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I would love to see a video on why the Owen gun was never modernized & ditched! Australian military choices just don't make any sense sometimes, aside from personalizing the AUG.
I thought I had all the scents, since I bought about 20 different soaps last year, but I see in your sponsoring ad that there are new scents. I am opening their page as I type this, man, they even have a Star Wars soap collection. Damn you Kappy, you and your propaganda!
@@Taskandpurpose The thompson was still running around cities in 2000. I was participating in a top cop shooting competition in 2000. We had officers and corrections officers from 3 states at Fort Rucker that year. After the pistol portion while we were waiting on the scores. We were comparing some road gear and my para ordnance lda was being passed around and people were getting familiar with it. One of the guys broke out a case of 45 acp and said since i was nice enough to allow people to fire my pistol he would donate the ammo. Not to be outdone a deputy sheriff went to his patrol vehicle and pulled a thompson out of the trunk. His department had bought them because the sheriff had gotten a good deal on them. I have been surprised a few times over the years by what other departments had room for in their budgets but that one still amazes me to this day.
@@terrancechan6282 My dad fought from Normandy through France and into Germany and was wounded in Germany in April of 45. During which time he had used just about everything from both sides. I once heard him explain that during a battle he often ran out of ammo and had to pick up whatever was close. American or German, it didn't matter.
The Thomson submachine gun: aka The Annihilator 1, aka M1928A1, aka The Chicago Typewriter, aka The Heater, aka The Trench Broom, aka The Chicago Piano and aka The Tommy Gun. You'd think that a weapon with so many supercool nicknames would still be in service.
for real, such a beloved weapon and a beautiful piece of american engineering - but weirdly ditched instead of upgraded to the teeth like they did with every other system from the early 1900s
@@Taskandpurpose The only thing I can think of is that the M3 "Grease Gun" was lighter. It certainly wasn't more accurate than the Thompson. My understanding is that the M3 was discontinued for frontline units in 1957, but still issued to armored crews as late as the Gulf War in 91. Perhaps the Thompson and the M3 were rejected by special forces units for one reason or another, which is why the MP5 was picked up. Either way, the small and handy M4s seem to have been the preferred choice with its intermediate cartridge. I can't think of any submachine guns used by SF units or the Secret Service besides the MP5 and the P90.
@@MrHappy4870 the grease gun was less than a 3rd of the cost and half the weight. A loaded Thompson weighs more than a loaded m1 garand, and was still.more expensive that it too
@@cavemanbonk8320 True. During a war in which you are relying on conscription (the Draft) how many guns you make is more important than how good they are as long as they are "good enough". If you can make 100,000 grease guns for the same cost (and in less time) than 30,000 Thompsons a big government War Department will choose the grease gun.
One problem the Thompson had, was not just with the drums, but most Allies had gone to 9mm. However, it still soldiered on, well into the 1960s. John Thompson was an Ordinance officer. He not only worked to get the .45 ACP adopted, but also the 1911, the 1903 Springfield and other modem weapons, at that time.
Dad was in Navy 1962-1966. From 64 to 66 in Vietnam, he carried a Thompson Machine gun on his river boat. With a 1911 in a cross draw and a 1911 on his hip. It was the Navy, you carried what you wanted. He said Marines were always asking him to trade for their new M16. He said nope.
@@360entertainment2 Were they really deathtraps, or was the army just dumb enough to believe they never needed cleaning, ever? on a direct impingement system?
Fun fact: The SAS absolutely adored the Thompson. They sometimes even refused to part ways with it for the locally made Sten because they were impossible to carry long distance comfortably and were very fragile by comparison.
@@Gamerguy826 from all I heard Thomson was first of a kind so to say, when production techniques were not refined - that's primary price issue as I've heard(and quality of course)
@@FirstnameLastname-py3bc Not exactly. They had been in production since the 20s and they had plenty of time to refine the design (they got rid of the Cutts compensator, which were two blocks that slid against each other in the back of the chamber but they were deemed unnecessary as well as the foregrip and drum mag for streamlining) and wartime models were of great reliability because they had to be shipped long distance without breaking. That's why they were so reliable. They were expensive because the shipping costs were insane.
Actually it was dropped during WWII was it's cost. Even though the military stripped down the ribbed barrel, the foward pistol grip it was quite expensive, while the stamped construction M3 submachine gun cost $9.95 to buy . The M3 was more compact and better suited for tankers.
For many reasons. From a logistics standpoint it was way too expensive compared to the likes of the Sten and MP40. From an engineering standpoint it had no real advantage over the M3 apart from the M3's finnicky magazine design. From an infantry standpoint nobody in the squad wants to carry that heavy hunk of steel around. The M3 was cheaper, more controllable and much lighter, and the only sacrifices that were made was rate of fire and the magazine design issue. Nowadays only police use SMGs, most modern militaries have replaced them with carbines instead. Not only was the Thompson becoming obsolete as a SMG, but SMG in general was becoming an obsolete concept in warfare.
@@theimmortal4718 I'm sure you would want to have it in a firefight, but the life of a soldier is like 1% firefights and 90% walking and standing around. Same reason infantry always complains about having to carry light machine guns and weapon attachments like grenade launchers
But the Tommy Gun did get an upgrade. It got a 3-round underslung grenade-launcher, a digital ammo counter, and the 45 caliber ammo was swapped out in favour of 10-milimeter explosive-tipped caseless rounds. It became the M41A Pulse Rifle!
The M3 “Grease Gun” filled the same role for vehicles crew and infantry leaders and was cheaper to produce and more reliable. The Thompson was too heavy and mechanically complicated. Still iconic though.
Yeah.. my father was a radio man in the 4th Infantry during Korea.. assigned to Austria as part of the occupation Army after WW II... He only had great things to say about the M3.. Loved that it could get covered in mud and wiped off and still fire reliably. I was issued either the M16, Air Force version with no forward bolt assist.. , the M16/M-203 or the M60 belt fed machine gun, depending on what my position was on the duty roster that day.. Security Police, Security Specialist.. like todays Security Forces, light infantry to secure Air Force Bases, facilities.. Our combat training was conducted by Airmen who had graduated the Army Ranger school.. so the training was all light infantry, recon, hit and run ambush oriented. I was assigned the 90th Security Police Group, 90th Security Police Squadron in SAC, the 90th Strategic Missile Wing in Cheyenne Wyoming.. The arctic conditions in the winter never gave us any issues with the M16.. an upgraded version made in the late 70's, improved over the Vietnam first issued ones which had a lot of feeding issues and had to be kept absolutely pristine.. or it would foul.. But my issued M16 was great.. no feed problems at all... Of Course that was on the range.. Cold War.. there was no active war at the time.
It got cheaper to produce the Thompson but it was still more than twice the price in more favorable comparison. Most of its components are milled so it takes a mill and machinist to make each part and you have lost opportunities cost of them not making machines instead. The grease gun was stamped, the only component which was milled was the BCG. Everything else was mass manufactured in technique instead of 1 part by 1 part with skilled labor. The m3 had half the rate of fire which is arguably better too. To the army, it was no question which was the clear choice.
Figures I heard were that the Grease Gun was about $15 per copy (stamped metal parts made by GM's Guide-Lite division) and the Thompson SMG about $300 per copy.
My father joined the Army in April, 1942, right after his HS graduation. His 1st weapon was a Springfield 1903, a 30-06 caliber, bolt action weapon. By April 1945 he was a "Top Sgt", and carried a 1911 .45 pistol,( not a 1911 A-1,,,, a plain old 1911). He also said good things about the Garand, another 30'06. As you know, a semi-auto, en banc 'clip' feed 8 shot .30 caliber rifle round. He went to Korea as a 1st LT, and returned a Captain. There he ALWAYS had a.45 Thompson sub-machine gun. He said in over 32 years as an infantryman, the Thompson was his favored weapon. As a Lt. Col, Commanding a Battalion in the Big Red One., he was back to the 1911, only in the 1911A-1 model, and he had gotten his hands an old Thompson the French left, and he mounted it on his jeep in an Army-issue leather "holster" made for the Thompson. Too bad YT doesn't have a picture posting ability. I could show your followers what a Infantry Capt, holding a Thompson, with all his Kit, looked like in 1952. Me? After growing up in the Army as a "brat" , I opted to accept a Navy commission. In GTMO I carried a 1911A1, and a M-16, with the "triangle" forward hand grips and the 3 "pronged" flash suppressor, that did nothing but get caught in the bush. Had it been possible, I would have preferred my dad's old Thompson.
I once read of a US WWII vet who stated "for closing with the enemy, nothing could beat the Thompson" It was an excellent SMG. I prefer the M1928 version (1927a1 semi auto) because the actuator knob is on top, and I'm left handed.
My father was a dispatch rider with the Royal Canadian Signal Corp in WWII. The Thompson was a preferred weapon because it was a little easier to carry on the motorcycle because it was shorter. He used it mostly for house clearing operations and was very happy with its performance in close quarters. He did say the drum magazines were a pain to reload but the high capacity load made it easier and safer to clear rooms. The other thing which was important to him was the availability of the ammuniciation in large amounts. CQB takes a lot of ammo. The reliability was also important because you cannot afford to have frequent stoppages when you went up against well trained SS troops. I would just like to express my appreciation to the manufacturer, in my father's memory, for making the right weapon for that particularly difficult time in history.
Hi Cappy, i found your channel just before christmas last year, and I have nearly finished watching all your videos. Informative and I like your humor. Love from India.
Well since he doesnt do very good researches and has a bias for home made stuff;up to 30 to 70% of infos in his videos are false and/or bias So go do researches
@@Justadreamer29 Well gentleman, don't forget the 1st rule of the internet. "Don't feed the creature, that lives under the bridge". They're very common nowadays, some are even used as "bots" with script comments / answers. Example the IRA (Internet Research Agency) "agents".
I know about the too heavy part, and the magazine pouches, 5 mags in a pouch, slung over one of your shoulders, kinda on the heavy side, limited range, looks gungy, it was not. Automatic fire is not the be all, to end all, over rated. Semi-auto, aimed fire is much more effective.
The magazine 'well' or lack of was crap too. If you ever get to shoot one much, as soon as you get past the: 'this thing is Cool'. Change a few mags in a hurry and you're like this little slot is BS! The too heavy, too expensive and crappy magazine mounting thing! Other than that, it is pretty cool! Ya'll Take Care and be safe, John
After 4 years as a Marine, I changed careers but still wore a tan and green uniform. Later, I was issued an Ingram M10 but soon traded it for an M1 Thompson from the armory. I asked a US Army Ordinance unit to rebuild it and added a part to make the stock detachable. They loved the project. Much better. Less worry about were rounds ended up. I also quit getting complaints about using to much ammo for training. It was also great to use in training younger folk to fire with full auto. This was before red dot, lasers, among other attachments. I eventually went to an M16A1 to replace it due to longer range needs. Two things, when the public and suspects saw it, instant recognition and, although not as natural controls, it was/is a fun and effective shorter range weapon to use. I believe that with modern attachments, it would still be an improved effective weapon.Thanks for the memories.
Recoil? I mean, I never used a Thompson, as I am from Brazil and my country is very restrict about fire arms But Thompson having hight recoil? Almost every video and post I see someone talking about the Thompson says that the gun has little recoil because of its heavy weight
Per the late great Jeff Cooper, the trick in controlling the Thompson was BARELY holding the front stock and letting the weight of the weapon work against the muzzle climb. If you use any more upward hand pressure than to hold it level on target, the muzzle will climb, but if you don't, it wont.
My father-in-law was a platoon commander in the South Pacific in WWII and swore by the Thompson he carried. He said it saved his life (but never told me exactly how). He hated the Grease Gun.
The Pacific is hard to understand from the euro-perspective. On paper it's very small operations with much less people than the huge fronts and urban sieges of Europe. But then you look at the map, and find that all these imperial japanese troops, US marines, locals and japanese worker auxilia are crammed onto a little rock two kilometers across. And they're fighting on battlefields as small as a couple football fields.
I can't exactly explain why, but that Dr Squatch soap commercial is one of the best I've seen on UA-cam. I watched the whole thing and never even thought about skipping it.
"Bonus Facts" The Thompson was a great military arm, with a big flaw - the "Blish Principle" operating system. Blish theorized that the friction between two different types of metals in the action, would produce different levels of drag, and slow the bolt from opening until pressures had dropped to a safe level. So a brass falling block in the steel bolt system was supposed to be kind of the focal point of the operation. You can see it a little bit in the cutaway portion of the video. Welllll, it was a good theory - especially for the time, but it was just a theory. The reality was, it was the complex machining and design of the falling block itself, that made it function, not the types of metals involved. Later models would change the falling block to steel. Changing to a stamped receiver just wouldn't have worked with the Thompson design, and the M3 Grease Gun was just... better for the purpose. The M3 was still in service with the US Army until at least the late 1990s, with a few tanker and Bradley type units still carrying them. Something else to keep in mind - the difference between WWI and WWII was effectively the same time frame as us today, from 9/11... 20 years. Our military weapons today, are pretty much still the same makes and models as they were then. M4/249/240 - we've made some improvements with optics, sure - but the guns themselves are almost totally unchanged mechanically. Anyway, there's your "Forgotten Weapons Fan" bonus facts on the Thompson and Blish system. Stay safe out there!
