Rifles and Machineguns

This is first part of the "Weapons That the Finnish Army almost had". The basic idea for this new part of the section is to showcase Finnish pre World War 2 and World War 2 era military weaponry, which for one reason or another never got to mass-production. Most of these weapons reached only prototype stage and the others usually did not get beyond small series manufactured for field tests. The first two pages concentrate to small arms, while the heavy weapon designs shall showcased in later parts, which are not yet complete. When Finland gained independence the newborn state did not have armaments industry of its own, so it is not really surprising that the beginning was slow. Aimo Lahti became the main Finnish designer for military small arms. His designs were dominant in the particular period for one obvious reason - he had no real domestic competitors. In fact one could say that the development history of Finnish military small arms from 1920's to 1944 was pretty much history of his design work and the acceptance they either got or did not get from Ordnance Department of the Army. While his first designs appeared already in 1920's Aimo Lahti did his best work in 1930's and due to personal tragedies his design work started going downhill during World War 2. During the war the way that the Finnish industry had been machining small arms was also rapidly becoming outdated - machining parts from steel was too slow and expensive making it ineffective for wartime production. Development work reached its peak during 1943 - 1944. By year 1946 Finnish armaments industry would have likely launched mass-production for number of new small arms, which would have offered fundamental changes to weaponry of Finnish Army. These included easy to mass-produce submachinegun M/44, assault-rifle like AL-43 and 7.62-mm version of MG 42 general purpose machinegun redesigned to use Finnish Army. In addition to these some 4,000 captured Soviet submachineguns were to be modified to 9-mm x 19 Parabellum/Luger calibre and also thousands of captured Tokarev rifles were warehoused expecting repairs and reissuing back to troops. If implemented all these projects they would have huge impact to firepower of Finnish infantry, which was still mainly using bolt-action rifles as individual weapons and relied difficult to transport Maxim machineguns as their machineguns. But then came September of 1944 and the ending of Continuation War changed the situation.

Once the Continuation War ended to armistice treaty all the previously sent orders of armaments, which had not yet entered production, were reconsidered and practically all of them cancelled. On the other hand Finnish industry faced also other problems: Tikkakoski factory (manufacturer of famous Suomi M/31 submachinegun) had been in German ownership and due to terms of armistice treaty it now was moved to Soviet ownership (along all other German owned property located in Finland). The new owner of Tikkakoski obviously had no intention of continuing manufacturing of weapons for the recent enemy. This was not the Soviet decision for just this factory, but for the whole Finnish armaments industry. Year 1945 Allied Control Commission ordered all weapons manufacturing to be stopped and banned even repairing of existing weaponry. Not that Finnish metal industry would have had much free capacity for that either - all possible existing production capacity was needed for manufacturing products, which had to be delivered to Soviet Union as war reparations. Tikkakoski factory started manufacturing sewing machines among other things. VKT (State Rifle Factory) was renamed as Valmet Tourula Factories and converted its production to various kinds of machinery. Aimo Lahti lost his work and was banned even visiting his former workplace. He also had to endure threats in front of Soviets belonging to Allied Control Commission. Year 1947 he was transferred to early retirement and was denied passport, so he could not continue his career abroad. Also other Finnish officers who had taken part in developing weaponry had to face aggressive interrogations of Allied Control Commission even dozens of times. Soviet officers belonging to the Commission demanded to see everything that the Finns had developed and blueprints of the best inventions were sent to Soviet Union. Needless to say Finland did not get any compensation for this one-sided exportation of technology.

Shortly said there is very little reason to doubt that the Soviets in Allied Control Commission did their best to end Finnish weapons development once and for all - and they achieved partial success in this. Paris peace treaty signed 1947 verified the Soviet goals by banning Finland from having armaments industry larger than what was needed for Armed Forces, whose size had been limited in that same treaty. The peace treaty limited size of Finnish Armed Forces to 41,900 men and Finnish Army warehouses contained weapons for several hundred thousands of men. This situation basically gave the Soviets a possibility to halt Finnish armaments development for decades if they wanted and make sure that Finnish Army would have to use these same old weapons as long as they wanted. British were the other nationality taking part in Allied Control Commission and they could not have been less interested about the whole matter. Irony is that starting of Cold War proved to be Finnish salvation in this regard because the changed the whole situation. Treaty of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance (YYA-treaty) was originally what the Soviets demanded, but the Finns succeeded watering it down in negotiations before it was signed year 1947. According western view this treaty made Finland potential Soviet ally, this sparked the British interest concerning weaponry of Finnish Armed Forces, which had remained warehoused since 1945. The British demands concerning limiting Finnish weaponry according Paris peace treaty succeeded getting the Soviets insulted and got them re-considering if disarming their new potential ally was to their own best interests. The situation remained as it was until year 1952 the Finns contacted the Soviets, which were now quite willing to accept peace treaty interpretation, that allowed peace-time warehousing for equipping large Finnish reserves in case of war and allowed also re-starting of Finnish armaments development and production.

The whole story of these weapons in Finland started with failure of infantry rifle M/27. Once Finnish military had noticed the problems caused by weaknesses of the design and poor quality materials a committee was established to evaluate the problems and make necessary recommendations for rectifying them. Year 1934 this committee named appropriately as "Rifle M/27 committee" suggested developing of automatic rifle. It was easy to see that automatic rifled would have considerably improved firepower of Finnish infantry, buy where to find the suitable design?

