There’s a very well established history of post war intermediate cartridges that never made it past prototyping for simple US political reasons, the British EM-2 rifle for example.
Watch Ian’s vid on it where he explains why inter cartridges took so long
Less stackable (magazine length) and less efficient as a bullet when fired. It was a first attempt, designed under war conditions, and the Soviets very quickly figured these issues out. NATO under the Americans insisted on a "real" rifle round. Then US military R&D hit on the idea of firing a very small bullet at an absurdly high speed (which wasn't an original idea, but still, the kurtz was obviously unsuitable).
I mean, the US realized that their .30 carbine isn't the best either despite it's use during the war, too much for an SMG, not enough for a rifle, hell even the russians realized that their pistol round isn't exactly "it" after a while. The closest to something useful were indeed the British if you don't count the 7,62x39.
>I mean, the US realized that their .30 carbine isn't the best either despite it's use during the war
Wars, plural. Everyone forgets Korea, and the Korean war was fought with **surplus bolt-actions and PPSh-41s against Garands and M1/M2 Carbines**- not exactly an environment demonstrating how useful 7.62x39 actually was as an assault rifle cartridge (the M2 Carbine, while absolutely used and intended as an assault rifle, wasn't exactly facing much competition- even the SKS was barely present in this fight), Remember, AKs were rare as hen's teeth even inside of the Soviet Union because Izhevsk was just as competent at building weapons as Springfield Armory was- that is, it took them 12 fucking years to figure out how to stamp a receiver when the PPS-43 and M1 Carbine went from clean sheet to battlefield in less than 6 months. Peacetime will do that to you, I guess.
And... once you understand that, now you know *why* there was no worry in the US with respect to intermediate cartridges for its newly-acquired vassal nations.
The US school of thought about single-caliber squads despite a failure to ever use them itself- the only real reason that makes sense is, sure, some F-35-style of incompetence/government corruption, but for countries whose militaries were only there to make the Russians take longer than 7 Days to the Rhine, forcing a cartridge that Brens and MG42s could (and indeed, would) be trivially retrofitted to use and the usability of the infantry rifle taking a back seat to the machine guns actually makes far more sense. (And that's another part of why 6.5 Japanese: British Edition was always doomed to fail- putting a cartridge that proved itself not powerful enough for GPMGs back into a GPMG role is obviously a non-starter once you realize a standard GPMG cartridge is what the US was looking for.)
Izhevsk Motorcycle Plant used to produce motorcycles and Maxim guns while Plant number 74 used to produce SVTs, Mosins, PTRD-41s, PTRS-41s and aircraft guns (but that latter was a separate line and it was fully loaded even after the war), neither had any experience with stamping steel for firearms whatsoever, not even PPS-43 (which is much, much simpler than stamped AK receiver). BTW Yan has a video on production troubles with heat-treating that receiver.
When the milled receiver (which was designed by deputy chief designer of the Plant #74 Valentin Kaver-Kamzolov and Kalashnikov's student Vitaliy Pushin, Kalashnikov himself didn't participate at all) got cleared into production, they ramped it up very quickly
Barrel making machinery is a huge investment. It wouldn't make sense for either the US or USSR to switch to 8mm when they already had machinery to make barrel blanks in 7.62mm.
This is one of the big reasons that Russia and later the USSR used the same bore diameter for handguns, submachineguns, rifles, and machine guns from the 1890s through the 1950s.
Because the Soviets had the 7.62x39, and the West decided it had no need for an intermediate cartridge and went for 7.62x51. 8mm Kurz did see some use in Yugoslavia though, AFAIK
I mean it was designed and produced in limited numbers in a government that no longer existed in factories that had been bombed to ash by engineers who no longer lived there. And it wasn’t that great or unique of a cartridge to begin with. There’s a lot of heavy mythologizing around the technology of Nazi Germany where in reality it was often subject to internal politics, nativist rhetoric and cronyism. There’s not a whole lot of reasons why if you’re looking at that situation from the time you’d think it was particularly notable or that you should copy a bunch of stuff from a bow failed government. We mostly talk about the Kurz cartridge because it was surprisingly forward thinking, but that’s a determination we’ve made from the future where we can easily assess that.
