What happened to all the Allied equipment the Germans captured after the Battle of France?

[RichTO90]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

BTW Rich, slightly on a tangent, dont know if this one is of any interest to you? I found it very useful in conjunction with Google Earth to figure out where all these places were.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09SJ3DD7F?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_17&storeType=ebooks

Most of those are identified on Lexikon https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/inhaltsverzeichnis1.htm and Luftwaffe, 1933-45 http://www.ww2.dk/

[Stuart Galbraith]

It is, but the section at the front breaking down the German radar types made it worth getting, particularly in combination with some of the then and now photographs.

[Markus Becker]

1 hour ago, RichTO90 said:

Lots of French 15.5cm guns and howitzers in coast artillery. Some of the "French" 75s were actually Belgian.

Against the Soviet Union? Atlantic Wall for sure but USSR? 

[RichTO90]

3 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

Against the Soviet Union? Atlantic Wall for sure but USSR? 

Yep, many of the Heeres-Küsten-Artillerie-Abteilungen mobilized in 1941 were sent to the Ostfront in the Baltic and the Black Sea. For example, 143. was organized 21 June 1941, then went to 18. Armee in late July. Twenty-four 15.5-cm cm Kanone 416 (f) in four batteries. 144. was organized the same time, but with three batteries and twelve 10.5-cm Kanonen 331 (f). it went to 11. Armee.

 

Edited September 8, 2024 by RichTO90

[bojan]

10 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Might have been the Vickers 3.7's then.

IIRC 12 or 16 were sold to Belgium.

[Yama]

23 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

The 8.8cm? No, they may have come from T-Boot, but the S-Boot largest armament was 4cm FlaK 28 or 3.7cm SKC/30.

There were also a lot of earlier naval 8.8cm guns on different mounts that may have been used but in many cases they are only identified as 8.8cm so it is difficult to tell for sure.

Turned out Stuart is correct (in a way), as many of those older  88mm guns came from WW1 era torpedo boats, including S-class 

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_88mm-45_skc13.php

Edited September 9, 2024 by Yama

[Stuart Galbraith]

Thanks for that.

I was interested to note that the Germans were also using 8.3mm guns acquired from Skoda. Dont know if they bored them out to 8.8 like they did with captured Russian guns or not.

[Markus Becker]

13 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

Yep, many of the Heeres-Küsten-Artillerie-Abteilungen mobilized in 1941 were sent to the Ostfront in the Baltic and the Black Sea. For example, 143. was organized 21 June 1941, then went to 18. Armee in late July. Twenty-four 15.5-cm cm Kanone 416 (f) in four batteries. 144. was organized the same time, but with three batteries and twelve 10.5-cm Kanonen 331 (f). it went to 11. Armee.

 

Did they have the FCS to engange targets at sea or were they resticted to shelling beaches like almost all of the army shore batteries in Normandy were?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Many of the guns in Normandy seem to have been tied into optical rangefinders, although being Army weapons, I doubt their inability to track moving targets.

Still, when they are coming directly towards you....

[bojan]

On 9/7/2024 at 6:22 PM, RichTO90 said:

...There were also some ex-Soviet 8.5cm relinered to 8.8cm, both M31 and M38...

Were those really relined or did they have their barrels changed?? One I have seen picture off in local service seems to have had barrel from the 8.8cm FlaK, and not original one. After all, 85mm caliber came into being because it was largest caliber that 76mm guns could be bored out to safely...

[Markus Becker]

For what it might be worth, the German Wikipedia says they were re-barreled.

[RichTO90]

5 hours ago, Yama said:

Turned out Stuart is correct (in a way), as many of those older WW1 era 88mm guns came from WW1 era torpedo boats, including S-class 

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_88mm-45_skc13.php

Okay, that's a stretch since I thought we were talking about World War II. Those are not "S Boats", they are Great War era T-Boot of the S klasse. Those would be included under "There were also a lot of earlier naval 8.8cm guns on different mounts that may have been used but in many cases they are only identified as 8.8cm so it is difficult to tell for sure." That includes all the Great War and pre Great War 8.8cm guns on different mountings - Schiffskanone (SK), Torpedobooteskanone (TbsK), and Unterseebooteskanone (UbtsK). Typically, the guns were the 8.8cm SK L/30, L/35, and L/45 and were on different mounts. They were also fitted on various smaller vessels of the KM, such as Vorpostenboot and other auxiliaries.

