A converted German STG-44 assault rifle as an M16 rifle: NATO weapons in Soviet cinema

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A converted German STG-44 assault rifle as an M16 rifle: NATO weapons in Soviet cinema

Today, any self-respecting film studio for filming a film can get a dummy or replica of almost any rifle weapons, and not only small arms. There are entire production associations involved in the creation of high-quality "toys" that look more than believable on the movie screen. Moreover, there are inexhaustible possibilities of computer graphics capable of realizing any fantasy of the creative team in terms of weapons.

However, at the time, the situation was completely different. For example, when representatives of the Soviet cinema were faced with the task of making a film in which NATO weapons would appear, there were practically no easy ways to implement the plan. We went to all sorts of tricks, one of which was the "reworking" of the weapons at our disposal for the required samples.



One of these stories is connected with the introduction of the American M16 rifle in Soviet cinema and the cinema of the countries of the socialist camp. In 2022, by the way, it will be 60 years since it was put into service. There were no M16s from Soviet filmmakers in the 1960s and 70s for objective reasons. But credibility often became one of the basic principles of Soviet cinema.

In Soviet cinema, the problem with the absence of the M16 during filming was solved as follows: they made an order for the conversion of the German STG-44 for the movie screen, of which there were many samples in the Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War.

Details of the implementation of this idea, as well as where exactly in Soviet films the weapon appeared, which was presented as an American M16 rifle - on the Truth of Life channel:

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    1. +5
      18 January 2022 07: 52
      I forgot in which movie the "remake", "Mercedes" was cast ... like 1942 ...
      1. +2
        18 January 2022 08: 11
        And gymnasts from Yudashkin - with a neckline.
        1. +1
          18 January 2022 11: 05
          Quote: mag nit
          And gymnasts from Yudashkin - with a neckline.

          And most importantly, women have skirts, the shorter, the apparently "patriotic" ... laughing
          And at the expense of the "shturmgever" in our films, there is such a film "Kibalchish Malchish", if I'm not mistaken, "Odessa Film Studio", they simply removed the stores from them and handed it in rubles to the "bourgeois troops"


          , and even managed to jam a bayonet-knife on some of them

      2. +3
        18 January 2022 08: 26
        Do not watch these remake films ... with rare exceptions, they show such nonsense ... you think that directors cannot shoot a real war without a hangover.
        Although you can raise a documentary chronicle of the war, use computer graphics on its basis ... you can use military equipment from the collections of rarity lovers.
        Recently I watched a video of the flights of the restored I-16 and MIG-3, IL-2 ... beauty ... all this can be used in the filming of military films.
        1. -1
          18 January 2022 08: 40
          Quote: Lech from Android.
          Recently I watched a video of the flights of the restored I-16 and MIG-3, IL-2 ... beauty ... all this can be used in the filming of military films.

          did the donkey really fly? ... I would give a lot to see ... and how it fires from ShKAS ... in general ...
          1. +2
            18 January 2022 11: 32
            I actually flew in tandem with the MIG-3 ... type in a search engine on YouTube like a video.
        2. +2
          18 January 2022 12: 22
          Quote: Lech from Android.
          you can use military equipment from the collections of rarities lovers.

          You can ... only this half the budget of the film can cost ...
          As far as I understand, the Tiger, originally built for the White Tiger, was not filmed precisely because of financial issues.
          Somewhere it came across that the graphics of tanks from Panfilov’s the usual the film would have pulled out by about 30% of the cost of the film
      3. +3
        18 January 2022 08: 53
        You can find a lot of blunders in films. Like there are good fellows with bows and swords protecting the earth from the adversary. On the road and against the background of poles with electric wires. Or a film something like a Tatar-Mongol defeated in the Carpathians. Rocks entered the gorge, collapsed into the river and drowned. Something like this. Huge boulders are thrown on them, they roll down the slope, fall into the river and .... swam. I watched this movie several times and this scene was never cut.
        There is no need to talk about modern films about the war. In the concentration camp, the prisoners are pot-bellied, all the girls in the war with thin fingers are oiled to the very worst, with puffed up lips. And what's going on with weapons ...... so the example given with disguise as an M-16 looks very, very good.
    2. +3
      18 January 2022 08: 19
      This device also appeared in the movie "A case squared 36-80".
      1. +2
        18 January 2022 09: 01
        And in "Pirates of the XNUMXth century" too.
      2. +1
        18 January 2022 20: 28
        Absolutely.

