Original Items: One of a Kind. This is fantastic! This is a wonderful service used German WWII Right Side Triple magazine pouch for the MP 44 / STG 44 Sturmgewehr Machine gun (magazines pictured are for illustrative purposes only and not included). These were never made in large quantities, being produced late in the war, and often soldiers would only receive one pouch, or a pair that was mismatched.

These particularly type of pouches are known as "Texled" pouches, and they come in many different variations with regards to material components. Some might have leather closure flaps for the pouches, while others have web. Some had the bottoms of the pouches made of leather, while others used reinforced canvas. Some had genuine leather for the pouch lids, while others would use Preßstoff (Press Material) imitation leather, which is made from multiple layers of pressed paper. Just about every combination was seen.

One thing they all had in common was construction using late war tan canvas, which had red or pink lines woven into it. These were to indicate the length of the fabric during production. While earlier in the war these lines would probably have been cut out, during the late war period, every last bit of fabric was used.

This lovely "Texled" pouch is in lovely service used condition, and still shows the red lines clearly on the bottom of the middle pouch and across the back. They conform perfectly to the late war pouch design, made using a wide variety of different materials during construction. They feature green canvas closure straps with galvanized steel ends, which slide under stitch retained leather straps. The rear belt loops are green canvas, as is the strap holding the D-ring on the back in place.

They also feature heavy rubberized canvas pouch lids covered with canvas, and the bottoms of the pouches look to be reinforced with the same material on the inside. The smaller pouch on the side also has an early leather backed vinyl lid, and inside is a small black bag that would usually contain tools and possibly a loading tool. The connecting strap is green with a gray painted buckle, used to maintain the spacing when attached to the belt and Y-straps.

We were not able to find any markings on this set of pouches, either due to wear or because they were never marked to begin with, which is not uncommon. All snaps and studs are present and fully functional, and these have a great service worn look that is impossible to duplicate.

A great chance to pick up and extremely scarce pouch!

NOTE: THE PICTURED MAGAZINES ARE NOT INCLUDED. We use them for photography purposes only.

History of the Stg 44-

MP 43, MP 44, and StG 44 were different designations for what was essentially the same rifle, with minor updates in production. The variety in nomenclatures resulted from the complicated bureaucracy in NSDAP Germany. Developed from the Mkb 42(H) "machine carbine", the StG44 combined the characteristics of a carbine, submachine gun and automatic rifle. StG is an abbreviation of Sturmgewehr. The name was chosen personally by Adolf AH for propaganda reasons and literally means "storm rifle" as in "to storm (i.e. "assault") an enemy position". After the adoption of the StG 44, the English translation "assault rifle" became the accepted designation for this type of infantry small arm.

The rifle was chambered for the 7.92×33mm Kurz cartridge. This shorter version of the German standard (7.92x57mm) rifle round, in combination with the weapon's selective-fire design, provided a compromise between the controllable firepower of a submachine gun at close quarters with the accuracy and power of a Karabiner 98k bolt action rifle at intermediate ranges. While the StG44 had less range and power than the more powerful infantry rifles of the day, Wehrmacht studies had shown that most combat engagements occurred at less than 300 m, with the majority within 200 m. Full-power rifle cartridges were excessive for the vast majority of uses for the average soldier. Only a trained specialist, such as a sniper, could make full use of the standard rifle round's range and power.