The Danuvia 39M/43M was a Hungarian

submachine gun A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine (firearms), magazine-fed automatic firearm, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to descri ...

Pál Király Pál Király (1880–1965) was a Hungarian engineer and weapons designer. Király was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1880. In 1902 he earned a degree in mechanical engineering, and later joined the Austro-Hungarian army, where he rose up t ...

in the late 1930s and used during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

History

The 9×25mm Danuvia

was designed by Hungarian engineer

in the late 1930s, and was produced by the titular Danuvia company. The guns were issued to

Hungarian army The Hungarian Ground Forces (, ) constitute the land branch of the Hungarian Defence Forces, responsible for ground activities and troops, including artillery, tanks, Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), and g ...

troops in 1939 and remained in service throughout

and until the early 1950s. A total of roughly 8,000 were made between 1939 and 1945. The Danuvia was a large, sturdy weapon, similar to a

carbine A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and ligh ...

. Inspired by the SIG MKMS, the Danuvia used the more powerful

9×25mm Mauser The 9×25mm Mauser (or 9mm Mauser Export) is a cartridge developed for the Mauser C96 service pistol around 1904 by DWM. Mauser pistols in this relatively powerful caliber were primarily intended for export to Africa, Asia, and South America. ...

round, and incorporated lever-delayed blowback in order to better manage this high energy cartridge. The Danuvia's

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

can be folded forward into a recess in the

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

where a plate then slides over it. The gun was well-liked by troops it was issued to; it reportedly functioned well in the sub-zero, muddy conditions on the Eastern Front. The only difficulty was the availability of 9×25mm Mauser ammunition. It was used by the Hungarian army, military police and police forces and stayed in service until the early 1950s when it was gradually replaced by the

PPSh-41 The PPSh-41 () is a selective-fire, open-bolt, blowback submachine gun that fires the 7.62×25mm Tokarev round. It was designed by Georgy Shpagin of the Soviet Union to be a cheaper and simplified alternative to the PPD-40. The PPSh-41 saw ...

and the Kucher K1.

Design

The Danuvia featured a patented two-part lever-delayed blowback bolt. The fire selector switch is a circular cap on the rear of the receiver and is rotated to one of three settings: ''E'' (Egyes)(semiautomatic fire), ''S''(Sorozat) (full automatic), or ''Z'' (Zárt)(the safety setting). The ejection port and cocking handle are on the right side of the receiver. It had a ramp-type rear sight above the ejection port and a post foresight at end of the barrel.

Variants

The original Danuvia was the Géppisztoly (Submachine gun) 39M with a fixed wooden stock, which was followed in limited numbers by the Géppisztoly 39/A M with a folding wooden stock. In 1943 a new version with a forward folding metal stock, wood fore stock and a pistol grip was designated the Géppisztoly 43M. The 43M was the most produced version and had a shortened barrel and a forward-angled magazine.

Gallery

File:39M-Patent.jpg, Screenshot of the patent for the Danuvia 39M File:Hungarian soldiers in the Carpathians.jpg, Hungarian soldiers in 1944, one of them is armed with a Danuvia 39M File:Danuvia 39M.png, The earlier Danuvia 39M

References

External links

Kiraly 43M: Hungary's Overpowered Submachine Gun

{{DEFAULTSORT:Danuvia 39.m Submachine Gun 9×25mm Mauser submachine guns Lever-delayed blowback firearms Submachine guns of Hungary Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1939 World War II infantry weapons World War II submachine guns