The Finnish Maxim machine guns refers to several different types of Maximmachine guns in use with the Finnish Defence Forces. These included the Maxim M/09-09, Maxim M/09-21, Maxim M/09-21, Maxim M/09-31 VKT and Maxim M/32-33.[4][5][6] These guns were all chambered for 7.62×54mmR (7.62×53mmR could also be use instead[a]), and were originally captured guns from either Russia or the Soviets, with many later modified to Finnish standard.
This list would also include other Maxim-type guns in Finnish use, such as the Vickers machine guns and MG 08s, which saw less service with Finland.
While the Maxim gun saw service in Finland during the Finnish Civil War, their major use was in the Winter War and Continuation War. Most Finnish Maxim guns were in use until the 1960s, when they were put into storage for possible wartime use until the 1990s.[4]
Maxim M/09-09
Early history
During the Finnish Civil War, the Finnish White Army had captured grand majority of Maxim machine guns from the Finnish Red Guards, Russian garrisons disarmed by force and volunteer units organized by Russian Bolsheviks, but also 163 German-made Maxim guns.[b][1]
After the Civil War, in 1918, Finland became an independent democratic republic. The Finnish Army ended up with 600 Maxim machine guns (chambered in 7.62×54mmR), which was the most numerous machine gun in Finnish use at that time. Most of them was the Maxim M1910,[5] but among them there were also dozens of Maxim M1905 and even some DMW-manufactured guns originating from 1899. The Finns found out that some of their Maxim guns were in poor shape (specially the bolts and barrels), so Lindelöf metal workshop started making spare parts and spare barrels for them in the early 1920s.[1]
In the early 1920s, Finnish Army ordnance administration renamed the Maxim M/1910 as the Maxim M/09 (Likely because they assumed the Maxim machine gun of same model had been manufactured in Germany and was sold commercially as the MG 09).[c] The Maxim M/1905 was also renamed the Maxim M/09, which could cause some trouble in maintaining spare parts supply, but this wasn't seen as too troublesome considering parts of the Maxim M/1910 guns not interchangeable between individual guns.[1] The Sokolov mount was renamed the Machine gun mount M/09, leading to the combination of both the gun and mount receiving the name Maxim M/09-09.[d][1] In the 1920s and 1930s, Finland bought Russian 7.62-mm Maxim machine guns from other countries. The largest single Finnish acquisitions of that time were 405 guns from Poland in 1924 and 100 guns from Italy in 1926, but in addition there were several smaller deals.[1]
Machine Gun Company of the III. Central Ostrobothnian Reserve Battalion, part of the Finnish White Army, equipped with German-supplied Russian Maxim machine guns,[e] photographed at Leinola on 19 April 1918 after the capture of Tampere, during Finnish Civil War.
Maxim machine guns in Finnish inventory (1 January 1919)[1]
Maxim version
Quantity
Maxim M1905 (Large wheeled mount)
47
Foreign supplied Maxim guns (British & German)
55
Maxim M1905 / Maxim M1910 (Sokolov mount)
439
Total:
541
Standardization
The Finnish military decided to solve the spare parts compatibility problem with a standardization program that started in 1927 and continued well to the 1930s, which also included foreign purchases and Finnish Civil Guard's guns. The Tikkakoski factory made standardization work for Army earlier on, but in 1932 the work was moved to Weapons Depot 1, with the Sako factory standardizing the Civil Guard's guns.[1]
M1891 cartridge with 13.7 g (210 gr) round-nose bullets
3100–3200 arschen
M1908 cartridge with 9.6 g (148 gr) spitzer bullets
Newer Russian type
2000 meters
M1908 cartridge with 9.6 g (148 gr) spitzer bullets
Simplified Soviet type
2700 meters
Cartridges with 11.8 g (182 gr) D30 boat-tail bullets
Finnish modified type
2000 meters
Cartridges with 9.6 g (148 gr) spitzer bullets
The amount of the Maxim M/09-09 guns in the Finnish inventory were decreasing during the lead up to World War II, due to many were modified to the Maxim M/09-21 standard. By 1926, 900 guns (out of a total of 1,920 Maxim guns) in the Finnish military inventory, were the M/09-21.[1]
World War II
During World War II, Finnish troops captured large number of Soviet Maxim guns (mostly the Maxim M1910/30, but older versions were captured in smaller numbers). The number of Maxim M/09-09 increased to 1,998 guns by June 1940, and doubled (to about 4,000) by 1 June 1944. In early 1942, about 100 of the captured guns were modified to air-cooled guns (by punching holes through their water jackets), after which these guns were equipped with lightweight mount (such as the M/43 Salakari mount), and then assigned to Finnish infantry units to be used for mobile operations.[1]
The wheeled mounts the machine guns used were unsuited to Finnish terrain which was mainly forests.[5] Finland decided to make their own Maxim variant, more suited to the Finnish terrain, by developing a tripod and then mounting a Russian Maxim machine gun on it. The tripod, which would be ready for production in 1921, was derived from to the one on the DWM's MG 09 machine gun (the export version of the MG 08 machine gun) which Finland had used successfully during the civil war.[5]
The Maxim M/09-21 machine guns were mainly issued to Finnish front-line infantry and saw very hard combat use, resulted in heavy losses and lots of worn-out guns and tripods. In June 1940, 1065 guns still existed in Finnish inventory. By June 1st in 1944, their total number had dropped to 964. Despite extensive repairs and maintenance programs started in 1950s, less than half of the produced guns remained. By the mid 1980s, there were less than 400 guns surviving. They remained mothballed for possible further use until being sold off or scrapped in the mid 1990s.
