ICONIC WEAPONS
“The Germans needed a machine
pistol that could be manufactured
quickly by non-skilled workers
from non-critical war materials.
The MP40 was born”
from non-critical war materials. The MP40 was
born.
The MP40 was introduced in 1940 and
closely resembled the MP38, with the
two sharing many common parts. Its main
difference was in the materials used and the
manufacturing methods. Gone were expensive
machined parts, replaced instead by cheap
carbon steel metal stampings and plastic
welded together. Material shortages and time
restraints were a major issue for German high
command who, on witnessing the benefits of
the MP40, ordered that the sub-machine gun
be mass produced. But despite misconceptions
that the MP40 was the mainstay of the German
armed forces it was rarely issued outside
of SS and paratrooper battalions, despite its
regular appearance in videogames including the
infamous Call of Duty series. The MP40 was
indeed ideal for specialist operations due to
its efficiency and compact size, as seen in the
1943 Gran Sasso raid where SS paratroopers
rescued Italian dictator Benito Mussolini armed
with their trusty MP40s.
A limited number of silenced MP40s were
produced in an effort to mimic the success of
the suppressed British Sten for commando
missions. These were found to be useless
though, due to the loud noise the bolt made on
blowback. The German foot soldier’s weapon
was the Karabiner 98k rifle that was surpassed
by the gas-operated US M1 Garand, arguably
the best rifle of the war.
Despite US testing of captured examples of
the MP40 in 1942, which suggested that the
M3 ‘Grease Gun’ was superior, Allied troops
respected the German gun for its reliability
and performance, its stopping power and
range superseding that of the Thompson.
Nicknamed the ‘Burp Gun’, the MP40 was
a prized possession for GIs who used them
against their former owners on the battlefront.
The MP40 excelled in close combat situations
such as Stalingrad and over a million guns were
manufactured during WWII before the Nazis
went out of business in 1945.
The Allies feared and respected the MP40
and therefore produced their own versions,
such as the Russian PPSh41 with a 71-round
drum magazine and the British Sten, the
latter copied by the Third Reich in the closing
stages of the war (albeit with German
markings).
Although the MP40 was to be replaced
by the StG 44 assault rifle that went on to
influence the design of the AK-47, MP40s
and their derivatives were used up until the
1990s. Favoured by the Vietcong during the
Vietnam War, JNA and KLA troops have been
spotted with MP40 a