We Tested American Weapons of WW2

legendary sidearms with an unrivaled longevity of service underrated and loyal servants spanning multiple conflicts the most celebrated rifles in military history and villainous gangster submachine guns turned signature lynchpins of the US Army this is weapons of World War II USA Edition Jonathan good to have you back on the channel it's good to be back at the armories brilliant to have you back and uh in front of us here we've got fantastic array of weapons belonging to the US Army during the second world war what have we got here we've got the Springfield 1903 A4 with a scope so this is very much snipers rifle y next to it is the new service rifle of that conflict the M1 Garand absolutely iconic I was just going to use that exact word overused but I think not in this case yeah and so iconic I had to include a clip with inert rounds yes and uh the Thompson a whole range of variants there of course this is the M1 also dare I say an iconic firearm and of course yet another iconic firearm on the end the cult 1911 this is the this is the [Music] A1 in the first world war whilst they are introducing new weapons all the time you're really looking at your bolt actions and perhaps some some pistols in the second world war we've got a wide variety within the Army things have have really expanded um of course the the cult is a veteran of the first war um as is the Springfield but that's been adapted to not quite a new purpose but an increasingly important purpose of sniping of course well without further Ado uh let's uh get on to talking more in depth about some of these weapons and we're going to start off with the cult M1911 originating as a result of a search for a suitable self-loading pistol to replace the variety of revolvers in service at the time the cult was designed by the prolific gun maker John Browning shortly before the outbreak of the first world war it would go on to serve as the standard issue sidearm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985 Jonathan the cult M1911 now before we even go into the specifics of the gun I want you to tell me why is it so ubiquitous I mean when I think of any sort of video game and movie you're likely to see this gun especially if it's from that sort of 40s 50s era I think it's it's the silhouette of it it's just so cool yeah it's have to distill it down to that that and the fact it's adopted by the US government so it can be it can be the good guys gun and the bad guys gun yes of course and it just has that something about the lines it's you can't necessarily call it art but it's it's a beautiful piece of design and it just looks right whether it's the goodies or the baddies holding it and as soon as it starts showing up in those war movies and those gangster movies in the inter War period I think that's where it where it comes from that's it yeah gangsters government officials we're speaking about it in the context of World War II let's talk a bit about that uh the US Army at some point they make the decision they go from the revolver to the self-loading pistol when does that happen and why do they take that decision kind of early on in principle so that they have not not the final trials that will decide the new pistol but 1902 they they're conducting Trials of quantities of self-loading pistols they're looking at the luga they're looking at everything that's out the Browning pistols the notably the Colt 1902 designed by John Browning which is the ultimate ancestor with this thing they're not throwing the baby out with the bath water at that point they're still looking at the new the current revolvers from Colt and Smith and Wesson the traditional purveyors of of such weapons but they're already quite geared toward a self-loading pistol that's the Infantry the US Cavalry are very much we want our revolvers thank you very much and it takes those several years up to 1911 to kind of convince them that a a self- loating pistol is is the way forward and B that it's this and why do they uh think that this is the way forward I mean we've what we've got here next to it is the British Enfield uh revolver they're sticking to the revolver during the second world war what is it about the self-loading pistol that seems preferable it's always hard to disentangle straightforward answers to to these kind of questions but my strong impression um it's rapidity of accurate fire or potentially accurate fire pistols are notoriously or handguns generally are not notoriously accurate um but the big drawback of something like this you have that very long this is not bad to be fair that's quite a good what we call double action trigger pull but it's enough for my muscles to start quivering very slightly throwing off the shot and with a short barrel short sight radius as we call it the tiniest amount of movement translates to meters either side of your opponent whereas what the self loaders do all of them the Luger the The Savage and the cult they're the final three in the trial it means you have so you have to have it cocked ready to shoot otherwise it's not shooting at all one of my favorite things to annoy my wife with is that's not even cck it's not even going to go up but you so you have to have this ready to shoot you have to load your magazine chamber insert your magazine chamber around and then put apply the manual safety and then it has this other manual safety a passive safety if you like doesn't shoot unless you grip it so even with that off that's so once you've gone through all of that rigar roll and this is something