The Best Machine Pistols/SMGs/PDWs Of All Time

UZI: My personal favourite, Still serves round the world today and is a decent weapon for Jungle/Urban warfare and those who are in confined spaces.

H&K MP5: Famous since the SAS raid on the Iranian Embassy in 1980, This one has been popular with SWAT/SF units ever since.

H&K UMP45: This gun is brand new so it doesnt really have much of a combat record yet.

MAC10/11: Cheap Nifty 'n' reliable, These are popular with Gangs around the world.

Sterling L2A3: Derived from the Sten, It is far more reliable and is still made in India.

Lithgow F1 9mm: Like the Sterling but with a 'Top Fed' magazine which makes it ideal for jungle warfare.

Owen 9mm: Bit heavyish but reliable, This was designed for Jungle warfare against the japanese in WW2 and served the Australian Army until the early 1960s, It is also Top Fed and lead to the F1 listed above.

Thompson: The first .45 smg ever. Was used by Gangsters in the 1920s and later served WW2.

Tec 9: Short like a pistol, This gun holds a 50 round magazine and is also famous with gangs in Los Angeles

Sten: Very cheap and easy to make, They were good as Clandestine SMGs rather than Army weapons, The Best Sten of all is the Mk5.

Lanchester: Based on the German Bergmann MP18, It was a Side Fed weapon with a 50 round magazine but was only issued to the Royal Navy.

Carl Gustav/S&W76: Sweedish SMG similar to the Sten but with magazine underneath, Used by USN Seals in Vietnam and licenced built in the USA as the S&W 76.

MP40: Designed for Germans who were street fighting, This weapon was also used by FJ Paratroops during the invasion of crete.






[edit on 1-5-2006 by Browno]

My personal favorite is the MP5-10, all the same as the original, but it shoots 10mm bullets. After that it would be the MAC11 just because it is american and looks cool.

I'm gonna have to go with the Thompson; it was reliable, easy to operate and I'm willing to bet it could hold it's own on todays batlefields.

IMO the MP5 is the best. Uzi is ade for desert combat, and the tec 9, mac10/11 are junk from what I've heard.

You said that the Lithgow F1 9mm has a top feed magazine which makes it ideal for jungle warfare. I was wondering why a top fed mag is ideal for the jungle?

Top fed isn't better for JW, it's just better than the side fed weapons. The ideal wweapon for JW is something easy to operate in one hand, easy to reload and doesn't have any features that could get caught on branches. The UZI and Mac-10 for example.

OKay - lets get the terminology correct.

you simply cannot have a 'sub-machine gun'. It is either a machine gun or not.

Sub indicates 'below' or something of a lesser value. I think the Germans got it right, when they called their weapons - machinenpistollen - machine pistols.

Why? Because when they first appeared, they all fired 'pistol' ammunition.
Incidentially, the .45 Thompson of Elliot Ness and the Untouchables fame, was not the first ever smg/smp. That dubious honour goes to the Broomhandle Mauser of Boer War fame.

Having said that, our greatest wartime leader, Sir Winston Churchill, absoluetly adored the Thompson and had his beloved Commandos equipped with it.

Enough history - lets go SMG/SMP!

My choice would be in no particular order:

1. H & K MP5 / MP5 SD3 / MP5/10 - H & K - says it all really;

2. L34A1 'S' - a 'silenced' Sterling - an 'oldie but goldie';

3. Madsen - an evil little and Danish too;

4. Thompson - .45 ACP - nuff said;

5. Uzi - Israeli Military Industries - Israeli's know their stuff;

6. Skorpion - horrible little Czech - a poor man's H & K;

7. Valmet - Finnish. Another little monster;

8. H & K MP7A1 - another little beauty - Heckler und Koch, of course;

9. H & K G36C - another classic assault rifle which doubles as an SMG/SMP;

10. MAC 10 / 11 the classic John Wayne film smg - .9mm Mac or .45 ACP with sound suppressor hand grip, still a 'lively' contender - but a brute to handle;

11. H & K MP5K - K for carbine - a little toy gun that packs a very big punch!

12. Sten gun Mk VI - .9 milly suppressed for secret agent man;

13. 7.62 mm PpSh - classic Russian WWII bunker broom;

14. Bizon 2 - another 'Russkie' with an attitude;

15. Steyr TMP - nice little Austrian (originally) and now a German.

I dont know myself, maybe they never knew about pistol grip magazines like the uzi then, The good thing is it had less stoppages and was better balanced than the Sten.

