Small Arms Of The Baltic States

[Animal]

Hello! Does anyone have any information on what rifles, sidearms, light/medium machine guns, grenades, etc., where being used by the military forces of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, prior to their "Invitation" to join the USSR in 1940?

[Johnnie]

I recall reading that some of them bought P-35 Browning pistols from Belgium. I am positive Lithuania did.
Johnnie

[Kaizer]

Hello! Does anyone have any information on what rifles, sidearms, light/medium machine guns, grenades, etc., where being used by the military forces of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, prior to their "Invitation" to join the USSR in 1940?

I know that small amount of MP-34 were delivered to Estonia,but I have no idea where were they used or for whom they were ordered. Also Estonia had ordered some danish Madsen 1924 MGs.But the most common weapon was good old russian Mosin-nagant rifles left WW1

[Frogprince]

Estonia also received some rifle samples from Ceskoslovenska Zbrojovka (CZ) in 1931. After that the picture is not clear. Besides pistols, Lithuania also received some Model 24 rifles and bayonets from Fabrique Nationale, Belgium. And at about the same time it also received VZ24 rifles (besides some earlier samples) from CZ. Latvia?? FP

[Tiger 1]

Early on the Lithuanian Army used various weapons left over from the German -Russian conflict on the eastern front of WWI. Later the Lithuanians contracted for various weapons fron Belgian and Czech firms.

Pistols issued initially consisted of Luger P08s. Later FN was contracted to supply the exellent Browning P35 'Highpower'. Officers and senior NCOs offen provided their own side arms such as Browning pocket autos as well as Mauser and Walter PP and PPK pistols.

Rifles were initially Mosin-Nagants and left over Gewehr 98s. Some Enfield Mark 1s were also known to have been used. Starting in the twenties the rifles began to be standardised with the FN Model 24L. Later contracts were also let to CZ in Brno Czechoslovakia for a similar pattern infantry rifle.

Machine guns consisted of the heavy Maxim sMG08/15 and the light machine gun was the Brno VZ/26.

The rifles and MGs cartridge were chambered for the 7.92 Mauser and the pistols were 9mm Parabellum.

Tony