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M3 "Grease Gun"

"See that cover? Open it. Now you' killin'. Close it. Now you ain't. Ha ha."

—Grady, Fury

From top to bottom: M3, M3A1, Suppressed M3A1

The M3 submachine gun, better known as the "Grease Gun" was designed, appropriately enough, by General Motors in 1942. It was intended to be a lighter and cheaper alternative to the M1 Thompson, as the Thompson remained an expensive and heavy weapon despite attempts to simplify it. The M3 was built almost entirely out of stamped sheet metal with a minimal amount of machined parts, eliminating the need for things like wooden furnishings to speed up mass production and lighten its weight. It used the same .45 ACP cartridge as the Thompson, but had a significantly lower rate of fire to help conserve ammo⁺The M1 Thompson has a rate of fire of 700 RPM, the Grease Gun has a rate of 450 RPM.

One unique feature the M3 had amongst American SMGs was the ability to easily swap chamberings so it could accept standard German 9mm ammo, a valuable function when you are behind enemy lines or supplied by the British, as it also became interchangeable with the Sten. Another interesting feature was the dust cover, which had a built-in latch to serve as the safety.

Delays in production would put off its service until late 1944 to early 1945, making it more of a compliment to the Thompson than a true replacement. The definitive M3A1 variant (pictured above) made some significant changes, such as the removal of the troublesome breakage-prone cocking lever (replaced with a slot in the bolt that could be moved with a fingertip) and a few minor tweaks to make it even easier to disassemble and maintain. The M3A1 never saw combat before the war's end, nevertheless, a good deal of World War II films and video games incorrectly portray the M3A1 variant whenever a grease gun appears. Both the M3 and M3A1 would see combat in the Korean War and the early years of Vietnam. A suppressed version was also made, with a leather cover on the suppressor to serve as a handgrip. It was surprisingly quiet: when Delta Force went on their first missions, they were impressed by its performance.

The grease gun had a long postwar career outside the US, seeing action in the Indonesian National Revolution in the hands of the Dutch, the First Indochina War, the Algerian War, and the Cuban Revolution. The Argentine military initially copied the M3 as the lighter P.A.M 1 in 9x19mm Parabellum. However, overheating and control problems lead to the introduction of the improved P.A.M 2 in 1963. The Argentine grease guns saw use into the Falklands War, despite being replaced by the FMK-3 by then. Nationalist China produced a clone of the M3A1 in .45 ACP as the Type 36, with 10,000 being made before the Chinese Communists obtained them in 1949. They also made the 9x19mm Type 37 in Nanjing, and continued its production in Taiwan as the Type 39 (both copies of the M3A1).

Despite its age, the grease gun was still used by US armored car crews and drivers as a personal defense weapon until the 1990s and as of 2004 saw a resurgence in usage by the Philippine Naval Special Operations Group.

• Appears in Brothers in Arms from Earned in Blood onward, serving as the weapon for Cpl. Paddock, Red's Assault Team Leader, and Pvt. Franky Laroche, one of Baker's assault team members. Baker ends up temporarily taking and using the latter's weapon after Franky is killed in Eindhoven.
• PVT Norman Ellison is handed a Grease Gun when he gets assigned to the crew of Fury as their replacement bow gunner. Wardaddy has Grady give him a brief and slightly creepy explanation of the dust-cover safety. The weapon is also notably a symbol of his status as New Meat. All other members of Fury's crew save Gordo use either Thompsons or commandeered enemy equipment because they've been fighting in the war since before Grease guns were issued.
• Some of the members of the Washimine Clan use Grease Guns in Black Lagoon. They are most likely weapons left over from the Allied occupation of Japan.
• This gun was widely shown in The Dirty Dozen by many of the crew. Major Reisman even has his magazines taped together jungle style, as shown in the image for the Majorly Awesome trope.
• Roy Cobb in Band of Brothers uses the M3A1 variant, rather anachronistically as that version was not available until December 1944 and never saw combat until after the war.
• Appears twice in the Fallout series. Fallout 2 features it alongside the M1928 as the only two weapons firing .45 ammo. The "9mm submachine gun" of Fallout: New Vegas is a scaled-down Grease Gun firing 9mm bullets, which can be given a drum magazine and a lighter bolt to increase its rate of fire; a unique variant with a drum mag owned by the pre-war wannabe-Outlaw Couple "Vikki & Vance" can be received from another wannabe-outlaw couple, in perfect condition because Vikki & Vance tended towards petty crimes that never required them to fire their weapon.
• Available in the Falklands, Vietnam, and Normandy variations of the Battlefield 2 Game Mod Project Reality.
• The "Submachine Gun" of Condemned: Criminal Origins is a Grease Gun given the barrel shroud and larger sights of a Carl Gustav M/45.
• Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix features it as the standard automatic weapon of the Biopreparat enemies in the Prague levels, for some reason. It fires slower than later automatics and is more accurate and controllable than them as a result, but it's also a poor choice for sustained combat because it shares the smaller pool of ammo your .45 handguns draw from.
• Jim Morita of the Howling Commandoes uses the Grease Gun as his weapon of choice in Captain America: The First Avenger.
• While normally being sparse in the Call of Duty games, Sgt. Sam Rivers from Finest Hour has a chance to use this gun in his mission "Come Out Fighting". It also shows up in the multiplayer of Call of Duty 2 as a slower-firing but higher-capacity alternative to the Thompson. It shows up more frequently in Call of Duty: WWII, and it is the starting submachine gun in multiplayer.
• In Day of Infamy, the earlier M3 Grease Gun is available for use by the US Army faction's Assault and Engineer classes, as an alternative to the more common Thompsons usually depicted in WWII media.
• In Men of War, the M3A1 is commonly carried by American vehicle crews and engineer infantry.
• Private Reese of Hell Is for Heroes uses an M3 with three magazines taped together "jungle style", though strangely he has M1 Garand ammo pouches on his belt.
• American Engineers have this weapon by default in Company of Heroes.
• Two "Greaser" variants, the latter dubbed an "Artillery" model, appear in BloodRayne.
• Despite taking place in the early 2000's, most of the human bad guys use a Grease Gun in The Suffering: Ties That Bind.
• Mario of all people used a Grease Gun on the cops that killed Luigi (for holding a wrench) during their visit to Vice City in Robot Chicken. He was able to fire the gun despite that the dust cover was closed.
• The Grease Gun is one of two submachine guns for American and South Vietnamese troops in Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, the other being the M1A1 Thompson.
• The SMOD Game Mod for Half-Life 2 features Grease Guns retrofitted to 4.6mm ammo as alternatives to the MP7, alongside the MP 40 (that's a balance between the former two). It's very accurate due to the slow rate of fire, and on a per-bullet basis it outdamages even the AR2 pulse rifle, but it's incredibly sluggish to reload and the rarest of all SMGs.
• In the first Commandos game, Behind Enemy Lines, and its standalone expansion pack, Beyond The Call Of Duty, The Driver can use one. Sometimes he starts the mission with it, sometimes he has to get hold of it from Allied supply drops.
• The M3A1 is available for Lincoln Clay to use in Mafia III as the M1N8. A suppressed M1N8 can be bought for $28000, but is also available from Cassandra during the first district takeover.
• Tim O'Brien's platoon occasionally carried M3A1s into battle when they could get hold of them. This is also particularly fitting for them as the M3A1 was still the standard US submachine gun despite the huge amount of 9mm submachine guns they had at the time.
• In his early appearances, The Punisher was often depicted using a heavily customized M3A1, before switching to his signature Uzi. Mooks appearing during The Bronze Age of Comic Books tend to be shown using grease guns if the writer doesn't arm them with Thompsons or MP 40s.
• The third episode of SEAL Team shows Filipino pirates using Grease Guns. It's one of the rare instances where the gun would not be out of place in the 21st century since the Philippines is one of a handful of countries that still has the gun in active service.
• Sergeant Howell is armed with an M3 in Hacksaw Ridge, and is quite skilled with it, downing several Japanese soldiers over the course of the film.
• A 2-star SMG in Girls' Frontline. She laments her low fire rate, calling it an unfortunate result of cost-efficiency, and hates being called Grease Gun. The 4Koma manga shows that she also has a trauma against Goliath tracked mines.
• The M3 was added to Insurgency: Sandstorm with the Nightfall update, available for the Security Breacher for 2 supply points. It has a unique advanced suppressor attachment available modeled after M3 Spec Ops Gen 2 which not only dampens the sound, but also reduces recoil as well.
• Hell Let Loose features the Grease Gun as an alternative to the Thompson, being one of the main weapons of the Assault, Support, Engineer, and Tank Commander classes. Unlike its predecessor, this weapon must be unlocked by leveling up for the Assault, Support, and Engineer, being part of their respective unlockable loadouts.

