The karabin maszynowy obserwatora wz.37 (Polish for "Observers Machine Gun") is a Polish version of the

Browning wz.1928 The Browning wz.1928 is a Polish version of the M1918 BAR. It was a light machine gun used by the Poles in World War II. History After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the Polish Army was equipped with all sorts of machine guns inherite ...

. It was a flexible machine gun used in some Polish airplanes in the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

History

In the mid-1930s, Polish small arms designer Wawrzyniec Lewandowski was given the task of developing a flexible gun based on the

. The desired changes included raising the cyclical rate of fire to 1100 rds/min, replacing the buttstock with a spade grip at the rear of receiver, moving the main spring under barrel and, most importantly, changing the feed system. The gun's original 20 round box magazine was impractical with the gun's high rate of fire. A new feeding mechanism was added as a pack to the standard receiver. It contained a spring-loaded lever, which when cammed by the lock during locking would grab a round from a 91-round pan magazine located above the receiver and force the round into alignment to feed during unlocking. The weapon is the world's only specialised aerial flexible machine gun based closely on the

Browning M1918 The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is a family of American automatic rifles and machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the . ...

, or "Browning Automatic Rifle". The wz.37 was dubbed "Szczeniak" (Polish for "pup") due to its lightness and compactness compared with previous

Vickers E The Vickers 6-ton tank or Vickers Mark E, also known as the "Six-tonner" was a British light tank designed as a private project at Vickers. It was not adopted by the British Army, but was picked up by many foreign armed forces. It was license ...

and

Vickers F Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

machine guns. The wz.37 was used mostly in Polish PZL.37 Łoś

bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircraf ...

Users

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Similar Weapons

MG 42 The MG 42 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 42'', or "machine gun 42") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Enterin ...

, Nazi German

References

# {{cite book , author=Adam Popiel , author-link=Adam Popiel , title=Uzbrojenie lotnictwa polskiego 1918-1939, publisher=Warsaw, SIGMA NOT , year=1991 , isbn=83-85001-37-9 7.92×57mm Mauser machine guns Light machine guns Machine guns of Poland World War II machine guns Aircraft guns