How many of them were there exactly - no one knows for sure these same foreign rifles that came to Spain from different countries. You can, however, calculate yourself according to Wikipedia and then it turns out that the Spaniards got 64 rifles! Only from neighboring France did the Republicans get Chasspot needle rifles still of the 1866 model and caliber 11 × 59 with a paper cartridge (I wonder, really from the warehouses of that time?), Long and also short Gras 1874/80 rifles of the same caliber, however, already cartridge. Then the French helped the Republicans with the Gra-Kropachek rifles of 1874/78 chambered for the 11 × 59 mm R welted cartridge and with an under-barrel magazine. Then the rifles of Gra-Kropachek of 1884 got there. Moreover, the Republicans got 10,000 pieces of Gra rifles of different types! Then the arsenal of the republic was replenished with the Kropachek rifle of the 1885 release with an under-barrel magazine in the amount of 1700 pieces.
We'll start looking at the rifles used by the Republicans from this photo. On it, a Republican fighter is armed, yes, with a German Gewehr 88 rifle, that is, a "commission rifle" with a Mannlicher store. But the second soldier, in a T-shirt and with a helmet on his head, is holding a Mosin rifle, supplied from the USSR. The next one, if you look closely, has a Type 1 or 2 Spanish carbine in his hands.
A very revealing photo. Directly from the remake of the movie "The Rich Bride": Come, let's go, funny friends / The country, like a mother, calls and loves us! / Everywhere we need caring hands / And our master's, warm female eye.
Interestingly, all the ladies are wearing brand new German-made Mausers! And they say that there was a lack of modern weapons on the fronts. And that's where it was!
Exhibition of trophy weapons taken from the Republicans. Here they are - Gewehr 88 rifles.
Exhibition of trophy weapons taken from the Republicans. Well, these are Mausers, but from the period of the First World War.
Everything is here: rifles and pans - everything is ready for battle and everything is Spanish.
But Spanish girls with rifles were still clearly more interesting to shoot than men. More indicative, I would say so. Therefore, there are a lot of pictures of them. For example, these … Spanish girls, beauties in large numbers and all with Mausers. Spanish. It can be seen very well!
But I don't like such Spanish women. Moreover, they are now exactly the same, as soon as they enter a certain age. Nothing changed. Only those with rifles!
Aragonese front, Catalan militia, girl in full uniform. 1936 year.
Another Spanish beauty with a Mauser …
A girl shoots a Spanish Mauser M1916 Type 2 carbine.
Mono overalls, hat and Mauser.
Lebel's rifles came in a wide variety of types: 1886/1893, a carbine of the 1892 model, a rifle of the 1916 model. Cartridges - 8 × 50 mm R. Lebel's rifles and carbines of all types got more Republicans - 10,900 pieces. Finally, there, behind the Pyrenees, quite a few Berthier rifles went: a carbine of 1890, a short rifle of 1892, a Berthier rifle of 1907/15, a rifle and again a short Berthier rifle of 1916. And all of them were received by the Republicans 37,400 pieces, that is, this is at least something.
Again a Mauser, but this time in the hands of an anarchist girl - what a horror!
How is all this known? It's very simple: the winners got not only rifles, tanks, machine guns and airplanes, but also archives, and in them heaps of invoices and who, when, where and from whom received. In 1938, in the city of San Sebastian, nationalists opened a propaganda exhibition of weapons captured from the "Reds" during the war. A catalog with photographs was prepared based on the materials of the exhibition. And here's what is interesting: according to the calculations made by the organizers of the exhibition, the cost of all weapons taken from the Republicans was 853, 054.022 Spanish pesetas, or 30, 5 million pounds!
A Republican girl with a Winchester - this is necessary … And where did she get it?
Well, if we turn not to dry statistics of numbers, but look at live photographs of the period of the civil war in Spain, then … what kind of rifles will we see in the hands of its fighters and, first of all, the same Republicans? But this is interesting to see, because as a rule people are filmed on film and photo documents. The objects accompanying them are secondary, no one pays attention to them, which means … they convey what is, or rather what was. But … here we looked through quite a few photographs and did not see either Lebel's rifles or Gras … not even the Shosspo. However, they were not in warehouses all this time?
