Category: War
Artist Fortunino Matania’s impression of the last 13 pounder gun of “L” Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, in action at Néry, 1st September 1914.
The Action at Néry. On the morning of 1st September 1914, the German 4th Cavalry Division attacked the 1st Cavalry Brigade and “L” Battery, who had been camped in the village of Néry. In the action that followed, L Battery, less for one gun, was all but destroyed.
The 13-pounder gun manned by Captain Bradbury, WO2 Dorrell, Sergeant Nelson, and Gunners Osbourne and Darbyshire, managed to keep the single gun in action against the three German Batteries located a thousand yards away.
The Artillery fire put down by this gun allowed the 1st Cavalry Brigade to deliver a successful Counter attack. For this action Captain Edward Bradbury, Battery Sgt.Major George Dorrell and Sergeant David Nelson, were all awarded the Victoria Cross.
Bradbury was fatally wounded at the end of the fighting, dying shortly afterwards; Nelson was killed in action in April 1918, whilst Dorrell survived the war (He died in 1971). Both Dorrell and Nelson were also given commissions as second lieutenants; they would later reach the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and Major respectively.
The VCs awarded to all three, along with the surviving gun which they had used, are now on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Here it is today
Israel’s “Grim Beeper” gambit seeded Hezbollah with booby-trapped pagers and radios, then lit them all at once. What led up to it, how it worked, and what it cost.
Table of contents
- Israel’s Independence: How a Tiny State Survived and Hit Back
- Jewish Contributions: Why a Small Population Punches Heavy
- Israel Defense Force From Six-Day Gamble to Strategic Reach
- Hate Inc: How Hezbollah’s Rage Fueled a Fatal Blind Spot
- Gaza Tragedy Context and Consequence
- Operation Grim Beeper The Masterstroke Exploding Pagers
- Nasrallah’s September 19 Statement and What Followed
- Inside the Details How the Pager Supply Chain Was Flipped
- The Hit One Message Then Detonation
- It Gets Worse The Radios Blew Next
- The Butcher’s Bill What the Pagers and Radios Cost
- Key Operation Facts Quick Reference
- Related Reads from GunsAmerica Digest
Israel’s Independence: How a Tiny State Survived and Hit Back
I don’t know where you stand on the whole “God’s Chosen People” thing. I have spent some time in Israel myself, and it is a predominantly secular country today. However, it’s tough to make a dispassionate assessment of Israeli history since 1948 and not think that there is something supernatural going on there.
Israel declared its independence on 14 May 1948. The following day, the surrounding Arab nations launched a coordinated attack to push the nascent nation into the sea. Despite suffocating arms embargoes and being lyrically outnumbered, the fledgling country inexplicably prevailed. The Israelis have been fighting pretty much ever since.
Antisemitism likewise baffles me. I was incredibly impressed with the Jewish work ethic and sense of community.
Every piece of that country is put to some kind of good use. It is all neat and well-maintained. By contrast, the Palestinian Territories looked like Mogadishu. If they just formed a line and swept through their communities to pick up the trash, they could double their property values. It was weird.
Jewish Contributions: Why a Small Population Punches Heavy
I’m not Jewish, but the Jews have made an objectively outsized contribution to the modern world. The ballpoint pen, the polio vaccine, the Polaroid camera, cell phones, the word processor, video games, the pressure cooker, Google, and those ridiculous yakkity-yak wind-up chattering novelty teeth are all Jewish inventions.
Jews represent 0.2% of the world’s population, yet 216 of history’s 965 Nobel Laureates have been either Jewish or had one Jewish parent. That’s 22%. The Jews have produced 110 times as many Nobel Prize winners as the general population.
Israel Defense Force From Six-Day Gamble to Strategic Reach
In 1967, Israel was surrounded by Arab nations planning yet another coordinated attack. They were severely outnumbered in tanks, guns, infantry, and combat aircraft.
On 5 June, the IDF (Israel Defense Force) launched a preemptive attack against long odds. Six days later, those hopelessly outnumbered Israelis were threatening Amman, Cairo, and Damascus. In less than a week, the Israelis had seized 27,000 square miles of territory, effectively tripling their land area.
