I was actually issued this as late as 1991, when I first joined the Danish Army. Since they made us remember the serial number by heart, it's still in my head: Mine was serial 19198! 😎 A pretty worn down weapon and super unsafe by today's standard. I had to turn mine upside down when firing, because the extractor was so worn, that spent casings would get stuck in the ejection port unless I did so. Also, we weren't allowed to carry it with a loaded magazine attached, simply due to the fact, that with a bolt with fixed firing pin, even an inch of pull back on the bolt, would cause the weapon to go off. One of the pranks we used to play on each other, was to replace the recoil spring with one from a MG3 LMG (MG42) or put a D-cell battery behind it. This way, when you pulled the trigger, the gun would keep firing until the whole magazine was spent. Good times.... 👍👍
Yes! I was in the Danish Airforce in the late 80's and we also used them. I must say by modern standards this is a pile of crap. Some of them were so unreliable you couldn't hit jack shit at 25 m. It was due to the short 9 mm barrel and of course decades of use. However, cheap, and readily available, and they could take some abuse. Den med batterierne, er også afprøvet her. :)
I remember shooting those. I had one with a worn trigger mechanism that would not always catch the bolt. This resulted in the gun emptying the magazine in one full burst. The only way to stop it, was to pull out the magazine before it was empty. For a bit of fun you could fit a standard D-cell battery behind the spring. This also prevented the trigger mechanism in catching the bolt, but the extra spring preassure meant that a full magazine would empty extrremely fast. But you ran the risk of puncturing the D-cell and getting battety fluid all over the gun which was not good.
Better to screw two recoil springs into each other. Also allows the gun to cycle extremely fast while the bolt won't retract far enough for the sear to catch it. No risk of battery acid in the gun, but as the officers hated when you had fun they now had two soldiers to scream at.
2 weeks was pretty cheap. One of the guys in our battalion sent a 7.62 through the roof of the guard house by the camp entrance. He spent his next 10 weekends doing more guard duty...
friend of mine managed to put 5 rounds of the coax on his leopard 2 into the walls of the tank depo. what pissed his co off the most, was that he made a joke about it at least not being the main gun he accidentally fired. edit: spelling mistake
My issued MP when I was a gunner. The lock on the folding stock pinches like a a Sob. We put rubber grommets between the recoil spring and the bolt. It tweaked the rate of fire.
Min bror fra livgarden nævnte aldrig den her maskinpistol i den tid han levede, hvornår var du inde, og ved du noget om hvornår vi skaffede os af med de her fjollede peberkværn?
The necked down bolt head does provide a good space for gasses to expand into/slow down with an OOB. Its also nice to have a place for fouling and debris to migrate into that wont foul the gun. Guns with tight fitting bolt/trunnion areas (especially those with large flat contact areas) are prone to getting things smooshed between them.. and murphy says it'll be just enough to cause a stoppage.
Perhaps the point where the bolt changes diameter is actually the primary contact point when it's in the forward position? Wouldn't this theoretically allow for very slight clearance of the breech face from the back of the chamber thus providing the correct head spacing even when the breech face is fouled?
Perhaps the Danes should have just gone with the Owen? It had an isolated recoil spring, and debris in the breech fell straight down the ejection port.😛
@@zoiders Not quite... Advanced primer ignition is what they do when they're functioning properly. It's similar to, but not quite the same as, an out of battery discharge. It's a subtle but important distinction, as they can malfunction and have an actual out of battery discharge and it's very different than their normal firing cycle.
My father used this weapon when he was in service, a funny thing is that the spring from an mg3 (m62) can be put inside it, so the m/49 would get an insane rate of fire.
I was a conscript in the Danish army in 91, serving in a heavy mortar platoon (120 mm). The mortar crews and NCO's all were equipped with the M/49, while I as a driver for one of the mortar crews was issued the M1 Garand.
@@matthayward7889 I think we were the last batch using the Garand. After that, they, and the M/49s were switched out with HK G3's which already had been in widespread service in the Danish army since 75. I stayed in the Army for an additional 15 years and I always cherished, that I had the chance of using the Garand in the service, loved the M1.
I really like that the J-hook safety position blocks the sight line. Troops under stress yanking on the trigger and wondering why the gun doesn't go bang because they don't forgot to take it off safe (and now don't really *remember* there is a safe position) is a real thing. Blocking the sight line at least helps if Pvt Johansen is trying to aim - "Hey! There's something in the way! Oh, yeah!"
While this is true us poor sod who was issued one usually preferred to lock the bolt closed. That way the gun was both safe and didn't fill it's own chamber with mud and foilage when you slipped and fell or scraped it against a mossy tree.
Blocking the line of sight is an excellent reason for a "flag" safety. (I think that's what it's called.) IIRC a lot of military bolt action rifles such as the SMLE had them, going back to before WW I.
As another commenter also wrote, they were in service in the early 2000's as. The last I saw of them was firing blanks during 1 week sessions for school kids (aged around 15). Some of SMGs were so worn that the sear holding the bolt might fail and the entire mag of blanks would fire when charging.
When I did my military service in Sweden in 2001, our radar platoon (who'd done their basic at another location) had been trained on the m/45B. Much like the Hovea and the Suomi, it's nice when things are so robust and functional that they can stay in service so long.
I came across a Danish tank squadron on Ex Quarter Final, late '80s if I recall correctly, where the crews were armed with these weapons. Impressively they carried with them their war load equivalent in albeit blank 9mm ammunition, which was pretty unusual for any NATO unit on exercise. Their sqn leader was female, as were her crew I believe, presumably following some age old Viking tradition Ian..
In 1984/85, my platoon leader (Lieutenant) carried this as his issued weapon, the rest of us carried G3s. As I was being trained as an antitank gunner (84mm recoilless rifle Carl Gustaf) and had to lug a 16kg/35lbs steel tube around, I was often allowed to use the Lieutenants gun in lieu of my rifle - not because it was much lighter but it was a lot less cumbersome. I can't remember if I got to fire it on the range but the Lt said he couldn't hit a barn if he stood inside it but then again, his job was not primarily as a marksman so I guess his training on and interest in this gun was minimal. And by this time, the gun would be approaching 40 years old and probably quite worn in the barrel. Not sure if it was used with quad-stack magazines. As I recall, the magazine was long and slender, perhaps a 32rd or so double stack. I do recall that it took a special "blank firing" barrel with a much smaller internal diameter and a removable blank-firing device on the end. I think this was to ensure that in the event a live round got mixed into the blanks, it would not be able to pass down the barrel and cause grief while training. TBH, I don't even think I ever fired blanks from it - I was just supposed to "have a gun with me" when dismounting as an antitank gunner, and as mentioned, it was easier with this than a metre long rifle slung across my back.
Our motorcycle "runners" had them in 2001-02. (the rest of us had H&K G3s) This was in a mechanized engineer company. And lucky you, loaning your officers smg. I was not so lucky when carrying our M79 Carl Gustav.
@@noremorsewoodworking2258 I carried the MP/49 as my personal field weapon as a young officer in the 1980s (artillery). As I recall it shot very well, no problem hitting a man size figure at 100 meter, but you had to do very short bursts. For blank firing a special barrel with a red colured "cap" was issued.
@@steffenb.jrgensen2014 by 2001 I think a big part of the issue was that the guns where old and very worn. The one our "runner" had was not able to hit anything at 100m and was arguably falling apart.
I was issuet this as a Sergeant in the Danish Army. Absolutely loved it ! Extemely reliable you could cover the thing in mud and it would still run. It was actually ok accurate at least up to 150 meters.
Same here, '93-'95. It was excellent for the close ranges, very little recoil. Only thing, you better secure those magazines, else you might end up filling those damn "E-attest".. :)
Had one issued in the danish artillery as well in the late '80. Due to budget constrains i was only allowed to fire 10 rounds of live ammo. The same for my colleges. We never went trough the trouble. ☺️. Oh those memories of the danish army 😀
@@dannyjensen3202 Damn 10 rounds ? at one shooting range I spendt 1300 rounds in 2 days. It really needed a good cleaning after that. But that was in 1990 so maybe they had some surplus ammo they wanted to get rid off.
Great weapon - Easy and precise. Had it as my personal weapon as sergeant in the Danish army 1980-81 - Artillery with 105 mm Howitzer M101A1 and M1 Garand for the conscripts (very Old School - the Howitzer dated 1944😂) . MP 49 was reliable, except for the magazines, as the locks were so worn, that the magazines often got lost in the field.
Fun fact: the blank fire adapter for the Danish HK G3 rifles and the m49 are far from identical, but they are interchangeable. Putting a G3 BFA on a m49 almost doubled the firerate. It also cracked the bolt, in a way the armoury had never seen before... I did not tell them how I managed to do that!
Actually the MP/49 blankfire adapter was OFFICIALLY issued for the HK G3 (M/75) in the late 80ies/early 90ies due to the M/75 blankfire adapter exploded/flew off and was temporary bande for exercise use. The M/49 blank fire adapter only allowed for single shot/no reload on the G3 ... so creative individuals used the G3 sling to fit to the cocking/reload handle for quicker reaload during blankfire exercises. Some even took out the metal split from the old leather strap of the G3 and put it inside the MP/49 blankfire device which would limit the gas escaping drastically (dangerously) and allow the G3 to selfreload blanks.... "someone told me" :)
I remember my dad talking about shooting this while he was a conscript, the only time he was average with this gun was during nightfiring exercises, everybody else couldn't hit anything either.
The Swedish K had the same problems if you got a well used one. The one I had was very well maintained and the barrel was close to perfect. So I could shoot pretty decent groups while some of the other guys had guns that would shoot around corners, and not in the same direction twice.
Yes, I dont think the drum magazine was in "service". Also, it was not advised to fill the magazine to max, the first 3-5 rounds would jam the chamber if you had a bit worm magazine.
