Before World War II, France did not seem to have many highlights in the design of small arms, the most famous of which was the Hatches series, which was considered advanced as a machine gun during the First World War, but gradually derailed from the world's advanced level after the First World War. In fact, in the late period of World War I, a more perfect Dane gun family appeared in France, both in terms of model and mission functions.
Dahn Company was founded in 1881, at the beginning mainly designed and produced some civilian guns, such as hunting guns, but the First World War ushered in a turnaround for the company, in 1915 when the company was authorized to produce Lewis machine guns, during this period of time accumulated a wealth of experience, in 1916 when the company announced that it would develop its own machine guns.
Over the next two years, the Dahn machine gun was extensively tested and a contract was negotiated towards the end of the war with the French, which requested the first shipments in the spring of 1919, but with the end of the war, the related bulk purchases were shelved.
This Dane machine gun adopts the principle of air-conducted automatic, firing French standard 7.5 mm ammunition, using 150 rounds or 250 release magazine belts to feed; the gun weighs 9 kg, if a wooden stock is installed, it weighs 9.6 kg, and can also be fitted with a light tripod, with a total weight of 13 kg, the disadvantage of the gun is only the automatic firing mode, the rate of fire is about 600 rounds per minute.
The Dahn machine gun has a rough appearance and a handsome shape, but it is good in reliability, low cost, and according to some papers, it even costs only 700 francs to buy during the Great Depression in 1931, which is only equivalent to the price of an ordinary shotgun, so it is indeed quite cheap.
I don't know whether the "universal" concept was considered when the Dane machine gun was designed, but with the design of the Dane machine gun that can be matched with a tripod, it does have the shadow of the general machine gun concept on it, which can be used to use the flexible "protrusion" of the bipod, and can also be mounted on the tripod to play the role of a heavy machine gun.
Since it was said that it is a gun family, then the Dane series must be more than this machine gun, in the 20s, the Dane company also developed the Dane rifle and aviation machine gun.
The Dane rifle type is equipped with a pistol grip and a rifle trigger, originally a wooden stock, which was later changed to a metal folding type, the rifle comes with a folding bipod, and can also be fitted with a light tripod, and the feed is changed to a magazine of 20, 25, and 30 rounds. Although the gun is called a rifle, it can also play the effect of a light machine gun, somewhat similar to light machine guns such as the ZB-26, but weighing only 6.9 kg. The rifle also has a fully automatic firing mode, but it can be equipped with a governor, and the rate of fire is reduced to 100 rounds per minute after installation, which is already very well controlled.
The aviation machine gun is also a variant of the more used, mainly for the crew self-defense, but also for fighter versions, these machine guns are supplied with metal magazines developed by Dann itself. Aircraft in the French army such as the Potez 452 sea patrol aircraft and the latecoere 290 water torpedo aircraft used it as a self-defense weapon. However, it was enough in the 30s, but in World War II, the power was too weak, the 7.5 mm warhead was too light, and the lethality and range were insufficient.
There were also some other variants of the Dane machine gun, such as the Navy model, but none of these models were very successful and had fewer users.
In general, the Dane machine gun is rich in models and reliable, but it has not become a generation of famous guns, even France itself has not paid too much attention to it, the most important thing is that Dane is a private enterprise, no official background. In the case of the Dane light machine gun, a total of 11,000 were manufactured before and after, of which the French army purchased 6,000 of them themselves, a total of 5,000 were purchased in other countries, and some exported versions changed the caliber to 6.5 or 8 mm.
During World War II, the Germans had little sympathy for French light weapons, but the Dane machine gun was an exception, and in 1940 a number of aviation models were purchased from the Dane Company, the German army number lemg 106 (f), which were used for ground forces and used against the Allies during the Normandy landings. Although it is not a good thing to produce weapons for the German army, it can be regarded as a proof of its own value to be recognized by its opponents.