The rarest weapon in CoD: Vanguard could hardly have been worse in truth

Call of Duty: Vanguard offers a wrong world for assault rifles. Because one of the worst weapons is touted as a top tier weapon. Find out here on MeinMMO the tragic story behind the “Volkssturmgewehr”.

There are seven assault rifles in CoD Vanguard’s multiplayer mode. The last of these that you unlock at the maximum level of the regular ranks is the “Volkssturmgewehr”. So it is the very last weapon in the release version that you unlock in the game.

Indeed, the weapon, affectionately known by the players as “Volk”, is quite solid. It plays a bit like a hybrid between an assault rifle and a submachine gun, is very mobile and only has to deal with a powerful recoil.

But with this top-tier weapon in particular, the developers have allowed themselves a great deal of artistic freedom. Because the weapon was completely different in reality than it is shown in the game. It also has to do with one of the many tragic chapters of WWII. (The basis of the cover picture comes from Wikipedia)

Who is writing here? Jürgen Horn is not only a shooter fan, but also a great history nerd. He is particularly familiar with the history of World War II and therefore Jürgen was amazed at the strange design decisions for the weapons in CoD Vanguard right from the start. The aim of this article is to shed some light on the background to one of the weapons in the game.

Top-Gun in Vanguard was actually a cheap weapon for the tragic last line-up

What did the gun look like in real life? The deviations from the real version of the weapon start with the fact that there was no specific “Volkssturmgewehr”.

Rather, several variants were made with this name, including simplified variants of the Kar98 carbine (the “people’s carbine”) and even cheap replicas of the British submachine gun Sten (MP 3008).

What is known in the game as the “Volkssturmgewehr” was actually the so-called “Volkssturmgewehr-Spezial”, also known as the Volksgewehr, “VG 1-5” or “VG-45”, where VG stands for “Volksgewehr” as well “Experimental device” can stand. It was manufactured from the end of 1944 by the Nazi armory of the Willhelm-Gustloff-Werke in Berlin.

The weapon was – unlike in the game – not a real assault rifle, but rather an “assault carbine”. So a semi-automatic weapon that should allow several quick single shots without manual reloading.

Fully automatic shooting, as with the MP40 or the STG44 (the first real assault rifle), was not a very good idea due to the high recoil of this weapon. The name “Volkssturmgewehr” should be read more as “Volkssturm rifle” instead of “Volkssturmgewehr”.

The Volkssturmgewehr was not intended to be a new miracle weapon either, but was part of the so-called “Primitive Weapons Program”. This stipulated that in the event of extreme scarcity of resources, simple but functional weapons could still be built in series.

For this reason, various “Volkssturmgewehr” were built, most of which were to be produced in large numbers from parts of existing weapons with as little manufacturing effort as possible.

The recipient of these weapons was the so-called Volkssturm, one of the last, tragic chapters of World War II.

The sad story behind the Volkssturmgewehr

What was the Volkssturm? The so-called “Volkssturm” was one of the last desperate attempts by the Nazis to somehow turn the impending defeat into a kind of “tie”.

Through a Reich law, all male persons in the Reich between the ages of 16 (!) And 60 who were still capable of carrying arms were gradually obliged to join a kind of national militia.

According to Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the Volkssturm was to once again demonstrate to the Allies advancing on all fronts the “fanatical will to win of the German people” in a final, heroic rebellion.

One should inflict such severe losses on the enemy that in the end they would still engage in peace negotiations that were profitable for the empire.

In order to achieve this absurd goal, the Volkssturm troops were armed with everything that the armaments industry of the 3rd Reich could still produce.

The Wehrmacht, however, refused to waste its already scarce, high-quality weapons on poorly trained and militarily unsuitable militias made up of young people and old men.

Therefore, the above-mentioned “Volkssturmgewehr” had to serve as armament for this last undertaking of a dying regime, which was doomed to extinction.

Because, of course, the Nazis’ plan did not work out in any way. The poorly trained and armed forces of the Volkssturm could hardly achieve any military success. Many militias threw their Volkssturm rifles away after the first exchange of fire with the advancing Allies and surrendered.

The goal of creating a “heroic last contingent”, which at the moment of fall still fought for the turn of the war, could in no way be achieved. On the other hand, thousands lost their lives in a time of war when everything was actually already lost.

Over 170,000 Volkssturm men are believed to have died and since many refused to senselessly sacrifice their lives for a lost cause, there were also many executions shortly before the end of the war.

Against this background, the “honor” of the Volkssturmgewehrs as the supposed top weapon in CoD Vanguard is actually quite macabre.