From MP18 to Evo3 - 100 Years of the Submachine Gun

hi this is Nisha and in this video we're going to be looking at the development history and some of the service history of the class of firearm we know today in the USA as the submachine gun however at different times and in different places it has that other names for example machine pistol or machine carbine and many many others now I don't have full autos it's not something I do and I'm not a class-3 manufacturer or dealer so all of these are semi-automatic which is not gonna make this video probably as good as the smokeless powder or the evolution of the self-loading rifle because those are all original guns but these are all guns that are authentic in the sense that they were their parts kit rebuilds or their original somato versions that were imported so I've done my best I've also put display barrels and the ones that I had display barrels for so kind of get going here and we'll try to splash up some pictures of the actual guns so you can see them too before World War one the submachine gun did not exist heck the self-loading pistol didn't really exist before World War one I mean the Luger was adopted in 1908 the 1911 was adopted in 1911 many nations went into World War one still equipped with revolvers for the most part France Italy Russia good examples Germany still issued quite a few of the older Ickes revolvers America had issued the the 1917 Britain definitely did the whole Webley thing mark 5 mark 6 mostly numb all these nations did have self-loading pistols but a lot of them were in like calibers like 32 even 25 but of course you started to see more and more 45s and 9 millimeters as trench warfare really took hold and they saw what they needed not what they thought they might need before the war began really the first efforts were converted pistols we have a video on the history of the Luger and in it you'll see an artillery or so called artillery a long distal one which was adopted in 1914 this is a Luger with a long barrel 8 inches adjustable tangent sights and a shoulder stock later on you know in the beginning it would have the standard 8 round mag later on it would be fit with a 32 round snail drum firing that millimeter this was still a cinematic that we do have a shoulder stock we do have a longer barrel and we do have a relatively large capacity so that was not a submachine gun because it still fired in a single shot but it was one of the early predecessors and there were some experiments with doing select fire Lugar's another early one was the c96 mauser often known as the broom handle it already had a pretty long barrel at five and a half inches it fired quite a powerful cartridge either being 7.62 or x2 maybe 7.6 3 or 9 millimeter and it would come with the shoulder stock now by default it had a 10 round intrical magazine topped off by stripper clips but detachable magazines were tried and later on in its life there would even be select fire versions of the broom handle so these are kind of early predecessors the first proto submachine gun came from Italy of all places developed in 1914 and 1915 it was called the Villa Rosa we'll put up a picture it was a linked double-barrel weapon firing nine-millimeter glycin T which was basically 9-millimeter Luger but lighter loaded to fire the 1910 glycin t automatic which was standard in Italy at the time and originally it was made for aircraft had a high rate of fire because in in air battles you only had a few seconds and not even a whole whole second a lot of the times to shoot a tree enemy so you wanted to get as many bullets on target as quickly as possible so that's why this gun came into existence and they chambered it for nine-millimeter a pistol ground because it was lightweight amongst other things it worked well for aircraft in aircraft of the day really didn't have armor per se they were wood and canvas especially early in World War one so they thought it would work and didn't really it did see some issuance later on in the war by infantry and it was never truly a submachine gun it's a wild looking critter but it was kind of put into the role of a submachine gun but what it did is it inspired and what it inspired was Germany they came up with the first true submachine gun to actually see field use I know there are some rare prototypes at other things but we're talking about actually went into production this was the MP 18 Bergman designed by Schmeisser I don't have one of those if I ever found a parts kit I'll definitely have it built up I do have a gun on the couch there's quite close to it in some ways that we'll get to in just a minute but the MP 18 fired the 9 millimeter cartridge same as the Luger it was a simple blowback gun with about an 8-inch barrel had a more traditional wood stock and it fed from the same snail drum mags 32 round of the artillery Luger now these mags were not ultra reliable they were pretty bulky but it's what Germany had so they went with it it could also feed from standard Luger magazines not a whole lot where made before the end of World War one but German German storm troops raiding trenches especially found it to be immensely effective and it really displayed the submachine guns using utility in war so much so that after the war the Treaty of Versailles banned Germany from producing submachine guns and this was the beginning the MP stands for mass gen pistol machine pistol and it was the first and really the only one to be filled with numbers in World War one however we get to our first gun on the couch and I don't have the mags in these guys because of storage reasons it'd be hard to get over everything on the couch with magnet this is as most everyone knows the Thompson now this is a model 1928 this is a somato as I said these all will be firing from a closed bolt no bolt release on these critters the Thompson did not go into service in World War one however it's designer Thompson was working on it in 1918 and the first prototypes were ready at the end of the year and he started to really appear in 1919 the first production models were put out by Colt is the model 1921 and these are the so-called first generation submachine guns now when we get into generations people can kind of argue this is a gin one gin - gin 3gen for everyone has their different systems I'm basically going to divide things into four and a half generations than the most recent one we can kind of dispute it's hard to say but we're going to say four generations this would be a generation 1 sub gun this fire is 45 acp which was the standard handgun car of the united states we have an entirely milled receiver it did fire originally from an open bolt but I had a free-floating firing pin and very nice internals the original 1921 s even had nickel internals for both corrosion resistance and smooth operation and frankly just to look sexy as you see we have a pistol grip this has the more military-style horizontal for into a lot of them you see will have the the second pistol grip at the front we have a thinned barrel for cooling this is the original length barrel we just have an extended extension here with a cuts compensator to check Requa we have very finely adjustable rear sights yeah Lyman stuff very well done firearms flipping it around we are select fire we have two controls here safety and fire select last round hold open these have a quick detaching buttstock which is something of the day for storage as you see the buttstock is solid wood these generation one sub guns were machined steel in wood the Thompson would originally be made with this 20 round magazine and a 50 round drum would be developed for it later around a 30 round extended mag would come out as well as a hundred round drum which is ridiculous but cool and the US military was pretty slow to adopt the Thompson most militaries after World War one were actually pretty pretty slow to adopt submachine guns the 1928 model would be used by the Marines some in the 30s and when were excuse me when world war ii would kick off they would introduce the m1 and m1a1 models which were simplified for mass production now this video is not going to go too much into detail about each of these guns that will be here for three hours so that's what I'm kind of rushing through we have individual