the US Cavalry weren't keen on they thought the safety could be knocked off too easily when drawing it right um then you have a very light so much lighter doesn't shake as much and then it Cycles itself every time you know the energy stored in the cartridge Cycles to slide between shots and you can fire not only rapidly because you can shoot a revolver accurately if you just Spam that trigger really hard but you're getting that lightness of the trigger with that rapidity of fire for my money that's those are the main reasons yeah not not everyone is a wild west Gunslinger who's able to [ __ ] and fire the revolver really quickly so that makes it really easy for the uh for the US infantry to to fire quickly and accurately I I think that's it because there is only one round more than the typical revolver cylinder only seven rounds in this magazine MH having said that the early self loaders the US were looking at were in 38 before the whole caliber debate kicked off again MH and that did give you two extra rounds so in the in principle the self-loading pistol gives you a high capacity as well but how it boils down is you only get one more round but one more round could make all the difference if you find yourself in a gunfight with a pistol one more round is is actually really important absolutely fed into the Colt M1911 were 45 ACP bullet cartridges thicker in diameter and height to the 9 mm rounds that were used in other self-loading pistols at the time including the German luga and Soviet TT it is quite heavy I can imagine it's uh it it wants this is loaded it's it's a fairly weighty gun yeah the bullet weighs a fair bit it's it's 230 grains in in old money which is a substant of 15 gr I think time seven plus the weight of the case plus a bit more for the propellant and the and the primer All Things Considered it's going to weigh a little bit more than the service revolver that it's replacing but not not enough that most users are going to notice the difference and actually you have more weight up front which is arguably going to make you a little bit more accurate but then we really are into personal preference yeah and skill and innate ability with a pistol which a lot of people don't have absolutely and you talk about the the stopping power how does this weapon uh compare to the other self-loading pistols as I mentioned USSR uh Germany they've all got these these self loaders how does it compare to to uh them in terms of Firepower and how does it compare to the the Enfield and webble revolvers so Europe broadly sticks with that smaller caliber higher velocity principle for for pistols um the US was a bit off the pace there arguably but hey 45 ACP still has its Advocates and the longevity of this Weapon It's just absolutely insane introduced in 1911 and I mean the conflicts that it goes through and it's used in in its original form during the first world war in this form during the second world war I'm guessing Korea Cold War as well oh yeah Vietnam Vietnam crawling through tunnels with with a torch and one of these things yeah um and it yeah it's it's in use all the way through well 1985 is the nominal replacement right with the beretto M92 as the M9 so we're going we're throwing back again this time to the 1908 um luga round it's what the 9 mm is but with a high capacity so they getting 15 rounds now US Marine Force Recon in particular I think Maro as well are hanging on to they're keeping these things running with new parts off the shelf parts to keep them keep them going and in 2012 they buy a brand new 1911 under the designation M45 A1 the close combat pistol and it's this in desert color with a rail on the bottom for a light or a laser or both and it's like well the Marines are never going to give this thing up but then as of literally last year the final m45s were were withdrawn so not not a very long service life for the final 1911 but but overall you're looking at well over a 100 years it's it's had a good run uh and listen I'm excited Let's uh let's give it a go on the Range okay Jonathan we've come down to uh the firing point about 4 MERS away from the target ear Defenders on and uh we've got the CT aiming for the top Target semi-automatic seven rounds seven round magazine do your worst [Music] [Music] [Music] I'll tell you what that's not a bad start is it you're right on the money there not too bad uh I I don't get enough practice to do much better than that Hey listen that is I mean you've pretty much got all of them on the target there right on the bullseye yeah it's not honestly it's inherently pretty accurate we're we're pretty close um the only downside to the oldfashioned oneand yeah uh pistol hold is you're going to get a little bit weary with two pounds of pistol hanging off the end of your arm more so than if you had the the modern two-handed grip gives you a bit more a bit more stability and maybe a bit more I I might have been able to close it up a little bit with a modern two-handed grip but no one's really using that in combat there's a reason why the 1911 survived so long in the civilian world as a competition pistol because that straight back trigger very crisp short pull short reset it's great for for well great for military purposes police criminal purposes uh but for competition as well so that's partly why this thing has had the life that it has because that civilian competition and self-defense World feeds back into the military feeds back into the civilian and sustains it to the to the present day they're still being made they're still being shot they're