MP40.

picture the scene Europe World War two a band of plucky heroes captured by the Germans but they've got a cunning plan darkness falls and they make their escape Nazi guards firing fruitlessly into the night and the weapon they're using it's the mp40 the Nazi submachine gun a symbol of terror that swept across Europe and a staple feature of war films so what prompted its development how did the machine pistol evolve and what's its relevance today the machine gun had a profound effect on warfare where two similarly equipped sights faced one another the stalemate of trench warfare was the result rifles were they'll suited to confined fighting so to break the deadlock a man-portable automatic weapon was needed the only practical way to achieve this was to use small caliber ammunition the development of rimless cartridges for semi auto pistols led to their consideration for full auto use the first machine pistols were just that modified self-loading handguns but their high cyclic rate and recoil short magazine capacity and barrel length limited their use in any case giving up the rifle was a difficult proposition and just as the potential utility of these new weapons was starting to be realized the Great War ended not a moment too soon really Hugo Schmeisser mp18 design was the most successful of this era used by German stormtroopers quite successfully towards the end of the war it fired at around 400 rounds per minute from a 20 round box magazine or from a 32 round snail mag as used with the artillery Luger it was very effective at a close range but not entirely with our floor it was craftsman made not really suitable for mass production and it was heavy weighing 25 percent more than a car 90 a K when loaded they was also prone to accidental discharge they hard not good overcome the recoil spring chamber and fire around so it was promising but needed to evolve the mp18 design was licensed to a number of foreign countries proving useful for police and military roles during the interwar period meanwhile Schmeiser continued work on his design over the next decade leading to the mp-28 notable differences were the inclusion of a fire selector allowing single shots and a manual safety another arms designer named Enrico Vollmer was also working on improvements to the mp18 design with the development of a number of prototypes funded by the Reich's fir non of these early designs gained any real traction and the funding dried up by 1930 but undeterred Vollmer sought a commercial means to develop his ideas and joined forces with arms manufacturer Armour verka what would become the mp40 was starting to take shape but there was no shortage of competition plenty of other nations expended effort in seeking their own SMG the Americans had that Thompson conceived in similar circumstance to the mp18 the Finns had the Cermak ap 31 which had the innovation of a 71 round drum magazine for an impressive amount of sustained fire the russians imitated them with the similar PPD 34 ultimately developing the PP sure 41 war was on the horizon again and this time SMGs were going to be relevant from the start the Nazis came into power in 1933 and German rearmament shifted gears a decision about the future machine pistol had to be made at this time there were three main candidates the Steyr MP 34 from Austria the Burgman MP 32 and I'm Rick volmers designs now produced by Omer a call for designs was put out in 1938 and armours Burt old guy pal submitted their EMP 36 design it was successful and with a couple of minor changes it was adopted by the German army as the MP 38 production started with nearly 15,000 made in its first two years but it was still relatively expensive and time-consuming to produce one final revision solved this replacing milled components such as the receiver with parts made from stamped steel they called it the mp40 and the rest is history they may have been designed by committee but the mp40 was a particularly expedient wartime design occupying a sweet spot between effectiveness and cost bossun pressure led to similar changes in Allied designs the British devised the stent to bolster their supply of thompson's the Americans developed the m3 as a lower-cost alternative and the Russians introduced the pps43 all of these influenced by the German design no longer a precision maid tool now unskilled workers could mass-produce MP 40s in alarming numbers 95 thousand in 1940 140,000 in 1941 by the time the war ended in 1945 they've made over a million so once Nazi Germany crumbled and captured arms were redistributed its little surprised that the mp40 started to turn up in other places films about the war were popular for quite some time after and the mp40 enjoyed a lot of screen time in the hands of the bad guys if anything it was over-represented often replacing the far more common kar98k in infantry hands but you can't deny the stubbier profile of the mp40 is more distinctive more imposing similar to the Thompson's fit for on-screen gangsters so for a while the Nazis became cinemas favorite adversary and the mp40 was firmly installed as their weapon of choice it's an extra can be linked with the Third Reich but interestingly it needn't be a Nazi the wields it a fact that makes it all the more powerful it can also be a tool of resistance the parties and fighters and citizens and arms a parallel rebellious identity sort of a violent take on make to amend by the 1970s war films had started to fall out of favor replaced with crime thrillers and disaster movies the mp40 abandoned in favor of more modern looking guns ozc mp5s and m16s unlikely two-faced Thompson which served both gangster and GI the mp40 exists in only a very narrow band five years at most so for a while the historical war setting was relegated to the background but the 50th anniversary of the war rekindled interest leading to the release of Saving Private Ryan it would spur a decade-long revival in films such as enemy at the gates and downfall television like Band of Brothers and of course video games clearly not content with prompting a resurgence in war cinema Steven Spielberg turned his hand to interactive media providing the story for 1999's Medal of Honor of course the mp40 was present in the hands of the Nazis and FPS conventions had solidified to the point where weapon pickups were mandatory this meant that upon killing an enemy equipped with the SMG you had the chance to use it yourself and the novelty of finding something new encourage players to use it in place of their issued weapons Medal of Honor critical acclaim led to the inevitable sequels the series peaking with the PC centric Allied assault 3d graphics for improving rapidly by this point and a more generous polygon allowance for view models then the weapons could be rendered more realistically than ever subconsciously teaching players our thing or two about firearm recognition as the number of world war ii games exploded there was nary an FPS gamer left who couldn't identify the metallic curves of the mp40 the war genre really was saturated for quite a while with some particularly well-known franchises emerging around this time battlefield brothers and arms and of course Call of Duty the chaotic gunplay that would become the series hallmark and that the SMG options were always guaranteed popularity so the chatter of its spire and silhouette obituaries were common to behold particularly the mp40 in world at war was a divisive fan favorites it's generous damage and spray-and-pray capability made it a very popular selection which of course made it equally maligned by the end of the decade world war two games were starting to become less appealing only a few late runners carried the wartime torch tapping into latent demand for the setting the post 2010 where the mp40 appeared it did so as a rare it reappeared in later installments of call of duty as a throwback even once the series went sci-fi I suppose the mp40 doesn't see much real-world use nowadays apps the only authentic modern appearance would be an insurgency middle eastern paramilitary fighters don't necessarily have the luxury of choice when it comes to armament more recently there has been an optic of interest in world war ii with both Call of Duty and Battlefield returning to their roots it's nice to revisit the setting with updated graphics but I doubt this revival will be as broad as the earlier peek so with it the mp40 will fade to return when world war ii is on vogue again but the weapons portrayal has left a lasting impression picture the scene a band of plucky space rebels on the run from an evil empire pursued by stormtroopers who can't seem to hit the broadside of a bulkhead the weapon they're using well it's a blaster based on a sterling submachine gun but the way the weapon is used is identical to how the mp40 was portrayed in early war films mean-looking but ultimately impotence and there's never any doubt whose side the stormtroopers are on it is the quintessential bad guy weapon for a short time it was a very real tool of oppression but now it's a device for war stories an emblem of evil and a reminder that even unstoppable forces can be subverted [Music] the mp40 stormtrooper villain rebel [Music] thank you very much for watching and until next time farewell [Music]

