The Catastrophe Behind the FG42 “Paratroop” Rifle.H

The Catastrophe Behind the FG42 “Paratroop” Rifle

One of the worst military disasters of the Second World War led directly to what we can arguably say was the best rifle in the world when it appeared. Only Germany’s most elite units could get their hands on it because it was so scarce. And when the Allies captured the first examples of this new rifle, they immediately began quote unquote taking inspiration from it.

Some of the most iconic weapons used today still carry some DNA of this thing. So, let’s tell its whole story. All right. So, the thing that led to the creation of this rifle in the first place is the catastrophe of one mission where Germans realized their paratrooper deployment system was utterly flawed. On April 25th, 1941, Hitler ordered Operation Mercury, which became the first battle in history, where airborne forces formed the main invasion body.

Somewhere around 22,000 German paratroopers were committed to attack the Greek island of Cree from which they could later launch other operations against Allied forces in the Mediterranean. Defending Cree was a force of some 42,000 British, Australian, New Zealand, and Greek troops, and they had two very important advantages over Germans before the battle even began.

First thing was that British intelligence decrypted German Enigma messages and had the time, location, and pretty much the whole plan of the attack coming their way. And second was that Cree has mountainous terrain with few flat areas suitable for parachute drops. So drop zones were already quite predictable. Now despite the massive force Germans allocated for this operation, hundreds of aircraft and support units prepared to be landed once paratroopers captured the airfields.

Their very system of how paratroopers were deployed is going to cost them dearly. Now to understand the problem, you have to take a look at the German parachutes first. You’d think that I’m going a bit off the topic here, but bear with me. It’s important for the story later. You see, Allied parachutes had two risers that attached at the shoulders, so the paratrooper could jump out of the aircraft feet first and go down in an upright position and even steer his parachute a bit during the fall. They’d land on their feet,

although far from softly. But this meant that the Allied paratrooper could carry all the weapons and equipment on him, which if you look at the fact that they’re jumping directly into combat, is a very important thing to be ready for action. Now, as for the German system, it had a single attachment point between the shoulder blades, and all the suspension lines converged into two risers that met at this one spot on the harness.

And this now created a completely different jump experience, and an entirely different technique had to be used. The paratrooper had to perform what was called the pike jump. Basically jumping out head first with arms outstretched because if he jumped feet first like the Allied paratroopers did, the violent shock of the canopy opening would flip him upside down and tangle his legs in the rigging lines, which you’d agree isn’t really good while falling to the ground.

The German paratrooper couldn’t steer his chute at all, and the suggested technique was to roll forward when hitting the ground to avoid injuries from a rough landing, in theory, at least. However, this system had an advantage because when you go out like this, the static line yanks the canopy open and it fully inflated within just about 30 m.

In 2 or 3 seconds, your parachute is fully deployed. This meant that German paratroopers could jump from extremely low altitudes, as low as 75 m, and that dramatically shortened the time a man spent floating helplessly in the air while getting shot at from the ground. Allied paratroopers needed much higher altitudes and spent more time floating in the air.

But here is the thing that would lead to the FG42 directly. Because they needed to perform those neck-breaking acrobatics while jumping, a German paratrooper couldn’t really carry something long and heavy with him, like a Kar 98 rifle or a machine gun. So to not get your weapon inside yourself somehow during the landing, Germans figured out it would be better to carry just a pistol, a few grenades, and a knife.

The rest of the weapons and equipment would land separately in special containers. These containers had their own parachutes and were welldesigned, even with wheels for easier transportation and could carry about 200 lb of equipment, while even larger ones had 1,500 lb of load capacity. These were attached like bombs on transport aircraft and were released closely together with the paratroopers.

So, in theory, when everything works right, which on the battlefield is almost never, the containers would land near the paratroopers. They’d retrieve them, open them up, and take everything they need for combat, and then move on. You see how this might be a problem already. As German planes carrying paratroopers in the morning of May 20th, 1941 came in at low altitudes over Cree.

They had no idea that this was about to become one of the worst days in the history of airborne operations. First, they flew straight into heavy well-prepared anti-aircraft fire. They were getting hit even before they could jump. But now, even those who landed still in one piece were about to realize all the problems with this system.

Containers with weapons scattered across the battlefield, and many landed neatly in enemy hands or hung in trees, and those that could be reached by the Germans, they had to retrieve under fire. Several German units were completely annihilated in just the first few opening minutes. The afternoon wave fared no better or even worse in some sectors, as the German paratroopers had to fight almost entirely with their pistols and grenades.

And to add another layer of horror for them on that day, Cret and civilians weren’t really happy to see German invaders. So they attacked the barely armed paratroopers with clubs and axes. And you can only imagine how that looked. Germans would later win and retaliate horribly for what happened to the airborne units.

