Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Submachine gun
Summary
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 (hence the prefix "sub-"). As a machine gun must fire rifle cartridges to be classified as such, submachine guns are not considered machine guns.
The submachine gun was developed during World War I (1914–1918) as a close quarter offensive weapon, mainly for trench raiding. At its peak during World War II (1939–1945), millions of SMGs were made for use by regular troops, clandestine commandos, and partisans alike. New submachine gun designs appeared frequently during the Cold War. Submachine gun usage in frontline combat decreased into the 1980s and 1990s, and in the 21st century, submachine guns have largely been replaced by assault rifles, which have a longer effective range, have better stopping power, and can penetrate the helmets and body armor used by modern infantry. However, they are still used by special forces and police tactical units for close-quarters combat because they are "a pistol-caliber weapon that's easy to control, and less likely to overpenetrate the target".
There are some inconsistencies in the classification of submachine guns. British Commonwealth sources often refer to SMGs as "machine carbines". Other sources refer to SMGs as "machine pistols" because they fire pistol-caliber ammunition, for example, the MP-40 and MP5, where "MP" stands for Maschinenpistole ("Submachine gun" in German, but cognate with the English term "Machine pistol"). However, the term "machine pistol" is also used to describe a handgun-style firearm capable of fully automatic or burst fire, such as the Stechkin, Beretta 93R and the H&K VP70. Also, personal defense weapons such as the FN P90 and H&K MP7 are often called submachine guns. In addition, some compact assault rifles, such as the CAR-15 and HK53, have been historically referred to as submachine guns as they served in the latter's role.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.