Intended for 3d print.
Swedish light machine gun squad from the the interbellum/early WW2 era. The soldiers are using the following equipment:
- The M/39 uniform.
- The M/37 steel helmet.
- The Kulsprutegevär M/37. Originally a design by Browning known as the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), which was modified and used in a Light Machine Gun role by the Swedish army during the late interwar years and then WW2.
- The M/39 stick grenade. Known as the M24 Stiehlhandgranate in Germany. Imported and reclassified at the outset of the war, when the Swedish-made M/40 grenade proved unreliable.
- The M/96 Bayonet (doubling as a knife). To my knowledge a Swedish design, and mainly manufactured in Sweden and Germany.
Overall, the early-war Swedish army arsenal was a hodge-podge of obsolete or hastily procured stopgap equipment, especially when it came to automatic weapons. A lot of the troops would have to make do with both weapons and clothing that were older than the equipment used for these models (like the M/21 helmet, or even the M/23 uniform). Despite never entering the war, the army would rapidly rearm and expand over the course of WW2, and ended it with substantially upgraded kit for the troops. The M/37 was the standard Swedish LMG throughout WW2, though other LMG models (the M/39 and M/40) were used to fill out gaps or save on costs during the period of rapid rearmament early in the war. The M/37 would remain the de facto standard LMG for the army until replaced by the FN MAG in 1958.
To my knowledge the LMG was used primarily in basic rifle companies, with a number of LMG squads included in each platoon. The magazine-fed M/37 required a gunner and designated loader.
A rifle platoon sans LMGs is sold separately. See link below.
A model of the M/37 kulsprutegevär is available here:
Printing instructions
Recommended printing scale is 28mm. The default scale of the models is also approximately 28mm when you first load them into your slicer. Note that you can easily alter the size of the models prior to printing. No models are currently pre-supported. Personally I think this gives the customer greater flexibility (as well as saving me quite a bit of effort...) , but you are welcome to send me a request to pre-support all models, and I'll upload them to the product free of charge. If you have any additional questions, for example re: various historical aspects, you can also contact me. I'm no expert, but I do have access to some fairly credible historical sources I've used when designing the models.
