The Karabiner 98B,After being defeated in World War I Germany was forced to except a wide array of a

The Karabiner 98B,After being defeated in World War I Germany was forced to except a wide array of arms and military limitations designed to reduce the Germany military into a small defensive force that could be controlled by the Allied Powers.  For example, the German Navy could have only a handful of small warships and submarines were forbidden, the German Army could have no tanks, or large artillery, and was limited to 100,000 men, while a German air force was forbidden completely.  While these were strict regulations, often the German government found loopholes or used outright deceit to circumvent the provisions of the treaty.  One result of this was the German Karabiner 98B bolt action rifle.  One provision of the treaty was that Germany was forbidden from producing any full length military rifles. At the time, the length of military rifles were almost as long as military muskets from the 19th century.  Carbines were seen as inferior, as rigid old military officers still believed in an outdated view of warfare and tactic, despite lessons learned from the previous war.  Thus, the Allied Powers sought to restrict rifle length in the Germany Army.  The Germans, however, conducted a simple deception to circumvent the rules by producing the Karabiner 98B.  The Karabiner (carbine) 98B was not a carbine, even though it was named so.  Rather it was a full sized Gewehr 98 bolt action rifle with a few minor modifications.  It was labeled as a carbine merely to confuse Versailles Treaty arms inspectors.  The K98B differed from the Gew 98 only in that it  had a tangent rear sight as opposed to the original “Lange” ramp sight, a wider lower band with side sling attachment bar, a side butt attachment point for a sling, and a turned down bolt handle. Most were merely re-arsenals of older Gewehr 98 rifles, or produced from surplus parts.The K98B was first introduced in 1923, and became the common arm of the Weimar era German Army.  By the 1930s, military doctrine began to change, and what was once carbine length during World War I, became standard rifle length during World War II.  Thus in 1935 the German Army phased out the K98B for the Karabiner 98K.  Most K98B’s would be disassembled, the parts salvaged for use in the manufacture of newer rifles. As a result the Karabiner 98B is a very rare rifle today, and highly sought by collectors. -- source link

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