Frantic intervention in the UN halted the Israeli armored advances. The Six-Day War gained Israel Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank, including Jerusalem. My point is simply that, were I a betting man, I would not bet against the Israelis on the battlefield.
Hate Inc: How Hezbollah’s Rage Fueled a Fatal Blind Spot
Local Arabs call the Six-Day War “The Setback.” They seethe with hatred for the Jews and the Jewish state. Both sides have ample blood on their hands, and the issue of expanding settlements is a perennial thorn. However, this hatred feeds terrorist organizations from all points of the compass, all of which are bankrolled by Iran.
Hamas is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya. This translates to “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Hamas thrived in Gaza until 7 October 2023.
On that one bloody day, Hamas terrorists infiltrated neighboring Israeli communities and slaughtered some 1,200 Israelis. Scaled up to our population, that is the equivalent of Mexican narco-terrorists coming across our southern border and killing some 42,000 Americans…in a single day.
As one might imagine, the Israelis did not respond well to that. Neither would we. Since then, the IDF has systematically deconstructed both Hamas and Gaza. The Gaza Strip is now 140 square miles of rubble and misery. Hamas is castrated and leaderless.
Gaza Tragedy Context and Consequence
The situation in Gaza is undeniably tragic. However, nobody forced those guys to murder those 1,200 Israelis. Were Hamas to hand over the rest of the surviving hostages and stop killing innocent Israelis, the war would be over tomorrow.
On the northern front, you have Hezbollah. Hezbollah means “Party of God” in Arabic. Founded in 1982 and based in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is an armed terrorist network the size of a modest army.
At least, they were the size of a modest army before they began lobbing rockets into northern Israel. That got the IDF activated. Now, most of their leadership positions remain vacant, and the organization is a shell of its former self. A big part of that is because of Operation Grim Beeper.
Operation Grim Beeper The Masterstroke Exploding Pagers
They actually call it that. The Israeli attack wherein they infiltrated more than a thousand booby-trapped exploding pagers into Lebanon is indeed known as Operation Grim Beeper. So long as you do not harbor any undue affection for Hezbollah terrorists, it could almost be funny.
“There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and humanitarian blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance in Lebanon, at least, and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon.”
Nasrallah’s September 19 Statement and What Followed
Eight days after Hassan Nasrallah, then Secretary-General of Hezbollah, spoke those words he was dead, buried underneath untold tons of rubble after a focused Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The “humanitarian blow” to which the master terrorist referred was one of the most audacious and effective covert operations in military history.
Inside the Details How the Pager Supply Chain Was Flipped
I’m pretty boring myself. I don’t fear government surveillance, because I seldom have anything interesting to say. However, if any of you gentle readers might be moonlighting as terrorists or drug lords, you might want to ditch your cell phones.
Give him a reason to do so, and Uncle Sam can steal every word you share on that thing. The Israelis were doing the same thing in southern Lebanon. As a result, the Hezbollah leadership figured they would go old school. They put out feelers for a group buy on a bunch of pagers.
Outside of hospitals, not very many people use pagers anymore. When I was a medical resident, I despised these things. The appeal from a military perspective is that they do not transmit; they only receive. As a result, they cannot be tracked. That means pagers can be used to disseminate information without producing any usable targeting data. However, the Israelis saw this as an opportunity.
Somewhere around February 2024, Hezbollah leadership began distributing thousands of Gold Apollo AR-924 pagers to its subordinate commands.
They chose this particular model predominantly because of its legendary battery life. They only needed to be charged once a month or so. Hezbollah also got a great deal on them. Even terrorists need to be responsible stewards of their finances.
The Pager Plot Front Companies, Reprogramming, and PETN
The pagers came as a bulk purchase from a company based in Budapest called BAC Consulting Kft. Three years before, BAC had entered into a licensing agreement with the Taiwanese Gold Apollo Company to produce these pagers.
