Colt-Thompson submachine guns and self-loading weapons
| Colt-Thompson submachine guns and self-loading weapons | |
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| general information | |
| Civil name: | Thompson Submachine Gun Model of 1921 |
| Military designation: | Thompson Submachine Gun Cal .45 |
| Country of operation: | United States , British Forces |
| Developer / Manufacturer: | John T. Thompson , Auto-Ordnance Corporation, New York / Colt (manufacturer) |
| Manufacturer country: | United States |
| Production time: | 1919 to 1922 |
| Model variants: | M1919, M1921A, 1921AC, M1923, M1927, M1928A, 1928AC |
| Weapon Category: | Submachine gun |
| Furnishing | |
| Barrel length : | 267 mm |
| Technical specifications | |
| Caliber : | .45 ACP, .45 Remington-Thompson, .45 Automatic Peters-Thompson Shot cartridge |
| Possible magazine fillings : | 20, 50, 100 (18, magazine for shotgun shells) cartridges |
| Cadence : | 800 (M1921) 600 (M1928) rounds / min |
| Fire types: | Either permanent or single fire |
| Number of trains : | 6th |
| Twist : | Right |
| Visor : | Open sights |
| Closure : | Delayed mass closure |
| Charging principle: | Recoil loader |
| Lists on the subject | |
The Colt-Thompson submachine guns and self-loading weapons are submachine guns and never mass - produced self-loading rifles that were developed and marketed by the Auto-Ordnance Corporation (USA) founded by John T. Thompson in 1915 . The 15,000 submachine guns were made in 1921/1922 by Colt's Patent Fire Arms MFG. Co manufactured. The successor, the Thompson submachine gun manufactured by Savage Arms and the newly formed Auto-Ordnance Corporation Bridgeport, Connecticut , was used in large numbers during World War II .
John T. Thompson
During the Spanish-American War , John T. Thompson was the officer in charge of equipping the expeditionary force under General Shafter. Because of his experience there, he began to be interested in the further development of infantry weapons . As head of the infantry weapons department of the United States Army Procurement Office , he was instrumental in the development of the M1903 rifle and in the reintroduction of large-caliber handguns such as the Colt M1911 . Its acceptance stamp “JTT” can therefore be found on many weapons from that time. After retiring from the army, he joined the Remington Arms Co. as chief engineer in 1914 and was tasked with building the Eddystone arms factory in Chester . Under his direction, pattern 1914 Enfield rifles for the British and Mosin-Nagant rifles for the Russian army were manufactured there. With the entry of the United States into the war in 1917, he re-entered the army service and with the rank of brigadier general was in charge of the arsenals of the US Army. He was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his achievements .
John T. Thompson was married and had a son, Marcellus Thompson, who was also an officer trained at West Point . He commanded an artillery regiment in Europe during the First World War . John T. Thompson died June 21, 1940; he was buried in the West Point Academy cemetery.
The Auto-Ordnance Corporation
Thompson had known about the Blish patent since 1915. Naval officer John Bell Blish had found that gun screw plugs block themselves with heavy charges, but open partially with light charges. As the person in charge of the US weapons procurement office, Thompson had already propagated the introduction of self-loading infantry rifles and had existing models from home and abroad tested. Based on his knowledge, he assumed that self-loading rifles could be manufactured inexpensively using the blish effect. He decided to work with Blish and hired Theodore H. Eickhoff as chief engineer to develop the weapon in the summer of 1916.
Auto-Ordnance, active from August 1916, was registered in December of the same year as the Auto-Ordnance Corporation with its headquarters in New York. The managing director of Auto-Ordnance was Thompson, who also held a substantial part of the shares , some of which went to Blish. The most important donor and partner who made the establishment of the company possible was the financier Thomas Fortune Ryan, an American of Irish descent.