Dane here. I served the draft in 1993 and the much revered M49 was still in ubiquitous use then, pretty much for all NCOs and support troops- but was phased out of the regular military a couple of years later in 1995 and then National Guard (Hjemmeværnet) around 2000. They were generally well-liked and famed for their Kalashnikov like reliability, low rate of fire and controllability ~ shooting a lot like a US M3 Grease Gun. Reliability is highly prized in Scandinavia, because 3/4 of the year everything is snow, sand or mud - indeed, that reduction in diameter on the front of the bolt might be a mud 'n' snow reliability hack, if that makes sense from a gunsmithing point of view? (we have lots of such little adaptations on all of our equipment, because of the climate up here). Legend had it in the Danish Army, that sometime on the 1960s, the US Navy Seals/LRRP tried the M49 on some NATO exercise and were so enthusiastic about its extreme reliability and simplicity, that they immediately adopted them for use in Vietnam ~ but perhaps that was actually the Swedish K-pist (a close cousin), maybe you know, Ian? Fun fact: In Danish army use they are known as just the M49 (never knew "Hovea" until today), which is pronounced "m-forty-nineR" (with an R, in Danish "m-nineR-fyrre") - because of the similarity in pronounciation between tens ending in 4 and 9, especially in radio chatter. In Danish we actually say tens back to front, as they do in German ~ e.g. 44 is "four-and-forty" (fire-og-fyrre) and 49 is "nine-and-forty" ("ni-og-fyrre"). So, although it would be perfectly correct everyday Danish to just say "nine-and-forty" - the venerable M49 is ALWAYS pronounced "nineR-and-forty" in Danish military parlance or you will be told off... those little traditions that set all militaries apart... ;-) * FKF stands for "Forsvarets Krigsmaterialforvaltning" - which translates as "(the) Defence's War Materiel Governance"... a PROPERLY bureaucratic sounding name, such as we have a tradition for in all of the Scandinavian countries ** also, for the love of Gawd, plz don't EVER say "maschinen pistol" [3:33] again for the Danish MP abbreviation - we don't speak German, we speak Danish - it is "masKin pistol" (hard K). You are Gun Jesus, you MUST know the correct pronounciation of ALL military abbreviations from across the globe! Oh, my, I nearly fainted... ;-D
I read a book talking about US special forces that worked in Laos during Vietnam. They used Special Ks partly due to the plausible deniability of using foreign equipment.
I remember seeing them as a boy in documentaries about the Danish Hunter Corps (SFs). This was early 90’s. When I did my time as a conscript in the late 90’s I only saw one the entire year: our NCO responsible for ABC warfare had one. An old, grey-bearded Command Sergeant Major. My motorized infantry company got brand new C8’s from Cananda.
I was in Lithuania the winter of 20 through the summer off 21 and saw 2 different Mechanized infantry units (1 in GTK Boxers and 1 in M113s), 1 artillery unit, a basic training unit and were also escorted/guarded by a few MPs from time to time. We didn't see anything like these there just mostly the G36, MAG58 and the occasional M14.
Most likely war stockpile items. Most conscript/reserve armies keep all kinds of old stuff in "war stockpile". Can it still shoot one of our in use caliber munitions and not be hopelessly obsolete as far as firepower and usability goes? Yes? Keep in stockpile. Put it in that cave, next to the piles of boots, belts and uniforms.
In my limited contact with the military here, the only submachine guns I've seen were standard Uzis. Other weapons I've personally seen included the Glock 17, G36, MAG58, M14, M16A1, and GOL Sniper Magnum, all in the military context, as well as the AKS-74U in police service. That doesn't mean they don't have these m/49's, they could well be hidden away in wartime reserve stocks.
I might have some insight into the Estonian Hovea's.You won't find it written down anywhere - as for obvious reasons. In the early days when Estonia regained independence Denmark could not recognise Estonia on that level - for the simple reason Denmark had never recognised the Soviet occupation as legitimate! In the effort to build up a defence there was a clutch of senior advisors - Finland really, really formed the structure of the Estonian forces. Retired generals worked as advisors - from Denmark it was Lt.Gen. Hillingsø. Now - I am coming to it: This new defence force was landed upon by vultures. Your sales representative to Elbonian government and army is not off the mark. The mashinations are thoroughly in accordance with reality. If You don't trust me - then DON'T. What the sales reps. presented the Estonians with was all-right, but at a ludicrious price - and at the time, there were a lot of Russian "freindlies" in the system corrupt - naturally. So besides organising by Finland (that army structure has been done in stages - once they were certain that the Home Guard was actually working - in contrast to the army). There is/was a Baltic Defence Collage to train officers - with a Danish headmaster. As to weapons - I was periferially involved in a proposal to make a bare bones control and warning system on stone-age technology. At least untill the USA got to its senses, and a radar system was made for the Baltic region. Now as to air defence weapons it was evident, that building an airforce was beyound the capacity - even with Finnish assistance. So Denmark donated some 40 mm Bofors that had been abused by conscripts as airfield defence. The guns were all right and they could whack helicopters. As to infantry rifles they had quite a lot of Kalashnikovs - which is an all-right rifle - not the latest model; but excellent as a start up kit. So those money could be saved. That the HOVEA was donated as well is news to me, but one of the least astonishing surprises ever. As a submashine gun it is ok - nothing fancy but OK - and uses standard Nato ammo. Hope my ranting is of some value to You.
I remeber we in the DK army doanted ALOT of stuuf to the Baltics in the mid to late 90's. Some was ok stuff, but must was beat up old stuff. Old 105 howtizers, rifles, pistols, trucks etc etc. most noticbel a few good standard flex patrol ships. It was new or flashy but considring the baltics didnt have anything at all, it was a starting point.
@@sprocket5526 Well, the point was that the Baltic states could accept the gifts, as there were no strings attached. I still think we could use 105 mm howitzers - but that is neither here nor there. The point was cutting back on the absolutely useless Staff officers in Forsvarskommandoen - and getting rid of conscription.
Since Baltic states were part of USSR shouldn’t they have a lot of surplus military gears? Or is it because the Soviet Union didn’t fall yet and brings home their equipment in good order.
@@theodorsebastian4272 They pretty much left with everything. Just to put in persepctive, when the Russians left DDR, they unbolted sinks nd toilets and brought it back home. Old Rusisan tradition, steal anything that bolted and not bolted down.
@@theodorsebastian4272 As far as I know: It was quite unsystematic what was left behind, what was later sold off as a firesale - Sweden got quite a few ex-Russian APC for a song and hobbled march. The movements of the arms 1990-2000 was intensive. Leopard 2's were available to Nato partners at a very fair price - Krauss-Maffei turned into the second hand dealership in slightly used armour. Now Denmark is donating M113 to Ukraine - and they are (due to the light weight) - the vehicle of choice plus gives good shrapnel protection. I think the real motive behind the donation is clearing of garage facilities to accept the Piranha V which are coming off the lines. The Piranha V is also a tale of production demanding new investments. There were considerations of Danish licence production, but that would probably have meant a lot more investment to bring the suppliers up to standard. In fact MOWAG fired the entire staff in Kreuzlingen - untill the right solution was found: New facilities have been build and the right people have been rehired as far as I can tell. "Gun Jesus" has several times pointed out that Swiss weapons are not cheap and have no unnessary frills. If they are not that - then they don't sell on the export market. The reason the Danish arms manufacturers were not in shape after the war was partly the availability of cheap arms - I think the USA off-loaded 2 divisions worth of equipment and told us to play with that. Some of that equipment was quite good. The other reason was that Riffelsyndikatet was sabotaged by the resistance - and a gunsmith without tools isn't a gunsmith. How much the Danish Industri collaborated with the Occupation force - hard to say. It must have been a lot since every payment to them was made by check drawn on the Danish Central Bank and as they returned to the Central Bank it was pretty well known whom had been war profiteers - and the companies KNEW that - so there was some reluctance to cooperate to much - as a day of reckogning was coming. You can critisise it; but it saved the Danish jews. The germans did not want to upset the Danish pork production - which could have happened. Secondly the Social Ministry kept track of Danes in concentration camps - and their families. That was paid for by the employers organisation that levied an extraordinary subscribtion. You might not fear the Spanish Inquisition - but you better be scared of the Danish civil service. ua-cam.com/video/Cj8n4MfhjUc/v-deo.html
I have always found it interesting how SMGs started out as beautiful pieces of engineering art and over 2 decades they become more refined mechanically, but also more simplified and crude looking as they become easier and less expensive to manufacture.
The MP49 was also use by the Danish special forces well into the 1990ies. The Danish Frogman Corps tested its capabilities under water. And the MP/49 proved to be lethal up to 8 meters under water. I had the MP/49 issued to me as an officer.
@@evz0ne595 this gun looks so uncomfortable to handle and shoot, miles better than a sten but this looks like a homemade pipe gun with a foldy thingy hanging off the end
@@chapiit08 exactly anything beats the sten but still post ww2? For a service smg??? Horrible choice.... Stick with whatever browning or fn come out with
@@commoncriminal923 As far as I know neither Browning nor FN came out with any smg right after WW2, and most stuff was open bolt systems for the most part up until the 1970's and beyond, including the horribly balanced over-hyped UZI. Not until H&K came up with the MP5 there was anything truly groundbreaking in smg designs.
"... there's not a whole lot there to show you anyway." I understand why you didn't take the barrel off and I'm not complaining about that. However, I like looking at the chamber and feed ramps and all those details. I'll never do it but I keep telling myself I'm gonna build a gun one day.
When the Serbu BFG50 exploded on KB, it was discussed that adding vent holes to the barrel cap might be integrated as a safety feature. Less metal on the bolt face as it steps down, may have the effect of venting gases as opposed to letting pressure build up.
I used them up to around 01-02 since the G3's we had at that point was worn out and short supply. So these got pulled out of storage for a few years untill the C7 Ar-15 became avaialbe in large enough number to be standard issue guns.
This was my personal weapon in 1968 as a sergent in the danish army. Very easy to carry and operate compared to the Garand. I even had a box with 7 more in case of emergensy.
Hi Ian, you brought back memories. I had one Hovea m/49 36 round model in my time by the Danish army. I was in service with the Centurion Tank at first, then the Leopard 1 A3 from 1976 to 1979. 😏We had these weapons because of very tight space.
