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This thread is dedicated to the icon of 30s gangsters. Thompson SMG

1. The weapon was designed in WW1, did an individual named 'Thompson' got a hand on a looted german Bergman MP18? and purposed that this lil machinegun is a neccessary weapon?
did he really expected that the WW1 will drag on after 1918?
2. Why did the US. Army favors the straight box magazine M1 Thompson and not the hi-capa M1928? if the M1928 (... intended to join the WW1) is desgined for extreme combat conditions. why the army chose the simplified M1?
3. Another variants of Tommygun also known to exists. i guess that it chambered .30 carbine (winchester-desgined ammo i think but not getting the proper name yet). why the U.S. government rejected the Tommygun designs (of this calibre) but choose a semiauto carbine designed by an ex-mobster, David Williams, instead?
wouldn't that version really works out as an assault rifle? didn't the U.S. Army / Marine Corps really care of the 'assault rifle' concepts? (while germans, and later soviets, did... since the siege of Stalingrad)
4. What do you think if James cameron choose the mobsters Tommygun instead of M1 Thompson to design an M41 Pulserifle? will he alters the design of the pulserifle ?

Lone Cat wrote:This thread is dedicated to the icon of 30s gangsters. Thompson SMG

1. The weapon was designed in WW1, did an individual named 'Thompson' got a hand on a looted german Bergman MP18? and purposed that this lil machinegun is a neccessary weapon?
did he really expected that the WW1 will drag on after 1918? IIRC yes they did, they even had a few in some of the Armories stateside.
2. Why did the US. Army favors the straight box magazine M1 Thompson and not the hi-capa M1928? if the M1928 (... intended to join the WW1) is desgined for extreme combat conditions. why the army chose the simplified M1? Cheaper to make and produce.
3. Another variants of Tommygun also known to exists. i guess that it chambered .30 carbine (winchester-desgined ammo i think but not getting the proper name yet). why the U.S. government rejected the Tommygun designs (of this calibre) but choose a semiauto carbine designed by an ex-mobster, David Williams, instead?
wouldn't that version really works out as an assault rifle? didn't the U.S. Army / Marine Corps really care of the 'assault rifle' concepts? (while germans, and later soviets, did... since the siege of Stalingrad)
4. What do you think if James cameron choose the mobsters Tommygun instead of M1 Thompson to design an M41 Pulserifle? will he alters the design of the pulserifle ?IIRC he did it because they were available at the time

I know a guy with a class 3 licenses ( In the US you need one to own a full auto).At the cheap end of the scale A full auto Thompson can cost upwards of 30,000 depending on condition, and don't forget that right now 45 ammo ain't cheap.

For more info http://www.auto-ordnance.com/ao-thompson-submachine-gun.asp

Shoots a gigantic bullet for an SMG. They're cool guns. They make new semi-auto versions, I think, although you might be able to find an old automatic one if you look hard enough.

If we're going to be making threads on guns, we need an M60 thread. The M60 is the most beautiful creation of the last century, besides David Bowie.

The M1 carbine was the US equivalent of an assault rifle in WW2. It wasn't designed as an assault rifle as such.

The fact the M1 Garand was semi-auto helped the US army not to need a rapid fire weapon to replace bolt action rifles.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Shoots a gigantic bullet for an SMG. They're cool guns. They make new semi-auto versions, I think, although you might be able to find an old automatic one if you look hard enough.

If we're going to be making threads on guns, we need an M60 thread. The M60 is the most beautiful creation of the last century, besides David Bowie.

M60 is pretty garbage actually. Some of the newer versions of it are ok, but it had some major issues.

Bah, I thought it was gonna be about Rocky 5.

2. Why did the US. Army favors the straight box magazine M1 Thompson and not the hi-capa M1928? if the M1928 (... intended to join the WW1) is desgined for extreme combat conditions. why the army chose the simplified M1?

Because when you go with a very machine-intensive design like the thompson, any simplification you can get on it is probably a good thing. This is not a weapon you cut some grooves in a tube, then braze on a magazine well and screw a barrel into to construct.

