War is a funny thing. Americans generally don’t conceptually understand that getting weapons in many third world conflicts means raiding arsenals, museums or buying from illicit arms traffickers. Here we see a Ukrainian manned Maxim machine gun. If one looks closely, you’ll notice it is chambered in 7.62x54r. The same battle-rifle caliber of the Russian Empire.
Considering the age of the Maxim and it’s location, I would guess this machine-gun was either pulled out of very old arms stocks. Ukraine is famous…no…infamous on the international arms market for it’s myriad surplus stockpiles.
Or the second possibility is this weapon could have originated from a museum or static military display. I am guessing the latter considering the age, condition and caliber of the gun. If this was crated up in an arsenal, it would have seen sold off years ago on the black market.
The counter to my theory would be that Com-Bloc machine guns in 7.62x54r would have been more plentiful, easier to repair, lighter and thus more appealing on the world market than this heavy bitch. So maybe it’s the “bottom of the barrel” of some black market operation?
We’ll never know which is probably for the best. This is yet another example of why various US Military units to this very day, train their people to be able to operate, maintain and troubleshoot ancient weapons.
War is a funny thing.
Marky
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