Ian, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we find your detailed dives and additional context tangents to be scintillating. The mechanics and machining are of course always going to be your focal point for weapons that otherwise the masses would never get a chance to understand from a gunsmithing perspective... But you're a really really good and interesting historian and not many people cover subjects like armament procurement, contracts, civilian firearms industry etc on an easily accessible platform like this. Please know that we collectively love your history lessons as much as the breakdowns of the guns and mechanics themselves, and "ramble" to your heart's content. Hearing a passionate person explain their interests is the best way to learn in my opinion, and those few who aren't interested about such info can always fast forward until they see you 7 opening up and taking out the juicy bits 🙂 Gun Jesus preaches, never rambles. Thanks for all you do, can't wait to see what else you'll have for us in the future.
Well it's made by Husqvarna so it's actually a swedish designed gun. I think they look so alike because they probably were made to fit the exact same requirements issued by the swedish armed forces.
I remember firing these when I was a conscript in 1995. If you put a D size battery at the back of the recoil spring to compress it a bit more, you could get a really fun firing rate. Empty the 36 round mag before the first shell casing hit the ground. Thanks for taking me back to 1995.
Funnily enough I am writing one of my university essays on the Swedish m/45. Carl Gustaf Gevärsfaktori actually had a bunch of different designs submitted in the middle of the contest, where the one that became the the m/45 was referred to as m/Jonsson, and was originally made with a rifle stock during trials, as well as folding stocks. This was largely inspired by the PPS-43, which was the original gun that Sweden tested when they first started experimenting with "simplified" SMGs. The final report actually suggests that the Husqvarna version was slightly better in accuracy, but they were both incredibly good guns that cost, manufacturing and surprisingly aesthetics were part of the final decision to go with the m/Jonsson.
Interesting! I was wondering about something. How could the two manufacturers end up with almost exactly the same design? How could Husqvarna licence this to a Danish manufacturer if it was the design developed by Carl Gustafs? My first guess was that much of the research and development/prototyping was done by FMV, but you're saying they worked independently on totally different designs... Hope you understand my question.
@@JH-lo9ut So FMV wasn't around back then, instead we had KAFT. Basically it all came down to production capabilities, and the delegation wanted all the guns to be able to be built with tubes, since swedish industry was better set up for making tubes over things like stampings. The design shown in the video is based of the Husqvarna gun, which husqvarna had full rights to. The m/45 or m/Jonsson was designed internally at Carl Gustaf Gevärsfaktori. They are different firearms, but quite similar.
@@Sneckit The simple tube and stamped metal designs were quite common all around at the time. The British Sterling was another one that's pretty much built using the same design principles. It's however a lot lighter than the m/45, but the magazine sticking straight out the side is a pain in the but, at least in my opinion. I got to carry one during an exercise and the weight difference was very appreciated, as was the ergonomics apart from that magazine that is. Don't remember how easy it was to disassemble though. The m/45 and this m/49 were incredibly simple to take down. The m/49 should be a little easier than the m/45 with that button to depress the ratcheting poll for the castle nut. With the m/45 you need something to push in the poll and free up the ratchet. I was taught to use my name badge for that. Other than that I think they are pretty equal.
Strange. I was a gunner on the M109 in '96-97 and we had the G3 ("M75"). The infantry was transitioning to the C7 ("M95") so I wonder how the M49 found it's way into the artillery when there were constantly being more M75s relinquished from other regiments...
In the Danish Army HomeGuard the MP M/49 was taken out of service around 1999-2000. Bud in the Airforce HomeGuard it was in service until 2002. After 2002 almost all were sent to Lithuania, bud a few were kept for education and history purpose in the Danish armed forces. One of my colleagues was deployed to Lithuania in 2020 and at that time, the MP M/49 was still in service with some units of the Lithuanian Home Guard.
Had one of those when I was in the army 1993-94. We didn't use the drum magazines, only the double stack stick magazine. We had to tie the magazines to the gun with shoelaces, they easily fell out during exercises in the field.
I loved to shoot that M/49. With blanks it sounded just like an AK47. Glad that you had the stickmagazine in the video, because they where mostly issued in the homeguad because they where standard to the M44 Husquarna SMG. Normaly in the Army we where issued teh 36rds stick mags. But during service in teh homeguard i got hold of a pair of 50 rounds dublestacks, they worked flawlessly. HAvent really seen anyone else make such great highcapacity mags, well maybe the Schmeisser and MAgpull have some, but this one just worked. A bit wider, but shorter. On covert patols sneaking through the brush, it was a fairly short weapon, holding 50 rounds, a great alternative to 2 sticks mags taped in V shape. I used v shaped taped doubles in the army because the 50 rds wasnt available. As a Leopard tanker we had that MP/49 until we where send to Bosnia serving the DANSQN, from that mission and forward we where issued telescope stocks to the G3 (7.62). That was a great weapon, way better suited for moderen battlefield than the 9mm. Soon after we adobted the Diamarco C7 Carbine in 5.56mm. The M49 was easy to handle, even shoot with one hand. Had some really good memories with that M49, blanks banged loud as hell and bright in the dark, so when on infiltration patrols a lot of guys had a scare in buildings, when this thing was suddenly fired into a HQ. It was easy to clean after been sprayed with saltwater in a dinghy or a swim and sand from the beach. Just a quick wash under a water tab. Keep the extractor clean and this thing runs forever. Never forget once during the cold war, we staged a sneaky 5th collum / terroist attack at a traing of guards of a public service building on a marketsquare, riding shotgun sitting behind a uniformed Police Officer on his patrol motorcyckle, down the sidewalk passing fast in between between ordinary civilians and then the security people. We where making a drive by blasting on the VIP with this SMG using the a 50 rds, desperately holding on to the driver with the other hand. The scene was downtown in a in a normal city with many people sitting peacefully on cafees, enjoying a quiet saturday evening. Not a ordinary happening i Denmark in the 90ies.That SMG bring memories... a lot of memories... :-)
The single stack mag would drop out of the gun so easily in the field, because of the release button design. We would tie a string between the barrel and the mag.
I've been watching all of your firearm videos for 10+ years. I've also been getting a lot of the good old videos with my favorite into, and I'm sorry to say that your content is so good i forgot to hit the like button. Thank you for making some of the best content on UA-cam.
Just seems strange to me that so many small European countries designed and/or adopted new SMGs right after WWII, when the continents was flooded with MP-40s. I'm not saying that the MP-40 was flawless, it certainly wasn't, but the availably of cheap surplus 9mm SMGs immediately after the war, would make one think that governments trying to rebuild their infrastructure would have been content to make do with surplus for a while.
I believe that the Nordic country's wanted to have in house manufacturing to be self-reliant when it comes to weapon/ammunition production and to keep the "known how". The nordic countries hade more or less undamaged infrastructure after ww2.
With your own arms industry, especially if you're a neutral country like Sweden, you are not as reliant on others in case of an emergency such as a war. An example would be Sweden's air force which had ordered several american aircraft just before the outbreak of WW2, but with the war breaking out the americans confiscated the aircraft and Sweden were for several crucial months left with only a few modern fighters like the P-35 Seversky and several near obsolete ones such as the Bristol Bulldog and Gloster Gladiator, 30-40 fighters in total. So Sweden's own air industry had to compensate and Sweden has since then built and rely their own aircraft (with a few exceptions), so they don't end up in the same situation.
My guess is what with such high post-war European tensions, a lot of countries wanted to opt for self-sustained arms development instead of buying the war spoils of the Soviets. A majority of the MP40’s were sent to war-torn countries backed by the Soviets, and this is evidenced by their wide usage of them showing up in basically every proxy war since WW2. I think that if it weren’t for the Soviets, you’d be completely right and that you’d see a lot of firearms either using MP40 mags, or just outright using MP40s. The global climate at the time just didn’t really facilitate using them.
@@KC-bg1th I don't know, a lot of MP40s were used by NATO and USA aligned countries as well, such as several South American juntas and the south vietnamese. Czechoslovakia is also one of those countries that used and made former german models of weapons (which had been manufactured in occupied Czechoslovakia) which were exported to, amongst others, a young Israel.
Very interesting and I had no idea about this, even that I'm a Swede. It seems logical that Lithaua recieved Hovea m/49, that shares all the importand design and ammunition standard with the m/45 the Baltic countries recived from Sweden. However, the m/45 served in the Swedish armed forces until 2007, the last period of time as an armament for staff, motorcycle ordonance, dog handlers e.t.c. in the voluntairy local forces (Hemvärnet).
I was a sergeant i the Royal Danish Airforce in the beginning of to seventies and we were issued with the MP M49. 30 years later I saw one in an exibition and asked if I could try to disassemble it and assemble it again. They said ok, if I could do it blindfolded, and so I did. It was very fast to maintaing and for the time a very reliable weapon.
I had one issued when i became a Gun/Howitzer commander for an M114 while i was a conscript SG and had this or the M75/G3 issue depending on what job i had later on , the higher priority units had M75/G3 and corps Artillery units had MP49 but i never saw a drum Mag or 50 round Mag we only had 36 round MAGs i think they where only used by Homeguard units.
makes sence with the Husquarna coffin magazines, since they were at hand from the predecessor wooden stock Husquarna SMG know in DNK Military/HomeGuard as the MP M/44.
Another outstanding video, my friend. The Hovea M49 seems to share certain design aspects of both the British Sten Mk II and the MK V smg’s and the Suomi line of smg’s. Appears to be a well built and thoughtful design. Thank you again for continuing to bring information to light regarding both well known and rare firearms. Have a great,my friend! 👍🏻👍🏻 🇺🇸 🦅 🇺🇸 🦅 🇺🇸
This firearm looks to be of better and possibly even cheaper construction than the Luty. This is a testament to knowledge of construction materials and techniques.
When I was in service with The Danish Artillery in 91’ (NJAR 6AA/3BAT - M109) M/49s were issued to our motorcycle drivers, some lower rank commanders on gun crew and staff.
