Finnish M31 (Suomi) SMG. Suomi = Finland in finnish
CHARACTERISTICS OF M31 SUOMI SUBMACHINE GUN
Caliber: 9.00 mm Parabellum
Length overall: 863.6 mm ( 34 in )
Weight: 5.13 kg ( 11,31 lb. )
Feed device: 70 and 40 round drum magazines, 20, 36 and 50 box magazines
Cyclic rate: 800-900 r.p.m.
Info:
Suomi M/31 submachinegun proved to be excellent submachinegun: It had superb firepower, excellent accuracy, good muzzle-velocity and outstanding reliability. Only minus for its users was its weight. In Winter War it ended up being used as squad support weapon of Rifle Squad as kind of a replacement of light machinegun. It didn't excel in this role, but when a proper using tactic was understood it became immediate success. It gave individual capable soldiers excellent short-range firepower in relatively compact form - light machineguns were still large and heavy compared to it. Thanks to quite good ergonomics, rather long barrel (when compared to other submachineguns of that time), small recoil, powerfully loaded ammunition and quite good sights (rear sight had rather optimistically settings up to 500 metres) it gave better accuracy and had longer range then most other submachineguns of its time. In Finnish forests its range typically proved quite long enough and thanks to 70-round drums and fast rate-of-fire Suomi M/31 was able to spread more lead into air than most light machineguns of that time. Suomi M/31 become favoured weapon among Finnish troops, soon they got distributed to best soldiers who knew to how to get maximum performance out of them. Before Continuation War armament of Finnish rifle squads got re-planned, now every rifle squad got both light machinegun (as support weapon of Rifle Squad) and submachinegun for short-range firepower. Autumn of 1942 Finnish Armed forces finally had all the submachineguns needed according their TO&E, but Suomi M/31 had proved so effective that at that point committee led by General Heinricks went ahead and decided to recommend adding 2nd submachinegun to all Rifle Squads as soon as possible. By end of 1943 enough Suomi M/31 submachineguns had been manufactured for this new TO&E to be fulfilled, so then decision about adding a third submachinegun to every rifle squad was made, but this didn't materialise in large scale before Continuation War ended halting the Finnish weapons production. Early June 1944 number of Suomi M/31 submachineguns in use of Finnish Armed Forces had peaked to bit over 52,600.
Models:
"M31 I":
http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/kp_Suomi_1.jpg
"M31 II"
http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/kp_suomi_4.jpg (only difference is the muzzle brake in end of barrel)
"Trench M31"
http://www.pkymasehist.fi/suomi_3.jpg
"Tank M31"
http://guns.connect.fi/gow/stanksiv.jpg
Interesting Fact:
Both, Hitler and Stalin had their own personal M31(Suomi) SMG:s
Hitler got it as a gift from Finlands Marshal Mannerheim and Stalin "got" it as war booty