videos on most if not all of these but the Thompson would serve through World War two and one guys or the other and it would even servant to Vietnam and it would be purchased and some numbers by foreign nations however it was heavy and expensive to purchase and even to produce so it kind of limited its effectiveness and marketability plus the stock and all volleys found was really odd I see what he was going for here but it always wants to slip off my shoulder and slip up because it's just a slick butt plate to checkering would have been really nice I can't I really like the Thompson but some of its ergonomics or a little bizarre but it was really one of the first if not the first of course now next up is what we're going to have to use to stand in this is my British Lanchester and this is essentially a British copy of the German M p28 Bergman now the mp-28 was an updated version of the MP 18 so this is the closest to an MP 18 I have the biggest change was that it I found that mag now this is a stint bag but it'll do the job the mp-28 and of course the Winchester later fed from the new type of straight magazine holding 32 cartridges we want to point this out because this is a double stack single feed and this would be what was used in this gun and many later guns it is often kind of derided today but it was a vast improvement over the snail drum the mp-28 was produced in Germany during the interwar period as I said it was an improvement on the wartime design and it was copied to greater or lesser extents such as this British one here by a lot of nations it was still a generation 1 submachine gun with a milled receiver tube we said the barrel is completely enclosed by this ventilated shroud the British version has a mount for their standard bayonet straight wood stock not folding opens the same way adjustable sights not as heavy as the Thompson was still quite time-consuming to mass-produce one thing I did forget to bring up the Thompson mag unlike the Birdman mag is also a double stack but it is a double feed as well and again it has a bolt hold-open yeah standard mag that will appear in a lot of these guns does not we'll get to that in a sec another very famous one in the US it wasn't especially well known where's my mag here until the parts kits came in was the finish Swami the KP 31 designed by emo Lodi from the 1920s to the early 1930s Finland was relatively an early adopter of the submachine gun and they put these into quite large widespread production at tikka Koski especially for a nation like Finland who had only had independence for about a decade and a half but they saw the usefulness of the sub gun relatively cheap to produce compared to rifles very dependable especially in the arctic conditions they were operating in and it allowed a single soldier to have increased firepower they had their reasons I mean Russia was a aggressor next door so they definitely had their reasons I kind of put that in backwards MIB no just tight there we go so they adopted the Swami we're still a generation one subgun have a mission machined tube still have a standard rifle stock now the cocking system on this is interesting I find to be very ergonomic in a sense that where you can get to it your safety selector is up here today we probably wouldn't put one in the trigger guard but back then it was quite common still have adjustable sights this one has a quick change barrel let's flip this and the barrel just twist off at 90 degrees this is the later version with a muzzle break now normally the barrel would end here but for reasons but it does have a long heavy barrel 12 inches 12 and a half to 12 inches so this is a very chunky gun it's up there with the Thompson but I don't think Finland was going for a submachine gun as we would think of it today they were thinking more of a little rifle capable of good range and accuracy that happened to be firing a pistol cartridge and had a large capacity now speaking of capacities this gun was one of the first aside from the Thompson to really be issued with drums and large numbers the first drums were 40 rounds but problematic later they would go to a 71 round drum which was much more effective they would also issue it with a 20 round box magazine but that's a pretty low capacity for a gun that has a high rate of fire like this by the way this is still select fire what they would do is this mag here and when I was trying to pick a mag to bring out for each of these guns I picked this one because it's just really neat this is actually originally a Swedish design this is the so called a coffin mag it is a quad stack design not a double still a single feed though the single feed originally was because of the it holds 50 rounds it's a little thick but it's really short for holding 50 rounds so this actually held more than the original 40 round drum obviously mathematics and it was cheaper to produce and it was more reliable than the drum this was developed in Sweden for use with their M 37:39 which was a license produced version of these show me and while it had issues it was a it was an interesting mag an interesting step forward the biggest issue with this if it got dented it was out of service it was a little complicated to clean and maintain and you needed a loader to load it there's nowhere to load this by hand that's pretty much what Finland went to war with during the winter war they either had the 70 round drum or the 50 round quad stack mostly the 70 round drama originally and the continuation more they'd get more of the quad stacks the more famous excuse me 36 rounds stick mag would come after the war it would actually cause them to have to modify the gun to be able to feed from double stack double feed magazines because before it could only feed from single stacks that's just kind of interesting but kind of shows you the idea of the submachine gun in the early 30s was still a little machine gun or a little rifle with select fire capability they weren't really thinking about being compact or lightweight yet but Finland used the KP 31 for many many decades so it was a very effective gun for them thought my right spot here guys next up we have this gun here this is honestly one of my favorites just for usability see if there's that little desk everybody publish work there we go I just come here there's a little dust cover guys keeps it safe this is the italian beretta ma b 38 and this is the a variant 38 8 this is really the last the first generation submachine guns you can look at its inspirations and where it came from it has some lineage going back to the beretta in m 1830 which itself can be traced back to the villa / osa it's kind of the final culmination of that whole series and it's also kind of the final gasp of the full length type gun but it has some really neat features and i really dislike how the conversion to semi occurred with this one just came out really well we have a 12 inch barrel here still with the shroud around it this version does have the bayonet lugs do we have a cuts style compensator for rico we have a machined receiver tube but is noticeably lighter weight thinner steel then on the Thompson or even the snow me so this gun is a little lighter actually it's quite a bit lighter than the semi better balanced now if you see there's a cocking handle on the right side with the kind of a dust cover behind it to protect it there was a group they were to keep anything getting in as I said we have a dust cover on the magwell here so they were really trying to make a gun they could really endure the elements because they were having a lot of combat in North Africa with these we still have adjustable sights on this version still simple reliable the trigger system is unique instead of having a selector forward trigger is for semi only and the rear trigger would have been for full auto the rear is actually ribbed so you can tell by this feeling which trigger you're on we have a trap going the buttstock for a cleaning kit and aside from just being considered one of the best guns designed by Italy every world one or War two this gun is notable for its magazine so this in my lap for a sec this uses a double stack double feed magazine which really would inspire a lot of guns after world war two because it was a really good mag it