I’d be interested to hear Ian’s thoughts on Finland and Sweden potentially joining NATO. He always has interesting, well-reasoned points, even if I am getting a flashback of the video of his previous predictions 😅
Have heard the same story from a couple different persons(one of them being my father). According to my father the trigger sear would not engage the bolt whilst firing with the stronger LMG spring fitted, so it would continue to fire until the magazine was empty.
A lot of sten like features in it. The strange bolt face is probably so that any debris in it would fly out upon firing as long as it went off and there's no flat shoulder on the front to get something stuck on the bolt or breech face preventing the breech from completely closing
I would love to see a video on the colt LMG that the Danish Military and home guard had. From what I gather they were basically open bolt m16s with a funky square hand guard over the barrel and they used beta c mags if my memory serves right. I have never seen a video on this particular m16 variant but if anyone can get access to one it would be you Ian
I had it as a service weapon for several years as a young soldier. Great weapon for military exercises, fun on the shooting range and perfect for parades. But I never took this weapon with me into war. In 2006, I think it was, maybe a few years earlier, I was the company commander whose unit retired the last remaining of these weapons from the Danish army, after a week of urban combat training in "Brikby". The good thing about this was that then my unit did not have to clean and maintain these weapons, as they had to be transported to Copenhagen the day after to be dismantled....!
Fun fact?.. This is one of the most common machine guns amongst criminals in Denmark. A lot was stolen in the 80s and 90s, and a good chunk of those are still out there today.
I'm a former danish army sergeant (service time from feb 1995 - feb 2000). I've used the m/49 a bit, but I've never seen the drum magazine nor the quad stack.
My dad told me about how they would unscrew the bottom, and put some coins in the rear to compress the spring more, making it fire faster. The sergent didnt always find it as funny as they did
A super machine gun , always working . With pratice pretty good at 100 meters Easy to make single shot with And as tankcrew easy to have in the turret. The AR fun but longer to move in and out
I'm always curious to see self-loathing submachine guns. Funny to hear about Husqvarna as gun factory. We have had a lot of Husqvarna fridges, freezers and whatnot in Finland over the decades.
I always thought Husqvarna was only a motorcycle company, until I inherited my Grandfather's Husqvarna 30.06. It's a barely post-war rifle that is basically identical to a military Mauser bolt action in a hunting stock. The receivers were made by FN and sold to Husqvarna, who added barrels and stocks to make full rifles. Later Husqvarna released an in-house "improved" Mauser bolt action (Arguable, but it did have a more convenient safety) and just prior to closing up firearms manufacturing in 1972 introduced a non-Mauser bolt action design. (A "push-feed" as opposed to Mauser's "controlled feed" design. I don't know much about them.) I've had various people tell me that it's a "sporterized" Mauser, which were quite common in the US, but this one is definitely a factory hunting rifle.
@@tarmaque someone told me that zoli then brought the husky tooling and that's what there bolt action rifles are made from. Here in nz Husqvarna means chainsaws to most people
@@tom11630 Sounds plausible, but I've only ever heard of Zoli shotguns. A little research shows they did indeed make some rifles and they do look like the later Husqvarnas. Husqvarna is also known here for chainsaws, but mostly for dirt bikes.
Interresting that the magazine interchangeability were so much in demand those days. I don’t think (or know) that there are many guns that can use each others mag’s today.
For people confused with the MP designation on SMG’s in Western Europe, yes MP is short for “maskine pistol” which directly translates to machine pistol but the actual meaning is quite different as it’s more accurate to translate it as “Pistol caliber machine gun” which is what in the US would be called an SMG.
The initial batch of guns and the Hovea production line, was purchased and set up using money borrowed from the A.P. Møller concern - which says a few things about the state of the danish economy, when it came to military procurement, in the early post-war years.
It amazes me the number of post war submachine guns developed when most of the major powers were looking at intermediate cartridges and thinking assault rifles. I am guessing it has to do with cost, and how broke a lot of the world was after the war. Much like me after the wife goes to a shoe store.
Well submachine guns can be more useful than assault rifles in certain situations and also it really took well into the 70's before intermediate cartidges started catching on. Before that battle rifles was more common. The big exception is the AK but almost the entire west and large parts of the world used rifle caliber rifles.
Yeah, my guess is that submachine guns are easier and cheaper to develop than assault rifles. The latter involved new tech and new problems, while SMGs using pistol sized cartridges had been well developed. A designer could gather half a dozen good ones and crib ideas from them - he'd have to try really hard to make a crappy one.
AHH i remember this one we in the Danish Dragoons called it the bicycle we had the 36 round mag 9mm and we had a gun we new as 9mm nauhausen thease two guns is is the worst when it freeze and in good weather it can´t hit a barndoor at 10 meters when i was a master sargent i got the ga3a1 and the colt 1911 a1 i was happy at my choice
I am not in the Lithuanian military but I used to be. I have an M49 next to me on the sofa right now. I like to keep it handy, just in case. I have no idea if the boys still use them. I think it is a very good gun. I think the big stick mags are best.
Sure it did, but it's still very long and heavy, so I have a feeling they added about as much in the back as they removed in the front. These guns were pretty controllable because they were pretty slow firing. And with no single shot setting you didn't really want a high ROF.
It actually has some outer resemblence to the Swedish K m45 but I do like the drum magazine a lot! There was an earlier swedish m ehh 36 I think, with a rather high rate of fire that used drums. It is claimed that the high rate of fire made it prone to quite some problems with malfunctions. Sadly... 51 rounds are more fun than 36 for sure 😅.
In 2001-02 I did my mandatory service in a mechanized engineer company in the Danish army. (so M113s APCs for the 3 work platoons) Our motorcycle "runners" had them. (the rest of us had H&K G3s) In our sister company they all had C8s (M/96)
Around 1980 - a teacher of mine told of a near-fatal with this gun with the blank-adaptor barrel fitted and a *real cartridge* mid-magazine - bolt went over right shoulder, would have killed him had he taken a “proper” cheek weld!!
yeah, and he is comming pretty close. Not perfect, but close. The D in maDsen in danish is a weird kinda silent letter that just changes the sound of the ones around it a bit.
@@infernaldaedra I mean it's a bit accurate. The Q sounds more like C in car. I tried to write everything phonetically but that's way too much work so here's and add where they say it. ua-cam.com/video/XDcL-LbhkGY/v-deo.html&ab_channel=HusqvarnaSverige
Post ww2 SMGs are a gold mine for forgotten weapons. Anything that isn’t an Uzi, MP5, MAT 49 or the Sterling just falls by the wayside.
I think the carl Gustav m45 and beretta m12 are also kinda known
Heck, I'd throw the MAT49 into that group of "falls by the wayside" while moving the Carl Gustav into the "well known" group.
@@geodkyt idk, people know the KG name but they think rockets, not SMGs imo
And the sten, but yes you're totally right
@@jamesallred460 I would say the STEN is a ww2 smg but was def still used after ww2 as well
I was actually issued this as late as 1991, when I first joined the Danish Army. Since they made us remember the serial number by heart, it's still in my head: Mine was serial 19198! 😎
A pretty worn down weapon and super unsafe by today's standard. I had to turn mine upside down when firing, because the extractor was so worn, that spent casings would get stuck in the ejection port unless I did so. Also, we weren't allowed to carry it with a loaded magazine attached, simply due to the fact, that with a bolt with fixed firing pin, even an inch of pull back on the bolt, would cause the weapon to go off.
One of the pranks we used to play on each other, was to replace the recoil spring with one from a MG3 LMG (MG42) or put a D-cell battery behind it. This way, when you pulled the trigger, the gun would keep firing until the whole magazine was spent.
Good times.... 👍👍
Yes! I was in the Danish Airforce in the late 80's and we also used them. I must say by modern standards this is a pile of crap. Some of them were so unreliable you couldn't hit jack shit at 25 m. It was due to the short 9 mm barrel and of course decades of use. However, cheap, and readily available, and they could take some abuse.
Den med batterierne, er også afprøvet her. :)
I remember shooting those. I had one with a worn trigger mechanism that would not always catch the bolt. This resulted in the gun emptying the magazine in one full burst. The only way to stop it, was to pull out the magazine before it was empty. For a bit of fun you could fit a standard D-cell battery behind the spring. This also prevented the trigger mechanism in catching the bolt, but the extra spring preassure meant that a full magazine would empty extrremely fast. But you ran the risk of puncturing the D-cell and getting battety fluid all over the gun which was not good.
After this comment the ATF has now determined D batteries to be machine guns
Better to screw two recoil springs into each other. Also allows the gun to cycle extremely fast while the bolt won't retract far enough for the sear to catch it. No risk of battery acid in the gun, but as the officers hated when you had fun they now had two soldiers to scream at.
In other words, the D-cell battery "energized" the gun and it kept going and going and going.... I'll see myself out.
@@jarink1 We called it Thors submachinegun!
Well. There is another way of "tuning" a mp-49 just use the recoil spring from an MG-3 that gives you an MG-49 🤐😂
My father accidentally fired one in the cantine on the corvette Tordenskjold in the 80s. Cost him 2 weeks of harbour guard duty at the next stop.
Oops.
😅 fed historie, som der nok ikke er mange af 🙂
2 weeks was pretty cheap. One of the guys in our battalion sent a 7.62 through the roof of the guard house by the camp entrance. He spent his next 10 weekends doing more guard duty...
@@andersjjensen One of our guard officers did almost the same, but he shot thru a wall inside the building.
friend of mine managed to put 5 rounds of the coax on his leopard 2 into the walls of the tank depo. what pissed his co off the most, was that he made a joke about it at least not being the main gun he accidentally fired.
edit: spelling mistake
My issued MP when I was a gunner. The lock on the folding stock pinches like a a Sob.
We put rubber grommets between the recoil spring and the bolt. It tweaked the rate of fire.
