Submachine gun of the Polish underground: Bechowiec

47
Bechowiec submachine gun, photo: www.forgottenweapons.com

During the Second World War, an extensive network of armed underground operated in Poland.

The most numerous underground Polish military organizations were the Craiova Army, the Peasant Battalions and the Ludov Guard (later the Ludov Army). All of them experienced problems with the supply of small arms during the war years. weapons and ammunition and tried to solve them by any means available.



So, in the Peasant Battalions there was a unique self-taught blacksmith without an engineering education, who managed to design a submachine gun in military conditions.

The weapon was released in a tiny batch of only 11-12 copies.

However, the very fact of its creation is very interesting.

At least one sample of this handicraft submachine gun has survived to this day, which is stored in the Museum of the Polish Army in Warsaw.

Creator of the Bechowiec submachine gun


Surprisingly, a submachine gun for the Polish resistance movement was designed by a man who, at first glance, is far from firearms.

It was in its own way a brilliant self-taught designer Henryk Strąpoć with the pseudonym "The Seagull". Before the war, he managed to finish only six grades of elementary school, lived in the countryside and had never seen an automatic weapon before.

Henrik Stronpoch was born on March 13, 1921 (according to other sources - 1922) in the small village of Chervona Gura, Opatow County, part of the Kielce Voivodeship, into a simple peasant family.

Today, the city of Kielce, located 170 kilometers from Warsaw, is the center of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in the southeast of the country.

From childhood, Henrik was fond of technology and blacksmithing.

Submachine gun of the Polish underground: Bechowiec
Henryk Strąpoć, photo: www.forgottenweapons.com

Talents began to appear already in childhood.

At the age of 15 Henrik designed the first self-loading pistol. He modeled it on a Belgian FN Browning M1900 pistol that a relative had shown him. The young man, having examined the weapon, managed to disassemble it and assemble it correctly. Most likely, Henrik had a photographic memory and an outstanding technical talent.

On this baggage of knowledge with a peasant education and a complete inability to read technical drawings, the young man created his first pistol literally on his knee. He had no access to a locksmith, let alone a weapons workshop.

Young Kulibin brought his invention to school, where the gun was safely taken away from him, and the police who came home explained that the manufacture and storage of weapons was prohibited.

At the same time, the school director appreciated the student's talent and wanted to recommend him to continue his education at a vocational school, but these plans did not materialize.

Finally, all plans for vocational training were buried by the Second World War that began on September 1, 1939, which reached the places where Henrik Stronpoch lived in just a few weeks. At the same time, the voivodeship occupied by the Germans was restless, since Polish partisan detachments of various political orientations very quickly began to form here.

In 1942 Henrik also joined the partisan movement.

Largely because of his background, he chose the Peasant Battalions (Battaliony Chłopskie). It was the second largest Polish underground organization, which at the peak of its power united more than 170 fighters operating in about 300 independent units. At the same time, Stronpoch was an active combat member of the organization, initially joining it with his personal weapon - a self-loading pistol.

Bechowiec submachine gun, photo: wikimedia.org

Having joined the Peasant Battalions, he took the call sign "Chaika", very soon becoming a liaison officer of an underground organization in his native Opatow county.

In the partisan detachment, Henrik did what he knew how to do well - he was responsible for the repair and repair of weapons, and also engaged in the manufacture of homemade grenades.

Already in the fall of 1942, on the instructions of the command, the former peasant blacksmith began to create a submachine gun. The Polish underground was in dire need of such weapons.

Development of a submachine gun for Polish partisans


Submachine guns were the most sought-after weapon among partisan detachments due to their relatively small size and high firepower. These weapons, unlike rifles, could be hidden under a raincoat or coat, which was also important for the underground.

At the same time, the Polish resistance movement experienced a huge shortage of any small arms. The partisans had at their disposal only a few captured MP-40s and its variants and the "Walls", which were dropped along with other weapons and equipment of the British aviation.

At the same time, by that time, Henrik Stronpoch had only theoretical knowledge about automatic weapons. Despite this, based in many respects only on visual representations of submachine guns, the self-taught designer launched active work in the smithy of his brother.

The barrel, which was the most difficult to make in artisanal conditions, was taken from old 7,9-mm rifles that had survived from the First World War. The barrel was shortened to the required length and bored for a 9mm pistol cartridge.

