During the closing months of the WW2 Hitler tried all possible means to stop Allied advances on all fronts. One of such means was creation of the Volkssturm organization, which conscripted males aged between 16 and 60 who were not already serving in German armed forces. Hastily trained and usually armed with second-hand or obsolete weapons, the Volkssturm formed the last line of defense of Third Reich. Due to shortage of small arms during late 1944 and early 1945, German industry developed a number of cheap, rude but at least marginally effective weapons, solely intended for Volkssturm use. Most of these weapons were very basic in design, crude in finish, made of inferior materials and with little attention to durability, fit and finish. The Volkssturmkarabiner VK-98 rifle was based on tri