was affordable to manufacture very reliable easy enough to load it was a really good magazine I would argue the first truly good submachine gun magazine to come along in the 30s these are going to production in 1939 but there were not a lot of takers honestly like a lot of nations Italy wasn't sure about the submachine gun it really wasn't until 1941 that there were any purchase orders from the Italian military and you didn't see a lot of 38 in the field until 40 to 43 during the war they would make several simplified versions including the 38 42 and 38 44 which would go to more the stamped receiver and when it really crossed the line from generation 1 submachine gun into generation 2 which is what happened in world war ii with world war ii we will switch over to what's known as the generation 2 submachine guns and also this would be the war where the submachine gun would really come into its own it was the time when the submachine gun was produced in the tens of millions around europe and even around the world and it was used effectively in countless bad and really kicking off the second generation of sub guns was initially the German mp38 soon followed by the mp40 which I'm holding here the second generation is really characterized by more and more stamped parts originally the first would have still machined receivers but these would be switched over to stamped folded receivers in the war more and more the other parts would be stamped we would get away from fancy rear sights to just usually two to three position or even sometimes just one position for example on the mp40 we just have a flip up fold down so two notches total we would also go to guns that were lighter weight this has bakelite furniture rather than wood most second generations will have some type of pistol grip as this one does here the MP 38 mp40 series would be the first to really introduce an under folding or any type of folding stock as a standard feature and this would become very ubiquitous later on in sub guns this one has a 10-inch barrel that's pretty typical is you remember a lot of the early guns would have 12 so we're getting a little shorter on the barrel the idea because we're getting into World War 2 they figured out the submachine gun was useful but they didn't have time to make nice guns like the Thompson or mp-28 Suomi you may be 38 even they needed to crank these suckers out as quick as they could and they needed to have them require as little steel as possible and they needed to be able to be turned out by is unskilled untrained quickly trained workers as possible because many men were at the front stance Steele is obviously more effective at conserving steel than machining it and once you get the stamping guys and all that down it's it's very cost-effective the initial set up is actually pretty expensive duty stamped guns but once that's done the per unit cost is very low so the MP 38 and then soon the mp40 would herald in this new age and this is a very iconic submachine gun for anyone into world war ii type activities these guns in addition to being cheaper the idea was to make them more compact as you see this is much smaller than earlier guns and the lighter by today's standards this is a pretty heavy gun but by the standards of the day it was pretty reasonably liked that's because the role of the sub gun was changing instead of being a trench warfare open field type gun the idea was more urban combat CQB special operations just you know more with structures and stuff around there was a lot of house-to-house fighting in world war ii there was also more and more armored vehicles in world war ii and these guns were great for using in an armored vehicle because you could fold it up and not bang it around this one even has this bar on the underside of the barrel the rest against the side of an armored vehicle on the top so these guns would go into mass production in Germany I mean very very iconic one interesting thing though this is still using the same double stack double feet a single feed 32 round mag really adopted for use in the mp-28 and then of course copied by the British for the Lanchester so the magazine was the shortcoming again this was a better mag than the snail mag of course faster easier to load but the single feed would give problems so that's really kind of one of the leftovers from earlier German sub gun designs in the MP Series this gun has a lot of neat features and we have a full video on it for sure but very iconic gun and really the MP 38 mp40 are very similar it's just the mp40 was even further streamlined and cheapened up for mass production compared to the MP 38 but that said the MP 38 was quite affordable to produce compared to what had been out earlier set this back another very iconic SMG of the hate slings right the second the early part of the work is this here this is the Soviet Russian ppsh-41 and this is an interesting gun it is technically a 2nd generation but in in its design in its shape it harkens back to the first now Russia would get in to the submachine gun production itself with the PPD 1st 34th and 3438 and then finally the PPD 40 which was a copy of the mp-28 bergman that gun was highly influential in the 30s for people making their own submachine gun designs Japan also copied it with its type 100 but the PPD wasn't cheap enough for mass production had some issues that came to light during the winter war so the PPSh replaced it in 1941 and they would produce these in huge numbers in Russia these were very easy to produce while this looks like a generation one it is built with mostly stamped parts we have a simple flip rear sight not a fancy ladder very simple construction very simple stamped barrel shroud we have it even acts as a very simple muzzle compensator in the front obviously this is a semi-auto it has a 16 inch extended barrel it does have the original barrel here which is about ten and a half inches so we're getting shorter this would also be one of the first sub guns to feature chrome lining for better cleaning and resistance in the field now the excuse me this fire is 760 - 25 Tokarev which was the standard in Soviet Russia since the early 1930s it was a very good cartridge for a longer barrel sub gun because of its extra velocity and power it's just shy being a true magnum round so this is all stamped we are still select fire which is again kind of a feature Aden mentioned I apologize on the MP 38 and P 40 we went to just a full auto only gun or as before we were mostly always like fire on sub guns not mistake there guys sorry about that this is still select fire though and we still have a wooden stock with a cleaning kit compartment which is again a little bit of a kind of throwback to the gen one and a neat folding mag catch we are still kind of using the double stack single feed pattern this is the later 36 round magazine originally this gun would be issued with a 71 round drum which was basically a copy although they're not the same they're not interchangeable of the suomi 70 round after the winter winter war in Finland the Russians saw that the intelligence of the through Omi's magnet design but the drums weren't is reliable were heavy were slower to load were more expensive to produce so they quickly went to this stick mag in 1942 and usually they would issue a few of these in one drum so the soldier would have a drum for needing a lot of firepower at once but you know you only need to stick mags to have the same firepower of more so than the drums so not a bad deal they would equip entire I mean just entire squadrons with these they would use them to do mop up operations in World War two they were a great equalizer Russia really learned to respect the submachine gun is it gave its soldiers firepower it's kind of analogous to how the Finns did in the winter war against Russians well now the Russians learn that trick and did the same against the invading Germans so the submachine gun was very important in Russia in World War two now hear me look for my mag for this one here we go here we go then this is probably next to the mp40 the most iconic sub gun of world war ii this is the British sting now the British called these machine carbines hung up on the mag there but this is a mark 3 this is about as simple as the Sten