Second, drum magazines in general are <CENSORED>. I'm sorry, they are. They distort and bend, they are HEAVY (Keep in mind, you are looking at a pound and a half just in BULLET weights for a 50 shot drum. That's not powder, casings, the drum itself...that's BULLETS. .45 ACP is -not- an efficient weight-for-power cartridge. This is also on a SMG that is over 10 pounds empty.) they are extremely bulky (And get moreso when you actually have to find a pouch to carry the <CENSORED> thing on your body.) the cranks for the springs can really tear the heck out of your fingers if you slip while winding. They also rattle. Loudly.

3. Another variants of Tommygun also known to exists. i guess that it chambered .30 carbine (winchester-desgined ammo i think but not getting the proper name yet). why the U.S. government rejected the Tommygun designs (of this calibre) but choose a semiauto carbine designed by an ex-mobster, David Williams, instead?

Totally different percieved roles. The M1 carbine was the WW2 P90 or MP7. It gave the truck drivers, cooks, and officers something longer ranged, harder hitting and more accurate than a pistol while still being compact and lightweight. In this, it's an excellent weapon, and a lot better for the job than the thompson. Now, we DID try to turn the M1 INTO an assault rifle in the M2 variant (Because full auto is always better!) and then were promptly disappointed with it when it didn't manage to break the laws of physics and recoil like a .22, but hit like a 30-06 at ranges far beyond its intended envelope.

Unlike the thompson, the M1 carbine fires closed bolt (This means, instead of a 2+ pound metal block suddenly snapping closed, chambering a round and firing...you pull the trigger, a 2-3 ounce hammer swings and hits a firing pin. Guess which will disrupt ones aim less.). The M1 carb has a better trajectory, more raw energy on tap, light recoil, and weighs half as much. It also costs less to produce.

Even if you had made a thompson fire .30 carbine, it would still be heavier, it would still be an open bolt weapon, and it would still be more expensive to produce (Much more, likely, because .30 carbine really does need some sort of locking/delay mechanism for the breech...and the simplified thompsons did not have one....)

Thompsons are awesome close in weapons, but they are not what I would call a versatile weapon system.

M60 is pretty garbage actually. Some of the newer versions of it are ok, but it had some major issues.

Can't speak to that for infantry, but my father never voiced any complaints whatsoever about the ones mounted to his huey. He did have a few choice words about the door gunners though. Something about sharp turns, an immediate loss of wind resistance against the door gunners weapon, and a sudden sweep of gunfire through the cockpit area.

Lone Cat wrote:This thread is dedicated to the icon of 30s gangsters. Thompson SMG

1. The weapon was designed in WW1, did an individual named 'Thompson' got a hand on a looted german Bergman MP18? and purposed that this lil machinegun is a neccessary weapon?
did he really expected that the WW1 will drag on after 1918?
2. Why did the US. Army favors the straight box magazine M1 Thompson and not the hi-capa M1928? if the M1928 (... intended to join the WW1) is desgined for extreme combat conditions. why the army chose the simplified M1?
3. Another variants of Tommygun also known to exists. i guess that it chambered .30 carbine (winchester-desgined ammo i think but not getting the proper name yet). why the U.S. government rejected the Tommygun designs (of this calibre) but choose a semiauto carbine designed by an ex-mobster, David Williams, instead?
wouldn't that version really works out as an assault rifle? didn't the U.S. Army / Marine Corps really care of the 'assault rifle' concepts? (while germans, and later soviets, did... since the siege of Stalingrad)
4. What do you think if James cameron choose the mobsters Tommygun instead of M1 Thompson to design an M41 Pulserifle? will he alters the design of the pulserifle ?

in resident evil 4, it's called the chicago typewriter, and it's awesome.

Can't speak to that for infantry, but my father never voiced any complaints whatsoever about the ones mounted to his huey. He did have a few choice words about the door gunners though. Something about sharp turns, an immediate loss of wind resistance against the door gunners weapon, and a sudden sweep of gunfire through the cockpit area.