Auto-Ordnance's development facility was in Cleveland , Ohio ; There the first self-loading rifles were developed by Eickhoff and Oscar V. Payne, who was discontinued in 1917. As Thompson's right-hand man, George E. Goll was responsible for organizing and conducting the weapons demonstrations. In the absence of machine tools at the Cleveland plant, the prototype rifles and the first submachine guns were manufactured by the Warner & Swasey Company of Cleveland. They were tested at the Auto Ordnance, one of the rifle prototypes exploded. Eickhoff and Payne quickly discovered that the blish closure is unsuitable for heavy rifle loads, but that it works fine with pistol cartridges.
Thompson having regard to the problems in trench warfare to develop at the front in Europe, then decided a machine gun he Trench Broom called (grave broom). It should be given to storm troops as a light sustained fire weapon . In contrast to the Bergmann MP18 submachine gun used by the German army , it came too late for the war in Europe.
After the first prototypes were made in Cleveland in 1919, Colt's Patent Fire Arms MFG became. Co Hartford , Connecticut was entrusted with the further development up to series production, Cleveland was closed and the most important employees were taken over by Colt. A year later, Colt was commissioned to manufacture 15,000 Thompson submachine guns. The Remington Arms was commissioned to manufacture the pistol grips and pistons . The production of the Thompson Submachine-Gun Model of 1921 began on March 30, 1921 with the serial number 41 and ended on July 26, 1922 with the serial number 15040.
Sales were bad, in 1940 there were still 4,700 of these submachine guns in stock. About 1000 weapons went to the US armed forces, some 100 to other armies, about 500 to the Irish Republican Army via George G. Rorke (like Fortune Ryan an American of Irish descent). Various weapons have been sold to the FBI , police units and prisons. In the civilian market they went to industrialists to fight strikes and to criminals such as Al Capone , John Dillinger , Babyface Nelson and others, until the acquisition by private individuals was made much more difficult with the National Firearms Act of 1934.
In 1928, Thompson retired from the company. After Ryan's death in 1929, his heirs wanted to liquidate the company, but were prevented from doing so by Marcellus Thompson. He continued to run Auto-Ordnance Co. and sold it to the financier Russel Maguire shortly before bankruptcy in 1939. Maguire's first deal was to sell the 4,700 remaining Thompsons to the war-threatened Allies. Second, he commissioned the mass production of the Navy Model in 1928 at Savage Arms , Utica , New York . He was also instrumental in the organization of the Auto-Ordnance Plant, a factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut , which began war production of the weapon in August 1940. For John T. Thompson († 1940) and his son Marcellus († August 1939) it was too late to benefit from the financial success of the Thompsons.
The Thompson self-loading rifle
Most of the infantry rifles used in World War I were repeating weapons. Self-loading rifles such as those from Mauser , Mannlicher , Cei-Rigotti , Farquhar-Hill , Bang etc. were still in the development stage. The Mondragon and St. Etienne model M1917 rifles, which were sporadically used during the World War, were gas-pressure or recoil loaders with a locked bolt. The same goes for the light machine guns, the MG 08/15 , Chauchat , Lewis Gun and the Madsen Lmg . The Schwarzlose MG with delayed mass locking only worked thanks to a short barrel and greased cartridges. Thompson assumed that a self-loading rifle could be developed using the blish-lock, which blocks at maximum pressures, like a bolt-action rifle with a fixed barrel and would also function properly with non-greased cartridges. He commissioned his engineers to develop such a rifle in the American rifle caliber .30-06 Springfield .
The prototypes developed by Eickhoff and Payne were shooting weapons with cylinder locks. This locked on the principle of the artillery screw lock . The bolt head had an interrupted six-start thread; this fit into the thread in a bronze sleeve in the lock housing. The thread pitch was calculated so that the lock only unlocked when the gas pressure had largely dropped. To unlock, the locking head had to turn 90 °, the angle of the load-bearing thread sectors was slightly smaller than 90 °. The lock consisted of two components, the lock head and the additional mass behind it. Their contact surfaces were designed as a double helix. The double helix had the effect that the rear non-rotatable component was strongly accelerated by the rotation of the front component and thus additionally delayed the rotation and unlocking of the lock head. When the shot was fired, the recoil spring behind the additional mass was tensioned and the automatic reloading process was initiated.
