Ckm wz.30

Ckm wz.30

 Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

  Ckm wz.30

 Ckm wz.30

Ckm wz.30 (short for ciezki karabin maszynowy wz.30; "heavy machine gun Mark 1930") is a Polish-made clone of the American Browning M1917 heavy machine gun. Produced with only minor modifications, it was an unlicensed copy of its predecessor and was the standard machine gun of the Polish Army
Design and development
After Poland regained her independence in 1918, her armed forces were armed with a variety of different weapons, mostly a legacy of the armies of her former occupying powers. As with their rifles and carbines, the machine guns used by the Polish Army in the Polish-Soviet War included Russian 7.62 mm M1910 Maxim, Austrian 1907 8 mm Schwarzlose MG M.07/12, German 7.9 mm Maschinengewehr 08 and French 8 mm Hotchkiss Mle 1914. Such diversity was a logistical nightmare, and in the early 1920s the General Staff of the Polish Army decided to replace all older machine guns with a new design, specifically built to Polish designations
Initially the Hotchkiss machine gun, adapted to the standard Polish 7.92 mm round and proven during the Polish-Soviet War, had the most supporters. In late 1924 and early 1925 approximately 1,000 were ordered from France and the Polish Ministry of War started talks on buying the license for manufacturing copies in Poland. However, the first tests of the post-war Hotchkiss machine guns proved that the new production were well below both Polish needs and maker's specifications, and the talks came to a halt. By the end of 1927 the ministry organized a contest for a new standard all-purpose heavy machine gun
Only three companies took part in the competition: the American Browning company with the Browning M1917, a Czechoslovakian-built copy of Schwarzlose M.7/12 (Schwarzlose-Janecek vz.07/12/27) and the British Vickers machine gun. All initial tests were won by Browning. The tests were repeated in 1928, and again the American weapon proved to be the best so the Polish ministry decided to purchase a license. However, it turned out that neither the Colt company nor its European representative, the Belgian company Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, had patented the design in Poland. In addition, the documentation of a recently-purchased license for Browning Automatic Rifle of the same designer was faulty. Because of that, the Polish ministry decided to order the preparation of a local version of the Browning M1917.