Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum and today we're going to take a look at a second part of some machine gun terminology.
Specifically today we're going to be looking at small calibre machine guns, specifically
SMGs, submachine guns, PDWs, personal defence weapons and machine pistols or MPs.
Now one thing I want to clarify before we get started is that I'm basing all of this on English, so for example
I know that in German a submachine gun is called an MP, a "Maschinenpistole".
We're not getting into that, we're sticking with just English and looking at what the English
terminology is for the different types of guns that it represents. So, we'll begin with submachine guns.
[SMG - Submachine Gun]
So this is the simplest of today's guns to actually identify.
There are only three things that make a submachine gun a submachine gun.
They are: one, use of a pistol calibre cartridge,
two, has to have a shoulder stock built into the gun (it can fold, it can be fixed, but it has to be there),
and three, has to be capable of fully automatic fire.
So some of these are capable of semi- as well as full-auto fire. That would be called select fire.
But not all of them are: this MAS-38, for example, is a full-auto only submachine gun.
There is no semi-auto switch in it. Some of these guns will have a
selector lever or a selector button to switch between full-auto and semi-auto.
Submachine guns are one place where you occasionally see use of what's called a progressive trigger,
where a short pull on the trigger will fire in semi-auto, and a longer pull on the trigger will fire in full auto.
... Basically what they do there is they locate two different sears on a single trigger pull,
so a short pull only activates the first one.
At any rate, as long as it's capable of full-auto fire you've got a submachine gun there.
So, let's move on to the next category.
[MP - Machine Pistol]
This is also a fairly simple one. Now this is a semi-auto C96 Mauser,
however it is identical in form basically (except for the selector switch), to the full-auto
Mauser Schnellfeuer version, so that's why I have this one here.
What makes a machine pistol is the form factor of a standard handgun,
intended to be fired with one or perhaps both hands, but both hands on the one grip.
And capable of full-auto fire. So as a general rule machine pistols are
regular semi-auto pistols that have been adapted to also be able to fire full-auto.
The Mauser C96 is a perfect example of that, it was designed as a semi-auto pistol.
There then was a market for it as a full-auto firearm, so that was added to its capabilities.
The Glock 18 is another good example of a machine pistol. It's a semi-auto
Glock pistol modified to have a selector switch for full-auto fire.
You'll find, let's see, some of the others would include the Stechkin. Now ... that was designed
from the ground up as a full-auto firearm, or rather select fire because it does have a switch
to allow semi- or full-auto. However, it is in the standard handgun form factor.
So sometimes you will find these with shoulder stocks that can be attached. In fact, fairly often you will
because as just a handgun a machine pistol is usually pretty uncontrollable. It's difficult
to fire them effectively in full-auto without some sort of shoulder stock attachment.
So, on the Mausers there's a slot on the back of the grip to attach a shoulder stock.
Same thing applies to the Stechkin. In many of these cases you will have shoulder stocks
that actually double as holsters, as on this one. This again is just a semi-auto Browning Hi Power,
but it has a stock very similar to what you would have for the broom-handle Mauser
(yeah, not quite gonna fit, but).
The Stechkin has a similar style of holster / stock that you can clip onto the back of the gun,
use it as a shoulder brace,
and substantially increase the practical effective accuracy of the weapon.
[PDW - Personal Defence Weapon]
And that leads us to the PDW. This is definitely the most difficult of these categories to actually
lay out in strict rules, because, well, there's been a lot of change to the concept of the PDW.
So the basic idea is it's a weapon that's ... given to a soldier who needs something more than just a pistol,
because pistols are very difficult to shoot accurately and generally not very effective.
However, ... it's for a soldier who needs something that is smaller and a lot handier than the standard
infantry rifle of the time. Now this may very well say, "Ah, just give them a submachine gun",
and in a few cases they did. However submachine guns were generally intended as offensive weapons,
they were combat weapons for guys who were intending to go into combat
who wanted a large volume of firepower at close range. That was the purpose of a submachine gun.
The PDW was there for a soldier who had some other primary duty,
which is why they weren't carrying a rifle in the first place (or a submachine gun).
Artillery crews, vehicle drivers, mortar crews, messengers, all these sorts of extra jobs
that are very necessary but don't really come with the expectation of a lot of direct
combat with the soldier's personal weapon.
Those are the guys who get PDWs, and it's there more as a backup weapon than as a primary weapon.
And that's why you don't give them, typically, a submachine gun.
Instead you come up with a weapon that is usually very light and handy.
So sometimes in a pistol calibre, sometimes not. One of the very first really excellent examples
of this is actually the M1 carbine. Now the M1 carbine does not qualify as a PDW by today's standards,
however it was designed to fill the same role. So, what does make a PDW today?
Well ... there's one hard and fast rule, it has to be capable of fully automatic fire.
That's a distinguishing feature of the PDW. And that's why it's grouped with submachine guns
and machine pistols in this video. Beyond that there are kind of two different
types of PDWs out there. One of them are guns that are designed for armour-piercing capability.
