Springfield Armory Museum - Collection Record

GERMAN ASSAULT RIFLE MP44 7.92MM SN# 9304u
Manufactured in Germany in 1944 - Standard MP44. Gas-operated, titling bolt, select fire with a muzzle velocity of 2250fps and cyclic rate of fire 650rpm. Designation changed to StG44 in December, 1944. No magazine. Deactivated by steel weld in barrel. Weapon in fair condition. Approximately 300,000 MP43s and MP44s were manufactured.

Markings:
Receiver: MP44.
Bottom receiver: COS.
Behind pistol grip: BYF 9304u.
Magazine housing: 9304/44.

Weapon donated to the Springfield Armory NHS by Savage Firearms Co., Westfield, Ma. on 17 October 1978.

Weapon appraised by Gillie & Company, Cos Cob, Connecticut, on May 5, 1978 as follows: "Maschinen-Pistol, Mod. MP-44, Cal. 7.92 Kurz. $200. Serial number 9304, manufactured by Gebruder Merz, Merz-Werke, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Deactivated by welding. Condition good."

Notes: "The Sturmgewehr 44 (StG44, MP 43/44) was the world's first weapon called a assault rifle or Sturmgewehr, a class that combines traits of a submachine guns and automatic rifles. It went into service with the German army in WWII, and if the war had continued another year, the StG would have replaced every other rifle and submachine gun in the Wehrmacht, including the antique Karabiner 98k and MP40.
It chambered a shorter version of the standard 7.92mm rifle round balancing the weaker pistol round but the higher recoil of bigger rounds. The StG44 was the very successful balancing of a intermediary infantry weapon that was lighter than heavier more powerful rifles but with longer range than submachine guns. Earlier attempts to solve this problem such as the US M1 Carbine (too weak) or the FG42 (too much recoil), amongst others, often had drawbacks that limited their usefulness.
The StG44 was the world's first true assault rifle lending its name to the class ('sturm gewehr' = 'assault rifle') and inspiring a new generation of infantry weapons. In 1946 Mikhail Kalashnikov examined a captured StG44 and used key features of the design to produce the AK-47 assault rifle which in turn was extremely influential.
Background - In the early stages of the war, the German army had considered the rifle to be a 'support' weapon only. The primary weapon of the infantry was the machine gun, and in a typical squad the soldiers carried considerably more ammunition for their MG34 than they did for their own rifles. The MG34 could pour out considerably more fire than all of the rifles put together, so they were almost an afterthought.
In combat things were never so simple. The machine gun proved to be far too large to be operated on the move, meaning that the troops often had to use their rifles while moving up. Of course the defenders they were moving up on were in fixed positions, and therefore had no limitations in the use of their own machine guns. For an army depending on the fast-moving blitzkrieg, they found themselves outgunned almost constantly. These problems were magnified in the cities and towns, where the weapon could not be brought to bear on their targets before they disappeared into the next building.
For this reason the troops started making increased use of submachine guns, forming squads knows as assault troops which could keep up a high rate of fire while on the move. Unfortunately, the submachine gun's use of pistol-sized rounds made for poor range, and the assault troops were really only useful in urban settings. Once out in the country it was back to the rifles again.
Adding to the confusion was the fact that the Red Army had been in the process of replacing their own rifles in the immediate pre-war era. Increasing numbers of semi-automatic Tokarev SVT38 and SVT40's were reaching the units, meaning that they outgunned their German counterparts considerably. The army had been attempting to introduce semi-automatic weapons of their own, notably the Gewehr 41, but these were proving rather problematic in service, and were themselves being delivered at a trickle which the problems were being worked out.
Several attempts had been made to i

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