[RichTO90]

4 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

Did they have the FCS to engange targets at sea or were they resticted to shelling beaches like almost all of the army shore batteries in Normandy were?

That at least theoretically was the difference, which is why the various Heeres-Küsten-Artillerie-Regimenter in Normandy had various fire control and communications bunkers either in place or under construction. However, my understanding is that the reality was they rarely had the ability to engage naval targets moving at high speed on diverging azimuths, which was the purview of the Marine-Artillerie-Abteilungen, which had more sophisticated navy-style analog fire control systems tied to the firing pieces, such as at Batterie Marcouf and Batterie Longues. The problem for those was that the FCS were vulnerable to loss of communications from the FC bunker to the guns because the cables were cut by the prelanding air and naval bombardment. That happened to all the guns at Longues, while two of the three at Marcouf were disabled by counterbattery fire and the third was unable to bear on targets. For Point du Hoc, the Heeres-Batterie there was simply not in position and had no communications to its fire control bunker because the cables again were cut by the massive bombardment, which is also why they were moved.

[RichTO90]

2 hours ago, bojan said:

Were those really relined or did they have their barrels changed?? One I have seen picture off in local service seems to have had barrel from the 8.8cm FlaK, and not original one. After all, 85mm caliber came into being because it was largest caliber that 76mm guns could be bored out to safely...

That could be, most sources are not too specific. I used the generic "relinered" without checking.

[Markus Becker]

2 hours ago, RichTO90 said:

For Point du Hoc, the Heeres-Batterie there was simply not in position and had no communications to its fire control bunker because the cables again were cut by the massive bombardment, which is also why they were moved.

We were there in 2018 and the bombardment did A LOT MORE than cut cables. 

The place looks like a WW1 battlefield: Bomb it into rubble and than make the rubble bounce. 

[RichTO90]

9 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

We were there in 2018 and the bombardment did A LOT MORE than cut cables. 

The place looks like a WW1 battlefield: Bomb it into rubble and than make the rubble bounce. 

Sigh...yes, it did, I was there in 2000 and it was more evident then, less erosion. The thing is, all that needed to be done was for the cables to be cut, which is what happened at Longues and others. Not that it mattered at Pointe du Hoc because the guns were not in a firing position, they were in a dispersal area, because the rubble was bouncing.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just popped up on my feed...

Oh, and the reverse of the original question.

 

[Markus Becker]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Oh, and the reverse of the original question.

 

I read the Soviets overhauled theirs and stored them just in case Mosins got short in supply for WW3. 

And them kept them right until the end of the CW never mind the Mosin having been replaced two times over, well three. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

I was listening to an interesting podcast on German handguns (I think it was P38's), and there were examples that were dumped on the international market in the early 1990's with Soviet weapons stamps on them, many of them showing examples of rebluing. Who the hell knows why. Its hard to believe that Nazi era pistols were going to be incredibly useful in case WW3 started (except maybe for the survivors), but they held onto them just the same.

I also found a CIA report from the 1960's claiming they were even holding onto German military bridging equipment. I looked the location up on Google Earth (I think it was Turkmenistan) and the warehouse it was reputedly stored in was still there. I should love to have a look, just on the off chance they forgot about it.

 

[WRW]

Did not a lot of P38 go to Afghan police!

[R011]

P-38s were made by Manurhin in France immediately post-war and later as the Walther P-1 in West Germany for decades.

[Mykola Saichuk]

In Bulgarian the 2 tank battalions were made up of the PzKpfw 35(t)s and Vickers 6-ton in one, and 40 French R-35s donated by the Germans. 

https://www.alamy.com/tank-hotchkiss-h-39-m-1939-produced-in-france-on-display-at-the-national-museum-of-military-history-in-sofia-bulgaria-image460224780.html

[Stuart Galbraith]

Was wonderering how they got hold of them when playing War in the East 2.

[Markus Becker]

I thought Bulgaria didn't get involved on the Russian front being rather pro Russian? 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Perhaps im mixing it up with the Romanians, they had some strange equipment as well.