World War II Database

Country of Origin	Austria
Type	Machine Gun
Caliber	8.000 mm
Capacity	250 rounds
Length	945.000 mm
Barrel Length	530.000 mm
Weight	20.000 kg
Rate of Fire	400 rounds/min
Muzzle Velocity	625 m/s

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseSchwarzlose M.07/12 water-cooled medium machine guns, designed by German engineer Andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose, were the standard machine guns of the Austro-Hungarian Army up to the end of WW1. They could often be recognized by the distinctive flash eliminators on the muzzles. These weapons made use of fabric belts each containing 250 rounds of ammunition, and they were typically mounted on tripods. Unlike their contemporaries, these weapons fired from an unlocked breech, a property typically seen in submachine guns of a later era. While mainly wielded by infantry, they were also mounted on aircraft, generally as forward-firing synchronized guns; on occasion they were mounted for aircraft observers, which was an ill-suited role for the heavy Schwarzlose machine guns. Despite the dated design, their simplicity and their reliability meant a long production life that encompassed a long list of variants using different caliber ammunition. They were employed by the armies of Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain, Italy, and others. Production of these weapons did not stop until 1939. During WW2, they saw limited front line service with the Italian Army in the early phases of the fighting in North Africa, mainly as anti-aircraft weapons against low-flying fighters and with the colonial units loyal to Italy as the standard infantry machine guns. In Germany, examples takens from Czechoslovakia and Austria were deployed to second line units; most of these weapons were used only for training purposes, but a small number did see combat in the final days of the war out of necessity.

Sources:
John weeks, "Machine Guns 1914-1918", War Monthly magazine
Wikipedia ww2dbase

Last Major Revision: Feb 2015

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