ever got during World War 2 Britain as with so many others was not terribly interested in submachine guns in the 20s and 30s when they felt they needed some they would just purchase Thompson's getting them in 1940 however Germany was steamrolling through Europe and after the Battle of Dunkirk they were really short on weapons France had basically fallen and was was out of the action they got scared and they needed guns and needed them quickly and the bolt-action infield was still the standard issue they had not been working on a self-loading infantry rifle either originally they would do the Lanchester over here just a straight copy of the Birdman with a few changes to suit British taste that would be produced at the Stirling Factory but it was a stopgap measure really it was too expensive too time-consuming and needed no wood and machine steel they needed something cheap GG so 1941 the Sten mark 1 was researched developed and quickly adopted the idea behind the Sten making gun as cheap as possible using as many off-the-shelf parts as possible and as few machined parts and as many stamps parts as possible in the end with the mark 3 here the only real machined parts were the bolt the trunnion and the barrel pretty much a everything else was stamped the original mark 1 was a little fancier had some wood on it had a very basic compensator to check muzzle rise but really in the details the mark 1 and the mark 3 are very similar because they both have fixed barrels they have an extended receiver tube coming on here and even then they're both basically just super simplified Lanchester because they're just open bolt ball bat guns even the mark 3 used a stamped receiver tube rather than like with the mark 2 & 1 which had a machined tube it was a very basic tube basically a piece of plumbing the the mark 3 had a piece of steel sheet that was rolled over and welded at a seam at the top simple fixed stamped sights nothing fancy there they are not adjustable it does have one embellishment it is still select fire selector here although the selectors didn't know his work as intended we had a few different stocks that appeared on these these are not folding but they are quick detaching for storage you just push this in and the starkness slides down and off this one's been a little ornery being stuck on there a bit I kind of stuck it on because it was loose before but the stock you just press in here and slide it down and off on a dovetail so while they didn't go to folding stock they didn't make a quick detachable stock which compacts the gun now if this was a original gun the barrel would end about here making this quite small and on versions like the mark 2 and the mark 5 the barrel pulls out and this mag well rotates down I chose the mark 3 because it's the closest to the mark 1 that I have and also because it's as simple as the gun became in the middle of World War 2 this tin is famous even infamous it was used by pretty much every allied in Commonwealth nation during and after World War 2 saw a lot of use in Korea as well it fires 9-millimeter just like the German guns because again we're kind of copying and this is when 9-millimeter entered the British military is standard-issue even though they were still using Webley revolvers first and 455 and then soon in 38 the mag doe as you saw earlier the stim mag is basically the same is an mp40 mag double stacked single feed because they both were developed from the mp-28 so they have a common ancestor there and this was the big fault of all these guns this magazine pattern just didn't work super super fantastic unfortunately so much so that some of these mags were blocked tellingly 20 rounds making them a single static single feed and these would work better you'll see a lot of these after the war it'll change the mags for 32 rounds to 220 but the good old stand and we of course got a good long view on this is really what exemplifies what typifies the generation 2 submachine gun very inexpensive very quick to produce lightweight very small compact especially the mark ii version and they saw a lot of use and again it was a force multiplier we could say by modern lingo it gave the british soldier a machine gun instead of a bolt action allowing them to defend the island and eventually retake europe so they were able to give cheap little machine guns firing a reasonably effective pistol caliber this has an 8-inch barrel as pretty much all stands did and this is at a time before body armor and of course guys so keep this in mind i mean nine millimeter 45 there was fine and certainly 76 to Tokarev it's perfectly fine as a close to medium range gun so this dinner I mean it's just part of it oh and these really didn't have much of a safety at this point they pretty much got away from safeties cocking back here we've got a notch to hold the bolt back that's pretty much our safety on this before this time all the other guns had something now the MP 38 40 was pretty much in the same boat with just a bolt lock back and this would lead to problems later another very iconic gun is the Russian pps43 very definitively a second-generation submachine gun this was developed not just during but literally in the invasion and siege of leningrad 1942 vegetation still fires 760 a 25 we have a slightly shorter barrel at 10 inches a very simple Moe's little compensator simple barrel shroud that doesn't completely enclose it stamped on stamp 2 receiver we are just full auto only not select-fire simple rear flip sight top folding metal buttstock kind of like the mp40 but in Reverse this one this is a pistol so the stock is welded closed but it's still there we have a pistol grip made at bakelite just like the mp40 we can use the mag well here as a grip which is the intention simple simple blowback gun just simple as they get one improvement that the PPS series had over the ppsh we're using a double stack double feed magazine again holding 35 rounds these were more reliable than the ppsh-41 magazines the only downside that meant that Magnus were not interchangeable and these cannot feed from drums but really by 1942-1943 people were getting a little disillusioned with drums you don't really see drum magazines getting developed during and after World War 2 that was kind of a pre-war notion they just didn't work out as effectively these guns were extremely fast and inexpensive to produce just like the Sten was for the British the Russians got the ppsh-41 was a good gun that could be made cheaper so they designed it this now this was never meant to completely replace the ppsh-41 this was meant to supplement it the ppsh-41 was more of a battlefield submachine gun this was more of an urban combat recon special-operations type gun it's more compact at the writer and yes as I said it's cheaper to produce they wouldn't produce near as many of these as the ppsh-41 but of course these came out much later but they would produce enough and they would stay in the service and Russia until the 60s along with the PPSh and they'll be copied by many nations including Poland which this one is a semi-automatic forum and it's just a really neat interesting sub gun and again with the Sten gun exemplifies the generation 2 Theory cheap fast to produce there's basically no machine parts on this thing it's all stamping except for the barrel the boat and it's interesting because this is their first major effort at a mass production fully stamped gun which would lead to some interesting results after World War two very simple stampings but stampings nonetheless and that's about as simple as the submachine gun got in world war ii there is also the american m3 grease gun which i do not have an example of i did on one of the valkyries at one time it was essentially an american spin in a lot of ways stamped welded steel firing 45 acp got a mentioned the grease gun maybe one day i'll pick up another one the thompson as i said there was the m1 version which was greatly simplified but still want a milled receiver so it's still technically a generation one even though it's being being made in the war germany would keep making the mp40 they would also introduce a version known as the mp3 0:08 which was basically a Sten copy but with a vertical magazine well rather than a horizontal so you can't beat them