What the hell kind of weapon is this?

Go to about 8:15

004 1945-2010 The Battle of Stalingrad

Looks like a recoiless-cannon hybrid. Never seen it before. ???

looks like ZiS-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3)

cephalos wrote:
looks like ZiS-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3)

i think he meant the second one

looks like a mortar but horizontal  :o

oh, this one.

.... apple launcher?

Or a rockthrower. No ammo needed.
Its not a mortar becouse a mortar recoil is too big to be handled like that.
IMO its some kind of granade launcher that was too heavy (and crappy) to enter service so Soviets stored it in a warehouse near an ammunition factory.

or another improvised piat-like weapon. this ball looks like cannonball. I guess it's kind of grenade launcher.

I thought it might have been a horizontal mortar, but none of the mortars in service looked like that. Not even German ones.

Could be this?

Last edited March 14, 2011 at 10:59 PM by BurroDiablo

BurroDiablo wrote:
I thought it might have been a horizontal mortar, but none of the mortars in service looked like that. Not even German ones.

Could be this?

don´t think so. the tube in the video is longer and looks different.
What puzzles me more is the bullet he loads. Looks like a steel ball

nice living room btw ;)

Ok this has me stumped but, at a guess i'd say maybe some custom built home brew grenade launcher.  I've seen African militias with spring action guns they've built themselves, this could be a similar thing designed to lob a small grenade ??? ??? ???. 

Oh yeah, I live in a blue box filled with molotovs and improvised land-mines. Come get me China! :P

The image I posted up there was is apparently a British Black-powder mortar. I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians copied it or improvised it during battle. The projectile looks like a No. 15 Ball grenade, also British...

Some British WW1 supplies somehow get into Soviet hands? Maybe they raided a Stalingrad museum ;D I know the Allied powers of WW1 supplied various things to the White Army during the Russian Revolution.

Last edited March 14, 2011 at 11:09 PM by BurroDiablo

Thats definitely an apple!

"Eat lead, fascists!"
"That was an apple, comrade"
"  :-X "

walki1 wrote:
Thats definitely an apple!

Some sort of misleading the enemy?
Or soldier's joke  ;D

walki1 wrote:
Thats definitely an apple!

Doubt it, food was so scarce in stalingrad. My guess would be some sort of 1700-1800 cannon.

handheld? dude, recoil would kill this poor buddy  :o

On another note, the Vid shows burning Marder II's  ;)

Get used to this view, OH fanboys  ;D

Well. I think i had read something about this "mortar".
This is a anti tank weapon like a PIAT. Russians need something stronger then PTRD and PTRS and so they start to develop a new kind of anti tank weapon.
Perhaps i found the name and some datas. I'll have a look ^^

Do you think, you know what this weapon is? Surely you will say: "It's a panzerfaust!", but... it can be perfectly (and more effectively, not to mention more safely) used as a mace, at close quarters!
The soldier on the photo above used it as such to kill 10 (!) enemies in one close combat.
Back to the topic, it could be this:

Ружейный гранатомёт Дьяконова (rifle grenade-launcher by Diakonov), in service since 1928.
Consists of:
1) Mosin rifle,
2) Mortar, that's fixed onto a rifle,
3) holder (that thing, performing a function of a tripod)
4) aiming device.

Last edited March 15, 2011 at 7:36 PM by IJoe

cephalos wrote:
handheld? dude, recoil would kill this poor buddy  :o

You do not know if the weapon shown first is the weapon fired at the building.

That grenade launcher is funky, but I don't think it's the weapon in question. Uses a different a shell. Although, that does look like much larger than the other Diakonov GL's I've search for.



Apparently it could be loaded with AT grenades too... dunno how effective that turned out to be... not very I presume ;D

BurroDiablo wrote:
That grenade launcher is funky, but I don't think it's the weapon in question. Uses a different a shell. Although, that does look like much larger than the other Diakonov GL's I've search for.

Apparently it could be loaded with AT grenades too... dunno how effective that turned out to be... not very I presume ;D

It was taken off mass production due to the complexity and the expensiveness and some flaws in construction. Nothing is said about it's effectiveness though. The constructor (Diakonov) was working on making it better throughout 1930's as well, so I presume, it must've been of some use.
BTW it was to be used by two man (like in the film), but I agree on the projectile type. It looks a lot unlike the conventional ammunition. Well, I couldn't think of anything better.  ;D

The thing I wounder about is why the hell its firing ball shaped shells? XD It cant be very effective against tanks and infantry. Maybe for taking down houses?

or maybe it's sticky nade launcher. Brits used to fight tanks with stickies...

Sommarkatze wrote:
It cant be very effective against tanks and infantry. Maybe for taking down houses?

It takes balls to take down a whole infantry squad. ;D


... and Germans didnt have many tanks.

Man, that sure was something... Any chance of you guys giving the Soviet army an Apple Launcher? ;D

pariah wrote:
Man, that sure was something... Any chance of you guys giving the Soviet army an Apple Launcher? ;D

special ability: foul fruit; stinks and slows infantrie down

Barrage ability: Barrage an area with rotten tomatoes. :D

lol instead of mines bananas! tanks will slither on the map  ;D

HAHA!  ;D Maybe have a 'Fire Lemon' special ability for use against infantry; Taste the sourness and retreat!

haha an apple barrage!  ;D ;D ;D

I think I found it. It's a kinda artillery called Dinamo-Reaktivnaya Pushka (short DRP):

http://www.winterwar.com/Weapons/SUartillery.htm

(scroll down to the middle)

Thanks for that, walki1. So it wasn't designed to fire apples? That's disappointing... :(

Of course it's designed the fire apples! :D

http://www.o5m6.de/gaz_tk.html

Dunno. The DRP seems much longer than whats in the Vid.

The thing in the Vid is much shorter, looks like somebody tore the face off the cooling reservoir of a Vickers and modified it into a grenade launcher.

pariah wrote:
Thanks for that, walki1. So it wasn't designed to fire apples? That's disappointing... :(

every cannon was in the first place designed to fire apples.

Really? I never got the chance to study history at school, so i wouldn't know...

Im still sticking with the "raiding the local museum for weapons" theory.
That weapon is so fucking strange it has to be something from a old era  ;D

Definitely not the dynamo-reactive gun:

since the projectile could never be (and never was) of spherical shape.  ;)

Save those ideas for the Obstheer (fruit army).

Ostheer fruit Doctrine  ;D

5 Command Points - Call in the feared Äpfelkampfwagen to squeeze the juice out of the enemy. ;D ;D ;D

Hack the enemy computers with your new apple computer  :o

worms eat Äpfelkampfwagen and apple computer

my bridge  ;D ;D ;D

Haha! ;D ;D ;D

Hey, i just thought of something - is "Äpfel" plural or singular? I forget... :-\

pariah wrote:
Haha! ;D ;D ;D

Hey, i just thought of something - is "Äpfel" plural or singular? I forget... :-\

"Äpfel" is plural, "Apfel" singular

Cool, thanks. Umlauts can be confusing... :-[

glad to help!

A lot of off topic here.... ::)

@Burro: Well. At the moment i cant find any data about this weapon but i'm quiet sure that this was an experimental anti tank weapon - first field testing during the Stalingrad-battles (thought it was the only combat of this weapon).
When u have an account on axishistory-forum u should post this pic at this board. I think they will help u very fast ^^

Yeah, well, when the gun fires fruit, it's kind of hard to not make jokes about it. ;D

But if anybody could find some reliable info on this weapon, i would be very interested in it. ;D