Picture the scene: Europe; World War 2.
A band of plucky heroes captured by the Germans - but they've got a cunning plan!
Darkness falls and they make their escape - Nazi guards firing fruitlessly into the
night.
And the weapon they're using?
It's the MP40.
The Nazi submachine gun.
A symbol of terror that swept across Europe.
So, what prompted its development?
How did the machine pistol evolve?
And what's its relevance today?
The machine gun had a profound effect on warfare: where two similarly equipped sides faced one
another, the stalemate of trench warfare was the result.
Rifles were ill suited to confined fighting, so to break the deadlock - a man-portable
automatic weapon was needed.
The only practical way to achieve this was to use small calibre ammunition. The development
of rimless cartridges for semi-auto pistols led to their consideration for full-auto use.
The first 'machine pistols' were just that: modified self-loading handguns - but their
high cyclic rate & recoil, short magazine capacity and barrel length limited their use.
In any case, giving up the rifle was a difficult proposition - and just as the potential utility
of these new weapons was starting to be realised - the great war ended. Not a moment too soon,
really.
Hugo Schmeisser's MP18 design was the most successful of this era, used by German 'Stormtroopers'
quite successfully towards the end of the war.
It fired at around 400 rounds per minute from a 20 round box magazine - or from a 32-round
'snail' mag as used with the Artillery Luger.
It was very effective at close range, but not entirely without flaw: it was craftsman-made,
not really suitable for mass production - and it was heavy - weighing 25% more than a Kar98k
when loaded.
It was also prone to accidental discharge - a hard knock could overcome the recoil spring,
chamber and fire a round.
So it was promising, but needed to evolve.
The MP18 design was licensed to a number of foreign countries, proving useful for police
and military roles during the interwar period.
Meanwhile, Schmeisser continued work on his design over the next decade, leading to the
MP28: notable differences were the inclusion of a fire selector, allowing single shots
- and a manual safety.
Another arms designer named Heinrich Vollmer was also working on improvements to the MP18
design, with the development of a number of prototypes funded by the Reichswehr.
None of these early designs gained any real traction, and the funding dried up by 1930
- but undeterred, Vollmer sought a commercial means to develop his ideas - and joined forces
with arms manufacturer ERMA Werke.
What would become the MP40 was starting to take shape - but there was no shortage of
competition.
Plenty of other nations expended effort in seeking their own SMG: The Americans had the
Thompson, conceived in similar circumstance to the MP18.
The Finns had the Suomi KP/-31, which had the innovation of a 71-round drum magazine
for an impressive amount of sustained fire.
The Russians imitated them with the similar PPD-34, ultimately developing the PPSh-41.
War was on the horizon again - and this time, SMGs were going to be relevant from the start.
The Nazis came into power in 1933, and German rearmament shifted gears. A decision about
the future machine pistol had to be made.
At this time, there were three main candidates: The Steyr MP34 from Austria; The Bergmann
MP32, and Heinrich Vollmer's designs, now produced by ERMA.
A call for designs was put out in 1938, and ERMA's Berthold Geipel submitted their EMP36
design.
It was successful, and with a couple of minor changes: it was adopted by the German Army
as the MP38.
Production started, with nearly 15,000 made in its first two years: but it was still relatively
expensive and time-consuming to produce.
One final revision solved this: replacing milled components such as the receiver with
parts made from stamped steel.
They called it the MP40, and the rest is history.
It may have been designed by committee, but the MP40 was a particularly expedient wartime
design - occupying a sweet spot between effectiveness and cost.
Wartime pressure led to similar changes in Allied designs: The British devised the Sten
to bolster their supply of Thompsons; The Americans developed the M3 as a lower cost
alternative; And the Russians introduced the PPS-43 - all of these influenced by the German
design.
No longer a precision-made tool, now unskilled workers could mass produce MP40s in alarming
numbers:
95,000 in 1940: 140,000 in 1941 - and by the time the war ended in 1945, they'd made over
a million.
So once Nazi Germany crumbled, and captured arms were redistributed - it's little surprise
that the MP40 started to turn up in other places.
Films about the war were popular for quite some time after, and the MP40 enjoyed a lot
of screen time in the hands of the bad guys.