@@TheDandyMann Correct, I think that started with the A1? - They got rid of the brass part, but still had to keep the falling block as part of the overall mechanism. And it was expensive to machine, even in steel. I owned a modern semiautomatic, and it is *easy* to see why the Grease Gun took over so easily. The Thompson isn't just heavy, it's a bitch to use, frankly. The stick mags are fumbly at best, and the the drum? Range toy. Just a nightmare to use. In comes the easy stamped steel M3 with easy stick mags - no contest. I traded it for an older Bronco, had more fun, and made a good profit on the Bronkey when I sold that. Civilian Thompsons are *not* worth the money. But... That 16" barrel sure could make the gophers pop! 😄
@@djcoopes7569 "The M4 (carbine M16) got upgraded to the M27 (piston operated M16) tho." Exactly my point. 😏 Same M16 gun, with half a century of in service development - in much the same way as the British SMLE got upgraded [eventually] - with all kinds of changes, to become the No 4. Mk II. And the British did that in only a 25-ish year time gap between WWI and WWII. The leap between Thompson and M3 was the stamping process, along with the whole host other metallurgic and engineering advances that happened in the early 20th century.
@@wallaroo1295 "Our military weapons today, are pretty much still the same makes and models as they were then. M4/249/240 - we've made some improvements with optics, sure - but the guns themselves are almost totally unchanged mechanically" The mechanical difference between the M4 and M17 is substantial. Also the Lee-Enfield got Upgraded to the Em-2 and FAL/SLR
One small correction: it was originally offered with the 20-round stick, 50-round drum, and the ridiculous 100-round drum...30-round sticks came during WWII after the gun was redesigned to no longer accept the drums.
My brother was on a ballistic missile sub in the late 60's and early 70's and he said they had 1911 pistols, 4 M1 Garands and 2 Thompson SMG's in their armory.
Giving the last-generation kit to security troops is tradition. There was home guard and government militia units and police troops in WW II armed with Great War weapons. Someone in a naval security role or watching a bridge as part of the home guard would probably not use their firearm but still needed to be armed with something. So they would get "castoffs" when frontline units were traded newly produced kit.
My Grandfather was involved in the early manufacture of the British Sten gun (toolmaker & production line layout at BSA). My father carried both Sten and Thompson during WW2 in Italy. Both agreed that the Thompson was a vastly superior weapon. But it was $200 (1939) to $70 (1942) per copy. The Sten was $11. Their verdict was that it's the difference between a Porche and a VB Beetle. You'd rather have a Porche, but a VW will still get you there and you can actually afford one.
Yeah, from a practical standpoint, the Thompson ain't really fit for an attritional war like WW2. It was really big and heavy, and cost much when making one. The M3 (the one that replaced it) did all the things the Tommy gun does at a fraction of the cost. Just like in Britain with their STENs, Soviets with PPS-43s, and even the Germans by 1945 with the MP 3008 (which is literally a STEN w/ a vertical mag) Personally tho, the gun really looks good and is fantastic in itself. And the fact that it has two distinct moral sides (one being the GI's weapon of freedom, one being the mafia's Chicago Typewriter) makes it really cool IMHO P.S. the first submachine gun is the Beretta M1918, nerds. Lol jk based on the definition, the MP 18 is the first-ever submachine gun, by principle. However, the first gun to be called an SMG is the Thompson, so there's that
@@flack3 yeah, that really what I'm talking about when it comes to war economies. Plus, any factory that utilizes steel made guns during WW2. You got these car and lighting producing M3s in the thousands at a shorter time, so the M3 really was better in the long run than Thompsons
Look, if we took it real...im pretty sure you could and most certainly could cut costs with the thompson, without sacrificing much of the performance. Deletus the wood, or at least leave the rear grip. Replace everything else with pipe and/or wire, and stamp out the steel(preferably also cut down the thickness on non essential pieces. Russians were genius in their one-size-fits-all 7.62 barrel because it cuts down costs greatly, but the US and the patents and the copyright and the corporate and the yada yada you get the picture just couldnt do that kind of standardization.. Lets face it, the m3 being better than the thompson was propaganda at the time. Just...no.
The IRA in northern Ireland made heavy use of the Thompson in the early 70's in the streets of Derry. It was highly regarded for its ability to suppress British Army patrols and was nicknamed "The big T" by the IRA.
True. They also used a lot of Armalite 180s and M16s. Then Browning Hi-powers and Colt 1911s for pistols. Check out the IRA song "My Little Armalite". Free Ireland 🇮🇪
And that was suppressing RUC officers in their homes,in front of their families.Luckily we had the SLR,which could spoil an IRA man's whole day and the two behind him
@@RolandtheThompsonGunner 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣don't forget the "tanks".....one!which was a engineer vehicle used to move barricades.I must admit PIRA had a good PR dept.It kept the money flowing in from the Plastic Paddies in 'Murca who kept the shitshow going.And what are the "heroes" doing now? Organised crime,drugs and protection rackets
Cappy, I skip every single ad that is humanly possible but you might be the only person I find to not care enough to skip ahead of the promotion. Under appreciated huge props for that man!
I remember there was a show called Sons of Guns where the owners actually transformed an original Thompson 1928 into a modern sun machine gun. Apparently a local sheriff had the Thompson in his collection and had always wanted it added to his swat armory but his “swat commander” had always told him no until it came back with a tactical finish.
Local SWAT units are rare here. It's hard to understand how often smaller communities need a paramilitary unit. They fly in the national unit or the closest metro/regional unit here.
Ironically, they later found that the Blish lock didn't really do anything. It was left off the M1 and M1A1. It would be interesting to redesign the Thompson to use steel stampings. You probably couldn't get nearly as cheap as the M3, but I would think you could bring the price way down. Steel stamping was widely used in the auto industry at the time but gunmakers were rooted in the idea that you take a block of metal and machine away everything that doesn''t look like a gun.
Gunmakers being rooted in traditional ideas were why others like Browning and Stoner were so significant. They simply did things differently and ended up changing the game forever. Hell, the Germans were convinced drilling a hole in a rifle's barrel for gas operation would negatively affect accuracy, until someone did it and proved otherwise.
Thomson was used by special detachments of Military Police in in the former Yugoslavian Peoples Army (JNA) until the late 80s., often side by side with H&K MP5.They were used in civil war in 90's and probably bunch of them are still stashed in some army depots in ex Yugoslavian republics.
There are some stashed in a lot more places than depots. I know a guy that drove his tank home and parked it in his garage. When you enter the Balkans, leave logic at the door.
Heard the same elsewhere - complicated, expensive, heavy weapon. Lots of fussy, close tolerance machined parts. Whereas the Sten gun had 2 machined parts - the rest was made of stamped and welded bits.
@@agwhitaker the Sten was junk compared to the Thompson but the M3 Grease gun was awesome. But the Quality of the Thompson was never matched at the time except by the MP 40. This reflects in the current values of each of these weapons.
This was the first auto weapon I fired. I learned 3 round burst firing this weapon. It’s very heavy, very short range capable, and too expensive to manufacture. But I loved it nevertheless. I’d like you to do a story on the Johnson Rifle.
My father fought in Sicily, Italy, and Holland. As part of the British 8th Army, he was issued a Thompson from they British division they were replacing. It was not popular with the Canadians who found it too awkward and heavy in close combat. The US 82nd Airborne had the new M3 " Grease Gun " and they would gladly trade their shiny new M3's for the Canadian's old 8th Army Thompson's.
With the arrival, and relatively widespread use of 300 blackout, pistol caliber carbines have largely been made obsolete. The 220gr subsonic loads hit similarly to a .45, but have better ballistics, and can also Penetrate level 2 armor. Meanwhile the 125gr has similar ballistics to 7.62x39. All of this in a package similar in size to an MP5
MP5s, Uzis, MACs, both Skorpions, and so many other SMGs are fading away in favor of carbines. Kinda sucks because these have been such cool weapons but now they're relegated to smaller, more niche roles because of the few advantages they have.
@LOAN NGUYEN I wouldn't say that they are still popular.... I would say that they are still utilized by certain departments and government entities.... Generally larger entities that have SWAT teams or SRT's. The majority of law enforcement officers prefer AR's or M4s. The .40 was adopted and accepted by law enforcement because it had better penetration than modern (at the time) 9 mm whenever it came to car doors or other obstacles. So over penetration isn't very high on the list.... Considering that a 5.56(or .223) doesn't overpenetrate horribly.
You forgot that the first users of the Thompson was the I.R.A., during the Irish War of Independence,1919-1921. when Michael Collins' two bodyguards carried them. A large portion of the cost of developing the weapon was from IRA funds raised in America. Consequently the first conventional military force to use the Thompson was the Army of the new Irish Free State, during the Irish Civil War of 1922. The Thompsons used in these conflicts had drum magazines. Subsequently, the box magazine version war used by the Special Detective Unit, the only armed element, (responsible for political policing), of the newly formed police of the Free State, the Garda Siochana.
An interesting side note is that the 1923 Thompson featured a 14” barrel and was chambered in the .45 Remington-Thompson, which lobbed a 250 grain bullet at about 440MS, making it perhaps the most powerful SMG ever developed. While the cartridge is now defunct, if anyone wished to approximate such performance you can still have .460 Rowland in specially converted .45ACP pistols.
The "Blish system" of using dissimilar metals to act as a delaying mechanism turns out to be not really a thing. To the point that the later military Thompson's did away with it entirely. It also wasn't entirely replaced with the adoption of the M3. Thompsons served into and through the Vietnam conflict.
The Thompson was the second weapon I had, after the M1 Garand, during my training in the Greek Army back in 1984, when I also fired the BAR. It had the reputation of being a Sergeant's eye poker, because of a supposed tendency of the recoil spring, popping out of the gun during field stripping by a careless NCO (I never had a problem like that, even though I deliberately tried to test the claim of the recoil spring popping out). At the time we were using the M1, the BAR and the Thompson during basic training, since they were considered to be more resilient to recruit treatment, than the G3s that were the operational rifles issued to front line formations.
Probably a situation of just because it can happen doesn’t mean it will always happen. All it really takes is the right few people to experience the issue, and suddenly now it’s a “common issue”
When I was a kid (late 70s), there was an iconic water gun roughly designed after the thomson (Ideal 3000) - it was like the nerve of its time with a watering range of about 30ft. It was the standard gun for every cool kid dressing up as a soldier or pirat in karneval (SW-Germany) for more than two decades. As a 10 year old you couldn‘t be more bada** than with that thing.
Had a chance to play with one at the range back in 86' (was in the USMC at the time) and absolutely loved the Tommy. Yes it was a wee bit heavy, but unlike almost all such weapons, it had very little kick or pull. It was one of the easiest weapons to handle in a practical sense and simply would not break.
I recently talked to a Korean War vet at the hospital I work at. He told me among other things that one of the guys in his unit picked up a Thompson off of a dead Chinese soldier after a firefight once. He said that he carried it once on patrol, but never fired any shots in anger with it.
Yeah the Communist Army captured many Nationalist Thompson SMGs after their victory during the 1949 Chinese civil war. They were a favorite of the Chinese as well
@@ryanbales8116 Yeah America was the military factory of the entire world against the Axis. The British, Russians and the Chinese were the key benefactors of many US supplied weapons and ammunition. You will find that M3 Stuart light tanks were supplied to the Nationalist Chinese forces during their Sino Japanese war (1937-45). M4 Shermans numbering in the hundreds were made available to their forces in Burma. M1 Carbines, Bazookas, M1917s and M1919A6s were supplied as well to certain Chinese units. The Thompson was imported since 1921 and they even have factories building them in the thousands up until the end of the war with the Japanese.
My grandfather bought the semi automatic version of the Tommy gun just before he died. Very fun to shoot and the recoil is practically non existent just from the sheer weight of the rifle. The only real pain is the drum mags if you aren’t careful and close the bolt on an empty drum you can’t remove it without a special tool.
You totally skip over how the "blish" concept was imaginary physics that doesn't work, and the entire blish part of the operating mechanism (shown in the cutaway animation) was completely deleted for the ww2 versions. Also the m3 came along and blew production cost out of the water for the Thompson.
@@TheNerdForAllSeasons I happen to own both an M3 and A 1928 Thompson and the M3 is not trash by any means. It’s very reliable, very controllable and costs much less to manufacture than the Thompson. If it was “compleat trash” the US military wouldn’t have kept it in the arsenal until the late 1990’s as a tanker weapon.
My dad was in ther 77th div and carried one in in the Pacific. he spoke highly of it. said it was a great brush gun to have in your in your hand at the time of attacks. he returned home so I am thanking Mr Thompson.