Seventeen-year-old Maria Ginesta, a participant in the Spanish Civil War. Behind you can clearly see the Cathedral of Cascara Familia - the Cathedral of Antoni Gaudi, which is still under construction and under construction today!
By the way, after all, in the same Gra rifles, almost all the achievements of their time were combined. The Gra cartridge had a brass bottle sleeve with a charge of black powder weighing 5, 25 g, the bullet was cast from pure lead and wrapped in a paper wrapper, with which it weighed 25 g. … The cartridge capsule had a special cap on the outside; although later it was removed. The bullet developed an initial velocity of 450 m / s. Gra designed the bolt of his rifle after the 1871 Mauser bolt and improved, simplified and strengthened it in all respects. The barrel had four grooves and a length of 820 mm. The sight had divisions from 200 to 1800 m. At the same time, the rate of fire of his rifle was higher than that of the Mauser, although the locking of the barrel was as strong as in the Paul Mauser rifle! True, many scolded his fuse, but the French did not pay attention to it. That is, if you look in general, the Gra rifle was better than the M1871 Mauser rifle, that's how it is! Chassopot rifles were also redesigned after the Gras model. Well, then a barrel-mounted cylindrical magazine designed by Austrian Major Alfred Kropachek was added to it, and in the end they got a very good rifle of the 1874-1878 model, and then the 1884 model.
Rifle Steier-Kropachek М1886
Its caliber at first remained the same - 11-mm, and its under-barrel magazine held seven cartridges, one could be on the feeder, and one more in the barrel, so that the total number of charges in it reached nine. The weight of the rifle without cartridges was 4, 400 kg. Loading took place through the hole under the barrel, one cartridge at a time, which took at least 20 seconds. Then all nine rounds could be fired in 18 seconds, albeit without aiming. The store switch lever, so beloved by the military of all countries of the world, was also provided, which locked it "until better times" so that soldiers often did not fire without a command.
Bolt carrier of the M1886 rifle with a bolt. The shutter is closed.
The shutter is open. It took a screwdriver to disassemble it.
Reloading handle and magazine switch.
Well, then, as soon as cartridges for smokeless powder of the 8-mm Lebel caliber appeared, Kropachek immediately made a rifle of the 1886 model for them. True, it was produced for only one year at the Steier plant in Austria, and the entire order went … to Portugal! Now ten cartridges were loaded into it, and the weight was reduced by 250 g.
Feeder with a spoon-shaped indentation.
In this photo, the feeder, lowered to the level of the store, and the cartridge pusher are clearly visible.
So, maybe this 8-mm rifle also had a chance to fight in Spain, but … on the side of the nationalists, to whom the stocks of old rifles for arming their African "allies" could well have been sold or donated by the Portuguese! After all, if France in such quantities rafted old rifles to the Republicans, then … why not do the same for the Portuguese? After all, they have long since replaced their old "steyrs" with much more "productive" Mausers! But do not waste the good ?! So this could very well be!
Front sight, bayonet mount and magazine protruding from the box. The bayonet was mounted horizontally on the right. Why horizontal? And here's why: so that the bayonet enters the body between the ribs!
The aiming bar, alas, is not included.
Since on the pages of VO this rifle has already been described, it makes sense to cite only those photographs that were absent in the previous material, but are interesting, since they allow you to get a more detailed idea of this interesting example of weapon thought.
As noted in the previous article, the rifle is comfortable to use, and surprisingly fits well in the hands, and does not seem heavy. But here is the protrusion of the elongated trigger bracket (an attempt to give a certain "pistol-like" to the straight neck of the stock), it seems to me superfluous. In addition, for example, in extreme cold, touching it with your bare hand must be simply unpleasant.
Previous material on the Steier-Kropachek rifle: “One of the heirs to the Henry rifle …
