Can somebody explain why were WWII SMGs so heavy and large with magazine far forward?When you can make cheapo straight blowback SMG out of water-pipe small and lightweight.
>>64479899Can you use it as a hammer though?
>>64479899Just compare to this retarded boondoggle.
>>64479899small arms didn't really develop that much in the interwar period outside of a few notable exceptions like the M1 Garand and despite the fact smgs were used to great effect in WWI there was kind of a perceived >we don't need thatbecause SMGs didn't have the range of rifles. You do see cheapo guns being made during the war because no one wanted to pay for the thompsons and the bongs and commies saw that you could make SMGs for less money than it cost to make rifles. I think Russia and Finland were the only ones to really mass use them though. nazis and bongs just issued them to like platoon commanders and I think the US mostly issued them 1 per platoon to clear bunkers and buildings. the nazis then kind of leapfrogged it with the stg44
You need to use a telescoping bolt and a receiver designed to function with a telescoping bolt in order to bring the magazine rearward.All of that is significantly more expensive to machine than a bolt made out of a piece of round bar stock turned on a lathe with a few cuts and holes made into it, and a receiver made out of a metal tube.They figured out early in the war that Quantity >>>> Ergonomic efficiency.
>>64479899>>64479913The "retarded boondoggle" fires at steady 500 rounds a minute with fuck-all recoil and can very reliably put holes into things at over 300 yards.The ghetto blaster straight blowback illegal conversion fires at over 1000 rounds, kicks like a motherfucker and the accuracy can be best described as "somewhere over in that direction".One is designed to not only hose someone down at point-blank but also to hit enemies in next tree line or at the end of the block and put down suppressing fire for an amount of time that isn't negligible. Other is a semi-auto pistol by default and only really works in automatic form at extremely close range - a trench or when you're doing a drive-by.Apples and oranges.
>>64479899>make cheapo straight blowback SMG out of water-pipe small and lightweight.tecs macs and uzis were not light weight despite what you see in the movies where some guy is dual wielding.a full size uzi weighs more than an ak47
>>64479969>tecs were not light weight
>>64479920>nazis and bongs just issued them to like platoon commanders and I think the US mostly issued them 1 per platoon to clear bunkers and buildings. the nazis then kind of leapfrogged it with the stg44British PLs and company commanders got a rifle and a pistolsSection leaders got the SMG, more for their compactness rather than for their firepowerSMGs were also issued to batmen and drivers, also for their short length rather than for their firepowerThe US didn't bother issuing SMGs as standard at all, they were the same weight as the M1 garandSo both SLs and PLs got M1 garands like everyone elseThey had 5 SMGs per company initially, all held at the HQ and available on request, but later moved to 5 at the battalion HQ, meaning less than 1 SMG per platoonIn armored infantry units, PLs and SLs got M1 carbines due to having to maneuver in a halftrackDrivers initially had M1 carbines, but they were issued M3 grease guns later on because they were even shorterOutside the USSR, only the british ever fielded dedicated SMG infantry Each battalion got an assault section with 3 sten gunners
>>64479984Almost 3 lbs empty is heavy compared to a Glock. For smgs well you've got no stock and half the barrel length of an average one. It's lighter but if you took all that shit off a sten it would be with in a few lbs. The reciprocating mass is the weight. Having polymer furniture is a game changer but not to the degree you think.
>>64479948>You need to use a telescoping bolt>tecs>telescoping bolt>?
>>64480024I know I've seen vids with if I remember correctly American vets where they bitched about having to carry the thomson and they took turns because they needed it to clear pill boxes but they hated they had to carry the thing around when they weren't clearing pill boxes
>>64479951Can’t mount a light or a RDS. In the trash it goes.