At the time Aimo Lahti was the main designer of small arms for Finnish military - and one of his kind, so naturally he got the task of developing automatic rifle. The official order for this was sent in October of 1934 and it took until autumn of 1936 until the first prototype was finished. The way Lahti's designs were usually named this first prototype was named as L-36. Finnish military proved less than enthusiastic when it came to this prototype - and for a good reason. With benefit of hindsight it is easy to see that the basic concept was well chosen - gas-action automatic with gas-piston. But unfortunately otherwise was rifle was anything but practical. The biggest handicap was magazine, for which Lahti for some weird reason had selected Mannlicher-like design. In other words: The magazine was fixed (non-removable) and it was reloaded with cartridge clips, which were integral part of the magazine, which did not work without them. Somebody might claim that this not such a serious handicap - especially considering that American Garand M1 automatic rifle had also rather similar kind of magazine arrangement and that worked relatively well. But unfortunately magazine used in automatic rifle L-36 had some notable differences to that one. For one thing the magazine capacity of L-36 was just 5 rounds. Even more serious problem was that it could not be loaded from the top, but instead Lahti had included front part of the magazine a hinge and switch for opening up the magazine for reloading. So, for reloading the soldier was supposed to open up the magazine, insert cartridge clip of 5 rounds, close the magazine and arm the rifle by pulling back the lever on top of the rifle - not exactly easy or fast in middle of combat. The T-shape lever used to arm the rifle was another problem - for some reason Lahti had located it on top of the rifle and made it ankward shape. The rifle also weight about 5 kg, this might have not been too much of a problem if it would have otherwise been practical and suitable for combat use. Unfortunately L-36 was neither and if compared to its obvious what-if contemporary rival, Soviet AVS-36 (which weight 4.3-kg and had normal 15-round removable magazine), it obviously looses on paper. The rifle was not all bad - it seems to have been relatively easy to disassemble. The whole rifle broke to two main parts, one of which contained lower receiver while the another one had upper receiver - and these two parts were locked to each other with single locking pin. Shortly said automatic rifle L-36 was a far cry from effective combat weapon and the design had some serious weaknesses, which were so obvious that the weapon was not even seriously tested. Another factors for this might have been estimated large manufacturing costs, lack of possible manufacturing capacity and the distrust towards gas-action weapons that seems to have been still pretty common among senior Finnish officers at the time.

Year 1939 Finnish military reintroduced the almost forgotten automatic rifle project - and this time also funding needed for the matter would have been available. Aimo Lahti started developing improved rifle design based to his earlier L-36 prototype. The main improvement was replacing the old T-shaped arming lever with more typical kind of bolt design, but also sights and locking mechanism were improved. However it retained the inconvenient Mannlicher-type 5 round magazine. This improved automatic rifle named L-39 never got the possibility of success either. This was due to Winter War, which begun in November of 1939. With the war the rather limited Finnish armaments industry had its hands full and had no capacity needed of introducing new automatic rifle to production. Only one prototype of L-39 automatic rifle was manufactured. When Winter War ended March of 1940 Finnish military had chance of evaluating the recent experiences - and these did not look favourable to automatic rifles. For one thing Suomi M/31 submachineguns had proved remarkably useful and effective, so submachinegun was looking like good alternative for automatic rifles. Finnish troops had also captured thousands of Soviet AVS-36 and SVT-38 during Winter War, so there was no immediate need for getting more automatic rifles. During interim peace 1940 - 1941 Finnish military tested these two captured automatic rifle models and decided to concentrate SVT-38 design, because of its better reliability and suitability.

Captain Carl Pelo was a Finn, who made short career in Finnish military before resigning from active duty in mid 1920's and becoming engineer. After this he did career in industry (acting among other things as technical manager of Sako factory in early 1930's). While he lacked official status he had passion for developing small arms for Finnish Army. Unfortunately this passion presented itself also in this behaviour in ways, which didn't exactly help him getting in good graces of (Defence Ministry / Finnish Army) Ordnance Department. Instead of contacting lowly officers of Ordnance Department he preferred contacting directly Marshal Mannerheim or Commander of Finnish Army, even if the ordnance matters didn't really belong to them and was obvious breech of chain of command. He also repeatedly claimed that some of the weapons (such as Lahti-Saloranta M/26 light machinegun) approved by Finnish Army were based to his inventions, but lost all lawsuits against Ordnance Department. Due to these reasons his relationship with Ordnance Department was downright poor and might at least partially explain, why he never succeeded getting any of his small arms designs approved for use of Finnish military.

Pelo demonstrated this first automatic rifle prototype already year 1933 by organising a grandiose test-firing event, to which he had invited President of Finland Svinhufvud, Marshal Mannerheim, Minister of Defence Oksala and some of the leading Generals of Finnish Armed Forces. Pelo had privately ordered the manufacturing of this prototype from Sako, where he was working as technical manager at the time. The prototype presumably used long barrel recoil and it had been chambered to German 7.92 mm x 57 JS ammunition. The automatic rifle designs that Pelo developed in 1930's and early 1940's seem all have been semiautomatic weapons, which were based to short barrel recoil and had rather small (5 round?) integral magazines. His prototypes were typically chambered to 7.92 mm x 57 JS or 6.5 mm x 55 calibre and as most of his prototypes were manufactured in Sweden they had certain parts (barrel rings, trigger guards, bayonet attachments, stock shape), that resemble the ones used in German and Swedish Mauser rifles. Besides two exceptions all other automatic rifle prototypes that Pelo offered to Finnish military seem to have been privately made for him. These two exceptions were two prototypes, which Ordnance Department ordered from VKT (Valtion Kivääritehdas = State Rifle Factory) year 1941. Back then Finnish Army was testing automatic rifles and Pelo had promised 7.62 mm x 54R calibre prototype of his rifle manufactured in Sweden for these tests already in January, but failed to deliver them. Those two VKT-made prototypes were tested in May of 1941 and further testing was intended, but ultimately decision was made to favour SVT-based prototypes. Pelo offered his last automatic rifle prototype manufactured in Sako to Finnish Armed Forces in year 1954, but also this rifle failed in comparison tests against Tokarev SVT-based designs held in spring of that year.