join them it was cheap enough they were able to crank out a large number even at the end of the war as I said Japan did the type 100 and they did simplify it it was based on the Bergman so generation 1 that they managed to simplify it in world war two but there did not produce that mini and in Finland they would actually reverse engineer that pps43 creating the KP 44 which looks very similar except it feeds from standards roaming magazines and drums but these were not inner service until after the war the submachine gun was produced as I said in very large numbers up until 1945 and saw a lot of use on all sides of the war the most common caliber by far was 9 millimeter but quite a few 45 guns from America were scattered here and there from everywhere it was dependable easy to train soldiers on light compared to most infantry guns certainly light compared to the standard machine guns of the day and after the war the submachine gun would not disappear after World War 2 necessarily submachine gun production would slow down even development with slow part of the reason of course we have all these guns left over from the war so we don't really need new ones and we pretty much made the gun as cheap and simple and fast to make as possible but what we haven't done is make it is ergonomic user-friendly and later on modern as possible and most importantly safe as possible world war ii era generation 2 submachine guns really had a problem with safety if you drop them because they were open bolt sometimes they would just spring back just enough to catch a cartridge but not enough to get caught by the sear go forward and have runaway fires also worn Sears could do this we didn't have many manuals safeties we didn't have much else now it towards the end of the war you would see different methods to try to make these guns safer including bolt handles that could be locked into the receiver wall you also saw like on the mp40 kind of covers to go but as the world went on this was known as a this was a problem now one gun that was in development during World War two but did not go into production until afterwards was this guy here this is the Swedish m/45 this is the D variant but they had ABCD variants and these would be produced at Carl Gustav I know it doesn't look like it but basically this is a very nicely done Sten gun but you know that kind of traces all the way back to the Birdman instead now remember Carl Gustav in making the schwa me under license before and during World War two but they needed something faster cheaper more compact to produce so they come up with this guy the barrel and all that is very similar to a salami it quickly attaches by unscrewing this here we're at 8 inches they're a little shorter than the surrounding actually quite a bit four inches it's a pretty heavy profile barrel we have an adjustable front sight protected we have a three position flip rear dit dit so fancier sight still a simple blowback gun with a notch like on a Sten the magwell is interesting on these and as is the magazine this is a well that was added later in the 50s originally these would feed from the standards you only mag so they were double stack single feed they would feed from the coffin mags but then they would soon develop this magazine here sorry this one this is a little stiff this is probably one of the best submachine gun magazines made this is a thirty-six round stick mag double feed doubles actually double feed double stack what's interesting it has a trapezoidal shape to guide the 9-millimeter bullets this was really necessary because of the guns originally being single feed but it was a way around it to kind of make a single feed gun into a double feed getting into the chamber these were extremely reliable right and expensive to produce and just very effective the early guns would have this mag well removable so you could still either use these or the original coffin mags later on they would rivet the mag well in when they were only issuing the stick mags the Swedish K is it became known is most popular in America because of the Vietnam War a few other features before I get too distracted we do have this stock the stock is stiff but you just fold it over stiff is good you don't want something that will come legally on you folds up very simple tubular steel to deploy just grab so it employs very quickly locks very securely we even have a rubber cheek piece so you're not putting your cheek against steel enlarge trigger guard very large gripped wood panel some of these were select-fire only some exude me some of these were full auto me something like this were originally select-fire this is now just a dummy selector so they started to reintroduce select fire capability and just more refinement started to come back into the submachine gun also better ergonomics and sights a gun like this is probably still technically a generation too but it's going to herald in the next generation three transitional gun if you will they would produce these throughout the 50s into the 60s and they would be standard-issue in Sweden into the 90s they were there in he really the last ones gonna retire it out until after the turn of the millennium still firing 9-millimeter as most would be just a simple dependable submachine gun but with some more refinements than what appear on the wartime guns another famous submachine gun that came out right after the war is this one here this is the French matte 49 now again this is a simple blowback gun firing nine-millimeter nothing too special there but it was France's attempt to replace a bunch of submachine guns that have been in service before in during world war ii with a standard gun now like a generation 2 these are supposed to be cheap and easy to mass-produce but getting into the generation 3 we're introducing more safety features and more ergonomics one neat feature is this hinge down magwell for storage which then doubles as a grip this even lets you keep a magazine in it so if you have it up your magazine is completely disconnected from the gun it cannot load and fire accidentally so that's a good safety feature we also have a grip safety back here so the gun can't fire unless that's depressed we have try to compact barrel but the half-length shroud still a pretty simple rear flip peep but it out of adequate enough we have a stamped receiver but it's actually a square stamped receiver not the simple tube so a little more ornate this was also good for reliability it gave more crevices more areas for dirt and debris to get into and not Jam up the bolt and by getting to them instead of being on a tube where if it's there it's gonna there's nowhere for it to the bolt to push it so it's going to jam up and this it can be pushed away from the bolt into one of the corners and then cleaned out later it also has a dust cover here to cover the action normally on a full auto this would be spring loaded but because of the semi it needed to be it has another sliding dust cover very similar to what we saw in the Italian gun here protecting this slot for the cocking handle this is a pistol it would have had a retractable wire stock and what's interesting about it it was one of the earliest adjustable retracting stocks it had three positions and the way it was made you could have cut as many positions as you wanted it into it but it's cutting half-moons into the wire this is a full auto Amelie although they did have some select fire versions that used a double trigger system like the beretta early guns would have wood grips later they would go to bakelite and even later they would just go to press steel so they were trying to make these cheap and they made a surprisingly large number from the 50s through the 60s these guns saw extensive combat in Vietnam Algeria Morocco and elsewhere and that's why I included it because it's one of the most used submachine guns post-world War two and France unlike a lot of nations was very eager to adopt a submachine gun because they didn't have a good one to go with they had a hodgepodge and they wanted to get rid of it whereas America and Britain and Russia had tons of them and didn't really need more so they were very slow to develop new ones but France was not because they really felt they needed one these are used by commandos