Maybe its so you are more aware to change the magazine, Its probably quicker too, Id rather have it than the bulky side feed like the Sten.

Anyone out there got images of the F1 SMG? apart from the one below?
www.gunplot.net...

ALSO: Did you know the Owen was once chosen over the M4 carbine in an Australian SAS during the Vietnam War? Not sure but i did see it somewhere.

www.diggerhistory.info...
www.rt66.com...

[edit on 27-4-2006 by Browno]

Suomi m/31 SMG:
It's reliable, accurate, effective, with 70rnd mag (later copied by USSR)
My honest opinion is that Suomi is the best SMG in the world, even by todays standards.
Suomi SMG

BTW what weapon do you call Valmet? For my knowledge Valmet only made Rifles and MGs? or do you mean Jati-Matic?

[edit on 27-4-2006 by northwolf]

I agree with you Fritz, The Germans are right to call it a 'Machine Pistol' since it takes Pistol Rounds and fires them off in a rapid rate.

Even if its long as a rifle but takes pistol rounds, Its still a machine pistol. Some idiot classed the M4/AKSU as a machine pistol but they are wrong

The Rexim Favor was long as a Rifle and had a Bayonet but was still an SMG
membres.lycos.fr...

The H&K 53 looks like the MP5 but its still a rifle becouse it takes 5.56NATO Rifle Rounds kenmax.com.au...&K-G33.jpg

The Villar Perosa OVP looked like a twin barreled MG but was still a Machine Pistol since it took 9mm rounds
www.berettaweb.com...

Even this stumpy thing is still a Rifle!
www.britisharmedforces.org...

Who in the British Forces uses the Parker Hale PDW?
www.securityarms.com...

Anyway, heres a pic of the Bushman IDW
www.army.lt...

And the ROF SMG with a 1200RPM rate of fire!
membres.lycos.fr...

[edit on 1-5-2006 by Browno]

the other machine pistols should be angry the teck nine was included in their catergory... It's truly a bullet hose. Those that carry them don't give a whit about accuracy and think the term collateral damage refers to knocking over something at the pawn shop.

Now that I'm done ranting about that...

My personal favorites are 1. The MP-5 (industry standard for a reason)
2. The .223 caliber AR-15 pistol (gotta love under the jacket assault rifle power) 3. the mack 10 (very limitted military market penetration but they still sold a bundle heh) 4. The Uzi (I just can't get into this gun it is right between the mack 10 and mp5 accuracy wise and shares the bad pistol grip mag of the mack, trying firing one of those prone heh)

The phrase 'machine pistol' is misleading, as the word pistol denotes a weapon that is designed to be fired with one hand. While I know that one-handed shooting is bad practice, this is how they are defined. A SMG is not designed as such.

The 'sub' in submachine gun denotes the fact that it is small, a throwback from the introduction of the .45 Thompson. At the time the only other weapons that fired on automatic were full-sized machine guns. The Thompson was smaller than anything that came before, and fired a pistol round which is lower powered than a rifle round. Hence the weapon was a small machine gun or sub-machine gun.

Sub-machine guns are recognised as a classification of weapons as much as rifles, shotguns, pistols etc.

My personal favorites are in no particular order:

-P90, compact, fires a very low-impulse, high-velocity round, not much for stopping power but excellent body armor penetration.
-Steyr TMP, compact and capable of firing fast and accurate.
-MP-7, even more compact than the P90 while having body armor piercing capability, a true machine pistol when it's forward pistol grip and telescopic stock are retracted.
-PP-2000, very compact, fires 9mm rounds and is also capable of firing the new russian upgraded 9mm round, they are armor piercing and rated to +P+ so very high velocity as well.

For just playing around, I am going to have to say the Thompson .45 SMG, aka "The Tommy Gun".

I saw my son at the age of 10 shoot 50 rounds on full-auto, and he held it on target, and the barrel never climbed up. You try that with an Uzi, and your going to be shooting down birds with it!