Introduction
The submachine gun Thompson It is undoubtedly one of the best known and most famous weapons of the twentieth century. Designed by the American official John Taliaferro Thompsonequipped the US Army until the 1960s and numerous other armies since its first version in 1921. Weapon also used by the organized crime and by guerrillas far and wide around the world for their fights and their businesses. No doubt the Thompson marked an era and has become an icon of popular culture.
The Thompson and the Great War (1916-1919)
The Great War has undoubtedly been the conflict that has most revolutionized military tactics and therefore technology. When in the autumn of 1914 the armies buried themselves in kilometers and kilometers of trenches, the high staffs of the different countries pulled their hair and mustaches to discover the method with which to break the stalemate of the front. The ideas were many and some of them crazy, but they all had one in mind, the increase in firepower of the infantryman. Many military engineers tried to mix high rate of fire with low weight, which amounted to a portable machine gun. Of all the studies carried out, it was in Germany that the MP-18the first modern submachine gun and practice of military history.
In the United States, Mr. John Taliaferro Thompson He wanted to design his own model of submachine gun. The idea for this weapon had come about when he was stuck in a trench during the war and thought that an automatic weapon would greatly help in clearing out a fortified position, as long bolt-action rifles were quite inconvenient to use in short-range combat situations. distance. With the help of a sponsor he was able to found Auto Ordnance Company. Thus, the analysis and investigation of how to carry out the new model that Thompson had viewed. The studies began before the appearance of the German MP-18, but the Germans went ahead and their submachine gun he began reaching out to his troops before the war ended. In 1918, the submachine gun The US was at a very advanced stage, but when they wanted to deliver the first prototypes to Europe, the conflict was over and it could not be tested in combat.
The few prototypes that had been manufactured were redesigned so that the new weapon could be mass-produced, thus formally born in 1921 the submachine gun Thompson. Although the new model was designed for larger production it was quite expensive for the time, coming in at a price of $225. This is because it used high quality pieces and had a nice wood finish. This first model had a pistol-type pistol grip on the fore-end, which helped to aim the weapon when aiming. An adjustable sight was also added to it, as in large-caliber rifles, and it used straight magazines for 20 or 30 cartridges or drums for 50 or 100 cartridges. Its rate of fire was very high and its caliber 45. ACP was quite powerful, so at close and medium range it was infallible.
From the Thompson M1921 to the M1928, the family grows
With the Great War over, introducing a new weapon into an army became difficult, since the countries had invested billions in weapons during the conflict and were exhausted. Nevertheless Taliaferro he tried to sell his new submachine gun to the army and especially to the security forces, but the move did not go well at all. Police and army complained that the submachine gun Thompson was very expensive, and that for the price of one of them several agents could be equipped with Colt 45 Model 1911 pistols. Despite all this, the weapon was produced in good numbers and was offered for sale all over the world to attract possible buyers.
The first to buy and use this weapon were the Irish, who after a “rife and raffle” with the British achieved an independence treaty against them, albeit with limitations. There were Irish groups that did not accept the treaty so there was a civil war between pro-treaty supporters and dissidents. Both sides acquired submachine guns Thompson in moderate numbers and were used in combat. In photographs of the time it is possible to see pro-treaty Irish soldiers (led by the famous Michael Collins) with thompsons with 100-round magazines, magazines that later became very rare and were no longer used.
Another country where Thompson was purchased on a limited basis was in Spainmore specifically the government of the Government of Catalonia during the 1930s. These submachine guns were acquired to equip the Mossos d’Esquadra and that according to the weaponry expert Juan L. Calvo, the drum-shaped chargers for these weapons were seen in the Generalitat Palace. The submachine guns Thompson They were already advertised in the catalogs published by the Barcelona firm “Laplana y Cia” in the 1920s, such as: «excellent machine gun- latest invention of modern technology»….»indispensable for the defense of factories, estates, towers and banks«.