>>64479899>Can somebody explain why were WWII SMGs so heavy and large with magazine far forward?I mean your pic is a Tec-9 which is technically not an SMG but a pistol but was originally intended as one and early versions were easily convertible. So how would it fair as an SMG in the war? Well for a start it weighs 3lbs, has.no stock, a short 3in barrel and given that the bolt is both light weight and has no travel distance its rate of fire is probably somewhere in the ballpark of 1000-1500rpm, so extremely close range and basically uncontrollable.Okay, lets make this a little more viable for combat use. First lets extend barrel to 7-8in and add a stock, something not to wirey so you can stabilize the gun. Next lets tamp down that rate of fire a bit, say 700-800rpm which is middle of the road for the time. You can do that in two ways without needing a more complex bolt, more weight or longer travel and since a heavier bolt will negatively effect accuracy, lets lengthen the travel a couple of inches. At this point the gun probably weighs about 5-6lbs, add on another 1.5lbs with a full magazine. Now this gun is going to be dragged all over Europe so flimsy construction is not your friend, maybe add another pound of steel to make sure she doesn't dent easily. Unsurprisingly the Tec-9 WW2 edition now looks a lot more like its contemporaries and weighs about 8lbs loaded. Compare to >>64479913, MP-40 is a bit longer and heavier but that is due to a 10in barrel and a little more travel, RoF is 500rpm.>>64479920Germans and Brits started the war issuing them to platoon leaders but that quickly became squad leaders too and Brits gaven them too assistant squad leaders as well so they had a lot of presence. In the US they were more of a truck drivers weapon but much like the BAR, squads often had way more than they were supposed too. Eventually the brass issued company weapons pools with MG's SMG's, BAR's and Bazooka's so infantry could better customize.
>>64480026>For smgs well you've got no stock and half the barrel length of an average one.Tec-9 7" barrel extension is 14.5 oz, C96 broomhandle stock is 28 oz. So stocked and long barrel it would weight about 85 oz. MP 40 weights 140 oz
>>64480081nigga made the MPL
>>64480058survivorship biasthe 99% of soldiers who were never issued an SMG wouldnt have a story to tell about it, so we only hear about the 1% who did get one>>64480081the company weapon pool had additional BARs and bazookas, but SMGs were only officially listed for a brief time from mid-1944 to 1945it isnt entirely clear where their tommy guns came before or after that date, since we know from photos and anecdotes that the tommy gun was issued, but it was probably held at the regimental level
>>64480133>it isnt entirely clear where their tommy guns came before or after that date, since we know from photos and anecdotes that the tommy gun was issuedBeg, Borrow, Trade or Steal most likely. from depots, vehicle crews, rear line guys, ect. One of the few times corruption has a positive effect. If you took a time machine back to WW2 with table of organization and equipment charts showing what units were supposed to have, I bet you would not find many combat units carrying only what was officially issued. Personally I think the weapons pools that were issued late war were a way to legitimize these black market practices instead of trying to update the ToO&E in the middle of a war which would be a nightmare. Funny enough the Germans had the opposite problem the Americans did later in war. Their equipment loadouts were very practical but good luck actually getting everything you were supposed too outside of a handful of elite units.
>>64479899Because most of what you're looking at are essentially WW1 era designs. Half of them are MP-18 clones or direct evolutions of them. For those that aren't direct counterparts, many of them had barely any more development put into them.You get more interesting stuff when you start to get into the more purpose designed war-era guns, not just the things that were kicking around that they could crank up production on.
>>64479899It took a while for the telescoping bolt to be popularized and employed to it's full effect with the SA 23/25 and uzi.Though the Italians did just barely squeak one in at the tail end of WW2.It was weird though and not really what one thinks of when they think "telescope bolt SMG"
>>64480259>It took a while for the telescoping bolt to be popularized>>64480038
>>64480024>Section leaders got the SMG, more for their compactness rather than for their firepowerThis just isn't true. The SMG was specifically there for the firepower. The section leader was to lead the assault and use that firepower whenever and wherever needed, both in the open and in built up areas. To begin with, there are no real considerations in terms of compactness when it comes to section leaders. Having a rifle does in no way complicate their work.The firepower is obviously the key issue at hand.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEuP73s8nuw
>>64479899Because subguns did not see a huge amount of development during WW2, it was pretty much all: >"We know how interwar subguns work, let's make what we know works, but let's make it really cheap and simple so we can make a lot more of them. Can we figure out ways to make them even cheaper?"There was also the notion of needing to be able to use them as semi-auto carbines, thus the longer barrel, allowing for more velocity and giving much longer sight radius, was welcomed. Remember, these guns may be used outside of just intimate CQB, this was a total war.>When you can make cheapo straight blowback SMG out of water-pipe small and lightweight.That shit won't be as lightweight as you think. Go look at the Sten, that's a tube with a stock, but it's still 7lbs. You could maybe make a shorter and lighter receiver, and shorter and lighter bolt, but you pay for that with a big increase in cyclic rate, which simply isn't desirable in most ways.Looking at the Tec-9 pistol, its lower receiver is a cheap and infamously flimsy piece of injection molded plastic, and it has no stock, so it can be lighter. If you make a similar lower out of machined or stamped steel, and add a simple sliding wire stock, that's going to add up to way more weight than you think.
