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Gewehr 1888
The Model 1888 Commission Rifle, best known under the German name Gewehr 88, was the German Empire's response to the French adoption of the Lebel 1886. It was designed by the German Army's Rifle Testing Commission, and combined elements of Mauser and Mannlicher rifle design. It fed from a Mannlicher-type 5-round single-column magazine loaded with an en-bloc clip. The bolt featured two opposing lugs on the front of the bolt body, with the bolt handle forming a safety lug. The barrel was covered with a tubular steel jacket that threaded onto the receiver ring, with a ladder-type rear sight. The cartridge designed for the rifle was the Gewehrpatrone-1888 8×57mm, the predecessor to the 7.9x57mmIS Mauser. It featured a 225gr round-nose bullet .318" in diameter.
In 1905 the German Army adopted the Gewehrpatrone 1905 with a 154gr-spitzer bullet .323" in diameter. To supplement the Gewehr 98, many Gew.88 rifles were converted to safely fire the P.05 cartridge. The magazine was modified to feed from Mauser stripper clips. These rifles were referred to as Gew.88/05. During these conversions, the rifles received several markings:
- n. m.: neues Material (new Material) improved steel for the barrel.
- Z: tiefe Züge a newer barrel with deeper rifling (0.15 mm instead of 0.10 mm).
- S: Spitzgeschoß (spitzer bullet) using the Gewehrpatrone 1905 (8×57 IS).
The . and n. m. are the result of improvements in barrel bursting, respectively heavy barrel wear of the first Gew. 88. The use of jacketed bullets was still in the beginning at the introduction of the Gew. 88 and resulting flaws came to fruition only later.
Turkey purchased large numbers of Gew.88 rifles during the First World War. These rifles remained in service with the Turkish Republic, and many were modified during the 1930's update program. The barrel jackets were removed, and a tangent-leaf sight and wooden handguard were fitted. The straight-grip stock was replaced with a pistol-gripped stock, and an M93-type bayonet lug to mount the standard Turkish bayonet. These conversions are designated Gew.88/05/35, 1935 being the first year of conversion.
Specifications
(1888 – 1899)
- Type: Bolt-action rifle
- Caliber: 8×57mm M/88, 7.92×57mm Mauser from Gewehr 88/05 onwards
- Weight: 8.6 lb (3.9 kg)
- Length: 49.0 in (1,245 mm), 37 in (950 mm) (Karabiner 88)
- Barrel length: 29.1 in (740 mm), 19 in (490 mm) (Karabiner 88)
- Capacity: 5 round clip in a fixed internal magazine
- Variants: Gewehr 88, Karabiner 88, Gewehr 91, Gewehr 88/05, Gewehr 88/14
The Gewehr 1888 and variants can be seen in the following films, television series, video games, and anime used by the following actors:
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Captain from Köpenick | A German soldier | 1931 | ||
| The First Platoon (Pervyy vzvod) | German soldiers | 1933 | ||
| Deserter (Dezertir) | German mounted police | Karabiner 88 | 1933 | |
| La Bandera | Jean Gabin | Pierre Gilieth | 1935 | |
| Raymond Aimos | Marcel Mulot | |||
| Legionnaires | ||||
| La Grande Illusion | German Prison guards and spodiers | Gewehr 1888/05 with Seitengewehr SG 98 | 1937 | |
| Forty Thousand Horsemen | German and Turkish soldiers | Gewehr 1888/05 | 1940 | |
| Ernst Thälmann - Son of his Class | German soldiers and Communists | Gewehr 1888/05 and Karabiner 88 | 1954 | |
| Ernst Thälmann - Leader of his Class | German soldiers | Gewehr 1888/05 and Karabiner 88 | 1955 | |
| Hud | A rancher | Sporter 88 | 1963 | |
| Blood Brothers (Blutsbrüder) | Cheyennes | Karabiner 88 | 1975 | |
| Severino | Constantin Fugasin | Blas | Karabiner 88 | 1978 |
| Emanoil Petrut | Domingo | |||
| Manzeneros warriors and ranchers | Gewehr 88, Karabiner 88 | |||
| Bavarian Outlaw | Bavarian policemen | Gewehr 1888/05 | 2008 | |
| Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows | Jude Law | Dr. Watson | Gewehr 88 | 2011 |
| Robert Downey Jr. | Sherlock Holmes | |||
| Paul Anderson | Colonel Sebastian Moran | |||
| Alexandre Carril | Twin | |||
| Victor Carril | Twin | |||
| Noomi Rapace | Madam Simza Heron | |||
