why are rifles not counted?

[Cult Icon]

I have noticed that the German forces rarely count the number of rifles captured. They will state machineguns, smgs, AT rifles, etc. but not rifles.

[pintere]

Perhaps because there would be too many to list? Or because they are not considered significant enough?

[Stovepipe]

it may be the case that unless the contact unit wanted to use them, the second line took them back to the rear for refurbishment and they took on the administrative burden of accounting for them; "B echelon, 200 Moisin rifles captured. What do you want to do with them?" You could tie up huge amounts of time dealing with a relatively small issue so they probably left it to the local unit commander to deal with them as he saw fit; ie, give them to the rear units like the transport troops guarding railways or Ukrainian or Estonian police, who would be familiar with them.

[Poot]

it may be the case that unless the contact unit wanted to use them, the second line took them back to the rear for refurbishment and they took on the administrative burden of accounting for them; "B echelon, 200 Moisin rifles captured. What do you want to do with them?" You could tie up huge amounts of time dealing with a relatively small issue so they probably left it to the local unit commander to deal with them as he saw fit; ie, give them to the rear units like the transport troops guarding railways or Ukrainian or Estonian police, who would be familiar with them.

Not exactly.
The practices of dealing with captured equipment were an evolving process that started with the piles of captured materiel in Poland and became more refined as time and conquests rolled forward. In it's most developed form, this included aerial observation of abandoned enemy equipment piles and transmission of location to ground-based recovery teams (Luftwaffe), recovery of materiel and transfer to rail transport, and further transfer to depots for sorting, repair, rebuilding, or salvage.

Some types of arms did indeed stay in theater as you suggested, and were repaired by mobile armorer Waffenwerkstatt units, as long as they didn't require the extent of repairs that would have necessitated service in the depots. The entire system became more and more refined, and reflected the needs of an expanding army of conquest, that not only needed arms for continued conquest, but operable captured arms for troops with static and mostly uncontested duties.

Pat

[Stovepipe]

I'd say that a lot of it was ad-hoc, ie, if a weapon was captured, say an 81mm mortar and bombs, then it was immediately taken into service with little to do other than get the quartermaster to list it as a "beute" weapon. If it involved further refinement, then, as you say, a weapon was absorbed into the system and "germanisized", such as the T-34s captured by GD and used with German paint and markings and equipment.

[ChristopherPerrien]

Rifles being the most common of weapons and the Germans had far more than enough of their own Mausers. To introduced captured rifles and the attendant different ammo would have caused unneeded logistic problems. Other weapons could be used to address shortages of German weapons or the fact some Russian weapons were better than German weapons. But the basic infantry rifle? nah. Maybe give them to friendly constabulary forces or corduroy roads with them or stack them up and burn them.

Seems somewhere in the past , I ran across a translated order specifically with this in mind. An order listing the captured weapons to inventoried and sent back to the rear when captured, standard infantry rifles not being on the list of "wanted/required to be noted" captured weapons. IIRC, even pistols were on it , but not rifles. Of course that may not have been due to the utility of those pistols(though the Russian had a couple good ones) , rather a means of judging how many "pistol waivers" i.e.leaders had been killed or rendered "hors de combat" (sp?).
Can't place a book/source to see this order,ATM.