Karabin wz. 21

Game discussion Germany and Italy
1

The Wz. 1921 “DOG”. During ww1 the basic equipment of soldiers were bolt-action repeating rifles needing manual reload for every shot, at the same time some armies were experimenting with issuing semi-automatic rifles to combat. France had RSC Mle 1917 and Germany had Mauser M1916. The mechanism of those new guns had reloaded the guns themselves which in process increased the firepower of the infantry. Although semi-auto rifles appeared in 1885, the technology was very much still in infancy and the designs could prove unreliable, overcomplicated and too expensive.

After Poland regained independance in 1918, the new army had very messy equipment, with guns from all over the world. That included semi-automatic rifles.
Poland didn’t plan to introduce a semi-automatic rifle at first, seeing them as a technical novelty that wasn’t treated as more than an interesting sidenote.

But the potential within semi-automatic rifles were noticed by General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces’s boss General Tadeusz Rozwadowski who in late 1920 ordered Polish Army Armory in Lviv (Modern day Ukraine) to develop a gun of this type for the Polish Army.
This project was also supported by Minister of Military Affair Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski who requested Equipment Committee to consider equipming soldiers with semi-automatic rifles (With priority to Cavalry)

The Armory in Lviv came up with construction in 1921, named Wz.1921 (Pattern/ Model 1921). It wasn’t made from scratch but rather a modification of bolt-action Mannlicher M1888 (Or M1890) that were inherited from Austro-Hungarian army.
The rifle was chambered in 8x50mmR just like the original.
No more than couple of prototypes were constructed, with at least 1 still surviving that can be seen in a museum in Warsaw.
We don’t know how they performed in testing since, as far as I know, no documents seems to exist.
Because of unknown reason, it never went to production and further work was cancelled.

Poland would later make some other semi-automatic prototypes that would eventually lead to Wz.1938M in 1938, but that couldn’t go to production either because of certain guy with mustache.

Name: Wz.1921
Type: Semi-Automatic Rifle
Bullet: 8x50mmR
Country of Origin: Poland
Year: 1921 KBSP Wz1921. !

2 Likes
2

image
image1100×619 315 KB

done

3

image
image1421×332 49.4 KB

ow… man… u mean this.
This looks too old and blocky for enlisted))

2 Likes
4

We already have Charlton rifle, which is basically the same thing (in concept). It’s not too old either, we literally have the M91 in the tech tree, and such antiques as Berdan as GO.

2 Likes
5

I mean, it was bolt action conversion (those never really go anywhere) and also, the war ended, so the pressure for a new gun went down and instead money was put elsewhere.
Anyway, even if the gov wanted a semi-auto, it would do a sensible thing, and build one properly.