- Not to be confused with the Schmeisser MP 41 or the SIG MP41.
The Furrer MP41, also known as the Leichtes Maschinengewehr Pistole 41 (German: Lightweight Machine Gun Pistol 41) or Lmg-Pist 41, is a Swiss submachine gun that was produced by W+F Bern. It was issued to the Swiss Army during World War II.
History[]
During the early stages of World War II, Switzerland was faced with the threat of a German invasion. The Kriegs Technische Abteilung, a government body tasked with preparing the Swiss Army for potential war, sent out an ordnance survey in May 1940 and discovered that the Army had less than 500 submachine guns in issue. The KTA commissioned SIG and Waffen Fabrik Bern to develop a new submachine gun for the Army.
W+F Bern's entrant was designed by Colonel Adolf Furrer. Furrer launched a marketing campaign that ridiculed SIG's submission while making ambitious claims about his own gun, claiming it to be cost-efficient and easy to produce. In reality, SIG's design was both cheaper and simpler, and could have been produced at a much higher rate for a much lower cost.
In December 1940, the KTA ordered a batch of 100 trials guns from W+F Bern and 50 from SIG. The KTA made the controversial decision to adopt the Furrer MP41 without ever arranging comparative tests against SIG's entrant. This decision has subsequently been subject to some scrutiny, and several factors were in play when the KTA took this approach. They were under considerable pressure from the Army to select a submachine gun quickly, as by 1940 the situation in Europe was dire and most of Switzerland's neighbors had fallen victim to German invasion. Another factor was Furrer and W+F Bern's relations to the government; Furrer was a reputable officer in the Swiss Army and W+F Bern was a state-owned factory, so the KTA exhibited obvious favoritism towards it over the privately-owned SIG.
The Army ordered a production batch in July 1941 and the first MP41s reached troops in February 1942. By January 1943, 2,192 MP41s had been produced. Production was much slower than anticipated and W+F Bern failed to deliver the agreed number of units. By Autumn 1943, only 4,800 of the weapons had been delivered and steps were now taken to simplify the design to hasten production. The new model, designated the MP41/44, dropped features deemed unnecessary and was cheaper than the standard MP41 but was still hampered by slow production. The KTA were unsatisfied with the MP41's progress and were now buying quantities of the Hispano-Suiza MP43 to make up for W+F Bern's inefficiency. By the end of the war, the Army had only 9,808 MP41s in their inventory.
The weapon was taken out of military service from 1959 to 1960, with all examples being put into warehouse storage; it was later declared obsolete in 1970, with scrap melts happening in 1971 and 1974 to destroy any remaining stockpile of the weapons, along with their spare parts. It is estimated about 400 of those weapons escaped destruction.
Design[]
Diagram displaying the MP41's action.
The MP41 was a recoil-operated submachine gun that used a complex toggle-lock system. The toggle joint consisted of two arms and a rear link, all on pivots. The first arm was attached to the bolt, and the second arm acted as a bridge between the first arm and the rotating link. The link attached to the body of the gun. Both of the toggle joint arms would lie straight in their default position. When the gun was fired, the blowback pressure would force the bolt backward, pushing the arms back and causing the link to pivot. The bolt would drag the barrel back about a quarter of an inch, and then release it. The link would then hit a stop and would not be able to rotate backward any further, causing the arms to swing into a curved fold and drag the bolt back with them until the bolt reached the return spring and could not recoil any further. At this point the empty casing would be ejected and a new cartridge chambered. The force of the return spring would then force the bolt forward, with the link pushing the arms back into their straight position to accelerate the bolt's return. The bolt would push the new cartridge into the chamber and lock the barrel back into place, then the firing pin would strike the primer and the process would repeat.
Toggle-lock submachine guns like the MP41 were rare, as the system was seen to offer no advantages over a traditional blowback system and was considerably more complex to produce and maintain.
The standard MP41 was built to a high standard; it made heavy use of wooden furniture and expensive steel components. It featured tangent sights and bayonet fittings. Unusually for a submachine gun of the period, it fed from the right side rather than the left. The simplified MP41/44 replaced the tangent sights with fixed sights, and a hinged foregrip that folded neatly under the barrel was added. Later models of the MP41/44 were built with Bakelite furniture in place of wood, but the Bakelite components were of dubious quality and breakages were reported.
Gallery[]
