http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forgotten-weapons After the Mp44/StG44 Sturmgewehr was starting to see substantial production and field use, the German military and the Mauser company began working on a way to simplify production of the weapon. The design for the Gerät 06H actually began with the Gerät 03, an attempt to make a roller-locked G43 rifle in 8x57mm. An accident with automatic fire and bolt bounce sparked the idea of roller-delayed blowback, and Mauser engineers incorporated this concept into a rifle in the same layout as the StG-44 and using the 8x33mm cartridge. The Gerät 06H would successfully complete early prototype trials, and was ordered to be fully developed, with the designation StG-45(M). The next step in the process was to make a small batch of guns for extended trials. A total of 30 more guns were ordered, but they were not completed by the time US troops began threatening to overrun the Mauser complex at Oberndorf. All the most valuable material at the factory was packed into a train with the intent of reassembling the factory in a secret cave in the Austrian Alps. The train left Mauser on the night of April 21/22 1945, with the incomplete sets of StG45(M) parts aboard. US and British military intelligence men found the train in June, and took the parts into custody. Eventually, imprisoned Mauser staff held in the Netherlands would be put to work assembling some of these rifles so they could be tested by Allied governments. The roller-delayed blowback system would find its way to Spain with a number of former Mauser men, where it was developed into the CETME rifle and adopted by Spain. The Heckler & Koch company was formed to continue this work when arms development again became legal in Germany, and the system would see massive worldwide use as the G3 rifle, MP5 submachine gun, and many other derivative weapons designs. The rifle in this video was a set of