they went over to him, he was dead, the butt of his rifle was stuck in the ground and the barrel had gone through his chin and into his brain. A bad landing in ever sense of the word.

[JasonA]

It seems quite tempting not to pack the weapon under the harness to be able to fire during the descent.

Did this even happen? Seems very unlikely that the troopers would be attempting any fire during descent. Was probably enough concentration and discipline simply to land properly without injury.

David - what a horrible tale! Seems like jumping with weapons was always a very risky proposition.

J-

[Heinz Steinkopf]

Did this even happen? Seems very unlikely that the troopers would be attempting any fire during descent. Was probably enough concentration and discipline simply to land properly without injury.

J-

That's what I wrote in the next sentence. With the jumping height of, for example 120 meters, with 9 meters of static line, the complete opening of the chute will happen at the height of app. 80 meters. You will have about 12-14 seconds of descent including the time to prepare for the landing and to throw down you weapon not to follow the fate of that poor FJ from David Fettes post. In addition RZ is very likely to swing and rotate and this makes aiming a little bit harder than just impossible.
So we can presume that the real aim in holding the weapon in hands instead of fastening it to the harness was the intention to get rid of the weapon before landing to avoid injury but not to have a better access to its firing properties. This is logical. isn't it?

[JasonA]

Blah! Sorry Heinz!!! For whatever reason I just skimmed over your second sentence. It must be Friday...




Yeah, German parachute doctrine favored the least amount of time in the air, and it wouldn't give them much time to select a target, fire, then prepare for a rough landing.

But my mind wasn't even going there, I was thinking more along the lines of ruining your jump, so to speak. Not only would you be inable to fire with any realistic accuracy, it seems like the kick of the weapon would potentially twist the chutist and/or spoil the lines.

Your final statement seems most logical. Release of the weapon just prior to landing makes sense, as long as it was reasonably protected and the landing area conducive to receiving it.

J-

[Bryant U.]

Interesting link relating to the subject.

http://www.combatreform.org/hptll.htm

Thank God for the M1950 weapons case, ALICE pack and Hook pile tape lowering line.

I went to Airborne School last Summer and always had a copy of Jump into Hell by Franz Kurowski and The First Men In by Ed Ruggero in my locker to read during downtime. I thought a lot about those men during jump week.

-Bryant

[deejay]

next time an mp 40 is dug up at an old FJ drop zone -with a completely bent barrel...we'll know it may have slipped out of the harness during the journey down. fascinating thread and superb original question!

Well I guess that explains this one then :

[Willi Z.]

Well I guess that explains this one then :

I can just see the write up. "FJ Mp40 drop zone relic".

[Willi Z.]

The Veteran from Lehr Batl also told me about a training jump they did once. After they had landed they saw one of their number sitting down by his chute. When they went over to him, he was dead, the butt of his rifle was stuck in the ground and the barrel had gone through his chin and into his brain. A bad landing in ever sense of the word.

The sad reality of jumping with a forward lean and carrying a weapon in front of you. I just don't understand why they didn't adopt some sort of leg bag which they could release after the opening of the chute.

[Greg Hamilton]

I didn't go to German Fallschirmjager school during WWII so everything I will say is speculation. I have been on military jump status and a Static Line and Freefall Jumpmaster for 20+ years. I have tried to watch all the period videos and look at the pictures with a military jumper/jumpmasters eye. I've done all the pretend german jump training as a reenactor, learned to pack my RZ16, etc. and had Lt Meindl tell me I was an Absetzer (sp?) so I'm not doing it all wrong, that doesn't mean I'm all right either!


Any kind of leg bag or strapping a MG or even K98 to yourself and getting out of a JU52 door would be pretty hard. The door is narrow and very short. I'm not saying impossible but I don't think its going to work very well. Next time we have a jump tower set up I will get up there with all the weapons and play with this though. You could have the rifle or MG clipped to your harness cross body in front possibly, but because of the low squat required to exit the JU52 you'd probably jam your legs up on it.


The hands on the door do provide a bit of support especially as your body starts to enter the slipstream on assuming the jump position. The jump position was a fairly low crouch, nothing like a modern military door exit position (or even a C47 exit) You can see in pictures the jumpmaster ensuring the jumper stays low and his packtray does not catch on the upper edge of the door. Something that even if you have used a JU52 mockup door to do practice exits you would not have experienced this problem as the practice exit is done without parachute. You try to jump straight out, very superman-ish, not up at all.


One of the ways to get properly low and to stay stable as you enter the slipstream is to have your feet up against the door edges, and this is what you see in the photos. This would also make a leg bag hard to use as you run out or room to get your legs wide enough to get your buttocks low enough.


I don't have a MG or a JU door here to play with but from memory I'd say you would have to be holding the gun at above a 45 degree angle to clear the door width. You would have to squat low as normal, get the gun just out the door, and then dive and extend arms as normal. I can imagine opening shock of a RZ pulling a MG from your hands. But that would be one reason for the lowering line.


I can see a port-arms-ish position (held a little low) were as you rotate into the door position, the lower right hand ensures the butt of the MG/Rfl clears the door, as long as the muzzle is held no higher than your eyes or so, it will clear as you continue to rotate into the exit position. Then no wasting time, just spring to full extension. (the jumpmaster ensuring no time is wasted! )


In the pictures I have seen it looks like they trained to throw the gun away from the landing spot just before landing. I have not seen this with anything more than K98s, ammo cans, and dummy weapons, so I can't say for sure what they used for MGs, but that picture on page 1 sure looks like the right size to be a MG in case. If the case had two soft handles on it I can see being able to retain the gun during opening shock.


Also many of the photos I've seen are during the experimental stage, so we may not be seeing what became doctrine (if there was ever doctrine and not just unit SOPs or individual preferences.)


In my knowledge, there is no “firing during descent” with any parachute. (I'm not saying no one has ever done it for a movie or an experiment) There just isn't time especially with using German WWII doctrine and parachutes.


The guy with the MP40 could jump like that if he has a dummy cord, but I'm betting he just unslung it and exited with it in his hands. Leaving it laying on his chest would be asking for broken teeth. so IMO there is no way he left it just hanging there for exit. But I bet it had a dummy cord.


Jumping with the individual pieces of a 8cm mortar would be no harder than with a MG42. In any case it would be way easier if they had padded cases with handles.


Just my observations, it would be great to hear from real vets that had experience, especially NCOs about what they remember. I look forward to hearing what they say.

[Willi Z.]

I spent 3 hours with a FJ veteran of the 4th FJD today. He told me they were trained to jump with all sorts of weapons. He stated you could jump with a k98k (no line attached) in your hands and just before landing you transferred the weapon to your left hand only, as you were supposed to roll over the right shoulder. You could also attach a 10 meter Bindelinie to the weapon and to your belt. After exiting the aircraft you dropped your weapon and held on to your line. Remember, he was only 17 at the time.