Or a D size battery. 😎
@@carstenpedersen3200 They had a tendency to break 😂😂
@@carstenpedersen3200 Same trick was used in Sweden. 😁
Min bror fra livgarden nævnte aldrig den her maskinpistol i den tid han levede, hvornår var du inde, og ved du noget om hvornår vi skaffede os af med de her fjollede peberkværn?
The necked down bolt head does provide a good space for gasses to expand into/slow down with an OOB. Its also nice to have a place for fouling and debris to migrate into that wont foul the gun. Guns with tight fitting bolt/trunnion areas (especially those with large flat contact areas) are prone to getting things smooshed between them.. and murphy says it'll be just enough to cause a stoppage.
Perhaps the point where the bolt changes diameter is actually the primary contact point when it's in the forward position? Wouldn't this theoretically allow for very slight clearance of the breech face from the back of the chamber thus providing the correct head spacing even when the breech face is fouled?
@@26declanjones Possibly. If not that would be an interesting way to headspace an open bolt and sace battering on the back of the trunnion/barrel.
Perhaps the Danes should have just gone with the Owen? It had an isolated recoil spring, and debris in the breech fell straight down the ejection port.😛
@@zoiders Not quite... Advanced primer ignition is what they do when they're functioning properly. It's similar to, but not quite the same as, an out of battery discharge. It's a subtle but important distinction, as they can malfunction and have an actual out of battery discharge and it's very different than their normal firing cycle.
@@zoiders by having a stoppage just short of fully chambering the round.
My father used this weapon when he was in service, a funny thing is that the spring from an mg3 (m62) can be put inside it, so the m/49 would get an insane rate of fire.
I was a conscript in the Danish army in 91, serving in a heavy mortar platoon (120 mm). The mortar crews and NCO's all were equipped with the M/49, while I as a driver for one of the mortar crews was issued the M1 Garand.
That’s amazing that Garands were still being issued in the 90s!
@@matthayward7889 I think we were the last batch using the Garand. After that, they, and the M/49s were switched out with HK G3's which already had been in widespread service in the Danish army since 75. I stayed in the Army for an additional 15 years and I always cherished, that I had the chance of using the Garand in the service, loved the M1.
I really like that the J-hook safety position blocks the sight line. Troops under stress yanking on the trigger and wondering why the gun doesn't go bang because they don't forgot to take it off safe (and now don't really *remember* there is a safe position) is a real thing. Blocking the sight line at least helps if Pvt Johansen is trying to aim - "Hey! There's something in the way! Oh, yeah!"
Aim under pressure lol
While this is true us poor sod who was issued one usually preferred to lock the bolt closed. That way the gun was both safe and didn't fill it's own chamber with mud and foilage when you slipped and fell or scraped it against a mossy tree.
@@Snarcksa It's all fun and games until you drop your SMG butt first and it fires...
@@kristiankatic9965 That's why we *locked* it closed. ;)
Blocking the line of sight is an excellent reason for a "flag" safety. (I think that's what it's called.) IIRC a lot of military bolt action rifles such as the SMLE had them, going back to before WW I.
As another commenter also wrote, they were in service in the early 2000's as. The last I saw of them was firing blanks during 1 week sessions for school kids (aged around 15).
Some of SMGs were so worn that the sear holding the bolt might fail and the entire mag of blanks would fire when charging.
Hej Søren, ja de var godt slidte, men virkede da. Det var bare vigtigt at rense den godt efter brug.😉
When I did my military service in Sweden in 2001, our radar platoon (who'd done their basic at another location) had been trained on the m/45B. Much like the Hovea and the Suomi, it's nice when things are so robust and functional that they can stay in service so long.
I came across a Danish tank squadron on Ex Quarter Final, late '80s if I recall correctly, where the crews were armed with these weapons. Impressively they carried with them their war load equivalent in albeit blank 9mm ammunition, which was pretty unusual for any NATO unit on exercise.
Their sqn leader was female, as were her crew I believe, presumably following some age old Viking tradition Ian..
I’ve seen these in service with Danish MPs. They were using the double stack 36 round magazines. This was in 1983.
In 1984/85, my platoon leader (Lieutenant) carried this as his issued weapon, the rest of us carried G3s. As I was being trained as an antitank gunner (84mm recoilless rifle Carl Gustaf) and had to lug a 16kg/35lbs steel tube around, I was often allowed to use the Lieutenants gun in lieu of my rifle - not because it was much lighter but it was a lot less cumbersome.
I can't remember if I got to fire it on the range but the Lt said he couldn't hit a barn if he stood inside it but then again, his job was not primarily as a marksman so I guess his training on and interest in this gun was minimal. And by this time, the gun would be approaching 40 years old and probably quite worn in the barrel.
Not sure if it was used with quad-stack magazines. As I recall, the magazine was long and slender, perhaps a 32rd or so double stack. I do recall that it took a special "blank firing" barrel with a much smaller internal diameter and a removable blank-firing device on the end. I think this was to ensure that in the event a live round got mixed into the blanks, it would not be able to pass down the barrel and cause grief while training.
TBH, I don't even think I ever fired blanks from it - I was just supposed to "have a gun with me" when dismounting as an antitank gunner, and as mentioned, it was easier with this than a metre long rifle slung across my back.
Our motorcycle "runners" had them in 2001-02. (the rest of us had H&K G3s)
This was in a mechanized engineer company.
And lucky you, loaning your officers smg. I was not so lucky when carrying our M79 Carl Gustav.
@@noremorsewoodworking2258 I carried the MP/49 as my personal field weapon as a young officer in the 1980s (artillery). As I recall it shot very well, no problem hitting a man size figure at 100 meter, but you had to do very short bursts. For blank firing a special barrel with a red colured "cap" was issued.
@@steffenb.jrgensen2014 by 2001 I think a big part of the issue was that the guns where old and very worn.
The one our "runner" had was not able to hit anything at 100m and was arguably falling apart.
They must have liked them a lot, I'm certain they had access to newer SMG's in those days.
I was issuet this as a Sergeant in the Danish Army. Absolutely loved it ! Extemely reliable you could cover the thing in mud and it would still run. It was actually ok accurate at least up to 150 meters.
Same here, '93-'95. It was excellent for the close ranges, very little recoil. Only thing, you better secure those magazines, else you might end up filling those damn "E-attest".. :)
Had one issued in the danish artillery as well in the late '80. Due to budget constrains i was only allowed to fire 10 rounds of live ammo. The same for my colleges. We never went trough the trouble. ☺️. Oh those memories of the danish army 😀
@@dannyjensen3202 Damn 10 rounds ? at one shooting range I spendt 1300 rounds in 2 days. It really needed a good cleaning after that. But that was in 1990 so maybe they had some surplus ammo they wanted to get rid off.
wow cool
Great weapon - Easy and precise. Had it as my personal weapon as sergeant in the Danish army 1980-81 - Artillery with 105 mm Howitzer M101A1 and M1 Garand for the conscripts (very Old School - the Howitzer dated 1944😂) . MP 49 was reliable, except for the magazines, as the locks were so worn, that the magazines often got lost in the field.
Fun fact: the blank fire adapter for the Danish HK G3 rifles and the m49 are far from identical, but they are interchangeable. Putting a G3 BFA on a m49 almost doubled the firerate. It also cracked the bolt, in a way the armoury had never seen before... I did not tell them how I managed to do that!
Actually the MP/49 blankfire adapter was OFFICIALLY issued for the HK G3 (M/75) in the late 80ies/early 90ies due to the M/75 blankfire adapter exploded/flew off and was temporary bande for exercise use. The M/49 blank fire adapter only allowed for single shot/no reload on the G3 ... so creative individuals used the G3 sling to fit to the cocking/reload handle for quicker reaload during blankfire exercises. Some even took out the metal split from the old leather strap of the G3 and put it inside the MP/49 blankfire device which would limit the gas escaping drastically (dangerously) and allow the G3 to selfreload blanks.... "someone told me" :)
I remember my dad talking about shooting this while he was a conscript, the only time he was average with this gun was during nightfiring exercises, everybody else couldn't hit anything either.
The Swedish K had the same problems if you got a well used one. The one I had was very well maintained and the barrel was close to perfect. So I could shoot pretty decent groups while some of the other guys had guns that would shoot around corners, and not in the same direction twice.
According to my dad who was a truck driver in Lumpen his M/45 had a tendency... to rotate its barrel while firing
I had the MP49 as my personal weapon for a few years during the 90’s. It had the 36 round magazine. I never saw the drum magazine.
Yes, I dont think the drum magazine was in "service". Also, it was not advised to fill the magazine to max, the first 3-5 rounds would jam the chamber if you had a bit worm magazine.
Dane here. I served the draft in 1993 and the much revered M49 was still in ubiquitous use then, pretty much for all NCOs and support troops- but was phased out of the regular military a couple of years later in 1995 and then National Guard (Hjemmeværnet) around 2000. They were generally well-liked and famed for their Kalashnikov like reliability, low rate of fire and controllability ~ shooting a lot like a US M3 Grease Gun. Reliability is highly prized in Scandinavia, because 3/4 of the year everything is snow, sand or mud - indeed, that reduction in diameter on the front of the bolt might be a mud 'n' snow reliability hack, if that makes sense from a gunsmithing point of view? (we have lots of such little adaptations on all of our equipment, because of the climate up here).
Legend had it in the Danish Army, that sometime on the 1960s, the US Navy Seals/LRRP tried the M49 on some NATO exercise and were so enthusiastic about its extreme reliability and simplicity, that they immediately adopted them for use in Vietnam ~ but perhaps that was actually the Swedish K-pist (a close cousin), maybe you know, Ian?
