Clip of 5 German wooden bullets
Wooden Bullets
Recently there has been a lot of debate over the wooden bullets that the Allied troops found being used against the by the German troops. Some ideas are that they were used to cause greater loads on the medical services, though the wooden splinters, or being used as blanks to fire grenades through to evil Nazi devices. In actual practice they were simply issued to troops for training purposes, just as the British Army used Blank Firing Attachments to allow for the gas to reload the rifle without a real bullet being used, so the Germans used the wooden bullets as a source of gas to enable them to automatically reload their machine guns. Of course, at the time, they were around in plentiful supply in Normandy and less so elsewhere in the ETOA because for 4 years the German static infantry Divisions still needed to train, whereas after D-Day the time available was never near the front lines.
This then begs the question as to why they were issued during the battle of Normandy. One German soldier asked this very question of his Quartermaster when being issued them prior to DDay (remember that at that time all German Quartermasters had been fighting on the Russian front). " When you have to bug out (leave the defensive position) load the wooden bullets and fire the at the Allied soldiers. They will take immediate cover and then follow their battle training trying to locate you. However, those 30 seconds or so will allow you to leave the area". They had realised that green troops would immediately take cover when firing started, even if it was not effective enemy fire.. in other words not actually aimed at the troops taking cover. As experience levels rose so troops realised the difference between fire on the battlefield and fire aimed at them specifically, as well as the different sounds make by supersonic copper jacketed rounds versus the subsonic training rounds. These lower speeds meant that quite a few soldiers had their lives saved by being shot by wooden rounds that were either non-fatal or stopped by the paybooks or other military equipment (and often put down to the hand of God saving someone).
This then begs the question as to why they were issued during the battle of Normandy. One German soldier asked this very question of his Quartermaster when being issued them prior to DDay (remember that at that time all German Quartermasters had been fighting on the Russian front). " When you have to bug out (leave the defensive position) load the wooden bullets and fire the at the Allied soldiers. They will take immediate cover and then follow their battle training trying to locate you. However, those 30 seconds or so will allow you to leave the area". They had realised that green troops would immediately take cover when firing started, even if it was not effective enemy fire.. in other words not actually aimed at the troops taking cover. As experience levels rose so troops realised the difference between fire on the battlefield and fire aimed at them specifically, as well as the different sounds make by supersonic copper jacketed rounds versus the subsonic training rounds. These lower speeds meant that quite a few soldiers had their lives saved by being shot by wooden rounds that were either non-fatal or stopped by the paybooks or other military equipment (and often put down to the hand of God saving someone).
Clip of 5 German wooden bullets
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German wooden bullet compared to copper round
On the left a clip of the rounds for the Mauser 98K whilst above are a standard copper round (lower round) and a wooden bullet above for comparison.
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