A bolt handle was attached to the bolt head for loading the weapon . It was loaded by unlocking, pulling the latch back and letting it snap forward. When the shot was fired, the bolt head, including the bolt handle, suddenly turned 90 °, flicked back and forth and locked. This could lead to injuries to the shooter. It quickly became apparent that the rifle was not working properly. The inventors' assumption that the delay was due to the momentary sticking of the contact surfaces as assumed by Blish was wrong. It was based solely on the inertia of the translated accelerated masses and the frictional resistance in the threads and the double helix. The cartridges had to be oiled to ensure proper function.
Although models of the rifle were further developed by Colt in 1923, Colt's Auto Rifle Type PC ("P" for Payne, "C" for Colt) in the evaluation of the US Army in the Springfield Armory (Massachusetts) to replace the Springfield M1903- Repetierers were tested, there was no success and the army decided on the M1 Garand rifle. Payne then left the company.
The Thompson submachine guns
The development, the model of 1919
The development of the Thompson submachine gun began in 1917. Thompson required a light, hip-firing weapon with 50 to 100 rounds that could be operated by one man and reloaded in the dark. On September 22, 1917, Oscar Payne presented a perspective drawing of such a weapon and a belt-fed prototype called a Persuader was built but never completed. It is now on display at the United States Military Academy Museum at West Point. The breech was already similar to the delayed mass breech used in all Thompson submachine guns. With the first completed prototype, the Annihilator I , serial number 1, either drum or 20-round rod magazines could be used. The cadence of the first weapons was up to 1500 rounds / min. From Annihilator II two pieces with the serial numbers 2 and 3 were prepared. The first Thompson with a removable piston was the No. 11. The last prototype was unnumbered. All of these weapons were marked: 'THIS GUN IS PROTECTED BY AMERICAN AND FOREIGN PATENTS'.
The Colt Model of 1921
In August 1920, the Auto-Ordnance Corporation and Colt's Patent Fire Arms MFG signed a contract to manufacture 15,000 of these weapons. The first - still of the 1919 type - are still sample guns , the number 26 already bears that of the Colt company in addition to the Auto Ordnance label. The first two Thompson, Model of 1921 submachine guns were sent to Infantry School, Dept. on March 30, 1921. of Experiment, Camp Benning (GA), they bore the serial numbers 41 and 44. The Thompson Model of 1921 had a rate of fire of 800 rounds / min. It was delivered with 20-round rod magazines and 50 and, more rarely, 100-round drum magazines . An 18-round magazine adapted to the length of the cartridge could be used to fire slightly longer .45 shotgun cartridges (picture "Thompson self-loading rifle").
Military Model of 1923
As the first variant of the 1921 model, a weapon in the somewhat more powerful .45 Remington-Thompson caliber was developed in 1923 . As a light assault rifle, it had a 16-inch (406 mm) barrel without cooling fins, a straight fore-end, bipod support and a bayonet mount . The lock housing was that of the Thompson 1921, the piston was kept a little flatter for the prone stop. Since the ".45 Remington Thompson cartridge" was slightly longer than the ".45 ACP", the 18-round shot cartridge magazine was used. Five of these weapons were made for army demonstrations, and two were for the civilian market. Two of these weapons still exist today, one in the West Point Museum and the other in a French military museum.
Model of 1921AC
From 1926 onwards, some of the weapons that had already been manufactured were fitted with a muzzle brake, the Cutts Compensator , in order to make the weapon more manageable during continuous fire. The guns without a muzzle brake were henceforth called the Model of 1921A .
Model of 1927
The 1927 model was a 1921 model modified for single fire. It was made for police units and prison guards. The inscriptions on the weapon were milled out, MODEL OF 1921, THOMPSON SUBMACHINE GUN, were now called MODEL OF 1927, THOMPSON SEMI-AUTOMATIC CARBINE. Most of these weapons were equipped with a cutts and were later converted back to series fire by replacing two components.
