"For only $175! You can have a brand new, excellent submachine gun , plus two 30-round magazines and a 50-round drum . No matter who you are? As long as you are willing to spend the money You can have it right away: Thompson submachine gun . "" This is an advertisement that appeared all over the United States in the 1920s.
Thompson submachine gun
I believe everyone is familiar with the Thompson submachine gun mentioned in the advertisement! As the first standard submachine gun developed by Americans themselves, it is actually quite famous! However, when this submachine gun first debuted, it was not favored by the U.S. military. So later it had to go to the streets to hawk and attract customers.
The Thompson submachine gun "was born at the wrong time" and did not receive a large order from the military. The civilian market is also bleak!
During World War I, the German army was equipped with the MP18 submachine gun they developed. This submachine gun with excellent performance once became a nightmare for the Allied soldiers in trench warfare: the MP18 swept down the trenches, and the Allied soldiers holding single-shot bolt-action rifles were almost unable to fight back. .
MP18 submachine gun
Therefore, the US military, which had also suffered enough at that time, urgently developed its own submachine gun. The two firearms designers of the American Otto Automatic Weapons Company: O.V. Perth and T.H. Okhoff quickly presented their research results to the military.
The submachine gun they designed uses 11.43mm Colt pistol ammunition, which is fed by a huge drum with a capacity of 100 rounds. The rate of fire is as high as 720 rounds per minute, which can be described as "splashing bullets like rain"! In terms of firepower, it is not inferior to the German MP18 submachine gun.
Since the boss behind the Otto company was General John Thompson of the military, this submachine gun was named after "Thompson" after it came out. Although General Thompson was not the actual designer of the gun, he was actually the first person to propose the term "submachine gun", so naming the gun after him is considered "substantial."
On the other hand, after all, General Thompson himself has a military background, so he does not need to worry about sales: The U.S. military, which urgently needs to strengthen its infantry automatic firepower, has to "cry and shout" to place a large order. ?
But "man's calculation is not as good as God's calculation". What made Otto Company extremely depressed was that shortly after the Thompson submachine gun was successfully developed, the First World War ended!
Since the US military's demand for submachine guns is no longer so urgent, there have not been the expected "big orders". What's even more terrible is that when the war ended and the world economic crisis hit, the military of various countries would no longer spend a large sum of money to buy this expensive submachine gun.
Faced with this embarrassing situation, Otto Company had no choice but to take the Thompson submachine gun to the civilian market to "hawk." In 1920, Otto Company launched the Thomson M1919A1 submachine gun to the civilian market with great fanfare. However, the sales effect has been very dismal:
because ordinary people can use revolver and for self-defense. Even for hunting, they have various shotguns to choose from. Moreover, at that time, the private price of a Thompson submachine gun was as high as 175 US dollars (the ordinary pistol sold for only a few US dollars). You must know that a Ford car at that time only cost 400 US dollars!
How many people would buy this expensive and useless submachine gun? And there are only a handful of people who can afford to buy a Thompson submachine gun. Therefore, Otto Company has been selling it in the civilian market for a year, but it has been unable to open up sales. By 1925, the total production of Thompson submachine gun only reached 3,000.
After all, it was not an easy task to buy a Thompson submachine gun at that time: "financial resources" and "courage" were both indispensable. But there is a group in the United States that can do both of these things. This alternative folk group is: gangs.
American gangsters saved the Thompson submachine gun, which became one of the standard firearms of the US military during World War II .
The social effects of the alcohol prohibition promulgated by the United States in 1920 continued to "ferment". Gang groups in the United States took the opportunity to grow, and the scale of gang fights on the streets became larger and larger!
On September 25, 1925, Edward O'Connell, the leader of the South Side gang in Chicago, was attacked by an assassin. At that time, the assassin was using a Thompson submachine gun.
Although O'Connor finally escaped with his life under the fierce fire of the Thompson submachine gun, O'Connor was "deeply impressed" by the fierce firepower of the Thompson submachine gun. O'Connor also became the first gang leader to be actually attacked by the Thompson submachine gun after it became available to the public.
After this assassination incident, the Thompson submachine gun began to quickly become "popular" among American gangs! Because the gangs are more "pragmatic" than the military, the gangsters threw away their revolvers and all wielded the "almost invincible" Thompson submachine guns.
At that time, they mainly purchased the M1921 and M1928 Thompsons, which were not only fierce in firepower, but also very easy to hide and carry. When carrying out assassinations, they would remove wooden rifle stocks and drums, then hide them in violin cases and take to the streets.
After arriving near the target location, he quickly opened the violin case and reinstalled the drum. Even the wooden butt of the gun could be omitted directly, and then he could pick up the gun and shoot fiercely.
Since the gangs were the most rampant in Chicago at that time, the Thompson submachine gun appeared most frequently on the streets of Chicago! Therefore, the Thompson submachine gun has since been nicknamed: "Chicago Violin". Many people also gave it another elegant name: "Chicago Typewriter" based on the sound made by the Thompson submachine gun when it was fired continuously.
When American gangs were trafficking in bootleg liquor in the early 1930s, they had two essential weapons: Lincoln L-type cars and Thompson M1928 submachine guns. It is with the "strong help" of gangsters and gangsters that the sales and reputation of Thomson submachine guns have "increased step by step" year by year.
Hollywood movies later followed suit: when filming gangster shootout movies, gangsters wearing coats and top hats would hold a Thompson submachine gun and shoot wildly. This image of Hollywood gangsters was once "deeply rooted in "People's hearts"!
As a result, people later called the Thompson submachine gun the "Hollywood Hooligan". As a firearm that was successfully "saved" by gangsters and "fuelled" by a series of gangster movies, the Thomson submachine gun began to form an "indissoluble bond" with gangsters, assassinations, and smuggling in people's hearts. ".
American police equipped with Thompson submachine guns
On the other hand, since American gangs have been equipped with Thompson submachine guns in large numbers, in order to counter the "firepower advantage" of gang groups, American police departments have also begun to gradually equip them with Thompson submachine guns.
As the Thompson submachine gun became popular in the civilian market, the US military had to reconsider this submachine gun.
The U.S. Army first installed the Thompson submachine gun in 1938. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the Thompson submachine gun was officially listed as the standard weapon of the U.S. military.
Thompson M1 submachine gun
The US military later made some improvements to the gun to make it easier for soldiers to carry and fight on the battlefield. The improved gun type was named "M1", and the drum magazine was canceled and replaced with a 20 or 30-round magazine.
Conclusion
Since the advent of the Thompson submachine gun, it has produced a total of five major series: M1921, M1923, M1927, M1928 and M1, and each major series has multiple improved models.
From the M1921 to the M1928 models, the Thompson submachine gun has continued the unique automatic principle: a semi-free bolt that is ready to fire and has delayed recoil.
Except for a few parts, the Thompson submachine gun is basically made of a single piece of steel, so it is also very strong and durable on the battlefield.During the entire World War II, a total of about 1.5 million military versions of Thompson submachine guns were produced, and they were installed in almost all branches of the US military.
This submachine gun, which has always been regarded as "Hollywood gangsters" , was finally able to vindicate itself in World War II: I am not only an accomplice of gangsters, I am also the "main force" of anti-fascism!
The Thompson submachine gun was officially discontinued in 1945, but in the following decades, people can still see the Thompson submachine gun continuing to exert its residual heat. The classic picture of American gangsters holding cigarette butts and shooting wildly with a Thompson has been deeply imprinted in people's minds.
picture source network, intrusion and deletion! "Historical Station, the Harbor of the Heart"
Friends, would you like to click and follow "Historical Station"? Thanks for the support!