A big issue was the feed system, it used to get stuck all the time, with mounted guns like you are referring to there was a simple battlefield fix. A ration can. Go look t some pictures from nam, you will see it on almost every mounted 60, a little ration can was placed under the feed to get the belt to feed smoothly. The 60 also had a problem with not stopping. Thats right it would just keep shooting even when you let go of the trigger.

Lone Cat wrote:This thread is dedicated to the icon of 30s gangsters. Thompson SMG

1. The weapon was designed in WW1, did an individual named 'Thompson' got a hand on a looted german Bergman MP18? and purposed that this lil machinegun is a neccessary weapon?
did he really expected that the WW1 will drag on after 1918?

Well one of the biggest problems being faced in the war was that the large, slowfiring rifles of the period didn't provide the necissary hail of bullets to suppress the enemy in the final few yards on the way into the trenches. As a result a number of designs were looked at for light machineguns, automatic rifles and sub-machineguns during this time.

Further, at the time the Americans, British, Canadians, French and other allies were gearing up for their 1919- 1920 offensives, so yeah it was reasonable to expect the war to drag on quite a bit. The sudden collapse of the Germans in late 1918 was unexpected by pretty much everyone.

Lone Cat wrote:
2. Why did the US. Army favors the straight box magazine M1 Thompson and not the hi-capa M1928? if the M1928 (... intended to join the WW1) is desgined for extreme combat conditions. why the army chose the simplified M1?

Well the drums have a few issues compared to the sticks. The first is weight. The Thompson was not a small or lightweight weapon to begin with (lots of machined steel, lots of carved wood), hangign a 100 round drum off the front made that situation even worse. The second issue is reliability. The drums are mechanically more complex than the sticks, thus making it easier for them to jam. Third is size, the drums were of an akward size. It was easier for a solider to carry 5x 20 round sticks than it was for him to carry 2x50 round drums or 1x 100 round drum. Finally, unlike a true machinegun the Thompson didn't have the features necessary to deal with sustained automatic fire (ie quick change barrel) so forcing the shooter to stop to reload after every 20 rounds or so helped cut back on the chances of the gun overheating.

Lone Cat wrote:
3. Another variants of Tommygun also known to exists. i guess that it chambered .30 carbine (winchester-desgined ammo i think but not getting the proper name yet). why the U.S. government rejected the Tommygun designs (of this calibre) but choose a semiauto carbine designed by an ex-mobster, David Williams, instead?
wouldn't that version really works out as an assault rifle? didn't the U.S. Army / Marine Corps really care of the 'assault rifle' concepts? (while germans, and later soviets, did... since the siege of Stalingrad)

Well the army went with the M1 Carbine over the Thompson .30 Carbine for a few reasons, but I'll highlight a couple of them here. First the Thompson was made of heavy machined steel and lots of shaped wood. As a result it was a heavy weapon, about twice as heavy as the M1 Carbine. So that was a major vote in it's favour right there. Secondly, all that machineing and heavy steel made the Thompson more expensive than the M1 Carbine. So when faced with 2 weapons of fundamentally identical performance but one being twice as heavy and much more expensive . . . the choice was obvious.

As for the US Army/USMC not caring for the Assault Rifle concept, that is an institutional prejudice that can be traced back to the American Revolution. The concept of a skilled rifleman delivering accurate aimed fire at long range has always been the preferred method of doing business for the US Military. Each time a move away from this model has been proposed, it has been voted down based on concerns about 'wasting ammunition.' Even after the adoption of the M16 the US Army removed the automatic fire feature and replaced it with a burst mode that prevented the use of full automatic for extended periods.

Lone Cat wrote:
4. What do you think if James cameron choose the mobsters Tommygun instead of M1 Thompson to design an M41 Pulserifle? will he alters the design of the pulserifle ?

Aside from not having room for the cool secondary weapon under the forend? Not much.

hmmm, all I know about the tommy gun is that if you have to kill me, use a tommy gun (points if you get the refrence)

Andrew1975 wrote:
The 60 also had a problem with not stopping. Thats right it would just keep shooting even when you let go of the trigger.

