Hi all,
Probably a question asked before. But why is the MKB42(H) in a game about Stalingrad? The first 1500 MKB42's were sent late April 1943 for testing in six divisions from (HGr. Nord):
1. Inf.Div.
11. Inf.Div.
21.Inf.Div.
93.Inf.Div.
212 Inf.Div.
18 Inf.Div.(mot)
While the battle of Stalingrad ended on the 2nd of February 1943. Will it only be on the later battles?
You see, that's what the supply officers
think happened...
Actually, a certain Hauptsturmfuhrer Heinz was drunk on schnapps while on leave in November of 1942, staggered around the streets of Suhl, Germany, and stumbled across a truck parked outside the United Suhl-Zella Mehlis Armament Makers plant and guarded by six sentries. The sentries, catching sight of Heinz's pitiful state, made disparaging comments about his ability to hold his liquor, enraging him. An accomplished veteran of the Eastern Front, Heinz found little difficulty in beating up all six guards, the truck's driver, a hapless passing auto mechanic, and the weapons engineer overseeing the delivery. Suddenly tired after the physical exertion of the fight, he stole the truck rather than walk back to the city center.
Coming to his senses the next day, Heinz suddenly realized the implications of his actions. Opening the crates within the truck, he found no less than forty futuristic-looking combat rifles along with forty MP40 prototypes with side-by-side magazines. With remarkable clarity of planning despite his hungover state, Heinz admirable combined his two desires of removing the evidence of his theft while putting what he had found to good use. Using the top-level papers mandating priority transport for the truck's contents that he found inside the truck's cabin, Heinz drove straight to a rail yard shipping weapons to the East and ordered the rail personnel to transport them directly to his division near the Don. He emphasized to the old reservists manning the rail yard that due to the top-secret nature of the shipment, absolutely no records of the weapons' transport were to be created at any point.
At every rail station and during every cargo transfer along the way, the rail personnel carried out Heinz's instructions to the letter. In fact, at each stop, the crew of each successive train added details about the secretive officer who had delivered the weapons until, in Rostov, it was said that Albert Speer himself, accompanied by a platoon of Hitler's personal guard, had personally handed over the truck's contents.
By this time, Heinz's division was engaged in ferocious combat in the ruins of Stalingrad. They welcomed the secret weapons with open arms, and Heinz's grateful commander promptly issued them to the most outstanding fighters in the division. Upon Heinz's return several days behind the weapons he had sent, he was feted and lauded by his fellow soldiers, among whom the legend of Hauptsturmfuhrer Heinz's resourcefulness circulated orally even after his death in December until the division's final destruction in the Kessel several months later.
Since the truck driver, the six guards, the scientest, and the passing civilian had all been shot for failing to overcome a single completely drunk attacker, no written record of the incident remained.
Tripwire was told this story by an old Russian veteran who served at one of the POW camps for German soldiers from Stalingrad. He had heard it from the last surviving member of Heinz's company in 1944. I in turn peiced the details together from the diary of Heinz's landlady in Suhl as well as the journal of a Hiwi rail worker in Rostov.
On a more serious note, that's about the best historical explanation for the Mkb42's presence that you're going to get.
Honestly though, I'd never use the weapon as a German hero, and since I hated facing STG44s on Odessa in Ostfront so much as a Soviet, an enemy wielding an Mkb will simply be given higher priority on my to-bayonet list. It shouldn't make that much of an impact on the game.
