söndag 26 februari 2012

Soldiers With m/96 Swedish Mauser Rifles

Nice postcard from a series of pictures of swedish army activities in Hälsingland, Sweden. I guess this must be sometime around 1910. Note the field gear worn by the soldiers.

They seem to be crawling on some kind of shooting range, with two or three officers supervising the event. Everyone is using m/96 swedish mauser rifles, a quite modern weapon at the time.

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Prisoner of War During The 1917 Maneuver

An old photograph that I happen to own. It has "The maneuver 1917" written on its back.

Closer study of the sharp original picture shows that the carbine is an m/94 with the old style nose cap, not the later m/94-14 modified for a bayonet. Also, he forgot to cock his weapon.

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Swedish Landstorm Youth With m/94 Carbine

Here is another old postcard, this time featuring a young guy from the paramilitary swedish organisation Landsstormen. He keeps his m/94 ready, waiting for signs of enemy activity.

Note that his m/94 carbine lacks the m/94-14 bayonet lug. This one never got modified for bayonet use, during the first world war.

The text roughly translates something like this: "Recon. The Stockholm Landstorm Youth Department." Practicing marksmanship and being active in different more or less military organisations or shooting clubs was very common in the first half of the 20th century. Clubs got free ammo from the army, and everyone was happily plinking away with their mausers.

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Swedish Soldiers, Cool Hats

An old postcard with a bunch of swedish soldiers in the 1920s(?). Note the ultra cool hats, a far cry from the camouflage baseball type hats of the 1990s and onwards. I believe the swedish defence forces should consider starting to use these again.

The m/96 rifles and the kulsprutegevär m/21 swedish BAR must make a come back as well. I wonder how many rifles in this picture ended up in the hands of enthusiasts in the US, Australia and Italy?

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