        And what to do if there was nothing suitable in the arsenal of Mosfilm, and they got out as best they could. As far as I remember, the real M16 first appeared on the screen in the film "Centaurs" and that was the only one for the entire film, and Mosfilm too. request
    3. +7
      18 January 2022 08: 24
      Yes, they didn’t bother with such trifles in the USSR in the cinema ....

      It would be a desire - in Africa by this moment any rifleman could be found. Absolutely any ..
      And change it to Kalash from the locals ...
      And there was also Vietnam - where, too, obviously a lot of things were abandoned during the flight of the United States ....
      It’s just that filmmakers didn’t want to bother and bow to MO ...

      And in general, the attitude towards technology as memory was so-so in the USSR
      In the 1970s, I was with relatives near Kursk - so there the forest a few kilometers from the village was clogged with German equipment. Moreover, apparently there was no fuel ... and in 1981 there was nothing left, the bro said - they cut it into metal.
      1. +2
        18 January 2022 09: 56
        Yes, they didn’t bother with such trifles in the USSR in the cinema.

        I agree with you. In many films, you can see post-war tanks like the T-54 depicting German ones, and this did not particularly affect the artistic value of the film.
        In modern films, there are much more blunders, they save on military consultants, the artistic value of films tends to zero, with rare exceptions.
        1. -1
          18 January 2022 11: 50
          There are much more blunders in modern films, they save on military consultants
          - a moot point, at least Krazy, Maza, Urals do not actually depict German equipment, and the Germans do not have heavy tanks in the battles of 41-42. And everything else from the region - "in our time, the grass was greener and the girls were sweeter" ...
        2. +2
          18 January 2022 12: 18
          Quote: glory1974
          save on military consultants

          What's the point that in the USSR - NOT did you save on consultants? If the attack in the type of June 1941 went well on both sides, if 34-85 - very often 44 or even 54 ...
          In some movie of the early 1980s - in general, 34-85 went in front and behind for extras T-72 belay like 1943 ....
          MTLB was part of the Kwantung Army ...
          Airplanes are generally a pipe ...
          There were no consultants in 17 moments? Were! And the Germans laughed at the blunders - of which there are an abyss in the film. It seems that the consultants should exclude blunders, but no ...

          Soviet films turned out good - from the life experience of the actors. If they themselves did not fight, they were so hungry in the rear.
          Memories like this don't play well...
          Well, the skill of directors, of course.
          And if it didn’t grow together, it turned out to be an ordinary gray film "about the war" - which you can’t even remember now


          And now it does not work precisely because of the lack PERSONAL memory of the event and the directors who caught the event ....
        3. 0
          18 January 2022 18: 40
          Glory, plus 100500! I recently rewatched "In War, Like in War", but I don't care what smoke is in the background of T54 and Grada, the film is super.
    4. 0
      18 January 2022 09: 58
      Converted German STG-44 assault rifle as an M16 rifle

      Our filmmakers, probably not knowing this, have gone the way of Eugene Stoner, remaking the stormtrooper in the M-16. Such are the metamorphoses of history.
      1. 0
        19 January 2022 12: 30
        m16 has more in common with fg42 than with stg44
    5. +2
      18 January 2022 11: 21
      The only thing I can say is that they succeeded. Now you don’t need a lot of mind, any whim, for your money. But here’s what’s strange ... where did the quality of the films themselves go? It would seem that here you have both air battles and tank battles and a clean uniform, with a snow-white collar, current from the laundry .. Here, just now on the Victory Day channel, I watched the "film" "Dugout", it was so impressive that they took the fairy tale "Teremok" as the basis for the script " laughing
    6. 0
      20 January 2022 08: 46
      come on, everyone in the world sins with this. I recently watched an American film about the German offensive in the Ardennes. Filmed in the late 60s. There is no word about the fact that Stalin saved them there. But we are talking about technology. So there they painted crosses on American tanks and called them "tigers" and a mustache! But the most interesting thing on the other hand, they fought exactly the same but with white stars. They got out, just like Ukrainians. "What I also liked there was the armored tank radio stations. The tank was smashed to pieces, but the wounded American tank commander informs the tank RS authorities about the losses .... laughing
    7. Kaw
      0
      20 January 2022 14: 36
      It turns out that the French army was armed with self-loading rifles until the 70s?

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