But that initial phase of the operation cost them over 4,000 paratroopers killed and over 200 aircraft knocked out. After CIT, Germans never again attempted such a largecale airborne operation exactly because of what happened there. However, this whole ordeal led to the rifle, which is our topic today, the FG42.

Now, the German infantry squad was organized around the machine gun, the infamous MG34 and 42 that you’ve heard so much about. Most of the soldiers were armed with the boltaction Kar98 rifle. Now, I know that you’re going to think that there were many other weapons Germans had, like the MP 40, STG-44, or Gu 43, and that’s true.

But the thing is that those were in much smaller numbers. And the footage you’re seeing from World War II is mostly deliberately shot of better equipped units for propaganda purposes. They produced a little over a million MP40s, some 400,000 STG44s, and a similar number of Guvare 43s. And then there were over 14 million Kar98s. So you see what the real workhorse infantry weapon was.

Riflemen were working around protecting or advancing all under the cover of machine gun fire, which was the main source of firepower for the German squad. This is completely opposite from how the allies organized their squads, but that’s a different topic. The thing is that the Fol Sher Jger, German for paratroopers, despite being elite troops under Luftwaffer command, they were armed with exactly the same weapons.

Maybe they had more machine pistols than the regular infantry, but the Kar98 was still the main weapon even for them. So after the debacle at Cree, Germans wanted a rifle that paratroopers could jump with, just like the Allies did. And on top of that, they wanted to combine all the features of a machine pistol, light machine gun, and rifle into one weapon.

And all that in a light and compact package that didn’t exist in the world. Now, when German weapons designers saw these requirements, they said they were tasked to create an ayleender vulso. Our German viewers would know what this is, but for the rest of the world, it translates literally to egg laying wool milk pig. It’s a sarcastic saying that goes for an unrealistic expectation that one thing can fulfill many completely different roles perfectly which exactly describes this new rifle they wanted.

But the thing is they would actually make one. Despite Hitler prohibiting such operations from happening again, Herman Guring, who was the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany, personally ordered the development of this new weapon specifically for paratroopers that belong to his Luftvafer, not the army. Without him, this weapon would long have been one of many abandoned projects.

Anyway, through the standard political chaos, design competitions, corruption, and whatnot, they eventually came up with the Falshim Jerger Gu, which literally translates to paratrooper rifle, or better known just as the FG42. So, let’s now explain what the finished rifle looked like and why it was so technically remarkable and why nothing like it existed at the time.

It is a selective fire automatic rifle chambered in the full power 792x 57 mm mouser cartridge which is the same round German rifles and machine guns used. At the heart of the FG42 was a gas operated rotating bolt mechanism adapted from the World War I Lewis light machine gun which gave it a reliable but compact action.

Then the most interesting feature is that it could fire in full auto from the open bolt, which was great for cooling of the barrel and preventing cookoffs when the round sits in the chamber after prolonged firing. And it could also fire in semi-auto but now from a closed bolt. This is because firing from an open bolt, when you pull the trigger, the whole bolt, which is a heavy piece of metal, moves forward, chambers the round, and fires it, and it jolts the whole rifle and makes accurate single shots challenging.

Well, the FG42 would fire single shots from the closed bolt, which solved this problem, so it can also serve as a high precision rifle, and it could even carry a scope. You can simply choose between these two with one fire selector lever and nothing else. Although, it did add complexity and then reliability issues later, which is why no other production weapon adopted this approach, but it’s still an interesting design.

Then we have the straight line stock design. You see, on virtually every rifle and machine gun of the era, the stock dropped downward from the receiver. So, the imaginary straight line going from the barrel is sitting above the point where the stock met the shooter’s shoulder. This meant the recoil force is directed above the shoulder, which then makes the muzzle climb after firing, especially on full auto.

Well, the FG42 had the barrel, receiver, and stock on the same line perfectly straight from the muzzle to the shooter’s shoulder. So this way the recoil force goes directly back and the muzzle climb is dramatically reduced. So the weapon is more controllable during automatic fire. And the 792 mm mouser round has quite a lot of energy behind it.

And the recoil is no joke especially when you consider that the FG42 fired some 900 rounds per minute. It was reduced in later models to somewhere around 750. But still it’s quite a rate of fire. Although because of this, a 20 round magazine lasted about 1 and 1/2 seconds of continuous fire and the sights had to be raised because of the straight line design.

Then we have this on first glance weird looking 20 round box magazine sticking horizontally from the left side of the rifle. But it was made like this for a reason because the magazine was on the side rather than underneath. The space below and behind the receiver was free which allowed the bolt to travel rearward into the buttstock.

And this was important because of the maximum 1 m length requirement while still keeping the longer barrel. The barrel was some 20 in while the whole weapon was about 37. And that’s a very efficient barrel to overall length ratio. The trade-off was weight imbalance because a full mag was quite heavy and the rifle would tilt to the left, but you have to give up something.