Hadn't heard of this in the 60, other than the usual belt-fed issues that we still go through. Cooking off rounds is still a hazard of the job of any Machine gunner in the military. I know my SAW didn't take much lovin' to start cookin rounds on me (lucky me i didn't have to use it much)

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Andrew1975 wrote:
The 60 also had a problem with not stopping. Thats right it would just keep shooting even when you let go of the trigger.

Hadn't heard of this in the 60, other than the usual belt-fed issues that we still go through. Cooking off rounds is still a hazard of the job of any Machine gunner in the military. I know my SAW didn't take much lovin' to start cookin rounds on me (lucky me i didn't have to use it much)

Yeah it had this problem, what made it especially easy is that just a simple misalignment when cleaning would cause this to happen all the time. What is really sad is that it was based on the mg and fg 42, superb LMGs by most any standard, but we messed it up somehow.

It's didn't completely suck, but there are much better LMGs. The US at the time was really making some shoddy weapons systems at the time. The original issue M-16 at the time was terrible until they fixed some issues and chromed the receiver.

Andrew1975 wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Andrew1975 wrote:
The 60 also had a problem with not stopping. Thats right it would just keep shooting even when you let go of the trigger.

Hadn't heard of this in the 60, other than the usual belt-fed issues that we still go through. Cooking off rounds is still a hazard of the job of any Machine gunner in the military. I know my SAW didn't take much lovin' to start cookin rounds on me (lucky me i didn't have to use it much)

Yeah it had this problem, what made it especially easy is that just a simple misalignment when cleaning would cause this to happen all the time. What is really sad is that it was based on the mg and fg 42, superb LMGs by most any standard, but we messed it up somehow.

It's didn't completely suck, but there are much better LMGs. The US at the time was really making some shoddy weapons systems at the time. The original issue M-16 at the time was terrible until they fixed some issues and chromed the receiver.

I don't get it, if there was so much money going into the military at the time (I am assuming that they funded it back then like they do now), then why were the weapons so crappy?

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Andrew1975 wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Andrew1975 wrote:
The 60 also had a problem with not stopping. Thats right it would just keep shooting even when you let go of the trigger.

Hadn't heard of this in the 60, other than the usual belt-fed issues that we still go through. Cooking off rounds is still a hazard of the job of any Machine gunner in the military. I know my SAW didn't take much lovin' to start cookin rounds on me (lucky me i didn't have to use it much)

Yeah it had this problem, what made it especially easy is that just a simple misalignment when cleaning would cause this to happen all the time. What is really sad is that it was based on the mg and fg 42, superb LMGs by most any standard, but we messed it up somehow.

It's didn't completely suck, but there are much better LMGs. The US at the time was really making some shoddy weapons systems at the time. The original issue M-16 at the time was terrible until they fixed some issues and chromed the receiver.

I don't get it, if there was so much money going into the military at the time (I am assuming that they funded it back then like they do now), then why were the weapons so crappy?

Didn't you know, equipment is always made by the lowest bidder.

Most of the problems the early M-16 experienced weren't related to the M-16 itself, but in how it was issued.

First off, somehow the idea got into people's heads that the weapon was 'self-cleaning' nd so the number of cleaning kits issued was considerably less than it should have been and the ammount of focus put on getting soldiers to clean the weapon also dropped off.

Second, the army issued ammunition that used a different propellant than the original specifications. As a result of this change in propellants,a lot of residue would buld up in the working parts of the gun. Combine that with the above and the general dirtiness of jungle warfare and suddenly the M-16 turns out to be a piece of junk.

Jefffar wrote:Most of the problems the early M-16 experienced weren't related to the M-16 itself, but in how it was issued.

First off, somehow the idea got into people's heads that the weapon was 'self-cleaning' nd so the number of cleaning kits issued was considerably less than it should have been and the ammount of focus put on getting soldiers to clean the weapon also dropped off.