>>64479913Again, the way that the MP38 and MP40 function isn't strongly different from the old MP18 and MP20 from decades prior, it's the same kind of thinking, only they wanted a folding stock and cheaper manufacture, and the MP38/MP40's design achieves that. If you look at interwar subguns, they are mostly derived from the MP18's school of thought, just with stick mags instead of Luger snail drums.It's really after WW2 when serious development starts happening in any real capacity to make for more compact and efficient designs, like the Uzi and MP5.>>64479948If you want to do it good, you will want either a delayed action or a telescoping bolt.>>64479951Your points are all correct.>Other is a semi-auto pistol by defaultSorta. The Intratec Tec-9 was previously the Interdynamics KG-9 and KG-99 pistols, which were the semi-auto pistol version of their MP9 design, which you can see pictured here: >>64480686It was proposed to the Swedish army, but they did not think it was necessary, and it was mostly worse than their old m/45 Charlies, not just for the reasons you describe, but also because of durability concerns. So, they turn it into a semi-auto pistol for the U.S market and the rest is history. One of the early gigs of George Kellgren of Kel-Tec fame.
>>64479969The Uzi isn't exactly super light, but it balances very well, weight is well distributed, including with the bolt, which is why it's considerably easier to shoot than most open-bolt blowback guns, and why it managed to hold itself fairly well in the market against the MP5.The MACs are however very noticeably top heavy, they feel like a cinderblock with a pistolgrip. The Tec-9 isn't that much better.>>64480085Do you know that the barrel extension on the Tec-9 isn't actually a piece of barrel, but just a hollow tube in front of the muzzle? You don't get more velocity out of it, at the very most it might provide a non-appreciable reduction in sound, it's just an aesthetic option.Everything he said was right.>>64480122Fun fact, the Interdynamics and Intratec guns copy their magazines from the Walther MPL's design, only they're done very cheaply.>>64480272The Tec-9 does not use a telescoping bolt of any type.
>>64479899why would you want a one-handed weapon issued to infantry that isn't just a pistol?>>64480026>heavy compared to a glockbut we aren't comparing it to a glock, are we? we're comparing it to issued military/police submachinguns of WW2, which were much heavier.
>>64479913There's a lot less technical considerations with the common ww2 SMG design. You can use crappier springs and bigger bolts. It's also the simplest way to slow down RoF and make the gun more manageable. As far as I know, all of these smgs were wartime productions so ease of construction and ease of use were primary concerns.
>>64479920>Russia and Finland were the only ones to really mass use them though.Russia only did it because Stalin convinced himself that Finnish smgs (powered by drum mags) was the key reason why the Winter War turned out the way it did.This is also why soviets had so many more drum mags in WW2 than any other nation. They put that shit on everything.
>>64480920Well, at least he got the lesson that SMGs were fucking important and that soldiers needed them, contrary to some of the generals under him.
so at the end of the day the m3a1 grease gun is still the bestest gun ever made and there is zero comparison.
>Can somebody explain why were WWII SMGs so heavy and large with magazine far forward?The idea of making a gun that sat somewhere between rifle and pistol was a massive novelty and generally unexplored, so a lot of rifle construction doctrine appeared in the designs of these intermediate guns.
