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Madsen machine gun
The Madsen is a Danish magazine-fed, recoil-operated light machine gun. Designed in the period from 1883-1901 by Julius A. Rasmussen and Theodor Schoubue and named after the Danish Minister for War at the time, Colonel Vilhelm Herman Oluf Madsen, it is the first light machine gun adopted in any meaningful quantity, being adopted by the Danish Army in 1902. It was used by Russian cavalry during the Russo-Japanese war and later as an aircraft gun by the Imperial Russian Air Service, by Germany during the WW1 (as the "Leichte Automatische Muskette M15") prior to the adoption of the Maxim MG08/15, and by the Norwegian Army and Nazi Germany during WW2. It was ultimately sold in 12 different calibers to 34 countries.
The principles of the gun date back to a series of black-powder and smokeless powder self-loading rifle prototypes produced starting in 1883. The final design was patented by Lieutenant Jens Schouboe on behalf of the Dansk Riffel Syndikat in 1901 (sometimes leading to him being credited as the inventor in older sources), and after a brief hiccup of trying to run a machine gun with black powder cartridges, entered production.
The operating cycle of the Madsen is one of the most complicated machine gun actions ever devised, using a mixed recoil operating system built around a copy of the lever-action Peabody Martini breechblock. The block in this design, unlike most machine guns, performs none of the actions of extracting or loading. Instead, extraction and cartridge ramming are performed by two separate mechanisms, which are operated by cam grooves in a "switch plate" mounted to the inside of the receiver: the block tilts up on the rearward stroke of the barrel assembly to provide access for the extractor mechanism, which ejects the spent casing downwards, and tilts down on the forward stroke so the rammer can push a new cartridge into the breech from the top-mounted magazine: the net result is an action which is incredibly compact, only requiring about 1.3 inches of travel to cycle a 3-inch long cartridge. In spite of all this insanity going on inside it, the Madsen had an enviable reputation for reliability in most calibers (the Norwegian 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser version being a notable exception). The barrel and action form a single group that can easily be removed from the weapon by pulling out a single pin and hinging the trigger group down, functioning as a fairly rapid barrel change system. Charging is accomplished with a crank-like non-reciprocating charging handle on the right side of the receiver, though this is only pulled back rather than rotated. Unlike most other top-loading machine guns, the Madsen is sighted along its centerline, with the magazine offset to the left to allow this. One interesting aspect of the Madsen is because it uses a gravity-assisted feed and its feeding lips are part of the gun rather than the magazine, it is possible to simply drop loose rounds into the magazine well and have the weapon fire them with no magazine fitted (up to four at a time). The original Madsen used 25-round single-row magazines; some sources also give magazine capacity of 30 or 33 rounds, while period documents and survive examples suggest that only ubiquitous used magazines capacity was in fact 25 rounds. Later modifications, starting with the M22, received double-row magazines, which made it possible to use a large capacity for 30 and 40 rounds with smaller overall dimensions. For use on armored vehicles, an 80-round drum was developed, as well as a separate version with a belt feed.
Despite being comparatively expensive to manufacture due to the complex mechanism, the Madsen had an incredibly long service life with over a hundred variants produced, the last in 1950 featuring a quick-change barrel. Amazingly, it appears to still be in service today, with 7.62mm NATO guns retired by the Brazilian Army in 1996 used by military police units in Rio de Janeiro State. While it was supposed to have been retired in 2008, police Madsens were seen in video footage taken in 2018.
Specifications
(1902-1955)
Type: Light machine gun
Caliber: 12 different calibers, including 8x58mmR Danish Krag, 7x57mm Spanish Mauser, 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser, 7.92x57mm Mauser, 7.65x53mm Argentine, 7.62x54mmR, .30-06 Springfield, 7.62x51mm NATO, .303 British
Weight: 20lbs (9.07kg)
Length: 45 inches (1,143mm)
Barrel length: 23 inches (584mm) (many other lengths available)
Capacity: 25, 30, 40-round box magazine, 80-round drum magazine, belt-fed
Fire Modes: Semi-auto / auto (350–450 rpm)
The Madsen Machine Gun and variants can be seen in the following films, television series, video games, and anime used by the following actors:
Film
| Title | Actor | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Young Eagles (Noored kotkad) | Estonian soldiers | M1916 in 7.62x54R caliber | 1927 | |
| A Hill in Korea | Chinese soldiers | 1956 | ||
| Reptilicus | Danish soldiers | Danish M/48 in 7.92x57 caliber, on bipod and tripod | 1961 | |
| The Thin Red Line | Japanese soldiers | Stand for Type 96 or Type 99 | 1964 | |
| The Eighth (Osmiyat) | Bulgarian soldiers and resistance fighters | Supposedly in 7.92x57 caliber | 1969 | |
| The Black Angels (Chernite angeli) | Bulgarian poice | Mounted on motorcycle | 1970 | |
| The Stolen Train (Otkradnatiyat vlak) | Dimitar Buynozov | Damyan | 1971 | |
| Les Morfalous | French soldier | 1983 | ||
| Tango & Cash | Seen in hangar | 1989 | ||
| Seven Years in Tibet | 1997 | |||
| April Captains (Capitães de Abril) | Seen in DGS headquarters; Portuguese version in 7.92x57 caliber | 2000 | ||
| April 9th | Danish soldiers | 2015 | ||
| Batalion | Yanina Malinchik | Dusya Grynyova | 2015 | |
| Colonia | A Chilean soldier | 2015 | ||
| The Lost City of Z | German soldiers | 2017 |
TV
| Title | Actor | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bors | Seen in barracks; Ep.15 | 1968 | ||
| And Quiet Flows the Don (Tikhiy Don) | Roman Danilin | Podkhorunzhiy Khristonya | In 7.92x57 mm caliber | 2015 |
Anime
| Title | Character | Note | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Porco Rosso | Pirate | 1992 | |
| Golden Kamuy - Season 1 | Ep. "Grim Reaper" | 2018 |
Video Game
| Game Title | Appears as | Note | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karma Online | 2011 | ||
| Battlefield: 1918 | 2004 | ||
| World of Guns: Gun Disassembly | Madsen Machine Gun | with bipods and stock support | 2014 |
| Battle of Empires : 1914-1918 | "Madsen" | 2014 | |
| Verdun | "Madsen" | 2015 | |
| Battlefield 1 | "Madsen MG" | 2016 | |
| Battlefield V | "Madsen MG" | Dutch version; added with Tides of War Chapter 4 (2019) | 2018 |
| Enlisted | Russian Madsen M1904 | 2021 | |
| Beyond The Wire | "M1902 Madsen" | 2022 | |
| Isonzo | "Madsen" | 2022 |