Carl Pelo tried selling his automatic rifle designs also in Sweden and Norway and also moved to Sweden before World War 2. Year 1940 he offered to Swedish (Eskilstuna) and Norwegian (Kongsberg) factories, but without success. When Swedish Armed Forces tested automatic rifles year 1941 also his prototypes were among tested, but lost to Ljungman design, which became automatgevär m/42 aka automatic rifle m/42 of Swedish Army. In these Swedish tests the main handicap of Pelo's design seem to have been too high manufacturing cost.

By definition assault rifle is carbine-size weapon capable select fire (both full- and semiautomatic fire) that uses intermediate cartridge and removable magazines. Finnish authorities received information from several sources concerning German development of first assault rifle like weapons plus the new intermediate cartridge (7.92 mm x 33) around 1942 - 1943. Finnish military didn't become interested about the development at that time, but leading Finnish small arms designer Aimo Lahti did. That same year he (on his own accord) started planning a new weapon that used intermediate cartridges of his own design. The first cartridge he designed for this development was 9 mm x 35 and a small amount of ammunition in this calibre was manufactured. The weapon itself was a development based to his most famous design - Suomi M/31 submachinegun. However particularly the weapons locking mechanism and magazines had to be totally re-designed for this use. While Suomi M/31 was pure blowback recoil-action weapon (as submachineguns typically are) AL-43 used delayed recoil action. The weapon was select-fire - in other words capable both to full automatic and semiautomatic fire. Magazine of this weapon was a development based to drum magazine used in Thompson submachinegun. Lahti also designed delaying system to bolt and frame, which made only bolts front-end to move first and other moving parts would join into to that only later. This was necessary as like all intermediate cartridges 9 mm x 35 was much more powerful than pistol cartridges (such as 9 mm x 19 Parabellum/Luger), for which M/31 submachinegun had been designed. Selector switch was set to right side of weapon. The weapon become to weight over 5 kg, so including also bipod to the design made sense. While this weapon that Aimo Lahti designed in year 1943 fits to category of assault rifle, its uncertain if he actually intended it as such. The weapon had many names, Lahti called in first "light machinegun m/AL-43", but later also terms "submachine gun – light machinegun" and "general weapon of infantry" were used from it.

This Lahti's private project and the rigid attitudes among VKT (Valtion Kivääritehdas = State Rifle Factory, the place where Lahti worked developing new weapons for Finnish Military) leadership lead the situation in brink of rift between the two parties involved in December of 1943. Finnish Army Ordnance Department had little interest when it came to AL-43 and VKT was focused completing already existing orders. In that situation Lahti asked a private patent, that would have allowed him to sell the production rights to any domestic manufacturer. This got manager (J. Valjakka) of VKT seriously unhappy and comments about Lahti misusing VKT resources were also raised. Luckily Lahti had good connections to high-ranking officials and thanks to them the things calmed down.

Finnish Armed Forces considered AL-43 already year 1943, but adding a new ammunition type for small arms to those already used by infantry was not seen wise at that point (in middle of war). The final unfavourable decision was made by Weapons-HQ of Finnish Army HQ Commander Major General V. Svanström. Even if Army rejected AL-43 Aimo Lahti did not - instead he started looking alternative manufacturer(s) outside the established Finnish small arms manufacturers. He made a deal with Oy Partaterä (Ltd Razor), which started preparing production of AL-43, which was now named as light machinegun 43/L.

Also new intermediate ammunition was experimented.13^th of October 1943 in Malmi penetration tests were made by shooting targets made from pine planks. Results showed that from distance of 150 meters the tested weapons on average penetrated:

Source: Original test report. Finnish Military Archives folder T-19053/8. Note: The targets were 120 cm x 120 cm in size, made from fresh pine planks, which had one inch airspace between layers of plank. The average penetration of 9 mm x 35 calibre AL-43 from 100 meters proved to be 13.2 inches and from 300 meters 5.5 inches.

Year 1944 either Oy Partaterä (Ltd Razor) or Oy Sytytin (Ltd Fuse) manufactured some prototypes of AL-43 for testing, while Oy Ammus (Ltd Ammunition) prepared tools for manufacturing of 56 round magazines for it. All of these three companies were linked to Rafael "Rafu" Lönnstöm, Finnish industrialist who had set up several small factories, which manufactured metal products - many of them ordnance materials. All AL-43 prototypes manufactured at this time seem have been chambered for 9 mm x 35 cartridge, but this was not the only cartridge under consideration for this weapon.

Around this time Lahti planned also version of AL-43 in chambered for new 7,62 mm x 35 cartridge and some of the earlier made prototypes were converted to this calibre. He continued developing magazine of the weapon producing blueprints for 60 and 70 round magazines. Testing of prototypes continued during the first months of 1944 and mass production was planned, but ending of Continuation War stopped the project. Soon after Soviet leader of Allied Control Commission Andrei Zdanov demanded Lahti to meet him and in this meeting demanded Lahti handing over all the plans of weapons that he had been planning. Lahti delivered Zdanov blueprints of L-41 general purpose machinegun, but didn’t reveal existence of AL-43 to him. Possibly due to unofficial nature of AL-43 project the Soviets didn't seem to know about it. When Lahti was forced to retirement due to Soviet pressure the AL-43 project became basically dead and buried. By late 1950' he developed own his own a further gas-action development based to AL-43 - this gas-action development was known as L-51. According rumours one prototype of L-51 may have been manufactured at the time, but this seems very much uncertain and the weapon may have existed only in form of blueprints. Lahti also developed two new intermediate experimental cartridges for L-51: 7.62 mm x 41 and 9 mm x 41. He also ordered small number of these experimental rounds from Lapua cartridge factory at that time. Finnish Defence Forces Ordnance Department considered L-51 and this new experimental ammunition for possible military use year 1951, but at that time Aimo Lahti was too much ahead of his time for Finnish military, which at the time considered intermediate cartridge as a passing phenomena. Finnish military decided to spend any resources for them, which ended this development.

