Hotchkiss and Vigneron

This is the Hotchkiss Universal submachine gun. It was designed in 1949 as a semi-automatic only police carbine and then quickly re-designed as a submachine gun. Despite being fairly plain in operation - just simple blowback - it's a very neat gun. It folds into a very small package. It didn't attract many sales though, some ended up in Morocco and Venezuela, as well as a few in Indochina. Interestingly, some of the semi-automatic ones were imported into the US and can still be found here and there.

As you can see, it looks like someone took it and bent the hell out of it. The neatest part about it is the barrel retracts inwards to make a very short package. There is actually a video done by Forgotten Weapons.com that demonstrates how to fold it and unfold it and explains some more of the history.

                                                Hotchkiss Universal video

I found this photo while I was looking for some good photos of the Hotchkiss. It's called the Vigneron M2. It was made by a Belgian army officer in the early 1950s and was adopted by the Belgian army in 1953. It was used a little bit in the Belgian Congo but that's it. It really isn't a very special gun; simple blowback, mostly stamped parts, select fire. Fairly simple.