still been carried despite only seven or eight rounds in the gun I can see why introduced just under a decade before the trusty cult was another loyal servant of the US Army a design based off of the German Mousa G 98 the Springfield would go on to be used by the military throughout both the first and second world wars Jonathan next weapon slightly bigger uh we have the Us Springfield rifle now bolt action does this get introduced a standard issue in the first world war prior to in fact so it's introduced as a service rifle in 1903 this is going to be the definitive US service bolt action rifle cribbing a lot from the German Mouser in fact which which is not a bad thing because that was the world standard bolt action in the 1890s and so it's introduced in 1903 which which means it's the deao service rifle of the US forces in the first world war problem there is they don't have enough so you end up with this two-tier system almost doesn't cause any any huge issues what you need is service rifles they both work much the same way and the other one is a British Rifle right and and fast forwarding into the the Second World War uh where is this used in the conflict who's who's receiving this is it the Marines or well this is the the problem with it's all very well inventing a new rifle or procuring new rifle but you've got to make enough to put in the hands of troops and so the standard version of this without this gobbins on the top here is still around you know if you're not necessarily Frontline US Army you might well still have a Springfield at the beginning of the war if you're US the US Marines who are not the poor relations in terms of combat experience and skill and the rest of it but sometimes the poor relations in the procurement side they've still got the standard infantry rifle version some of them almost throughout the war um but this particular variant here the A4 is a specific version for snipers and so this is issued only to the platoon sniper there's one sniper in every platoon and talk to me a little bit about this uh scope looks very different to the Scopes that we see nowadays like a very small diameter of the of the uh of the scope itself yeah so it's it's not as though Scopes that look a bit more like modern Scopes didn't exist this is the well this was not their first choice but the the other choice couldn't make enough of them right we end up with the Weaver uh this is the 330 this is a model 330 as it says on there yeah great big plate on there but it's very slender um and really it's don't think of it like a 12 power or 20 power modern sniper scope with the the classic shape of a of a scope it's really closer to a modern combat optic right okay so it's in fact even then it's only 2.75 times magnification right okay it's not even the four power of a German sniper scope which is only the same as a modern ACOG or or an elcan or something like that that's very interesting okay so they're not even getting a huge advantage in terms of what they can see it's a huge advantage over iron sights of course um and you get a bit more in the way of light Gathering when it's dusk or Dawn you can be out doing stuff that you couldn't do with iron sights you've got a single point of aim to worry about not two but yeah a lot of sniping was done just with iron sights with non sniper rifles by potentially non snipers and in the first world war an awful lot of sniping was done by the designated snipers with just iron sights cuz the Scopes were not always that great or that or that helpful you mentioned that the German uh snip Scopes tended to give you uh greater magnification does that not put these snipers at a great disadvantage if you're looking at your classic movie sniper Jewel absolutely um in reality you're going to play to your strengths and and rely on fieldcraft to get a bit closer or you're just going to take I mean bear in mind we're not necessarily going for you know T-Zone head shots every time we're going for probably Center Mass a bullet anywhere in the body is going to be a a problem so we just put it on safe that's the safety there that Wing device there so hand it over to you now over to me okay so keeping it pointing down the range all right now I always know to I want to be leaning in when I'm taking this shot always always leaning in always leaning in and when you're ready push up that Wing safety up and over the top till it's on the left okay ready yep and then you're ready to fire your first shot and then you go on and fire the remaining four at your leisure there it goes so just aiming just just below the Red Dot keeping that muzzle level that's it the bolt and action feels a lot smoother than the nfield actually oh controversial controversial opinion [Music] good one [Music] more pressure of the last round pressure of the last round I think it's also the goggles steaming up as well probably doesn't help it's a little bit warm today yeah okay so just hand that over to me there you go thank you yeah and that that's pretty good yeah I can't really see I'll take push up my uh goggles but uh you got a group of four and then that last one you you pulled off to the left a little bit rushing it if you're anything like me yeah little bit I think also once you fire the four rounds you start to feel the weight of the gun a little bit more the longer you're in the the standing position is is the least accurate good reason why it was you know prone is preferred really okay so they' most most soldiers if they could to get more can't want to take cover to be less of a Target and then