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L41: Arado's WW2 Experimental MP40 Silencer (ad-free)
🕑 Added 2024-02-19 12:00:00 +0000 UTCThe German military tested several designs of silencer for the MP40 submachine gun during late World War Two. Designated the L4x series, they were made by the Arado and Opel-Schneider companies. This example is an Arado L41, designed to use the sort of heavy rubber baffles as the Soviet Bramit pattern. The L41 used two such baffles and a single large expansion chamber, giving it a rather short overall length.
Instead of using a clamp-on attachment like many of the adopted rifle silencers, the L41 is threaded to the MP40 muzzle. However, the MP40 muzzle threads were made without a significant tolerance requirement (as they were only designed for use with blank-firing adapters) and so the exit diameter of these suppressors had to be made substantially larger than 9mm in order to prevent bullet strikes. Ultimately no MP40 silencers were formally adopted.
Comments
Mrgunsngear
If I had to guess I'd say it'd probably take off 10-15db which is certainly not insignificant
Sonny Hughes
That's an interesting accoutrement! Also a bit strange for them to develop at that point in the war. I can't imagine what they wanted them for. I do remember reading an article, years ago, about some of Otto Skorzeny's operations early in the war. If the story is try, he had tried to get hold of some suppressed pistols and possibly submachine guns for use in anti-partisan operations. However, that request had gotten squashed by leader ship because, supposedly, Hitler did not like the idea of using suppressors because he though it was "unfair". Go Figure! Anyway, as the story goes, Skorzeny managed to set up a *fake* resistance cell in Northern Europe and convinced the OSS to drop him the weapons he wanted; including the suppressed weapons.
