"Guns turned against their supplying country?" Topic

I was recently glancing through the Osprey on the Anglo Iraqi war of 1941 . I was surprised to discover that not only did the British arm the Iraqi army, but the arms they gave them (Vickers, universal carriers etc) were cutting edge. Many of the British forces in the campaign were using outdated weapons, for example Indian regiments armed with outdated Hotchkiss guns. As the short campaign progressed they soon liberated better equipment, but were forced to return most of it once the campaign had finished.

Without venturing into politics or the present day Iraq conflict, can anyone name any other examples of a country equipping another with better weapons than it's own forces use and then having them used against them (and we're not talking material stolen from armouries here, but supplied properly). Or is this a unique example?

Cheers,

Andy

Finland did this throughout the late 1930's with their aircraft. The exported their newer, best fighters and retained the older models for their own air force. Even their air force had no idea why that was.

What aircraft did Finland make in the late 30s ????

In the '30s, although the Finns built a number of trainers and liaison aircraft, they were flying Gloster Gamecocks and Bristol Bulldogs in their combat units.

In the Winter War, the Finns were using Fokker D.XXIs, Fiat G.50s, Morane MS.406s, Bristol Blenheims and Gloster Gladiators.

In the Spring of '40, they received Brewster Buffalos and Hurricane Mk. Is.

In 1942, they received Me-109Gs and Curtis Hawk 75s (from captured French stores).

I don't believe any of these (aside from the trainers/liaison a/c) were even license built in Finland, let alone Finnish designs – and the small numbers of indigent a/c clearly indicate there were no outside sales going on. What a/c did the Finns build and sell to other countries?

Finland also did not produce any tanks, but made do with imports, captured Soviet stuff, and stuff that Germany sold to them at exorbitant prices.

In North Africa, the Germans and Italians routinely turned captured British equipment against them. As did the British.

They did produce artillery shells, but that is relatively low tech.

WW2 is full of examples of one side turning captured equipment on the other.

Didn't Krupp supply both sides in the FPW

AA: I was recently glancing through the Osprey on the Anglo Iraqi war of 1941 .

Wait. You say there's an Osprey on the Golden Square Intifadeh? Do tell. What's the series/number/author/title, please?

Didn't Krupp supply both sides in the FPW

Nope. Would not surprise me if you could find wars in which they did, possibly even against Prussian, but not the FPW.

Zippyfusenet,

As I said I've only glanced through it, but it seems to cover a lot of material on a theatre I hadn't previously heard of. If you can recommend any other readily available English language sources I'd be interested in expanding my library so let me know.

Osprey Campaign (165)
Iraq 1941
The battles for Basra, Habbaniya, Fallujah and Baghdad
by Robert Lyman
Published 2006
ISBN 1841769916

Thanks for the suggestions re: Finnish armaments.

I know Finland would have been fighting against the Germans in the Lapland War, but as far as I knew the armaments supplied by Germany would have been poorer technology than the latest stuff Germany had (a few Stug's and not much else as far as I know).

Did Finland actually manufacture planes, or have any of the best planes they manufactured and sold then used against them?

Also we're not talking about captured material here, but legitimate sales/supply. That's what I found really unusual about the situation in Iraq if you read my original post in full.

Cheers,

Andy

Sorry… I meant Poland, not Finland.

In the Lapland War, the Finns had StuGs, Me-109s,
PaK 40s, panzerfausts. Obviously not "poorer" technology.
I think they had a few PzIVs, but I don't think they made it to the front.

Hitler was leary of the Finns, and only sold them enough to keep them in the war against Russia. Even then, it took an emergency to get that much. The Fionns were so hampered by the armistice terms imposed by the Soviets in the Lapland War that they could not efficiently throw the
Germans out.

Not the suplying country exactly, but the supplying alliance, as China was supplied by Germany and Italy and used those supplies to fight the invading Japanese in the 1930s.

AFAIK during Operation Barbarossa in summer 1941, the Germans captured a good number of artillery pieces that had been built for the Soviet army by Rheinmetall.

Before the Falklands War, Argentine had been buying a number of SMGs from UK.

I read that the British used Krupps patented design shells during WW1, and had to pay a fee after the war.

From a book review posted on amazon:

"Perhaps the most cynical salute to profit is Krupp's ultimate negotiation of a £40,000 settlement in 1926 for patent royalties from Vickers for 640,000 shells the Brits fired at Germans in WW1 (Gustav insisted 4,160,000 shells were fired -- killing 2,080,000 German soldiers -- and £260,000 was due). Thus Krupp, the preeminent German weapons firm, was paid for the death of German soldiers in a lost war."

Griefbringer

The Argentine Navy also used British Type-42s and an ex-British aircraft carrier. Though the Type-42s were not 'better' than the RN ships in that the British also had them, they were certainly better / newer vessels than the average ships in the RN Task Force.

The Boers in 1899 were also equipped with a couple of dozen British-built 1-lb Maxim Pom-Pom guns – weapons which had not yet entered service with the British army.

Thanks for the reference AlbertaAndy. I didn't know Osprey had published that title. I'll have to track a copy down. I don't know of any other monograph on the Iraq campaign of 1941, just brief summaries in more general histories and a few accounts of particular events, like the siege of Halabbiya.

I'm about to order Naim Kattan Farewell Babylon/Coming of Age in Jewish Baghdad. According to the description, Kattan was a member of an Iraqi nationalist group in 1941, but was disappointed when the first thing Rashid Ali's rebels did was run to attack the Jewish Quarter in Baghdad. I hope Kattan's memoir will shed some light on those events, but it's no campaign history.