to deliver more accurate fire despite its continued efficacy as a solid service rifle the Springfield was replaced before the beginning of the second world war with what many still deem to be the defining infantry weapon of the 20th century the M1 Garand was adopted by the US Army in 1936 as the first ever semi-automatic rifle to be used as a standard issue service weapon and was produced over 5 million times throughout the second world war Jonathan the M1 Garen arguably the most iconic weapon of the second world war the finest battle Implement ever devised according to General pattern right okay interesting well uh tell me a bit about the back story behind the introduction of this into the US Army so coming out of the first World War uh most Nations the Americans realized that some sort of self-loading rifle at some point was desirable so the Americans had a a series of well whole development Saga from the 1920s with one John canas Garand who's a Canadian joins the um the US Arsenal at Springfield the famous Springfield where the previous rifle came from and works on a in Earnest on a new rifle there's then a rival from pedison which is you know similar size and weight and everything but but it's pretty clear looking looking backwards it's pretty clear that this was this was going to win it just ticks all the boxes again we must mention that there are other nations the Germans with the G uh the USSR with the svts but the US are the first to introduce a semi-automatic uh rifle as standard issue correct yeah the F first in the world to adopt a self-loading rifle as a standard issue rifle um and of course it takes a few years to get them to get enough of them made but you you you certainly as far as Milestones go in the history of firearms this it's a significant one in the Second World War the British the Germans they're still using their their bolt actions how does this compare to the bolt action it just blows it out of the water completely like the difference between this and an automatic weapon fully automatic weapon is far less significant as far as actual combat use and certainly at the big on the bigger scale than the difference between a bolt action and this it's night and day um and that that scales all the from the user who's like having to work the Bol and guys got extremely slick at doing that you know famously the British expeditionary force in the first world war they're flicking that bolt back and forth and scoring hits but but that's the point you have to train around that limitation of manual operation this thing uses the the gas produced by firing the cartridge Taps it back Taps it off and drives a big big old piston to Reco and extract eject and rechamber as well as recocking the mechanism does all of that stuff for [Music] you we can't mention the M1 uh Garand without talking about the ammunition and that iconic ping sound it makes uh there's so many myths around it to do with the fact that the Germans you know they'd know when the when the US soldiers had to reload because they'd hear the Ping sound some people say they couldn't hear it um talk to me about that myth well there is the the clip now obviously the the basis of the myth is not the whole full clip flying out of the gun the the the theoretical problem is this so if I if I just right that's a rubber floor yeah it does make a fair bit of noise when it comes flying out of the gun is that a problem short answer no it's not a problem um so this develops as a sort of a meme of the period pre- internet meme um it may have its roots in one one or more guys who were in some sort of eily quiet one-on-one situation popping up and engaging each other and someone's gun went dry and ping and that enabled the enemy this is usually associated with the Pacific so the Japanese more so than the Germans but so we can't discount that from happening it may be the origin it may have been dreamed up in a pub somewhere yeah or bar um because it's just not that plausible it's it's if it ever happened it's not a realistic concern yeah for you as a soldier there's so much other noise going on people have done experiments uh Mike Burns over at bloke on the Range have a look at that he shows how even on a in a Range environment you can't really hear it when there's any amount of other noise going on this is a deadly deathly quiet room yeah that's just gone and talk to me uh just about the actual mechanism itself so what what happens with the once the uh the soldier has uh fired eight rounds how does it all work so we'll see this when we shoot the thing of course but um as as far as the operation goes you lock it open like this we won't do it with this but you just insert that clip of rounds there yeah and then either the bolt will send its own way forward or you assist it with the heel of your hand and that slams forward you put it on safe if you if you want to put it on safe which you would have to at the time um and then so to that means to shoot it all you have to do is put your finger in the trigger guard flick the safety out of the way you might argue that's not the best way to do a safety now but it was great then and you're straight into the uh into the firing and eight rounds as fast as you can pull the trigger with as much accuracy as you as a shooter can bring with an excellent set of sights and they're eminently adjustable as well for windage and for for elevation right soldiers love this thing an immensely popular rifle used right up until the height of the Cold War and sporadically Beyond it was time to find out for ourselves