A few days ago
lesleyyelsel

Saving Private Ryan?

In the film when the forces are disembarking onto the beaches, some of the rifles seem to have polythene covers over the barrels. What was this and would it have been around at the time?

Top 3 Answers
A few days ago
Experto Credo

Favorite Answer

Most soldiers grabbed whatever they could. There is a cartoon of Willie and Joe and Willie has a can atop his rifle to keep out the rain.

I would assume something not as transparent, like rubber or things along those lines

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A few days ago
picador
According to Webster, the word polyethylene (polythene) was coined in 1939, and they wouldn’t coin a word for something that hadn’t been invented yet. Mass production is another thing; but there were four or five years to get it done, so it does look possible.
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A few days ago
D—
Check Out Site Below – Hope it helps…..

http://www.rzm.com/pvt.ryan/production/scenes/equipment.html

“It took us three months to gather the 2,000 weapons that we used in the film. About 500 of them were capable of firing blanks, the others were rubber. They all needed dusting, cleaning and painting each evening.

We brought them all from England. Some of our weapons came from Germany, but a lot of the American Artillery is in England.

Of course, we had to deactivate certain weapons and make sure they weren’t capable of firing live ammunition,” offers Simon Atherton, armorer.

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