MAS-38

The MAS-38 was a French submachine gun that was manufactured just before the Second World War to arm the French Army. The gun was chambered in 7.65x20mm Longue, a cartridge that was introduced to the French Army when US troops demonstrated the Pedersen Device in World War I. Though it was weak compared to the .45 ACP and 9x19mm cartridges used by contemporary armies, the low-power cartridge made it easy to control. Its most notable feature, however, is its distinctive barrel, which pointed downward a few degrees.

The weapon was approved in 1938 and started development a year later. But before the weapon could enter mass production, Nazi Germany occupied France and seized the guns to be issued to their troops or to Vichy French soldiers.

Fewer than 2,000 of these guns were produced before the Nazi occupation in 1940, and exactly how many were made after is unknown. After the end of World War II, France replaced the gun with the MAT-49 in 1949 for military service, though the French police force would continue to use the gun for a few more years.

The MAS-38 has one major claim to fame in history: this was the weapon used by the Italian resistance to kill Benito Mussolini.

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Video Games

• The submachine gun of French troops in Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. Only appears in "Baptism by Fire" used by Vichy France, and in the multiplayer maps featuring Vichy or Free France. The gun curiously has decent damage with no recoil whatsoever. The gun was added in Call of Duty: WWII in the Operation: Shamrock and Awe update, which also include an Irish variant decorated with shamrocks, while another variant makes it resemble the MAT-49.
• The Battlefield: 1942 mod Forgotten Hope has the MAS-38 issued to French troops.
• Post Scriptum has it as a usable weapon for the French.

Web Video

• Ian of Forgotten Weapons was able to get his hands on a MAS-38, but unfortunately it was a case of Reliably Unreliable Guns as the gun failed to fire at all. He deduced that the gun wouldn't fire because of incorrectly sized ammunition: the only supplier he could find at the time of his review made new cartridges by modifying .32 S&W Long cases.^note While there is always the option of surplus ammunition, this is not a particularly desirable option because official manufacture ceased in 1960, meaning that all remaining stock are more than half a century old and chemically unstable. Though it worked okay in semi-automatic pistols, the modified ammunition's origins as a rimmed revolver cartridge may have impacted feeding and extraction reliability. However, he was able to get it firing after sending it off to a gunsmith and acquiring some newly-produced ammunition, which was not available at the time his original video was filmed.

MAT-49

"French submachine gun captured and repurposed by North Vietnamese forces."

—Description: Rising Storm 2: Vietnam

After the end of the Second World War, France needed a new submachine gun to replace the 7.65x20mm MAS-38 that was in service. After experimenting with various designs (including a similar Hotchkiss Universal SMG), they decided to adopt the design submitted to them by manufacturer Nationale d'Armes de Tulle in 1949.

Like the Grease Gun, the weapon is stamped with sheet steel for quicker production. The MAT-49 is chambered in 9x19mm, and has a wire stock as well as a foldable magazine well, which allowed for easy carry. The magwell also doubles as a foregrip; someone must have noted how many soldiers during the last war often held the Sten or MP 40 by the magazine. These features made it an ideal weapon for French paratroopers at the time.

The MAT-49 has also been supplied to the French Foreign Legion, and the National Gendarmerie. Ultimately, the MAT-49 ended its production in 1979, being surpassed by the FAMAS F1, although the MAT-49 is still used by some police forces. It saw its way into use by the Vietnamese after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, where many of the captured guns were redesigned to accept the 7.62x25mm Tokarev cartridge, as well as having a larger, curved magazine, longer barrel and a higher rate of fire.

• If the Viet Cong are not seen using an AK-pattern rifle, expect them to have one of these. Likewise, expect the Viet Minh to use these if they're not wielding rifles.
• The Sniper's SMG in Team Fortress 2 is the rear sight, magazine and bolt of a Thompson M1A1 combined with the MAT-49's general shape and front sight. The game mod Open Fortress adds a proper MAT-49 as a weapon option for the new Mercenary class.
• The opening scene with the French Foreign Legion has these in We Were Soldiers, and the NVA and Viet Cong forces use these for the remainder of the movie.
• It appears in Battlefield Vietnam for the NVA, noted as the only usable submachine gun.
• Project Reality has this weapon used by the NVA and African Resistance.
• The Vietnamese FPS 7554: Glorious Memories Revived (the number coming from the date May 7th, 1954, the date the Viet Minh triumphed in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu) has the MAT-49 as one of the many usable sub-machine guns.
• Appears in Rising Storm 2: Vietnam as one of three Vietnamese SMGs of choice to oppose the American Grease Gun and Thompson, as well as the Australian Owen and F1, used by both the Viet Cong and NVA. Two versions are available - captured French ones in 9x19mm, and modified ones by the Vietnamese in 7.62x25mm Tokarev.
• Faulques carries one in The Siege of Jadotville in conjunction with a Walther P-38.
• Appears as a usable weapon in Battlefield: Vietnam.
• A usable weapon in Vietcong 2.
• Acts as the primary weapon for most French infantry units in Wargame: Red Dragon, before being replaced by the FAMAS (several units use the SG-542 battle rifle, and reservists use the MAS-49/56). This also makes the French troops somewhat unique, as almost every other faction starts out using a battle rifle or assault rifle as their primary weapon, with submachine guns usually exclusive to weapons teams and elite units.
• A 4-star SMG in Girls' Frontline, obtainable as a map drop in Chapter 12. A forceful and talented woman who aims to emulate the knights of old (despite not even aware that they ride horses until her Oath line). She also has a one-sided rivalry with FAMAS, the weapon that replaced her in real life.
• Carried by the French CRS riot police in The Day of the Jackal (both novel and film), and Lebel uses one to kill the eponymous assassin at the end.

MP 40

The MP40 submachine gun is an effective room-clearing weapon. It has a relatively minimal muzzle climb even when fired fully automatic in extended bursts.

—Description, Call of Duty manual

The 9x19mm Maschinenpistole (MP) 40, descended from the MP 38 (the difference being basically that the MP 40 uses more stamped metal parts and thus is quicker and cheaper to manufacture), is the classic submachine gun from Nazi Germany. It was nicknamed the "Schmeisser" by Allied troops, even though Hugo Schmeisser had little actual involvement in its design and production.