Second, the army issued ammunition that used a different propellant than the original specifications. As a result of this change in propellants,a lot of residue would buld up in the working parts of the gun. Combine that with the above and the general dirtiness of jungle warfare and suddenly the M-16 turns out to be a piece of junk.

Well it was Colt the manufacturer that touted the gun as self cleaning, and did not issue ANY cleaning kits with the weapons. They also approved the ammunition and decided that chroming the gun was unnecessary (because it was self cleaning) even though chroming was considered standard practice. Once they chromed it, gave people the cleaning kits to clean it and upgraded the ammunition many of the issues dissipated. The gun itself may not have been all that shoddy but the m-16 weapon system as originally issued was pretty gash.

Didn't Armalite tell people to clean it before they sold the rights to Colt? I know that it gained popularity mainly because of soldiers buying it as a private purchase in the early stages of vietnam, and it doesn't seem like they had too many problems with it..

One of the big thigns to remember about the M-16 was that it was selected as a repalcement for M1 Carbines being used by Airport Security teams. it somehow ended up as the primary rifle of the US Military out of that.

The requirements for a security team carbine are a lot different than that for a primary rifle for the infantry.

so. who in the rifleman squad is likely to get tommy gun? sergeant?
and only one member in the whole squad can wield one?
(while 1 or 2 may get BAR, others get M1Garand, or M1 Carbine)

.... (and the 40k IG armory rules that fits Tommygun most )

Well it was Colt the manufacturer that touted the gun as self cleaning, and did not issue ANY cleaning kits with the weapons. They also approved the ammunition and decided that chroming the gun was unnecessary (because it was self cleaning) even though chroming was considered standard practice.

To be fair, carbon fouling in the M16 family really is self limiting. By the time you have enough carbon to chunk up the works, it'll be getting blown out the vent holes in the bolt carrier, scraped off by the bolt rotating and THEN blown out the vent holes, or wiped into one of the recesses for the forward assist, cam pin recess, etc. .....One extreme example would be the "Filthy 14"...plenty of people, myself included, have taken 500-2000 rounds of that absolutely filthy russian crap ammo and burned it in a day or weekend to see if we can foul it enough to make it stop....We generally fail. We put ammo and lube in, it spits out bullets and filth. The end.

Chroming though...that would be the more important one. That and the improvement from wartime "Get X hundred thousand units to us by two weeks ago." QC. The natural lubricity of hard chrome allows a lot of things to be a "little wrong" and still extract a casing. You can have ammo that's a little bit above the pressure that was intended and still yank that sucker out while it's still expanded against the chamber walls. You can have things a little dirty and it'll have enough energy to work properly without locking solid or ripping case rims off. It doesn't rust.

There are exceptions, usually from the wonderchild running the thing doing something like running steel cased ammunition (Does not seal with chamber as well as brass. Deposits lots of fouling in chamber walls.) and then goes back to brass without a cleaning (Seals with chamber VERY well, grabs previously deposited fouling. System must now drag casing with much increased friction from engaged carbon. Enjoy your ripped off case rim.) Or the everpresent "Aw just chuck that chamber brush in a cordless drill and run it in there for a good 10 minutes to polish things out."

Anyway, OT:

(and the 40k IG armory rules that fits Tommygun most )

.....Storm bolter?

who in the rifleman squad is likely to get tommy gun? sergeant?

Going to vary by unit, I'd wager. And who can beg, borrow, or steal one. I'm pretty certain if you have two guys in a unit, one hates his M1, the other hates his thompson, and each shoots better with the other`s weapon...no one who matters is going to care.

