Mg34 lafette question

[mightymouse]

Hello,nice to see some original paint left on your lafette and the buffertube still has it's green finish in superb condition,do you intend to strip and repaint your lafette? I have just started to strip mine done for a respray (as apart from one very small area that has some original grey paint remaining) has only a thin coat of Russian paint on it. I have some nice reproduced grey paint from Germany to paint on my lafette. My lafette came from the Ryton arms haul,like a kid in a sweet shop,I was faced with over a hundred lafetten to choose from and only half an hour to pick one! If I knew then what I now know I would have picked one with matching dates on the two main components but never mind at least it has all the right parts for a 34 lafette.Well apart from the web back supports,the jury is still out on these as to whether they are German or not. Regards David.

David,
I also have a ryton lafette, the paint on them confuses me, my one was orginally dark grey but now as does yours, has a thin layer of green/grey. The paint is odd because i would have thought that the Russians would have painted them in the same green that they used to paint all the ammunition cans and maxim 1910 mounts in. The paint job is also quite a neat one which again is not what you would expect on post war russian re-conditioning etc. As for the canvas back pads, who knows! Such a shame that Tony is not around any more to talk about such things.

[PanzerJohn]

Here's some pics of my old one, pre war with spikes on the feet, since sold, ex Norwiegen, shows signs of grey paint in first pic.

[Rwbo311]

I am not sure if what I have is a m3 Lafayette. it has a scope and a light that hooks up to the scope if someone would email me at rwb_taskforce@cox.net, I will send a picture.

[IMBLITZVT]

I am not sure if what I have is a m3 Lafayette. it has a scope and a light that hooks up to the scope if someone would email me at rwb_taskforce@cox.net, I will send a picture.

Sounds like a MG3 (Post WWII MG42) tripod. They are all over the place right now and pretty cheap. Great mount but not WWII.

http://www.robertrtg.com/mg3tripod.html

[Hans Zeug]

Factory fresh grey paint.Well almost!

David,
I also have a ryton lafette, the paint on them confuses me, my one was orginally dark grey but now as does yours, has a thin layer of green/grey. The paint is odd because i would have thought that the Russians would have painted them in the same green that they used to paint all the ammunition cans and maxim 1910 mounts in. The paint job is also quite a neat one which again is not what you would expect on post war russian re-conditioning etc. As for the canvas back pads, who knows! Such a shame that Tony is not around any more to talk about such things.

Hi MM,I belive in one of Rytons adds they were saying that the Lafetten they were selling were in the original German paint, on mine it looks like there were two shades of green at one time but the factory finish of dark grey over red primer is visible in a few places but the overall finish is in a bit of a mess so I'm definately going to respray it in dark grey. I took the canvas pads off last night, one of the backplates is quite severely bent back, which a lot of them seem to be but has a lovely coat of grey still on it. Regards David.

[mightymouse]

David,

That grey looks like 'eisengrau' as opposed to 'dunkelgrau'. I will also repaint my lafette at some stage. I wish i had seen all the lafettes in the warehouse as you say you did, i have heard that there were around 150 lafettes, does anybody know how many mg34s and 42s ryton arms have imported? I remember Tony telling me that he had seen mg34 with panzerlauf and mg optical sights in the russian stocks.

[Hans Zeug]

Grey paint.

David,

That grey looks like 'eisengrau' as opposed to 'dunkelgrau'. I will also repaint my lafette at some stage. I wish i had seen all the lafettes in the warehouse as you say you did, i have heard that there were around 150 lafettes, does anybody know how many mg34s and 42s ryton arms have imported? I remember Tony telling me that he had seen mg34 with panzerlauf and mg optical sights in the russian stocks.

Hi,the grey is not so bright in the flesh so to speak,it has been changed with the flash of the camera,very hard to show the exact tone. When I visited Ryton's warehouse to select a lafette the daft thing is that I had my camera with me but I guess I was overwhelmed by the sight of all those lafettes and mg34s just lying there and omitted to take any pictures! Unless someone finds another hoard a sight unlikely to be repeated again. I'll have to e.mail Ryton to see if anyone took any pictures in their warehouse. Regards David.

[Grossfuss]

Lafette

Hi,
I can't prove it but I'd disagree that the green anodising on the buffer is post-war. This finish can be found in various shades of green - I have a similarly coated buffer on my MG42 Lafette and the small aluminium grip to adjust the amount of auto elevation on the elevating mechanism is also in this green. To remove this latter part just to recoat it is totally impractical.
I also have the aluminium adaptor pole to conver the Lafette to AA fire which is in another, darker shade of green anodising.
All good fun isn't it!
Grossfuss

[mightymouse]

The anodised finish to the aluminium parts is original, i have also seen it in brown/orange as well as in green. Lets hope that someone has a picture of the ryton shipment!