More from the WWII Museum
A look inside the Higgins boat
German MG-34 Machine Gun and Lafette Tripod Developed in the early 1930s, the
Maschinengewehr 34, or the MG-34, was the primary machine gun for
German ground forces at the outbreak of World War II. The MG-34 fires
the standard German 8mm Mauser cartridge at a rate of 900 rounds per
minute. When properly positioned and sandbagged in, the Lafette Tripod
mounted MG-34 delivered supremely accurate fire. Ideally, the gunner
would pre-determine targets, such as bottlenecks,where attackers would
tend to bunch up. Once the attack would begin, the gunner could
remotely fire the weapon without exposing himself to direct enemy fire.
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German Flak 37 88mm Dual Purpose Gun The 88mm Flak gun is one of the
most famous guns of World War II. Originally designed as an
anti-aircraft gun, the flat trajectory, high muzzle velocity and range
of this gun also made it the best anti-tank gun of the war. Allied
soldiers faced and feared this gun in every campaign in the North
African, Mediterranean and European Theaters. It was responsible for a
great number of the casualities suffered by both tank and air crews.
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German Air Raid Shelters
Concrete structures such as these were designed to protect German workers from Allied bombing attacks, and were thus generally concentrated throughout railway marshalling yards or other routinely bombed industrial targets. Weighing in at five tons apiece, the conical design proved to be cheaper and more effective than underground shelters.The Germans also built structures similar to these on a much larger scale, able to accommodate up to 500 people. |