The funds passed through a variety of shell companies that made the digital fingerprint impossible to decipher. When investigators later went to the address of record for BAC in Hungary, they found an empty office sporting a sheet of paper taped to the door with the company name handwritten on it. It seems that BAC, along with all the rest, was actually a front for the Israeli Mossad.
The Mossad purchased 5,000 pagers well in advance, disassembled them, and replaced part of the internal battery with a PETN explosive charge. They also reprogrammed the devices. The Mossad then carefully repackaged the things and sold them to Hezbollah. The truly ironic part is that Hezbollah paid for the operation.
The Hit One Message Then Detonation
On 17 September 2024, at around 1530 local, pagers across Lebanon and Syria vibrated and beeped simultaneously. The pagers read, “You Have an Important Message,” and then displayed an error notice. To clear the error, operators were directed to press two buttons on the device simultaneously. This ensured that both hands were on the thing and that it was held close to the face. That’s when they exploded.
The pagers that were not answered detonated anyway. Thousands of Hezbollah terrorists lost eyes, fingers, and hands. Security footage taken in a market in Beirut showed a Hezbollah terrorist getting his balls blown off. Here’s the link.
12 people died, several of whom were reportedly civilians. There were purportedly two children counted among them. If the reports are to be believed, some 2,750 civilians were injured. However, these are terrorists. They lie a lot.
It Gets Worse The Radios Blew Next
The following day, Hezbollah was reeling from the attack. There were indignant protests and noisy funeral processions for the recently deceased. That’s when their walkie-talkies exploded.
The walkie-talkies were handheld ICOM IC-V82 VHF models. Curiously, I have a very similar device as a backup radio in my little fighter plane. I have no idea where mine originally came from. I can only hope it wasn’t Lebanon.
Just like Gold Apollo, the ICOM company immediately distanced itself from these devices. Manufacture of the IC-V82 ceased in 2014. They had issued a warning previously about knockoff radios being produced under their name.
The Butcher’s Bill What the Pagers and Radios Cost
The Lebanese health ministry reported that 300 people were completely blinded, while a further 500 lost one eye in the attacks. Iran deployed a dozen physicians to Lebanon to help treat the injuries. An anonymous Hezbollah official admitted that the attacks removed 1,500 front-line fighters from the zone of conflict. The total death toll was reported at 42 with nearly 4,000 wounded.
Mojtaba Amini, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, lost an eye in the attack. That begs the question as to why he was packing a Hezbollah terrorist pager in the first place. While the Iranians claim to be all peaceful and fun-loving, the entire planet knows better.
Inside the Operation Seeding, Pricing, and Intercepts
The unfiltered audacity of all this was frankly amazing. The Mossad began the operation back in 2015 by producing slick marketing videos aimed at Hezbollah decision makers, touting the many benefits of this particular pager and radio.
Lots of folks, other than Hezbollah, showed interest. However, the Mossad quoted an inflated price for non-Hezbollah customers while offering the devices to the terrorist organization below cost. Hezbollah was thrilled to get them.
The Turkish National Intelligence Organization later intercepted a further 1,300 pagers and 700 chargers at the Istanbul Airport that were laden with explosives and also destined for Lebanon. It seems one should indeed never cross the Israelis.
Key Operation Facts Quick Reference
| Operation Name | Operation Grim Beeper |
|---|---|
| Trigger Date | 17 September 2024 |
| Primary Devices | Gold Apollo AR-924 pagers |
| Secondary Devices | ICOM IC-V82 handheld VHF radios |
| Explosive | PETN charge in modified battery |
| Reported Impact | Thousands injured; multiple blinded; front-line losses admitted by Hezbollah |
“There were also a number of diverse people who ran curiously to type, with drilled shoulders and a bone-deep sunburn, and a tolerant scorn of nearly everything on earth. Their speech was flavored with navy words, and … in easy hours their talk ran from the Tartar Wall beyond Pekin to the Southern Islands, down under Manila. … Rifles were high and holy things to them, and they knew five-inch broadside guns.
