It was developed from the German Mauser Gewehr 98 line, and features a similar bolt design.

The rifle was designed in Czechoslovakia shortly after World War I, to replace the Vz.

24 rifles saw extensive service during World War II in multiple theaters, predominantly with the German and Romanian armies on the Eastern Front.

24s, which had been captured during the German invasion in 1941, were later seized by Soviet forces, who in turn used them to arm the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

After World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled; one of the new states to emerge from the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy was Czechoslovakia.

The following year, the factory began producing the first short rifles based on the German Gewehr 98 design, the Mauser Jelená.

[1][2] Starting in 1923, Brno decided to develop a rifle based on the German Karabiner 98AZ, a shortened version of the Gewehr 98 with a 590 mm (23.23 in) barrel.

That year, Brno Arms Works, which had been controlled by the Czechoslovak government, was privatized to encourage export sales.

The final order was placed in July 1938, as tensions escalated with Nazi Germany over the Sudeten Germans.

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, production continued for the Slovak Republic (a Nazi client state).

24 was a bolt-action design based on the Mauser action, featuring a straight bolt handle.

Ammunition was stored in a five-round, fixed, internal magazine that fit flush with the bottom of the stock, which was fed with stripper clips.

These rifles were used against Paraguay during the Chaco War in the 1930s,[9] and many of them were captured by the Paraguayan Army, which in turn used them against Bolivia.

24 in the 1930s, and many of these rifles were captured by German forces during Operation Barbarossa before falling into the hands of the Soviet Army later in the war.

[14] During World War II, Latvian resistance fighters employed the vz.

24s were shipped from Murmansk on 1 March 1938, along with other material (T-26 tanks and 76 mm French field artillery).

The French freighter Gravelines, which carried all the material, managed to get the weapons to Bordeaux from where they were sent by land across the border to Catalonia.

24 was used in Catalonia and the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula and saw action in the Battle of the Ebro, where the vz.

After the defeat of the Second Spanish Republic, Generalissimo Francisco Franco kept the rifles that survived the battle until 1959, when they were sold to Interarms.

[8] Starting in 1927, the Chinese Nationalist government began ordering rifles, and by 1937 had purchased 195,000 vz.

This included changes to the butt stock, with slots cut to fit German slings and the installation of the disc and hollow rod assembly that allowed soldiers to disassemble their bolts.

[23] Brno continued production of the rifle, which progressively gained some K98k features as stocks of pre-war components were used up.

The G24(t) rifles did not receive the old Czechoslovak stampings, and instead only bore standard army proof marks and Waffenamt inspection codes.

24s have a two-letter prefix at the start of the serial number, the first letter being variable and the second "R" to designate Romania.

24s "AR", "BR", "CR" through "YR" represent different periods of manufacturing, though several blocks have not been reported, including "IR", "JR", "KR", "MR", "NR", "QR", "VR", and "ZR".

It was not until 1944, after significant defeats at the hands of the Soviet Red Army, that Romania joined the Allies.

[30] The rifles, which were referred to as "Brnos" or "Bernos", after their city of manufacture, proved to be prized by Iran's various tribal groups, which frequently rebelled against the government of the Shah.

[31] During the Anglo-Soviet occupation, the Soviets seized and distributed 10,000 of the Brnos to Kurdish tribes in western Iran, which they also helped to train.