Vintage Saturday: Serbian Maxim
Semiauto Rifles
Zastava M91: Serbia Modernizes its DMR to 7.62x54R
After World War Two, Yugoslavia was left with a tremendous amount of German war material – enough that it cost to adopt the 8x57mm Mauser cartridge as its standard. The M76 precision rifle was developed […]
Semiauto Rifles
Zastava’s M90: The Serbian M70 Updated to 5.56mm
Zastava has been making AK rifles in Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia) since the 1960s, and today has a number of offerings made for the commercial market. One of the recent ones is the M90 (or more […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Serbian 1899 Mauser – Like Boers in Europe
Rifle in this video is selling at auction here. Serbia in the 1890s was not a large or wealthy kingdom, and they had no domestic arms manufacturing capacity – but they did appreciate a good […]
This is almost certainly a set-up for a photo-op. The gun is not emplaced in a prepared position or even behind natural cover, the gun team is clustered too closely together for comfort and their uniforms are too clean.
The big handlebar mustaches would have been quite fashionable for the early 20th century as a sign of manhood, as they were during the preceding Victorian era.
Yeah, I’m sure it is a staged photo. Still interesting, though – it shows how the team was supposed to set up and what everyone’s jobs were. I’ll see if I can find a non-staged shot of a team in action to see what they did differently in real combat.
Big mustaches were popular in the US in the early Maxim era, although they were beginning to fall out of fashion. Didn’t see too many pictures of Western outlaws and law enforcement officers without a handlebar.
Most likely a ‘publicity photo’ meant for home consumption…showing the Brave Serbian warriors defending the homeland from the barbaric invaders with the new-fangled gun that spits out death like the devil’s breath…
CB in FL
Right. They only need a military brass band playing Mars na Drinu (March on Drina) to go with!
John,
It must be a staged photo as the belt seems to be in the feedblock on the wrong side
Removal of Kebab was never so easy.
The belt is definitely in the wrong side of the gun. Having seen many instances where photographers have set up photos incorrectly, I suspect that these guys are not the proper gun crew but a group selected for their appearance!
Dang, I hadn’t even noticed that. Whoops!
It could be, but there is another possibility that may be more likely. When composing a page for publication, there are “rules as to which way the people or animals should face in relation to the page. This is achieved by simply flipping the negative over. Right then becomes left
Its not a reversed image, because the loaded belt is hanging over the fusee cover, which is on the wrong side of the gun.
Hmmm……What’s up with this?
This Connection is Untrusted
You have asked Firefox to connect
securely to billstclair.com, but we can’t confirm that your connection is secure.
Normally, when you try to connect securely,
sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are
going to the right place. However, this site’s identity can’t be verified.