After WWII ended the French navy experimented with grafting German technology into new French naval weapons, with varied results.
(French navy personnel with a WWII German Junkers Ju-88 during postwar weapons tests at Fréjus-Saint Raphael, France.)
(The WWII German Hs-117 Schmetterling SAM and its postwar French naval offspring, the Maruca.)
With 4,000,000+ being made, the Enfield No.4 Mk.I is often considered the classical WWII British rifle. In the nation of Burma (today called Myanmar) it continues in use in the 2020s.
(British soldier in Bahe, Burma with Enfield No.4 rifle during WWII.)
(Myanmar National Police member with an Enfield No.4 rifle during 2016.)
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.)
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.)
The United States fielded many excellent warship designs during WWII: the Essex class aircraft carriers, the Iowa class battleships, the Sumner and Gearing classes of destroyer, and so on.
The Tacoma class patrol frigates were not in this category. Even before WWII ended the whole patrol frigate concept was viewed as a mistake within the US Navy.
Whatever their problems, these were still young warships when WWII ended in 1945. They were simple and inexpensive to operate. They were ideal for transfer to smaller navies friendly to the USA. One of these was Cuba, which received three.
(Máximo Gómez, formerly USS Grand Island (PF-14) of WWII.)
The final outcome of these transfers could not have been imagined in the early years after WWII, when the USA and Cuba had a strong defense partnership.
(Fidel Castro addresses the crew of one of his three Tacoma class frigates in August 1963, four years after seizing power in Cuba.) (photo via CubaHoy)
(Declassified in 2002, this CIA sitrep from the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis mentions two of Cuba’s Tacoma class ships.)
In 21st century military slang “maginot mentality” is a derogatory description of outdated strategies, particularly those centered on fixed fortifications. The term comes from France’s Maginot Line which during WWII, failed spectacularly to stop Germany from overrunning France.
Histories of the Maginot Line usually conclude with the French capitulation in 1940. However the Maginot Line actually came close to being partially reactivated after WWII, and still later some of the emplacements served on in secondary or repurposed roles, in one case into the new millennium.
(The Maginot Line ouvrage at Hochwald, during WWII and during the early 21st century.)
(A bloc of the Rochonvillers installation of the Maginot Line being “nuclear hardened” by new construction during 1982.) (photo via marblehome.com website)
Asroc and Katie were two methods of introducing nuclear weapons to WWII-era warships. One was fairly well thought-out and had a long run in service during the Cold War. The other did not and is remarkable for how unusual it was.
(A nuclear RUR-5 Asroc detonates near the WWII aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10) during 1962.) (photo via Federation of American Scientists)
(Blueprints for the 1950s modification to the WWII Iowa class battleships to enable them to fire 16″ nuclear shells.) (photo via Battleship New Jersey Museum)
The P-51 Mustang was one of WWII’s greatest fighters and one of the best era-adjusted fighter planes of all time. Within the American consciousness it is almost synonymous with WWII.
Decades after WWII and after the P-51 had left service as a fighter, the Mustang briefly “came back from the grave” to serve not in the US Air Force, but in the US Army.
(P-51 Mustang during WWII.)
(F-51D Mustang chase plane follows the Sikorsky YUH-60A prototype during the US Army’s UTTAS competition of 1976, seeking a replacement for the UH-1 Iroquois of Vietnam War fame. Sikorsky’s design defeated Boeing’s YUH-61 to win UTTAS and was developed into the UH-60 Blackhawk of today.) (official US Army photo)
(US Army F-51 Mustang during 1970s experiments with airborne recoilless rifles.)
Mexico’s WWII cañoneros had a very long run after WWII and after the concept had been forgotten elsewhere, stretching past the year 2000.
(ARM Durango during WWII.) (photo from All Hands, the US Navy’s magazine)
(ARM Durango late in the ship’s career, near the turn of the millennium.)
Strictly speaking, Belgium’s Mle. 50 rifle, a .30-06 Springfield Mauser-type design, does not belong here as it was a post-WWII weapon. As far as being unique, it was not the last bolt-action military rifle made after WWII, nor was it the only one using .30-06. None the less, it remains a forgotten “final bookend” of the bolt-action era which largely faded away with the end of WWII in 1945: It combined the USA’s WWII rifle cartridge, probably the best of the war, with the operating features of European rifles, like Germany’s 98k, which had dominated conflicts for half a century. This rifle was a last hurrah of WWII’s generation.
(FN Mle. 50 rifle.)
(A Congolese soldier with a Mle. 50 rifle during 1964.)
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