The early model FG42 had a distinctive, sharply angled pistol grip at 45°. It was specifically designed to reduce the chance of it snagging on harness straps of a parachute during a jump. But then when the later model came along, it was changed to a nearvertical angle. That is because by that point of the war, paratroopers were fighting only on the ground.

So they didn’t need this weird pistol grip. Moving forward to the muzzle, we have two quite interesting features. One is a folding bipod under the barrel, so you can use it as a light machine gun from a prone position. Although it wasn’t really liked by the soldiers because it had no locking mechanism, so it would fold back if the rifle wasn’t tightly held against the shoulder.

And then we have an integral spike bayonet folded underneath the barrel. A muzzle brake at the end of the barrel redirected gases sideways and rearward to reduce the recoil, which helped with controlling the weapon in full auto, but it also made it extremely loud with quite the muzzle flash. It weighed a little over 9 lb. Then the first operational use of the FG42 came during the spectacular operation Aika.

The rescue of the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. About 90 paratroopers with gliders landed on horribly rocky terrain. However, they shocked the Italian Carabineri guards who surrendered without resistance and the new rifle didn’t have a chance to prove itself in combat that day as not a single shot was fired.

But then came Monte Casino where this new rifle would be put to the test in the worst fighting of the Italian campaign and one of the most brutal engagements of the entire war. The first folga division was defending this important sector and they were the most experienced soldiers Germany had. The allies gave them the nickname the green devils.

They fortified themselves within the ruins of the monastery and from there with their new rifles inflicted catastrophic casualties on the advancing allies that tried to root them out in four battles of Monte Casino. German paratroopers used almost only semi-auto fire as full auto wasn’t really practical because of the rifle’s lightweight and just 20 round magazines, but it offered significantly more firepower than bolt or semi-auto rifles.

Then when the allies landed in Normandy on D-Day, the Falam Jagger units were pressed into the defense of France and there was the biggest concentration of FG42s in the entire war. It was well suited for the close quarter fighting in Normandy terrain and the Allies were more than impressed when they captured some of the rifles.

Because it was deployed in the highest numbers in Normandy, the Allies actually thought that this new German rifle existed in much greater numbers than it actually did. However, the thing is that the production number of FG42s is tiny in comparison to other weapons. Only a little over 7,000 of them were produced for the entire war because of all the factors ranging from political complications within the German command to the shortages of materials at this stage of the war when Germany was losing on all fronts and was wrecked by the

Allied bombing campaign. The design was much more complicated and expensive than other rifles, so it was never prioritized. It was only issued to the most elite paratrooper units and having an FG42 became some sort of status symbol as it was so hard to get. During the opening of the Battle of the Bulge, Germans carried out their last parachute operation of the entire war, Operation Stersa.

And if that’s somehow possible, it was an even bigger disaster than Cree. Some,200 paratroopers would be dropped behind American lines in the Arden to seize a strategically important crossroads and hold it for 24 hours until the Panza division broke through to relieve them. Well, already before the mission even began, everything started going wrong.

Many of the men assigned to the operation had never made a parachute jump before, while only 20% were qualified to jump with weapons on them, and the rest would need those containers like onet. So even if they did have enough FG-42s, they didn’t have properly trained paratroopers to use this rifle specifically designed to solve that problem of them jumping without weapons.

Some 100 Junkers, 52 transport pilots were also mostly young and inexperienced. The drop went off just after midnight on December 17th in a powerful snowstorm and winds. Only 10 planes actually reached the correct drop zone, while 250 men were dropped 50 miles away from their objective and 10% casualties were sustained just from landing in horrible conditions.

They managed to gather about 300 men with barely enough ammo while the panzas couldn’t break through to them and simply never arrived. On Christmas Eve, the remaining Frostbitten force sent a surrender note to the nearest American unit. So no futuristic do-it-your rifle could help the German situation that was now beyond any point of salvage.

Anyway, when the Allies captured the first examples of the FG42, they were more than fascinated by it as nothing like it really existed at the time. They meticulously examined and tested them and took a bunch of lessons that would later be implemented in various famous weapons like the American M60 machine gun, for example.

It evolved through pretty much the merger of FG42 and MG42 components with some American sprinkles on top of it. The Americans took a captured FG42, reinforced the receiver, and then grafted the belt feed top cover and mechanism from an MG42, created this Frankenstein hybrid of two German weapons, and called it the T44 prototype.

This would eventually develop through further refinement, and become the M60 that would characterize the Vietnam War and War movies in years to come. As for the FG42, its story ended after the Germans lost the war. There are fewer than 200 FG42s documented to survive worldwide, and they are incredibly valued because they’re so rare.

For example, at one auction in 2023, a type 1 FG42 was sold for $456,000, while type 2 go easily over $300,000. And if you want to shoot one, you can do that at Guns of Decatur in Texas for the neat low price of just $5,000.