A lot of foreigners agreed to serve as combatants. No shortage of accounts of Soviets or Poles who fought for the Germans (or were duped). Michael Bilder's book has an account where he shot a 16 year old Polish lad who was told to play rearguard and that they would be back for him.
Wooden Machine Gun Bullets?
- Thread starter Prof Young
- Start date
Indeed they did!.. In fact, the Waffen SS had several divisions of troops who were all volunteers from "foreign" nations, including the Dutch, Danes, Norwegians and several others, they even had a Russian Cossack cavalry unit, and one of Muslims, (who wore a fez as part of their uniform).
Those were not the "Hiwis" they were actual combat troops.
Franco's Spain, virtually wrecked and broke after their civil war, maintained "official" neutrality, but did contribute a division of troops the German war effort as their only means of paying back the Nazi help Franco got during their civil war. The Spanish "Blue Division" fought on the eastern front and was destroyed at Stalingrad, (IIRC
)I think GIs finding some training ammo in captured fighting positions and assuming it was being used against them, was a reasonable assumption. Hell, there may have been times when it was, but I can't see any soldier (of any nation) intentionally doing that if he had anything better to shoot the enemy with.
This post has the real facts . Wooden bullets would not operate automatic or semi-automatic weapons . Used for Traing and blanks not used in combat ... bolt action or manual feed only . a wound from a wooden bullet would be horrific and violate the Geneva Convention's Humanitarian Laws of International Warfare .
Band Of Brothers is fiction and the author is mistaken on the use of wooden bullets in warfare .
Gary
7.62 man said:
In the 1990s I has some german training rounds in 7.62x39. I think they were a painted steel case holding a polymer bullet, not brass like yours. They were definitely not blanks, and were reasonably accurate out to 50 yards. They operated an AK, but gave a very gentle shove as opposed to the harder thump of normal rounds.
Gary L. Griffiths
New member
IIRC, the Germans issued wooden bullets in some circumstances to use when an enemy unit is surrounded but wouldn't surrender. The bullets were lethal at short ranges but wouldn't carry far enough beyond the enemy positions to endanger German units behind them.
"IIRC, the Germans issued wooden bullets in some circumstances to use when an enemy unit is surrounded but wouldn't surrender. The bullets were lethal at short ranges but wouldn't carry far enough beyond the enemy positions to endanger German units behind them."
This is total BS. Got a citation?
This is total BS. Got a citation?
The study of WWII is one of my hobbies, I've got hundreds of books on all different aspects of it, and have read literally thousands of books, articles magazines, etc.
Never found any mention of what you're talking about here, in any of them.
Seems to me that if it every actually happened (which I doubt), it couldn't have been a common practice, or it would be mentioned somewhere, with reference to where, and when...
Sounds like a war story from someone coming up with an explanation after finding some on a battle field.
Like stuff I heard in the mid-70's in the Army like "you can shoot SKS rounds in an M-14" (didn't trust those guys with accuracy for anything else either)
Seems to be stories from every war back to flintlock days about "they could use ours but we couldn't use theirs" or the reverse.
Might date from the days when British troops used a .72 cal musket and the French used a .69. Might date even earlier, perhaps back to longbowman,,,I have no idea.
the only place I've found (in the modern era) where it is sorta true is 81/82mm Mortars. The US, Britain, France, even Germany used an 81mm mortar (at various times) The Soviet version was 82mm bore, and could fire 81mm ammo. Or so I've heard....
Might date from the days when British troops used a .72 cal musket and the French used a .69. Might date even earlier, perhaps back to longbowman,,,I have no idea.
the only place I've found (in the modern era) where it is sorta true is 81/82mm Mortars. The US, Britain, France, even Germany used an 81mm mortar (at various times) The Soviet version was 82mm bore, and could fire 81mm ammo. Or so I've heard....
Correct. However, that doesn't mean that the people interviewed for the book knew the truth about wooden bullets.
Wooden bullets are blanks, used for training. Maybe they were pressed into service in extreme situations when ammo ran low, but more likely they were simply found in enemy ammo dumps after battles and speculation about their use turned into myths/urban legends.
Wooden bullets are blanks, used for training. Maybe they were pressed into service in extreme situations when ammo ran low, but more likely they were simply found in enemy ammo dumps after battles and speculation about their use turned into myths/urban legends.