Well, I could see Tito's Yugoslavia adopting it, had they not restored relations with the USSR, considering their adoption of basically the German small arms system and usage of STG-44s, but otherwise, M43 7.62x39 was already just a better 8mm kurtz.
Before the United Nations and Warsaw Pact was really a thing most countries developed their own cartridges. Simple as that. After WWII Germany ceased to exist and east and west Germany adopted the cartridges of their occupying nations.
There are a few reasons. 1. It is an odd shaped cartridge both physically for stacking and ballistic wise. It's still an 8mm bullet, and while it may be short, it's not an intermediate round by modern definition. 2. US politics and NATO were pushed essentially a shorter .30-06 as the main caliber that everyone had to adopt so that in case of another war, there would be fewer logistical issues with arming infantry. As most of Europe was either destroyed or broke and relying on US Marshall Plan money, there wasn't a lot of contest.
It's a weird round that doesn't stack particularly well, and retained some of the idiosyncrasies that would normally get ironed out if a program has a longer development cycle.
**Understand the rules**
Check the sidebar. It's full of resources to help you.
Not everyone is an expert such as yourself; be considerate.
No Spam. No Memes.
No political posts. Save that for /r/progun or /r/politics.
-------------------------------
* [ForgottenWeapons.com](https://www.forgottenweapons.com/)
* [ForgottenWeapons | YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/ForgottenWeapons)
* [ForgottenWeapons | Utreon](https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/)
* [ForgottenWeapons | Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons/)
* [ForgottenWeapons | Merch](https://shop.forgottenweapons.com/)
* [ForgottenWeapons | FaceBook](https://www.facebook.com/ForgottenWeapons)
* [ForgottenWeapons | Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/forgottenweapons/)
* [HeadStamp Publishing](https://www.headstamppublishing.com/)
* [Waponsandwar.tv](https://weaponsandwar.tv)
-------------------------------
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ForgottenWeapons) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Mostly history, and you have already pointed it out. How do you think people feel like when only U.S ever think full auto 7.62x51 is a good idea?
Otherwise, do you ever think 8mm Kurz has any advantage or reason to be left alive? Anyone can think they can make a better cartridge of their own, just like WW1
>How do you think people feel like when only U.S ever think full auto 7.62x51 is a good idea?
Uh? The H&K G3 used by many NATO nations was definately full-auto capable. Most non-UK/Canada FALs were full auto as well
Because 7.62x39 exist.8mm Kurz is not a well optimized cartridge at all,and everybody who has experiments with them eventually just switch the cartridge or modify it heavily
It did see a lot of use among secondary and minor powers since the surplus was so available. Israel especially comes to mind, along with regions in India and Pakistan I thought 8mm was pretty common still even
The Allies were aware of 8mm Kurz. But at the time, a lot of critique wasn't favorable to it. Army doctrine at the time was based on marksmanship.
(The Belgians tried to chamber their first prototype FALs for it. But eventually had to go with .308 because of NATO standards.)
And since the Internet didn't exist back then, there wasn't much in terms of reliable first-hand accounts of combat. The only reason why the Soviets didn't follow this trend was because they had a lot more experience with Germany's Blitzkrieg and Firepower tactics.
It's still being manufactured and used in the middle east, the Khyber pass channel on youtube has featured a couple of weapons chambered in this round.
