(Pulemyot Maxima obr. 1905 g.)

(Pylemyot Maxima obr. 1910 g.)

PICTURE: Maxim m/1905 with early version of Sokolov mount, which has also legs. Notice also water jacket and other parts made from bronze. (Photo taken in Sotamuseo). CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (71 KB).

First Maxim machinegun was designed by American Hiram Maxim around 1883 - 1884, the invention soon spread around and became very popular in most armies of that time. He also did introduction tour to Russia in 1887, the spectacle was impressive (Russian authorities had previously believed that reaching 600 shots/minute rare-of-fire to be technically impossible) but had very little results (only 12 machineguns were ordered for the Navy). It took quite many years before Russian Army decided to buy Maxim's invention by ordering them from British Maxim-Nordenfelt and German DWM (Deutche Waffen und Munionsfabrik) factories. (sources give different years for this - 1895, 1899 or 1901).

These foreign made Maxim machineguns were used by Russian military against Japanese in war of 1904 - 1905. Year 1905 domestic production of was also started in Tula arsenal. First version called m/1905 usually had large-wheeled mount (quite similar as used with field guns of that time) and often also had large steel shield. Some of its parts had also been made from bronze, which increased both the weapons size and weight. During war of 1904 - 1905 Russian military found Maxim m/1905 to be good weapon, but large wheeled mount proved difficult and heavy to use effectively, this lead into introduction of Maxim m/1910 and its Sokolov mount.

PICTURE: Maxim m/1910 with Sokolov mount. Notice the ammunition belt made from fabric. (Photo taken in Sotamuseo). CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (67 KB).

Maxim m/1910 was improved version which replaced earlier m/1905 in production around year 1910. Setting the limit between the two seems to be somewhat difficult - changes often used to identify these two versions were not implemented to production all at once, instead the transition seems to have been gradual. Many consider the decisive changes between these two models to be introduction of muzzle brake and new lock mechanism. Generally speaking typical Maxim M/1910 machinegun is several kg's lighter as bronze parts (mainly cooling jacket) used in m/1905 were replaced with steel parts. Maxim m/1910 also had sights, which had been modified suitable to new ammunition with pointed spitzer-bullets. New Sokolov mount replaced the earlier large-wheeled one in production but also the large-wheeled older machinegun-mounts remained in use. For some reason the lighter but rare tripod mount also used with m/1905 never got produced in large numbers. Sokolov mount was named after its designer, Colonel Alexander A. Sokolov and was based to Vickers-Maxim proposal that was not manufactured. Sokolov mount had small wheels, which allowed crew to tow machinegun and its mount after them and it weight some 36 - 45 kg (differences: version, shield and other items). Early version of Sokolov mount had also tripod-like legs that could be folded under the mount. Year 1915 Russians adopted Maxim-machinegun also Koleshnikov-mount, which with had wheels rather similar to Sokolov-mount, but instead of frame-like structure of its rear part it had axle. While Koleshnikov-mount was lighter then Sokolov-mount it was manufactured only in small numbers and it didn't replace Sokolov-mount. Starting year 1931 Soviets issued Maxim machineguns also with M/31 (Vladimirov) Universal machinegun-mount (which could be used also as antiaircraft machinegun mount for this machinegun). But (Vladimirov) Universal mount (aka M/31) was manufactured only in relatively small numbers, so also Sokolov-mounts remained in Soviet use with Maxim machineguns at least until end of World War 2.

As mentioned the Soviets continued both using and manufacturing Maxim machinegun M/1910. However it took them until year 1930 before they introduced first large improvements to Maxim machinegun. These improvements included changes to firing mechanism, adding safety catch and recoil spring indicator, changes to rear sight, adding valve to drain hole of water jacket and introducing separate firing pin. During World War 2 the Soviets introduced few more improvements: Simplified rear sight and adding snow filling cap on top of the water jacket (which the Finns had already introduced earlier with their Maxim M/32-33 machinegun). At the same time the Soviets tried to develop the weapon in such way that manufacturing it would be easier, cheaper and faster. The changes introduced for this included replacing earlier feed block machined from steel with one cast from aluminium alloy and removal of attachment point for optical sight from Maxim machineguns of their infantry, as they no longer issued optical sights for these weapons. Through all these improvements the Soviets retained the shield in their Maxim machineguns. Maxim machinegun remained in use of Soviet military through World War 2.

