Special K
Official period caption. “8 December 1962. Capt. Richard A. Jones with Vietnamese Eagle Force troops he advises.”
Photo by Richard Tregaskis. From the Richard Tregaskis Collection (COLL/566) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division.
Note Capt. Jones’ weapon of choice, the humble Kulsprutepistol m/45, AKA the Carl Gustaf M/45, AKA the Swedish K.
A handy little 9mm sub gun designed by Gunnar Johansson for Swedish forces in WWII as the country’s answer to the STEN and MP40, the Swedes made something like 300,000 of them during the Cold War for issue not only to the military but also for security and police forces– with the latter even having a select-fire version to accommodate launching tear gas grenades.
The Swedish K M/45 used the same bayonet as the country’s Mausers
Swedish UN soldier during the Congo Crisis, 1961. Photo by Åke Sandberg. Note the K gun and FN MAG at the ready.
Swedish Terrängbil m42 KP in UN service during the Congo Crisis 1960s. Note the Swedish trooper with a Carl Gustav K gun M45 and a local gendarme with a Belgian Vigneron submachine gun
It was such a hit with American advisors in Southeast Asia in the early 1960s that S&W had to pick up domestic production of it as the S&W Model 76 after the Swedes placed it under embargo to the U.S.
Soldier training at MACVSOG Recondo School Vietnam with a Swedish K SMG sporting ERDL “Leaf” camo
Special Forces legend Capt. Larry Thorne (Lauri Törni), who died in 1965 when his CH-34 went down with a recon detachment near the Ho Chi Mein Trail when his body was recovered by a joint Finnish-American team in 1999, was able to help confirm his remains from the fact that his K gun was found at the wreck site.
Only removed from Stockholm’s inventory in 2007, it was produced legally in Egypt by Maadi in the 1960s, and in unlicensed garage-built variants in South America and the Middle East, where it is just commonly known as the Port Said…and are still seeing use in combat.
