Ckm wz. 30 (short for ciężki karabin maszynowy wz. 30; "heavy machine gun 1930 Pattern") is a Polish-made clone of the American Browning M1917 heavy machine gun. Produced with various modifications such as greater caliber, longer barrel and adjustable sighting device, it was an improved although unlicensed copy of its predecessor, and was the standard machine gun of the Polish Army from 1931. Design and development After Poland regained her independence in 1918, her armed forces were armed with a variety of different weapons, mostly a legacy of the armies of her former occupying powers. As with its rifles and carbines, the machine guns used by the Polish Army in the Polish–Soviet War included the Russian 7.62 mm M1910 Maxim, the Austrian 1907 8 mm Schwarzlose MG M.07/12, the German 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 08, and the French 8 mm Hotchkiss Mle 1914. Such diversity was a logistical nightmare, and in the early 1920s the General Staff of the Polish Army decided to replace all older machine guns with a new design, specifically built to Polish designations. Initially the Hotchkiss machine gun, proven during the Polish–Soviet War and adapted to the standard Polish 7.92 mm round (as the Ckm wz. 25 Hotchkiss), had the most supporters. In late 1924 and early 1925, 1,250 were ordered from France and the Polish Ministry of War started talks on buying the license for manufacturing copies in Poland. However, the first tests of the post-war Hotchkiss machine guns proved that the new production were well below both Polish needs and maker's specifications, and the talks came to a halt. By the end of 1927, the ministry organized a contest for a new standard all-purpose heavy machine gun. Four companies took part in the competition: the American Colt company with the M1928 (modified export variant of the Browning M1917A1), a Czechoslovakian-built rechambered version of Schwarzlose M.7/12 (Schwarzlose-Janeček vz.7/24), the British Vickers machine gun converted to 7.92mm caliber, and Hotchkiss with improved wz.25 model. All initial tests were won by Browning. The tests were repeated in 1928, and again the American weapon won, so the Polish ministry decided to purchase a license. The price, however, was very high ($450,000), and Colt demanded an order for 3,000 guns in its own factories. It turned out that neither the Colt company nor its European representative, the Vickers-Armstrong, had patented the design in Poland. In addition, the documentation of a