Fun fact: In Danish army use they are known as just the M49 (never knew "Hovea" until today), which is pronounced "m-forty-nineR" (with an R, in Danish "m-nineR-fyrre") - because of the similarity in pronounciation between tens ending in 4 and 9, especially in radio chatter. In Danish we actually say tens back to front, as they do in German ~ e.g. 44 is "four-and-forty" (fire-og-fyrre) and 49 is "nine-and-forty" ("ni-og-fyrre"). So, although it would be perfectly correct everyday Danish to just say "nine-and-forty" - the venerable M49 is ALWAYS pronounced "nineR-and-forty" in Danish military parlance or you will be told off... those little traditions that set all militaries apart... ;-)
* FKF stands for "Forsvarets Krigsmaterialforvaltning" - which translates as "(the) Defence's War Materiel Governance"... a PROPERLY bureaucratic sounding name, such as we have a tradition for in all of the Scandinavian countries
** also, for the love of Gawd, plz don't EVER say "maschinen pistol" [3:33] again for the Danish MP abbreviation - we don't speak German, we speak Danish - it is "masKin pistol" (hard K). You are Gun Jesus, you MUST know the correct pronounciation of ALL military abbreviations from across the globe! Oh, my, I nearly fainted... ;-D
I read a book talking about US special forces that worked in Laos during Vietnam. They used Special Ks partly due to the plausible deniability of using foreign equipment.
I remember seeing them as a boy in documentaries about the Danish Hunter Corps (SFs). This was early 90’s.
When I did my time as a conscript in the late 90’s I only saw one the entire year: our NCO responsible for ABC warfare had one. An old, grey-bearded Command Sergeant Major.
My motorized infantry company got brand new C8’s from Cananda.
When using the bigger magasin we always have a shoestring attached to it and the gun because it had a habit of falling off.
I was in Lithuania the winter of 20 through the summer off 21 and saw 2 different Mechanized infantry units (1 in GTK Boxers and 1 in M113s), 1 artillery unit, a basic training unit and were also escorted/guarded by a few MPs from time to time. We didn't see anything like these there just mostly the G36, MAG58 and the occasional M14.
Most likely war stockpile items. Most conscript/reserve armies keep all kinds of old stuff in "war stockpile". Can it still shoot one of our in use caliber munitions and not be hopelessly obsolete as far as firepower and usability goes? Yes? Keep in stockpile. Put it in that cave, next to the piles of boots, belts and uniforms.
As fare as I can tell they where handed over in late 2002. No surprise that very worn weapons had been replaced by 2020-.
In my limited contact with the military here, the only submachine guns I've seen were standard Uzis. Other weapons I've personally seen included the Glock 17, G36, MAG58, M14, M16A1, and GOL Sniper Magnum, all in the military context, as well as the AKS-74U in police service. That doesn't mean they don't have these m/49's, they could well be hidden away in wartime reserve stocks.
I might have some insight into the Estonian Hovea's.You won't find it written down anywhere - as for obvious reasons.
In the early days when Estonia regained independence Denmark could not recognise Estonia on that level - for the simple reason Denmark had never recognised the Soviet occupation as legitimate!
In the effort to build up a defence there was a clutch of senior advisors - Finland really, really formed the structure of the Estonian forces. Retired generals worked as advisors - from Denmark it was Lt.Gen. Hillingsø.
Now - I am coming to it: This new defence force was landed upon by vultures. Your sales representative to Elbonian government and army is not off the mark. The mashinations are thoroughly in accordance with reality. If You don't trust me - then DON'T.
What the sales reps. presented the Estonians with was all-right, but at a ludicrious price - and at the time, there were a lot of Russian "freindlies" in the system corrupt - naturally.
So besides organising by Finland (that army structure has been done in stages - once they were certain that the Home Guard was actually working - in contrast to the army). There is/was a Baltic Defence Collage to train officers - with a Danish headmaster.
As to weapons - I was periferially involved in a proposal to make a bare bones control and warning system on stone-age technology. At least untill the USA got to its senses, and a radar system was made for the Baltic region.
Now as to air defence weapons it was evident, that building an airforce was beyound the capacity - even with Finnish assistance. So Denmark donated some 40 mm Bofors that had been abused by conscripts as airfield defence. The guns were all right and they could whack helicopters.
As to infantry rifles they had quite a lot of Kalashnikovs - which is an all-right rifle - not the latest model; but excellent as a start up kit.
So those money could be saved.
That the HOVEA was donated as well is news to me, but one of the least astonishing surprises ever. As a submashine gun it is ok - nothing fancy but OK - and uses standard Nato ammo.
Hope my ranting is of some value to You.
I remeber we in the DK army doanted ALOT of stuuf to the Baltics in the mid to late 90's. Some was ok stuff, but must was beat up old stuff. Old 105 howtizers, rifles, pistols, trucks etc etc. most noticbel a few good standard flex patrol ships. It was new or flashy but considring the baltics didnt have anything at all, it was a starting point.
@@sprocket5526 Well, the point was that the Baltic states could accept the gifts, as there were no strings attached. I still think we could use 105 mm howitzers - but that is neither here nor there.
The point was cutting back on the absolutely useless Staff officers in Forsvarskommandoen - and getting rid of conscription.
Since Baltic states were part of USSR shouldn’t they have a lot of surplus military gears? Or is it because the Soviet Union didn’t fall yet and brings home their equipment in good order.
@@theodorsebastian4272 They pretty much left with everything. Just to put in persepctive, when the Russians left DDR, they unbolted sinks nd toilets and brought it back home. Old Rusisan tradition, steal anything that bolted and not bolted down.
@@theodorsebastian4272 As far as I know: It was quite unsystematic what was left behind, what was later sold off as a firesale - Sweden got quite a few ex-Russian APC for a song and hobbled march.
The movements of the arms 1990-2000 was intensive. Leopard 2's were available to Nato partners at a very fair price - Krauss-Maffei turned into the second hand dealership in slightly used armour.
Now Denmark is donating M113 to Ukraine - and they are (due to the light weight) - the vehicle of choice plus gives good shrapnel protection.
I think the real motive behind the donation is clearing of garage facilities to accept the Piranha V which are coming off the lines.
The Piranha V is also a tale of production demanding new investments. There were considerations of Danish licence production, but that would probably have meant a lot more investment to bring the suppliers up to standard. In fact MOWAG fired the entire staff in Kreuzlingen - untill the right solution was found: New facilities have been build and the right people have been rehired as far as I can tell.
"Gun Jesus" has several times pointed out that Swiss weapons are not cheap and have no unnessary frills. If they are not that - then they don't sell on the export market.
The reason the Danish arms manufacturers were not in shape after the war was partly the availability of cheap arms - I think the USA off-loaded 2 divisions worth of equipment and told us to play with that. Some of that equipment was quite good. The other reason was that Riffelsyndikatet was sabotaged by the resistance - and a gunsmith without tools isn't a gunsmith. How much the Danish Industri collaborated with the Occupation force - hard to say. It must have been a lot since every payment to them was made by check drawn on the Danish Central Bank and as they returned to the Central Bank it was pretty well known whom had been war profiteers - and the companies KNEW that - so there was some reluctance to cooperate to much - as a day of reckogning was coming.
You can critisise it; but it saved the Danish jews. The germans did not want to upset the Danish pork production - which could have happened. Secondly the Social Ministry kept track of Danes in concentration camps - and their families. That was paid for by the employers organisation that levied an extraordinary subscribtion.
You might not fear the Spanish Inquisition - but you better be scared of the Danish civil service.
ua-cam.com/video/Cj8n4MfhjUc/v-deo.html
Great stuff, always wants to see one of these up close.
I have always found it interesting how SMGs started out as beautiful pieces of engineering art and over 2 decades they become more refined mechanically, but also more simplified and crude looking as they become easier and less expensive to manufacture.
The MP49 was also use by the Danish special forces well into the 1990ies. The Danish Frogman Corps tested its capabilities under water. And the MP/49 proved to be lethal up to 8 meters under water.
I had the MP/49 issued to me as an officer.
The Danish Home Guard used the MP M/49 into the early 2000's. Fun to shoot!
I love the aesthetic of these little stamped metal, bare bones smg's.
Honestly I dislike a lot of them but there's something about this one I can't help but really like
@@evz0ne595 this gun looks so uncomfortable to handle and shoot, miles better than a sten but this looks like a homemade pipe gun with a foldy thingy hanging off the end
@@commoncriminal923 They are uncomfortable but nothing beats the Sten in crudeness, poor handling and overall horrendous characteristics.
@@chapiit08 exactly anything beats the sten but still post ww2? For a service smg??? Horrible choice....
Stick with whatever browning or fn come out with
@@commoncriminal923 As far as I know neither Browning nor FN came out with any smg right after WW2, and most stuff was open bolt systems for the most part up until the 1970's and beyond, including the horribly balanced over-hyped UZI. Not until H&K came up with the MP5 there was anything truly groundbreaking in smg designs.
"... there's not a whole lot there to show you anyway."
I understand why you didn't take the barrel off and I'm not complaining about that. However, I like looking at the chamber and feed ramps and all those details.
I'll never do it but I keep telling myself I'm gonna build a gun one day.
And somewhere in FBI headquarters a little bell rings...
@@AshleyPomeroy Free people don't ask for permission.
@@wormyboot Well, there are legal ways! maybe one day who knows!
When the Serbu BFG50 exploded on KB, it was discussed that adding vent holes to the barrel cap might be integrated as a safety feature. Less metal on the bolt face as it steps down, may have the effect of venting gases as opposed to letting pressure build up.
I used them up to around 01-02 since the G3's we had at that point was worn out and short supply. So these got pulled out of storage for a few years untill the C7 Ar-15 became avaialbe in large enough number to be standard issue guns.
This was my personal weapon in 1968 as a sergent in the danish army. Very easy to carry and operate compared to the Garand. I even had a box with 7 more in case of emergensy.
Hi Ian, you brought back memories. I had one Hovea m/49 36 round model in my time by the Danish army. I was in service with the Centurion Tank at first, then the Leopard 1 A3 from 1976 to 1979. 😏We had these weapons because of very tight space.
Ian, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we find your detailed dives and additional context tangents to be scintillating. The mechanics and machining are of course always going to be your focal point for weapons that otherwise the masses would never get a chance to understand from a gunsmithing perspective...
But you're a really really good and interesting historian and not many people cover subjects like armament procurement, contracts, civilian firearms industry etc on an easily accessible platform like this.
