Very interesting photos, their writers should perhaps cut down on the dramatisation.

Wonder how that rifle got there ... Italians?

I wanted to disagree about the Maxim, but if they were all in the same area, they're probably from the same time, so I suppose the Germans (or the USSR) could have been using one - the Brits were using the similar Vickers still and the SA Army was still using the Vickers in the 80's.

It isn't a Carcano. It looks like a Mannlicher 1888 or 88/90, which had been service rifle of Austria and Hungary, among others. Obsolete by WWII, though still in second line service.

quote:

Originally posted by Bren7X64:

I wanted to disagree about the Maxim, but if they were all in the same area, they're probably from the same time, so I suppose the Germans (or the USSR) could have been using one - the Brits were using the similar Vickers still and the SA Army was still using the Vickers in the 80's.

It looks like a Russian PM 1910 - Russian designation for the Maxim adopted by them in 1910. They were in service with the Red Army during WWII and quite a long time after.

Maxim also sold his design to the Germans of course, and British, and many others. He didn't manage to sell it to his native country (though the US did use Vickers' version in WWI, when they finally entered that war, as they had nowhere near enough machineguns of their own).