However Aimo Lahti was not only Finn, who became interested the concept of medium cartridge and assault rifle already during World War 2. Also his close colleague Erkki Lilja started developing assault-rifle like weapon in 1943 and build his own prototype in VKT at that time. He didn’t have official order for that either and also he decided to chamber his weapon for his own intermediate 9-mm cartridge (9 mm x 40). This cartridge looks basically like lengthened version of 9 mm x 19 Parabellum/Luger cartridge. Unfortunately this prototype of his remained unfinished until 1970’s, when he finished it before retiring. During this finishing weapon went through some modifications which changed its stock and whole appearance considerably. Due to these modifications it is pretty much impossible determine original characteristics of this weapon.

When it came to assault rifles and intermediate cartridges the situation have really changed since days of AL-43. Finnish military finally realised the benefits of assault rifle and intermediate cartridge around 1956 - 1957. AK-47 become first assault rifle in use of Finnish army in late 1950’s. Production of Finnish domestic assault rifles based to AK-47 design begun in early 1960's. Nowadays assault rifle is the standard personal weapon issued to all Finnish soldiers from private to general. Today Finnish Defence Forces use mainly domestic assault rifles 7,62 RK 62 (7.62-mm assault rifle model 1962) and 7,62 RK 95 (7.62-mm assault rifle model 1995). In addition of these Finnish military acquired 100,000 ex East-German AKM-based assault rifles and similar amount of Chinese Type 56-2 assault rifles in 1990's. Finnish standard cartridge for assault rifles is 7.62 mm x 39, which was selected as such originally along AK-47 in late 1950's.

Cartridges of AL-43:

Intermediate cartridges used with AL-43 were designs planned by Aimo Lahti in 1943 - 1944. While the inspiration naturally came from German 7.92 mm x 33 cartridge, these were more than just variations of German cartridge adapted to Finnish standard rifle bullet calibre (7.62-mm as used in 7.62 mm x 54R). Lahti developed two cartridges for this new weapon - first 9 mm x 35 and later 7.62 mm x 35. Both of these cartridges had bottleneck shaped cartridge cases manufactured from shortened cartridge case of 6.5 mm x 55 Swedish (manufactured by VPT in Finland during World War 2) cartridge. As mentioned Lahti developed 9 mm x 35 cartridge in 1943 while 7.62 mm x 35 was developed in 1944. If AL-43 had reached mass-production there is good reason to believe that 7.62 mm x 35 would have been the cartridge of choice. This cartridge may likely have used VPT-designed S-288 bullet.

Bullets used in Finnish 7.62-mm intermediate cartridges were spitzer-type with full metal jacket (FMJ), while bullets used in 9-mm cartridges were round-nose with full metal jacket (FMJ). Just like with AL-43 there was no official interest or resources available for manufacturing or adapting new intermediate cartridge for military use either. Lahti ended up privately ordering the prototype cartridges needed for tests from VPT (Valtion Patruunatehdas = State Cartridge Factory) and paying them from his own pocket.

Finnish intermediate cartridges:

Sources for this table: Article: Aimo Lahden Lyhyet… and Suomalaiset sotilaspatruunat…

As often with prototypes ahead of their time maybe the most interesting question is how much potential did they have and would they have effected the situation if adopted to use. In the end AL-43 proved to have basically no effect and so did the intermediate cartridges tested with it. Neither of these effected when and how Finnish military finally adopted assault rifle. In a sense AL-43 was a fall-between of assault rifle and light machinegun. In considered as assault rifle AL-43 was very much unripe - the whole weapon weight too much to be truly convenient personal weapon for infantry soldiers and the large drum magazines were old-fashioned, too large and heavy to be practical. The weapon might have been poor assault rifle, but rather ironically it might have had makings of useful light machinegun and this may have been use Lahti originally envisioned it for. By standards of Second World War AL-43 light machineguns would have still been very light and the large drum magazines would have fit well to this kind of use. After all most common Finnish used light machineguns Lahti-Saloranta M/26 and Degtjarev M/27 both weight over 9 kg and had magazines of only 20 and 47 rounds. Thanks to intermediate cartridge it likely would have also been quite controllable even when in full-auto mode. When considering needs of Finnish Army (which largely relied to light infantry) during World War 2 the lighter than usual version of light machinegun would have certainly made sense.

Weapons Design Committee, which controlled which weapons designs got accepted to use of Finnish Armed Forces at 1930’s simply hated gas-system weapons and were unwilling to accept any. Roots to this might lie in early tests of light machineguns, in those tests were two gas-action weapons (Vickers-Berthier and Colt-Browning) that got lot of minus points for malfunctions. What makes situation interesting however is the fact, that some members of the commission have been suspected possessing personal motives of rather unclean nature in this matter. Memoirs of Aimo Lahti suggest that he suspected some members of particular Committee to have private interests of financial nature when it came to this process of machinegun testing.