They talked patronizingly of the war, and were concerned about rations. They were the Leathernecks, the Old Timers … the old breed of American regular, regarding the service as home and war as an occupation; and they transmitted their temper and character and view-point to the high-hearted volunteer mass which filled the ranks of the Marine Brigade.”
The Browning Automatic Rifle served as a Squad Automatic Weapon back when Squad Automatic Weapons weren’t cool.
Think back to the last time you were alone and frightened. We live in such a remarkably insulated society that many modern Americans have never felt the uniquely synergistic fear that comes from both isolation and peril. For me it occurred back in the 1970’s while I was rabbit hunting with my dad and a bunch of friends.
Table of contents
I was maybe ten and was packing a Remington autoloading 20-gauge. Given my young age I was posted in the middle of the skirmish line as the beagles tore up the countryside looking for bunnies. It was wintertime in the Mississippi Delta and cold by our standards. As we swept through the woods we came across a thick stand of cane.
Thinking back, I should have had sense enough to go around. However, I just opted to press through the thicket instead. By the time I finally worked my way to the other side, the entire group was gone. The Army had not yet taught me the fine art of terrain association, so I just picked a likely direction and moved out smartly. That was a mistake.
Lost and Cold
In short order, it was snowing, and I had no idea where I was. Disoriented and freezing in the middle of no place, I began to feel the icy grip of terror closing in. My unfettered imagination ran away with me, and every sordid wilderness survival story I had ever heard came flooding back into my mind.
Eventually, I happened upon an empty cabin. I briefly considered trying to shoot the power line down in the ridiculous hope that the power company might somehow notice. Then I thought of maybe blowing the door open to see if I could find any food.
Along the way, I did a fair amount of passionate praying. Then I heard a shotgun in the distance. I pointed my Remington skyward and answered with a blast of my own. Half an hour later I was surrounded by the hunting party, and all was well. For that brief period, however, I was legit terrified.
With the benefit of hindsight I’d give myself a solid C. I didn’t panic, scream, or cry. Instead, I analyzed the situation and considered my options. I planned to use the available resources to give myself the best possible chance at survival. I suppose I did OK, though there was never any serious peril. They’d have found me eventually regardless. However, some three decades before, an Army PFC named Alton W. Knappenberger did so much better.
The Guy: “Knappie” Knappenberger
Alton Knappenberger was a truly great American.Alton W. “Knappie” Knappenberger was born in Cooperstown, PA, on the last day of 1923. He entered the US Army in March of 1943 in Spring Mount, Pennsylvania. Less than a year later, Knappenberger was a Private First Class assigned to the 30th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division slogging his way across the Italian peninsula.
From our perspective in the Information Age, we know that the Allies were ultimately victorious and the Germans got spanked. However, at this time and in this place the end result was far from certain. During the Battle of Cisterna, we got our butts kicked.
The Battle of Cisterna was a subset of the overarching invasion of Anzio. Titled Operation Shingle, the amphibious assault on Anzio was a critical part of the learning process that eventually successfully took us to Normandy. Cisterna was also where we figured out how not to employ US Army Rangers. The hard lessons we learned held us in good stead across Europe and into the German heartland.
One Out of Many
Here we see Knappie Knappenberger cleaning his Browning Automatic Rifle.Alton Knappenberger was just some guy, one of literally millions of American GIs who answered their nation’s call to go overseas and face down the forces of tyranny and oppression. However, PFC Knappenberger’s story is inexplicably tied to a unique weapon. Alton Knappenberger was a BAR man.
Grunts of the day spoke that term just as it sounds—“Barman.” By contrast, the weapon was referred to by its individual initials—“B…A…R.” Regardless of how you pronounced it, the Browning Automatic Rifle was a wonderful horrible gun.
The Weapon
The Browning Automatic Rifle was a First World War contrivance that was obsolete by the onset of WW2. However, the big gun soldiered on into Vietnam and was generally adored by the grunts who wielded it. John Browning designed the enormous weapon specifically to facilitate walking fire.
