World War II Database

Country of Origin	Czechoslovakia
Type	Machine Gun
Caliber	7.920 mm
Capacity	100 rounds
Length	1,095.000 mm
Barrel Length	730.000 mm
Weight	19.000 kg
Rate of Fire	500 rounds/min
Muzzle Velocity	790 m/s

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe ZB 1937 machine guns were of Czechoslovakian design. They were air cooled and gas pressure operated, and a switch allowed them to fire either at the standard 500 rounds per minute to an accelerated 700 rounds per minute. Before the German annexation, they were also sold abroad, particularly to the United Kingdom (license to build as the BESA machine guns) and to Romania. After Germany annexed Czechoslovakia, these machine guns were integrated into the German arsenal as the MG37(t) machine guns, and the Czechoslovakian factories continued to build them for the German military until 1942 when the plants switched over to the production of German-designed weapons.

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Last Major Revision: Dec 2007

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