| Meinhard guards | Gewehr 88 with Seitengewehr 71/84 | |||
| Day of the Falcon (Or noir) | A sultan's guard | Gewehr 88/05/35 | 2011 | |
| Emden Men | Michael Lott | Matrose Hilgert | Gewehr 1888/05 | 2012 |
| Oliver Korittke | Maat Kluthe | |||
| German sailors | ||||
| Gallipoli: End of the Road | Turkish soldiers | 2013 | ||
| The Dark Valley | A Brenner family member | Gewehr 1888 or 88/05 | 2014 |
Television
| Title | Actor | Character | Note / Episode | Air Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | Robert Vaughn | Napoleon Solo | 1964-1968 | |
| Fiery Roads (Ognennye dorogi) | Ulmas Alikhodzhayev | Hamza Hakimzade Niyazi | Ep.15 | 1985 |
| The Caravan of Sailors | German sailors | Gewehr 1888/05 | 2006 | |
| Turkish soldiers | ||||
| Krupp: A Family Between War and Peace | Reichswehr and Rote Ruhrarmee soldiers | Ep. 01 & 02 | 2009 | |
| Clara Immerwahr | French and German soldiers | Gewehr 1888/05, Kar88, G88/05/35 | 2014 | |
| Hetaeras of Major Sokolov (Getery mayora Sokolova) | Darya Melnikova | Beshenaya | Kar.88 with sniper scope | 2014 |
| Deadline Gallipoli | Turkish civilian | Ep. 02; Gewehr 1888/05 | 2015 | |
| And Quiet Flows the Don (Tikhiy Don) | Austro-Hungarian soldiers | 2015 | ||
| Doctor Who (New Series) - Season 10 | German soldiers | Episode "Twice Upon a Time"; Gewehr 1888/05 | 2017 | |
| Babylon Berlin - Season 1 | Volker Bruch | Gereon Rath | Ep. 07; Gewehr 1888/05 | 2017 |
| German soldiers | ||||
| Babylon Berlin - Season 2 | Ivo Pietzcker | Moritz Rath | Gewehr 1888/05 | 2017 |
| Peter Kurth | Bruno Wolter | |||
| Volker Bruch | Gereon Rath | |||
| German soldiers | ||||
| Demon of the Revolution (Demon revolyutsii) | German soldiers | 2017 | ||
| 1918: Uprising of the Sailors | Henriette Confurius | Helene Hartung | Gewehr 1888/05 | 2018 |
| Martin Winkelmann | Herman Knüfken | |||
| German sailors and soldiers | ||||
| Alex the Fierce (Alex Lyutyj) | Hilfspolizei | 2020 | ||
| Babylon Berlin - Season 4 | Police Officers | Ep. 40 | 2022 | |
| Schutzstaffel |
Video Games
| Game Title | Appears as | Notation | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battlefield: 1918 | Carbine | 2003 | |
| The Great War 1918 | Carbine | 2013 | |
| World of Guns: Gun Disassembly | "Model 1888 commission rifle" | 2014 | |
| Battle of Empires: 1914-1918 | "G88" | 2015 | |
| Verdun | "Gewehr 88/05 Kommissionsgewehr" | 2015 | |
| "Karabiner 1888" | |||
| Tannenberg | "Gewehr 88/05 Kommissionsgewehr" | 2019 | |
| "Karabiner 1888" | |||
| Enlisted | Gewehr 1888/05 | 2021 | |
| Beyond The Wire | "Gewehr 1888/05" | 2022 | |
| Isonzo | "Repetiergewehr M.13" | With Seitengewehr 71 | 2022 |
| "Gewehr 88/05 Kommissionsgewehr" | Introduced in Caporetto expansion | ||
| "Karabiner 1888" |
Anime
| Title | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa | Police officer Hughes | 2005 |
Hanyang 88
An unlicensed copy of the Gew.88 was adopted by the Qing Dynasty for their Newly Created Army in 1895. This rifle was produced at the Hanyang Arsenal as Type-88 rifle and would serve Imperial, Nationalist, and Communist forces all the way through to the end of the Chinese Civil War. In 1904 the design was modified, and the Gew.88's tubular barrel shroud and ladder-type rear sight were eliminated and a Mauser-style tangent-leaf sight and half-length handguard were substituted.
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Red Detachment of Women (Hong se niang zi jun) | Xijuan Zhu | Wu Qionghua | 1961 | |
| Mei Xiang | Fu Honglian | |||
| Shugui Shi | Dan Zhu | |||
| The local militia, Chinese Red Army | ||||
| The Last Emperor | Kuomintang troops | 1987 | ||
| The Children of Huang Shi | Chinese soldiers | 2008 | ||
| City of Life and Death | Nationalist Chinese soldiers | 2009 | ||
| Let the Bullets Fly | Wen Jiang | Pocky Zhang | Hanyang 88 carbine | 2010 |
| Back to 1942 | Zhao Yi | Master Fan's son | 2010 | |
| Chinese soldiers and policemen | ||||
| Cold Steel (Bian di lang yan) | Peter Ho | Mu Liangfeng | 2011 | |
| Song Jia | Liu Yan | |||
| 1911 | A resistance fighter | 2011 | ||
| Shaolin | Chinese soldiers | 2011 | ||
| The Eight Hundred | Chinese soldiers | 2020 |