Basically Finnish military had Maxim M/1910 in its use with four types of rear sights. These four rear sight types can be mostly separated according how large maximum range they have settings and for which bullet type the setting are:

Notice: Arschen (arsina, steps) was old Russian measurement, about 0.71-meters in metric scale.

Year 1918 Finnish Army end up with about 600 Maxim machineguns m/1905 and m/1910 in calibre 7,62 mm x 54R, which made it the clearly most numerous machinegun in Finnish use at that time. Mounts for these machineguns were usually Sokolov-type Russian mounts that with their small wheels and large weight were not very suitable to Finnish terrain. Finnish Army administration soon renamed m/1910 Maxim to M/09 (probably reason: Maxim machinegun of same type had been manufactured in Germany and sold commercially had been called M/09). In this renaming effort M/05 got also included in classification M/09, this was not a large error as there was quite a bit of differences among m/1910 Maxim machineguns also. In this same hassle Sokolov-mount got renamed as M/09. So as a result the combination of m/1905 or m/1910 Maxim and Sokolov mount got named M/09-09 (First 09 came from model of machinegun and second 09 from model of mount used). Finnish military used this same naming method also with later Maxim machineguns.

Finnish 7,62 mm x 54 R calibre Maxim machineguns in 1^st of January 1919:

Finland also bought Russian 7.62-mm Maxim machineguns from abroad. The largest purchases were 405 machineguns from Poland in year 1924 and 100 machineguns from Italy in year 1926, but also smaller deals were made. However, amount of Maxim M/09-09 in Finnish use was actually decreasing before World War 2, as more and more were modified to M/09-21. Year 1926 already 900 out of 1,920 Maxim machineguns in inventory of Finnish military were M/09-21.

Soon after Civil War of 1918 the Finns found out that some parts of Maxim machineguns in use of their military were in poor shape (specially bolts and barrels), so Lindelöf metal workshop started making spare parts and spare barrels for them in early 1920's. Finnish military also decided solve the problem of differences in these weapons (parts of Maxim machineguns made in different manufacturers were not interchangeable between weapons) with standardisation program that started in year 1927. As standardisation program also reached Maxim machineguns bought from abroad and the ones belonging to Suojeluskunta (Finnish Civil Guard) it continued well to 1930's. Early on Tikkakoski made standardisation work for Army, but in 1932 work was moved to Weapons Depot 1 (AV1), Suojeluskunta Maxim's were naturally standardised by Sako Oy. As part of standardisation program old Russian type non-metric rear sights were modified to meter scale and the weapons were repainted field gray. In 1930's they were typically also modified suitable to use new Finnish continuous metallic ammunition belt type (the old ones were made from fabric and also remained in use along the new Finnish metallic belt).

PICTURE: Soviet Maxim M1910 with Sokolov mount installed to sledge. Also this weapon has some temporary whitewash winter camouflage. (Photo taken in Jalkaväkimuseo) CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (54 KB).

Sokolov mount (as well as tripod-like mounts) remained in use, but shield was discarded and also these mounts saw some minor changes (like removal of installation arm designed for installing of optical sight that Finns never used). Large wheeled mounts were discarded and replaced with Sokolov mounts. Also sights designed for antiaircraft-use were developed (extra part installed to Sokolov mount allowed it to be modified to antiaircraft use) and also produced, but only in small numbers.