and paratroopers for the most part but an interesting gun oh the magazine the magazine is interesting on this critter Papa back now for you guys because we're using a Sten gun style mag double feed excuse me I'm sorry guys I'm tired of been talking for a while now so forgive me double stack single feed which should have the problems of all the mp40 stints but it really does not because the way they designed it it's very generous in the tolerances it's oversized and pretty much every dimension this allows more flexibility makes it easier to load this is probably the best of the single feed type mags to be adopted these actually worked quite well but they are larger and a little heavier and I think the reason they went with that was because of this whole folding mechanism the single feed was easier to make it work with that another gun it's quite famous today is the British sterling l 2a 3a much like with the Gustav this is essentially a really nice Sten gun in one of if not the best some machine-gun designs of the Cold War the sting gun was a wartime emergency measure so it had admittedly from the very beginning they knew it had shortcomings and in drawbacks but they produced it during the war though towards the end 1944 a gentleman but I'm a Patchett designed and enhance a machine gun and he worked for the Sterling Factory which had been producing the Lanchester early in the war he designed essentially a nice Sten it was tested a bit during the war but the war ended before it was really necessary and since they had so many tins and inventory it got put on the back shelf it went through many many tests and was updated and refined throughout the 40's and was officially adopted as the l2a1 in 1951 I believe if it wasn't us 53 goes yeah my early 50s and a few updated versions is the L 2 a 2 and the L 2 a 3 were adopted with the final version coming out in 57 and that would be the iconic version internally again we still just have a simple blowback gun but we're adding refinements back to the submachine gun and this is probably the quintessential generation 3 in Britain with the Lanchester and Thompson then service being the gin one spins all the marks being gen 2 and thus being the gin 3 this would have an 8-inch barrel anything about here normally I've got a shroud on it from you now so same as the stand there we had better sights we have a drift adjustable front that's protect we have a flip rear peep now not just a simple knotch still just a blowback design still have a barrel shroud we do have a bayonet lug we have a fixed side mag well we finally have a true pistol grip the Sten mark 5 tried out a pistol grip and it worked ok but this one is actually designed and did the gun and it flows much better we also have an improved trigger and these were select-fire with a very ergonomic selector on the semi of course this is just safe and semi Babli go further to fall on a military gun of course we have a bolt with helical cuts in it and this was to push dirt and debris out of the action as it moved and this was very reliable we also have added safety features again we have a manual safety to start we also have a floating firing pin as opposed to just the simple firing pin mounted on the bolt face of the Sten and most of the World War 2 guns we've gone back to the floating firing pin as on the pre-war generation 1 guns and this added extra safety because it would not line up with the cartridge unless the boat was fully forward another thing that really helped with reliability on the Sterling was it's fantastic magazine this is the one magnate would rival this suomi mag for best submachine gun magazine post war fun reason that I wouldn't say this one's categorically better it was much more expensive to produce than the semi we have for 34 rounds double stack double but they want to step further and put two rollers instead of a simple Stamp follower in here and we even have a round coil spring as opposed to a square one so after the experiences of the stin mag they weren't taking chances they they went whole hog with the magazine making the Rose Royce of submachine gun magazines for this gun another final feature we have a true under folding stock now this stock is pretty complicated to fold and unfold because it wasn't meant for a quick deployment or stowage it was just meant for transport and they keep the gun as compact as possible so you can get quite good at folding and unfolding it but it wasn't meant to be done in a hurry like Franta PT PDW as I said Britain would field these in the late 50s into the 60s and they would replace the Sten guns and they remain in active service throughout the first Gulf War and then slowly be replaced as more and more of the l85 bullpup came into service still firing nine-millimeter yada-yada it really is just a really nice Sten gun in a lot of ways but one of the neatest submachine guns and really the one that got me into the submachine guns even collecting these samaa toes another one that got me into collecting semis of course is a gun that basically needs no introduction is really easy the Uzi is another solidly third-generation sub gun it was really the first gun to be designed in Israel to go into mass production and since it is Rayleigh since the IDF have been using Sten guns and envy forties they learn lessons this gun is one built tough it's built to endure the desert and it's built to be very soldier friendly and soldier proof because there are some long ranges in Israel we have a 10-inch barrel still it is quick-detachable though unscrews we have quite good sights they have a adjustable front post that's protected and a flip we repeat it's protected we have this iconic cocking action of course these still fired from the open bolt we have a bayonet lug icon the Sterling there this takes a stock its own bayonet but it's kind of patterned after the Mauser it's very close to a Mauser behind this is made from stamped metal we have a square shaped receiver much like on the French mat 49 but this whole top cover removed so that it's only a u-shaped piece we have grooves stamped into it for strength all around this was select-fire of course somato we just have safe and semi and full auto we would go further forward for full auto have a reasonably good pistol grip we have a lot of safety features built in we have the grip safety here we have the manual safety we just looked at on a military open bolt we would also have a ratcheting top cover which will make it click every couple of millimeters and not allow the bolt to go forward until it's fully back so yet another safety so they really learn their lessons with the stin another innovative feature was the magazine we have a well placed mag release here reach up grab your hand it's the whole hand finds hand thing the original mags we're twenty five rounds they would also make twenty and thirty two later this is a double stack double feed and it's very close one of this said to that and we'll look at it a bit to them beretta mag but it is based on the Beretta it may be thirty eight magazine because it worked it was one of the best magazine designs before and during World War two and that's what helped the Uzi be reliable early on we would have the taxable would shoulder stock for storage and then in the 60s they would introduce a under folding metal stock which is now very iconic I've kind of made this one I'm finish like tight because I don't like wiggle most of them you see will have the under folding stock because it came became one more common but early it would have wood and these would be used in very large numbers in Israel starting in 1956 and they would have very good success exporting them all over the world even selling manufacturing licenses this was the most successful submachine gun of the post-war period because it was a clear upgrade to all the wartime guns and when they started to hit the market in the late 50s early 60s a lot of the wartime guns were wearing out nations were needing new ones and this busy came at the right place and the right time it would serve in the IDF up into the 80s and standard and then kind of be slowly phased out by more modern guns but could still find some new Z's throughout the 90s of course interestingly West Germany would adopt this as the MP