You might think of these as the small calibre, high velocity versions of the PDW.
And the two prime examples of them are the FN P90 and the HK MP7.
Now the genesis for both of these guns was originally back before the Berlin Wall fell,
when NATO's primary concern was a huge Russian army coming through the Fulda Gap
and paratroopers dropping behind NATO lines.
So any PDW... You know if there were paratroopers being dropped, the guys who are going to run into them
were all of these rear echelon sorts of troops, like supply drivers and clerks, who
are going to not be equipped with rifles, they're gonna generally have side arms or PDWs.
So you want to make sure that whatever weapon they have is capable of defeating
the basic soft body armour that was at the time being issued by Russia.
(Well, at the time the Soviet Union.) And so that's where these two ... small calibre, high velocity
cartridges that the P90 and the MP7 used, that's where they came from.
They were designed to perforate body armour. Now as a result they tend to be pretty minimal performers
on just soft tissue, but that was seen as acceptable. With a full-auto firearm presumably
you'd be shooting bursts of 3, 4, 5, 6 rounds at a time, and they'd be effective enough.
They would certainly be a lot more effective than, say, a standard 9mm parabellum
submachine gun that might not be able to penetrate that body armour.
So that's where one group of these PDWs came from. And by the way, one of the reasons that they
haven't really become all that popular is that NATO's ... their prime concern is no longer a giant Russian army
coming through East Germany. Now the concern has moved much more towards, well, Middle-East
North African terrorism, where the enemies that NATO is facing generally are not wearing body armour.
And so you've seen a switch back to other weapons instead.
Anyway, the second type of PDWs that are out there are what I would
kind of term "holsterable" submachine guns. The idea of taking a submachine gun
but just making it even more compact, so that it can be carried literally in a belt holster.
And thus very easy to to carry around, and yet still possessing some form of folding or collapsing stock
so that it can be fired with that third point of contact on the gun, and thus be, in practical terms,
much more effective than a pistol. You know if you give a, let's say, a typical army driver a pistol,
they're probably not going to be able to hit very much with it, simply because
they don't spend the kind of time training with a handgun that, for example, a Special Forces team does.
Instead, if you give them something more like a carbine that actually has a shoulder stock,
they're much more likely to be able to hit ... smaller targets and targets farther away,
because it's simply an easier gun to shoot. Hence holsterable submachine guns.
And two really good examples of this are the Czech vz.61 Skorpion and the Polish PM-63.
These are both ... they're bigger than pistols, but they're smaller than submachine guns.
The Scorpion has a folding stock over the top of the gun, the PM-63 has a collapsing stock
around the receiver. They both fit in literal belt holsters and yet can be drawn.
The PM-63 has a front grip that can fold down to give better control.
They both have shoulder stocks that can be extended or unfolded and used.
And then they give mostly submachine gun performance while being as portable, almost, as a pistol.
And so that's the second grey zone, sort of vague area, into which PDWs fall.
Now all four of these guns that I've talked about would all qualify as submachine guns. They are also PDWs.
The reason for that is the submachine gun and the machine pistol designations
really existed long before PDW was a thing.
PDWs are more of an effort to market guns and fill what is really a fairly small role
with new weapons that allow for experimentation with new cartridges and new bullet designs.
Some of the guns that have come out of this are actually really quite interesting and good.
I would contend that the FN P90 is a fantastic firearm for its intended role.
Now PDWs tend to be very concealable firearms, simply as a byproduct of being very portable.
That doesn't mean that everything that is concealable is a Personal Defence Weapon.
For example, the US Secret Service for many years used Uzi submachine guns.
They're definitely still submachine guns, they cut the barrels down by one inch, but otherwise they were full size Uzis.
And because of the fact that they were able to use a somewhat short magazine
(shorter than a full 32 round magazine), and they have a collapsing metal stock,
the Secret Service agents were able to wear these things concealed under coats.
It doesn't really make them PDWs, just makes them concealable submachine guns.
So as I'm sure you're recognising, the whole definition of PDW really is a vague sort of grey area,
but that doesn't mean that there aren't some guns that really do fit it well.
It just means there are also a lot of guns that are kind of debatable at the fringes.
So some people are going to bring up a gun like, for example, the MP5K.
Well, depending on its configuration, if the MP5K has a folding shoulder stock on it
I would contend that it is in fact just a concealable submachine gun.
... Without the folding stock, if it's equipped with just a sort of an extended shooting sling
where you have a sling attached to the rear cap of the gun and over one shoulder
and you push forward against the sling to sort of stabilise the gun,
yeah, I would contend that that falls into the PDW category. Although I'd also contend
that it's not a particularly good one, because it's not nearly as stable to shoot,
nor is it as small, as something like a vz.61 Skorpion, so.
Anyway, that is today's discussion of some additional submachine gun type terminology.
Hopefully you enjoyed the video and hopefully you learned something today.
... If you have some ideas on guns that you think do or don't fit the mould,
be sure to mention them down in the comments. And until next time,
thanks for watching.