During World War 2 Finnish troops captured large number of Soviet Maxim machineguns. Usually they were Soviet newer version developed from m/1910, but also old versions were captured in smaller numbers. Due to Russian Maxim machineguns the Finns had bought abroad and large number of captured Maxim machineguns the number of Maxim M/09-09 increased to 1,998 machineguns by June of 1940 and doubled (to about 4,000) by 1^st of June 1944. Also several dozen Soviet antiaircraft machineguns M/31 (which were basically multiple Maxim machineguns on antiaircraft mount) were captured and taken to Finnish use. Early 1942 about 100 of the captured Maxim machineguns were modified from water-cooled to air-cooled by punching holes through their water jackets, after which these weapons had been equipped with light Finnish mounts (like M/Salakari) they were issued to Finnish infantry units to be used for mobile operations. Typically Finnish Army issued Maxim m/1905 machineguns mostly to units to whom mobility was lesser issue (fortifications units, home-front air defence etc). Generally speaking for the Finnish Army Maxim M/09-09 had been issued mostly as reserve weapon already during 1930's, but during World War 2 they made a new coming as weapon of front-line infantry once again. After World War 2 the remaining Maxim M/09-09 machineguns were kept warehoused until the last ones were sold or scrapped in mid 1990's.

PICTURE: Finnish Maxim M/09-21. (Photo taken in Sotamuseo) CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (42 KB).

Like said Finnish military was unhappy with Sokolov mount that was heavy, complicated and had small wheels, which were quite useless in typical Finnish terrain. Solution was quite clear, a new tripod-like mount with tubular steel legs, which could be folded when needed for the transport. Around 1919 - 1920 designing of this tripod started. Tripod of German Maxim MG-09 designed for export just before World War 1 was used as starting point of Finnish design work. This new Finnish tripod was introduced year 1921 and accordingly named as M/21. New steel band tightened around the weapons water jacket was needed to modify M/09 Maxim machinegun to work with new tripod. However this proved to somewhat problematic as captured Russian Maxim machineguns had three kind of water jackets. Maxim m/1910 machineguns had both smooth and grooved water jackets made from steel while m/1905 had cone-like water jacket made from bronze. The steel band fit well to smooth water jackets, it fit reasonably well to grooved ones and simply didn't work at all with the bronze water jackets used in m/1905. Because of this M/09 machineguns modified to use M/21 tripod were typically m/1910 type with smooth water jackets. During this modification M/09 machineguns also went through the same standardisation project as other M/09 machineguns in Finnish hands.

Finnish military realised its shortage of machineguns already in early 1920's, so April 1922 it ordered 200 Maxim machineguns were from Tikkakoski factory. But argument between Tikkakoski designers and Ordnance Department of Army about tolerances used delayed this first production run. These 200 machineguns were not manufactured until between 1924 - 1928, and proved to be the only purely domestic production series of totally new M/09-21 machineguns made in Finland (mainly due to Russian Maxim M/1910 machineguns bought from Poland and Italy). All other M/09-21 while assembled in Finland, but had at least some foreign made parts. Maxim M/09-21 were was equipped with new Finnish M/22 rear sight, which loaned its design from German Maxim machineguns and had metric settings up to 2,000 metres for cartridges with 9.6 g / 18 gr spitzer-bullets.

Tripod M/21 was first manufactured by "Crichton-Vulcan" (in city of Turku) and later by Weapons Depot 1 (AV1, in Helsinki) of Finnish Army. Finnish Army Weapons Depots took care of assembling actual weapons from the parts. Production of Maxim M/09-21 continued until 1932 - 1933, around which time Maxim M/32-33 replaced M/09-21 in production. Over 1,000 Maxim machineguns M/09-21 were assembled during this period.

During World War 2 Maxim M/09-21 were mainly issued to Finnish front-line infantry and saw very hard combat use. June of 1940 still 1,065 existed, but by 1^st of June 1944 their number had dropped to 964. Losses in battles of summer 1944, weapons modified to M/32-33, weapons under repair and the ones disassembled to spare parts dropped the total number of remaining M/09-21 to mere 261 by year 1951. Late 1980's their number was again about 400, these remained warehoused until being sold off or scrapped in mid 1990's.