I was trained in the geriatric concept of walking fire when I first donned the uniform. The idea was that you would advance with your mates in line and fire a round from the hip every time a certain foot hit the ground. That’s great in theory, but it doesn’t work so well when facing dug-in, belt-fed MG08 Maxim guns. As a result, American grunts mostly just used the BAR like a man-portable machine gun.
Variety is the Spice of Life
The BAR came in three major variants. M1918 was the WW1 version, and it was just a big honking machine rifle without a bipod. The R75 Colt Monitor was essentially the same gun with a pistol grip, shortened barrel, and Cutts compensator made in very small numbers for the FBI as well as civilian consumption.
CPT Frank Hamer’s posse used an R75 Colt Monitor to gun down Bonnie and Clyde on 23 May 1934. Here’s that story if you’re interested. The M1918A2 was the most common military version.
Outfitted with a clunky bipod and complex buttstock, the M1918A2 weighed a whopping 19 pounds and fed from a 20-round detachable box magazine. Many GIs, particularly those serving in the South Pacific, stripped their BARs down by removing the bipods, carrying handles, and flash hiders to make them as light and maneuverable as possible.
Trigger Time
Despite firing a .30-06/7.62x63mm cartridge the size of my index finger, the M1918A2 remains quite controllable from the prone, hip, and offhand firing positions. The gun offers a user-selectable rate of fire between 400 and 600 rounds per minute. However, at 43.7 inches long, this thing is an absolute beast to carry.
While humping the BAR was not for the faint of heart, the gun invariably became the tactical center of gravity in any close to mid-range infantry engagement. The reassuring chug of the BAR endeared confidence in ways that semiautomatic rifle fire just couldn’t. It also reliably tore stuff up downrange.
Tactical Details
As I mentioned, the Battle of Cisterna was one we lost. On 1 February 1944, a concerted and powerful German counterattack splintered Knappenberger’s infantry battalion. Where many of his mates understandably fell back, Knappenberger pushed forward with his M1 onto a small rise with minimal cover.
Along the way, he retrieved a Browning Automatic Rifle and ammunition from a dead comrade. This vantage gave him an excellent view of the surrounding area and a decent field of fire, but it left him woefully exposed. Suddenly an enemy machinegun team spotted him and opened fire from a distance of about 85 meters.
German belt-fed machine guns were rightfully respected. The MG34 and MG42 were reliable, portable, accurate, and fast. This crew chewed up Knappenberger’s position, snapping big 7.92mm rounds within six inches of his head. In response, Knappenberger rose to his knees, shouldered his spanking new BAR, and blew the German MG crew away, killing two and wounding the third.
It Gets Worse for Knappenberger
Taking advantage of the chaos, a pair of stalwart German Landsers crept to within 20 meters of Knappenberger’s position and threw a couple of potato masher grenades.
However, in its simplest form, the German Stielhandgranate was an offensive grenade with a thin sheet steel casing. While it offered ample blast effect, actual shrapnel was minimal. Knappenberger successfully weathered the explosions, indexed his big auto rifle, and killed both of the German grenadiers with a single generous burst.
The BAR’s 20-round magazine capacity, along with its lack of a quick-change barrel, proved to be the limiting factors in the gun’s employment. Knappenberger swapped magazines as needed as targets bore. By now he was finding his stride.
A second German belt-fed machinegun opened up from a range of roughly 100 meters. In response, Knappenberger laid his gun just as he had been trained and dispatched that crew as well.
The surviving Germans then unlimbered a fast-firing 20mm antiaircraft gun. That’s when things went really sideways.
Next Level Chaos
Those 20mm AA guns could be found in both single and quad mounts. The Flak-38 was the most common and fed its high explosive projectiles from a 20-round box magazine at a cyclic rate of 450 rpm.
Such a weapon figured prominently in the epic climactic scene in Saving Private Ryan. I really cannot imagine facing such a meat chopper in action. However, Alton Knappenberger just drew a careful bead with his liberated BAR, and decrewed that gun as well.