The MP 40 uses a straight blowback open bolt action. It is only capable of full-automatic fire, but its low rate of fire (500-550 rounds per minute) meant one could fire single shots by pulling the trigger lightly. It was also one of the first weapons of its kind to use a folding stock. The weapon was well-liked by German troops for its accuracy, controllability, and low weight, but reliability was another story. The weapon was fed by 32-round double-stack magazines with a single-stack feed, which gave them a propensity to jam due to the increased friction between rounds, made worse if dirt got in the magazines. As a result, magazines were usually only loaded with 28 or 30 rounds to improve feeding. This design flaw was unfortunately passed on to other weapons that copied its magazine design, like the Sten.

Much like the Luger, simply having one is often proof the character is a bad guy, no matter what the era.

• Cool Action: The classic "cool" grip is to hold it by the magazine; in practice, this was actually an extremely bad idea as it was likely to cause misfeeds. The proper way to hold it was by the magazine housing, or by the actual handhold, the flat section between the trigger and the magazine. Various World War II photographs show that German soldiers held it by the magazine, but most of the time it was done specifically for the photo-op and they were not in actual combat.

• You will see this in more or less anything with soldiers from Nazi Germany, of course. See Works Set in World War II.
• Brothers in Arms has the MP 40 used by all German infantry types throughout the campaigns of all 3 games, though in general it is far less common than the Karabiner 98k rifle. It is particularly favored by Infanterie Assault Teams, Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck teams, and Panzergrenadiers.
• It's also popular as a mook weapon in James Bond movies; bad guys use them in Moonraker, Thunderball, Goldfinger (used by an old lady, no less), You Only Live Twice and From Russia with Love. Auric Goldfinger uses it at one point and holds it correctly.◊^note Gert Fröbe, the actor who played him, was actually in the German Army during WWII, meaning he may well have been trained how to use it.
• German soldiers in Defiance, Tuvia and Zus were almost always seen carrying these, they obviously took them from dead Nazis.
• Frequent in the Indiana Jones movies, thanks to the perennial presence of the Nazis. Notably, one of the Arab thugs◊ in Raiders of the Lost Ark may be one of the only two fictional characters in existence (after Auric Goldfinger above) to hold the weapon correctly.
• Early on in Stephen King's novel The Stand, Lloyd Henreid uses one (described only as a "Schmeisser") during a gas station robbery.
• Common in the early Call of Duty games, often the most usable option because of the abundant ammo (every other German you ventilate drops one) and the fact that the early games tend to invert Universal Ammunition to infuriating extremes (not even the British Sten can resupply from them, even though they use the same caliber). It's at its most infamous in World at War, where a lack of play testing ended with it severely overpowered compared to the other SMGs in multiplayer.^note The SMGs were set so that they took approximately the same amount of time to kill, but the devs didn't consider what that meant when the MP 40 fired noticeably slower than the rest Call of Duty: Black Ops III features a slightly-futurized variant, the "HG 40", available through supply drops in multiplayer and the Mystery Box in a few Zombies maps.
• You can wield a gun that bears a strong resemblance to this in Frozen State. It doesn't have a very fast fire rate, though.
• Similarly, in Medal of Honor games set in the European theater, one of these is likely to be your main gun.
• In Archer, you can bet that a few episodes are going to include this weapon. Sometimes with laser sights.
• In Dirty Harry, Scorpio uses an MP 40 alongside his Arisaka sniper rifle.
• Added in the Blue Sun mod for 7.62 High Caliber as an early game gun, sometimes available from the mod's very first new mission in the Santa Maria bar with the wino's brothers.
• The MP-40 shows up in the first and second Uncharted games as a remnant of lost Nazi expeditions. In both games, the player receives it right when things get weird.
• As a holdover from its original intent as a sequel to Wolfenstein 3-D, the MP 40 appears in Rise of the Triad and its 2013 reboot with infinite ammo, making it an Infinity -1 Sword. For some reason in the reboot, the magazine attached to the gun horizontally like the Sten gun, even though the cover art and the original game both have the magazines attached vertically.
• Insurgency has the MP 40 mainly used by the Insurgent team, as one of the older weapons available for use. It costs 2 supply points and can be fitted with optics, laser sights and different ammo types.
• A common sight for German troops in Men of War. It is used by SMG infantry, squad leaders and elite units alike.
• German Pioneer Squads have these in Company of Heroes. It can also be given to Volksgrenadiers as an upgrade.
• In Brutal Doom, the MP40 can be obtained by killing the SS soldiers in secret levels.
• Alongside the M3 Grease Gun, it shows up in SMOD, reworked to chamber 4.6mm ammo. It's a middle ground between the M3 and the MP7 in terms of damage, recoil, reload speed, accuracy and availability.
• From the second Commandos game onwards, the Commandos can salvage these from the enemy.
• Appears in the hands of nearly every last German soldier in Commando Comics.
• As one of the most famous bad guy guns in media, the MP 40 shows up in the hands of criminals, the homicidal Mutants gang, Neo-Nazis and prison guards in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
• Shows up in Granny's flashback in The Looney Tunes Show, in the hands of the Germans.
• Appears as a common German infantry in the Brothers in Arms series.
• Within the Marvel Universe, the MP 40 is often used by the villain's goons in comics from the 1960s-80s.
• PAYDAY 2 has an MP 40 unlockable as of the "Aldstone's Heritage" event to celebrate the closed beta of its WWII-based sister game RAID: World War II. It can only fire in a slow full-auto (which is accurate to the real weapon, which didn't have a semi-auto mode but fired slowly enough that quick taps with the trigger could consistently produce semi-auto-esque firing), has slightly above-average accuracy, and only has enough ammo in total for two magazines, but it's upgraded to a 40-round capacity per mag and it deals damage on par with the high-end assault rifles, as well as taking noticeably more modifications than the Luger pistol needed to unlock it.
• Makes a rather odd appearance in Far Cry 5, apparently continuing the series' tradition of old guns that don't make much sense for the current setting started with 4. It looks and functions accurately to a real MP 40, including no option for a semi-auto fire mode, and can be extensively customized. It also makes an appearance in the Vietnam-themed Hour of Darkness DLC, also somewhat oddly since, while there were some in use during the war by the Viet Cong, Soviet SMGs were by far more common by then.
• A 2-star SMG in Girls' Frontline. Like many other WWII guns in this game, she dresses like a period reenactor (a SS officer in her case, though with the symbolism removed). She actually dresses like this because of the professional vibes it gives, fitting her diligent and hardworking nature.
• Added for the Viet Cong in Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. This is a case of Aluminum Christmas Trees, as the Viet Cong actually fielded amounts of MP 40s that were either captured surplus supplied by the Soviet Union, or captured surplus that the French transported into Indochina and were captured again after the end of the First Indochina War.
• In Foxhole has a generic SMG based on the MP 40. Interesting enough, it uses 9mm rounds.
• Hell Let Loose features the MP 40 as the standard submachine gun of the German faction, issuing it by default to the German Commander, Officer, Tank Commander, and Spotter classes, and making it an unlockable weapon for the Assault, Automatic Rifleman, Anti-Tank, and Engineer classes.
• Squad 44: The MP40 is the standard German submachine gun for maps set after 1940. It's available mainly to officer classes, but can be made available for certain infantry loadouts depending on the map.
• Guns, Gore & Cannoli: In 2, this submachine gun can be picked up by Vinnie in the final Thugtown level from the Heer Infantry he kills. The latter will continue to wield this weapon from that point onward, being common enemies once Vinnie lands in France and makes his way into Germany, and making ammo for this gun readily available.
• Naturally common in Wolfenstein.
  • Wolfenstein 3-D features it as the "Machine Gun", the first upgrade from your starting pistol. Also the weapon used by SS guards, which gives them the ability to simply stand in place and unload at you over other non-boss enemies firing one shot and then moving again.
  • Also available as the standard submachine gun in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, where it's the no-frills generalist of the three submachine guns; it deals less damage than the Thompson or Sten, but in turn ammo is everywhere (circumventing the Thompson's problem) and it doesn't overheat after every small burst (which is the Sten's problem).
  • Wolfenstein (2009) once again features it as the basic close-range sprayer, dealing less damage than the StG but with more common ammo and a higher magazine capacity in return. Among its many upgrades you can also put a suppressor on it for stealth work.
• In The Dogs of War, the mercenaries buy MP-40s submachineguns for the coup in Zangaro. The MP-40s are bought from a former SS cook who hid them in Belgium.

