Previously shared in Discord, I had a dream of a battle rifle that could've been made by Austria.
I guess I'm making some history with it.
The Austrian army wanted to replace its M95/30 bolt action rifle, so in 1936, Steyr went to work on a new battle rifle. The army specified it wanted a simple, reliable select-fire rifle that is chambered in 8x56R. The prototype in aluminium performed well, and in 1937, it was improved and redone with steel. The M1938 was finalized and adopted in January.
Unfortunately, official Austrian service with the rifle was cut short with the Anschluss in March of 1938, and most of the inventory was consfiscated by the Nazis. The Anschluss brought in new equipment to the Wehrmacht, and the M1938 was one of those equipment. It was used throughout the war selectively, alongside the Gewehr 41 and 43, though increasingly used less as the war went on.
Once the war was over and Austria was liberated, the reorganized army decided it was going to keep the battle rifle, and continuing its intended purpose, it would go on to be Austria's standard issue rifle until 1965, when it was rechambered in 5.56 as the StG65.
For a while before being replaced by a belt-fed MG, it could be converted into an LMG, especially for mobilized infantry.
_________________
“Kleptomaniac, pyromaniac, just plain maniac.”
― CeeLo Green
Banana
Watermelon
Playstation 5
I authored these forum threads:
GB Kolibriscale
GB Scale Caliber Index
TrucKola's Project/Image Dump