"Tommy Guns" (1 Viewer)

[Carnahan]

I am currently reading "Crack of Doom" by Willi Heinrich (author of Cross of Iron), a novel about the Germans fighting the Russians in Czechoslovakia. Heinrich, a veteran who was on the Eastern Front, keeps mentioning the Germans carrying tommy guns (it's the only weapon he actually references). I've never heard this name applied to anything else but a Thompson - was this slang for an MP 40?

 

[trooper]

Not exactly slang, it was a term used by those ignorant of military small arms to denote any form of sub machine gun. It is to be assumed that they were familiar with the term "tommy gun" from the gangster films of the 1930s but otherwise couldn't tell a Sten from a Schmeiser.

 

[Carnahan]

Not exactly slang, it was a term used by those ignorant of military small arms to denote any form of sub machine gun. It is to be assumed that they were familiar with the term "tommy gun" from the gangster films of the 1930s but otherwise couldn't tell a Sten from a Schmeiser.

That's what I figured, although it surprises me coming from a combat veteran. I came across a passage where he describes one character loading a curved, so I figure that gun is an MP 43.

 

[Carnahan]

That's what I figured, although it surprises me coming from a combat veteran. I came across a passage where he describes one character loading a curved, so I figure that gun is an MP 43.

Oops - a curved magazine!

 

[THE SHOOTIST]

Wasn't there a 9mm version of the Thompson which did indeed have a curved magazine?

 

[theBaron]

I've heard the term applied to the Russian submachine gun that took drums, similar to the drums used on the Thompson. I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the Russian weapon, but it had a perforated cooling sleeve over the barrel. If I'm not mistaken, the Germans used captured examples where necessary, too.

Prost!
Brad

 

[DCN1898]

It was a ppsh 41. Sounds like an interesting book.

 

[Carnahan]

It was a ppsh 41. Sounds like an interesting book.

It's a good read - deals a lot with the partisan movement in that country

 

[fmethorst]

Not exactly slang, it was a term used by those ignorant of military small arms to denote any form of sub machine gun. It is to be assumed that they were familiar with the term "tommy gun" from the gangster films of the 1930s but otherwise couldn't tell a Sten from a Schmeiser.

Actually the term Schmeisser applied to the MP38/40 is also very common but equally incorrect as Hugo Schmeisser didn't design it.

 

[lancer]

Great book, as is his Cross of Iron. I believe the tommy gun reference is indeed to the PPSH, which took both a drum magazine and a curved stick magazine. -- Al

 

[binder001]

A lot of WW2-era books refer to "tommy guns" as a generic synonym for an SMG. The Russian PPSh41 had a wood stock and a drum magazine, so to the great unwashed it was a "tommy gun" like the US gangsters used. I think some German stories got translated as "tommy gun" versus "machine pistol".

Gary B.