Design
Rear of Maxim M/09-21 machine gun
Finnish changes to the original Russian Maxim included manufacturing modifications and a simplified gunsight which changed the sight measurements to the metric system.
The tripod mount could fold for easier carrying and had metal carrying handles on each of the two front legs.[5]
In 1943, the Finnish Army normally issued each M/09-21 machine guns with either twenty 200-round fabric belts or twenty-five 200-round steel belts, along with spare barrels, tools and other equipment.[2]
The Maxim M/32-33 is a Finnish modification of the M/09-21, developed by Aimo Lahti in 1932. Lahti was ordered to adapt the Maxim so that it could be fed with more modern metallic ammunition belts as opposed to the original cloth belts. The resulting weapon was able to fire at a rate of 850 rounds/min, whereas the Russian PM M1910 and earlier Finnish Maxim M/09-21 were only capable of 600 rounds/min. The increased rate of fire was achieved through improvements that included an accelerator mechanism and muzzle booster. Other changes included a redesign of the Maxim M/32-33's grips and rear sights, as well as an installation point for an optical sight.[3]
Unlike all the other Finnish Maxims, the Maxim M/32-33 was designed from the outset to be suitable for anti-aircraft use. The new M/32 tripod was designed and issued with extra parts allowing it to be easily converted to an anti-aircraft mount, and accessories for anti-aircraft shooting were included as standard.[3]
The last improvement to the M/32-33 was the addition of a snow-filling cap to the water jacket; this way snow could be used instead of water during winter, so there was no need to carry and take care of 3 liters of coolant water in snowy sub-zero conditions. This feature was also adopted on late World War II Russian Maxim variants.[3]
A few hundred early M/09s were modified to the M/32 standard by Gun Depot 1 between 1933 and 1935. These weapons have also been called M/09-32s.[3]
Lightweight mount development
Finnish military wasn't satisfied with neither mounts used on the Maxim M/09-09 nor Maxim M/09-21. Between late 1920s – early 1930s, several mounts suitable for anti-aircraft machine gun use were tested.
Mansner M/30
A lightweight mount was based to German Schitten 08 machine gun mount used with the MG 08, developed by engineer Harry Mansner (who worked for Civil Guard ordnance administration), sparking the interest of both Finnish Armed Forces and Civil Guard.[4]
M/VKT
A lightweight mount was designed by VKT during the Continuation War. The mount had a steel ring going around machine gun's water jacket and two legs equipped with small skis attached to it.
Ordnance Department lightweight mounts
The basic design of these mounts was quite similar to M/VKT. There were with two versions, differed in size. 100 mounts of each version were made for field tests in 1942. The mounts were basically bipods equipped with small skis and a ring to attached around Maxim gun's water jacket. Equipment issued with these mounts included a support piece (which basically added a simple rifle butt like support piece for the weapon). In late 1940s, these mounts were scrapped.[4]
^Most sources mentions the 7.62×54mmR but the Finnish military used both, and firearms that uses the 7.62×53mmR is interchangeable with the 7.62×54mmR as well, although it seems that the 7.62×54mmR was more prioritized for machine guns.
^The Maxim M1910 was developed from the Vickers-Maxim gun rather than the German-made Maxim gun.
^The first 09 came from model of machine gun and second 09 from model of mount used.
^All machine guns in the photo were equipped with early version of Sokolov mount, which had legs (Later production mounts didn't have legs), as well as German ZF 12 n/A optical sights.
^Extra part installed to Sokolov mount allowed it to be modified to anti-aircraft use.
Vehviläinen, Raimo; Lappi, Ahti; Palokangas, Markku (2005). Itsenäisen Suomen ilmatorjuntatykit 1917-2000 [Anti-aircraft guns of independent Finland 1917-2000] (in Finnish and English). Jyväskylä: Sotamuseo. ISBN 952-91-8449-2.
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