Submachine Guns
Bridging that "special" gap between pistol, machine pistol and machine gun.
The submachine gun was born from the desire of warplanners to provide the basic infantryman with the voluminous firepower of a machine gun with the portability of a pistol in the early part of the 20th Century - the requirement proved most apparent during World War 1. The first useful submachine gun design was of German origin and became the Bergmann MP18. However, it would not be until World War 2 that the submachine gun would truly take the stage as a viable infantry weapon as its use was prevalent on all sides of the conflict. The war produced the reliable American M1 Thompson, the war-winning British Sten series and the famous German MP38/MP40 types. The Germans ushered in an all-new era of submachine gun design during the Cold War years with the introduction of the excellent Heckler & Koch MP5 which went on to be used by dozens of countries the world over.
There are a total of 70 Submachine Guns in the Military Factory. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order. Flag images indicative of country of origin.
1998
Origins of the Croatian Agram 2000 stem from the Italian Beretta M12 series of submachine guns. These were chambered for the ...
1986
The Ares folding submachine gun was an attempt by a gun manufacturer to create a completely compact submachine gun weapon sys...
1999
The Shipka was developed to arm a variety of military personnel that would have a need for such a compact weapon capable of v...
1942
With the impending Japanese threat to Australia, and its allies in the United States and Britain tied up with other pressing ...
1982
During the 1980s, Italian firearms producer Benelli teamed with the Italian ammunition concern of Fiocchi Munizioni to produc...
1938
The Beretta Model 38/42 tried to build upon the Beretta Model 38A, which proved to be too expensive to produce in a wartime e...
1986
The Beretta Model 93R (or simply "93R") was produced by the Italian firm of Pietro Beretta SpA out of Gardone Val Trompia. Be...
1918
While much of the attention of early submachine guns is ultimately paid to the Germans and their MP18 (Maschinenpistole 18), ...
2004
The Brugger & Thomet MP9 is a further development of the Steyr TMP or "Tactical Machine Pistol" designed by the Austrian-base...
1988
Arms embargoes set against the nation of South Africa (due to Apartheid) led to the development of an indigenous weapons indu...
1990
The Calico M960 is a roller-delayed blowback submachine gun-class weapon marketed primarily to military, security and law enf...
1945
World War 2 showcased to the Swedes a general lacking of indigenous firearms. As an interim measure, the government contracte...
1961
The Skorpion submachine gun is originally of Czechoslovakian origin and was designed in the late 1950s and formally introduce...
1938
The ZK-383 was a local Czech development of a submachine gun system brought about prior to World War 2. It combined the styli...
1994
The FN P90 is billed as a 'personal defense weapon' and is thusly classified as a submachine gun and not an assault rifle. Th...
1993
The SAF is an impressive-looking Chilean submachine gun designed and developed by state-owned FAbricas y MAestranzas del Ejer...
1956
The Franchi LF-57 proved a high-quality submachine gun design attempt that was only limited by the glut of excellent offering...
1985
The Glock 18 (or Glock Model 18) was similar in many ways to the preceding Glock 17 production model though allotted new inte...
1966
One of the most popular submachine guns ever produced, the Heckler & Koch HK MP5 ("Maschinenpistole 5") became a common sight...
1976
The Heckler & Koch HK MP5K ("K" = "Kurz" meaning "short") was developed to specifically meet the needs of special forces, law...
1983
The HK MP5N is another variant of the highly successful HK MP5 series of submachine guns. The 'N' designation is reserved for...
1974
The excellence of the original Heckler & Koch HK MP5 series pushed the need for a dedicated suppressed form to be used by spe...
2001
By and large, submachine gun class weapons were largely designed around existing pistol-type cartridges which, for their time...
1999
The UMP family ("Universale Maschinenpistole" or "Universal Machine Pistol") is a series of submachine guns designed by the G...
1973
In the post-World War 2 world, the United Nations partitioned Palestine in 1947. In 1948, the nation of Israel was declared a...
1980
The Israeli Military Industries (IMI) Mini-UZI is a smaller, more compact form of the base UZI submachine gun. Its smaller fo...
2006
For decades the Israeli Army relied upon its trusted and true line of Galil and M16 automatic weapons in its various battlefi...
1950
The UZI 9 mm was created soon after Israel became a nation state in 1948. The UZI used a revolutionary design in which the pi...