By now the Germans were losing their sense of humor with this solitary grunt from Pennsylvania. They advanced on his position en masse armed with rifles and machine pistols supported by shellfire from both tanks and artillery.
Every time one of these Germans stuck his head up, PFC Knappenberger just shot it off. Eventually, however, the intrepid young American grunt ran out of ammo.
Though the BAR fed from a 20-round box magazine and the M1 Garand used 8-round en bloc clips, the rounds were interchangeable between the two weapons.
PFC Knappenberger crawled some fifteen yards under fire to reach a downed GI and relieve the man’s body of his M1 clips. He then kept up the fight until all available ammunition was consumed. Now defenseless, Knappenberger quietly slipped rearward to rejoin his battalion. He had singlehandedly stopped this concerted German counterattack for more than two hours.
Knappenberger’s Grand Finale
Alton “Knappie” Knappenberger was one of 472 Medal of Honor recipients from WW2.Knappenberger survived the war and came home with Staff Sergeant’s stripes on his arms and the Medal of Honor around his neck. He was one of only six from his original 200-man company not killed or wounded. Once home he eschewed social events organized in his honor, making his living driving an asphalt truck and running construction equipment while living humbly in a trailer.
Alton Knappenberger was a hero laid to rest in a field of heroes at Arlington.Knappie lived out the rest of his days quietly in Pennsylvania, eventually dying in Pottstown at the ripe age of 84. SSG Knappenberger ran that BAR like he owned it and then came home to make the world a better place. He was the absolute best of us.
In March of 1915, the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment under the command of LTC Phillipp Englehardt was posted along a two-mile length of defensive trench near Fromelles, France. This regiment had already survived Ypres and had been well-blooded. Amongst the surviving veterans was a skinny, hard-charging 26-year-old Austrian.
He was a simple man but a dedicated soldier. He was also an artist whose wartime sketches were of sufficient quality to have been stolen by some nameless opportunist.
When first issued his long Gewehr 98 rifle, the newly minted trooper was enthralled. A comrade later said of his experience, “He looked at it with delight, as a woman looks at her jewelry, which made me laugh.”
Combat in these ghastly trenches was unimaginably horrible. For interposing his own body to save LTC Englehardt during a particularly severe artillery barrage, the young man had been awarded the Iron Cross 2d Class. He later described the moment of the award as, “The happiest day of my life.” By this point in the war, the man had been promoted to corporal and made a runner for the regimental staff.
Runners at this time passed orders and retrieved combat reports in an era without radios. This job was harrowing and immensely dangerous. It involved timing the fall of artillery and gauging enemy machine gun fire, then sprinting across the battlefield from one position of cover to another. It was amazing the man had survived as long as he had. Many of his comrades had not.
The deprivations in such a place were legendary. In this case, the man’s unit had gone weeks without hot food. When a mobile horse-drawn field kitchen set up and began distributing black bread and hot-boiled cabbage, it was like manna from heaven.
This man queued up alongside his mates, slung his long G98 rifle, and waited in line for his first hot meal in about forever. Once he had his steaming tin of cabbage, he found a handy spot with his friends to wolf it down. Before he could get his mess utensils out, however, the strangest thing happened.
Amidst the banter of his buddies and their enthusiasm for this hot repast, an audible voice came to the man directing him to simply get up and walk around the corner.
At first, the hungry corporal wrote the experience off to combat fatigue and proceeded with his dinner. Then the voice came back again, more forcefully this time.
Now both confused and frustrated, the man grudgingly gathered his gear and his weapon and did as he was told. Moments later, a French artillery round landed where he had previously been sitting, killing everyone in the immediate vicinity. This young man had been miraculously spared by an inexplicable phantasmic voice in his head.
Adolf Hitler used to relate the preceding tale of his time in the trenches during World War I at dinner parties as evidence of his divine mandate to rule. In another instance, a British artillery round landed nearby, killing all those around him and ripping the sleeve off of his tunic while leaving him unscathed.
Perhaps he had a point, though I don’t think his particular guardian actually took his mail in heaven. Regardless, the long bolt-action rifle he carried in that most horrible of wars was a legend in its own right.