Please know that we collectively love your history lessons as much as the breakdowns of the guns and mechanics themselves, and "ramble" to your heart's content.
Hearing a passionate person explain their interests is the best way to learn in my opinion, and those few who aren't interested about such info can always fast forward until they see you 7
opening up and taking out the juicy bits 🙂
Gun Jesus preaches, never rambles.
Thanks for all you do, can't wait to see what else you'll have for us in the future.
This x1000
So say we all !
Remind me of KSP 45 or M45, danish and swedish guns of the time have a very distinct beautiful look
Kpist 45*.
KSP means machinegun.
@@5chr4pn3ll Ah I see thank you for explaining
Well it's made by Husqvarna so it's actually a swedish designed gun. I think they look so alike because they probably were made to fit the exact same requirements issued by the swedish armed forces.
Looks like a mixture of the ppsh 43 and the sten gun together. Very nice video.
I remember firing these when I was a conscript in 1995. If you put a D size battery at the back of the recoil spring to compress it a bit more, you could get a really fun firing rate. Empty the 36 round mag before the first shell casing hit the ground.
Thanks for taking me back to 1995.
Funnily enough I am writing one of my university essays on the Swedish m/45. Carl Gustaf Gevärsfaktori actually had a bunch of different designs submitted in the middle of the contest, where the one that became the the m/45 was referred to as m/Jonsson, and was originally made with a rifle stock during trials, as well as folding stocks. This was largely inspired by the PPS-43, which was the original gun that Sweden tested when they first started experimenting with "simplified" SMGs. The final report actually suggests that the Husqvarna version was slightly better in accuracy, but they were both incredibly good guns that cost, manufacturing and surprisingly aesthetics were part of the final decision to go with the m/Jonsson.
Interesting! I was wondering about something.
How could the two manufacturers end up with almost exactly the same design?
How could Husqvarna licence this to a Danish manufacturer if it was the design developed by Carl Gustafs?
My first guess was that much of the research and development/prototyping was done by FMV, but you're saying they worked independently on totally different designs...
Hope you understand my question.
@@JH-lo9ut So FMV wasn't around back then, instead we had KAFT. Basically it all came down to production capabilities, and the delegation wanted all the guns to be able to be built with tubes, since swedish industry was better set up for making tubes over things like stampings. The design shown in the video is based of the Husqvarna gun, which husqvarna had full rights to. The m/45 or m/Jonsson was designed internally at Carl Gustaf Gevärsfaktori. They are different firearms, but quite similar.
@@Sneckit The simple tube and stamped metal designs were quite common all around at the time. The British Sterling was another one that's pretty much built using the same design principles. It's however a lot lighter than the m/45, but the magazine sticking straight out the side is a pain in the but, at least in my opinion. I got to carry one during an exercise and the weight difference was very appreciated, as was the ergonomics apart from that magazine that is. Don't remember how easy it was to disassemble though. The m/45 and this m/49 were incredibly simple to take down. The m/49 should be a little easier than the m/45 with that button to depress the ratcheting poll for the castle nut. With the m/45 you need something to push in the poll and free up the ratchet. I was taught to use my name badge for that. Other than that I think they are pretty equal.
Man the Swedish K is like the Post WW2 version of the Suomi l. Everyone seems to have had them
Forgotten Weapon... they were in widespread use in my Artillery Regiment in 2001.... /cry in old
Strange. I was a gunner on the M109 in '96-97 and we had the G3 ("M75"). The infantry was transitioning to the C7 ("M95") so I wonder how the M49 found it's way into the artillery when there were constantly being more M75s relinquished from other regiments...
@@andersjjensen Motorcykle Ordonanserne. (Motorbike couriers). Rest of us was either M75 or MG. (MG myself). But we did have 4 in our battery alone.
@@Kar4ever3 Ah, only our MOs had MGs. Everyone else was on M75.
In the Danish Army HomeGuard the MP M/49 was taken out of service around 1999-2000.
Bud in the Airforce HomeGuard it was in service until 2002.
After 2002 almost all were sent to Lithuania, bud a few were kept for education and history purpose in the Danish armed forces.
One of my colleagues was deployed to Lithuania in 2020 and at that time, the MP M/49 was still in service with some units of the Lithuanian Home Guard.
Thank you , Ian .
Had one of those when I was in the army 1993-94. We didn't use the drum magazines, only the double stack stick magazine. We had to tie the magazines to the gun with shoelaces, they easily fell out during exercises in the field.
Ian thank you for your extensive library of firearms history.
I loved to shoot that M/49. With blanks it sounded just like an AK47. Glad that you had the stickmagazine in the video, because they where mostly issued in the homeguad because they where standard to the M44 Husquarna SMG. Normaly in the Army we where issued teh 36rds stick mags. But during service in teh homeguard i got hold of a pair of 50 rounds dublestacks, they worked flawlessly. HAvent really seen anyone else make such great highcapacity mags, well maybe the Schmeisser and MAgpull have some, but this one just worked. A bit wider, but shorter.
On covert patols sneaking through the brush, it was a fairly short weapon, holding 50 rounds, a great alternative to 2 sticks mags taped in V shape. I used v shaped taped doubles in the army because the 50 rds wasnt available.
As a Leopard tanker we had that MP/49 until we where send to Bosnia serving the DANSQN, from that mission and forward we where issued telescope stocks to the G3 (7.62). That was a great weapon, way better suited for moderen battlefield than the 9mm. Soon after we adobted the Diamarco C7 Carbine in 5.56mm.
The M49 was easy to handle, even shoot with one hand. Had some really good memories with that M49, blanks banged loud as hell and bright in the dark, so when on infiltration patrols a lot of guys had a scare in buildings, when this thing was suddenly fired into a HQ. It was easy to clean after been sprayed with saltwater in a dinghy or a swim and sand from the beach. Just a quick wash under a water tab. Keep the extractor clean and this thing runs forever.
Never forget once during the cold war, we staged a sneaky 5th collum / terroist attack at a traing of guards of a public service building on a marketsquare, riding shotgun sitting behind a uniformed Police Officer on his patrol motorcyckle, down the sidewalk passing fast in between between ordinary civilians and then the security people. We where making a drive by blasting on the VIP with this SMG using the a 50 rds, desperately holding on to the driver with the other hand. The scene was downtown in a in a normal city with many people sitting peacefully on cafees, enjoying a quiet saturday evening. Not a ordinary happening i Denmark in the 90ies.That SMG bring memories... a lot of memories... :-)
The single stack mag would drop out of the gun so easily in the field, because of the release button design. We would tie a string between the barrel and the mag.
Great video and a unique pronunciation of Husquvarna . What more could one ask for .
I've been watching all of your firearm videos for 10+ years. I've also been getting a lot of the good old videos with my favorite into, and I'm sorry to say that your content is so good i forgot to hit the like button. Thank you for making some of the best content on UA-cam.
Those 50rd coffin mags are so cool.
One of my favorite types of magazine.
Thank you so much for this video about our danish SMG Hovea M/49
this was the first gun I had, when I joined the danish army in 1998 :) (Slesvigske fodregiment in Haderslev)
Just seems strange to me that so many small European countries designed and/or adopted new SMGs right after WWII, when the continents was flooded with MP-40s. I'm not saying that the MP-40 was flawless, it certainly wasn't, but the availably of cheap surplus 9mm SMGs immediately after the war, would make one think that governments trying to rebuild their infrastructure would have been content to make do with surplus for a while.
I believe that the Nordic country's wanted to have in house manufacturing to be self-reliant when it comes to weapon/ammunition production and to keep the "known how".
The nordic countries hade more or less undamaged infrastructure after ww2.
With your own arms industry, especially if you're a neutral country like Sweden, you are not as reliant on others in case of an emergency such as a war.
An example would be Sweden's air force which had ordered several american aircraft just before the outbreak of WW2, but with the war breaking out the americans confiscated the aircraft and Sweden were for several crucial months left with only a few modern fighters like the P-35 Seversky and several near obsolete ones such as the Bristol Bulldog and Gloster Gladiator, 30-40 fighters in total.
So Sweden's own air industry had to compensate and Sweden has since then built and rely their own aircraft (with a few exceptions), so they don't end up in the same situation.
My guess is what with such high post-war European tensions, a lot of countries wanted to opt for self-sustained arms development instead of buying the war spoils of the Soviets. A majority of the MP40’s were sent to war-torn countries backed by the Soviets, and this is evidenced by their wide usage of them showing up in basically every proxy war since WW2. I think that if it weren’t for the Soviets, you’d be completely right and that you’d see a lot of firearms either using MP40 mags, or just outright using MP40s. The global climate at the time just didn’t really facilitate using them.
@@KC-bg1th I don't know, a lot of MP40s were used by NATO and USA aligned countries as well, such as several South American juntas and the south vietnamese.
Czechoslovakia is also one of those countries that used and made former german models of weapons (which had been manufactured in occupied Czechoslovakia) which were exported to, amongst others, a young Israel.
Norway had MP 40s for many years, those and the 400.000 K98s.
Very interesting and I had no idea about this, even that I'm a Swede.
It seems logical that Lithaua recieved Hovea m/49, that shares all the importand design and ammunition standard with the m/45 the Baltic countries recived from Sweden.
However, the m/45 served in the Swedish armed forces until 2007, the last period of time as an armament for staff, motorcycle ordonance, dog handlers e.t.c. in the voluntairy local forces (Hemvärnet).
I used one of those for awhile back in '89/90 , however my primary was a Garand in 7,62 NATO and then a MG3
Which country were you serving in?
@@oldesertguy9616 Denmark. 9 months conscription
I don't think the Garand was in 7.62 NATO - the danish Garands were never converted from 30.06, which is a bit longer than the NATO cartridge.
@@noremorsewoodworking2258 even the US NAVY had a Garand in 7,62 NATO 😀
@@noremorsewoodworking2258 They were converted by a number of countries after the war. The 7.62 NATO shares a lot with the 30.06 cartridge.
