I’d like to repeat a proposition of mine from russian-speaking suggestion section, just to see how international community likes the idea.
There is no lack in sniper rifles as well as whining over bolt action guns, however, for people who like different guns there’s never enough variety. These rifles were designed around Mauser-style controlled feed action and meant for civilian use, however, they were, or could be, used on certain stages of WWII.
First rifle would be a USMC Winchester Model 70, fit with Unertl 8x scope and shorter barrel, which was unofficialy used by USMC snipers in Pacific, as well as after WW2 in Korea and Vietnam, chambered in .30-06. USMC liked those rifles, but couldn’t adopt them officially until certain point. And that’s not to mention the cult around M70, that was influenced by Jack O’Connor, a famous american hunter and Outdoor Life editor, who praised the quality of original, pre-1964 Winchester.
Second rifle would be a 7x64 hunting Mauser 98. The round was based on a failed experimental army cartidge by Wilhelm Brenneke, it was extremely popular in german hunting circles for its ballistics, and it’s still relatively popular in Europe. At certain point Wehrmacht planned to adopt 7x64 Mauser for the use of snipers, but possibility of problems with logistics resulted in this idea being discarded. Some of those rifles could, in theory, be used by Volksturm, since they were armed with whatever was at hand from pre-WWI relics to freshly made erzatz firearms.
This is the bespoke Mauser 98 rifle made in 1940 on order of Hermann Goering as a gift to Reichsminister of Justice Franz Gurtner, fitted with an 8x scope. Civilian rifles could come with different bolt handles, different stocks (such as common sporting stocks or mountain hunting Stutzen stock), with or without set triggers or other options.
Would be very cool for more BP sniper rifles, I agree! Only really the Mosin suppressor and the SVT-38 iirc?
IIRC, the only sniper rifle on golden order is suppressed Mosin, and Tokarev carbine is avalible with the premium squad.
I’ll never oppose more fitting gold order weapons, though it’s become a bit of an issue where I can’t spend my gold orders on anything “interesting” because there might be a new G43K or Conders to pop up in the store some day.
I really want to see civilian weapons like hunting rifles and such, i understand that enlisted is a military shooter, but the pool of weapons can be extended to a magnific degree with these
Just keep it realistic and sensible. For example, a Ross sniper rifle with german scope from 1931 Sniper movie would be realistic, but not really sensible, since it’s a movie prop rather than an actual rifle that saw combat, same goes to sporterised Enfield rifle from Fritz Lang’s 1941 Man Hunt. And some kind of Mosin with a PO-1 civilian scope would be both realistic and sensible, but utterly pointless from both cosmetic and gameplay point of view, since it’s just the same as any Mosin sniper rifle with little cosmetic difference.
how about “side mounted scopes” which allow weapons to be loader with clips? that would be worth a gold order for sure.
There were little to no side-mounted scopes with an option for loading full clips. Japanese did it, germans had those lousy Zf41s you have on G41(W) and MKb42, finns had Physica 3x (which also was expensive, heavy and not very good, most finnish snipers used soviet and german scopes during Continuation War) and that’s pretty much it.
These could be interesting, though I still think a scoped version of the AT rifle has been my favorite suggestion I’ve seen thus far.
but they “did exist” right?
now i can’t recall any real source here, because I don’t know much about scopes… however I remember that the Enfield in Cod 2 had a side scope, as well as the Gewehr 98 in BF1, not the best sources for anything but I am just asking myself if this then wasn’t a thing “at all”.
They did exist, however most of the times loading with clips was a desire not every mount designed could fulfill. For example, soviets had a post-war MS-74 sniper rifle prototype that had 3,5x PU scope side-mounted so it could be loaded with stripper clips, but it never went into mass production - back then Army had other priorities, so they decided to go with origninal PU Mosins until 1963 when SVD was adopted.
Americans had M1 Garand side mount scopes, but they were mediocre sniper rifles, the scopes were pretty weak, the groupings were bad, M1903 and Winchester M70 were much more precise and all of them had top mounts.
Germans had various types of scope mounts during WWI, Gun Jesus explains it in his video about sniper G98. However, by the time of WWII they were all discarded and replaced with Zf39. Must be for a reason, don’t you think?
Probably the only scoped AT guns would be german -swiss Solothurn and japanese gun
Polish pre-war sniper scopes were also side mounted as the rifles had straight bolt handles. These were experimental though and produced in very low numbers.
Quite interesting, thanks a lot. However, I doubt that they were clip-loaded.
I mean, it certainly was an option - pre-war Polish infantry rifles were of a Mauser pattern. The rifle on the first image is either the Gew 98 or its Polish production version, the kb wz. 98, while the rifle (well, carbine if we wanna be nitpicky) on the 2nd picture is the kbk wz. 29. Both of these were meant to work with standard Mauser stripper clips
Of course they could. Every military bolt action rifle after the introduction of Krag-Jorgensen was designed with use of stripper clips in mind (and military Mausers can do it since 1891, if I’m not mistaken), but the scope mount still gets in the way, be it top mount or side mount. The scope itself must be decisively offset, so it wouldn’t get in the way during loading stripper clips, like on this MS-74. But that may cause troubles with the barrel and scope alignment - you may see through the window, but the bullet would hit the wall next to it.
I know, that’s what I meant - the scope on Polish rifles were offset to the left because the rifles had straight bolt handles. So if there was enough room for a bolt handle with a hand around it, my guess is that a stripper clip would fit there either.
I see. Sounds interesting, however, I still doubt it, and there’s no way to try those rifles anymore - probably those prototypes haven’t survived the war.
Would love to see more weapons. I personally would love to see the Polish Kbsp wz.38M for the English side
This gun was actually a premium for berlin axis. It comes and goes on obtaining it though.