The Krummlauf (English: Curved barrel) is a bent barrel attachment for the Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle developed by Germany in World War II. The curved barrel included a periscope sighting device for shooting around corners from a safe position.
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It was produced in several variants: a "I" version for infantry use, a "P" version for use in tanks (to cover the dead areas in the close range around the tank, to defend against assaulting infantry), versions with 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° bends, a version for the StG 44 and one for the MG 42. Only the 30° "I" version for the StG 44 was produced in any numbers. The bent barrel attachments had very short lifespans – approx. 300 rounds for the 30° version, and 160 rounds for the 45° variant. The 30° model was able to achieve a 35x35 cm grouping at 100m. One of the biggest drawbacks of the tank destroyer Elefant was that in spite of having a 88mm anti tank gun, it did not have a machine gun to handle enemy infantry. Hence, the Krummlauf was fitted with the Stg44 Gun and used by the tank crew as a machine gun.
Experiments to adapt the Krummlauf to the PPSh-41 were conducted by the Soviet Union.[1]
This concept was recently used by CornerShot or POF Eye to develop a weapon platform serving a similar purpose.