PICTURE: Finnish Maxim M/32-33 medium machinegun with Finnish 200-round ammunition belt made from steel. Note snow filling cap on top of the water jacket. Finnish units could partly paint their heavy weapons with (removable) whitewash to improve their camouflage in winter. Machineguns like Maxim were the lightest weapons for to be painted in this way. (Photo taken in Jalkaväkimuseo). CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (46 KB).

This weapon was brainchild of Aimo Lahti and quite possibly the best variation of watercooled Maxim medium machinegun ever made. He got the mission of developing Maxim machinegun using metallic ammunition belt in April of 1931. The reasons for this are quite well known - the original 250-round fabric ammunition belts limited both the maximum rate of fire and had proved problematic in certain weather conditions. In worst weather situations the fabric belt could first get wet and then freeze solid. New ammunition belt made from steel was finished first and next was the machinegun, but as new tripod was introduced also the machinegun's attachments needed some redesigning to fit into it.

New M/32 Maxim was capable to fire-rate of 850 rounds/minute, while old M/09 Maxim was capable only to 600 rounds/minute. This resulted not only because of new ammunition belt but also because of other improvements in weapon, especially accelerator mechanism and muzzle booster added were important parts for getting to this result. Both of these parts (accelerator in end of receiver and booster in tip of the barrel) increased the rate of fire. However, these were not the only improvements, whole handle part (grips, rear sight etc) were redesigned and installation point for optical sight was added.

Unlike other maxim machineguns in Finnish use M/32-33 was designed suitable also to AA-machinegun use from the start. Tripod M/32 was designed and issued with extra parts allowing it to be easily modified as antiaircraft mount and accessories for anti-aircraft shooting were included. Last improvement was adding snow filling cap to water jacket, this allowed snow to be used instead of water during winter-time and made water cans unnecessary when snow was available. Considering that each water can weight 3 kg (full) and keeping its content from freezing was problematic in typical Finnish winter weather, this was considerable improvement. Later during World War 2 the Soviets copied this snow-filling cap to late version of their own Maxim machineguns.

PICTURE: Piece of Finnish continuous metallic ammunition belt for Maxim machineguns. This ammunition belt based to disintegrating metallic belts Lahti had earlier designed for aircraft machineguns and 7.62 ItKk/31 VKT antiaircraft machineguns was vital piece of development for Maxim M/32-33 machinegun. Lahti modified also captured Soviet DS-39 machineguns to use this ammunition belt type. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (48 KB).

Between 1933 - 1935 Weapons Depot 1 modified few hundred M/09 Maxims to M/32 (these have also been known as M/09-32) and production of totally new M/32-33 machineguns started in year 1936. Both Weapons Depot 1 and Tikkakoski manufactured these weapons 1936 - 1942 and succeeded making almost 900 of them (the ones supplied to Suojeluskunta are not included). Maxim M/32-33 was mainly issued to machinegun companies of infantry (there was one machinegun company of 12 machineguns in each infantry battalion) as they were the best medium machineguns in Finnish use. 1^st of January 1944 their number was largest (1,176), but summer of 1944 proved very costly. Year 1951 only 563 remained. Maxim M/32-33 are still belonging to weapons warehoused by Finnish Defence Forces for war-time use.

Writer's personal (limited) experiences concerning shooting with Maxim M/32-33 medium machinegun: Historically these were the real killing machine of Finnish infantry when in defence. The lethal nature of M/32-33 becomes very obvious once the elevation setting had been adjusted and the shooting started - just aim the weapon sideways to get the target into sights and use the safety and trigger with your thumbs. Ideally this is the weapon designed for mowing down masses of infantry - and its suits to that. While aiming is fast and accurate it has maybe been better designed for spraying hails of bullets to groups of men instead of targeting individual soldiers. Maintenance and getting the adjustments just right demands more knowledge that with light machineguns or submachineguns, but once they are correct it works flawlessly and just keeps going and going... The poor falling plate targets never had a chance - they could barely get back up before getting hit again. By end of the shooting the falling plate targets had been cut almost in half - the elevation setting of the bipod had showed its effectiveness. Ammunition belts (Finnish M/32 steel belts) worked well. Arming the weapon requires pulling the cocking handle back twice and releasing it each time - during the first time bolt takes a cartridge from the belt and during the second time it pushes the first cartridge to barrel.