In 1927, the United States Navy Procurement Office tested Thompson 1921 submachine guns for the United States Marines , criticizing the high rate of fire; it was required to set this to 600 rounds / min. to lower. Oscar V. Payne, who had left the company in 1922, was hired to solve the problem of the rate of fire. He achieved this by proposing corrections to only three components: The mass of the control piece was increased and a harder closing spring was used, which required a thinner guide rod. The rest of the weapon stayed the same, it worked perfectly and was much easier to control. USNAVY was added to the labeling of the weapon; the number 1 from 1921 was rolled over with an 8, which is why collectors call this version Navy Overstamp . The weapons delivered to the Navy had a straight fore-end, corresponding to that of the later war productions. Weapons with the double pistol grip could also be purchased for the civilian market. Most of the 1928 Thompson models had Cutts Compensators .
Manufacture of prototypes in England
In 1925, Birminghall Small Arms Ltd. Licensed in England to manufacture Thompson weapons. A total of nine weapons were made in different calibers. They can be recognized by the piston attached to the extension of the lock box. In addition, the existence of a Thompson self-loading rifle in Russian caliber 7.62 × 54 mm R , completed by BSA and designated BSA, is known.
Technology, function
All Thompson submachine guns manufactured by Colt in Cleveland and Hartford are recoil loaders with delayed firing mass locking . This consists of two components - the actual locking block and the control piece - which are connected by an H-shaped intermediate piece made of bronze. This delays the return of the breech block by engaging two protruding locking elements in short 45 ° upward millings in the breech block. Since it slides upwards in the breech block at an angle of 70 °, it also brakes it. At the same time, the H-piece accelerates the rear component of the lock, the control piece pressed forward by the closing spring. As soon as the locking elements of the H-piece are released, the entire locking system can run back, the closing spring is tensioned and the reloading process is initiated. The angles of the sliding surfaces of the H-piece in the frame, locking block and control piece are calculated in such a way that the control piece has covered twice the distance in relation to the locking block at the moment of release. The delay in the return of the closure is based on the inertia of the accelerated mass of the control piece and on the frictional resistance between the individual components. The H-connector must be lubricated to function properly; this is done by means of oil-soaked felt elements in the lock housing.
All Thompson M1921 submachine guns are self-locking weapons with a barrel length of 270 mm (10.5 inches). They fire the same cartridge as the Colt M1911 , the .45-ACP cartridge and have a rate of 800 rounds / min. To cock the weapon, a button attached to the control piece and protruding from the top of the breech housing is pulled back, the weapon is ready to fire with the breech open. If the trigger is pulled, the recoil spring lets the slide snap forward, which pushes a cartridge from the magazine into the cartridge chamber. A rocker arm is attached to the front of the breech, its lower end hits the front surface under the barrel, with its upper end the firing pin is pressed forward, it ignites. The weapon fires until the trigger is released or the magazine is empty.
The weapon was XXdelivered -Stangenmagazinen were also L- and C-Trommelmagazine available. The designations XX, Land Cindicate the respective magazine capacity in Roman numerals ( XX: 20 L,: 50 and C100 rounds). A special 18-round rod magazine was used to fire the somewhat longer shotshells.
Production and use during World War II
Manufactured by Savage Arms Utica, NY and Auto-Ordnance Corporation Bridgeport (CT), Thompson M1928A1, M1, and M1A1 submachine guns were used in large numbers during World War II.
literature
- Melvin M. Johnson, Charles T. Haven: Automatic Weapons of the World. William Morrow & Co., NY, USA, 1945.
- WHB Smith: Joseph E. Smith: The Book of Rifles. The Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, PA, USA, 1963.
- Auto Ordnance Corporation (Ed.): Thompson Gun. Operating Instructions 1928, 302 Broadway, New York City, USA.
- Roger A. Cox: The Thompson Submachine Gun. VIII Publishing Co., Conyers, GA, USA, 1982.
- Tracie L. Hill: Thompson, the American Legend. Collector Grade Publications Inc, Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, 1996, ISBN 0-88935-208-9 .
Individual evidence
- ^ WHB Smith, Joseph E. Smith: Small Arms of the World . Stackpole, Harrisburg, PA 1962.