battlecruisers after WWII pt. 1: Stalingrad

I have not done a 2-part series for a while and these are two ships I have been wanting to write about for some time.

USS Hawaii and Stalingrad were two warships of roughly the same type and of similar firepower, both born (directly or indirectly) out of WWII. Both were made at different times for totally different reasons, each had a unique life and in the end, neither was finished.

(How it started: artist’s rendition of the Soviet battlecruiser Stalingrad.)

(How it ended: the never-finished Stalingrad for use in weapons tests.)

the T-34 in Laos

The USSR’s most-produced tank of WWII, and most successful during that war, was the T-34. After WWII many nations received this tank, one of the more obscure ones being Laos.

(Soviet soldiers with a T-34 during WWII.)

(Lao T-34 during the 2010s.)

(Ex-Lao T-34s in the Russian Federation during 2020.)

The path by which these T-34s came to Laos and then “returned” to Russia is quite winding and interesting.

For starters, they didn’t really “return home”, at least not in the strictest sense of the words. They are all Czechoslovak post-WWII production, having first gone through Vietnam.

WWII submachine guns at “Gun City, PRC” 1950 – 1956

Bei’an in northern China was for many years “Gun City, PRC”; churning out huge numbers of cloned WWII-era firearms before switching to China’s clone of the AK-47.

(American soldiers examine a captured Type 50, the Chinese clone of the WWII Soviet PPSh-41, during the Korean War.) (US National Archives photo)

(This monument in modern Bei’an honors the 9,006,116 guns made at Factory #626.) (photo via Xinhua news agency)

the T-34 in Somalia

Somalia faces many problems now in the 2020s, most of them directly or indirectly caused by a disastrous defeat in a now-largely forgotten war against Ethiopia during the 1970s. The USSR’s main tank of WWII, the T-34, fought in this war.

(Somali T-34 tanks on parade in Mogadishu prior to the Ogaden War.)

(An abandoned T-34 in Somalia today.)

the forgotten M-XV class submarines

The USSR’s M-XV class of small submarines was designed before WWII, were built and served during the war before being put out of production, and then quite remarkably were put back into production after WWII; only to leave service very soon after.

(M-294 of the Soviet navy at sea.)

Despite being almost totally forgotten today these WWII submarines served long into the Cold War era, in some cases into the 1970s, and were helpful to several navies looking to establish a modern submarine force.

(S10 was Egypt’s first submarine ever. It was formerly the Soviet M-271.)

WWII firearms in East Germany’s “other” armed forces

East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic or DDR in its German acronym, existed for 40 years, 11 months, and 4 weeks. The brief lifespan of East Germany’s military, the National Volksarmee, is well-documented and studied by military historians. It only used a limited amount of ex-WWII kit for a short while.

However the nation had paramilitary forces which did use WWII weapons for a longer time: the Grenztruppen (border troops), the Volkspolizei (national-level police), and the KdA (a second-rate militia). They have received less historical attention.

(Officer of the East German Volkspolizei with a WWII German StG-44 assault rifle.)

(East German Grenztruppen with WWII Soviet PPSh-41 submachine guns during the 1960s.)

Libya from Rommel to Quadaffi

The nation of Libya has seen a great deal of conflict, starting with WWII, then the 1980s skirmishes against the United States, and finally the terrible 10-year civil conflict of the 21st century.

(Field Marshall Erwin Rommel in Libya during WWII; and Libyan dictator Muammar Quadaffi presenting a WWII Italian Carcano Modello 91 rifle to the Italian prime minister in 2002.)

Almost forgotten now is that the nation had a two-decade interlude as a pro-western kingdom and was host to a major American military base. The Libyan army of this era was equipped with WWII-surplus weaponry.

(Soldiers of King Idris’s small army march with Enfield No.4 Mk.I rifles during the 1950s. This WWII British rifle became Libya’s first standard longarm after it achieved independence. During 2011, the old 1950s flag seen here was again made Libya’s official flag.)

WWII weapons would again play a small role during the fighting between 2011 – 2020.

(A WWII American M1919A6 machine gun in action near a burned-out T-62 during the overthrow of Quadaffi.)

(A WWII Soviet DP-28 light machine gun in use during the Libyan Civil War of the 2010s.)

(A young Libyan irregular poses with a Carcano Moschetto da Cavalleria M-91 during 2011. He told the photographer that he believed it was “an old American gun” but none the less knew how to properly use it. This WWII Italian carbine was surprisingly represented during the 2010s civil war in Libya.) (photo via NPR)

cruiser Nürnberg: post-WWII service

The most famous German surface warship to survive WWII was the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, studied by the US Navy after WWII and then expended as a nuclear target.

The only large WWII German warship to see active duty in its intended role during the Cold War was the light cruiser Nürnberg, which served on in the Soviet navy.

(The light cruiser Nürnberg of the WWII German navy.)

(The Soviet light cruiser Admiral Makarov, the former Nürnberg, during the mid-1950s.)

Bedcheck Charlie 1950 – 1953

The Korean War’s air combat is best known for the duels of MiG-15s and F-86 Sabres in the world’s first jet-vs-jet matchups. An unusual sideshow to that was North Korea’s use of woefully obsolete WWII types as night harassment planes. They were called “Bedcheck Charlies” by the Americans.

(North Korean Po-2 “Mule” which was used as a Bedcheck Charlie plane, just as the Soviets had done during WWII.) (artwork via Wings Palette website)

(The MBR-2bis, another WWII Soviet plane used by the North Koreans for Bedcheck Charlie missions.)

(Two of the WWII-legacy American answers to the problem: a F4U-5NL Corsair and in the background, a F7F-3N Tigercat.)

Albania & the last Mosin-Nagants made

The last country to produce new Mosin-Nagants was perhaps the most obscure player in Cold War-era Europe, Albania. There a small run of this rifle was made in the early 1960s, a decade and a half after WWII ended and the world (including Albania itself) had already moved on to more modern firearms.

(Albanian-manufactured Mosin-Nagant 91/30 rifle, the final production run of this legendary WWII rifle.) (photo via Armslist website)

(Enver Hoxha, the WWII guerilla who would become Albania’s dictator from 1944 – 1985.)

(Mosin-Nagant M44s being looted by an Albanian civilian during the 1997 chaos.) (Associated Press photo)

The Cold War-era Albanian military overall was a blend of different generations (including WWII) of weapons serving alongside one another.