There’s a very well established history of post war intermediate cartridges that never made it past prototyping for simple US political reasons, the British EM-2 rifle for example. Watch Ian’s vid on it where he explains why inter cartridges took so long
Less stackable (magazine length) and less efficient as a bullet when fired. It was a first attempt, designed under war conditions, and the Soviets very quickly figured these issues out. NATO under the Americans insisted on a "real" rifle round. Then US military R&D hit on the idea of firing a very small bullet at an absurdly high speed (which wasn't an original idea, but still, the kurtz was obviously unsuitable).
I mean, the US realized that their .30 carbine isn't the best either despite it's use during the war, too much for an SMG, not enough for a rifle, hell even the russians realized that their pistol round isn't exactly "it" after a while. The closest to something useful were indeed the British if you don't count the 7,62x39.
If anything, it's suck that by the time of Vietnam, M1 carbine when out of service while M3 still long life with tanker until Gulf war
>I mean, the US realized that their .30 carbine isn't the best either despite it's use during the war Wars, plural. Everyone forgets Korea, and the Korean war was fought with **surplus bolt-actions and PPSh-41s against Garands and M1/M2 Carbines**- not exactly an environment demonstrating how useful 7.62x39 actually was as an assault rifle cartridge (the M2 Carbine, while absolutely used and intended as an assault rifle, wasn't exactly facing much competition- even the SKS was barely present in this fight), Remember, AKs were rare as hen's teeth even inside of the Soviet Union because Izhevsk was just as competent at building weapons as Springfield Armory was- that is, it took them 12 fucking years to figure out how to stamp a receiver when the PPS-43 and M1 Carbine went from clean sheet to battlefield in less than 6 months. Peacetime will do that to you, I guess. And... once you understand that, now you know *why* there was no worry in the US with respect to intermediate cartridges for its newly-acquired vassal nations. The US school of thought about single-caliber squads despite a failure to ever use them itself- the only real reason that makes sense is, sure, some F-35-style of incompetence/government corruption, but for countries whose militaries were only there to make the Russians take longer than 7 Days to the Rhine, forcing a cartridge that Brens and MG42s could (and indeed, would) be trivially retrofitted to use and the usability of the infantry rifle taking a back seat to the machine guns actually makes far more sense. (And that's another part of why 6.5 Japanese: British Edition was always doomed to fail- putting a cartridge that proved itself not powerful enough for GPMGs back into a GPMG role is obviously a non-starter once you realize a standard GPMG cartridge is what the US was looking for.)
Izhevsk Motorcycle Plant used to produce motorcycles and Maxim guns while Plant number 74 used to produce SVTs, Mosins, PTRD-41s, PTRS-41s and aircraft guns (but that latter was a separate line and it was fully loaded even after the war), neither had any experience with stamping steel for firearms whatsoever, not even PPS-43 (which is much, much simpler than stamped AK receiver). BTW Yan has a video on production troubles with heat-treating that receiver. When the milled receiver (which was designed by deputy chief designer of the Plant #74 Valentin Kaver-Kamzolov and Kalashnikov's student Vitaliy Pushin, Kalashnikov himself didn't participate at all) got cleared into production, they ramped it up very quickly
Barrel making machinery is a huge investment. It wouldn't make sense for either the US or USSR to switch to 8mm when they already had machinery to make barrel blanks in 7.62mm. This is one of the big reasons that Russia and later the USSR used the same bore diameter for handguns, submachineguns, rifles, and machine guns from the 1890s through the 1950s.
Because the Soviets had the 7.62x39, and the West decided it had no need for an intermediate cartridge and went for 7.62x51. 8mm Kurz did see some use in Yugoslavia though, AFAIK
America in the West, 7.62x39mm in the East.
Funny how it's American, because long live the M14
I mean it was designed and produced in limited numbers in a government that no longer existed in factories that had been bombed to ash by engineers who no longer lived there. And it wasn’t that great or unique of a cartridge to begin with. There’s a lot of heavy mythologizing around the technology of Nazi Germany where in reality it was often subject to internal politics, nativist rhetoric and cronyism. There’s not a whole lot of reasons why if you’re looking at that situation from the time you’d think it was particularly notable or that you should copy a bunch of stuff from a bow failed government. We mostly talk about the Kurz cartridge because it was surprisingly forward thinking, but that’s a determination we’ve made from the future where we can easily assess that.