Lahti personally supported gas-action weapons and managed to get a tough deal (more like a bet) with Minister of Defence Arvi Oksala. Oksala promised 25,000 Finnish marks and a month to Lahti for designing of gas-action light machinegun. The sum of money provided proved to be too little to cover the expenses. But luckily VKT, where Lahti worked, paid the rest and one month was enough time for Aimo Lahti. The new light machinegun that he came up had similar lock system developed from one he had earlier used in observer’s (aircraft crewmember) machinegun and possibility for adjusting rate of fire. However unlike observer's machineguns it had also gas-regulator, which allowed adjusting rate of fire. The new L-34 was clearly superior to older Lahti-Saloranta M/26 light machinegun that Finnish Army was using at the time: It was lighter, simpler (only 58 parts compared 118 of Lahti-Saloranta) and cheaper to manufacture. In addition also replacing of its barrel was faster and easier than with Lahti-Saloranta. Estimated production cost for L-34 run around 4,500 FIM (Finnish marks), while per unit cost manufacturing cost for Lahti-Saloranta M/26 was about 10,000 FIM. Whole structure of this new light machinegun was very simple and reliable. The magazines intended for infantry version were 20-round box magazine and 30-round drum magazine. Reliability-wise L-34 proved excellent weapon in all tests. During cold-weather testing this machinegun was tested by firing 6,000 rounds as fast as technically possible - the weapon passed this test with flying colours, even the barrel didn't heat so much that it would have required changing. In warm weather its barrel needed to be changed about as frequently as the barrel of Lahti-Saloranta. It also showed superior accuracy compared to Lahti-Saloranta M/26 - dispersion of its bullets on target proved to be only about half of its competitor. In constant fire durability test (used to test how many shots can be fired before something in the weapon breaks) this machinegun fired some 34,000 shots before extractor broke. Simply said L-34 had all makings to be one of the best light machineguns available at that time. When equipped with 75-round drum magazines (designed mainly for anti-aircraft use) it would have also been firepower-wise serious competitor to all existing light machineguns of the era. End of year 1934 Defence Ministry Ordnance Department was planning of replacing Lahti-Saloranta in production with L-34.

That was when leading generals of Finnish Army hit back. Inspector of Infantry General-Major A. S. Heikinheimo made clear that new light machinegun design would not be improvement large enough for Army unless it was belt- of strip-fed. According his own words if the weapon would have been belt- or strip-fed, he would have ordered few dozen immediately. His idea of strip-fed light machinegun was clearly outdated, but the one about belt-fed hit spot in estimating where the future of light machineguns lay. However, this thinking also led keeping inferior Lahti-Saloranta M/26 in production - which in effect resulted last production series of inferior Lahti-Saloranta M/26 being manufactured as late as year 1942. At the same time it also basically ended whole light machinegun L-34 project. Admitted production and training of Finnish military had just been organised for Lahti-Saloranta M/26 and adding a new light machinegun model would have demanded much more work with training and spare-part supply. Still, my opinion is that L-34 for not being accepted to use of Finnish Armed Forces remains as one of the largest mistakes ever made by Finnish Armed Forces ordnance administration. Considering the rather poor reputation concerning reliability (or lack there of) that Lahti-Saloranta M/26 gained during World War 2 and its other limitations (weight, magazine capacity) L-34 light machinegun would have likely been a much better weapon. Only two prototypes of L-34 were manufactured for Finnish military (both of them in year 1934). In addition to these two VKT manufactured four prototypes for foreign tests (and possible export deals, which they might produce) 1934 - 1935. These export prototypes were sent to Brazil, Great Britain, Persia, Sweden and Turkey. However no export deals succeeded.

Around 1954 – 1955 Finnish Defence Forces decided to test if L-34 would still be useful. It was tested against Soviet Degtjarev M/27 and Lahti-Saloranta M/26 with very good results. However, too much time had passed. Pre World War 2 design such as L-34 light machinegun had little change to effectively compete against new belt-fed general purpose machineguns and light machineguns. The work name of this light machinegun was "Sampo", name of mythic piece of machinery offering prosperity and might to its owner in Finnish national epic Kalevala. Aimo Lahti liked this work name so much that he had given to L-34, that he later used it also with his belt-fed general purpose machinegun L-41, which he developed during World War 2.

As mentioned Carl Pelo was Finnish engineer with military background and interested developing automatic weapons to Finnish military. What he lacked in official approval he make up with determination and "panache". Pelo offered Finnish military light machinegun of his own design first time already in year 1925. March of that year Defence Ministry Ordnance Department bought two prototypes to him and these were delivered next autumn. These two prototypes were obviously heavily based to Madsen light machinegun and were similarly based to short-barrel recoil principle. While Finnish Army selected Lahti-Saloranta M/26 as its new standard light machinegun in year 1926 this didn't stop Pelo from trying to sell his light machinegun designs. Around 1926 - 1928 he designed new version and got privately two prototypes made. Year 1928 he offered these two prototypes to Finnish Army and apparently succeeded selling them. One of these two was chambered for 7.62 mm x 54R cartridge and the other (marked as P-28) for Swedish 6.5 mm x 55. Like the earlier prototypes also these were based to Madsen, but he had introduced few new modifications and succeeded reducing size of the receiver and mechanism inside it. Pelo ordered yet another prototype around 1929, but the weapon ended up as property of the short-lived Suomen Asetehdas (Finnish Weapons Factory) he had ordered it and seemingly was never offered to Finnish military. This last prototype was in 7.62 mm x 54R calibre and obviously based to earlier P-28 prototype, but it had few quite important new features such as pistol grip and return spring added below barrel.

How much potential did Pelo's light machineguns have? The first prototypes that Pelo delivered in 1925 were too heavily based to Madsen light machinegun, which was both very expensive to manufacture (production cost around 2,500 FIM compared to 1,000 FIM of Lahti-Saloranta M/26) and was already starting look old-fashioned at the time. The later designs may have had bit more potential, but their timing was so unfortunate (with Lahti-Saloranta already officially approved and even building of State Rifle Factory started for producing it) that they didn't stand a chance of getting approved.