Among other things, Henrik had to make his own tools for creating weapons.

The first submachine gun, which Stronpoch made completely by hand, was ready in the spring of 1943. At the same time, the shooting of the model and the demonstration to the command of the Peasant Battalions took place.

To the surprise of everyone, including the designer himself, the sample was quite working, giving only a few minor delays during the tests.

Bechowiec submachine gun at the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, photo: wikimedia.org

Further, the weapon fell into the hands of the draftsman Jan Svat, who worked at a steel plant in the nearby town of Ostrowiec-Swietokrzyski. Swat literally fell in love with a unique sample, quickly making a set of drawings for mass production based on the presented model.

The manufacture of parts for weapons took place at enterprises controlled by the Germans. This seriously hindered the deployment of full-fledged mass production.

From blanks secretly prepared at the factory according to the drawings of Jan Swat, 11 submachine guns with the BH brand were assembled. According to one version, there should have been the designation BCH (short for Bataliony Chłopskie), but there was no stamp with the letter “C” at the enterprise. So the designation BH remained on the submachine guns, and they themselves received the nickname Bechowiec.

A total of 11 factory-built submachine guns and one hand-built Stronpoch prototype were assembled.

The plant still had blanks for the production of at least a dozen submachine guns, but the approach of the front in the second half of 1944 made the manufacture of weapons impractical.

It is believed that the cost of each submachine gun was approximately 6 thousand occupation zlotys. These funds were spent on transportation, production and bribes for the protection of enterprises.

Features of the Bechowiec submachine gun


Most of the manufactured Bechowiec submachine guns were created under the 9x19 mm pistol cartridge, but the last three copies were assembled under the Soviet cartridge from the TT pistol 7,62x25 mm, which by that time had also become quite massive among the Polish partisans.

The submachine guns were fed from box magazines designed for 32 rounds.

An interesting feature was the presence of 13 holes on the front wall of the magazine, which made it possible to control the consumption of ammunition.

Bechowiec submachine gun, incomplete disassembly, photo: www.forgottenweapons.com

This was not the only interesting detail in the design of the submachine gun, which was created in artisanal conditions by a blacksmith without technical education.

The concept of the Bechowiec submachine gun was more reminiscent of self-loading pistols, with which Stronpoch was much more familiar. A casing was pushed onto the frame with a receiving window for the store in front of the handle, in which the bolt was fixed, which moved back and forth when firing.

A similar design of submachine guns with a trigger-type trigger was very unusual at that time.

An interesting innovation was the possibility of cocking weapons using a carrying strap. Such an idea would be implemented again only a quarter of a century later on the Austrian submachine gun Steyr MP 69.

Although Henrik Stronpoch obviously wanted to make the weapon as simple as possible, some of the elements were too complex for a wartime model that was going to be handicraft.

Stronpoch equipped his submachine gun with a flag switch for firing modes (single / automatic), which also served as a fuse, which could be switched with the thumb. Such an idea was also drawn to the innovative, although it was quite possible to do without it to simplify the model.

An important advantage of the submachine gun was its low weight - only 2,43 kg without a magazine, 2,83 kg with a magazine.

At the same time, the length of the weapon did not exceed 455 mm, and the length of the barrel - 240 mm.

The most effective submachine gun could be used at a distance of up to 100 meters.

The compact dimensions were well suited for concealed carrying of weapons, and the rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute provided the necessary density of fire.