PP-19 Bizon

The BZ19 sub machinegun is what you get when you take bits of an AK-74, shorten it, and slap on a high capacity “helical” magazine. Okay, the process may be a bit more complex than that (changing the letters A and K to B and Z took a lot of careful thought), but the end result is a weapon that holds 64 rounds of 9mm ammunition.

—Survival Guide, Far Cry 3

A submachine gun produced by Russian state armory IZHMASH, the Bizon is essentially a modified AKS-74 (sharing 60% parts commonality, particularly the trigger, safety/selector and stock), chambered for one of four pistol cartridges and with a helical 45 (7.62x25mm; this version is more commonly used with a traditional box magazine that carries 35 rounds), 53 (9x19mm) or 64 (.380 ACP and 9x18mm)^*As trivia, the designers were originally able to fit 67 rounds into the helical magazines of the 9mm Makarov variants. This was lowered to 64 rounds because the Makarov round is packaged in boxes of 16, which 64 is divisible by. round magazine which doubles as the handguard. It is not to be confused with the similar PP-90M1, which also uses a helical magazine in the same configuration, but is otherwise completely unrelated.

It is still in production, but has seen only limited service with Russian security and law enforcement forces; like the Calico weapons, the main issue is that helical magazines are expensive to manufacture, and early Bizon versions also had issues with the magazine detaching from the gun while being used as a grip (this is why using the magazine as a grip is rarely a good idea in any firearm, despite what every movie featuring an MP 40 or Sten would have you believe). North Korean special forces also use it, though it's being phased out, and Vietnam makes a copy of the weapon known as the SN9P, which has a Galil-style stock and is used in limited numbers by their special forces. It is nonetheless seen in large numbers in a few video games. There is a much more common derivative of the gun known as the PP-19-01 Vityaz, however, which has a different pistol grip, magazine housing and uses cheaper and more standard polymer double-stack box magazines that contain 30 rounds of 9x19mm and can be clipped together for faster reloading, and has been adopted as one of the two standard submachine guns of Russian law enforcement (the other being the PP-2000), as well as by Egyptian and Uruguayan police and Namibian marines. An improved derivative known as the PPK-20 was also introduced in 2020, which has a compact variant that borrows features from the AK-12 and AK-17.

The Bizon was designed by Victor Kalashnikov, whose father Mikhail famously designed the assault rifle it was based on; the design team also included Alexei Dragunov, the youngest son of the man who designed the SVD sniper rifle.

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Anime & Manga/Light Novels

• In Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, the PP-19 Bizon-2-01 is the weapon used by Tanya of Team SHINC. Unlike most other instances of this gun being depicted in media, hers has a PBS-1 suppressor attachment, and she also showcases its select-fire capabilities of both semi and full-auto fire (usually the gun is presented as being a full-automatic only firearm).
• Dr. Ren's Humaritts use PP-19 Bizons in Najica Blitz Tactics, or at least a gun that is heavily based off of it.
• TK in Angel Beats! uses PP-19 Bizon-2 as his primary weapon.

Video Games

• Escape from Tarkov features the later derivatives, the PP-19-01 Vityaz and the civilian-legal semi-auto carbine Saiga-9 and a plethora of attachments to pimp the guns with.
• Carried by many Soviet soldiers in Freedom Fighters (2003).
• In the first Syphon Filter, (renamed BIZ-2) it is available in the last missions, which take place in an ex-Soviet military base/missile silo in Kazakhstan. It's pretty realistic in a sense that Bizons are featured there and only there, and is regarded as one of the best weapons in the game, thanks to its enourmous 66-rounds capacity and moderately good damage. It appears again in Syphon Filter 2, also being realistically limited to missions that take place in Russia, and in The Omega Strain as the BIZ-9.
• The original model of the Bizon is available for purchase in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. It's not as accurate as other SMGs, nor as powerful as the P90, but makes up for it in terms of More Dakka as it has the highest capacity of anything in the game short of the belt-fed machine guns.
• The stock submachine gun of the Middle-Eastern Coalition Anti-Tank class in Battlefield 2.
  • It returns in the Back to Karkand DLC of Battlefield 3, unlocked by completing the "Familiar Territory" assignment (for arming bombs on ten M-COMs, capturing ten flags in Conquest, and for playing for a total of two hours on Strike at Karkand). It has the highest capacity of any non-LMG weapon in the game, very low recoil and a high rate of fire, but has one of the weakest damage-per-shot of any weapon in the game and runs out of ammo quickly.
  • It returns once more in Battlefield 2042 as the PP-29, using 64-round magazines by default or 53-round ones with high-power and subsonic ammunition.
• A suppressed 9x18mm Bizon was used by Spetznaz soldiers in the first Operation Flashpoint and its expansion pack, Resistance. The gun is an anachronism since the first Bizon prototypes weren't made until 1993, and Flashpoint's campaigns take place in the 1980s.
  • ARMA II also features the PP-19 in various roles, in both suppressed and non-suppressed variants.
• The Helghast pistol and SMG in Killzone are both based on the Bizon; the SMG has the receiver of an Uzi.
• Jagged Alliance 2 1.13, featuring several versions: one in Russian 9x19, and one in 9mm Parabellum. The latter is almost comparable to the P90 in stats (has worse range but better damage and, obviously, ammo capacity).
• Combat Arms has 5 variants of the PP-19: the standard, the PP-19 CAMO (has a blue-grey camo pattern), the PP-19 MOD (a PP-19 with a suppressor and a red-dot sight), the PP-19 MOD CAMO (a PP-19 MOD with a yellow-black camo pattern) and Scorpion's PP-19 MOD (a PP-19 MOD with a scorpion design involving a scorpion tail wrapping around the magazine and a black and red-tipped suppressor).
• One of the specialists' loadouts in Ghost Recon includes the original model of the Bizon. The Bizon-2 returns in Phantoms, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (unlocked for killing ten enemies with an SMG without reloading in "Firefly Rain") and Wildlands (found on a barge in the lake in Agua Verde, with a unique "Residuos" version awarded after defeating El Pozolero).
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive features the Bizon.
• 7.62mm High Caliber, as usual for a Jagged Alliance spiritual successor. Also available in an even rarer version with a silencer, and the very common 9x19mm ammo is offset by the rare and expensive magazines.
• Appears in Call of Duty: Ghosts as one of the Federation's SMGs, and it also appears in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the latter calling it the Bullfrog and giving it a ribbed receiver and different pistol grip. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 rather infamously featured the similar PP-90M1. The PP-19 Bizon later returns in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II alongside the PP-19-01 Vityaz, with the former being as the Minibak.
• A left-handed version appears as essentially the top-tier submachine gun in both Far Cry 3 and 4 as the "BZ19", featuring a receiver-top rail with an aftermarket rear sight and the highest unmodified capacity of any of the SMGs. It's held over until the second part of the game both times and the most expensive weapon in its class barring the Signature "Shredder", though doing Willis' missions in the latter game allow the player to get one for free just prior to actually getting to that second part of the game. The latter game also features a custom automatic crossbow built out of a PP-19.
• A similar PP-19 to the one in Far Cry 3 appears in Splinter Cell: Blacklist, unlocked with the High Power Pack DLC, and can be used by Sam or Briggs in campaign mode and Spies in Spies VS Mercs. It has the highest default ammo capacity of any weapon in campaign mode (with extended mags only the 416, ARX-160 and Goblin beat it) and the second highest next to the LMGs in Spies VS Mercs, but otherwise generally mediocre stats and it lacks a silencer, making it only good for Assault players.
• Called the "P19", this appears in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard as the game's sole fully-automatic firearm. It is the weapon for Mia Winters when she was working as a mercenary delivering the E-001 bio-organic weapon to an undisclosed Central American location. Apparently, whatever organization she works for has enough pull to outfit her with a firearm that is only issued to Russian special forces and counter-terrorist units.
• A silenced, stockless original model Bizon is usable in Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness as the Viper SMG, first used by the Cleaner sent to kill Lara in Von Croy's Apartment until he runs out of ammo for it and throws it aside, at which point Lara can collect it for herself. It incorrectly holds 70 rounds instead of 64.
• The Bizon-2 in 9mm Makarov is added to PAYDAY 2 with the Gage Russian Weapons pack, as the Tatonka. It has a high ammo capacity and damage, but a low rate of fire and slow reload speed. The PP-19-01 Vityaz was later added in the Jiu Feng Smuggler Pack as AK Gen 21 Tactical.
• Rainbow Six Siege features the similar Vityaz-SN, available for the Spetsnaz defenders Tachanka and Kapkan, as well as their Recruit.
• Unturned features the Bizon, calling it Yuri. The high capacity and automatic fire capability are offset by the high degradation rate, and it can't take a grip attachment.
• The Bizon-2 was added in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in the Feb 2019 update. It is chambered in 9x19 with it's proper 53-round magazine but customization is limited to just the sights and muzzle attachments.
• Appears as a 4-star SMG in Girls' Frontline.
  • By the time of the Polarized Light story event, Captain Yegor has switched his AN-94 for a Bizon.
• Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades added the Bizon in Update #18. In game it is referred to as the 'PP Bizon'