By World War 2 also Finnish military had came to conclusion that the Maxim machineguns were both very heavy and structurally complicated. The heavy weight made using them in mobile operations difficult, as they were slow to move while the structural complicity increased their unreliability and made them more difficult to use. The machinegun that Aimo Lahti designed to replace old Maxim machineguns was L-41 "Sampo". Roots of this weapon were in gas-action L-34 light machinegun (also called with the same nickname "Sampo"). Lahti had planned it already as general-purpose machinegun of sort - he had designed it suitable both as light machinegun for infantry and as observers-machinegun for aircraft. But since Finnish Army turned down the L-34 and requested belt-fed general-purpose machinegun (instead of magazine fed L-34) - that was what Lahti started to plan. This is visible in L-41 as it has similar lock that he had introduced with used with L-34 light machinegun. He also did most of the planning for L-41 already at 1938, but getting to prototype-stage took time. Likely the large reason for this was the ammunition Finnish military was suing - designing reliable and belt-fed weapon that uses rimmed ammunition (such as 7.62 mm x 54R used by Finnish military) while keeping the weight reasonable is much more difficult than with weapons using non-rimmed ammunition. The feeding process for rimmed ammunition tends to be more complicated than for non-rimmed. Basically this is because rimmed ammunition needs to be first pulled off from belt before it can be fed to cartridge chamber while non-rimmed ammunition can be fed to cartridge chamber while in belt.

First prototype of belt-fed Sampo was finished at 1940 and tested. This first prototype version was not really general purpose machinegun but medium machinegun. It had so-called shovel-handle (used in Maxim and Vickers) and used tripod recycled from old Vickers machinegun. However the later version had rifle-butt like butt, pistol handle and new tripod designed specially for this weapon. Also bipod for light machinegun use was included to equipment. As mentioned the weapon had gas-action with air-cooled barrel. In addition it had adjustable rate of fire and barrel, which could be replaced fast. Second prototype was finished at autumn of 1941 and improving it continued until March - April of 1942. Finnish military had ordered test series of 28 weapons at June of 1941, but because of these improvements the test series was not introduced until summer of 1942. Manufacturer of both early prototypes and field test series was VKT (Valtion Kivääritehdas = State Rifle Factory). The series that the factory manufactured contained originally 50 weapons, but do to mistakes succeeded getting parts only for 26 and even these soon failed in the first tests. In those tests the steel used in lock switches proved to be too soft and jammed the lock of each weapon during test firing. Once these parts were replaced with new ones that had been properly heat-treated the weapons successfully passed the tests 16th of September 1942 and were issued to Army units for field tests immediately after that. The total number of machineguns L-41 issued to field tests was 30. As usual Army Ordnance Department had asked feedback in form of test reports from the units, to which the weapons of field test series were issued.

These test reports were delivered in February of 1943 and they were mainly positive. The field tests had revealed many problems, but nothing that could not be fixed. Basically the troops considered L-41 good weapon in offensive use, but not particularly good when used in static defensive battle. This was not terribly surprising, as static defensive use was exactly where Maxim machineguns excelled. Main problems they revealed included:

The total number of L-41 machineguns manufactured was around 33 - 35 and as mentioned 30 of these were issued to units of Finnish Army for field tests in September of 1942. Originally the intention had been for these machineguns to be returned after field tests around February - March 1943, but as the troops liked them new decision was made and the troops were allowed to keep them. These 30 machineguns remained in use of the units that they had been issued for tests until the particular units were demobilised after ending of Continuation War. When needed VKT even delivered the particular units spare parts to keep the machineguns working.

Unfortunately this lengthened field use also showed why sending weapons under development to field tests is always risky - the Soviets captured one of these machineguns in Poventsa sector from troops of Infantry Regiment 12 in July of 1943. The exact place where this happened was Pirunsaari base in Viena/Stalin's channel (on northern tip of Lake Onega). However these is no indication that the Soviets would have used the design in their own small-arms projects. After Second World War L-41 machineguns remained warehoused until late 1950’s. At that time Finnish Armed Forces decided what kind of weaponry infantry needed to have and general purpose machinegun was not among them, so L-41 were declared obsolete. Five of these machineguns were spared for museum use while the rest were scrapped. Finnish military decided to favour squad automatic weapon like weapons instead - belt-fed light machinegun using same 7.62 mm x 39 ammunition as assault rifles. These machineguns were Soviet 7.62 KvKk 54 (RPD) and Finnish 7.62 KvKk 62. While tripod prototypes were tested with prototypes of 7.62 KvKk 62 (called 7.62 KvK 60) none was included to equipment of this machinegun. Also old Maxim machineguns remained first in use. Finnish Defence Forces didn’t really have general purpose machineguns until Soviet/Russian PKM machineguns were adopted in 1990’s.

But what stopped the L-41 project to test series stage in 1943? The reason was a really tough competitor - German MG 42 general purpose machinegun. When the possibility of getting 7.62 mm x 54R calibre version of MG 42 appeared in 1943 Finnish military decided to concentrate all efforts to this instead of continuing developing development of L-41. In a way the decision made sense - L-41 still required further development before it could have been introduced to mass-production, while MG 42 was already proved design. Who knows how long it would have taken before mass-production of L-41 could have been started. The amount of delay from first prototype to mass-production can have monumental effects during war - and Finland was in middle of war at the time. But still ultimately the decision made in late 1943 to concentrate Finnish variation of MG 42 instead of L-41 can also be good sample, why selecting the good item instead of going for the best possible one sometimes would be wise.