No doubt the submachine gun of the lord Taliaferro has been more linked to a group of people than to a specific country, we refer to the mafia. That the security forces of the US state did not see the potential of this weapon does not mean that other people did not see it, that is why organized crime saw in the submachine gun Thompson a perfect weapon for your business. The mobsters They bought a large number of these weapons and used them in their personal wars. An example of this is that one day the police arrived at the scene of a crime, the entire place was shot at and it was thought that the action would have lasted for hours, which they did not know is that the destruction had only been a blast of submachine gun Thompson. Soon the weapon became an icon of the time of the Dry Law Y prohibition and nicknames like «the Chicago Typewriter” Or simply “tommy gun«.
The publicity that these individuals made of the firearm John Taliaferro was not good enough, but its use by the mob caused the police to start acquiring thompsons because they were beginning to be at a disadvantage against the criminals. In 1928 the submachine gun, which basically looked the same but had some parts removed from the firing pin to make it cheaper to produce. This new model was manufactured in greater quantity than its predecessor and also small military variants eliminated the pistol grip of the barrel for a wooden handguard. Not only the great mafia families used this weapon, but also the most iconic bank robbers of the 1930s used the Thompson M1921 and M1928, names like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, «baby-face» Nelson either «Machine Gun« Kelly have been linked to the history of this submachine gun. In addition to using these weapons, they also modified them to their liking, for example, how to use them without a stock or as a pistol.
In 1936 the Spanish Civil War began and the Second Republic, due to the lack of war material, began to look for sellers. Republican agents contacted US sellers for the sale of light material, the purchase did not take place but according to sources the Republicans may have acquired 5,000 Thompson submachine guns if the government of that country had not refused to sell it so as not to interfere in the Spanish war. Nevertheless, a few M1928 they arrived in Spain together with the battalion of volunteers Abraham Lincoln arrived from the US to fight alongside the government, according to author and weapons expert Bernat Barceló Rubí.
The Thompson and World War II (1939-1945)
In the 1930s, the Thompson M1928 submachine gun he finally achieved his goal, to be officially adopted by the US forces. This submachine gun would play a fundamental role in World War II. When the new conflict began in 1939, only one country had not developed a submachine gun native, UK. The British had to acquire submachine guns Thompson M1928 in large quantities and then delivered by the Lend and Lease Law which also affected the USSR. Throughout the war Commonwealth forces used the Thompson in different versions until finally the Sten appeared, which began to replace the submachine gun North American.
In 1941, after the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Americans plunged into World War II. All the Thompson submachine guns they were taken out of the arsenals and began to equip the Marines and the regular army. However, although constant improvements had been made to cheapen the already famous submachine gunthis was still expensive, so in 1942 more simplified versions appeared, the model M1 and M1A1 which were produced in surprisingly high quantities. These new versions eliminated drum magazines, adjustable sights, and pistol-style grips in order to create a fully military-grade weapon. Although the weapon Taliaferro it was used in large quantities never imagined, its inventor died in 1940 and could not see his finished work.
new models M1 and M1A1 they were still expensive to produce for wartime, so the army began testing new submachine guns like the famous M3 «grease gun» or the Reising M50 and M55 among others. The M3 was chosen to replace the Thompson, but it did not have a good start and it was only after several improvements that it entered service, a service that it had to do together with its predecessor for many years. During the war the Thompson it was also provisionally adopted by France, which after its defeat in 1940 had to be re-equipped with American material. When the war ended in 1945, the quantity produced of these submachine guns it was so high that they had to be sold or given as surplus to quite a few armies of countries that had been torn apart by the war, or that were “allies” of the US such as the Latin American republics and dictatorships.
The Thompson and the Postwar (1945-1995)
As we have already said, the Thompson It survived the end of World War II without problems and its great production meant that it had to be distributed and sold throughout the world. If during the 1920s and 1930s it had been an iconic weapon of the mobsters, now in the 1950s and 1960s, it would be one of the guerrillas of all kinds of ideologies. In 1950, in the Far East and more specifically in Korea, a new war began, this time within the framework of the Cold War, the great struggle between the US and the USSR. The South Koreans and Americans brought their wonderful tommy’s but when China invaded North Korea to save said regime they realized that the Chinese also had Thompson submachine guns. This is because China had been helped with American material to fight the Japanese and now Communist China was reusing this weaponry.
The 1950s was the time of the revolutions and in 1957 the Cuban regime depended directly on the United States, so the army used North American material. During 1957-1959, the regime…