>>64481265I don't know about that, but it's pretty solid.Magazine is a copy of the Sten mag, just scaled up for .45, so reliability is never exquisite, but it worked well enough to be depended on.Supposedly, troops were rather underwhelmed first getting to see it, like "Oh come on, what is this cheap hunk of junk?" but once they got them out to the range and got a feel for them, people really liked how easy it was to control. The slow and steady rate of fire made it pretty trivial to walk fire on target, and you didn't need a semi-auto setting.Complaints about magazines were around, and there were plastic dust covers to try to help with it, but ingress of dirt wasn't exactly the only weakness of this magazine design, so it didn't do that much.Overall, it was regarded as decent. The fact that it took the fraction of time, material, and money to make, compared to the Thompson, meaning way more people could get SMGs, was kind of the important part.IMO, the best performing SMGs of WW2 would be shared between the Russian PPS-43, the Australian Owen, and the Italian Beretta M38. Those three were very well made, and very reliable, the PPS-43 being especially cheap and quick to make on top of that, so it managed to tick most of the boxes.
>>64480920That's not a bad lesson to learn desu
>>64481265Nah, the grease gun uses shit magazines that are jam-prone and a pain in the ass to load.Weirdly, these are scaled up copies of STEN mags, which are copies of Lanchester mags, which are copies of MP18-2/MP28 mags, which are a fucking bodge-job and less than optimal in the first place, being single-position feed since they're made especially to work in the MP18 which as originally built to take single-stack Luger p08 mags.If you want to find the best subgun, you need to find one with a really fucking good magazine design, since feed jams and mag issues are the top causes of jams in subguns.
>>64481394>If you want to find the best subgun, you need to find one with a really fucking good magazine designPic rel.
>>64481292If there are flaws to point out about the M3 Grease Gun, the double stack, single feed is the one most often mentioned but one downside not talked about often is just that it is chambered in .45acp. Now .45acp is a fine handgun round but it weighs twice as much as 9mm and with a handgun you usually only carry a magazine and a spare or two. The weight that matters a lot more with a submachine gun when you have to carry hundreds of rounds.The magazine design is copied off the Sten and MP40, loaded with 9mm those 32rd magazines each weigh 1.5lb. The M3 Grease Gun, 2.3lb for a magazine loaded with 30rds of .45acp. A loaded M3 weighs 10.5lbs and 6 spare magazines weigh 14lbs. A loaded Sten, 8.6lbs and 6 spare magazines, 9lbs. That is a 7lb difference for no particular gain in capabilities. BTW, 9mm M3 Grease Guns do exist for Allies that used 9mm.
>>64481436In terms of effective range, .45 is also significantly worse than 9mm.Doesn't matter in pistols, but when you're pushing out to 200 yards or so with a subgun, that shit matters.
>>64481443>Doesn't matter in pistols, but when you're pushing out to 200 yards or so with a subgun, that shit matters.Yeah true but when you are pushing out to 200m with an open bolt subgun, you're using the wrong tool regardless of what you got in there. Is 9mm more likely to get the job done, sure but it is still a biiig ask. I do think 9mm is the all around better cartridge, higher speed, flatter trajectory, better penetration of cover, comparable damage but none of that to the degree that I wouldn't list weight as .45acp's biggest hindrance.
>>64479899A lighter gun has worse recoil and full auto means lots of recoil.
Can someone explain why zoomlennial videogamers don't have IQs above 70?
>>64481475Yeah, both will be anemic at that range. But the awful velocity specs and high drag of .45apc means it suffers form catastrophic bullet drop.Just hitting your target at ranges that long is very hard to do with just about any .45 subgun.9mm is far better in that regard, although the trigger control to squeeze off aimed single shots, as well as the extremely long lock-time of an open bolt SMG, means that getting good enough to consistently hit man-sized targets at 200 yards takes some practice. But it's far from impossible. Weird side tangent; In Sweden that exact type of shooting is an established sport. Practicing said sport It's pretty much the only "valid reason" for which a civilian can still apply for a license to own a fully automatic SMG, and actually have a chance of being granted such a license by the authorities.