if the ganza claim was justified by taking it to the range okay Jonathan uh I'm excited for this one the M1 uh Garand uh we're going to fire one five round magazine and then we'll do eight afterwards but we're still going to hear the Ping for the five round we are yeah because obviously we fired five rounds after the other rifles so we're just going to do the same just to see what the results are and then we'll do the full eight rounds fantastic well go wild [Music] as satisfying a sound as you're ever going to hear I just had to hear it again this time I was given Jonathan permission not that he needed it to unload a full magazine as quickly as he could bottom Target [Music] that was how did that feel I don't know if I've actually fired a gar that fast before it's yeah you I felt like I was in good control but then the more you if you try and run the trigger you can get ahead of yourself quite easily and what You' always want to do is keep a good sight picture absolutely and not fire faster than your own limits as a marksman which I was starting to do toward the end and you realize you get through the round so quickly uh has it uh impacted on your accuracy it definitely has yeah it's like three three four times the size there it's just when if you're going that fast or faster if you have more skill than me it's you're putting lead between you and the enemy essentially or or keeping heads down you that's the real value of this in an American Squad you don't have access to that ready belt-fed Firepower you are your own suppressive fire with this thing and that's the thing it's it's it's your choice isn't it if you want to be really accurate you're not going to be firing at that rate if you're covering fire then you might want to pop them off a bit bit faster that's absolutely the value of rapid fire but you're still going to want it to be better aimed than I can do what a privilege that was to see that being fired from a weapon with an iconic sound to a firearm with an iconic look the blowback operated selective fire M1 Thompson submachine gun first burst onto the scene in 1918 the Thompson or Tommy Gun as it became known gain notoriety as it became synonymous with the gangsters of the inter War period men such as Al Capone and Bugsy seagull avoided by many nations for this reason the impressive performance of the Thompson led the US Army to adopt and use the weapon throughout the second world war so Jonathan when I think of the Thompson I'm imagining Al Capone's gangsters Valentine's Day with the drum magazines but of course this uh uh machine gun plays a really big role within the second world war for the US Army talk to me about the origins of submachine gun warfare and where this fits into that story this is this kind of does go all the way back to the origins of the submachine gun but the Americans didn't quite get there first the Germans did of course so right at the end of the war the only submachine gun that we know of to see actual combat or even substantial issue is the Bergman MP machine and pistola yeah um which is just another term for submachine gun the term submachine gun was invented for this thing and it's only slightly later in concept 1919 so um Colonel John Thompson decides he wants um same kind of um reasoning really one and one of the nicknames for this thing a trench broom so only got two names there submachine gun less than a machine gun less powerful than a machine gun but still automatic and trench broom which is kind of intuitive it's sweeping the trenches with automatic fire but yeah the design is not not as mature so 1919 all we have is prototypes and it's not when this thing is finally ready for the big time in 1921 with that big drum option available of course yeah there are no armed forces that want it you know peace dividend everyone's bankrupt as well so there's no market for what is quite a niche weapon incredible for the trenches of the first world war but very few planners are thinking we're going to go back to trench warfare ever again you mentioned gangsters and I dare say whether it's a British Commando or a US Marine in the Pacific or a US Army soldier they're going to think of them and they did think of themselves in that same way you've probably seen that photo of Churchill oh yeah of course not the criminal aspect of being a gangster but the coolness so they didn't didn't think of themselves as criminals but they they'd seen all the movies just like we have more of them probably yeah and so that that really did feed into the mindset and to the procurement in the sense that that's what stops the Brits from from acquiring a submachine gun until they really realize they need it because it they they literally call them gangster guns yeah so the individual soldiers were like yeah I feel feel good with this thing the the guys in charge of buying them were like that's not the done thing right so there's a bit of a taboo around it right uh there is in Britain the the Americans are much more forward thinking it's just that the requirements not there until they see the way the world is going in 1939 and of course joining in 1941 by which time this is the only credible option for them as well yeah but they they're able to ramp up production and equip but when it gets introduced into the US Army how does it differ from that sort of uh Tommy with a round drum magazine is that totally taken out of the equation you mostly see them with the this uh long magazine rather than the drum by by the mid to late War period yes so this one this is a thir so it it does stick