The weapon could be used effectively from forest ambushes and in urban combat.
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47 comments
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  1. +9
    26 January 2022 18: 29
    Thanks for the article, a curious product, we are waiting for an article about the weapons work of other partisans, a lot of artisanal weapons were created in Belarusian forests
    1. +4
      26 January 2022 18: 43
      "in the Belarusian forests" on the site there was already about a home-made submachine gun. They were developed into Belarusian partisans.
      1. 0
        30 March 2022 23: 20
        It was.
        Moreover, it seems that they were engaged in doing nothing, squalor, but the lining on the handle is bone.
        I'm talking about Belarusian, not about the subject.
  2. +4
    26 January 2022 18: 46
    It is clear that in that situation any weapon was important, but this sample is more likely for close combat. It’s not very convenient that there was no shutter casing and the sure part was fired when firing, which created a danger for the shooter
    1. NAP
      +3
      26 January 2022 18: 50
      In those days, almost all submachine guns were for very close combat (50-100 meters), this submachine gun is no exception.
      1. The comment was deleted.
      2. 0
        27 January 2022 01: 13
        The TT or Para pistol cartridge is capable of providing an effective firing range of up to 200 m with an optimal barrel length and a balanced PP design.
        In this model, the emphasis was clearly on compactness and minimal weight, so the range should be lower.
        The design with a moving casing, which is actually part of the bolt, of course, reduces the overall weight of the weapon, but creates the risk of injury to the shooter when firing.
      3. 0
        3 February 2022 21: 59
        Quote from N.A.P.
        The most effective submachine gun could be used at a distance of up to 100 meters

        "It is clear that in that situation any weapon was important, but this sample is more for close combat"
        With such a "dudarga" strong, the aiming range is probably no further than 25 meters ...
    2. +5
      26 January 2022 19: 19
      When I was in this museum, only the equipment platform was open. How then did not regret it. And there there were some specimens, it turns out ....
  3. NAP
    +7
    26 January 2022 18: 47

    During the uprising, the Poles also had such a 9mm submachine gun - Blyskawica - also structurally a hybrid of STEN and MP40
    1. +2
      26 January 2022 20: 13
      About 180 copies of the Sten submachine gun were also produced in the Polish underground.
  4. +2
    26 January 2022 18: 48
    The author, what is known about the further fate of the self-taught?
    1. +2
      26 January 2022 19: 24
      Glory, hello. hi
      I rummaged through the net, but did not find anything about the further fate of this master. There is only a mention that it was used by the Poles during the Warsaw Uprising.
    2. +5
      26 January 2022 19: 30
      The author, what is known about the further fate of the self-taught?

      Nothing. Even the exact date of death and where he died is unknown. The only known fact of the post-war biography is that Stronpoch studied at some kind of school in Slavenitsy.
  5. +7
    26 January 2022 18: 50
    The name, without going into details, is practically "Bichevets". Can I have drawings and dimensions?
    The barrel ... was taken from old ... 7,9 mm rifles. The barrel was shortened to the required length and bored for a 9mm pistol cartridge.
    The first submachine gun ... Stronpoch made entirely by hand
    More like a legend. It's okay to saw off, "Brother / Brother-2" everyone watched and already knows how. But, manually bore the barrel of a factory weapon by 1,1 mm in the field? With what kind of reamers / piercings is this possible manually?
    1. The comment was deleted.
    2. +5
      26 January 2022 19: 15
      The barrels were taken from discarded rifles from the First World War, which were accidentally found in a warehouse of a steel mill and were put into action without delay.

      Stronpoch cut them into blanks 480 mm long, providing an external thread at each end, and bored them to a caliber of 9 mm. He received rifling with the help of various mandrels, pushing them along the channel of the barrel blank.

      With the tools available, this process was very difficult and required a great deal of precision. Many stem blanks had to be thrown away. After deploying the chamber on each side of the workpiece, the latter could be cut in the middle, thus, two barrels for a submachine gun were ready.

      Unique instance. Stronpocha submachine gun
      February 11 2021
      11 thousand read
      Authors – Leszek Erenfeicht and Michael Heidler, translated by Nikolai Yezhov
      The material was published in the magazine "Kalashnikov"
    3. +6
      26 January 2022 20: 15
      With the help of such a device as in the photos. These photographs were used in making copies of Sten in Warsaw. On this device, rifle barrels were cut, deployed and threaded.


      [/ Center]
      1. +4
        26 January 2022 20: 23
        Article
        The first submachine gun ... Stronpoch made entirely by hand
        those. without the use of mechanisms / machines?
        1. +4
          26 January 2022 20: 35
          Forging method. Piece of steel, hammer and chisel fellow
    4. +1
      26 January 2022 20: 41
      And how did you do the cutting of the trunk after that? Or was he not rifled?
      1. +4
        26 January 2022 23: 54
        With a simple broach and 6-11 suitable dies

        The one pictured was used to make 180 replicas of the Sten submachine gun, made by partisans in Warsaw.
  6. +3
    26 January 2022 18: 57
    When I read about PP Stronpoca, I remembered: Croatian Agram2000.
    It was also created by a self-taught person: Ivan Vugrik. Only PP Stronpoch created in the partisan detachment and his BH was not mass-produced, but Agram was mass-produced
    1. +5
      26 January 2022 19: 33
      Agram is mass-produced

      They released it and it was not officially adopted, for example, separate special forces of the Croats.