Channel: Ahoy

Views: 2,182,437

Rating: 4.9589038 out of 5

Keywords: xboxahoy

Id: tKw14dRiROs

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/TwistingWagoo]

Man, I'm happy to see Ahoy making these videos again. For those who haven't gotten into it, Iconic Arms goes into a lot of detail on gun history before getting into their appearance in games. The videos on the double-barrel and the AK-47 are a definite must-watch.

[u/Hetfeeld]

I just checked his youtube channel not long ago and was disappointed to see he didn't do iconic arms anymore. Super happy he's continuing the series again.

[u/bad-acid]

I'm surprised no clips or mention of the MP40 in Uncharted 1 and I think even 3. There's a scene where Drake is fighting enemies in an old German shipyard and, low on ammo, he uncovers a cache of weapons. It's a great scene for the franchise, fighting monsters with an aptly called "Relic" throwback.

[u/kidkolumbo]

What a pleasant surprise. I love this series and I'm happy outta not over. I honestly forgot about it. I've always been a fan off the mp40 in games too.

[u/Grammaton485]

That bit at the end using Star Wars was...weird. And totally felt off from the rest of the video. He builds up to it using the design of the Sten, then finishes with something like "that's exactly what the MP40 is".

[u/ILikeRaisinsAMA]

I know this post is a few hours old by this sub's standards, but here's something he misses in his analysis of WWII demand - he only counts some first-person shooters. Company of Heroes has been releasing WWII titles for 10 years with 2 iterations and 3 expansions in the RTS genre and the MP40 is featured heavily in it.

[u/electric_heck]

i love this man and his content SO much but he makes the same mistake he made in another video (i forget which one, maybe the thompson one?) where he mentions a full-auto variant of the c96 as one of the first submachine guns, while in reality said full-auto variant wasn't developed til the 30's, well after the first real smgs. anyway.

[u/afcaMouz]

Holy shit I remember watching this guys gun videos back during Modern Warfare 2 and they were always incredibly in depth and ahead of their time. Insane he's still making these videos, that must've been almost 10 years ago.

[u/AlienDuckie]

As much as I do love Stuart and the production value of his content, I'm at odds with the fact that he so rarely uploads. He's raked in some hefty Patreon bucks while releasing nothing for the last 6 months. We've gotten ~3 hours of content in the last year, which is quite low for a popular YouTuber and frankly crisp visuals are not enough for me to consider backing the channel.

I think it's fair to expect something regularly if you're providing compensation to help out a creator. I'll support channels like LGR, DYKG, and Errant Signal because of more regular uploads.