to the West German Bundeswehr after the izzy and the sterling submachine gun development kind of slowed yet again as i said world war ii was its heyday after the war it was slow then after a lot of guns wore out they needed more but then after those first few guns there wasn't a large need we'll get into why in just a minute i'm most of you know anyway but of course there was the HK mp5 the mp5 was part of the HK family the full-size g3 fired 7.62 nato then you had the hk33 firing 5.56 nato and then you had the mp5 firing 9 millimeter and it is a scaled-down hk33 which is itself a scaled-down HK g3 these are all different in the sense that they have I mean they're all the same with each other excuse me but they're different from a lot of previous guns because we have a roller delay system now in the 308 the 7-6 - you really need this because of the cartridge it's unique though for a non millimeter to have a locked breech now roller delay is in a true locked breech it is literally a delay the mp5 was unique in submachine guns because it fired from a closed bolt and the bolt was semi locked to the trunnion this cave greater accuracy it did come at the cost of cooling and rate of fire but that was a trade-off they were they were happy to make and it proved to be a wise one it wasn't the first closed bolt submachine gun but one could argue was the first truly successful closed bolt submachine gun it was of course select fire and it was really what changed from generation 3 to generation and this is kind of getting the mountain definitions here so feel free to disagree I'm just trying they can I give it out these started to first appear in 1966 in an early form and really came on to the market in 1970s as for the form like this appears we have a barrel about eight and a half inches long usually threaded or with this three lug or with both we have a fixed front put in site we have a very adjustable dr. peep rear we have a mount for a scope rail on the top this gun is still made from stamped and welded steel but it's more contoured and curved it's also more ergonomic this is one of the first times they tried to make a machine gun really fit the user we have a different this is the typical wide handguard there's all kinds of different ones available same for the pistol grip this is the grooved grip with the metal housing but there's many different available this is the a2 fixed buttstock with a nice comb to it we have well placed safety control here we have a paddle mag release which is easy to use with either hand and really that's another thing this gun is highly modular the stock this handguard this lower pack pop off with just pushpins so you can put a different stock on you can easily customize and configure the mp5 in the field for different needs HK would target more police and Special Forces type customers for this not general military use because by the 70s militaries weren't using submachine guns in the millions as they had done in World War two or even in the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands in Korean Vietnam so the HK mp5 really did Harold in the second accident of the fourth generation and it was for somewhat of a different role very customizable more attempts at economics a more of a focus on accurate fire than just a bullet hose because of its different room some of these are still in service today it's a testament to their effectiveness and this was part of a rifle family keep in mind so it was a scaled-down version of a larger parent rifle and that leads to the next gun here the colt simply titled the nine-millimeter submachine gun this was developed at Colt throughout the 1980s and would first appear around 85-86 this is basically at least externally nothing more then colds m16 carbine reworks - fired nine-millimeter like the mp5 it fires from a closed bolt however it's not a locking system it's we're back to just a straight blowback although we have a heavy buffer in it we do have a bolt hold-open which is something we haven't seen in submachine guns much since the days of the Thompson we have the same controls are all accustomed to on an ar-15 we have a one pattern their sights have a gas deflector here we have a shorter port door he's almost always had the sliding stock early would have to position later would have for the original guns would have a 10 and a half inch barrel standard ar-15 controls and these would feed from magazines inspired by the Uzi but not the same I said the Uzi mag was a very good mag this is a 32 round they also do 25s quite commonly these are very similar to an Uzi with a few changes for one we don't have the protrusions the nipples on each side which would keep it from going too far into the using mag well because we need that with the AR mag well is different we also have a different mag cut out here to work with the ar-15 style mag release and most importantly we have a catch in the back to work with the bolt hold-open of this gun and this like the mp5 is part of the fourth-generation because it's a scaled-down not really scaled-down it's actually the same size as the carbine but it's a nine millimeter version of a parent rifle it was also mostly targeted at police users although some militaries including the US Marines did purchase these and the Department of Energy used a different version shorter more compact so there were some government military purchases most of these were appreciated for having the same manual of arms as the m16 and later m4 and these are still in production today and as I said a solidly fourth-generation submachine gun and for our last rifle today we have what we could argue to be a fifth generation although really it's just a rework of the fourth with fusing different materials I've got this sample this is the CZ evo 3 scorpion this is made in the czech republic and this is one of the few truly modern submachine gun designs it fires from a closed bolt even in the full auto versions we have a bolt hold-open like on the colt ambidextrous mag release ambidextrous safety removable pistol grip that's modular and can be adjusted newer guns like this will of course have rails because everything today does this form is also modular and can be removed these sights are mounted to the rail and can be moved for position peep adjustable front with protection most of you know the Scorpion is quite popular today we have about an 8 inch barrel with a removable muzzle device and most notably for these newer guns aside from the ergonomics & merrill's we have a polymer body now the bolt is still of course metal the newer guns have polymer of course because it's the modern construction this really began in the very late 90s early 2000s with the with the HK UMP which was their attempt to modernize the mp5 it's a different operating system it's no longer a roll or delay but I did use a polymer body and it started to introduce more modular features for the submachine gun these are faster easier cheaper and modern Stander's to produce they also lighter more weather resistant you could have neat features like this folding stock to make it very compact this also it has three adjustment positions most of these well it's also quick detaching just press it on this button and it slides off a dovetail so kind of like the old dust in gun and it feeds from polymer translucent curved mags and the similar to an mp5 mag except it activates a bolt hold-open very lightweight being expensive to produce and purchase then make these in 20 as well and this is really one of the most up-to-date true submachine gun designs we're still firing 9-millimeter which is a standard NATO around these days it's one of the very few to come out in the 21st century now guys I'm excluding PDW type guns and little defensive pistols for example the Uzi pro or the p90 that's a different class that really kind of split off from submachine guns in the 80s and 90s plus my couch is only so big and this video is already long enough so we've kind of looked at a brief overview of how the submachine gun has progressed all the way back from World War one with the Villa Rosa an MP 18 Birdman and then the Thompson which came out right after the war we go through the middle war period with the mp-28 and Suomi and then right before the war we see things