PPS-43

The less well-known brother of the PPSh-41, the Pistolet-pulemyot Sudayeva (Sudayev's submachine gun), or PPS, was developed when the Red Army requested a lightweight, compact weapon with similar accuracy and power to the PPSh-41 but with a lower rate of fire, lower production cost, and less manpower to produce (particularly skilled manpower). The PPS-43's design was derived from the second out of two prototypes made by Lt. I.K. Bezruchko-Vysotsky at the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy in 1942. Alexei Sudayev refined the design, with emphasis on simplifying production and eliminating most of the machining operations required for the PPSh-41 (using sheet-steel stamping instead). He succeeded; in comparison to the PPSh-41 which required 7.3 hours of machining and used 13.9 kg of raw steel, the PPS only took 2.7 hours of machining and 6.2 kg of raw steel, and took even less workers to manufacture and assemble the parts. With this improvement in production efficiency, the Soviets hoped to produce 135,000 to 350,000 of these guns per month. In short, if the PPSh was crude and simple, the PPS was even cruder and simpler.

The weapon was put into field trials during the siege of Leningrad, winning against 20 designs, one of which was Shpganin's own improved PPSh-2. After the State Defense Committee approved the weapon, it was accepted into service as the PPS-42. Small-scale production of the gun began in 1942 in the Sestroretsk Tool Factory, and production did not take off until 1943. Just over 46,000 guns were produced before the improved PPS-43 replaced the PPS-42. ^note To tell the PPS-43 apart, it has a ventilated heat shield that was integrated with the upper receiver cover, both the barrel and shoulder stock are shorter, the stock's locking mechanism was simplified, the casing ejector was moved to the rear of the recoil spring guide rod, the magazine well angle was increased in the receiver in order to enhance feeding reliability and the safety was improved to both block the trigger and lock the bolt in either the open or closed positions.

However, the Soviets had already made massive investments in machinery for producing the PPSh-41, which was being churned out at a rate of more than 1 million guns per year, and so they decided it would be uneconomical to completely abandon its production in favor of the PPS. As a result, only two million PPSs were made in comparison to the six million PPSh-41s; whereas the PPSh-41 was issued to frontline infantry, the PPS tended to be used by paratroopers, recon units, vehicle crews, support service personnel, and other branches where more compact weapons were needed. Captured weapons in the hands of Those Wacky Nazis were used under the designation Maschinenpistole 719(r).

Due to an oversupply of submachine guns, the Soviets stopped producing the weapon in 1946. However, the weapon continued to see service with several Soviet forces until the mid-1950s, especially among Soviet Naval Infantry and armored vehicle crews. The design was also exported into China (locally produced as the Type 54 SMG), and several countries also designed variants of it; Finland designed the M/44 submachine gun firing the 9x19 Parabellum cartridge, having straight rather than curved box magazines and accepting the Suomi M/31 box and drum magazines (as well as the Carl Gustav m/45's 36-round magazines). The Spanish copy of the M/44, the DUX-53 and DUX-59, was adopted by Germany for their border guards. The Vietnamese K-50M submachine gun also took design elements from the PPS-43. Today, the PPS continues to see service around the globe, with some seeing use as recently as 2014 in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

The PPS is chambered for the 7.62x25mm Tokarev. It fires from an open bolt, in full-automatic mode only, and features a muzzle brake and folding stock. The weapon is fed by 35-round stick magazines, which are not interchangeable with the PPSh-41's.^note While the two are physically very similar and hold the same ammo in the same capacity, the PPS-43 magazine is more uniform in its size and shape and has a double-column feed, whereas the opening of the PPSh magazine is thicker and has a single-stack feed. Also unlike the PPSh-41, the PPS cannot accept drum magazines.

• This gun has been featured in too many Soviet-era Russian movies to count.
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Alex O'Connell arms himself with one while battling Yang's soldiers in the Himalayas.
• Makes an appearance in the 2016 game Heroes and Generals.
• Added to Battlefield 1942 with the Forgotten Hope mod.
• Seen in a gun shop in Black Lagoon.
• The PPS-43 is a usable weapon in the first Red Orchestra game. It is later added in a post-release update in Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.
• Appears as a surprisingly rare weapon in Call of Duty 2, as a slower-firing and lower-capacity alternative to the PPSh.
• In Men of War, the PPS-43 is commonly used by Soviet elite units like the Red Guards.
• Appears as a usable weapon in the first Vietcong game.
• Appears as a 3-star SMG in Girls' Frontline. Depicted as the strict and serious younger sister of PPSh-41. Presumably due to an error by her artist, her right hand has six fingers.
• One of the more common weapons carried by the Soviet troops in the 2014 Hungarian WWII movie Dear Elza.
• Appear in the hands of North Vietnamese Army soldiers in the ARMA III Vietnam DLC S.O.G. Prairie Fire.