>>64481394I believe Hugo Schmeisser, who designed the MP18, had proposed a stick mag, but that this wasn't a realistic option given how savagely Germany had been affected by blockades and sanctions, thus the Luger's Snail Drum was chosen because it was the high capacity 9mm magazine which was available.>>64481436>>64481443The ammo is heavier, but you also do get somewhat better terminal effect than 9mm when the subject matter is military ball ammo, that extra heavy projectile weight isn't just wasted. It also provides better penetration through a lot of light cover.As for 200m shots, that's really the limit of an open-bolt subgun of this era, you aren't exactly taking precision shots at that distance, more like sporadic suppressive and harassing fire. Even with the flatter shooting 7.62mm Tokarev cartridge, you're really going past your effective range.Having to angle the gun further upwards for extended range shots isn't a dealbreaker in my opinion.
>>64481590>As for 200m shots, that's really the limit of an open-bolt subgun of this era>Having to angle the gun further upwards for extended range shots isn't a dealbreaker in my opinion.Have you ever seen anyone try to push a Thompson or an M3 beyond a hundred yards? It doesn't work.The effective range of those things is about 75-125 yards. Beyond that they're throwing lead at barn door sized beaten zone with bullets tumbling wildly, shit like that.Meanwhile the higher velocity 9mm and (particularly well made) 7.62Tok guns, generally do have an effective range around 200 yards, and only at the 300 yard mark are they as ineffective as Tommyguns and M3s are at half that distance.
>>64481127>>64481356>Not a bad lesson Maybe. Still, it's like attending algebra class and picking up grammar instead.
>>64479899Many planners envisioned them as a cheap alternative to a light machine gun, which is why they built them heavy and with mono-, bipods, adapters for heavy and fortress mounts and gave them drum mags.
>>64479899People in the before times were just retards. Simple as.Dumbasses didn't even have color.
>>64480122>>64480878MPK is more kino
>>6448143645 acp is subsonic in full power normal rounds. This makes it sneakier. Unsuppressed it still alerts the enemy less at distance, suppressed it really works better.Throwing heavy slow slugs that thump quietly.This makes 45acp subguns better for sneaky roles, the only roles they stayed ideal in after assualt rifles and soft body armor.
Because blowback bolts need a certain mass in order to prevent premature opening of the action.Easiest way to do this is is by placing a large chunk of bolt directly behind the barrel.More clever designs have an L-shaped bolt which embraces part of the barrel, like the Uzi. So the mass is quasi the same, but the layout was changed.Other designs like the MP5 reduced the bolt mass and size by incorporating a delaying (the technical correct term would be retarding) mechanism.
During the war, were there any compromises made with the metal material, such as ensuring the strength of the gun by using thickness?
>>64479899Ease of manufacture. You can pump out a Sten with the same tools you'd use to service farming equipment. There's also the fact that most WWII SMGs whose name you can recall were built to be very reliable in spite of their crudeness; a Grease Gun shoots about as well now as it did 80 years ago.
>>64484296they made sten bolts out of bronze instead of steelthe top ones been demilled
>>64484155Tecs don't use telescoping bolt and bolt with mass needed for 9x19 fits into their compact receiver just fine.>>64484306Tecs receiver is made from pipe too.
>>64483881For what purpose?
>>64484307It must have come as a surprise to Germany that copper, a valuable strategic resource, was being used as a substitute for steel.
>>64484332Makes sense when you see it folded
>>64484337I don't see any sense
>>64481475>Yeah true but when you are pushing out to 200m with an open bolt subgun, you're using the wrong tool regardless of what you got in there. Is 9mm more likely to get the job done, sure but it is still a biiig ask.
>>64484346if it was straight like on the swedish k its blocking the magwell. not impossible to reload but annoying cause theres a bar blocking certain angles.with the bend its barely in the way just enough to clear the gun.
the reason the top part is squiggly instead of straight is to not block the ejection port.
>>64484355Stock pivots are offset to the side to it clears magazine that way.
>>64484394But I get it now.It's curved to clear forearm when you cradle gun.
>>64484394even if its offset its still in the way.think about the thickness of the hand holding the mag.with how its bent you can do everything with minimal interference when folded.
>>64484325You need to keep in mind, that the Tec9 has got a really short barrel.The longer the barrel in a blowback system, the pressure of the gases is held up. The longer the pressure can work, the more the bolt gets accelerated.Maybe that's why the Tec9's bolt is relatively light, because the pressure in the system drops really fast in comparison.
