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Old November 22nd, 2021, 05:26 PM
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Medal The Use of Captured Weapons by the Allies

Folks, most people concentrate on the German use of captured weapons such as Beutepanzers, but there's a little known side to the story, where the US also used captured weapons heavily:

https://usacac.army.mil/sites/defaul...to/eto-100.pdf

Go to page 53; I'll bulletpoint it for you:

1.) During 26 Sep to 6 Nov 1944, XX Corps pressed into service 7 x French 155mm Howitzers and gave them to a 240mm Howitzer battalion; the ammo being found in captured enemy dumps.

2.) After success with the French 155mm howitzers, they tried using the ammo with the US 155mm M1 gun with success.

3.) When the ammunition ration was cut, curtailing the mass use of American ammunition, Ordnance Section XX Corps HQ set out to find every possible foreign weapon and ammo for them.

4.) Fort Driant was encircled by a tank battalion firing nothing but captured French 75mm ammo in their guns.

5.) When we crossed the Moselle, enemy artillery positions were smoked out by French 155mm HC shells rushed up from ammo dumps near Verdun.

6. First US Army fired:

7,000 rds 155mm GPF HE (French)
30,000 rds 10.5cm Howitzer HE (German)
300,000 rds 8 cm Mortar HE (German)
Unknown Qty of Various German Rockets

The 155mm GPF ammo was used in US guns; while the 8cm mortar ammo was used interchangeably with US 81mm ammo. The 10.5 cm ammo was used with German Weapons.

7. 12th Army Group also reported from 1 DEC 44 to 22 MAR 45 that 14,500 rounds of German 88mm had been fired.

In the Pacific likewise on Okinawa, shortages of mortar ammo were likewise alleviated by using captured Japanese mortar ammo.

Reason I'm putting this here in Campaigns/Scenarios/Maps rather than TO&E is that this was a highly selective use of items; something more up to the Scenario designer using the Captured/Allied units flag than the OBAT designer.
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