PPSh-41

"PPShs are here! Now even Yuri can hit something."

—Conscript squads, Company of Heroes

The Eastern Tommy gun; the Pistolet-Pulemyot Shpagina (Shpagin's machine pistol), or PPSh-41 is a blowback-operated weapon firing the 7.62x25mm Tokarev round and was the most common submachine gun in the Red Army during WWII. The weapon owes much to a 1934 design called the PPD by Vasiliy Degtyarev, which was shelved owing to high-up Party members such as Molotov, Zhdanov and Malenkov sharing the common-at-the-time belief that submachine guns were not military weapons. With the outbreak of the Winter War, the Finns quickly showed the Red Army the worth of the SMG, and the decision was quickly reversed, a refined version of the PPD going back into production with a new 71-round drum magazine (directly inspired by the Finnish Suomi M31's drum magazine of the same capacity). Shpagin's gun was essentially a refined version of Degtyarev's still-too-complicated design, using the same magazines but redesigned for mass production. By using stamping and welding rather than time-consuming machining, the PPD's 13.7 man-hours per gun were cut down to just 7.3, and the result also proved extremely reliable, requiring minimal maintenance.

The very crude design was also so easy to manufacture that production could be handed to companies with no experience in gun manufacturing whatsoever, and because the Soviets standardized all rifle and pistol ammo at 7.62mm caliber, Mosin-Nagant rifle barrels could be salvaged from bad or damaged weapons and cut in half to make two PPSh-41 barrels. Modern shooters and collectors squint a bit at the crude appearance of the gun, but the Soviets soon learned that new recruits could be turned into cheap killing machines by giving them More Dakka (with a firerate of 900 rounds per minute, the PPSh provided unparalleled firepower at close range) so it was issued extensively, sometimes whole divisions being issued with only this weapon. It proved such an icon of the Soviet army that statues were built of soldiers holding them throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. PPSh-41s were supplied to Soviet partisans, and the Soviet air force even experimented with using hundreds of submachine guns as antipersonnel weapons◊ mounted on their Tu-2 bombers for close air support.

When the AK-47 was finally perfected and adopted by the Soviet military, PPSh stocks were lend-leased to other Communist countries. Just like the Soviets, the Chinese found the submachine gun's firepower very useful for recruits during the Korean war, and it became one of the mainstays of the Chinese infantryman in the later years of the war, alongside the Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine. As with all Soviet designs, a Chinese copy of the PPSh was engineered, the Type 50, unique in that it could only use box magazines. When the Vietnam War broke out, North Vietnam received generous amounts of Chinese equipment, including many Type 50s. They modified the gun into the K-50M, adding a pistol grip, steel-wire stock and the front sight from a MAT-49. The PPSh-41 is still in Russia for Great Patriotic War reenactments and ceremonial use - famously, its drum magazine was used as a seat◊ in recent years.

While the PPSh-41 can use a curved 35-round box magazine, like the Thompson it is more likely to be seen with its 71-round drum magazine fitted. This is actually a case of The Coconut Effect; in Real Life, the drums were considered Awesome, but Impractical, as they were rather time-consuming to load by hand and prone to jamming if not individually fitted (not to mention more complex and expensive than box magazines).

Interestingly, the mass-capitulations of Red Army units early in the war^note before the Soviets learned to counter blitzkrieg tactics and built up their military strength, hundreds of thousands of their soldiers were encircled by Panzer units, cut off from supplies and leadership and left with no option but to surrender led to the German army capturing large amounts of PPSh-41s. Finding it useful, they added it to their vast inventory of captured weapons, then pressed it into service as the MP717(r)^note "r" for "Russland" which is the German word for Russia. and issued user manuals for it. They also used a version called the MP41(r), rechambered for 9x19mm rounds, which was designed in response to numerous requests from the infantry to just manufacture PPShes - Germany's Army Weapons Agency did tests of both the MP 40 and PPSh, determining that the PPSh magazines were more reliable and that the best response to this would be an MP 40 rechambered for 7.62 Tokarev, and then delivering the exact opposite of that.

• Commonly seen in Eastern Front WWII and Korean war movies.
  • Enemy at the Gates
  • Stalingrad
  • Der Untergang
  • Defiance
  • Dear Elza (Hungarian)
  • Warsaw '44 (Polish)
• Appears a few times in Stargate SG-1.
• Somewhat infamous as a supergun in the WWII-based Call of Duty games thanks to high accuracy, very friendly recoil and a vast magazine; each iteration after the first game attempted to Nerf it somehow, particularly by eventually downgrading it to the 35-round box mags (though it can get its drums again in World at War). It also oddly shows up as an enemy weapon in Call of Duty: WWII, which would make sense given how popular it was among German soldiers, except the game is set nowhere near the Russian front where they would actually have access to it. It was later added to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in Season 3, where it has the box mags by default, but extended mags gives it the drum magazine, and it's just as much of a supergun as it was in the early games.
• This gun is probably the inspiration of the model for the Combat Shotgun in Fallout 3, with the drum placed slightly forward. It even has the same fire selector, despite being semi-auto only.
• Appears as one of the several weapons available to the Engineer class in Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam, presumably meant for the NVA faction, but usable by everyone. It's actually been copy-pasted over the base game's UMP45, as its low rate of fire and meager 25-round capacity can attest.
• One of the weapons available in 7.62 High Calibre, with both the box and drum magazines available (the drum increases the dirt rating of a weapon faster, which will result in a jam when it gets high enough). The rebels often use them with box magazines, and the high rate of fire makes them excellent at close quarters.
• Archer: Katya Kasanova can be seen wielding one when she rescues Archer from a KGB firing squad.
• As noted in the P90 folder, you can get this gun in Parasite Eve by giving Wayne 300 Junk. Unlike the P90 though, you have to let Wayne decide what to give you and hope you get a PPSh-41.
• The "pe-pe-sha" is planned to be a weapon in Survarium.
• Available in Sniper Elite and Sniper Elite V2, owing to the fact that the player is inserted into Berlin in the midst of the Soviets' moving in on the capital to end the war on that front. In the first game you can be issued the weapon at the beginning of most missions, in the second you get it after coming across and killing your first Soviet patrol, around the same time you also pick up a scoped Mosin-Nagant.
• Appears as a usable weapon in Red Orchestra and Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.
• Soviet troops in Men of War are commonly seen carrying these. Most SMG infantry are issued with the 71 round drum mag, but the 35 round stick magazine version is used by tank commanders.
• Soviet Shock Troops are armed with these in Company of Heroes 2 by default, making them effective in close combat. Conscripts can also be upgraded with PPShs via certain commanders.
• Appears in From Russia with Love in the hands of Soviet troops, but named "Tommy guns" by Ian Fleming possibly due to their distinctive drum magazines.
• The Soviet conscripts in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 are issued with the PPSh, the drum magazines distinctive even with the isometric, sprite-based view.
• Carried by Chinese soldiers in the 'Rainbow Bridge' episode of M*A*S*H. Trapper John even refers to them as "Russian burp guns".
• The PPSh replaces the Mosin-Nagant 91/30 as the primary weapon of Soviet soldiers in Downfall. In real life, the Red Army issued submachine guns to all front-line troops before the Battle of Berlin, as it performed better than a standard Mosin in close-quarters street fighting.
• A 2-star SMG in Girls' Frontline, sometimes referred as Papasha in the narrative.
• Appears in Rising Storm 2: Vietnam for the NVA and Viet Cong, with options to use either the stick or drum magazines. A later updated added the K-50M variant, a stripped down, lighter version created by North Vietnamese armorers which features a folding stock in exchange for only accepting the stick magazines.
• Appears in Squad as the weapon of choice for the Insurgent-exclusive "Raider" kit, and is one of the only two submachine guns in the game, alongside the Skorpion. It comes with four stick magazines and two drum magazines that you can switch between at will.
• Hell Let Loose introduces this weapon alongside the rest of the Red Army and its arsenal in the version 1.0 update, making it the standard-issue submachine gun, in both 35-round stick and 71-round drum variants. Because of this, it's used by a huge number of classes ranging from Commanders and Officers to Spotters and even the Soviet Automatic Rifleman class.
• Appears in Far Cry 6 as a rank 3 submachine gun, loaded with 71-round drums.

