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.)
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.)
During WWII the Mosin-Nagant was the Soviet army’s standard longarm. After WWII, all of the client communist nations in eastern Europe used it. The case of Romania is interesting in that its run predated WWII itself, and continued right to the end of the Cold War in 1989.
(Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine of Romania’s brief post-WWII production run.) (photo via National Rifle Association)
(“Instructie” stamp on a Romanian Mosin-Nagant.)
(Members of Romania’s Gărzile Patriotice (Patriotic Guards) march with WWII Mosin-Nagants during the 1970s.)
One of the more remarkable re-uses of WWII tanks was Bulgaria’s Krali Marko defensive line along its southeast border during the Cold War.
(Bulgarian Panzer IV and T-34 tanks.)
(T-34 turret in the Krali Marko Line.) (photo via uniconbg website)
(Panzer IV after being exhumed out of the Krali Marko Line during the 2010s.)
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.
The country of Yemen, currently (2018) in the midst of yet another civil war, has had a long involvement with guns of the WWII era. While the AK-47 is king of the battlefield, some old WWII weapons are still in use.
(The now somewhat-famous Yemeni “ripcord T-34” in November 2016.)
(Houthi fighters brandishing weapons in 2015, including to the left a WWII British Enfield No4 Mk.I rifle.)
Since starting wwiiafterwwii, I have wanted to do something on this topic but was unsure how to approach it. I am interested in how WWII weapons performed in battle against Cold War replacements. But also, it is fascinating to consider how they ended up where they did after WWII……how did a Garand built to fight Imperial Japan end up in the Somali desert in the 1970s, or how did a Waffen-SS sturmgewehr end up in 21st century Damascus?
(An ex-Wehrmacht NbW 42 Nebelwerfer with Interarms markings in the 1960s.)
The ongoing Syrian civil war, which began in March 2011, is of course dominated by Cold War-era (and even 21st century) weapons, however, there is an astonishing mix of WWII gear – both Axis and Allied – in use. Some of these weapons had previously not seen combat for decades.
(Syrian rebel with a WWII German StG-44 assault rifle.)
(Yugoslav-made M18/43F, a copy of the WWII German leFH 18M howitzer, in action with Jaish al-Fatah rebels.)
(A Syrian rebel with a WWII Mosin-Nagant 91/30 – retrofitted with a modern scope – takes aim in 2014.)
(Rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) distribute WWII French MAS-36 rifles.)
(Syrian government soldier with a WWII Soviet 61-K anti-aircraft gun in October 2015.)
(North Korean troops march with WWII PPSh–41 submachine guns in 2016.)
In North Korea’s formative years (1945-1949) it’s army’s weapons were entirely WWII vintage; a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and Soviet types. During the Korean War, the same was true, and in the immediate aftermath very obsolete Soviet guns and the ex-Japanese weaponry was discarded, but the others remained.
This is a look at WWII weapons in North Korean use after the Korean War and following the mass emergency rearmament the USSR and China undertook in the mid-1950s. It is not an exhaustive list, but rather some of the main types of WWII weapons that remained in use in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and even beyond; in some cases to the present time.
(North Korean T-34-85 tank filmed during 2012.)
In October 1983, the USA invaded the small island nation of Grenada, which at the time was being supported and reinforced by Cuba. Most of the weapons the American troops encountered were of post-WWII, Cold War vintage; namely a staggering quantity of AK-47s, but there were some WWII weapons discovered as well.
(Top: An A-7 Corsair II strike jet off USS Independence (CV-62) over Point Salines Airport, one of the focal points of the 1983 operation. Bottom: A WWII-vintage Enfield No.4 Mk.I rifle as used by the Grenadian military during the brief fighting.)
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