Battle of Cholm, 1942 Details?

mmattockx

mmattockx

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Does anybody have any links or sources for details on the first use of the assault rifle (Stg 42?) and the 7.92x33 intermediate cartridge by the Germans during this battle?

Google yielded an historical account of the battle, but very little on the new weapon and tactics employed by the Germans.

Thanks,
Mark
 
Almost everyone in Cholm was armed with a PPSH-41, at least during the encirclement where Hitler decreed it was a 'fortress' (meaning they were left to die instead of tactically retreating)

They picked them up off of dead Russians.

I can attest to this as a man who was there, Oskars Perro, said so himself.

There's a book called Fortress Cholm by Perro. He calles the PPSH the "Goat's Leg" submachine gun.
 
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Um STG44's (the assault rifle you are thinking of) didn't even enter troop trials until late November 1942. So no way it was at the Battle of Cholm.
 
Epidemic said:
Um STG44's (the assault rifle you are thinking of) didn't even enter troop trials until late November 1942. So no way it was at the Battle of Cholm.
Click to expand...

Well, my Hornady manual states that the Battle of Cholm was where the first appearance of the intermediate cartridge and assault rifle occurred. They could certainly be wrong on that count.

Anyone have any info on when the rifle and ammo were first in service, if it wasn't the Cholm battle?

Mark
 
First documented frontline use of the MKb.42(H) and limited numbers of the MP.43/I was in April 1943. There is no evidence (documents or photographs) to support the story that they were used in the Cholm breakout.

The book "Sturmgewher from striking power to firepower" has a couple of reports from the officers of units that used the MKb.42(H) in combat. They were not favourable, with reports of the gun jamming a lot.

mmattockx said:
Well, my Hornady manual states that the Battle of Cholm was where the first appearance of the intermediate cartridge and assault rifle occurred. They could certainly be wrong on that count.

Anyone have any info on when the rifle and ammo were first in service, if it wasn't the Cholm battle?

Mark
Click to expand...
 
Further discussion of the combat debut of the Mkb.42(H) can be found here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=105168&start=0

It does seem highly unlikely that they were first used in the Cholm (Kholm) pocket. Besides the timeline, it doesn't make sense that experimental weapons would be dropped to soldiers with no training with them and a high probability of those weapons falling into enemy hands.

This is likely a case of someone making an error and that error being unwittingly repeated in other works using the initial one as a reference.
 
I have a book at home that says that oft-repeated claim about the Cholm pocket is wrong. Like some other posters have said, it makes no sense
to drop test pieces into a pocket behind enemy lines.

AFAIK, 5th Panzer Division "Wiking" got the first combat trials in '43.

When I get home, I'll post the reference.
 
"...Google yielded..." Search for the rifle.
"...my Hornady manual..." American loading manual. Not a military history book.
Ignore anything written by Stephen Ambrose too. He was well known for his plagiarism and making up his facts.
 
G41(M)?

Very interesting beast: a semiauto rifle that loaded as if it were a bolt gun.

I got to play with one for a while, many years ago, have been wondering ever since just what they were smoking when they came up with that baby! It seemed almost as if they were trying to use up all the unworkable ideas in one rifle.
.
 
SwedishMan said:
I have a book at home that says that oft-repeated claim about the Cholm pocket is wrong. Like some other posters have said, it makes no sense
to drop test pieces into a pocket behind enemy lines.

AFAIK, 5th Panzer Division "Wiking" got the first combat trials in '43.

When I get home, I'll post the reference.
Click to expand...

From page 115, "Guns of the Reich" by George Markham
ISBN 0-85368-965-2
"...As 'Eckardt-Morawietz' is regarded as the bible of German researcher, the Kholm claim has been repeated by virtually every succeeding author without question.
However, the defenders of the Kholm pocket broke out of encirclement in February 1942. No MKb.42(W) had been delivered; and although at least a few Haenels had reached the HWaA, it is most unlikely that such valuable test pieces would be dropped into an obscure part of Russia. The guns concered are much more likely to have been Gew.41(M) or Gew.41(W), as sufficient pre-production examples were available by the end of 1941."
 
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