^ just check the new 'dex. IG Officiers can't buy Stormbolters no more. the Stormbolter becomes pintle mounted weapons instead. mew!

so what else?

and does the weapon compositions in one rifle squad (U.S. Army) also varies by the years?
- 1920 - 1930s (i've heard that the U.S. did fight colonial wars too. and also doing wars to protect its vassals and Tommygun did saw its use. i guess. not sure if they really wear helmet or revert to the dress they wear in the war against Spain?)
- 1941-1943. Africa campaign: Does George S. Pattion gives any comments on the gangster's weapon? What did Erwin Rommel thinks of it? (Yes! the Axis did loot ones too! from either brits commandos or G.I. joes. i dunno if Mussolini did any propaganda poster that features M1928 Tommygun in the hands of "American Mafia" (and what is the name of a mobster that featured in that poster? i've seen it around in the net but it becomes rare by now))
- 1944-1945 (European Campaigns)

Lone Cat wrote:^ just check the new 'dex. IG Officiers can't buy Stormbolters no more. the Stormbolter becomes pintle mounted weapons instead. mew!

so what else?

and does the weapon compositions in one rifle squad (U.S. Army) also varies by the years?
- 1920 - 1930s (i've heard that the U.S. did fight colonial wars too. and also doing wars to protect its vassals and Tommygun did saw its use. i guess. not sure if they really wear helmet or revert to the dress they wear in the war against Spain?) You are correct it did see some action in the Philippians/banana wars.
- 1941-1943. Africa campaign: Does George S. Pattion gives any comments on the gangster's weapon? What did Erwin Rommel thinks of it? (Yes! the Axis did loot ones too! from either brits commandos or G.I. joes. i dunno if Mussolini did any propaganda poster that features M1928 Tommygun in the hands of "American Mafia" (and what is the name of a mobster that featured in that poster? i've seen it around in the net but it becomes rare by now))I am not sure about what Rommel/Patton/Mussolini thought of it. If it means anything Winston Churchill took a propaganda picture with one
- 1944-1945 (European Campaigns) Buy this point M3 were being issued to the troops as well as Thompson. Also don't forget that the Thompson saw service in Pacific, Korea, and Vietnam.

Lone Cat wrote:so. who in the rifleman squad is likely to get tommy gun? sergeant?
and only one member in the whole squad can wield one?
(while 1 or 2 may get BAR, others get M1Garand, or M1 Carbine)

.... (and the 40k IG armory rules that fits Tommygun most )

Depends on the unit, but it was typically that the Submachinegun or carbine found its way into the hands of the Squad Leader. A dedicated Automatic Rifleman would typically carry the BAR. Everyoen else typically a rifle, though there are some variations on the theme. Troopers with a special role within the squad that required them to carry extra gear (ie a bazooka or a field radio) would often end up with a carbine or submechinegun in place of the regular rifle as well.

In specialist units (ie commandoes, paratroopers and the like) the default weapon would be the submachinegun or carbine, with an automatic rifle or two for fire support.

As for best fit in Imperial Guard? To be honest, I want to say the shotgun, which I acknowledge is totally wrong from nomenclature but it does fit the bill of being shorter ranged and faster firing than the rifle with no more striking power than a pistol.

Andrew1975 wrote:Yeah it had this problem, what made it especially easy is that just a simple misalignment when cleaning would cause this to happen all the time. What is really sad is that it was based on the mg and fg 42, superb LMGs by most any standard, but we messed it up somehow.

The FG-42 was full of it's own problems. It kicked like a mule, making full auto fire almost a complete waste of time, and there were considerable problems with reliability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I don't get it, if there was so much money going into the military at the time (I am assuming that they funded it back then like they do now), then why were the weapons so crappy?

Rushed into production, with too little time in testing and procurement. The results is weapons with problematic features, and supplies not meeting minimum quality levels.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jefffar wrote:Most of the problems the early M-16 experienced weren't related to the M-16 itself, but in how it was issued.

First off, somehow the idea got into people's heads that the weapon was 'self-cleaning' nd so the number of cleaning kits issued was considerably less than it should have been and the ammount of focus put on getting soldiers to clean the weapon also dropped off.

The fault for that lies entirely with Colt, who in the process of selling the weapon to the government basically straight up lied, and claimed the weapon was self-cleaning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jefffar wrote:One of the big thigns to remember about the M-16 was that it was selected as a repalcement for M1 Carbines being used by Airport Security teams. it somehow ended up as the primary rifle of the US Military out of that.

The requirements for a security team carbine are a lot different than that for a primary rifle for the infantry.

