Sturmgewehr 44

The Sturmgewehr 44 or StG 44 was an assault rifle used by Germany during the last days of World War II. The idea was to cut down a rifle round to make it intermediate in power between a pistol round and a full powered rifle round. Hitler was skeptical at first, and forbid his generals from developing it. However some of them disobeyed him, calling it a machine pistol (which it was not) to get around the restriction. When Hitler was shown the completed prototypes, he realized that they might be useful.

The intermediate round proved useful because more ammunition could be carried and the rifle could be better controlled during fully automatic fire.

This assault rifle became the inspiration for most modern battle rifles such as the AK-47, the M-16, and the FN-FAL.

A surrounded German unit on the eastern front was once airdropped several thousand StG 44s. They were able to fight their way out to the west.