Maxim M/32-33 was designed suitable also to be used for indirect fire (D-166 bullet was very suitable to this use), however optical sight used for this purpose didn't prove to work that well. Another optical sight called "Physica" after its manufacturer was very rare and during World War 2 ended up being used mostly in sniper rifles instead of machineguns. Also night sights that had illuminated sights were tested, but they proved too unpractical and fragile for combat use.

Finnish military was not happy either to mounts used in M/09-09 nor M/09-21. From late 1920's to early 1930's several mounts suitable to AA-use were tested. Probably the most interesting of these was Mansner M/30, which had been developed from the German mount used in MG-08. It had its good points (like being able to be dragged on ground level like its German predecessor) but it also proved too heavy and not useful enough, so only 16 prototypes were made.

War emphasised need for lighter and more practical mounts for machineguns. Several versions were tested and some were even produced in reasonable amounts. The ones that got to produced in reasonable numbers included:

• Light mount M/VKT: 200 made, had a ring going over the water jacket and two legs equipped with small skis attached to that ring. Also shoulder piece originally intended for AA-work could be used with this mount. Could be only used with Maxim that had smooth water jacket.
• 2 versions of Battle Equipment Department: Quite similar to M/VKT, test series of 100 was made from each.
• Light mount M/Salakari: The best one of these designs. Designed by Lieutenant Salakari, 312 manufactured. Again two legs with small skis, but another attachment point that allowed it to be used in all Maxim machineguns. Plans about introducing to large-scale use existed but were buried by Soviet attack of summer 1944. Year 1987 about 100 still remained warehoused, all other light mounts had been scrapped long before that.

PICTURE: Maxim M/09 with light M/Salakari mount. (Photo taken in Sotamuseo). CLICK THUMBNAIL TO SEE LARGER PIC (35 KB).

In the end none of the light machine-gun mounts got produced in numbers large enough to replace Sokolov-mount or tripods designed earlier. Compared to the thousands of 7,62-mm Maxim machineguns in Finnish use their number was minuscule. The small number of light MG-mounts used gave more mobile alternative to existing mounts to the units that had been fortunate enough to we issued with them. Even nowadays the Maxim M/32-33 machineguns remaining in depots of Finnish Army have their old and trusted M/33 tripods.

SOURCES:

Markku Palokangas: Sotilaskäsiaseet Suomessa 1918 - 1988, osat 1 - 3 (= Military Small Arms in Finland 1918 - 1988, parts 1 - 3)

Timo Hyytinen: Arma Fennica 2, sotilasaseet (Arma Fennica 2, military weapons)

Markku Palokangas and Maire Vaajakallio: Aimo Lahti, asesuunnittelun suuri suomalainen (Aimo Lahti, the great Finn of weapons designing)

D.N. Bolotin: Soviet Small-Arms and Ammunition.

Roger Ford: The World's Great Machineguns.

Terry Gander: The Machine Gun - A Modern Survey

Mika Pitkänen and Timo Simpanen: Suomalaiset sotilaspatruunat 1918-1945 / The Finnish military cartridges 1918-1945.

Military manual: Konekivääri 09 (jalustalla 21 ja 09). Rakenne, hoito ja käsittely by Puolustusministeriö (1927).

Military manual: Konekiääri 09 (jalustalla 21 ja 09). Rakenne, hoito ja käsittely by Puolustusministeriö (1942).

Military manual: Jalkaväen pikatuliaseiden käyttöopas (1941).

Special thanks to Sotamuseo (Finnish Military Museum), Helsinki

Special thanks to Jalkaväkimuseo (Finnish Infantry Museum), Mikkeli