The M1921 became the first Thompson model to be produced and this only found a few homes in the civilian, government and police markets, many put off by the types high costs.
#THOMPSON MACHINE GUN SERIAL NUMBERS PORTABLE#
In essence, this shows how many other forces in the world were also in the same line of thinking at the time - to devise a capable portable system fielding the firepower of a machine gun.
The implication of this weapon in the war forced the Versailles treaty to restrict future development of the weapon type - though the foundation of the "submachine gun" class had already been laid only to be perfected by the time of World War 2. It operated from an open bolt/blowback principle and made use of 9x19mm Parabellum with a rate-of-fire equal to 500 rounds-per-minute.
It was a development of Hugo Schmeisser in 1916 and produced by Theodor Bergmann under Bergmann Waffenfabrik, serving the German Army and others from 1918 through 1945. It should be noted that the first practical submachine gun was actually of German origin and fielded in World War 1 as the MP18 ("Machine Pistol" and noted by the initial year of service being 1918). Most further development would now occur in the commercial market with the military showing little interest in such a system.
In post-war America, the Annihilator name was now dropped in favor of "Thompson Submachine Gun". Had it been produced and delivered in time, it is interesting to envision the Allied soldier perusing the deadly trenches of Europe with his Thompson in hand. The design was completed in 1918 but missed out on potential orders with the close of World War 1. 45 ACP round was selected - this essentially being the only cartridge round suitable for use in the type of Blish firing action being used. Design followed under the name of "Annihilator I" and the American military. Thomas Fortune Ryan provided the funding and Thompson began his Auto-Ordnance Corporation in 1916. This operation could effectively bring down the cyclic rate-of-fire of a given weapon system and seem to be what Thompson had been searching for. The method of fire basically called for the slowing down of the breech by frictional forces accomplished by two obliquely-angled blocks sliding over one another. In 1915, John Bell Blish received his patent for a friction delayed blowback firing action to which Thompson happened across. The challenge lay in devising a system that was relatively simple, safe to use and made to fit into the hands of the standard infantryman. Additionally, World War 1 was a sort of battlefield where the appearance of even a single machine gun - and its inherent firepower, not to mention the psychological implications - could very well make-or-break a given offensive.Īs such, Thompson - with an education in engineering and artillery and work experience in the US Army's Ordnance Department - envisioned a "hand-held" version of a machine gun - a portable "trench-sweeping" system capable of operation by a single soldier and optimized for use in intimate quarters. When in close quarters, the bayonet, attached along the underside these long rifles, was hardly the answer to the common soldier and a better solution was in order.
While the rifle proved worthy of ranged warfare, it was of little value in the confined spaces of the trench networks dotting the European countrysides. The infantryman was generally issued a long bolt-action rifle (that is, every round had to be manually prepped into the chamber before firing through use of a bolt lever) with attached bayonet. General Thompson, son to an Army Lieutenant Colonel, took to heart the hard lessons being learned in "trench warfare" tactics of World War 1. Some 1.7 million copies of this fine weapon have been produced with production beginning in 1921 and continuing to this day. Since then, the weapon system went on to make its mark in the Prohibition era (fighting for both gangsters and police forces alike), found tremendous combat successes in World War 2 and saw use in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the Korean War, the 1st Indochina War, the Vietnam War, the Chinese Civil War and the Bosnian War to name a few conflicts. It was the creation of one General John Taliaferro Thompson (December 31st, 1860 - June 21st, 1940) who started work on early forms as early as 1917.
#THOMPSON MACHINE GUN SERIAL NUMBERS SERIES#
The Thompson series of submachine guns (not quite a pistol yet not a full-fledged machine gun) began life in 1919 following World War 1.