Reising submachine gun

Above: Reising M55, Below: Reising M50

The Reising was a submachine gun first introduced in 1941, designed by Eugene Reising, a former assistant to John Browning, and built by Harrington & Richardson.

Compared to its main rival, the Thompson submachine gun, the Reising was superior, at least on paper, in a Boring, but Practical manner. It was much cheaper and easier to build due to using stamped parts, lighter, and better balanced. Unlike most submachine guns at the time, it fired from a closed bolt, which made it more accurate at the cost of a more complicated design. It had a low rate of fire of 500-550 rounds per minute while its barrel had a Cutts compensator to reduce recoil.

The weapon was originally developed for police and security forces. During World War II, however, due to the US Army getting higher priority for the limited stocks of the Thompson submachine gun, most of the early United States Marine Corps engagements in the Pacific were fought with this weapon since it was available in numbers, and most importantly, available immediately rather than "in a few months, maybe".

It was during these early battles, however, that the Reising's flaws became obvious. As it was designed for police and security use, it was found that the gun had a horrible tendency to jam when exposed to dirt, sand, and the elements - most damningly, the groove underneath the handguard for the charging handle could be filled with mud, preventing it from moving, and even just exposure to too-humid air would rust the firing pin to the point of uselessness. The jamming problems were only acerbated by poor quality magazines (which were so flimsy that it is alleged that any person could destroy one simply by sitting on it). The standard 20-round versions were especially unreliable, so most were issued with an even smaller 12-round mag instead. Unsurprisingly, this was an absurdly small capacity for a fully automatic weapon. Even with the slow rate of fire, the attitude of the Marines stuck with them was "Why bother?"

Adding to the headaches, the weapon's complex design made it difficult to disassemble and maintain, an issue not helped by the guns being hand-fitted at the factory. This rendered a damaged gun truly useless, as it could neither be stripped for spares nor put back into service without a lot of time in the hands of an armorer. Just the simple act of mixing up parts during cleaning or maintenance work, benign in any other military firearm, would leave you with guns that wouldn't work even if you had reassembled them correctly.

They soon became unpopular with the Marines, and would often be thrown away and exchanged for Thompsons once any were available (even before Thompsons were available, many were tossed into the sea anyway).

Once phased out, the remaining Reisings went off to Canada or the USSR (the former of which only used them for POW camp security, freeing up more worthwhile submachine guns for actual combat), or were sent to duty they were better suited for: factory guards, US Coast Guard patrols or, as intended, homeland police.

Following the war, the weapon remained in service with various police forces well into the 1960s, being popular with them due to its accuracy, light weight compared to the Thompson, and stopping power. It also helped that policemen were usually keeping these guns locked in the trunk of a patrol car when not in use (and pretty much never crawling through the mud with them), which minimized the reliability problems.

The Reising had several variants: the M50 was the original variant, while the M55 eliminated the Cutts compensator and replaced the solid stock with a folding wire design (which was even less popular than the M50, since the wire stock had no locking mechanism to keep it unfolded). The M60 was a long-barreled semi-automatic only carbine variant, while the M65 was similar to the M60 but designed primarily for training. The M50, 55, and 60 were chambered in .45 ACP while the 65 was chambered in .22 LR.

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Film

• Appears in U571 in the hands of Major Coonan during the raid on the titular sub. This is loosely Truth in Television; while none were ever used to seize a U-boat, the folding-stock M55 saw very limited use in covert operations where its concealability outweighed its other drawbacks.
• Makes a brief appearance in the end credits of Flags of Our Fathers, held by the real Sgt. Mike Strank in a wartime photo.

Live-Action TV

• Shows up in the Guadalcanal portions of The Pacific, in the hands of random US Marines.

Video Games

• One of the early-level weapons in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, particularly during the latter levels set in Makin.
• Appears in Days Gone, where it can be bought from Lost Lake at trust level 3 and is miscategorized as a rifle.

Ruger MP9

This reliable, lightweight machine gun has a large clip but low accuracy.

—Description, NightFire

Essentially an American-upgraded Uzi, the Ruger MP9 is a submachine gun designed by Uziel Gal, the original creator of the Uzi, and manufactured by Ruger in 1995. The MP9 features a variety of upgrades over the original Uzi, including a telescoping closed bolt as opposed to the Uzi's open bolt, a Zytel polymer lower receiver, pistol grip and folding/telescoped stock, a new stainless steel receiver with the cocking handle on top, a three-position safety and fire selector with a separate firing pin block to prevent the MP9 from firing if dropped, and a quick detachable barrel that was cushioned by a spring to reduce the effect of recoil on the various mechanisms. However, despite the improvements and being marketed as a "improved Uzi" by Uziel Gal himself, the MP9 failed to generate any interest with police or military forces, and only about 150 MP9s were ever produced, with production ending only one year later in 1996; the failure of the MP9 resulted in Ruger leaving the SMG market to focus on their much more popular handguns and rifles.

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Anime & Manga

• Batou has a MP9 in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, using it in episode 25 of the first season.

Films — Live-Action

• Bill uses an MP9 in Rampage.
• A Crimson Jihad terrorist can be seen with one in True Lies.

Live-Action TV

• Karl uses an MP9 in Battlestar Galactica (2003) in the episode "Resistance".

Video Games

• Appears in Hitman: Contracts, used by Romanian guards in the Meat King's Party, and Hitman: Blood Money, used by the crow guards in The Murder of the Crows. It has the second fastest fire rate of the SMGs in Contracts next to the Micro Uzi and is one of the only two SMGs that can be concealed in that game (the other being the aforementioned Micro Uzi), and it has the fastest fire rate of the SMGs in Blood Money, but also the worst recoil of them.
• The MP9 is usable in Soldner Secret Wars, where it is held so low by the player character it cannot be seen unless you use the iron sights or are reloading.
• Appears in NightFire, as the Storm M32 or Storm M9-32 depending on platform, with the PC version including both a standard and silenced variant.
• The MP9 with a laser pointer and lacking the back part of the grip appears in Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil: Revelations 2 as the Ammo Box 50 in the former and MP-AB50 in the latter, used by the J'avo and Ada Wong in 6 and can be found and used by Claire in Chapter 2 of Revelations 2. A unique golden variant with a ridiculously long magazine and higher capacity called the MP-AB50G can also be used in Revelations 2.
• A futurized MP9 appears in Call of Duty: Black Ops III as the Pharo, with production of the MP9 apparently moving to South Korea in the game's universe. It bizarrely fires in 4-round bursts with automatic refiring.