Not really. Studies into the requirements of the best rifle for modern battlefields began in the late 40s, and they called for rapid fire weapons with large ammo capacity. Its true that the Air Force was the first arm to get really keen on the M-16 (then the A-R15), but before any adoption the weapon was first given to South Vietnamese troops, where it received glowing reviews. The army continued to argue for the M-14, but a review by the Army Inspector General came out in favour of the M-16. The army then performed it's own future weapon study, and concluded that the M-16 should be accepted.

By then it's 1965, and the weapon started being rolled out to troops in service in Vietnam, and you've got a new rifle that fires a relatively uncommon round. Under pressure to massively increase supply of the new 5.56 round, they changed powder types but failed to properly field test the new form. The results were disastrous.

Modifications were quickly made, not just to adapt to the new powder but to improve overall reliability, and the weapon improved immensely very quickly. In fact, contrary to popular myth, the weapon became very popular among US soldiers in Vietnam, of 2,100 soldiers survived in 1968 only 38 wanted to change rifles, and 35 of them wanted a carbine mode of the M-16. But over time the reputation of the M-16 as an unsatisfactory, unreliable weapon has grown, all coming from the results of early, rushed production.

Tommy guns were prone to jam alot.

The FG-42 was full of it's own problems. It kicked like a mule, making full auto fire almost a complete waste of time, and there were considerable problems with reliability.

Well be fair, that is what happens when you take an mg 42 shorten it and lighten it for paratrooper use.

Andrew1975 wrote:Well be fair, that is what happens when you take an mg 42 shorten it and lighten it for paratrooper use.

Oh, for sure. And it can be forgiven for a lot of the more boneheaded elements of its design*for a weapon that was basically the first of it's kind. Still, the gun gets a lot more love than it deserves, I suspect largely because it looked really cool.


*Like mounting the clip on the left side of the weapon, which is really unbalancing when you're hauling MG rounds.

1. The weapon was designed in WW1, did an individual named 'Thompson' got a hand on a looted german Bergman MP18? and purposed that this lil machinegun is a neccessary weapon?
did he really expected that the WW1 will drag on after 1918?

No, General Thompson came across a patent by John Blish (the man for whom the weapon's action would be named) and worked with a team of designers and a financial backer to develop the weapon. Development was started in 1917 when there was no real obvious end in sight for the war. The weapon was developed for exactly the same reason as the MP18, fighting in trenches was typically at ranges of under 20 yards and weight of fire, not precision, carried the day.

2. Why did the US. Army favors the straight box magazine M1 Thompson and not the hi-capa M1928? if the M1928 (... intended to join the WW1) is desgined for extreme combat conditions. why the army chose the simplified M1?

You answered you own question. Simplification. The simple blowback M1 had far fewer parts than the Blish-lock M1928. The M1 had a fixed firing pin on the bolt face rather than a complicated multi-part one. Simplification led to three big benefits, the M1 was incredibly reliable, it was much easier for soldiers to care for under battlefield conditions, and it was a lot cheaper and quicker to build. The drum magazine was not used for the same reason. It was heavy, noisy, and above all else complicated and jam prone. The box magazines were very reliable. There's also the problem that due to the drop of the stock and the big round being fired that you aren't keeping this gun on the target until the end of a 50 round drum.

The M1928 is an interesting piece of machine design, the M1 was a far superior weapon.

Tommy guns were prone to jam alot.

An original in the hands of a gangster, sure. It's a complicated weapon with a testy ammo feed. An M1 in the hands of a soldier, not so much.

While we're on the subject of machine guns....

What exactly is he niche of the M249 machine gun? It shoots .223, which isn't a very big bullet at all.... And it probably has about the same effective range as an m16... So... Aside from being automatic, what purpose does it serve? I honestly haven't looked up anything about it, so forgive me.

Did they decide that it was a waste of money to use .308 for a support weapon that eats up hundreds of bullets a minute? Certainly it's easier to procure .223s, so I can see that as a possible reason to adopt it. Although I don't know. I just always imagine a machine gun hitting a bit harder than the standard rifle, but I might be backwards.