Would general purpose machinegun L-41 been a good weapon and how much would introducing it to use in numbers have effected? As usual replying the question is not easy. They were (at least early on) intended to replace medium machineguns (basically 7.62-mm Maxim), so these make the natural reference point. When compared to Maxim the improvement in mobility would have been so considerable (the difference in weight for weapon + tripod combination was over 20 kg). This increased mobility would have allowed machineguns to be moved notably faster and easier from one place to another, so machineguns would have been more often where they were needed. Reliability-wise L-41 was still unfinished design in its field-tests form, but it certainly had potential. In defensive warfare beating the capability of water-cooled Maxim just to keep going belt after belt would have been practically impossible for any air-cooled machinegun, so as long as there was no need for moving the machineguns to new place this would have been the area where Maxim ruled. Estimated production costs of L-41 would have been about one forth of what Maxim M/32-33 cost, so financially manufacturing L-41 would have also made sense. When compared to (magazine-fed) light machineguns used by Finnish Army at the time it was indeed so much heavier, that its suitability for light machinegun role would have been much more questionable.

Concept-wise this general purpose machinegun was based to earlier MG 34 machinegun and like MG 34 also it was belt-fed air-cooled general purpose machinegun. However from technical and manufacturing point of it marked considerable progress and proved much more suitable for mass-production. Large percentage of parts used in MG 42 were stamped and punched, when the basic structure was also quite simple this reduced production costs, time needed for manufacturing and amount of materials needed considerably. Not only were MG 42 excellent machineguns manufacturing-wise, but they also proved exceptionally useful, reliable and robust weapon in battlefields of World War 2. The lock mechanism, which was based to roller locking bolt, may have been originally based to design patented by Edward Stecke. But the actual work of planning this for MG 42 was done in Metall- and Lackierfabrik Paul Johannes Grossfuss AG. This machinegun was capable only to automatic fire and relied to short recoil principle. Only real handicap (if considered as such) was its very high rate of fire - cyclic rate was usually some 1,200 shots/minute. Rate of fire this high overheated the barrel frequently and also worn them out very fast, so frequent changing of barrel was necessary during combat. But as quick-changing method of barrel used in MG 42 was extremely well designed (likely based to design earlier used in Italian Breda) and allowed replacing barrel in only few seconds, this was not a serious flaw. The high rate of fire gave it also rather unusual barrel report - which has often been described resembling ripping of cloth. Due to this sound US soldiers called MG 42 with nicknames "Hitler's Buzzsaw" and "Spandau". During World War 2 some 415,000 were manufactured for German Armed Forces. That time the numerous manufacturers included: Mauser Werke AG, Gustloff Werke, Grossfuss, Magnet, Steyr-Daimler-Puch, Eickhorn, Waffenwerke Brunn, Guss Stahlwerke, Saschisce Gusstahlwerke, Mercedes-Buromaschinenwerke, Frankel und Vienbann, Deutch Kuhl Kr.masch. and others. German military used MG 42 in many roles, including light machinegun (with bipod only), heavy machinegun (with tripod) and anti-aircraft weapon. It proved to be one of the most successful machineguns ever and have seen plenty of use also after World War 2. New versions based to MG 42 were developed after the war and manufactured in number of countries. These include German MG 42/53 (also known as MG1), Swiss MG-51, Yugoslavian model 53, German MG3 (manufactured also in several other countries, these include Iran, Italy, Pakistan, Spain and Turkey). Even today these machineguns based to MG 42 remain in use world-wide and also original MG 42 are still encountered in military use in some regions.

Like all competent Armed Forces everywhere Finnish Armed Forces observes development of new military equipment abroad. In 1930's the Finns had noted introduction of new belt-fed MG-34 machineguns to German use. April of 1943 the Germans offered to deliver five MG 42 machineguns for testing. These five weapons were delivered in July of 1943. For some reason they arrived without tripods. Both tripods and optical sights belonging to these five weapons arrived in October of the same year. Three of these machineguns were issued to Finnish Army units in different parts of the frontline for field tests the other two remained in home front. Also these two were put to good use as Ordnance Department of Finnish Armed Forces GHQ and VKT (Valtion Kivääritehdas = State Rifle Factory) tried to determine if this machinegun could be modified to 7.62 mm x 54R cartridge, which was standard ammunition for Finnish frontline infantry. While the Germans had designed MG 42 for their own standard military cartridge (7.92 mm x 57 JS), this was not among ammunition types issued to Finnish frontline infantry and Finnish military had no intention of further burdening frontline infantry with new ammunition type. The modification for 7.62 mm x 54R ammunition was possible, but not an easy one. As to be expected the rim of this cartridge proved a major problem. Rimmed ammunition (like 7.62 mm x 54R) needs usually much more complicated feeding mechanism than non-rimmed ammunition, (like 7.92 mm x 57 JS for which the Germans had designed MG 42). Aimo Lahti succeeded to making this by designing a new feeding mechanism, modified bolt and his brother Aarno Lahti developed new kind of metal ammunition belt to MG 42. Key point of this new feeding mechanism was ammunition belt, which was unusual as it allowed rimmed ammunition to be fed though its belt loops.

By 8^th of September 1943 VKT (State Rifle Factory) had the plans of the modifications ready. With these basic modifications MG 42 would work with Finnish 7.62 mm x 54R ammunition. Modified parts required included:

Estimated prices mentioned in offer sent by VKT to Army Ordnance Department 11th of November 1943:

The offer did not include spare parts or belt drums.