In the book "The Arms of Krupp" they detailed several times in history that Krupp may haver gotten into trouble for supplying the enemy. Selling heavy artillary to France shortly before WW1 was one example.

Maxim/Vickers guns (UK patent).

Used by both sides in WW1 aerial combat.

Thanks everyone for the interesting contributions so far. If anyone has any more to offer please keep them coming.

Zippyfusenet, thanks for the suggestion I'll have to track down a copy.

Many of the guns used against the Spanish troops in the Rif War had been supplied by Spain. The Native Police deserted in masse to the Riffians. They were equiped with Mausers, like the Spanish soldiers. Also many Spanish soldiers sold their ammunition to the Riffians before the hostilities started, to supplement their meager income allowance (pay was usually late, if they received at all!)

While they didn't actually supply both sides in WW1 Krupp did successfully sue the Allies afterwards for infringing their patent on proximity fuses.

On a much lighter note. While I was stationed in Germany we were attacked by Dutch marines during an exercise. When they noticed that we weren't returning fire they stopped and came across to ask why. We explained that our blank ammo hadn't arrived yet. They kindly lent us a couple of hundred rounds so we could join in the fun.

Private sources rather than government, but some Indians at Little Big Horn had repeating rifles while cavalry troopers had single-shot breach-loaders.

Prior to WWI,

Germany supplied the Russians will all kinds of stuff.

The German HMG (Maxim) was an designed by an American living in Britain. Germany was the first to order it in any quantity and this gun was later copied and produced in Germans -- royalties were paid to its American inventor.

Bavaria produced French Aircraft under license.

IIRC the German Mauser was widely and indiscriminately sold before the war.

mjc

A few more examples:
Middle East 1948: – British Spitfires Vs Egyptian ones.

French Indochina: – OSS provided small arms to the Viet Minh, who later used them against the French & subsequently the Americans. There were also a lot of US armaments provided to the Nationalist Chinese, subsequently appropriated by the Communist Chinese & then given to the Viet Minh. A lot of the guns used by the VM at Dien Bien Phu were of US origin.

Both the Hungarians & the Romanians used German provided equipment against their former allies after swapping sides in late WWII.

Occasionally it would be a component rather than the finished product – eg the prototype Bf 109 used a Rolls-Royce engine.

Andy/Irv,

The only other book I'm aware of that deals with Iraq is Chris Buckley's Five Ventures.

# Five Ventures (Iraq-Syria-Persia-Madgagascar-Dodecanese), Buckley, Christopher. London: HMSO, 1954

Greece bought 88mm AA guns from Germany prior to the war, and got to use them to shoot at the Luftwaffe in 1941.

Bulgaria built up an armored division in 1944 equipped with Pzkw IV tanks (among other tanks). By the time it was ready to fight, Bulgaria had changed sides, so the Germans got to face their own tanks. Here's a link: link

Grelber

Thanks for that Ray.

Here's a website I just ran across that analyzes the political background of the Uprising. From a hostile perspective, of course:

link

Guess the German Luger was produced under license or sold outright in many countries (including the USA).

mjc

The DC-3 aircraft was produced in Japan before the USA entered WWII. Japan had about 600 of them in their army/air force.

E.H.

Didn't the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II use Italian weapons against the Italians when they invaded Ethiopia in 1895?

Regards, the Gorb

Right up until the actual German invasion in 1940, the French continued to sell 47mm anti tank guns, 25mm anti tank guns and 25mm AA guns to a range of countries. This was despite France being at war and most importantly despite the French military being short of these weapons themselves. The official reason was that France needed the international funds to keep rolling in to pay for the war.

Of course when the Germans came rolling in, they must have realised how badly they needed those weapons themselves.

The AK-47?

It's not necessarily "a country equipping another with better weapons than it's own forces use" but there are plenty examples of "having them used against them" (as well as against others) and that's still true "Without venturing into politics or the present day Iraq conflict". So definitely within the spirit of the topic.

Wired Magazine, "Serial Killer: How the AK-47 Rewrote the Rules of Modern Warfare": link

Actually, I guess most examples in that article are of anti-state fighters acquiring their AK-47s either by stealing them from the state, or being supplied by the state's rivals, so they don't qualify for this topic. There are two cases though that fit. One involves present-day Iraq so I won't cite it. The other is:

Sadat Assassination, Egypt, 1981. Soldiers on parade turned their AKs—which the Egyptians had manufactured to strengthen the state—on their president, Anwar Sadat, killing him in full view of the world.

The Vichy French at Torch had P-36 Hawk's fighting the US Navy's F4F Wildcats. I think they also had some A-20 Havoc's as well.

Discovered last night that some South German states allied with Austria had Krupp 4pdrs in 1866.

I came by this golden old thread, and was reminded of the war between Vietnam and China in 1979.

Vietnam had been supplied with quite some weapons from China during the previous couple of decades, and I would presume a number of these found themselves being used against the Chinese forces in 1979.

Not exactly on point,but I believe the PPSH was copied from a Finnish original.

Also,Gorb was right,result of treaty negotiations from an earlier conflict, IIRC.

PPsH may have been inspired by the Finnish Suomi SMG, but it was original Soviet design – and easier to manufacture. There had also been another Soviet SMG designed in the 1930's, but it had only been manufactured in small numbers, since the Soviet military doctrine at the time did not see SMG as a real combat weapon.

The Little Bighorn 1876. Custer's men carried single-shot Springfield carbines. Over a third of the Indians carried Winchester repeating rifles.