If anything, it was overrepresented, often replacing the far more common Kar 98k in infantry
hands - but you can't deny that the stubbier profile of the MP40 is more distinctive, more
imposing: similar to the Thompson's fit for on-screen gangsters.
So, for a while, the Nazis became cinema's favourite adversary, and the MP40 was firmly
installed as their weapon of choice.
It's inextricably linked with the Third Reich - but interestingly, it needn't be a Nazi
that wields it, a fact that makes it all the more powerful.
It can also be a tool of resistance: for partisan fighters and citizens-at-arms; A parallel,
rebellious identity - sort of a violent take on 'make do and mend'.
By the 1970s, war films had started to fall out of favour - replaced with crime thrillers
and disaster movies - the MP40 abandoned in favour of more modern-looking guns: Uzis,
MP5s and M16s.
Unlike the two-faced Thompson, which served both gangster and GI, the MP40 exists in only
a very narrow band - five years at most.
So for a while the historical war setting was relegated to the background - but the
50th anniversary of the war rekindled interest, leading to the release of Saving Private Ryan.
It would spur a decade-long revival - in films such as Enemy at the Gates and Downfall, television
like Band of Brothers - and of course: video games.
Clearly not content with prompting a resurgence in war cinema, Stephen Spielberg turned his
hand to interactive media, providing the story for 1999's Medal of Honor'.
Of course, the MP40 was present in the hands of the Nazis - and FPS conventions had solidified
to the point where weapon pickups were mandatory.
This meant that upon killing an enemy equipped with the SMG, you had the chance to use it
yourself - and the novelty of finding something new encouraged players to use it in place
of their issued weapons.
Medal of Honor's critical acclaim led to the inevitable sequels, the series peaking with
the PC-centric Allied Assault.
3D graphics were improving rapidly by this point, and a more generous polygon allowance
for viewmodels meant that weapons could be rendered more realistically than ever - subconsciously
teaching players a thing or two about firearm recognition.
As the number of World War 2 games exploded, there was nary an FPS gamer left who couldn't
identify the metallic curves of the MP40.
The war genre really was saturated for quite a while, with some well-known franchises emerging
around this time: Brothers in Arms, Battlefield - and of course, Call of Duty.
The chaotic gunplay that would become the series' hallmark meant that the SMG options
were always guaranteed popularity, so the chatter of its fire and silhouette obituaries
were common to behold.
Particularly, the MP40 in World at War was a divisive fan favourite: its generous damage
and spray-and-pray capability made it a very popular selection - which of course made it
equally maligned.
By the end of the decade, Word War II games were starting to become less appealing: only
a few laterunners carried the wartime torch, tapping into latent demand for the setting
- but post 2010, where the MP40 appeared - it did so as a relic.
It reappeared in later instalments of Call of Duty as a throwback, even once the series
went sci-fi.
I suppose the MP40 doesn't see much real-world use nowadays: perhaps the only authentic modern
appearance would be in Insurgency: middle eastern paramilitary fighters don't necessarily
have the luxury of choice when it comes to armament.
More recently, there has been an uptick of interest in World War II: with both Call of
Duty and Battlefield returning to their roots.
It's nice to revisit the setting with updated graphics, but I doubt this revival will be
as broad as the earlier peak.
So with it, the MP40 will fade, to return when World War 2 is en vogue again - but the
weapon's portrayal has left a lasting impression.
Picture the scene:
A band of plucky space rebels on the run from an evil empire - pursued by Stormtroopers
who can't seem to hit the broad side of a bulkhead.
The weapon they're using?
Well, it's a blaster - based on a Sterling submachine gun. But the way the weapon is
used is identical to how the MP40 was portrayed in early war films.
Mean looking but ultimately impotent - and there's never any doubt whose side the Stormtroopers
are on.
It is the quintessential bad guy weapon.
A menacing thing, ready and waiting to assert its power.
For a short time, it was a very real tool of oppression - but now, it's a device for
war stories:
an emblem of evil;
and a reminder that even unstoppable forces can be subverted.
The MP40.
Stormtrooper.
Villain.
Rebel.
Thank you very much for watching - and until next time, farewell.