out a little bit more yeah than the 20 which the logic originally from uh Auto ordinance and Colt who made these things was you either want a nice compact 20 rounder flush with the the grip here or you want that big Firepower option of a 50 or even a 100 round drum on there but it was found in you actual combat that a good old compromise is is 30 rounds and about 30 rounds is standard it was standard on the on the Bergman um when it when it was adapted to style of magazine as well it's it's The Sweet Spot It doesn't stick out too far but it gives you enough Firepower without having to reload because of course if this thing goes goes dry as it were you you're not going to get the magazine changed quickly enough potentially and how many of these are they producing and who within a unit is being able to use this when I think of this gun as apart from just the gangsters I think of's character and same Private Ryan he's the captain was it usually the officers who were given the submachine guns or did it depend not as such so the standard US Army issue weapon for an officer would would broadly be the M1 carbine okay um so the M1 carbine is is more prevalent um you you these were issued out on a sort of mission basis so if you could blag your squad a Thompson you would and you'd give that probably to the point man in a patrol or or whoever you think is best is that because they're more more expensive to produce I mean certainly early on you've got limitations in how many of these they can they can make but I don't think that's the the reason I think it's just that it's not seen it's seen as a specialist weapon we need to clear that pill box get private Jones out there with a with a Tommy Gun to clear it out not quite as simplistic as that of course but but Mission specific um and and they think that don't forget we have the M1 gar rifle which is a lot of Firepower it's carefully aimed shots at distance it's rapid aimed shots potentially from the hip yeah um so it's my my perception is they don't quite see the need to to issue these on mass okay more than it is cost in 1939 Tha magazine called the Thompson submachine gun the deadliest weapon pound-for-pound ever devised by man but I wanted to find out just how accurate a statement this was when considering its Effectiveness throughout the second world war how does it perform on the battlefield it's kind of in the middle of the field when it comes to rate of fire albeit most of them are much lower so most of them are 5 to 600 rounds per minute um the the Soviet papaa is uh well upwards of 12200 um this thing is about 900 so C in its M1 or M1 A1 configuration it's it's about 900 rounds per minute which is pretty fast so you've got probably let's say 30 rounds 20 20 or 30 rounds and if you've got the if you've got the drum 50 rounds at 900 rounds per minute or 45 AC pistol ammo certainly going to make you feel like you're having an effect and it's probably going to make the guy in front of you feel like you're having an effect as well so it certainly has the um the soldiers think it's great and I think they're mostly right as well the only complaint is likely to be the weight right yes and I remember you know i' fired one of these before it did you do feel it like you say you really do it's a lot of metal yes it's it's oldfashioned so this this looks quite rugged and militarized and it is the rugged militarized form of the weapon um versus the 1928 model which is beautiful blued steel and Polished Walnut this is a bit more Rough and Ready we've got rid of the the fins on the barrel which which brings the weight back up a little bit U we've simplified the bolt mechanism and moved the cocking handle to this side but it still performs pretty similarly you just can't you can no longer fit the drum to it with this with this model CU they're just not buying them anymore and I mention performance because at some point in the war they make the decision to move away from the these and they start producing the grease gun yes when does that transition start happening and why 1943 middle of the war well middle of the war in in the bigger picture they realized that these really are too expensive to to produce it's not so not even so much the expense it's the the time taken to make each one um but that is tied to cost and so um the the Americans do something similar to what the British have done with the stenard you know something made out of sheet metal and well in case the St tubes and Sheet Metal um which is inherently cheaper if as long as you've built the factories and tooling to do that it becomes you know you can you can knock them out in a lot less time at a lot less cost the cost matters in terms of the resources you're using more than it does the unit cost because you know it's a Magic Money Tree in Wartime to some extent um so but they want the cartridge they want to keep the 45 ACP cartridge partly because they have a load of it already and they're making more all the time and and why change it and it has that perceived stopping power relative to say 9 mm but you don't need you can make something a bit lighter a lot cheaper a lot quicker to make may not look as cool it may not be that gangster gun from from the 30s but of course yeah that that's the way that's the way they go with the with the grease gun so these these see service all the way through the war just about everywhere um and and they'll be jealously guarded and retained by the soldiers that have them because they love them but it's the the grease gun becomes the standard submachine gun by the