BIBLIOGRAFIA

SMITH, Walter H.B.

MAUSER WALTHER AND MANNLICHER FIREARMS

The Classic W.H.B.SMITH trilogy containing the following three books:

PART 1: MAUSER RIFLES AND PISTOLS (Ed.1954)

PART 2: WALTHER PISTOLS AND REVOLVERS (Ed.1962)

PART 3: MANNLICHER RIFLES AND PISTOLS (Ed.1947)

Stackpole Books (1971)

Il libro raccoglie in un’unico volume la ristampa di tre opere fondamentali di Smith:

PARTE 1: MAUSER RIFLES AND PISTOLS (Ed.1954)

PARTE 2: WALTHER PISTOLS AND REVOLVERS (Ed.1962)

PARTE 3: MANNLICHER RIFLES AND PISTOLS (Ed.1947)

WALTER SMITH INTRODUCTION

Walter Smith was a personal riddle, but when he had something to say about guns, you listened because for nearly 30 years there was no doubt among the firearms fraternity that he ranked first in knowledge of the world’s small arms, and expecially those conceived, designed and manufactured by Germans. Several times during World War II he confounded the War Departmentby producing samples of Axis military small arms that Military Intelligence didn’t even know existed. Of course Smith never revealed how he did it, and yet his loyalty to the United States was never questioned.

MAUSER RIFLES AND PISTOLS - 1954

It wasn’t until 1946 that his first book dealing exclusively with German manufacturers was published. Mauser Rifles and Pistols went through five printings, the last of which appears in this trilogy. While it contains invaluable technical detail, one of Smith’s purposes at the time was to present a detailed study of german small arms development so that politicians, statesmen and economists could see how this one facet of militaristic evolution affected world history. Its popularity, though, came from all corners of the gun world collectors, military ordnance, hunters, shooters and the thousands of servicemen who had Mauser souvenirs and wanted to convert them to sporting rifles. Because Mauser remain easily obtainable today at fairy reasonable prices, and can be handly converted to excellent hunting rifles, Smith’s technical data in MAUSER RIFLES AND PISTOLS is invaluable to a whole new generation of collectors and shooters

WALTHER PISTOLS AND REVOLVERS - 1962

Later that same year, 1946, WALTHER PISTOLS, subsequently revised to include rifles, appeared.

The most prized handgunsouvenir of World War II and the one that started many a neophyte collector was a Walther, PP, PPK, P38.

Following a highly successful technique he first developed when writing SMALL ARMS OF THE WORLD, Smith used the wells of source material somehow available to him only, to present a complete history of Carl Walther’s arms manufacturing dynasty and authoritative, specific echnical data on every design and model.

The second edition, re-titled WALTHER PISTOLS AND RIFLES, was published in 1962, three years after Smith’s unexpected death. Others in the growing cult of firearms experts, most of whom were weaned on one Smith’s book or another, brought the Walther story up to date and that last edition is reprinted here

MANNLICHER RIFLES AND PISTOLS – 1947

For the purist, Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher was an Austrian, but his firearms probably helped to shape German militarism as much as any other. He was a mechanical genius driven to arms design and manufacturing by a staunch patriotism which envisioned invasionof his homeland by Russia. He died in 1903, leaving a legacy of original and practical developments never surpassed in the field of firearms, expecially in automatic weapons design.

Not to be deterred, by two previous successes, Smith went to work and MANNLICHER RIFLES AND PISTOLS caught the gun world’s attention in 1947. Using Mannlicher records smuggled out of Russian occupied territory, including the original drawings of Konrad von Kromer which appear in the book, Smith reconstructed the history of Steyr Armory and details in every way all the significant designs and weapons produced there. While these weapons never reached the popularity of Mausers and Walthers in this country, the serious student will recognize the influence of one of Mannlicher’s system designs on whatever rifle or handgun he might own. The technical data on specific gun is, again, in Smith’s superbe style