Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Moved from the old YW site:

gschwertley
Second-generation "Bulgarian" M95's?
Yes, the Bulgarians bought some new M95's with their own money back early in the 20th century. We have also had indications that the recently-imported M95's were from Bulgaria. Please refer to www.carbinesforcollectors.com/bulg for interesting military historical information about Bulgaria and some of its small arms. Specifically, this material mentions the purchase by Bulgaria from Germany of quantities of M95's that the Germans inherited from the Austrians with the Anschluss in 1938. This purchase occurred in 1938 and 39. The former Austrian military formations were re-outfitted with German equipment.

The recycled, reworked stocks on several of my recent import M95's have the numbers "39" and "40" inside squares stamped on them. Could be dates of refurbishment for these weapons, recently acquired by Bulgaria at that time? One of these weapons does not have a recycled Austrian stock; it has a then-newly-made Bulgarian stock with a Cyrillic proof stamp near the rear of the action. It has the best metal-to-wood fit of any of my M95's. The author of the cited web site states that the Bulgarians called these M38 and M39, but he did not know the distinction between the two.

So who used these guns? Unlike Hungary and Romania (and others), who stupidly rushed into Russia with Germany in 1941, hoping for easy spoils, Bulgaria wisely chose not to. Instead, they found themselves fighting partisans in Yugoslavia during the war. After the war, the M95s were placed in storage, and used to train and equip "Labor Forces". Some were apparently in use as late as the 1980's.

One of my co-workers, Boian, is a former Major in the Bulgarian Army. He was a motor maintenance officer, but has some knowledge of ordnance items in general. He states that he knew about the M95's, but in his experience most of them were in storage during his time. He has some interesting insights relating to the political changes in Bulgaria whereby the country changed from a corrupt socialist state run by political bureaucrats to a corrupt semi-socialist state run by organized crime with capitalist overtones designed to benefit the corrupt honchos, leaving the general population worse off than before. We have the riches of cheap M95's and cheap surplus ammo here now in part courtesy of crooks in Bulgaria who are "mining" every conceivable former state asset to sell for cash. The same people are selling rockets and explosives around the world to anyone they can.

Those "Labor Forces" bring up some interesting thoughts. What some regimes won't do to obtain cheap military labor. The Germans organized "penal" units, consisting of personnel under sentence for military crimes. They weren't going to let guys get off the hook that easily. The Soviets went a step further and recruited from the Gulags. They promised such "enlistees" a remission of their sentence -- if they lived! And many took them up on their offer. Of course at their back were officers and commissars armed with pistols and revolvers to turn back anyone with ideas of wavering or retreating. Boian tells me the Bulgarian labor units consisted of Gypsies, criminals, and people with certain physical defects. The web site I have referred to earlier uses the words "minorities and those considered disloyal to the regime".

Now for anyone wanting to continue a journey on into the unknown, check on the German Army "stomach battalions", where they organized into one unit all the soldiers with gastro-intestinal problems requiring a bland diet. With them all thusly concentrated, their special food could be cooked in one centralized place. German efficiency. Think I made this up? I don't think I have the imagination to make up something this obscure and arcane.