end of the war well I love it uh and I want to see it fire so uh enough chitchat let's go and aim at some targets with it iconic weapon M1 Thompson off you go whenever you're ready great so to start with we're going to show that it's semi-auto it can it has that functionality and then we'll go to burst fire y see I just fired on the bottom left dot there I'm in very close range but capable of a certain amount of accuracy so we'll now go to full auto do a series of short first yeah it's a heavy it's a heavy old gun but the sort of ergonomics of it the geometry of it the the butt plate is much lower than the gun itself yeah so you do have to kind of anticipate you can see it was wanting to rise this is why they developed the cups compensator that's on a lot of especially the you the gangster era Thompsons and actually on the m1928 as well um to put uh muzzle gases upwards to help bring the muzzle down and that's why because it levers itself up in your shoulder obviously if you've got some muscle yeah that helps well did how did do and obviously those 45 rounds clearly give it more of a kick yeah to to an extent you're putting more mass that way in a rapid string so I me that's basically why it has that much recoil despite being a big old heavy 10B Beast uh so yeah 9 mil is going to be more controllable but it's still you with a bit of practice I mean that's not too bad for what 3 M 4 MERS away they're all on the paper I can't I can't do better than that for you can't complain well uh let's see how you fair uh firing off this thing as quickly as possible let see if I can do [Music] holy moly yeah well I have the advantage of being extremely close up and even then we have got a couple ones clipping the edge of the paper one is off the paper you're the problem with firing automatic with anything especially something like this is it's going to sh break your vision yes and it makes it harder to control and then the rest of it is muscle and technique and so you're almost like not looking down the sights anymore you're just trying to keep it in the same rough position it's not destroying your vision it's just making it harder to maintain that sight alignment side picture it's more of a general guideline yeah fine at this range you see why you would go for short burst as a rule because they enable they give you the best of both worlds more rounds but with a bit more Precision than empty and of course if you empty your weapon you've then got to perform a Reload and that could be problematic that's true you you went full Captain Miller there um but what struck me was not only the rate of fire it's a lot quicker than uh I expected actually in person uh but also the fact how quickly you went through those those rounds it doesn't take long it's what good five or so seconds absolutely yeah this is you know people talk about it being a slower rate of fire than the earlier Thompson and it is slower but it's not slow no it's still about 900 rounds per minute it's it's yeah but you have the weight of the weapon to help you yeah and I can't even imagine that was it went quickly with a 30 round magazine I can't even imagine with a 20 round round magazine absolutely yeah I would like the forgrip I want the vertical forgrip of the 1928 or the 21 model ideally but they didn't have that luxury jonan that was a lot lot of fun uh what was the standout weapon for you having shot them well I I suppose I should I should say um any any fun experienced was strictly coincidental this is this is a research exercise that we're engaged in here but no it obviously is um quite fun uh remembering of course what they're for what they were used for uh it's it's difficult um you know the the the Garand is is legendary I I rarely get to shoot one of those so you know eight rounds in a ping from that is always icon a treat [Music] I probably did the best job with the 1911 and that's also iconic so let's go with that yeah well put it this way if you're a US Soldier entering battle what do you want to be equipped with do you want the submachine gun obviously it depends but that's a different question isn't it yeah if you got a choice I mean my my bet would would be the M1 grand having seen it used it does everything you need it to do and it's it's reliable uh and you know it's it's the best of all worlds I think yeah as much as I'm enjoy pistols um they're not that significant like if you're having to use a pistol to fight with something has gone wrong almost by definition the submachine gun is is fantastic but it's limited to that you know 100 m you can annoy people at 200 maybe attack a group of of the enemy with it but that's not really what it's for so yeah I would I would tend to swing around and agree with you and this is The Benchmark for one of the two species of of infantry rifles after the war yeah but this is it's so good like if if we're limiting ourselves to the 1940s and I only have to pick one weapon I agree with you you're going to go for the the M1 grand I think so there's a weapon in its own right in its in its period it's fantastic well uh it's Absolut pleasure of watching you fire these weapons and and firing the bolt action myself an M1 grand experience overall had to get there in there thanks for watching this video on the history Hit YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our 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Channel: History Hit

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Id: 9jLBci3g2aE

Length: 44min 55sec (2695 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2024