My uncle Clifford was a First Sargent in the 90th infantry division. General Patton always took the 90th with him where ever he went. In the winter of 1944 when him and the Lt. Broke into German bunker and pointed their Tommy guns at the Germans they were so afraid of the Thompson they surrendered automatically when the Tommy gun was pointed at them. Then with a twinkle in his eye my uncle finished with. The jokes on them. It was so cold our Thompson's were frozen and wouldn't fire anyway. 😂 My uncle Clifford was one of a handful of men to survive the whole war. He was in the hospital with the flu for Dday. He said he would have died that day. ❤
to each his own but I would NEVER use mine (yes I have one) against an intruder. Too heavy. I think a good old pistol (my browning hi-power 9mm with quality HP ammo) is best indoors or worst case, a shotgun with buck, best home defense ever devised. All this stuff about multiple people attacking a home requiring an assault rifle to fend them off is hollywood movie nonsense, IMHO. I think my Thompson is good and useful for fun with paper targets and that's it. Defending your family in your own home which you know well with your semiauto pistol, I bet you'd be surprised how many gang bangers would get put down in 10 seconds before they retreat if the DID (highly unlikely) all decide to storm your home. Enough lecture. :)
my uncle used a Tomson in ww2 but didn't like it because of how "light and small" it was so instead used a bar like a rifle when he went on scouting missions. we believe that 8:57 is a photo of him during the battle of Okinawa
It was replaced by the cheaper and more lightweight M3, which in turn was replaced by the M16. The Thompson was still used by Special Forces in some instances in Vietnam, though, and by some law enforcement agencies all the way up into the 1970s, so not a bad run, in terms of service life. Also, the vocalist for heavy rock band Cactus, Rusty Day, was killed with a Thompson during an (alleged) drug deal gone bad in 1982.
My grandfathers learned with these and the Mauser in officers school before the Belgian army adopted the FAL in the 50s. I remember a story that you had to watch out when stripping and cleaning a Tommy gun because the spring was so strong it could injure someone if it flew across the room!
Dad was put in charge of a gun squad and promoted to a Sargent. He was given a Thompson. After there shots he gave it away.Many he said felt it was a security weapon . It wasn't. Dad said many were found dead after spending all their rounds or jammed . They just couldn't just let it go . 😎
The gun would fun to shoot but the weapon is heavy and the ammo is short range and also heavy. That said, it would be good for short range stuff for sure. It looks like it does not climb much looking your test firing clips. At any rate, it did work well in WWII! Good one Chap!
The first sub gun was neither the thompson or the mp18. It was the italian villar perosa and was designed for aircraft use, later adapted to infantry use
The M1 carbine was useful but the M2 was very uncontrollable compared to the Thompson. I’ve owned both. And the M3 replaced the Thompson. The M1 was suppose to replace the 1911 for troops in the rear.
My father carried a Thompson in Burma as well as a 70lb radio set. Although it’s unverified he was busted down to Corporal for losing his Lee Enfield rifle and returning from crossing the Irrawaddy. Either way he ended up with the Thompson, I remember asking him when I was very young what it was like firing a Tommy gun and he went mad at me. “We weren’t bloody gangsters We were soldiers!” and then gave us a good clip round the earhole. Happy days
If you watch forgotten weapons firing all models of the Thompson, the earliest, the 1921 was the best handling and most accurate. The higher cyclic rate and weight combined with the foregrips and cutts compensator were properly tuned to the harmonics of recoil. WW1 where trench fighting was encountered was not a war of long marches, beach landings, and jungles. The weapon needed to be effectively accurate at longer ranges across no mans land even if only for area fire. Police use was similar. However, the lighter, simpler, 12ga pump shotgun also proved to be a very effective short range trench broom and close combat tool and were used by some units up through Vietnam at least. All the cost cutting measures and slowing the Thompson down screwed it up. The military M1A1 was a cut down war baby of necessity that sacrificed the superior points like accuracy and controllability it had and made it susceptible to the grease gun. That wasn't a complimentary name, it was coined in comparison to the finely made Thompson. Reducing its weight or making it out of less rigid stamped metal does not improve its performance. having the proper physical strength and stature was important to handling the full dress models. BAR soldiers and others were selected partially based on physical size and strength. But the M1A1 had to be issued to anybody with any level of experience for the limited time it may see combat before being a casualty of war lying in the mud or at the bottom of the ocean in a torpedoed cargo ship. The original design never was intended to be cheap, it was intended to be superior, convertable to different roles including a pistol. And it was to be long lasting, accurate, and especially useful at longer ranges than grease gun style systems and the originals were. It has been chambered for more powerful rounds. Like .38 super and 10mm. The first choice wasn't the .45 ACP, it was a special, longer, more powerfull .45 cartridge developed in league with Remington. However, the U.S. military did not want to stock a different caliber. Some were also made to use very hot steel jacketed .45 ACP rounds by the FBI to penetrate cars. However, the pistol caliber with large heavy slow bullets was safer in urban environments than full rifle rounds. Law enforcement also had specially trained "Thompson experts". In their hands the original designs weren't used just as a "pray and spray". The 100rd drums hold almost 5 pounds of lead! I think it would make a cool platform for the .460 Rowland! These points are opinions derived from my research and talking to many vets and some law enforcement people from 1920s and 1930s Chicago, I obtained them partially from working for years in nursing homes and with veterans groups. You will always find differing opinions based on varied conditions of use, it is not the same thing for someone to pick up a weapon for the first time without training to evauluate it as it is in the hands of someone who got to know it and lived with it. I apologize for any technical inaccuracies.
The M1 Thomson was really popular with the guys in the field, but the Brass liked the M3 Grease gun. The M3 was much cheaper to produce, being stamped steel, and was a simpler weapon. The Brass liked those facts and sought to replace the M1 with the M3 during the war. But the M1 was still really popular and many guys tried hard to get their hands on it.
@@jantschierschky3461 nobody’s adopted the MP5 system either but it’s by far the best subgun ever made. The MP 18 may have been first by a few years but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Thompson or the Grease gun which I own both.
Richard here). We had Thompsons on board the LST I served on in Vietnam. Qualifying to use it as a boat officer was shooting fly fish off of the bow while underway. I found it to be a rather easy shooting weapon given my 155 lb frame at the time. We only had the 30 round mag. GunnersMates carried the Thompson while on anti-swimmer watch when at anchor. There were none on my second ship in Vietnam, an LSMR (Medium Landing Ship Rocket).
Excellent recap of the Thompson. However, it's kind of hard to speak of the history without mentioning the attack on the WXXY complex, where Sergeant Harrison C. Summers, armed with a Thompson, nearly single-handedly (single at first, then later joined by two other soldiers), cleared out a series of barracks, housing over 100 German soldiers, in preparation for the D-Day assault.
Absolutely love the venerable “Tommy” gun! Would love to see this brought back in 10mm. Regardless, no one can deny the iconic place, along with the proven military history of its effectiveness in the field. 👍🏻🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸👍🏻
Actually , the expense to build the Thompson even after revisions were way to much , so meet the grease gun it costs pennies to the dollar to build compared to the Thompson and serves the same exact purpose . Never think the military has any greater decision making variable other than cost.
To compare, they were arming government militia units and security troops in Europe with old Great War surplus. Partisan troops, police units, home guard units could all show up with wonky castoffs.
It was reliable at least my M2 was, but in full auto the Thompson was way more controllable than the M2. The Grease gun was far more controllable than the M2 and the Thompson. I’ve owned all three. I sold the M2. The ammo is hard to come by and expensive and I never thought the weapon was very practical in full auto.
@@nipplecream3099 yes 20 round mags in the M1 and M2 were very reliable. I couldn’t get any 30 round ones to be reliable. That was one of the reasons I sold it.
Hey, Clyde Barrow used a sawed off BAR! They should try chambering this in 10mm. Then they can combine two white elephants into one gun! 10mm is a damsite better than the 9mm anyway.
I was a Gunners Mate on the Hawkins DD-873 in the early 70s. We still had Thompsons, M-1, M-1 carbines, BARS still on-board. I got to play with them all.
I had a chance to fire several magazines from a Thompson. I found the weapon to be badly balanced. Even though it is heavy, too much of that weight is in the receiver, so keeping it on target on full auto is much harder than for other weapons I have tried.
The main reason is the stock design. The bolt system is above the stock, so the path of the recoil isn’t going directly into the stock and into your shoulder. This causes the gun to rise up more than if it had an inline stock
The time send you have in your hand with the forward grip is the original Thompson that has a higher cyclic rate of fire however that was designed for the drum magazines as the receiver is flanged to accommodate drums the military version you straight box mags remove the forward grip and heat sink internals replaced with a much simpler design to machine if you open them up you can see all the tool marks as they made them as fast as they could the original had a removable stock and forward grip as well I've held both the Thompson versions as well as Nazi smgs I would take this into battle any day of the week over the MP40 this is a milled block but not nearly as heavy as the stamped metal MP40 with its little baby 9 mil round 45 is a slow but powerful man stopper the fire rate was reduced for the military version to avoid consumption
@@Taskandpurpose The original batch of 15,000 TSMG (Model 1921) were manufactured by Colt at Hartford, Connecticut. It took Auto Ordnance from then until 1940 to sell them. With the WW2 contracts, Auto Ordnance (then owned by investor Russell MacGuire) contracted production to Savage Arms before opening a factory of their own at Bridgeport in 1941 to assist with production.
Only about 500,000 were built by Auto Ordnance at Bridgeport. Most were built by Savage Arms, the original 15,000 Model of 1921 Thompson's had been built by Colt.
10:05 When the US sold Thompsons to the British for a subgun offering, the price, weight, manufacturing time, and stigma as a "mobster gun" became an issue so great they created the Sten subgun. Yes it was garbage for a subgun, but it was way cheaper and easier to produce.
The more pragmatic reason was the supply couldn't keep up. The British needed to re-equip the BEF and their own growing forces and then when the US joined that supply was even more restricted as the US started growing their own forces.
@@purplefood1 Yep, this is the actual reason. The supply was too small, and the British feared getting cut off from further US weapons by the German Navy so they "improvised" a home solution.
I own a 1928 Bridgeport Thompson. Such a blast to shoot. Heavy but very controllable. 45 ACP hits hard and the weapon is very well made. Being class three they only go up in value every year. My advise to somebody wanting to get into class three weapons is buy what you can afford the bottom end of the market now is about $7K to $8K and before you know it the bottom end will be $10K. It’s and investment you can have fun with.
The 1921 Thompson with a type C 100 round snail drum makes an excellent home defense weapon. They are fully automatic have a 900 rounds per minute rate of fire and cost $40,000 to $100,000. The drums run about $2000 each. And, you have to pay $200 for the permit.
Yes my understanding is that Gen.Thomosons Co Auto Ordnance was sold to fellow ucalled Ryan.? who made all the money out of it...The gun wasnt designed by the Gen.but by employees of the Co. and named after him as he was then owner....Sorry you didnt get any royalties..but few gun designers did..Our Evelyn Owen got little and then was taxed on what he got..
The company had been sold to Russell McGuire in 1939. The original run of 15,000 Colt built Thompson Submachine Guns (Model of 1921) had taken most of that time to sell as they were too late for WW1, expensive, heavy, and obsolete in design by the 1930s. The only reason they re entered production for WW2 is that there was no practical American made replacement for them until late 1942.
During WWII, before he enlisted in the Navy at 18 and after he graduated from high school, my father worked for the FBI at the D.C. Headquarters. When not attending to his other duties, Dad was allowed to give tours of the FBI Headquarters in the Justice Department Building. I asked about the Thompson sub-machine gun demonstration that was part of the tour when I went on it as a kid in the 1950s. He had done that demonstration too. His training for this consisted of an agent picking us the weapon, chambering it, handing it to my father and saying, “Lean into it, that way,” indicating the target downrange. Dad said he was surprised it had very little recoil. One of the easiest weapons he ever fired.
It was a fantastic weapon for the time however unlike full scale war compared to crime fighting, all it boils down to is cost, where places like England were buying them in the billions, unfortunately the cost of both producing, shipping and possible sinking, the cost wasn’t worth it since compared to buying say a m3 grease gun or sten mk2
There were never anywhere near a billion Thompson Submachine Guns. Well under two million had been produced between 1921 and 1943 when they were discontinued.
Lots of reasons why it was dropped, other than being extremely heavy for an SMG, it also rattled alot, was clumsy to use inside buildings (long uncollapsable stock), lacked penetrating power and its low MV & and thus extremely curved trajectory, gave it a comparatively short effective range compared to other SMGs of the time. Like the BAR, it was basically outdated the day WW2 started.
@@flyingtigers7856 It was extremely heavy for what it provided, low capacity, had a very poor bipod setup and thin barrel with no quick change feature etc.. In short it was extremely limited in the very role it was supposed to fulfill, i.e. providing sustained fire.
@@flyingtigers7856 BAR wasn't really fit to be an LMG, hence the name BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). Other allies by that time already had better LMGs like the BREN and DP-28, it's just a matter of what the US can produce (and has in its storage) at that time, that's why the BAR was widely issued.
@@bellator11 I had never heard the BAR referred to as outdated at the beginning of WW2 before, but it makes sense. I always thought it odd that such a large automatic weapon would only have a 20 round magazine. For WW1 it was probably just what the doctor ordered, a light machine gun able to be carried and operated by one man, when the MG's of the day were fixed and crew served. As you say, by WW2 the world had moved on. Thanks for your reply.
@@flyingtigers7856 Yes that's exactly right. It was state of the art during WW1, but ultimately a dead end, and by WW2 it had long been outdated. Thankfully for the US, their std. issue rifle, the M1 Garand, was excellent, lessening the impact of lacking an effective LMG.
For most of its service life it was one of the most expensive smg available. They trimmed some bells and whistles off the 1928 to make the m1a1 but still very expensive, high recoil and if you have ever held one, it’s not really comfortable or ergonomic. That said , it’s still a spectacularly beautiful weapon
Shot the Thompson quite a bit. Stating in CUBA in the middle to late 1950, during the Revolution; then in LA, CA. in 1960’s with friends from “Pachmayr Gun Works”. To later shoot it again with Engineer’s from Speer-CCI Lewiston, Idaho. Lots of fun! Very effective weapon! No complaints…
When my Great Grandfather, Grand Father and Great Uncles returned from the Pacific War, they brought back stuff like: Colt 45's, Thompson Sub machine guns, Rifles, and Katanas. They left it all in the Philippines for a while. Then one day all these stuff start showing up. One of my carry is a Colt .45 1911 from WW2. The Thompsons are still in the Phil due to being full auto.
Just finished watching this segment on "Why the Thompson SMG was Ditched" and enjoyed it very much. Also, you convinced me to subscribe (finally). I took a special interest in this segment because I had written an encyclopedia article on the "Tommy Gun" just about 20 years ago ("Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law.") I'm an historian of technology, but not with any specialized interest in weapons. My interests run more to the cultural and economic history of technology. With that in mind, I have just two comments on your presentation for the Thompson SMG. First, you give the impression that the development of the Thompson was a government project -- not so. Thompson was something of a maverick in his passion for giving the infantry more firepower. That passion went back at least as far as his involvement in arms production for the Spanish American War and it played a real part in his support for the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol with its APC .45 calibre ammunition. In 1915, Thompson resigned his Army commission in frustration to take up development of his "gun" full time. With that, he created the Auto-Ordinance Company. Until the coming of World War II, Auto-Ordnance was never more than a shell for Thompson and a small staff of engineers. With the US declaration of war in 1917, Thompson re-entered the Army and left the gun project with the small staff of engineers. For the initial production run in 1921, that contract was with Colt. Auto-Ordnace itself remained a shell company until the eve of World War II. The Colt run of 1921 had produced the mechanisms for 15,000 guns As late as 1939, Auto-Ordinance still held enough of the Colt inventory to produce at least 4,000 units. For much of the 1920s and 30s, Auto-Ordnance had no full-time employees. The second point that bears mentioning involves the Tommy-gun's reputation. Besides the gangsters in the 20s and 30s, the Tommy gun found itself smeared for how often its guns were found in the hands of the Irish Republican Army. In fact, the IRA was known for its use Thompsons across the entire 20th century. The full extend of the linkages have never been explained clearly. Many assume that the connection was made by through Thomas Fortune Ryan, the tobacco magnate who was the silent partner whose financial backing carried Austo-Ordnance through the 1920s and 30s.
My grandfather, a chief selectman (mayor), full-time city editor at a major newspaper and sworn reserve LEO, kept a 28A1 in his car everywhere he traveled in the Boston metro area, from the late 40's through the mid-60's.
One of my local gun stores had a new, semi-auto Thompson in their rental fleet for the indoor range. They could never fire whole magazine out of it because it ALWAYS broke. The firing pin is especially prone to breakage. They sent it back and did not request a replacement.
in 1965 the senior corpsmen said that the Tompson was by far the best weapon for close encounters. They said that when a Thompson open up, those on the other end took cover. Phu Bia Marine base, 3rd Battalion, 4th Reg. 3rd Mar Div.
I'm big into gaming. Anytime I see this as an option, I use it. I don't care about it's stats, or if the setting is year 2277, I'm using the Thompson. Or the Garand. Or an ol' fashioned double-barrel shotgun, _not_ sawed off. For anyone who plays Borderlands, you know who my favorite gun manufacturer is.
I was told by high school buddies who joined the Coast Guard in the mid 1970's that the Thompson Sub Machine gun was still being used on board some cutters. They said the reason the Thompson was phased out by the other branches of service (and shortly thereafter by the CG) was the difficulty in stopping the Thompson from climbing as it was fired. The very basic muzzle brake that directed some exhaust gas upwards was totally ineffective. The bolt action design caused the gun to jump up as it was fired in longer bursts. Perhaps this is why it was deemed inaccurate?
The Thompson was originally designed to use the longer intermediate .45 Remington- Thompson cartridge before settling on the .45 ACP. The pre-war models were more complex and expensive. The Blish lock supposedly regulated the rate of fire and the distinctive Cutts compensator reduced recoil. It came with a 20-round "XX" box magazine, a 50-round "L" drum magazine, or a 100-round "C" drum magazine (Roman numerals were used to designate the magazine's capacity). The M1 model removed the Blish lock and Cutts compensator. (Anzac soldiers in North Africa used to remove the Blish Lock and replace it with a simple nut and bolt with no ill effect). The 30-round magazine became standard issue after 1943; it is not interchangeable with the M3 "grease gun" SMG.
Dear old dad used a Thompson in the jungles of the Philippines, French Indochina (yes, before the split up/later in Laos), South America and parachuting deep inside Communist China a few times during the Korean War. Old school. Don't worry, he was a civilian in special gurilla units. When not a Thompson he used the pump action 870 Remington shotgun. Weapons changed over in the early 1960's. Study up on the "fathers" and "grandfathers" of today's Special Forces. You'll find dear old dad. He's buried in Arlington for a reason.
my Dad used one for the whole pacific war in ww2. he loved that thompson and it never jammed and always worked. it was like the AK back then. it just works. he tried to get one back from the war but failed. only got to bring his 45 back. still have it. when he became a cop in 1960 he had a thompson in the truck for all 30 years of his service, just in case.
Another guy whose dad used a Thompson in WWII. He preferred it to the M1 Garand he carried before that for the close fighting in the mountains of Italy. Plus he had plenty of guys in his squad with rifles. Damn thing weighs more than the Garand though.
My dad was issued an M1 carbine when he was fighting the Huks in the Filipines. His .30 cal carbine didn't do the job so he swapped with a Brit who had a Thompson and two drums. He loved it.
My Dad carried the Thompson in WW2 while he was in the islands with the Japanese. He was a Medic and carried a gun. He very seldom ever talked about his time there but His foxhole Buddy would come over and sit in the front yard were I would sneak up on them to listen. The things they would talk about left me to Wonder. He was sent to Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped and stayed there until 1948 . He had married my mother in 1943 after waiting 2 years to get drafted but when they returned from their Honeymoon the draft notice was in the mail. The photos I have of Nagasaki shortly after the bomb was dropped still Amaze Me Today. God Bless All Those Individuals Who Fought and those who Died: if I could have 1 wish it would be for the Citizens of America to Realize the Souls of our Heroes Is the Only Reason We have the Life We Do. God Bless all those Individuals
My great grandfather used one from Normandy to the Rhine and said he never shouldered the weapon. Always hip fire because it would recoil in a cross body arc with a drum mag.
It was discontinued by the armed forces because the Ordnance Board wanted to replace the motley hodge-podge collection of weapons in service during the war with a single platform. Which did make sense because having six different platforms (M1928, M1 Garand, M1 and M2 Carbines, M3 SMG and BAR) firing three different cartridges (.30-06, .45 ACP and .30 Carbine) was a logistical Cthulhu; you not only need to stock three different calibres of ammo, you have to stock different magazines and magazine pouches, you have to stock all those parts and order new ones, and you have dozens of parts contracts that have to be managed. You have to train people to service and maintain all those different systems and you have to train soldiers on six different sets of TOETs.
.45ACP never gets to old to knock the hell outta the target but they are heavy little suckers, especially with the weight of the firearm in question! Still a blast to fire!
![NEW Official Army Submachine Gun APC9K Say Bye to the MP5 [4K]](/img/n.gif)
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I would love to see a video on why the Owen gun was never modernized & ditched!
Australian military choices just don't make any sense sometimes, aside from personalizing the AUG.
The mobsters were Jewish. Alcapone was Jewish.
I thought I had all the scents, since I bought about 20 different soaps last year, but I see in your sponsoring ad that there are new scents. I am opening their page as I type this, man, they even have a Star Wars soap collection. Damn you Kappy, you and your propaganda!
Great video on an American historical icon, any NGSW news with the end of the month swiftly approaching?
I love how at 5:28 I look like you're guiding that pigeon to shore.
My dad fought in Europe during WW2 and he said the Thompson was his preferred weapon for in-town/urban combat,
much respect to your pops, I would want to switch to a thompson if I was in a urban situation in ww2 for sure
@@Taskandpurpose The thompson was still running around cities in 2000. I was participating in a top cop shooting competition in 2000. We had officers and corrections officers from 3 states at Fort Rucker that year. After the pistol portion while we were waiting on the scores. We were comparing some road gear and my para ordnance lda was being passed around and people were getting familiar with it. One of the guys broke out a case of 45 acp and said since i was nice enough to allow people to fire my pistol he would donate the ammo. Not to be outdone a deputy sheriff went to his patrol vehicle and pulled a thompson out of the trunk. His department had bought them because the sheriff had gotten a good deal on them. I have been surprised a few times over the years by what other departments had room for in their budgets but that one still amazes me to this day.
My dad was a USMC Sargent in Korea. He said it saved his life going against N. Korean soldiers with bolt action rifles.
Had your dad used M3 Grease and M2 Carbine?
@@terrancechan6282 My dad fought from Normandy through France and into Germany and was wounded in Germany in April of 45. During which time he had used just about everything from both sides. I once heard him explain that during a battle he often ran out of ammo and had to pick up whatever was close. American or German, it didn't matter.
The Thomson submachine gun: aka The Annihilator 1, aka M1928A1, aka The Chicago Typewriter, aka The Heater, aka The Trench Broom, aka The Chicago Piano and aka The Tommy Gun. You'd think that a weapon with so many supercool nicknames would still be in service.
for real, such a beloved weapon and a beautiful piece of american engineering - but weirdly ditched instead of upgraded to the teeth like they did with every other system from the early 1900s
@@Taskandpurpose The only thing I can think of is that the M3 "Grease Gun" was lighter. It certainly wasn't more accurate than the Thompson. My understanding is that the M3 was discontinued for frontline units in 1957, but still issued to armored crews as late as the Gulf War in 91. Perhaps the Thompson and the M3 were rejected by special forces units for one reason or another, which is why the MP5 was picked up. Either way, the small and handy M4s seem to have been the preferred choice with its intermediate cartridge. I can't think of any submachine guns used by SF units or the Secret Service besides the MP5 and the P90.
@@MrHappy4870 the grease gun was less than a 3rd of the cost and half the weight. A loaded Thompson weighs more than a loaded m1 garand, and was still.more expensive that it too
@@cavemanbonk8320 True. During a war in which you are relying on conscription (the Draft) how many guns you make is more important than how good they are as long as they are "good enough". If you can make 100,000 grease guns for the same cost (and in less time) than 30,000 Thompsons a big government War Department will choose the grease gun.
Old weapons generally don't have rich donors bribing, I mean "donating", to Congress PASSC , especially the procurement boys lol.
One problem the Thompson had, was not just with the drums, but most Allies had gone to 9mm. However, it still soldiered on, well into the 1960s. John Thompson was an Ordinance officer. He not only worked to get the .45 ACP adopted, but also the 1911, the 1903 Springfield and other modem weapons, at that time.
That is respectable
@@figo3554 it would be interesting to see a 9mm version of the Thompson
@@alanaldpal950 could probably find it in a cod game :l
@@alanaldpal950 there is I think auto ordinance made a semi automatic version. In 9mm
Didn't they start making the 1911 so they could better kill Islamic suicide fighters the Philippines during our occupation of the country?
Dad was in Navy 1962-1966. From 64 to 66 in Vietnam, he carried a Thompson Machine gun on his river boat. With a 1911 in a cross draw and a 1911 on his hip. It was the Navy, you carried what you wanted. He said Marines were always asking him to trade for their new M16. He said nope.
Strapped Daddy
Your dad was smart, those fancy M16’s were death traps early on!
@@360entertainment2 Were they really deathtraps, or was the army just dumb enough to believe they never needed cleaning, ever? on a direct impingement system?
That’s really cool
@@hashbrownz1999They were poorly designed at first and coupled with not cleaning led them to be death traps yes it was well documented
Fun fact: The SAS absolutely adored the Thompson. They sometimes even refused to part ways with it for the locally made Sten because they were impossible to carry long distance comfortably and were very fragile by comparison.
Sten was as cheap as possible for your drafted Tommy to wield, price was 1/1000 that of Thomson or something of that scale astronomical
@@FirstnameLastname-py3bc The age old quality vs quantity.
@@Gamerguy826 from all I heard Thomson was first of a kind so to say, when production techniques were not refined - that's primary price issue as I've heard(and quality of course)
@@FirstnameLastname-py3bc Not exactly. They had been in production since the 20s and they had plenty of time to refine the design (they got rid of the Cutts compensator, which were two blocks that slid against each other in the back of the chamber but they were deemed unnecessary as well as the foregrip and drum mag for streamlining) and wartime models were of great reliability because they had to be shipped long distance without breaking. That's why they were so reliable. They were expensive because the shipping costs were insane.
@@Gamerguy826 yeah that makes sense
You know there are legends about 200 moving parts in Thomson and what not...
Actually it was dropped during WWII was it's cost. Even though the military stripped down the ribbed barrel, the foward pistol grip it was quite expensive, while the stamped construction M3 submachine gun cost $9.95 to buy . The M3 was more compact and better suited for tankers.
For many reasons. From a logistics standpoint it was way too expensive compared to the likes of the Sten and MP40. From an engineering standpoint it had no real advantage over the M3 apart from the M3's finnicky magazine design. From an infantry standpoint nobody in the squad wants to carry that heavy hunk of steel around. The M3 was cheaper, more controllable and much lighter, and the only sacrifices that were made was rate of fire and the magazine design issue.
Nowadays only police use SMGs, most modern militaries have replaced them with carbines instead. Not only was the Thompson becoming obsolete as a SMG, but SMG in general was becoming an obsolete concept in warfare.
"Cars have wheels, therefore the engine plays no part in their mobility." - Mr. Smart Guy
@@puenboy1
Nobody wanted to carry the Thompson? Lol. Ok
@@theimmortal4718 I'm sure you would want to have it in a firefight, but the life of a soldier is like 1% firefights and 90% walking and standing around. Same reason infantry always complains about having to carry light machine guns and weapon attachments like grenade launchers
I think they still issued Thompson's that they still had to officers though, they just didn't order any new ones so they were kind of rare to see
But the Tommy Gun did get an upgrade. It got a 3-round underslung grenade-launcher, a digital ammo counter, and the 45 caliber ammo was swapped out in favour of 10-milimeter explosive-tipped caseless rounds. It became the M41A Pulse Rifle!
is that alien 2?
@@janhemmer1414 yeah I think so
Hahah yes this is factual information.
@@janhemmer1414 it's called Aliens
I mean... You're not wrong
The M3 “Grease Gun” filled the same role for vehicles crew and infantry leaders and was cheaper to produce and more reliable. The Thompson was too heavy and mechanically complicated. Still iconic though.
Yeah.. my father was a radio man in the 4th Infantry during Korea.. assigned to Austria as part of the occupation Army after WW II... He only had great things to say about the M3.. Loved that it could get covered in mud and wiped off and still fire reliably.
I was issued either the M16, Air Force version with no forward bolt assist.. , the M16/M-203 or the M60 belt fed machine gun, depending on what my position was on the duty roster that day.. Security Police, Security Specialist.. like todays Security Forces, light infantry to secure Air Force Bases, facilities.. Our combat training was conducted by Airmen who had graduated the Army Ranger school.. so the training was all light infantry, recon, hit and run ambush oriented.
I was assigned the 90th Security Police Group, 90th Security Police Squadron in SAC, the 90th Strategic Missile Wing in Cheyenne Wyoming..
The arctic conditions in the winter never gave us any issues with the M16.. an upgraded version made in the late 70's, improved over the Vietnam first issued ones which had a lot of feeding issues and had to be kept absolutely pristine.. or it would foul.. But my issued M16 was great.. no feed problems at all... Of Course that was on the range.. Cold War.. there was no active war at the time.
It got cheaper to produce the Thompson but it was still more than twice the price in more favorable comparison. Most of its components are milled so it takes a mill and machinist to make each part and you have lost opportunities cost of them not making machines instead. The grease gun was stamped, the only component which was milled was the BCG. Everything else was mass manufactured in technique instead of 1 part by 1 part with skilled labor.
The m3 had half the rate of fire which is arguably better too.
To the army, it was no question which was the clear choice.
Figures I heard were that the Grease Gun was about $15 per copy (stamped metal parts made by GM's Guide-Lite division) and the Thompson SMG about $300 per copy.
The grease gun WAS NOT more reliable lol what are you smoking?
@@wacogliderman9396 we were still using them for tankers as recently as the invasion of Iraq
My father joined the Army in April, 1942, right after his HS graduation. His 1st weapon was a Springfield 1903, a 30-06 caliber, bolt action weapon. By April 1945 he was a "Top Sgt", and carried a 1911 .45 pistol,( not a 1911 A-1,,,, a plain old 1911). He also said good things about the Garand, another 30'06. As you know, a semi-auto, en banc 'clip' feed 8 shot .30 caliber rifle round.
He went to Korea as a 1st LT, and returned a Captain. There he ALWAYS had a.45 Thompson sub-machine gun. He said in over 32 years as an infantryman, the Thompson was his favored weapon.
As a Lt. Col, Commanding a Battalion in the Big Red One., he was back to the 1911, only in the 1911A-1 model, and he had gotten his hands an old Thompson the French left, and he mounted it on his jeep in an Army-issue leather "holster" made for the Thompson.
Too bad YT doesn't have a picture posting ability. I could show your followers what a Infantry Capt, holding a Thompson, with all his Kit, looked like in 1952.
Me? After growing up in the Army as a "brat" , I opted to accept a Navy commission. In GTMO I carried a 1911A1, and a M-16, with the "triangle" forward hand grips and the 3 "pronged" flash suppressor, that did nothing but get caught in the bush. Had it been possible, I would have preferred my dad's old Thompson.
I once read of a US WWII vet who stated "for closing with the enemy, nothing could beat the Thompson" It was an excellent SMG. I prefer the M1928 version (1927a1 semi auto) because the actuator knob is on top, and I'm left handed.
GTMO? That’s slang for Guantanamo Bay iirc?
Thanks for sharing this - indeed a pity no photos possible !
VLBGR
(Very Long But Great Read)
My father was a dispatch rider with the Royal Canadian Signal Corp in WWII. The Thompson was a preferred weapon because it was a little easier to carry on the motorcycle because it was shorter. He used it mostly for house clearing operations and was very happy with its performance in close quarters. He did say the drum magazines were a pain to reload but the high capacity load made it easier and safer to clear rooms. The other thing which was important to him was the availability of the ammuniciation in large amounts. CQB takes a lot of ammo. The reliability was also important because you cannot afford to have frequent stoppages when you went up against well trained SS troops. I would just like to express my appreciation to the manufacturer, in my father's memory, for making the right weapon for that particularly difficult time in history.
Hi Cappy, i found your channel just before christmas last year, and I have nearly finished watching all your videos. Informative and I like your humor. Love from India.
Well since he doesnt do very good researches and has a bias for home made stuff;up to 30 to 70% of infos in his videos are false and/or bias
So go do researches
@@sovietbottle-cap1649as biased as you? xD
@@Justadreamer29 yeah pls ignore my name XD
@@sovietbottle-cap1649 triggered much?
@@Justadreamer29 Well gentleman, don't forget the 1st rule of the internet.
"Don't feed the creature, that lives under the bridge".
They're very common nowadays, some are even used as "bots" with script comments / answers. Example the IRA (Internet Research Agency) "agents".
TheThompson was abandoned for 2 reasons. It was too expensive and too heavy and thus replaced by the grease gun
I know about the too heavy part, and the magazine pouches, 5 mags in a pouch, slung over one of your shoulders, kinda on the heavy side, limited range, looks gungy, it was not. Automatic fire is not the be all, to end all, over rated. Semi-auto, aimed fire is much more effective.
The magazine 'well' or lack of was crap too. If you ever get to shoot one much, as soon as you get past the: 'this thing is Cool'. Change a few mags in a hurry and you're like this little slot is BS! The too heavy, too expensive and crappy magazine mounting thing! Other than that, it is pretty cool!
Ya'll Take Care and be safe, John
Simple as that. And if you can stretch that out to ten plus minutes, you can also be a UA-camr!
After 4 years as a Marine, I changed careers but still wore a tan and green uniform. Later, I was issued an Ingram M10 but soon traded it for an M1 Thompson from the armory. I asked a US Army Ordinance unit to rebuild it and added a part to make the stock detachable. They loved the project. Much better. Less worry about were rounds ended up. I also quit getting complaints about using to much ammo for training. It was also great to use in training younger folk to fire with full auto. This was before red dot, lasers, among other attachments. I eventually went to an M16A1 to replace it due to longer range needs. Two things, when the public and suspects saw it, instant recognition and, although not as natural controls, it was/is a fun and effective shorter range weapon to use. I believe that with modern attachments, it would still be an improved effective weapon.Thanks for the memories.
My dad wasn't in combat in WWII but he qualified with the Thompson and said it was pretty hard to control due to the recoil and muzzle climb.
What branch ? Always love to hear about ww2 arms post war
@@steppedtuba50 he was Army Air Corps
Recoil? I mean, I never used a Thompson, as I am from Brazil and my country is very restrict about fire arms
But Thompson having hight recoil? Almost every video and post I see someone talking about the Thompson says that the gun has little recoil because of its heavy weight
They still climb around really bad, it's just less hard on the shoulder.
Per the late great Jeff Cooper, the trick in controlling the Thompson was BARELY holding the front stock and letting the weight of the weapon work against the muzzle climb. If you use any more upward hand pressure than to hold it level on target, the muzzle will climb, but if you don't, it wont.
My father-in-law was a platoon commander in the South Pacific in WWII and swore by the Thompson he carried. He said it saved his life (but never told me exactly how). He hated the Grease Gun.
The Pacific is hard to understand from the euro-perspective. On paper it's very small operations with much less people than the huge fronts and urban sieges of Europe. But then you look at the map, and find that all these imperial japanese troops, US marines, locals and japanese worker auxilia are crammed onto a little rock two kilometers across. And they're fighting on battlefields as small as a couple football fields.
I can't exactly explain why, but that Dr Squatch soap commercial is one of the best I've seen on UA-cam. I watched the whole thing and never even thought about skipping it.
I'm a huge fan of their soap and their advertisements so I needed to go all out for them, glad you liked it !
"Bonus Facts"
The Thompson was a great military arm, with a big flaw - the "Blish Principle" operating system. Blish theorized that the friction between two different types of metals in the action, would produce different levels of drag, and slow the bolt from opening until pressures had dropped to a safe level. So a brass falling block in the steel bolt system was supposed to be kind of the focal point of the operation. You can see it a little bit in the cutaway portion of the video.
Welllll, it was a good theory - especially for the time, but it was just a theory. The reality was, it was the complex machining and design of the falling block itself, that made it function, not the types of metals involved. Later models would change the falling block to steel. Changing to a stamped receiver just wouldn't have worked with the Thompson design, and the M3 Grease Gun was just... better for the purpose. The M3 was still in service with the US Army until at least the late 1990s, with a few tanker and Bradley type units still carrying them.
Something else to keep in mind - the difference between WWI and WWII was effectively the same time frame as us today, from 9/11... 20 years. Our military weapons today, are pretty much still the same makes and models as they were then. M4/249/240 - we've made some improvements with optics, sure - but the guns themselves are almost totally unchanged mechanically.
Anyway, there's your "Forgotten Weapons Fan" bonus facts on the Thompson and Blish system.
Stay safe out there!
Didn't they get rid of the blish system and just use simple blowback in the wartime Thompsons?
@@TheDandyMann Correct, I think that started with the A1? - They got rid of the brass part, but still had to keep the falling block as part of the overall mechanism. And it was expensive to machine, even in steel. I owned a modern semiautomatic, and it is *easy* to see why the Grease Gun took over so easily. The Thompson isn't just heavy, it's a bitch to use, frankly. The stick mags are fumbly at best, and the the drum? Range toy. Just a nightmare to use.
In comes the easy stamped steel M3 with easy stick mags - no contest.
I traded it for an older Bronco, had more fun, and made a good profit on the Bronkey when I sold that. Civilian Thompsons are *not* worth the money. But... That 16" barrel sure could make the gophers pop! 😄
the M4 got upgraded to the M27 tho
@@djcoopes7569 "The M4 (carbine M16) got upgraded to the M27 (piston operated M16) tho."
Exactly my point. 😏
Same M16 gun, with half a century of in service development - in much the same way as the British SMLE got upgraded [eventually] - with all kinds of changes, to become the No 4. Mk II.
And the British did that in only a 25-ish year time gap between WWI and WWII.
The leap between Thompson and M3 was the stamping process, along with the whole host other metallurgic and engineering advances that happened in the early 20th century.
@@wallaroo1295 "Our military weapons today, are pretty much still the same makes and models as they were then. M4/249/240 - we've made some improvements with optics, sure - but the guns themselves are almost totally unchanged mechanically"
The mechanical difference between the M4 and M17 is substantial. Also the Lee-Enfield got Upgraded to the Em-2 and FAL/SLR
One small correction: it was originally offered with the 20-round stick, 50-round drum, and the ridiculous 100-round drum...30-round sticks came during WWII after the gun was redesigned to no longer accept the drums.
Correct.
There were also (rare) 18 round 'sticks' for the shot shell 'riot' cartridges.
10:05 you can see a 100-round drum loaded sat next to a 50-round drum in the evidence haul.
I wonder how the drums felt to be no longer accepted...did anybody think of that? No, of course they didn't.....
There actually was a model that could accept either/or, but I believe the military versions only accepted stick mags.
My favorite Thompson magazine was the iconic 50 round drum. It helped lower whatever little recoil there was.
My brother was on a ballistic missile sub in the late 60's and early 70's and he said they had 1911 pistols, 4 M1 Garands and 2 Thompson SMG's in their armory.
Giving the last-generation kit to security troops is tradition. There was home guard and government militia units and police troops in WW II armed with Great War weapons. Someone in a naval security role or watching a bridge as part of the home guard would probably not use their firearm but still needed to be armed with something. So they would get "castoffs" when frontline units were traded newly produced kit.
My Grandfather was involved in the early manufacture of the British Sten gun (toolmaker & production line layout at BSA). My father carried both Sten and Thompson during WW2 in Italy. Both agreed that the Thompson was a vastly superior weapon. But it was $200 (1939) to $70 (1942) per copy. The Sten was $11.
Their verdict was that it's the difference between a Porche and a VB Beetle. You'd rather have a Porche, but a VW will still get you there and you can actually afford one.
Yeah, from a practical standpoint, the Thompson ain't really fit for an attritional war like WW2. It was really big and heavy, and cost much when making one. The M3 (the one that replaced it) did all the things the Tommy gun does at a fraction of the cost. Just like in Britain with their STENs, Soviets with PPS-43s, and even the Germans by 1945 with the MP 3008 (which is literally a STEN w/ a vertical mag)
Personally tho, the gun really looks good and is fantastic in itself. And the fact that it has two distinct moral sides (one being the GI's weapon of freedom, one being the mafia's Chicago Typewriter) makes it really cool IMHO
P.S. the first submachine gun is the Beretta M1918, nerds. Lol jk based on the definition, the MP 18 is the first-ever submachine gun, by principle. However, the first gun to be called an SMG is the Thompson, so there's that
Nice! I just checked for fun, 15$ for the M3 vs 225$ for the tommy. 224$ vs 3400$ in 2020 $
@@flack3 yeah, that really what I'm talking about when it comes to war economies. Plus, any factory that utilizes steel made guns during WW2. You got these car and lighting producing M3s in the thousands at a shorter time, so the M3 really was better in the long run than Thompsons
Look, if we took it real...im pretty sure you could and most certainly could cut costs with the thompson, without sacrificing much of the performance.
Deletus the wood, or at least leave the rear grip. Replace everything else with pipe and/or wire, and stamp out the steel(preferably also cut down the thickness on non essential pieces.
Russians were genius in their one-size-fits-all 7.62 barrel because it cuts down costs greatly, but the US and the patents and the copyright and the corporate and the yada yada you get the picture just couldnt do that kind of standardization..
Lets face it, the m3 being better than the thompson was propaganda at the time. Just...no.
Technically the Villar Perosa was first, though it was use as a sort of mounted machine gun and it didn't have a stock.
dont see how a gun having 2 distinct moral sides makes it cool
The IRA in northern Ireland made heavy use of the Thompson in the early 70's in the streets of Derry. It was highly regarded for its ability to suppress British Army patrols and was nicknamed "The big T" by the IRA.
True. They also used a lot of Armalite 180s and M16s. Then Browning Hi-powers and Colt 1911s for pistols. Check out the IRA song "My Little Armalite".
Free Ireland 🇮🇪
And that was suppressing RUC officers in their homes,in front of their families.Luckily we had the SLR,which could spoil an IRA man's whole day and the two behind him
@Steven Breach don't forget about the microwave weapon tech that you Brits used on Ireland too.
@@stevenbreach2561
Well, they shouldn't have been playing for the wrong team then, eh?
@@RolandtheThompsonGunner 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣don't forget the "tanks".....one!which was a engineer vehicle used to move barricades.I must admit PIRA had a good PR dept.It kept the money flowing in from the Plastic Paddies in 'Murca who kept the shitshow going.And what are the "heroes" doing now? Organised crime,drugs and protection rackets
Cappy, I skip every single ad that is humanly possible but you might be the only person I find to not care enough to skip ahead of the promotion. Under appreciated huge props for that man!
Thanks man! I’m a big fan of their products so I wanted to go all out for them and also entertain people if possible
I remember there was a show called Sons of Guns where the owners actually transformed an original Thompson 1928 into a modern sun machine gun. Apparently a local sheriff had the Thompson in his collection and had always wanted it added to his swat armory but his “swat commander” had always told him no until it came back with a tactical finish.
Local SWAT units are rare here. It's hard to understand how often smaller communities need a paramilitary unit. They fly in the national unit or the closest metro/regional unit here.
Grandpa was a Tanker during the war. He loved his Sherman tank but when all else failed he had his trusted Thompson by his side
Ironically, they later found that the Blish lock didn't really do anything. It was left off the M1 and M1A1. It would be interesting to redesign the Thompson to use steel stampings. You probably couldn't get nearly as cheap as the M3, but I would think you could bring the price way down. Steel stamping was widely used in the auto industry at the time but gunmakers were rooted in the idea that you take a block of metal and machine away everything that doesn''t look like a gun.
The ppsh and sten we're as cheap as it ever got. Maybe the Mac 11 and 10 might be as cheap too.
@@jason200912 probably the Chinese production pps 43s hold the award for the cheapest subgun ever produced.
Gunmakers being rooted in traditional ideas were why others like Browning and Stoner were so significant. They simply did things differently and ended up changing the game forever. Hell, the Germans were convinced drilling a hole in a rifle's barrel for gas operation would negatively affect accuracy, until someone did it and proved otherwise.
@@jason200912 the PPSh-41 wasn’t really all that cheap, something like the PPS-43 was their version of the Sten/M3 Grease Gun
Blish: the fake news of gun locked breeches.
Thomson was used by special detachments of Military Police in in the former Yugoslavian Peoples Army (JNA) until the late 80s., often side by side with H&K MP5.They were used in civil war in 90's and probably bunch of them are still stashed in some army depots in ex Yugoslavian republics.
I mean a patriotic singer in Croatia is named after the gun
I think I read a Thompson with a 001 serial number was recovered in Iraq during Desert Storm.
There are some stashed in a lot more places than depots. I know a guy that drove his tank home and parked it in his garage. When you enter the Balkans, leave logic at the door.
I’ll make a prediction: it’s too much machining work for the cost and the stock sucks.
Heard the same elsewhere - complicated, expensive, heavy weapon. Lots of fussy, close tolerance machined parts.
Whereas the Sten gun had 2 machined parts - the rest was made of stamped and welded bits.
@@agwhitaker the entire receiver in a Thompson is a machined chunk of steel. Now It gets worse when you look at the m1928…
@@agwhitaker the Sten was junk compared to the Thompson but the M3 Grease gun was awesome. But the Quality of the Thompson was never matched at the time except by the MP 40. This reflects in the current values of each of these weapons.
@@agwhitaker The M3 was even better - just the bolt carrier group was machined, everything else was stamped.
In the Navy we used the Thompson on board ship. The .45 would not go thru bulkheads, but was a great man stopper. Range & weight were not issues.
10:45
"- How could we stop gangsters from using Thompsons?"
"- Let's put a huge tax on it so only gangsters can afford it!"
😂
This was the first auto weapon I fired. I learned 3 round burst firing this weapon. It’s very heavy, very short range capable, and too expensive to manufacture. But I loved it nevertheless. I’d like you to do a story on the Johnson Rifle.
My father fought in Sicily, Italy, and Holland. As part of the British 8th Army, he was issued a Thompson from they British division they were replacing. It was not popular with the Canadians who found it too awkward and heavy in close combat. The US 82nd Airborne had the new M3 " Grease Gun " and they would gladly trade their shiny new M3's for the Canadian's old 8th Army Thompson's.
With the arrival, and relatively widespread use of 300 blackout, pistol caliber carbines have largely been made obsolete.
The 220gr subsonic loads hit similarly to a .45, but have better ballistics, and can also Penetrate level 2 armor. Meanwhile the 125gr has similar ballistics to 7.62x39. All of this in a package similar in size to an MP5
Minimum 5.7x28mm. 👌
Yeah and rifles like the m4 are pretty much better in most situations than a sub machine gun while still being portable
@@kameronjones7139 yep, being able to change your ammo type on the fly depending on the situation. The benefits are SUBstantial......heh...hehe
MP5s, Uzis, MACs, both Skorpions, and so many other SMGs are fading away in favor of carbines. Kinda sucks because these have been such cool weapons but now they're relegated to smaller, more niche roles because of the few advantages they have.
@LOAN NGUYEN I wouldn't say that they are still popular.... I would say that they are still utilized by certain departments and government entities.... Generally larger entities that have SWAT teams or SRT's. The majority of law enforcement officers prefer AR's or M4s.
The .40 was adopted and accepted by law enforcement because it had better penetration than modern (at the time) 9 mm whenever it came to car doors or other obstacles. So over penetration isn't very high on the list.... Considering that a 5.56(or .223) doesn't overpenetrate horribly.
You forgot that the first users of the Thompson was the I.R.A., during the Irish War of Independence,1919-1921. when Michael Collins' two bodyguards carried them. A large portion of the cost of developing the weapon was from IRA funds raised in America.
Consequently the first conventional military force to use the Thompson was the Army of the new Irish Free State, during the Irish Civil War of 1922. The Thompsons used in these conflicts had drum magazines. Subsequently, the box magazine version war used by the Special Detective Unit, the only armed element, (responsible for political policing), of the newly formed police of the Free State, the Garda Siochana.
An interesting side note is that the 1923 Thompson featured a 14” barrel and was chambered in the .45 Remington-Thompson, which lobbed a 250 grain bullet at about 440MS, making it perhaps the most powerful SMG ever developed.
While the cartridge is now defunct, if anyone wished to approximate such performance you can still have .460 Rowland in specially converted .45ACP pistols.
That's 1450 fps and 1,165 lb⋅ft of energy for those of you watching in black-and-white.
My father carried a 1928-A1 in the Korean War. He loved it, he said it stopped the North Korean troops and the Chinese troops.
That’s cool man. I feel like the Korean War is often looked over.
The "Blish system" of using dissimilar metals to act as a delaying mechanism turns out to be not really a thing. To the point that the later military Thompson's did away with it entirely. It also wasn't entirely replaced with the adoption of the M3. Thompsons served into and through the Vietnam conflict.
It is a step toward roller delay blowback however.
@@WALTERBROADDUS blish lock and roller delayed has nothing in common
@@phantomsoldier497 the goal of the two systems are similar. Not their function.
@@WALTERBROADDUS yeah but they don't have anything in common.
@@phantomsoldier497 that's the reason the comment is worded the way it is.
The Thompson was the second weapon I had, after the M1 Garand, during my training in the Greek Army back in 1984, when I also fired the BAR. It had the reputation of being a Sergeant's eye poker, because of a supposed tendency of the recoil spring, popping out of the gun during field stripping by a careless NCO (I never had a problem like that, even though I deliberately tried to test the claim of the recoil spring popping out). At the time we were using the M1, the BAR and the Thompson during basic training, since they were considered to be more resilient to recruit treatment, than the G3s that were the operational rifles issued to front line formations.
Probably a situation of just because it can happen doesn’t mean it will always happen.
All it really takes is the right few people to experience the issue, and suddenly now it’s a “common issue”
When I was a kid (late 70s), there was an iconic water gun roughly designed after the thomson (Ideal 3000) - it was like the nerve of its time with a watering range of about 30ft. It was the standard gun for every cool kid dressing up as a soldier or pirat in karneval (SW-Germany) for more than two decades. As a 10 year old you couldn‘t be more bada** than with that thing.
Had a chance to play with one at the range back in 86' (was in the USMC at the time) and absolutely loved the Tommy. Yes it was a wee bit heavy, but unlike almost all such weapons, it had very little kick or pull. It was one of the easiest weapons to handle in a practical sense and simply would not break.
I recently talked to a Korean War vet at the hospital I work at. He told me among other things that one of the guys in his unit picked up a Thompson off of a dead Chinese soldier after a firefight once. He said that he carried it once on patrol, but never fired any shots in anger with it.
Yeah the Communist Army captured many Nationalist Thompson SMGs after their victory during the 1949 Chinese civil war. They were a favorite of the Chinese as well
@@ConstantineJoseph I thought it was a cool story. And some American troops were pretty surprised to find Thompsons among the Chinese.
@@ryanbales8116 Yeah America was the military factory of the entire world against the Axis. The British, Russians and the Chinese were the key benefactors of many US supplied weapons and ammunition.
You will find that M3 Stuart light tanks were supplied to the Nationalist Chinese forces during their Sino Japanese war (1937-45). M4 Shermans numbering in the hundreds were made available to their forces in Burma. M1 Carbines, Bazookas, M1917s and M1919A6s were supplied as well to certain Chinese units.
The Thompson was imported since 1921 and they even have factories building them in the thousands up until the end of the war with the Japanese.
@@ConstantineJoseph I wouldn't doubt it. The Chinese used whatever they could get their hands on.
The Chinese actually MADE copies of the Thompson SMG. They also made copies of the C-96 Mauser Broomhandle pistol as well.
My grandfather bought the semi automatic version of the Tommy gun just before he died. Very fun to shoot and the recoil is practically non existent just from the sheer weight of the rifle. The only real pain is the drum mags if you aren’t careful and close the bolt on an empty drum you can’t remove it without a special tool.
You totally skip over how the "blish" concept was imaginary physics that doesn't work, and the entire blish part of the operating mechanism (shown in the cutaway animation) was completely deleted for the ww2 versions.
Also the m3 came along and blew production cost out of the water for the Thompson.
The M3 is a piece of trash
@@TheNerdForAllSeasons I happen to own both an M3 and A 1928 Thompson and the M3 is not trash by any means. It’s very reliable, very controllable and costs much less to manufacture than the Thompson. If it was “compleat trash” the US military wouldn’t have kept it in the arsenal until the late 1990’s as a tanker weapon.
My dad was in ther 77th div and carried one in in the Pacific. he spoke highly of it. said it was a great brush gun to have in your in your hand at the time of attacks. he returned home so I am thanking Mr Thompson.
My uncle Clifford was a First Sargent in the 90th infantry division. General Patton always took the 90th with him where ever he went. In the winter of 1944 when him and the Lt. Broke into German bunker and pointed their Tommy guns at the Germans they were so afraid of the Thompson they surrendered automatically when the Tommy gun was pointed at them. Then with a twinkle in his eye my uncle finished with. The jokes on them. It was so cold our Thompson's were frozen and wouldn't fire anyway. 😂 My uncle Clifford was one of a handful of men to survive the whole war. He was in the hospital with the flu for Dday. He said he would have died that day. ❤
I love my Thompson, it is my go to home defense weapon. I just do not like the 50 round drums.
More like 80-90% of assaults on your home or 50-60 %?
to each his own but I would NEVER use mine (yes I have one) against an intruder. Too heavy. I think a good old pistol (my browning hi-power 9mm with quality HP ammo) is best indoors or worst case, a shotgun with buck, best home defense ever devised. All this stuff about multiple people attacking a home requiring an assault rifle to fend them off is hollywood movie nonsense, IMHO. I think my Thompson is good and useful for fun with paper targets and that's it.
Defending your family in your own home which you know well with your semiauto pistol, I bet you'd be surprised how many gang bangers would get put down in 10 seconds before they retreat if the DID (highly unlikely) all decide to storm your home. Enough lecture. :)
my uncle used a Tomson in ww2 but didn't like it because of how "light and small" it was so instead used a bar like a rifle when he went on scouting missions. we believe that 8:57 is a photo of him during the battle of Okinawa
I don't doubt you, but...."light and small"?
@@jacobmccandles1767 lets just say he was a pretty big man
@@yam_king7238 had to be.
It was replaced by the cheaper and more lightweight M3, which in turn was replaced by the M16. The Thompson was still used by Special Forces in some instances in Vietnam, though, and by some law enforcement agencies all the way up into the 1970s, so not a bad run, in terms of service life. Also, the vocalist for heavy rock band Cactus, Rusty Day, was killed with a Thompson during an (alleged) drug deal gone bad in 1982.
My grandfathers learned with these and the Mauser in officers school before the Belgian army adopted the FAL in the 50s. I remember a story that you had to watch out when stripping and cleaning a Tommy gun because the spring was so strong it could injure someone if it flew across the room!
Dad was put in charge of a gun squad and promoted to a Sargent. He was given a Thompson. After there shots he gave it away.Many he said felt it was a security weapon . It wasn't. Dad said many were found dead after spending all their rounds or jammed . They just couldn't just let it go . 😎
The gun would fun to shoot but the weapon is heavy and the ammo is short range and also heavy. That said, it would be good for short range stuff for sure. It looks like it does not climb much looking your test firing clips. At any rate, it did work well in WWII! Good one Chap!
The first sub gun was neither the thompson or the mp18. It was the italian villar perosa and was designed for aircraft use, later adapted to infantry use
I'd have to imagine it (the V-P) was at least adequate in the air, as planes were built like kites and had no armor.
The biggest thing that pushed the Thompson out of production was the far more useful M1/M1A1 and M2 Carbine. 7 million produced.
The M1 carbine was useful but the M2 was very uncontrollable compared to the Thompson. I’ve owned both. And the M3 replaced the Thompson. The M1 was suppose to replace the 1911 for troops in the rear.
My father carried a Thompson in Burma as well as a 70lb radio set. Although it’s unverified he was busted down to Corporal for losing his Lee Enfield rifle and returning from crossing the Irrawaddy. Either way he ended up with the Thompson, I remember asking him when I was very young what it was like firing a Tommy gun and he went mad at me. “We weren’t bloody gangsters We were soldiers!” and then gave us a good clip round the earhole. Happy days
If you watch forgotten weapons firing all models of the Thompson, the earliest, the 1921 was the best handling and most accurate. The higher cyclic rate and weight combined with the foregrips and cutts compensator were properly tuned to the harmonics of recoil. WW1 where trench fighting was encountered was not a war of long marches, beach landings, and jungles. The weapon needed to be effectively accurate at longer ranges across no mans land even if only for area fire. Police use was similar. However, the lighter, simpler, 12ga pump shotgun also proved to be a very effective short range trench broom and close combat tool and were used by some units up through Vietnam at least. All the cost cutting measures and slowing the Thompson down screwed it up. The military M1A1 was a cut down war baby of necessity that sacrificed the superior points like accuracy and controllability it had and made it susceptible to the grease gun. That wasn't a complimentary name, it was coined in comparison to the finely made Thompson. Reducing its weight or making it out of less rigid stamped metal does not improve its performance. having the proper physical strength and stature was important to handling the full dress models. BAR soldiers and others were selected partially based on physical size and strength. But the M1A1 had to be issued to anybody with any level of experience for the limited time it may see combat before being a casualty of war lying in the mud or at the bottom of the ocean in a torpedoed cargo ship. The original design never was intended to be cheap, it was intended to be superior, convertable to different roles including a pistol. And it was to be long lasting, accurate, and especially useful at longer ranges than grease gun style systems and the originals were. It has been chambered for more powerful rounds. Like .38 super and 10mm. The first choice wasn't the .45 ACP, it was a special, longer, more powerfull .45 cartridge developed in league with Remington. However, the U.S. military did not want to stock a different caliber. Some were also made to use very hot steel jacketed .45 ACP rounds by the FBI to penetrate cars. However, the pistol caliber with large heavy slow bullets was safer in urban environments than full rifle rounds. Law enforcement also had specially trained "Thompson experts". In their hands the original designs weren't used just as a "pray and spray". The 100rd drums hold almost 5 pounds of lead! I think it would make a cool platform for the .460 Rowland! These points are opinions derived from my research and talking to many vets and some law enforcement people from 1920s and 1930s Chicago, I obtained them partially from working for years in nursing homes and with veterans groups. You will always find differing opinions based on varied conditions of use, it is not the same thing for someone to pick up a weapon for the first time without training to evauluate it as it is in the hands of someone who got to know it and lived with it. I apologize for any technical inaccuracies.
The M1 Thomson was really popular with the guys in the field, but the Brass liked the M3 Grease gun. The M3 was much cheaper to produce, being stamped steel, and was a simpler weapon. The Brass liked those facts and sought to replace the M1 with the M3 during the war. But the M1 was still really popular and many guys tried hard to get their hands on it.
I for one am ready for the 'Cappy' gun to take the firearm industry by storm
can't wait to start production lol
Well one reason it was cancelled, it was bloody expensive. Btw the MP18 was already a thing way before the Thompson
Yeah but the Thompson was the first to adopt the 'submachine gun' designation
@@taxevasion4870 who cares ? Maschinen Pistole works too
Thompson had a reputation the MP 18 never came close too.
@@craigthescott5074 that's not the point here, however the mp18 operation system is the most adopted, nobody adopted the Thompson system.
@@jantschierschky3461 nobody’s adopted the MP5 system either but it’s by far the best subgun ever made. The MP 18 may have been first by a few years but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Thompson or the Grease gun which I own both.
Richard here). We had Thompsons on board the LST I served on in Vietnam. Qualifying to use it as a boat officer was shooting fly fish off of the bow while underway. I found it to be a rather easy shooting weapon given my 155 lb frame at the time. We only had the 30 round mag. GunnersMates carried the Thompson while on anti-swimmer watch when at anchor. There were none on my second ship in Vietnam, an LSMR (Medium Landing Ship Rocket).
Excellent recap of the Thompson. However, it's kind of hard to speak of the history without mentioning the attack on the WXXY complex, where Sergeant Harrison C. Summers, armed with a Thompson, nearly single-handedly (single at first, then later joined by two other soldiers), cleared out a series of barracks, housing over 100 German soldiers, in preparation for the D-Day assault.
Absolutely love the venerable “Tommy” gun! Would love to see this brought back in 10mm.
Regardless, no one can deny the iconic place, along with the proven military history of its effectiveness in the field. 👍🏻🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸👍🏻
Actually , the expense to build the Thompson even after revisions were way to much , so meet the grease gun it costs pennies to the dollar to build compared to the Thompson and serves the same exact purpose . Never think the military has any greater decision making variable other than cost.
To compare, they were arming government militia units and security troops in Europe with old Great War surplus. Partisan troops, police units, home guard units could all show up with wonky castoffs.
M2 Carbine would do just about everything the Thompson/M3/1911 would do. It could even replace Garand at closer ranges.
it would if it was as reliable
It was reliable at least my M2 was, but in full auto the Thompson was way more controllable than the M2. The Grease gun was far more controllable than the M2 and the Thompson. I’ve owned all three. I sold the M2. The ammo is hard to come by and expensive and I never thought the weapon was very practical in full auto.
@@craigthescott5074 from what i’ve heard it’s mostly the magazines that were unreliable in the M1 and M2
@@nipplecream3099 yes 20 round mags in the M1 and M2 were very reliable. I couldn’t get any 30 round ones to be reliable. That was one of the reasons I sold it.
@@craigthescott5074 what about the 15 round mags?
Hey, Clyde Barrow used a sawed off BAR! They should try chambering this in 10mm. Then they can combine two white elephants into one gun! 10mm is a damsite better than the 9mm anyway.
I was a Gunners Mate on the Hawkins DD-873 in the early 70s. We still had Thompsons, M-1, M-1 carbines, BARS still on-board. I got to play with them all.
I had a chance to fire several magazines from a Thompson. I found the weapon to be badly balanced. Even though it is heavy, too much of that weight is in the receiver, so keeping it on target on full auto is much harder than for other weapons I have tried.
The main reason is the stock design. The bolt system is above the stock, so the path of the recoil isn’t going directly into the stock and into your shoulder. This causes the gun to rise up more than if it had an inline stock
I grew up in Bridgeport Connecticut home of the Thompson machine gun we made millions of them
I grew up on Long Island near the ferry to Bridgeport Connecticut I didn't realize they made the Thompson there
The time send you have in your hand with the forward grip is the original Thompson that has a higher cyclic rate of fire however that was designed for the drum magazines as the receiver is flanged to accommodate drums the military version you straight box mags remove the forward grip and heat sink internals replaced with a much simpler design to machine if you open them up you can see all the tool marks as they made them as fast as they could the original had a removable stock and forward grip as well I've held both the Thompson versions as well as Nazi smgs I would take this into battle any day of the week over the MP40 this is a milled block but not nearly as heavy as the stamped metal MP40 with its little baby 9 mil round 45 is a slow but powerful man stopper the fire rate was reduced for the military version to avoid consumption
@@Taskandpurpose The original batch of 15,000 TSMG (Model 1921) were manufactured by Colt at Hartford, Connecticut.
It took Auto Ordnance from then until 1940 to sell them.
With the WW2 contracts, Auto Ordnance (then owned by investor Russell MacGuire) contracted production to Savage Arms before opening a factory of their own at Bridgeport in 1941 to assist with production.
Only about 500,000 were built by Auto Ordnance at Bridgeport.
Most were built by Savage Arms, the original 15,000 Model of 1921 Thompson's had been built by Colt.
@@-oiiio-3993 they are in new Haven Connecticut
10:05 When the US sold Thompsons to the British for a subgun offering, the price, weight, manufacturing time, and stigma as a "mobster gun" became an issue so great they created the Sten subgun. Yes it was garbage for a subgun, but it was way cheaper and easier to produce.
The more pragmatic reason was the supply couldn't keep up. The British needed to re-equip the BEF and their own growing forces and then when the US joined that supply was even more restricted as the US started growing their own forces.
@@purplefood1 Yep, this is the actual reason. The supply was too small, and the British feared getting cut off from further US weapons by the German Navy so they "improvised" a home solution.
I own a 1928 Bridgeport Thompson. Such a blast to shoot. Heavy but very controllable. 45 ACP hits hard and the weapon is very well made. Being class three they only go up in value every year. My advise to somebody wanting to get into class three weapons is buy what you can afford the bottom end of the market now is about $7K to $8K and before you know it the bottom end will be $10K. It’s and investment you can have fun with.
I've been told in the 1920s someone could walk in to Sears and Roebuck and purchase one (sans the ATF or any LEO approval) for 25 dollars.
@@Seeklip6T not sure about $25 but he’s back then you could just buy class three weapons. They cost $200 to make during WW2.
The 1921 Thompson with a type C 100 round snail drum makes an excellent home defense weapon. They are fully automatic have a 900 rounds per minute rate of fire and cost $40,000 to $100,000. The drums run about $2000 each. And, you have to pay $200 for the permit.
Wait he was being serious about the squatch soap?
I highly recommend squatch soap, it smells outstanding! use our code for 20% off !
Speaking as a member of the Thompson Family, we did not get any kind of royalties for the gun and am glad it became obsolete.
Yes my understanding is that Gen.Thomosons Co Auto Ordnance was sold to fellow ucalled Ryan.? who made all the money out of it...The gun wasnt designed by the Gen.but by employees of the Co. and named after him as he was then owner....Sorry you didnt get any royalties..but few gun designers did..Our Evelyn Owen got little and then was taxed on what he got..
The company had been sold to Russell McGuire in 1939.
The original run of 15,000 Colt built Thompson Submachine Guns (Model of 1921) had taken most of that time to sell as they were too late for WW1, expensive, heavy, and obsolete in design by the 1930s.
The only reason they re entered production for WW2 is that there was no practical American made replacement for them until late 1942.
Too bad Don the gun is an world renown iconic piece of American History. I love mine.
I named by M249 "Randy." 💖
*I pray I won't have to take her to Ukraine.* 🇺🇦🇺🇲
During WWII, before he enlisted in the Navy at 18 and after he graduated from high school, my father worked for the FBI at the D.C. Headquarters. When not attending to his other duties, Dad was allowed to give tours of the FBI Headquarters in the Justice Department Building. I asked about the Thompson sub-machine gun demonstration that was part of the tour when I went on it as a kid in the 1950s. He had done that demonstration too. His training for this consisted of an agent picking us the weapon, chambering it, handing it to my father and saying, “Lean into it, that way,” indicating the target downrange. Dad said he was surprised it had very little recoil. One of the easiest weapons he ever fired.
We all knew in the 1930s' a lone gangster survived by its inaccuracies . Since the guy wore a heavy suit much of vital organs wasn't exposed.
It was a fantastic weapon for the time however unlike full scale war compared to crime fighting, all it boils down to is cost, where places like England were buying them in the billions, unfortunately the cost of both producing, shipping and possible sinking, the cost wasn’t worth it since compared to buying say a m3 grease gun or sten mk2
There were never anywhere near a billion Thompson Submachine Guns.
Well under two million had been produced between 1921 and 1943 when they were discontinued.
Lots of reasons why it was dropped, other than being extremely heavy for an SMG, it also rattled alot, was clumsy to use inside buildings (long uncollapsable stock), lacked penetrating power and its low MV & and thus extremely curved trajectory, gave it a comparatively short effective range compared to other SMGs of the time. Like the BAR, it was basically outdated the day WW2 started.
The BAR was outdated at the beginning of WW2? Why?
@@flyingtigers7856 It was extremely heavy for what it provided, low capacity, had a very poor bipod setup and thin barrel with no quick change feature etc.. In short it was extremely limited in the very role it was supposed to fulfill, i.e. providing sustained fire.
@@flyingtigers7856 BAR wasn't really fit to be an LMG, hence the name BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). Other allies by that time already had better LMGs like the BREN and DP-28, it's just a matter of what the US can produce (and has in its storage) at that time, that's why the BAR was widely issued.
@@bellator11 I had never heard the BAR referred to as outdated at the beginning of WW2 before, but it makes sense. I always thought it odd that such a large automatic weapon would only have a 20 round magazine. For WW1 it was probably just what the doctor ordered, a light machine gun able to be carried and operated by one man, when the MG's of the day were fixed and crew served. As you say, by WW2 the world had moved on. Thanks for your reply.
@@flyingtigers7856 Yes that's exactly right. It was state of the art during WW1, but ultimately a dead end, and by WW2 it had long been outdated. Thankfully for the US, their std. issue rifle, the M1 Garand, was excellent, lessening the impact of lacking an effective LMG.
I know that Chesty Puller loved his Thompson. There were plenty around the 4th Marines while they were stationed in China just before WWII.
For most of its service life it was one of the most expensive smg available. They trimmed some bells and whistles off the 1928 to make the m1a1 but still very expensive, high recoil and if you have ever held one, it’s not really comfortable or ergonomic. That said , it’s still a spectacularly beautiful weapon
Shot the Thompson quite a bit. Stating in CUBA in the middle to late 1950, during the Revolution; then in LA, CA. in 1960’s with friends from “Pachmayr Gun Works”. To later shoot it again with Engineer’s from Speer-CCI Lewiston, Idaho. Lots of fun! Very effective weapon! No complaints…
When my Great Grandfather, Grand Father and Great Uncles returned from the Pacific War, they brought back stuff like: Colt 45's, Thompson Sub machine guns, Rifles, and Katanas. They left it all in the Philippines for a while. Then one day all these stuff start showing up. One of my carry is a Colt .45 1911 from WW2. The Thompsons are still in the Phil due to being full auto.
Just finished watching this segment on "Why the Thompson SMG was Ditched" and enjoyed it very much. Also, you convinced me to subscribe (finally). I took a special interest in this segment because I had written an encyclopedia article on the "Tommy Gun" just about 20 years ago ("Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law.") I'm an historian of technology, but not with any specialized interest in weapons. My interests run more to the cultural and economic history of technology. With that in mind, I have just two comments on your presentation for the Thompson SMG.
First, you give the impression that the development of the Thompson was a government project -- not so. Thompson was something of a maverick in his passion for giving the infantry more firepower. That passion went back at least as far as his involvement in arms production for the Spanish American War and it played a real part in his support for the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol with its APC .45 calibre ammunition. In 1915, Thompson resigned his Army commission in frustration to take up development of his "gun" full time. With that, he created the Auto-Ordinance Company. Until the coming of World War II, Auto-Ordnance was never more than a shell for Thompson and a small staff of engineers. With the US declaration of war in 1917, Thompson re-entered the Army and left the gun project with the small staff of engineers. For the initial production run in 1921, that contract was with Colt. Auto-Ordnace itself remained a shell company until the eve of World War II. The Colt run of 1921 had produced the mechanisms for 15,000 guns As late as 1939, Auto-Ordinance still held enough of the Colt inventory to produce at least 4,000 units. For much of the 1920s and 30s, Auto-Ordnance had no full-time employees.
The second point that bears mentioning involves the Tommy-gun's reputation. Besides the gangsters in the 20s and 30s, the Tommy gun found itself smeared for how often its guns were found in the hands of the Irish Republican Army. In fact, the IRA was known for its use Thompsons across the entire 20th century. The full extend of the linkages have never been explained clearly. Many assume that the connection was made by through Thomas Fortune Ryan, the tobacco magnate who was the silent partner whose financial backing carried Austo-Ordnance through the 1920s and 30s.
My grandfather, a chief selectman (mayor), full-time city editor at a major newspaper and sworn reserve LEO, kept a 28A1 in his car everywhere he traveled in the Boston metro area, from the late 40's through the mid-60's.
One of my local gun stores had a new, semi-auto Thompson in their rental fleet for the indoor range. They could never fire whole magazine out of it because it ALWAYS broke. The firing pin is especially prone to breakage. They sent it back and did not request a replacement.
in 1965 the senior corpsmen said that the Tompson was by far the best weapon for close encounters. They said that when a Thompson open up, those on the other end took cover. Phu Bia Marine base, 3rd Battalion, 4th Reg. 3rd Mar Div.
I'm big into gaming. Anytime I see this as an option, I use it. I don't care about it's stats, or if the setting is year 2277, I'm using the Thompson. Or the Garand. Or an ol' fashioned double-barrel shotgun, _not_ sawed off.
For anyone who plays Borderlands, you know who my favorite gun manufacturer is.
It was so good the Army was trying to replace it desperately and still couldn't do it.
I was told by high school buddies who joined the Coast Guard in the mid 1970's that the Thompson Sub Machine gun was still being used on board some cutters. They said the reason the Thompson was phased out by the other branches of service (and shortly thereafter by the CG) was the difficulty in stopping the Thompson from climbing as it was fired. The very basic muzzle brake that directed some exhaust gas upwards was totally ineffective. The bolt action design caused the gun to jump up as it was fired in longer bursts. Perhaps this is why it was deemed inaccurate?
The Thompson was originally designed to use the longer intermediate .45 Remington- Thompson cartridge before settling on the .45 ACP.
The pre-war models were more complex and expensive. The Blish lock supposedly regulated the rate of fire and the distinctive Cutts compensator reduced recoil. It came with a 20-round "XX" box magazine, a 50-round "L" drum magazine, or a 100-round "C" drum magazine (Roman numerals were used to designate the magazine's capacity).
The M1 model removed the Blish lock and Cutts compensator. (Anzac soldiers in North Africa used to remove the Blish Lock and replace it with a simple nut and bolt with no ill effect).
The 30-round magazine became standard issue after 1943; it is not interchangeable with the M3 "grease gun" SMG.
Dear old dad used a Thompson in the jungles of the Philippines, French Indochina (yes, before the split up/later in Laos), South America and parachuting deep inside Communist China a few times during the Korean War. Old school. Don't worry, he was a civilian in special gurilla units. When not a Thompson he used the pump action 870 Remington shotgun. Weapons changed over in the early 1960's. Study up on the "fathers" and "grandfathers" of today's Special Forces. You'll find dear old dad. He's buried in Arlington for a reason.
What an intriguing pronunciation of Garand.
my Dad used one for the whole pacific war in ww2. he loved that thompson and it never jammed and always worked. it was like the AK back then. it just works. he tried to get one back from the war but failed. only got to bring his 45 back. still have it. when he became a cop in 1960 he had a thompson in the truck for all 30 years of his service, just in case.
Another guy whose dad used a Thompson in WWII. He preferred it to the M1 Garand he carried before that for the close fighting in the mountains of Italy. Plus he had plenty of guys in his squad with rifles. Damn thing weighs more than the Garand though.
My dad was issued an M1 carbine when he was fighting the Huks in the Filipines. His .30 cal carbine didn't do the job so he swapped with a Brit who had a Thompson and two drums. He loved it.
What was the job to be done?
My Dad carried the Thompson in WW2 while he was in the islands with the Japanese. He was a Medic and carried a gun. He very seldom ever talked about his time there but His foxhole Buddy would come over and sit in the front yard were I would sneak up on them to listen. The things they would talk about left me to Wonder. He was sent to Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped and stayed there until 1948 . He had married my mother in 1943 after waiting 2 years to get drafted but when they returned from their Honeymoon the draft notice was in the mail. The photos I have of Nagasaki shortly after the bomb was dropped still Amaze Me Today. God Bless All Those Individuals Who Fought and those who Died: if I could have 1 wish it would be for the Citizens of America to Realize the Souls of our Heroes Is the Only Reason We have the Life We Do. God Bless all those Individuals
My father was a scout in Patton's Third Army. He had a Thompson for a short while, but he switched back to the M1 Gerand, which he much preferred.
My great grandfather used one from Normandy to the Rhine and said he never shouldered the weapon. Always hip fire because it would recoil in a cross body arc with a drum mag.
It was discontinued by the armed forces because the Ordnance Board wanted to replace the motley hodge-podge collection of weapons in service during the war with a single platform. Which did make sense because having six different platforms (M1928, M1 Garand, M1 and M2 Carbines, M3 SMG and BAR) firing three different cartridges (.30-06, .45 ACP and .30 Carbine) was a logistical Cthulhu; you not only need to stock three different calibres of ammo, you have to stock different magazines and magazine pouches, you have to stock all those parts and order new ones, and you have dozens of parts contracts that have to be managed. You have to train people to service and maintain all those different systems and you have to train soldiers on six different sets of TOETs.
.45ACP never gets to old to knock the hell outta the target but they are heavy little suckers, especially with the weight of the firearm in question! Still a blast to fire!