World War II 3 Gun

[R112mercer]

I would be really tough to get all the equipment together, but I would love to see an all WWII 3 Gun match with Rifle, Sub-gun, and Pistol stages (I know, no Shotgun, but not every country had one).

Would the G.I. 1911 beat the Luger (probably, it's beaten everything else) or Walther? I won't mention the Nambu or Webley.

How about the Tommy Gun or M3 vs. the Sten vs. the MP40? The U.S. guns make Major!

I'd think the Garand would whomp on the Kar-98k, Mosin-Nagant, Enfield, and Arisaka (semi-auto, fast reload due to en bloc clip), but there is the StG44 factor.

I won't even go into squad based machineguns (BAR, MG42, etc.).

Just something to idle your wheels when there's nothing else to do...

[George]

You can shoot WWII stuff right now in Heavy Metal division ifn' ya' wanna'. You just get your clock cleaned by equal ability shooters because of the rifle problem with a bolter, or a Garand. No real box mag option till the 50's. You are just not gonna' find a whole lotta' STG44 Sturmwegher's out there ;p

A Garand, a basic 1911 and a Winchester 97 Trench Shotgun would fill the bill perfectly if you wanted to do it at any 3 gun match run right now. That gear would enable you to easily complete any course of fire I've seen. You will just need the appropriate number of en blocs and GI 7 rounders and a way to carry them all ;-)

BTW, who says shotguns were in general disuse in WWII. They were popular enough, just in short supply initially and mostly used in the Pacific where the close range firepower was put to very good use:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...507/ai_n8720750

The states where subguns are useable are few and far between and for the majority of us they are un-obtainable and cannot be practiced with easily. I think they are innappropriate for 3gun/multigun in anything but a specialty match situation where they can be provided by the match organizer (as quite often done at the MGM IronMan) and then only used for a very small portion of a specific stage scenario (usually to start, then dumped when empty). Requiring the competitor to gear up with a class III devices is unrealistic in general. BTW, the MGM IronMan match is in Idaho, nuff said about that!

--

Regards,

[38supPat]

At a club I used to belong to a few older gentlemen began having a bolt rifle competition using WWII era bolt guns, needless to say there was a British squad and a German squad...it went pretty well until the Mauser shooters started to complain about the Enfields advantage of a box mag....Thus we discovered that the Germans lost because WWII was not 'Mauser friendly"

[SRT Driver]

Don't forget the G/K 43 on the German side.

Ten round, mag fed, semi auto with factory scope mount in 8mm Mauser.

FG-42 also. Those are too rare though.

Since "Saving Private Ryan" is on TV now...

won't even go into squad based machineguns (BAR, MG42, etc.).

I'd give a slight edge to the MG-34 / MG-42.

Had an opportunity to play with an MG-34/Heavy Inf mount / optics after a match. It is suprising how accurate this thing is.

I have respect for anyone that went up against one of these.

I've heard the MG-42 was even worse.

[Vlad]

Well, then you have the SVT-40, the Johnson M1941, and the already mentioned fg42 and G/K 43.

And then on the subgun front I'm taking a PPSh, but we have a lot options, even the japanese had the Nambu 100

[R112mercer]

The PPSh would definitely have an edge with that huge drum on it, until you hit a mandatory reload stage...

The MG34 and MG42 were the cat's ass. We were all wet when you compare our stuff (please forgive me JMB!). About the only negative thing I heard about the MG42 was the insanely high rate of fire ate through ammo too fast and relegated most of it to an AA capacity, whether you wanted it to or not. It's a tribute to the MG34/42 that the MG3 is in wide use and essentially the same gun in 7.62 NATO with some slight upgrades.

I could imagine the FG42 being tough to use. Full house 8mm loads in a paratrooper weight gun. It had a rudimentary muzzle break, but I can't see it being too effective.