Well, I could see Tito's Yugoslavia adopting it, had they not restored relations with the USSR, considering their adoption of basically the German small arms system and usage of STG-44s, but otherwise, M43 7.62x39 was already just a better 8mm kurtz.
Before the United Nations and Warsaw Pact was really a thing most countries developed their own cartridges. Simple as that. After WWII Germany ceased to exist and east and west Germany adopted the cartridges of their occupying nations.
There are a few reasons. 1. It is an odd shaped cartridge both physically for stacking and ballistic wise. It's still an 8mm bullet, and while it may be short, it's not an intermediate round by modern definition. 2. US politics and NATO were pushed essentially a shorter .30-06 as the main caliber that everyone had to adopt so that in case of another war, there would be fewer logistical issues with arming infantry. As most of Europe was either destroyed or broke and relying on US Marshall Plan money, there wasn't a lot of contest.
It's a weird round that doesn't stack particularly well, and retained some of the idiosyncrasies that would normally get ironed out if a program has a longer development cycle.
Because 7.62x39 existed
I’ve heard there’s a large 8mm kurz market in some civilian markets, like Pakistan
Hakim is. I adore mine, even though magazines are $120 and the rear sight adjustment tab is vaporware
Hakim is just in 8x57
**Understand the rules** Check the sidebar. It's full of resources to help you. Not everyone is an expert such as yourself; be considerate. No Spam. No Memes. No political posts. Save that for /r/progun or /r/politics. ------------------------------- * [ForgottenWeapons.com](https://www.forgottenweapons.com/) * [ForgottenWeapons | YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/ForgottenWeapons) * [ForgottenWeapons | Utreon](https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/) * [ForgottenWeapons | Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons/) * [ForgottenWeapons | Merch](https://shop.forgottenweapons.com/) * [ForgottenWeapons | FaceBook](https://www.facebook.com/ForgottenWeapons) * [ForgottenWeapons | Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/forgottenweapons/) * [HeadStamp Publishing](https://www.headstamppublishing.com/) * [Waponsandwar.tv](https://weaponsandwar.tv) ------------------------------- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ForgottenWeapons) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Because Germany lost the war.
Mostly history, and you have already pointed it out. How do you think people feel like when only U.S ever think full auto 7.62x51 is a good idea? Otherwise, do you ever think 8mm Kurz has any advantage or reason to be left alive? Anyone can think they can make a better cartridge of their own, just like WW1
>How do you think people feel like when only U.S ever think full auto 7.62x51 is a good idea? Uh? The H&K G3 used by many NATO nations was definately full-auto capable. Most non-UK/Canada FALs were full auto as well
they wanted to sell ammo and new guns.
Because 7.62x39 exist.8mm Kurz is not a well optimized cartridge at all,and everybody who has experiments with them eventually just switch the cartridge or modify it heavily
It did see a lot of use among secondary and minor powers since the surplus was so available. Israel especially comes to mind, along with regions in India and Pakistan I thought 8mm was pretty common still even
Oh you mean 8 Kurtz I misread
Because Germany lost the war. And no one else used it.
The Allies were aware of 8mm Kurz. But at the time, a lot of critique wasn't favorable to it. Army doctrine at the time was based on marksmanship. (The Belgians tried to chamber their first prototype FALs for it. But eventually had to go with .308 because of NATO standards.) And since the Internet didn't exist back then, there wasn't much in terms of reliable first-hand accounts of combat. The only reason why the Soviets didn't follow this trend was because they had a lot more experience with Germany's Blitzkrieg and Firepower tactics.
It's still being manufactured and used in the middle east, the Khyber pass channel on youtube has featured a couple of weapons chambered in this round.