Manufacture nationale d'armes de Tulle

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Submachine gun MAT 49

The Manufacture nationale d'armes de Tulle (MAT) was a French state arms factory in Tulle , which was merged with the French state armaments company Giat in 1971 and is now part of Nexter Systems .

history

The manufacture was founded in 1690 and had the status of a royal manufacture since 1777; from 1886 it operates as a state enterprise. For a long time the company was one of the most important arms manufacturers in France.

Up until the First World War , mainly small-caliber weapons were produced, and then increasingly machine guns. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Tulle began manufacturing heavy equipment with intensive activity during the First World War. Between the two world wars, intensive work was carried out on the development of automatic weapons.

During the Second World War , the company produced for the German occupation forces, but was also a haven of resistance. After the Allied landing in Normandy , the entire production was relocated to Epernay .

After the liberation of Tulle, production was resumed here. After the war, the company specialized in light weapons and medium-caliber automatic weapons. The MAT 49 submachine gun was developed in Tulle . From 1950 the company specialized in the development and manufacture of medium-weight weapons. MAT remained the most important employer in the Limousin region until the 1980s . In 1971, as part of the rationalization of the French arms industry, the company was integrated into the newly founded Giat Industries (now Nexter ) and restructured several times; the subsidiary Nexter Mechanics continues to produce mechanical and hydraulic components for weapon systems at the Tulle location, but increasingly also for civil applications.

There has also been a weapons museum at the site since 1999.

literature

  • Yves Cayre: Histoire de la Manufacture d'armes de Tulle de 1690 à 1970. MAT, Tulle 1973.

Web links

Commons : Manufacture nationale d'armes de Tulle  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Yves Cayre: Histoire de la Manufacture d'armes de Tulle de 1690 à 1970.
  2. ↑ a b 1939-1945: La Manufacture d'Armes de Tulle pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. (French) Pedagogical folder for a special exhibition November 15, 2013 to June 11, 2014 in Tulle. (No longer available online.) Musée d'Armes de Tulle, archived from the original on July 14, 2014 ; accessed on June 16, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cndp.fr
  3. ↑ a b ARCHIVES DE LA MANUFACTURE D'ARMES DE TULLE 1859 - 1978. (pdf) (No longer available online.) Center des archives de l'armement et du personnel civil, 2008, archived from the original on July 14, 2014 ; Retrieved June 16, 2014 (French).

Coordinates: 45 ° 15 ′ 35.9 ″  N , 1 ° 45 ′ 7.1 ″  E