The Heckler & Koch MP5 is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s by German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. It uses a similar modular design to the Heckler & Koch G3, and has over 100 variants and clones, including selective fire, semi-automatic, suppressed, compact, and even marksman variants. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous militaries, police forces, intelligence agencies, security organizations, paramilitaries, and non-state actors.
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automatic firearm with notably less firepower than a machine gun. As a machine gun must fire rifle cartridges to be classified as such, submachine guns are not considered machine guns.
The Thompson submachine gun is a blowback-operated, selective-fire submachine gun, invented and developed by Brigadier General John T. Thompson, a United States Army officer, in 1918. It was designed to break the stalemate of trench warfare of World War I, although early models did not arrive in time for actual combat.
The STEN is a British submachine gun chambered in 9×19mm which was used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and during the Korean War. The Sten paired a simple design with a low production cost, facilitating mass production to meet the demand for submachine guns.
The Sterling submachine gun is a British submachine gun (SMG). It was tested by the British Army in 1944–1945, but did not start to replace the Sten until 1953. A successful and reliable design, it remained standard issue in the British Army until 1994, when it began to be replaced by the L85A1, a bullpup assault rifle.
A firearm is said to fire from an open bolt or open breech if, when ready to fire, the bolt and working parts are held to the rear of the receiver, with no round in the chamber. When the trigger is actuated, the bolt travels forward, feeds a cartridge from the magazine or belt into the chamber, and fires that cartridge in the same movement. Like any other self-loading design, the action is cycled by the energy released from the propellant, which sends the bolt back to the rear, compressing the mainspring in readiness for firing the next round. In an open-bolt gun firing semi-automatically, the bolt is caught and held at this point by the sear after each shot; and in automatic open-bolt fire, it's caught and held in this manner whenever the trigger is released. In contrast to this, in closed-bolt guns, the trigger and sear do not affect the movement of the bolt directly.
The Kulsprutepistol m/45, also known as the Carl Gustaf M/45 and the Swedish K SMG, is a 9×19mm Swedish submachine gun (SMG) designed by Gunnar Johansson, adopted in 1945, and manufactured at the Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori in Eskilstuna, Sweden. The m/45 was the standard submachine gun of the Swedish Army from 1945 to 1965. It was gradually replaced in Swedish service by updated Automatkarbin 4 battle rifles and Automatkarbin 5 assault rifles. The last official user of the m/45, the Swedish Home Guard (Hemvärnet), retired it from service in April 2007.
The MP35 was a submachine gun used by the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS and German police both before and during World War II. It was developed in the early 1930s by Emil Bergmann and manufactured at the Bergmann company in Suhl.
The Austen is a 9×19mm Australian submachine gun derived from the British Sten gun developed during the Second World War. In total 19,914 Austens were produced during the war by Diecasters Ltd of Melbourne and W. T. Carmichael Ltd of Sydney.
The FIC Mk. 9 is a sub-machine gun designed by a private venture of Floro International Corporation (FIC) based in Tanay, Rizal Province in the Philippines. The weapon is marketed to local security forces as a low-cost alternative to imported submachine guns and is currently in limited use by the Philippines Marines and the Philippines Navy.
The F1 is a 9x19mm Australian submachine gun manufactured by the Lithgow Small Arms Factory. First issued to Australian troops in July 1963, it replaced the Owen machine carbine.
The Colt 9mm SMG, also known as the Colt Model 635 or Colt M635, is a 9×19mm Parabellum submachine gun manufactured by Colt, based on the M16 rifle.
The Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun (SMG) was produced by Smith & Wesson from 1967 to 1974.
The M3 is an American .45-caliber submachine gun adopted by the U.S. Army on 12 December 1942, as the United States Submachine Gun, Cal. .45, M3. The M3 was chambered for the same .45 ACP round fired by the Thompson submachine gun, but was cheaper to mass produce and lighter, at the expense of accuracy. The M3 was commonly referred to as the "Grease Gun" or simply "the Greaser," owing to its visual similarity to the mechanic's tool.
The Sterling Engineering Company Ltd was an arms manufacturer based in Dagenham, famous for manufacturing the Sterling submachine gun (L2A3), ArmaLite AR-18 and Sterling SAR-87 assault rifles and parts of Jaguar cars. The company went bankrupt in 1988.
The TRW Low Maintenance Rifle or LMR was a proposed insurgency weapon designed by TRW Inc. of the United States during the Vietnam War. The intent was to produce an easy-to-use and operate firearm which could be disseminated to insurgent forces supporting the United States' military interests. The design utilized the same 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition and STANAG magazines as the M16 rifle. It would have been equipped with the M6 bayonet along with its M8A1 scabbard.
The BSA Experimental Model 1949 was a submachine gun of British origin intended to replace the Sten submachine gun. The weapon was fed from a 32-round box magazine inserted in the side and had an unusual twist-action bakelite-covered handguard.
