Standschütze Hellriegel M1915

Standschütze Hellriegel M1915
Type	Sub-machine gun
Place of origin	Austria-Hungary
Service history
Wars	World War I
Production history
Designed	1915
No. built	1 (conjecture)
Variants	None
Specifications
Cartridge	9x23mm Steyr (conjecture)
Action	Blowback (conjecture)
Rate of fire	500-700rpm
Effective firing range	190 m
Feed system	20 round stick to 160 round drum (conjecture)

The Hellriegel being testfired in October 1915.

A soldier studies the Hellriegel's drum magazine while another carries the gun.

Standschütze Hellriegel 1915 was an Austro-Hungarian water-cooled sub machine gun produced during World War I in very limited prototype numbers.

Standschütze is believed to be referring the Austro-Hungarian reserve force, the Standschützen, while Hellriegel is an Austrian surname, though the significance of how these names relate to the weapon's background is unclear.

The light machine gun could be fed from standard box magazines, or from a large drum magazine which was not actually connected to the weapon and instead fed the cartridges through a flexible chute. The unusual appearance of this drum magazine has led many people to assume it is belt fed, however this is not the case with the rounds being unconnected from one another and are propelled along the drum and feed chute by a spring.

Little is known about the weapon, which does not appear to have progressed from the prototype stage.

In popular culture

The Standschütze Hellriegel M1915 appears in the first-person shooter Battlefield 1 by DICE and EA.

External links

• Hellriegel photograph at the webpages of Bildarchiv Austria
• Historicalfirearms.info
• Maschinengewehr des Standschützen Hellriegel: A WW1 Phantom