>>64484439Pressure directly doesn't affect bolt weight https://10mmautocombat.wordpress.com/blowback-bolt-calculations/Velocity does. But going from 5" barrel (TEC-9) to 10" barrel (MP-40) adds like 7-10% bullet velocity and therefore bolt weight http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html
>>64484325>and bolt with mass needed for 9x19 fits into their compact receiver just fineAnd it cycles stupidly fast, and has countless reliability problems.
>>64481399Best gun ever. We even have competitions with it.t.Swede
>>64479899Magazine weight minimizes recoil.
>>64481399
>>64479913>>64480713
>>64479899Simple.1. Nations couldn't figure out the place for an SMG in the army. Some even thought that SMGs are police weapons first and foremost, and that their presence in the army is a weird Great War heritage that may not last. And Czechs and Finns wanted their SMGs to serve as a substitute for a squad machine gun.2. There were no well-developed intermediate cartidges so the gap between a handgun and a battle rifle should have been covered either with a faster rifle (as Soviets intended to do with the AVS and SVT replacing both SMGs and Mosin rifles) or with a bigger gun meant for handgun cartidge. >ou can make cheapo straight blowback SMG out of water-pipe small and lightweight.That thing you've got is a machine pistol, a ghetto blaster that doesn't need to shoot past 50 meters. And a miliary SMG was intended to shoot further. That's why Mauser M712 and post-war machine pistols like APS got stocks, and that's why every other SMG was bigger.
Extra consideration:During WW1, interwar period and still during early WW2 period, there was a doctrine-esque concept of "volley fire".Basically it was still the same idea as with muskets: Just put the whole company into a formation, point the guns into wanted direction, and everybody shoot one big volley. That will get a shotgun-like effect-on-target.That's why a lot of the older rifles (and even pistols) have those ridiculously optimistic "Let's shoot at 900 meters!" sight settings. The idea was that the officer would estimate the distance to the target (say, there are enemies on that hill, 600m away), everybody would set their guns on that range, and shoot on command. SOME of those bullets would hit something, and at least give some suppressive effect.So it was the idea that you could get the same machinegun-like effect just by using a lot of ordinary rifles. Everything else was done with actual machine guns, or was close enough for shotties and maybe smg's. Keep it simple, stupid. It was the germans with their STG's that started to think more intermediate range solutions. Soviets kept this doctrine even after ww2, which is why you still see some AK-style guns having those ridiculously long range sights on them.
>>64484480Of course the velocity correlates, but that's because (again) the pressure accelerates the projectile.It's true that the products of mass and velocity of the projectile on the one hand and of the bolt on the other hand have to be in equilibrium.But the pressure is the driving force.The longer the barrel, the longer the projectile gets accelerated by the pressure, so of course it will be faster.The longer the projectile "seals" the barrel and is therefor is keeping the pressure in the system, the longer the bolt will be accelerated on the other end of the gun.
>>64485604>>64485682>textwallsthe concise answer is that submachine guns were considered secondary (even tertiary) combat arms to the infantry's primary issue rifle.Not much engineering or doctrinal effort was given to them in particular. Mostly, they just needed to be low cost, accessible, durable, and operable with minimal/no training to troops.Submachine guns of the WWII era were primarily expedient cheap weapons. There were exceptions, but most of them just weren't small arms of prime concern to the armies or generals/commanders in the field (though they appreciated having them around, and for specialized uses)
>>64484395Walther MP(K/L)s are cool. It just got btfo in the historical timeline by HK's HK54 project which followed it only a couple years later as the MP5
>>64479899ESL
>>64486013Its time multiplied by force.Pressure has no direct correlation.You can have short barrel and high pressure and long barrel and lower pressure with same bullet velocity and they would require same bolt mass. straight blow-back is essentially Devis recoilless gun. Bullet flies out of teh barrel bolt flies out of the chamber. Pressure is irrelevant because its just impulsive conservation law in teh closed system.
>>64488606I think that he's thinking about how barrel length can be a factor for dwell time and cycling for gas operated actions, but he's not understanding why that's actually the case there, yet not for blowback guns.
>>64480259Wrong armaguerra, you're thinking of the 43 not the 44.