like the beretta 38 a during the world war ii we have lots of submachine guns mp38 mp40 ppsh-41 pps43 the Lanchester many versions of the Sten and so on and so forth after the war of course we have some guns like the Gustav in the matte 49 that came out in the 40s but really pretty quiet fifties we pretty much are dominated by the Uzi we get into the 70s we have the mp5 we also have some guns like the Ingram mac-10 mac-11 but these were never really used by militaries and any numbers they're mostly civilian or whatever guns so I they're basically just versions of the Uzi made a little cheaper we get into the 80s we're seeing a really big fallout and no real new submachine gun designs even this colt it was really kind of an afterthought and this is because of the assault rifle of course and we have videos on that but the assault rifle really replaced the submachine gun especially as we saw more compact ones early assault rifles like the original a.k the FAL the g3 we're still quite big and bulky in fact the last two are really considered battle rifles but as we get into things like the AKM the m16 the hk33 we get a gun that is the same size and basically the same weight as a submachine gun but it's firing the full power cartridge or at least in their mini a power cartridge of the day it has the same parts interoperability with the standard rifle a good example as the xm177 in Vietnam we had the m16 a1 as a fulbright for fine but instead of using more submachine guns they ended up using the compact version that car 15 version and this happened throughout most militaries so by the 80s you have smaller carbine or even sub carbine versions of assault rifles being used were previously a submachine gun would have been used this is especially true in urban warfare house-to-house close quarter 5 and this is actually why you see more PDW start to appear because it pills a slightly different role one of the earliest versions a bit might be considered the vz61 scorpion so we'll do it probably a different video looking at that class of guns because it was more about defensive protection weapon whereas in the beginning that submachine gun was a salt weapon it was an offensive weapon but over the years it transitioned more to a defensive weapon and that's kind of what ended it's really remarkable that the ebo three has been as successful as it has because it's really up against some stiff competition before we go I wanted to just lay all the magazines out side by side because the magazine is a very important part of the submachine gun and if the evolution is quite interesting at least to me depending and I'm honored this is the original Thompson mag double stack double feed and 45 with the bolt hold-open very advanced for its day as I said the MP 18 used the 32 round snail mag from World War 1 but then the very common double stack single feed was introduced for the mp-28 and copied by scads of people most notably britain many many others too cheap to produce better than the snail but had an intrinsic flaw the coffin mag was never really used by many people but it's just fun and interesting and chose interesting ways of thinking then we get into the beretta mag which really inspired the Uzi mag if not really just what they copied so for that reason alone it's worth it these were also used later in Baretta's m12 submachine gun which is introduced in the late 50s the mp40 mag is the same as the stim mag it's a copy of the mp-28 for all intents and purposes this is a later version that has some grooves stamped into it for hopefully strength but it had the same intrinsic flaws the ppsh-41 has again a double feed excuse me a double static single feed until the top that was done so it would fit the mag well originally made for the drum mag durable mag reasonably very cool actually quite reliable the 760 or 25 cartridge fed well for mags like that but it was not as good as the PPS 43 mag which is a double feed this is a lighter weight magazine it's also easier to load and it is more reliable and kind of shows the future there you know a lot of ways this kind of reminds me of what Magda later be used in the Kalashnikov this is the Carl Gustav trapezoidal 36 round mag developed for use in the m45 although it came out after the submachine gun and it would be copied by a finland and would be very very reliable and an interesting shape the butterman here is that over built mat 49 mag again it's a version of the mp-28 the stem but it would work much better because of generous tolerances interestingly the grease gun mag would be about the same large 45 of course but same basic construction and style here's the Uzi mag now you can see how it's similar to the did you do the beretta mag here it's just the the dimples are different this is a 30 round this is a 25 but they're dimpled but a little differently with the bags are same in fact earlier busey mags would even have the spine in the back this is a later mag so it does not but everyone's good sturdy mag is really something all of its own it does kind of resemble the body the pps43 curved but it's made very very well and it's really a class apart in fact even when Canada made their own version of the Sterling they simplified it because it was just such a very good but labor-intensive mag anything this is the second style of mp5 mag the curved the other the early ones were straight as I said it kind of looks like a sterling mag but again simplified annoying they did find that curved was just a good feed for the 9 mil here is the colt leg as you see it is quite similar to the easy body is identical just doesn't have these and and the mag catch is in a different place good enough mag nothing extraordinarily you had a few issues but it worked pretty well and finally we have the Scorpions mag a modern polymer critter like I said it reminds me of the mp5 9 a little bit curved these are inexpensive reliable they don't rest they don't then they might crack but at least you know and they still usually work when cracked at least for a while well I tried to make it as brief as possible guys I know it was a long video appreciate you tuning in if any of these interests you please you know check out our detailed videos the guns themselves as I said at the beginning we're also mottos many of the unique ones are put together for me by MK Gunn mogs my friend over there some of the other stuff for imports for example the mp5 is a POF the Scorpion of course is an original scorpion the colt is a AR 6450 which you've seen in a couple of other videos the Stirling is an original British mark six pre-ban import ditto for the Izzy it's a model 8 it's definitely a shooter grade but the guns damn nice I really like it the pps43 is one of the older io imports from Poland and the suomi the KP 31 and the ppsh-41 are both builds done by T and W I was very impressed with them I think they made about the best ppsh-41 build commercially available in America there were a lot of attempts before it this was a very kind of brief overview history of the submachine guns evolution really appreciate you tuning in if you have any questions or comments please post them if you liked the video please click like if you have an argue subscribed and don't mind long boring videos please do so and we do have a lot of short shooting videos too so don't worry they're not all like this and we do have a video like this on the smokeless powder evolution and the evolution of the self-loading rifle as well this is Misha and we'll catch you very soon in another video thanks for tuning in

Channel: Mishaco

Views: 28,218

Rating: 4.8982387 out of 5

Keywords: Educational, Historical, Documentary, Historic, History, submachine gun, submachinegun, machinegun, machine gun, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, MP18, MP.18, Thompson, M1928A1, M1, MP28, MP.28, KP31, KP.31, Suomi, Beretta, MAB 38A, M38, MP38, MP40, MP.40, PPSh41, PPSh-41, PPS43, PPS-43, Sten, MK I, MK II, MK III, M3 Grease Gun, Swedish K, M45, MAT49, MAT-49, Uzi, MP5, HK, Colt, CAR15, CZ, Evo3, Sterling, L2A3, German, Germany, Italian, Italy, America, American, British, Britain, Russia, Russian, French, Finnish, Swedish, Israeli, Czech

Id: tz9QkrJfyb8

Length: 92min 35sec (5555 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2018