The Weapon
The rifle with which a young Private Adolf Hitler was so enamored back in 1914 was the famed Gewehr 98, often shortened to simply G98 or Gew98.
Launched in April of 1898, the Gew98 replaced the previous Gewehr 1888 in Imperial German service. The Gew98 was an evolutionary development of Paul Mauser’s 1895 action. The rifle first saw combat in China during the Boxer Rebellion.
During WWI, the Gew98 fired the 7.92x57mm Mauser S Patrone cartridge. This round pushed a 154-gr. Spitzer (pointed) bullet that was fairly devastating downrange. Muzzle velocities were a bit north of 2,000 feet per second out of this rifle.
Mechanical Details of the Gewehr 98
The Gew98 is a manually operated bolt-action rifle that feeds from an integral five-round box magazine. The rifle is loaded single rounds or via five-round stripper clips that feed from the top. The bolt handle sticks out at a right angle from the receiver.
The Gew98 was a controlled-feed design. This meant that the extractor snapped over the rim of the cartridge as it fed from the magazine, maintaining positive control of the round all the way into the chamber. This is opposed to push-feed designs wherein the extractor does not positively grab the cartridge rim until the bolt closes.
The bolt on the Gew98 was designed for both strength and safety. Two beefy locking lugs engage corresponding recesses in the steel receiver to ensure positive lockup for firing. There was also a third safety lug milled into the rear of the bolt assembly to provide extra strength. Nowadays, quality reliable steels make such redundancy superfluous. However, that was not necessarily the case at the turn of the 20th century.
Gas relief holes on the bottom of the bolt direct hot gases away from the firer in the event of a case or primer failure. Once again, this is not much of problem nowadays given the refined state of munitions manufacture. Back then, however, it was a bigger deal.
There is a cam built into the bolt that enables a slight degree of cartridge extraction at the beginning of the unlocking process. This aids in removal of spent cartridges even if they are dirty or sticky.
The case is also positively controlled during the extraction stroke. This makes for an exceptionally reliable action that has been widely copied in both military and sporting arms, particularly those for use with dangerous game where a mechanical failure might prove catastrophic. The firing pin cocks on opening.
The safety is a three-position, flag-style tab on the back of the bolt. Left is fire. Right locks both the bolt and the firing mechanism. In the up position, the firing mechanism is still locked, but the bolt will open.
The Gew98 is 49” long and weighs 9 lbs. The barrel is 29” long. The curved, tangent-style rear sight is graduated from 200 meters out to 2,000 meters in 100-meter increments. This complex sighting device is called the Lange Visier.
Legacy
More than nine million copies were produced from 1898 through 1918. In 1915, the Germans converted some 15,000 Gew98 rifles for sniper use by fitting these weapons with optical sights. These Scharfschützen-Gewehr 98 (sniper rifle 98) featured turn-down bolts that were angled to clear the scopes and corresponding stock cutouts to accommodate.
Accuracy expectations were surprisingly sloppy by modern standards. For acceptance into service, the Gew98 was expected to put half its rounds into a 2.4” circle at 100 meters and 93% of its rounds inside a 4.7” ring. However, this was not atypical for martial arms of this era.
The Gew98 went on to inspire the American M1903 Springfield, The British Pattern 14 and 1917 rifles, and the Czech Vz-24. A great many modern hunting arms use the same basic design today. The Gew98 was eventually shortened and polished into the Kar98k that carried German forces all the way through World War II.
Conclusion
The massive, heavy, bolt-action beast of a rifle that Adolf Hitler carried in combat in the First World War was one of the most influential military small arms in history.
Coming as it did at the very beginning of the era of smokeless powder, the Gewehr 98 offered effective long-range performance, reliability, and ease of maintenance in a manual repeater action that facilitated impressive rates of fire.
That same 127-year-old action soldiers on in a variety of guises even today. Its positive legacy is one that stands in marked contrast to that of the aforementioned corporal from the trenches of World War I that loved it so.