Gun Sabotage

[Larry Lewyn]

I did some machining back in the day, before they had computer controls. I remember manufacturing aircraft parts by hand. In those days, Starett was a first class outfit. We worked to tolerances of .001 and less. Everything was done by eye and hand, mills, grinding, lathes, all sorts of machine tool operations. What you are describing sounds like a bad dream. In my day, the first thing you did was learn to file, using an aluminum block. It had to be straight and true. My father told me that in Germany, they did the same, but they used a 3 inch cube of steel. He said it was not uncommon for the blocks to be reduced by half an inch by the time the student produced a cube acceptable to their teachers.

 

[Jenrick]

We did the same exercise when I took some metals classes at school. We started out with a piece of round stock, marked a square out in the center, and proceed to make a perfect square. Then we got a thicker piece of stock, and had to get a cube from that. The worst was having to make a square pyramid starting from stock, and then in another piece, create a hole so that it sat perfectly halfway down the pyramid like a skirt. That one just about drove me to tears.

-Jenrick

 

[Larry Lewyn]

Sounds like you had a teacher that knew what he was doing. Bet you know how to file.

 

[Larry Lewyn]

And let me guess. If you're wandering around a house and you see something that is not level or true, it bugs you.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Would it make more sense to sabotage ammunition instead? Does it have to be the firearms themselves?

Double charging every 10th, or every 100th cartridge would do more damage than anything.

 

[Jenrick]

Larry: I did, all of the instructors were old school crasftman. It was a good program. I wish had stuck with it.

My wifes a jeweler, I've got nothing on her for being bothered by something being off!

-Jenrick

 

[John Joseph]

Best if the sabotage happened during the packing for shipment stage of production, after the final inspection.

FWIW, in 'Nam, enemy ammo caches that were discovered were randomly sabotaged (Operation Fortunate Son IIRC.) Random rounds were messed with and then replaced. Probably more harmful to morale than anything else.

 

[John Joseph]

Say small critical parts could be taken out of stock, smuggled out and sabotaged off premises and later returned to stock might work for you.

 

[grampajack]

I researched this back in college for a paper one time, as it always interested me, and it's kind of a murky area. Historians all agree that it happened, but they debate whether it happened with enough frequency to have any impact on the war. For what it's worth, I never read about them sabotaging barrels. Every incidence I heard of involved sabotaging artillery shells. It gets even murkier though because it's unclear how much was sabotage, intentional that is, as opposed to plain old poor quality control due to them losing the war and running out of proper raw materials, combined with constantly abbreviating processes to turn out arms quicker.

 

[Elkins45]

Over hardening and under hardening would lead to field failures and can't be detected with the eye in production. The challenge would be to do it close enough to spec that the weapon would function properly for the first several uses and then fail in the field. Broken firing pins or bolt lugs due to over hardening and deformed lugs due to under hardening would take time, but disable the weapon. Doing the same to sling mounts would be more subtle, but a rifle that can't be slung because the mounts break or deform and pull out make it difficult to march with the rifle or use a sling for accurate fire.

I also think hardening errors would be the best way to insert a defect that isn't easily visible. Overhardening a barrel could make it brittle, but if well controlled it would take a few rounds before it shattered.

 

[svtruth]

Not a gunsmith, screenwriter, or WWII historian, but my $.02 is mess with the sears. Many of the range mishaps mentioned here over the years are due to slam fires, inadvertent full auto, etc.
Impairing accuracy won't really harm spray and pray suppressive fire, or real short range stuff.
Alternately, how about putting zero delay fuses in the hand grenades?
Good luck

 

[Larry Lewyn]

The characters in this story worked at the Gustav Genschow Waffenfabrik in Berlin. Apparently this company had ammo factories in other locations. Second hand anecdotal testimony is that they converted to a war footing during WWII and made rifle barrels. Most of the documented information I have been able to find on the internet is pre-war, so what happened during the war is anybody's guess. Since the testimony I am working with mentions machine tools consistent with gun manufacture, and is supported in other WWII book, I'm going to stick with the idea that the workers were dealing only with gun making.

 

[jamesinalaska]

I have read some about the sabotage conducted by slave labor in the german factories. Very interesting and very brave acts by those who could be quickly executed but were willing to take the risk.

Most of the accounts that I read it was the non-jews who were interred who had the greater freedom to engage in sabotage as their internments were more likely to be in and around the factories rather than the ghettos and the hard labor camps the Jews were assigned to. Also, the non-jewish prisoners were not watched as close, were trusted a little more, and did not have the deep racial hatred attached to them as the Jewish prisoners did.

All factories suffered from these acts of sabotage as people did what they could. I remember specifically one story of elderly lady laboring in a radio shop who would improperly wind or short the antenna coils of the radios they produced.

I hope your story goes well and thanks for the post.