Madsen machine gun

Portuguese Madsen machine gun - 7.92x57mm Mauser

Portuguese Madsen machine gun - 7.92x57mm Mauser. The strange-looking vertical green thing on the magazine is a spring-like metal band with a pointed tip: the Madsen magazine has no feed lips, and the tip of this spring retains the cartridges when the magazine is detached and also acts as a magazine catch. Note the coat of arms of Portugal on the side.

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).

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 2015.

Specifications

(1902-present)

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 (usually 30)

Fire Modes: Semi-auto / auto (350–450 rpm)

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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

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Title	Actor	Character	Note	Date
Young Eagles (Noored kotkad)		Estonian soldiers	Russain M1902 in 7.62x54R caliber	1927
Reptilicus		Danish soldiers	Danish M/48 in 7.92x57 caliber, on bipod and tripod	1961
The Thin Red Line		Japanese forces	Stand for 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		Chilean soldier		2015
The Lost City of Z		German soldiers		2017

TV

Title	Character	Note	Date
Bors			1968

Anime

Title	Character	Note	Date
Porco Rosso	Pirate		1992
Golden Kamuy		Ep. "Grim Reaper"	2018

Video Game

Game Title	Appears as	Note	Release Date
Karma Online			2011
Battlefield: 1918			2004
Battle of Empires : 1914-1918	"Madsen"		2014
Verdun	"Madsen"	M1902	2015
Battlefield 1	"Madsen MG"		2016
Battlefield V	"Madsen MG"	Dutch version; added with Tides of War Chapter 4 (2019)	2018