page_title: Bechowiec-1
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Bechowiec-1 / Design
caption_attribution_description: Polish WWII clandestinely-manufactured SMG Bechowiec-1, Warsaw's Museum of the Polish Army.
context_page_description: Bechowiec was a Polish World War II submachine gun developed and produced by the underground Bataliony Chłopskie resistance organisation. It was designed in 1943 by Henryk Strąpoć and was produced in underground facilities in the area of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. Its name was coined after the Bataliony Chłopskie organization members who were informally called bechowiec.
context_section_description: A lack of experience of Strąpoć in machine guns' designing and lack of direct patterns resulted in several original construction features, similar to semi-automatic pistols, and hence the weapon is sometimes referred to as a machine pistol, in spite of a size and general layout closer to a submachine gun. The weapon had no stock and had quite compact dimensions. It used standard German 9mm Parabellum ammunition which could be easily obtained either by purchase from the German soldiers or through armed actions. Three or four last weapons used 7.62×25mm Soviet ammunition, of growing popularity among partisans.
  The weapon used a slide, much like an automatic pistol and fired from a closed breech, which added to its accuracy in single-shot mode. It also had an internal hammer and an internal safety device, preventing from shooting with not fully closed breech. A breech could be brought back by pulling a transport belt, fixed to a slide under the barrel. The gun had a three-position external safety and firing mode selector.
  The weapons had a signature "S.H. w.44" on a left side (Strąpoć Henryk, pattern 1944) and "B.H" on a right side. Production guns were painted black, only the surviving exhibit was later polished.
caption: Bechowiec as seen in the Museum of the Polish Army in Warsaw
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