      But the bandits fell in love with him with true and disinterested love: bully
      1996 - the murder of the People's Deputy of Ukraine Yevgeny Shcherban in Donetsk, Ukraine[11].
      1998 - the murder of the deputy Galina Starovoitova in St. Petersburg.[12]
      2000 - a triple murder at the Astoria Hotel (St. Petersburg) [13].
      2001 - the murder of the deputy. Prefect of the Zelenograd District of Moscow L. Oblonsky[14].
      2005 - shootout in the restaurant "Yellow Submarine" (Moscow) [15].
      2007 - the murder of Ch. Akhondov, the leader of an Azerbaijani criminal group (Moscow) [16].
      2007 - assassination attempt on the deputy head of the Organized Crime Control Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Kaliningrad Region. D. Malikova
      2011 - the murder of a deputy, leader of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Korobchinsky (Odessa)
      1. +4
        26 January 2022 19: 40
        In Penza in the nineties, they scoffed at collectors, robbed a bank.
      2. +3
        26 January 2022 20: 59
        "special" is also an indicator. They won't take any shit there.
        1. +5
          26 January 2022 21: 42
          So in the absence of fish, the "Shosha" will become a machine gun. laughing
          1. +2
            27 January 2022 07: 50
            Kostya, "Shosh" was a wartime machine gun. He was "riveted" in artisanal conditions, and Lewis was produced in a specialized production. It must also be taken into account
            1. +3
              27 January 2022 08: 00
              "Shosha" was also not made in a handicraft workshop.
              1. +2
                27 January 2022 08: 05
                What I’m talking about: they did it in artisanal conditions, and Lewis at the arms factory
                1. +4
                  27 January 2022 08: 12
                  You didn’t understand me, I meant that Shosha was produced “at the Gladiator engineering company (Le Pre-Saint-Gervais, France)”, and not in a handicraft workshop. By the way, it is not called "Shosh", but "Shosha" - by the name of one of the designers - Colonel of the French Army Louis Chauchat, he worked together with designer Charles Sutter and technologist Paul Ribeyrolles ) .
                  1. +2
                    27 January 2022 08: 56
                    I'm sorry, I forgot that detail. It seems that V. O was talking about him.
                    1. +3
                      27 January 2022 09: 14
                      But, whatever you call it, the machine gun did not turn out very well, although the Americans also armed themselves with it.
  7. +1
    26 January 2022 19: 09
    Not well, the uncle was sensible
  8. +4
    26 January 2022 19: 19
    Stronpoch equipped his submachine gun with a flag switch for firing modes (single / automatic), which also served as a fuse, which could be switched with the thumb.


  9. +3
    26 January 2022 19: 38
    Well, the Polish Kalashnikov is straight, he also dismantled Browning as a child (see Wikipedia).
    Also a blacksmith.
  10. +3
    26 January 2022 20: 14
    Interesting article, thanks! I thought that when making a firearm "from 0", strictly for partisan use and handicraft production, why didn't they bother with silencers? I have never heard of partisan silencers, but it would seem that this is where they belong! Moreover, it can be realized without a significant increase in dimensions if the muffler is initially laid in the structure ...
    1. +3
      27 January 2022 00: 10
      Quote: Proctologist
      I thought that when making a firearm "from 0", strictly for partisan use and handicraft production, why didn't they bother with silencers? I have never heard of partisan silencers, but it would seem that this is where they belong! Moreover, it can be realized even without a significant increase in dimensions, if the muffler is initially laid in the structure ...
      Maybe the partisans from the people did not suspect such devices for weapons ...
      Here the special services of the warring parties used silencers.
      Here is the PBS "Bramid" 1929.
      Here is Maxim's PBS 1908.
      Silent gun Welrod MK2 Britain
      Parabellum with silencer
      Nagant with silencer "Bramid".
      soldier
      1. 0
        27 January 2022 13: 46
        hi Muffler "Brami"т"was called so by the name of its creators-designers mi brothersтother.
        Prior to that, in the 1920s, they also converted the "Nagant" for silent shots with locking (until the trigger was released, after the shot, and, accordingly, retreated from the centering cone of the barrel breech, cartridge drum ...) powder gases into barrel, providing it with an additional, synchronously rotating, drum (for catching special plugs-pallets 7,62 bullets) at the muzzle ...
        Unfortunately, I am unable to illustrate with a picture. winked
    2. +1
      27 January 2022 01: 37
      The partisans used silencers, but factory-made.


