The Lahti-Saloranta M/26 (alternatively LS/26 ) is a light machine gun which was designed by Aimo Lahti and Arvo Saloranta in 1926. The weapon was able to fire in both full automatic and semi-automatic modes. Both 20-round box and 75-round drum magazines were produced, but the Finnish Army seems to have only used the smaller 20-round magazine.
6-485: In the Winter War, there were two squads in each platoon that provided covering fire for two ten-man rifle squads. In each squad, there was one M/26 gunner, one assistant and the rest of the men carrying rifles. Soldiers found it would jam when magazine was loaded to capacity. Often they would take a round out of the magazine and hope an officer did not inspect it. The M/26 won a Finnish Army competition in 1925 where it
12-587: The Degtyarev light machine gun when thousands of them were captured from the Soviets and used against their former owners. All in all, in the summer of 1944, only 3,400 M/26s were at the front, compared to over 9,000 Degtyarevs. Valtion kiv%C3%A4%C3%A4ritehdas Valtion Kivääritehdas (VKT), State Rifle Factory in English, was a Finnish state-owned firearms manufacturer that existed independently in
18-769: The Tourula district of Jyväskylä in Finland from 1926 to 1946. The first serial product in the factory was the Lahti-Saloranta M/26 light machine gun. Other military firearms included the Lahti L-35 pistol and the Lahti L-39 20 mm anti-tank rifle. During World War II , production was decentralized to Seppälänkangas depot and SOK -owned factories in Vaajakoski . After the war in 1946, VKT
24-535: The battlefield, the Lahti-Saloranta M/26 was found to be heavy, hard to clean due to the 188 parts of the gun, and lacking in magazine capacity. It was nicknamed Kootut virheet , "assorted mistakes". On the other hand, proficient gunners liked and took full advantage of the exceptional accuracy of the weapon, and with oiling adapted for winter, it turned out to be very reliable. Due to the problems first encountered by Finnish troops, they often preferred
30-458: Was consolidated into the government-owned Valtion metallitehtaat conglomerate that became Valmet in 1951 and the unit was named just Tourula factory. The factory still produced sport and hunting rifles, but the main focus shifted to building industrial machines and tractors . Finally, Valmet's Tourula factory was merged with SAKO to form Sako-Valmet Oy in 1986. Production in Tourula ended in
36-455: Was selected as the army's main light machine gun. Production started in 1927 at the Valtion kivääritehdas (VKT), State Rifle Factory, and lasted until 1942. More than 5,000 weapons were produced during that time. China also placed an order for 30,000 M/26s chambered for 7.92×57mm Mauser in 1937, but only 1,200 of these weapons were actually delivered due to Japanese diplomatic pressure. On
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