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Danish
Madsen Light Machine Gun | ||||||||||||||||
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The Danish Masden is also sometimes referred to as the Rexler and the Schouboe, it first saw the light of day in 1902. It was produced by the Danske Rekyl-Riffel Syndikat and had been designed by J Ramussen a director of the Danish Royal Military Arms Factory in 1899. He assigned the rights to the Danske Rekyl-Riffel Syndikat, and Lt Schouboe who was a director of that company took out a parallel set of patents. It was a light machine gun, weighing only some 2 kilos more than a rifle, had a very simple mechanism, cheap to produce and efficient. In 1918 an official statement was made in the British Parliament that "the present Madsen gun is considered by many the most wonderful machine-gun of its kind ever invented" and that it was admittedly superior in many respects to the Lewis and the Hotchkiss. The gun was taken into service by the Danish cavalry but the British War Office was not interested. Efforts were later made to get hold of some but Germany prevented the sale and collared the guns herself. (In 1915, experts wanted to arm the new Tank Mk I with Madsens.) The Russians took it up and it was used in the Russo-Japanese War 1904-05 as a cavalry weapon. In July 1915 the Austro-Hungarian Army ordered a consignment of about 600 Madsens for use by mountain units (with a small number earmarked for aircraft use). When they arrived it turned out that they were all chambered and barreled for the Danish and Swedish armies who used a slightly smaller calibre round (6.5 mm) than the Austro-Hungarian Army (8mm). Also the Austro-Hungarian Army used a rimmed cartridge with which the Madsen did not work well. The guns were all bored out to take the German 7.92 mm rimless ammunition but this meant that by the time there were enough rebored Madsens available for issue other solutions had already been found. The guns were withdrawn from service in early 1917 It had problems. The gun proved prone to jamming, especially if the cartridge case was not 100% perfect: burst cartridges tended to damage the breech and it was too complex (and susceptible to dirt and moisture) to be easily maintained in field conditions. It was however very light compared to other MG's, and in 1914 was taken up as an aviation weapon. However its rate of fire was lower than comparable weapons and it tended to be outranged by the German and Austrian guns on the aircraft it faced. (Various accounts of Russian use on Nieuport IX, X and XIs do report problems with range.) This meant that to be sure of a kill the aircraft using a Madsen had to be in range of its enemy for longer than would have been the case if, say, a Lewis was used. For this reason the Russian preferred the Lewis when it became accessible. Despite these problems it became a popular weapon. (With a well trained and motivated crew, who took good care of the gun, one could do a lot of damage and reliability problems would be few.) It was also manufactured in several different variations for over fifty years, and used in virtually every military rifle caliber available up to the 1950's. It was especially popular in Latin America, where most countries used it. The guns long term popularity lay in its lightness and relative cheapness (and possibly in its manufacturer's willingless to market it almost anywhere).
The detail photos below show a mid- to late-1930's or early 1940's vintage Portuguese gun which was probably originally chambered for either the Portuguese 7.7mm cartridge (the models 1930, 1936, and 1952 were in this caliber) and also the 7.92mm Mauser for the Models 1936 (again), 1940 and 1947. The design seems to be of the later type (post 1934) with the cone shaped flash hider and later "streamlined" butt-stock. The many model designations don't seem to have had much significance as far as major changes, as there was apparently a different 'model' for almost every year, i.e.: in the 1920s alone there was a Model 1920, Model 1921, Model 1922, Model 1923, Model 1924, Model 1925, Model 1926, Model 1927, Model 1928 and Model 1929, or a 'model' for every single year. (It seems highly unlikely that these were significantly different guns for every single year, but more likely the contract years when the guns were made and delivered to the customer.)
Technical Data
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