1970
The Ingram MAC-10 (M10) was a short-lived, compact submachine gun foray seeing limited production and equally-limited action ...
1998
The INSAS family was inducted into service with the Indian Army in 1998 and has already seen extensive combat service, partic...
2006
The JS 9mm (or simply "JS 9") is a conventional Chinese submachine gun type firearm designed exclusively for the export marke...
2014
The AK-47 altered the world military stage by becoming a ubiquitous combat system available to the general masses. The weapon...
1983
The AKSU-74 represents a submachine gun derivative of the AKS assault rifle, both operating with the 5.45mm Soviet cartridge....
1991
Like the wz/88 "Tantal, a locally-produced Polish copy of the Russian AK-74S assault rifle, the wz/89 "Onyks" (or "Onyx") is ...
2004
The M4 MWS (Modular Weapon System) is based on the M16A4, which in itself represents a newer incarnation of the base M16A2 cu...
2006
The Heckler & Koch HK MP5 submachine gun is currently used by most of the world's elite special forces groups. Introduced in ...
1941
After the heroic evacuation of the Dunkirk survivors and the subsequent Fall of France in 1940, the British future was an unn...
1963
The F1 submachine gun replaced the World War 2-era Owen submachine gun series then in service with the Australian Army. By th...
1938
The Thompson series of submachine guns (not quite a pistol yet not a full-fledged machine gun) began life in 1919 following W...
1943
The M3 "Grease Gun" was an economical weapons design meant to arm large quantities of American troops with large quantities o...
1944
Designed in 1942 with serial production beginning in 1943, the original M3/M3A1 "Grease Gun" submachine gun (SMG) series was ...
1939
World War 1 introduced the concept of "machine pistols" to help bridge the gap between the portable pistol sidearm and the le...
1949
The MAT-49 is a submachine gun developed in France by Manufacture Nationale d'Armes de Tulle (MAT) and accepted into service ...
1953
The Mitraillette Vigneron was born in post-World War 2 Belgium Army requirement for an indigenous and modern submachine gun. ...
1945
1945 proved a disastrous year for the German military. By April, Hitler's territories had shrunk to previously-unthinkable le...
1938
The MP38 served as the predecessor to the well known MP40 series of mass-produced submachine guns developed by the Germans in...
1940
As the original German Army MP38 submachine gun series proving a success, it was also too expensive for war time production. ...
1941
Despite its obvious battlefield value today, world militaries took some time to warm up to the idea of procuring and fielding...
1974
The PA3(DM) / FMK-3 submachine gun series was of indigenous Argentine design and chambered for the universally accepted 9x19 ...
1996
The Russian branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs called for a new lightweight, close-in fighting weapon system suitable...
1935
The submachine became a Soviet Army staple in World War 2 when automatic weapons were selected ahead of slower-firing bolt-ac...
1942
The PPS submachine gun was designed by Leningrad engineer A. I. Sudarev in 1942. Leningrad was encircled by the might of the ...
1941
The Soviet Army began experimentation of submachine gun class weapons in the latter half of the 1920s. By the time of World W...
1941
Before the arrival of the various storied American firearms of World War 2 such as the M1 Thompson, M1 Garand and M1 Carbine,...
1984
The Spectre M4 was a submachine gun of Italian origin and presented a highly compact automatic weapon system intended for use...
1984
The SOCIMI Type 821-SMG was a rather nondescript, no-frills submachine gun of the 1980s developed to the popular lines of the...
1941
The British STEN submachine gun is one of those rare firearms in history that was born of desperation and turned into a war-w...
1988
The success of the Austrian Steyr AUG assault rifle family naturally encouraged the weapon to span out into other gun classif...
1969
The Steyr MPi 69 was an UZI-influenced submachine gun of Austrian origin intended for military and security use. It was chamb...
1931
When World War 2 began in September of 1939, Poland was split into two halves by the victors - the Nazi Germans took the West...
2010
The TDI Vector (also known as the KRISS Super V) is a new breed of submachine gun that intends to revolutionized the way all ...
1942
Despite their far-reaching strategic and tactical advances in the early stages of World War 2, the Imperial Japanese Army was...
1981
For several decades the Chinese enjoyed a close working relationship with the Soviet Union. Perks of this relationship includ...
1985
The Chinese Type 85 submachine gun appeared in two forms in the 1980s as a budget-conscious replacement for the Type 79 subma...
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