I was a sergeant i the Royal Danish Airforce in the beginning of to seventies and we were issued with the MP M49. 30 years later I saw one in an exibition and asked if I could try to disassemble it and assemble it again. They said ok, if I could do it blindfolded, and so I did. It was very fast to maintaing and for the time a very reliable weapon.
I had one issued when i became a Gun/Howitzer commander for an M114 while i was a conscript SG and had this or the M75/G3 issue depending on what job i had later on , the higher priority units had M75/G3 and corps Artillery units had MP49 but i never saw a drum Mag or 50 round Mag we only had 36 round MAGs i think they where only used by Homeguard units.
I was equipped with one.
My favorite military weapon.
Light weight and easy to maintain.
makes sence with the Husquarna coffin magazines, since they were at hand from the predecessor wooden stock Husquarna SMG know in DNK Military/HomeGuard as the MP M/44.
Another outstanding video, my friend.
The Hovea M49 seems to share certain design aspects of both the British Sten Mk II and the MK V smg’s and the Suomi line of smg’s. Appears to be a well built and thoughtful design.
Thank you again for continuing to bring information to light regarding both well known and rare firearms.
Have a great,my friend! 👍🏻👍🏻 🇺🇸 🦅 🇺🇸 🦅 🇺🇸
Copenhagen typewriter!
This firearm looks to be of better and possibly even cheaper construction than the Luty.
This is a testament to knowledge of construction materials and techniques.
When I was in service with The Danish Artillery in 91’ (NJAR 6AA/3BAT - M109) M/49s were issued to our motorcycle drivers, some lower rank commanders on gun crew and staff.
I’d be interested to hear Ian’s thoughts on Finland and Sweden potentially joining NATO. He always has interesting, well-reasoned points, even if I am getting a flashback of the video of his previous predictions 😅
Thank you for your work, I enjoy it.
I had one in 1989. We change the spring with one from the LMG (mg43) and emptied the magasin fast very fast
Have heard the same story from a couple different persons(one of them being my father). According to my father the trigger sear would not engage the bolt whilst firing with the stronger LMG spring fitted, so it would continue to fire until the magazine was empty.
A lot of sten like features in it. The strange bolt face is probably so that any debris in it would fly out upon firing as long as it went off and there's no flat shoulder on the front to get something stuck on the bolt or breech face preventing the breech from completely closing
I would love to see a video on the colt LMG that the Danish Military and home guard had. From what I gather they were basically open bolt m16s with a funky square hand guard over the barrel and they used beta c mags if my memory serves right. I have never seen a video on this particular m16 variant but if anyone can get access to one it would be you Ian
I had it as a service weapon for several years as a young soldier. Great weapon for military exercises, fun on the shooting range and perfect for parades. But I never took this weapon with me into war.
In 2006, I think it was, maybe a few years earlier, I was the company commander whose unit retired the last remaining of these weapons from the Danish army, after a week of urban combat training in "Brikby". The good thing about this was that then my unit did not have to clean and maintain these weapons, as they had to be transported to Copenhagen the day after to be dismantled....!
Fun fact?.. This is one of the most common machine guns amongst criminals in Denmark.
A lot was stolen in the 80s and 90s, and a good chunk of those are still out there today.
I'm a former danish army sergeant (service time from feb 1995 - feb 2000). I've used the m/49 a bit, but I've never seen the drum magazine nor the quad stack.
My dad told me about how they would unscrew the bottom, and put some coins in the rear to compress the spring more, making it fire faster. The sergent didnt always find it as funny as they did
This oddly looks like a modified PPSh-41 that some criminals had in the Soviet Union post WW2 - years ago I saw a documentary from an MVD museum.
Close. This is all derived mainly from the PPS-43.
That's quite the leaf blower there, Mr Ian!
A super machine gun , always working . With pratice pretty good at 100 meters
Easy to make single shot with
And as tankcrew easy to have in the turret. The AR fun but longer to move in and out
I have been serving in the Lithuanian Armed Forces for more than 12 years. Never seen those.
I'm always curious to see self-loathing submachine guns.
Funny to hear about Husqvarna as gun factory. We have had a lot of Husqvarna fridges, freezers and whatnot in Finland over the decades.
I always thought Husqvarna was only a motorcycle company, until I inherited my Grandfather's Husqvarna 30.06. It's a barely post-war rifle that is basically identical to a military Mauser bolt action in a hunting stock. The receivers were made by FN and sold to Husqvarna, who added barrels and stocks to make full rifles. Later Husqvarna released an in-house "improved" Mauser bolt action (Arguable, but it did have a more convenient safety) and just prior to closing up firearms manufacturing in 1972 introduced a non-Mauser bolt action design. (A "push-feed" as opposed to Mauser's "controlled feed" design. I don't know much about them.) I've had various people tell me that it's a "sporterized" Mauser, which were quite common in the US, but this one is definitely a factory hunting rifle.
Where I'm from they were known for bikes, chainsaws and whipper-snippers.
@@tarmaque someone told me that zoli then brought the husky tooling and that's what there bolt action rifles are made from.
Here in nz Husqvarna means chainsaws to most people
@@tom11630 Sounds plausible, but I've only ever heard of Zoli shotguns. A little research shows they did indeed make some rifles and they do look like the later Husqvarnas. Husqvarna is also known here for chainsaws, but mostly for dirt bikes.
YES! That one!! Thank you thank you, Ian :D
I can't wait for the KTM RC/50 video.
Excellent content!
Interresting that the magazine interchangeability were so much in demand those days. I don’t think (or know) that there are many guns that can use each others mag’s today.
That rear take down cap would make me nervous that IF it failed under fire the bolt would come out under force at me.
For people confused with the MP designation on SMG’s in Western Europe, yes MP is short for “maskine pistol” which directly translates to machine pistol but the actual meaning is quite different as it’s more accurate to translate it as “Pistol caliber machine gun” which is what in the US would be called an SMG.
I used one in the late 90'ties in the Danish army. We mostly used them for blank firing exercises.
The initial batch of guns and the Hovea production line, was purchased and set up using money borrowed from the A.P. Møller concern - which says a few things about the state of the danish economy, when it came to military procurement, in the early post-war years.
Neat little gun I've never heard of, Scandinavian firearms are always interesting to see!
AS a dane Ian, I have to correct you. It's *Maskin-Pistol* . We don't speak german^^
It amazes me the number of post war submachine guns developed when most of the major powers were looking at intermediate cartridges and thinking assault rifles. I am guessing it has to do with cost, and how broke a lot of the world was after the war. Much like me after the wife goes to a shoe store.
Well submachine guns can be more useful than assault rifles in certain situations and also it really took well into the 70's before intermediate cartidges started catching on. Before that battle rifles was more common. The big exception is the AK but almost the entire west and large parts of the world used rifle caliber rifles.
Yeah, my guess is that submachine guns are easier and cheaper to develop than assault rifles. The latter involved new tech and new problems, while SMGs using pistol sized cartridges had been well developed. A designer could gather half a dozen good ones and crib ideas from them - he'd have to try really hard to make a crappy one.
AHH i remember this one we in the Danish Dragoons called it the bicycle we had the 36 round mag 9mm and we had a gun we new as 9mm nauhausen thease two guns is is the worst when it freeze and in good weather it can´t hit a barndoor at 10 meters when i was a master sargent i got the ga3a1 and the colt 1911 a1 i was happy at my choice
Fortes Fortuna Juvat
Gevarm .22 uses the push through bolt handle safety too
Ah yes, the "fish tank air tube" SMG :)
Thank you
6:52 "there's just a little more meat in the trunnion here." Sounds like some kind of innuendo or euphemism.
saw one of these in an exercise in 2004, a contract soldier was using it for opfor training.
I am not in the Lithuanian military but I used to be. I have an M49 next to me on the sofa right now. I like to keep it handy, just in case. I have no idea if the boys still use them. I think it is a very good gun. I think the big stick mags are best.
That's a fair bit of weight reduction on front end of that bolt i think, would that not effect the firing rate?
Sure it did, but it's still very long and heavy, so I have a feeling they added about as much in the back as they removed in the front. These guns were pretty controllable because they were pretty slow firing. And with no single shot setting you didn't really want a high ROF.
It actually has some outer resemblence to the Swedish K m45 but I do like the drum magazine a lot! There was an earlier swedish m ehh 36 I think, with a rather high rate of fire that used drums. It is claimed that the high rate of fire made it prone to quite some problems with malfunctions. Sadly... 51 rounds are more fun than 36 for sure 😅.
And this is what you get for commenting before watching the entire vid... good job, myself! 😂
In 2001-02 I did my mandatory service in a mechanized engineer company in the Danish army.
(so M113s APCs for the 3 work platoons)
Our motorcycle "runners" had them. (the rest of us had H&K G3s)
In our sister company they all had C8s (M/96)
Around 1980 - a teacher of mine told of a near-fatal with this gun with the blank-adaptor barrel fitted and a *real cartridge* mid-magazine - bolt went over right shoulder, would have killed him had he taken a “proper” cheek weld!!
Livgarden!!!!
Looks like a Swedish K/ madsen Suomi combo. With Sten bolt safety . I know I have spare parts laying around
Thank you.
Just a thought. The reason the bolt was smaller at the business end was to allow fowling to vent from the port.
Thanks for the new video
Is Ian saying “Madsen” here? 1:37 Curious about the pronunciation, like if it’s a “Garand” type thing
im danish and the d is silent you dont say maDsen you say masen
yeah, and he is comming pretty close. Not perfect, but close. The D in maDsen in danish is a weird kinda silent letter that just changes the sound of the ones around it a bit.
@@betzer19 That’s cool, yet another thing I learned today! Thanks!
Like how he pronounced Husqvarna? I guess we just talk funny over here XD
@@infernaldaedra I mean it's a bit accurate. The Q sounds more like C in car.
I tried to write everything phonetically but that's way too much work so here's and add where they say it.
ua-cam.com/video/XDcL-LbhkGY/v-deo.html&ab_channel=HusqvarnaSverige
You know what! This one is the first i can remember seeing .. and i live in Husqvarna lol