The feedback from Finnish field tests with three unmodified German-supplied MG 42 arrived in October of 1943 and proved exceptionally positive. This far Finnish military had kept Finnish "Sampo" L-41 general purpose machinegun project in back burner, but these positive reports decided the matter. Finnish L-41 project was stopped in favour of MG 42 project, which now become unquestioned priority, so VKT continued its work and successfully modified the MG 42 delivered to it earlier for 7.62 mm x 54R ammunition. Only detail, that the Finns very decisively unhappy with MG 42 was its original tripod. The original German tripod was considered both too complicated and not stable enough. In fact there were even suspicion that the instability of the tripod might have been intentional detail for adding dispersion - the MG 42 machinegun itself proved less accurate than Maxim M/32-33, but accuracy-wise still perfectly acceptable considering the differences of weight and rate of fire. Anyway the Finns decided to replace it with a new tripod, which would be simpler and give more stable platform for the weapon. The Finnish tripod design combined upper part of original German tripod with lower part of Soviet DS-39 machinegun tripod. For this use the tripod of DS-39 had been rotated in such a way, that it had one of its three legs facing onward and two legs on both sides of the soldier shooting with the weapon. By end of December 1943 both this prototype and the first ammunition belts for it were ready for testing. The modification proved a success - the test results achieved with this prototype were extremely favourable. While the weapon itself proved good, the Finnish-designed tripod still proved less than satisfactory - it proved too high and caused some muzzle climb during test firing. So VKT decided to develop slightly improved tripod version with lower centre of gravity and modified attachment point for the machinegun. Finnish Army was planning to replace Maxim medium machineguns used in machinegun companies of infantry units with this Finnish version of MG 42. According plans made by Weapons HQ of Finnish Army General Headquarters December 1943 this required 2,576 of these new machineguns. As this plan suggested also adding two 7.62-mm MG 42 machineguns to weaponry of each rifle company, which would have required 1,168 of these machinegun increasing the total need to 3,744. Marshal Mannerheim approved acquiring of these 3,744 machineguns 29th of December 1943 and two days later Major General Svanström (Head of Weapons HQ in Finnish Army GHQ) issued orders starting the process for getting the parts needed for manufacturing them.

Finnish Armed Forces was ready to place on order for the first batch of these machinegun and also VKT had the prototype ready and tested ready for mass-production, but this proved much more difficult than anticipated. Rather ironically German modern and cost-effective manufacturing methods proved difficult for Finnish industry. Many of the most important parts of MG 42 (like receiver) were stamped and/or punched and this far Finnish industry had manufactured receivers only by milling (machining) them. VKT lacked tools and machinery for this kind of work and building them could take so much time that it could endanger the whole project. For this reason VKT estimated that starting the mass-production might take about a year (in other words: until December of 1944). Considering this and the number (of MG 42 machineguns Finnish Army needed (calculated as 3,744 machineguns by Ordnance Department) VKT suggested acquiring stamped parts needed for these weapons from Germany. While manufacturing about 4,000 machineguns would have been very large work for Finnish armaments industry, it was still small number for German one. January of 1944 Finnish military contacted the Germans asking possibility of buying 4,000 MG 42 machineguns or their parts for manufacturing this number of weapons in Finland. In addition the Finns requested also blueprints of MG 42 and exact technical specifications - basically all the documents needed for creating similar exact documentation for manufacturing Finnish version. For some reason the Germans took their time and didn't give their reply until April - May of 1944. The German reply was negative - they didn't have capacity for delivering either the weapons or even their parts. This far in the war German industry was too hard pressed for foreign delivery of this magnitude. The reply surprised Finnish military, whose plans were now destroyed. Concentrating to MG 42 project had lead to abandoning of domestic L-41 project already earlier, so now both of Finnish general purpose machinegun projects were as good as dead. Finnish military might have considered continuing with either of these projects, but beginning of Soviet offensive 9^th of June 1944 in Carelian Isthmus ended the relatively quiet trench-war period in Finnish front and the capacity needed for refining and manufacturing new machinegun simply wasn't available anymore. Only one MG 42 prototype in 7.62 mm x 54R calibre was ever made, nowadays it belongs to collections of Finnish Military Museum. Year 2002 Finland bought 124 Leopard 2A4 tanks from Germany. Weaponry of these tanks includes MG3A1 (improved version of German MG3 machinegun, which is direct descendant of MG 42) machineguns in 7.62 mm x 51 calibre.

SOURCES:

Sotilaskäsiaseet Suomessa 1918 - 1988 / Military Small Arms in Finland 1918 - 1988 by Markku Palokangas.

Aimo Lahti, asesuunnittelun suuri suomalainen by Markku Palokangas and Maire Vaajakallio.

Arma Fennica 2 by Timo Hyytinen.

Asesuunnittelijana Suomessa by Timo Hyytinen.

Suomalaiset sotilaspatruunat / The Finnish Military Cartridges 1918 - 1945 by Mika Pitkänen and Timo Simpanen.

Article: L-41 "Sampo" by Markku Palokangas in Ase magazine vol. 3/1985.

Article: AL-43 on keräilijäharvinaisuus by Matti Vaapavuori in Ase-lehti vol. 2/91.

Article: 1944 aseiden vuosi Suomen historiassa by Markku Palokangas in Ase-lehti magazine vol. 6/94.

Article: Suomalaisen asekehittelyn alasajo vuonna 1945 by Markku Palokangas in Ase-lehti magazine vol. 1/95.

Article: Sotiemme aseveteraanien myöhemmät vaiheet by Markku Palokangas in Ase-lehti magazine vol. 2/95.

Article: Aimo Lahden suunnittelemat lyhyet kiväärinpatruunat by Esa Paananen in Ase-lehti vol. 2/2005.

Article: Riikinruotsalainen automaattikivääri Automatgevär M/42B by Mika Pitkänen in Kaliberi magazine vol. 3/2005.

Article: Rafu Lönnström - ronski patruuna ja menestyvä teollisuusmies by Mikko Uola in Ase-lehti magazine vol. 4/96.

Sotilaan käsikirja (1968)

Special thanks to Sotamuseo (Finnish Military Museum, Helsinki).

Special thanks to Metsästysmuseo (Hunting Museum of Finland, Riihimäki).