I absolutely love this picture!

I’m not a boat guy and you might ask what is this photo doing on a Firearms’s Blog?

In case you didn’t see it yet, there’s a machine gun in the front, sorry, bow.

The boat is a Smuggler 28 Patrol at Base East Muskö, Sweden, and it looks like the “Smuggler” is absolutely flat out. Just look at the propellers, barely touching the water.

I wonder how many knots they are making, but I guess well above 50-55. Then again, I’m not a boat guy, so I might be exaggerating?

This Smuggler has twin out boarders, and you can see the Swedish flag stretching aft.

On the side of the boat you can see “FLOTTAN”, or popular language for the Swedish Navy.

This makes me wonder, it’s not really something the Swedish Navy would put on a boat. But who would put a Machine Gun on their boat if not them? There are so many questions…

The V-shape of the Smuggler makes it a very capable high-performance boat in the waves, but you have to watch out. Like any racer there’s a thin line between getting there or getting wet.

The photo was taken Hans Lindgren, huge respect as this was long before the digital era.

The machine gun is a KSP58, which is a a Swedish variant of the Belgian FN MAG machine gun.

It was manufactured by the Swedish company Carl Gustav and was adopted by the Swedish Armed Forces in 1958, hence the name KSP58.

It’s a 7,62×51 mm machine gun, gas operated with an open bolt.

For a take on some more modern military ships from Finland and Sweden, check the video below.

Northern Coasts 2017 – Spirit of NOCO17 -Puolustusvoimat – Försvarsmakten – The Finnish Defence Forces: