#SMGs

The Sterling submachine gun is often said to have one of the best magazines ever designed. What makes the design so special? Well, it isn’t a STEN magazine for starters. In May 1946, George Patchett patented a new curved magazine which would become one of the Sterling SMG’s most recognisable features. It addressed some of the serious shortcomings of the STEN’s magazine.

It’s just under a year since the US Army announced its search for a new submachine gun with the Sub Compact Weapon programme. Today, it has been announced that the submission from B&T USA, the US arm of the Swiss small arms specialists B&T AG, has been selected by the US Army. Beating stiff competition from five other companies, a variant of the B&T APC9 K has been adopted with an initial order for 350 guns confirmed. While the news may have dropped on 1 April, it is certainly not an April Fools joke.

We have been closely following the developments of the US Army’s new Sub Compact Weapon Program since the release of an extremely broad Request For Information back in May. With the recent award of no less than 13 sole source evaluation contracts for submachine guns its time we broke down the entries. In this two-part series, we’ll look at the entries.

Famous strategic and political thinker once said that “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” From many perspectives, this is entirely true and weapons being tools of war can then be seen as weapons of politics. While we here at TFB focus on the technological aspects of our hobby, sometimes the creation of a firearm is indeed intended as a political act.

In 1991 the Croatian parliament voted to seceded from what was formerly the ‘Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’, leading to armed conflict between Croatian and Serbian government forces as well as various paramilitary groups formed along ethnic lines. An international arms embargo encompassing all of former Yugoslavia was passed shortly afterwards, leading an under-equipped newly independent Croatia to focus on domestic production of various small arms. On the lower end this included dozens of small workshops operating in rural areas which produced crude weapons for insurgency.  Ante Lišnić, a 20 year old working out of his garage in Vrpolje, Trilj, produced various improvised firearms starting from single shot muzzleloading weapons to submachine guns and grenade launchers which were passed on to guerrilla fighters. Examples retained after the conflict ended in 1995 can be seen below.

Last month police in Brazil raided an illicit workshop in the city of Belo Horizonte which was producing submachine guns for large scale criminal distribution, each gun apparently being sold for 3,500 BRL (around $1000 US) through a WhatsApp group. A 68 year old man who worked as Santa Claus in the city’s malls along with his step son (and presumably his chief elf) were arrested. Along with 19 submachine guns and manufacturing equipment police seized 7.62 kilos of cocaine and 10,000 US dollars.

Pistol caliber carbines certainly are a divisive category of firearms. On one side of the fence you have their proponents who cherish them for a myriad of different (and valid) reasons, and on the opposing side you have the bunch who question their very existence. In this video we talk a little bit about why owning a PCC might be a good idea for many people.

I asked this question a few years back, but decided to do a little redux for TFBTV:

The submachine gun is falling quickly into obsolescence, but they still fill a few important roles and are incredibly fun to shoot. In this episode of TFBTV, we look at the top 5 best sub-guns factoring in historical significance and effectiveness. We also had to have some honorable mentions as it would be sinful to leave them out.

The American Thompson SMG and the German MP40 went against one another on both the Western and Eastern Fronts in World War II. The United States used the Thompson as its standard SMG for the bulk of the conflict, while the Red Army made use of several that they had acquired under lend-Lease.