      During the war, they were secret, and therefore there was little distribution among partisans and sabotage groups. Unfortunately, they got to the Germans pretty quickly.
      In addition, a special ammunition was required to use the silencer - the usual one destroyed the silencer.
      1. 0
        27 January 2022 11: 07
        That's exactly what silencers were used - as in the photo with a revolver - they were given out to Soviet saboteurs, that is, their usefulness for partisan use in those years was undeniable! As for the resource of the silencer and the special cartridge, then "for lack of fish and cancer - fish", that is, a makeshift silencer could reduce the noise from the shot. Let them be worse than special silencers and PBS, but at least somehow, which would be extremely useful for partisans. But for some reason they didn't bother...

        Apparently, I misunderstand the realities of partisan operations during the Second World War.
        1. 0
          27 January 2022 11: 20
          The partisans used silencers.
          in the photo, two partisans have rifles with silencers - the one in the center and the right one in the back row.
          There were no home-made silencers then, then factory ones were produced with difficulty - mass production began in 1942.
          https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/БраМит
          Silencers are specific weapons, not always needed and applicable - the range drops sharply.
  11. +1
    27 January 2022 14: 26
    This is a characteristic property of almost all self-taught designers - to unnecessarily overcomplicate (structurally and technologically) the mechanisms being created, to specifically "decorate" them and "get hung up" on some "overvalued idea" ... request
    It was possible to create a submachine gun (for large-scale production in artisanal conditions of clandestine workshops) much simpler in design and much more technologically advanced (yes, at least from all kinds of ready-made, even water pipes, in the "tubular" concept of the same "Stan", then already dropped to the Poles from British aircraft, although the "Stan" could have been further simplified and lightened, while improving its design and manufacturability, as well as ergonomics and reliability in battle ... not to mention the "box" concept of the Sudaevsky PPS- 42 (43), U-shaped "bent" from thin steel sheets, available for production with a minimum of tools and fixtures, in the presence of finished barrels from scraps of rifle-bayuts, which during the production in besieged Leningrad of two "Sudaevsky" submachine guns on them one barrel from the "mosquito" was enough).
    The Article correctly states that the Polish self-taught gunsmith was "captured" by the stereotypes of the self-loading "Browning" he studied with a trigger trigger and a movable shutter casing (with a removable muzzle bushing - stop of the barrel return spring).
  12. +1
    27 January 2022 19: 56
    Well, it’s clear that they bore old 9 mm barrels under a 7,9mm cartridge.
    And where did they get the barrel under the PPSh cartridge? it's smaller in caliber.
    1. 0
      1 February 2022 10: 03
      With access to the machine park and a separate expense item for bribes, it was quite possible to sharpen trunks without reworking from junk. Even rifling in the barrel with such an approach could well be implemented.
    2. 0
      6 February 2022 22: 10
      That's just the German caliber of 7,92 mm was equal to the Russian 7,62 mm. You don't need to grind anything. It's just that our caliber was measured between the fields, and in the west between the grooves.
  13. +1
    1 February 2022 09: 56
    "weapons could be used..."
    Well, in the end, at least one of them was used against the Germans?
  14. 0
    10 February 2022 09: 12
    fascists fse vaashy Poles .. liquidate Poland, for good
    for fseh saipali .. 8(
  15. 0
    20 March 2022 12: 16
    No, well, of course, a hero. But in Belarus there were many partisan detachments. And at least a few mass-produced homemade automatic weapons. In the woods. Without mills and electricity.
    Those who wish can easily find this information on the Internet. But a Pole is different.

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