Saab Bofors Dynamics CBJ-MS

A Swedish submachine gun, the CBJ-MS was developed in the early 2000s by Carl Bertil Johansson as a PDW for the British military, manufactured by both Saab Bofors Dynamics and Carl's private arms-making company CBJ Tech AB, and is an interesting submachine gun meant to fulfill the roles of personal defense weapon, assault rifle and even a squad automatic weapon (the MS in the name of the weapon meaning Modular System). To do so, it fires a unique armor-piercing round, known as the 6.5x25 CBJ-MS round (though standard 9x19mm ammo is also compatible with the weapon - the ammo was designed to be as interchangeable with 9mm weapons as possible, with existing 9mm weapons requiring nothing more than a barrel change to convert to 6.5mm), and can be fitted with a proprietary bipod and 100-round drum magazine. The 6.5x25 CBJ-MS round is a saboted sub-caliber tungsten projectile, which has an extremely high muzzle velocity when fired that is able to defeat modern body armor or even damage lightly armored APCs at effective range. For unarmored infantry, a 4mm variant of the round is also available, which will readily tumble upon impact with the body, causing a significant wound cavity. The weapon itself is mostly similar to the Uzi, though it features a built-in foregrip which can house an extra magazine and Picatinny rail on the top of the weapon. It has the standard green lacquer of most modern Swedish weapons, a retractable wire stock, and a charging handle that is moved to the back of the weapon which is also fully ambidextrous and doesn't move when the weapon is fired. While the weapon is open-bolt in its default configuration, it can also be converted to a closed-bolt weapon by installing an alternative bolt system with a separate firing pin.

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Video Games

• In Battlefield 4, the CBJ-MS is the third PDW unlocked for the Engineer, and can be collected in Baku in single-player. While it comes with its 100 round drum magazine, it holds only 50 rounds in-game for balance purposes, and true to its round, it has the highest muzzle velocity of the PDWs. It's also one of the weapons you have to get 100 kills with to complete the Swedish Steel assignment, the other being the AK5C.
• The CBJ-MS appears in Call of Duty: Ghosts used by Federation forces in the campaign, mostly in indoor levels, and is also usable in Extinction and multiplayer. It uses the 30-round box magazine, though they incorrectly hold 32 rounds in campaign and Extinction, and 34 rounds in multiplayer. It has the fastest fire rate of any weapon in the game and deals extra damage against enemy equipment and killstreaks due to its ammo, though it has low range and strangely low penetration in-game.
• The CBJ-MS appears in 007 Legends as the Dynamiks PT J-20, with 30-round box magazines. Despite having both a foregrip and stock, the player character doesn't use either of them.
• The CBJ-MS appears in Ghost Recon: Phantoms as the Tier 6 SMG, with a side-mounted rail system. It deals the highest damage of the SMGs and can be upgraded with its 100 round drum magazine to have the highest capacity of them too, but has a low rate of fire and high recoil.
• Available as a 5-star T-Doll in Girls' Frontline, under the name "C-MS". Her skill, which swaps out her ammo type for a different bonus (higher evasion with subsonic rounds, better accuracy with standard rounds, or increased damage with spoon-tip bullets), seems to be a reference to the different 6.5mm CBJ cartridge types available. According to her artist, her design was based on a Chinese vagrant nicknamed "Brother Sharp".

SIG Sauer MPX

"The MPX operates with a closed and locked rotating bolt system. With its ergonomic design and operation, the MPX can be reloaded faster than other comparable SMGs."

—Description, Battlefield Hardline

The SIG Sauer MPX is a American/German submachine gun, first announced in 2013. Unlike most other submachine guns, which tend to be blowback-operated, the MPX is gas-operated, firing from a closed, rotating bolt, and utilizing a short-stroke gas piston. The MPX was designed with customizability in mind: it features a handguard and top-mounted rails, while its barrel and stock can be changed with minimal effort. Its appeal largely comes from it being a tiny AR in 9x19mm.

The weapon by default is chambered in 9x19mm, but it was also designed to be quickly convertible to other pistol calibers, including .40 S&W and .357 SIG. As of now, no such conversions have been released. The weapon has been adopted by police forces in the Dominican Republic, Switzerland, Argentina, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong, Polish, Bangladeshi and Singaporean special forces, and the Taiwanese military and US Army.

Major variants of the MPX include:

1. MPX: Standard variant, with an 8" barrel and select-fire capability
2. MPX-K: Short-barreled 4.5" variant
3. MPX-P: Stockless standard 8" barrel, semi-auto only pistol variant
4. MPX-SD: Integrally-suppressed 8" barrel variant
5. MPX Carbine: Long gun variant with a 16" barrel
6. MPX Copperhead: Ultra-compact variant with a 3.5" barrel

In mid-2019, all 8" barrel versions of the MPX were discontinued by SIG. An interview conducted by James Reeves from The Firearm Blog with SIG's Chief Marketing Officer Tom Taylor in August 2020 revealed that the reason was because due to its status as an SBR (short-barreled rifle), it simply didn't sell. That same interview also showed that the caliber conversion kits are still in Development Hell but that SIG hasn't given up on them yet. However, the kits have become a low-priority as SIG focuses on manufacturing as many guns as possible due to overwhelming demand as of 2020.

Films — Live-Action

• MPXs are used by some of the Reavers in Logan.
• Two MPX-P pistols are used by Darling in Baby Driver.
• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is its most influential media appearance, being Wick's primary weapon in the movie's resident big shootout. Gun blogs and websites all over (most notably Taran Tactical Innovations, the outfit that trained Keanu Reeves & Halle Berry on their shooting skills and customized a number of weapons for both it and its prequel film) made sure you knew what gun this was in the run-up to the movie's theatrical release. A whopping three variants of the gun appear in the movie: the standard version, a prototype of the Copperhead, and a semi-auto Carbine customized by TTI (which is what Wick uses).

Video Games

• The MPX-SD variant appears in Grand Theft Auto V, with the Ill-Gotten Gains Part 1 Downloadable Content.
• The MPX in .40 S&W is available in Battlefield 4 with the Dragon's Teeth DLC, and unlocked in the "Not the Weakest Link" assignment.
  • It is also available in Battlefield Hardline for the Law Enforcement Mechanic, once again in .40 S&W.
• The MPX appears in Escape from Tarkov, in the Gen 1 configurations, which includes the MPX-SD suppressed variant. More attachments such as the Gen 2 handguards and extended barrels are slated for future updates.
• The MPX-C is a usable weapon in State of Decay.
• Appears as the "KF5" in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. It's presented as somehow firing the first five rounds of a magazine with higher damage, although those rounds also have a lower distance to reaching their minimum damage.
• Appears in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II as the BAS-P. In the campaign, it is Alejandro Vargas's weapon. This later became added to multiplayer on Season 1.
• The MPX is usable by the Navy SEAL Operator Valkyrie and US Secret Service Operator Warden in Rainbow Six Siege.
• In Ghost Recon Wildlands, the MPX can be found in a weapon crate in the Mojocoyo province, or stolen from cartel enforcers.
• The MPX is a usable weapon in Contract Wars.
• Added to The Division in Update 1.8. It's extremely rare, and has a special ability where either the last or first half of the magazine deals 20% more damage.
• In PAYDAY 2, the MPX was added to the game to celebrate its release on the Nintendo Switch, where it is known as the "Signature Submachine Gun", and can be dual-wielded.
• The MPX appears as the final usable weapon and only fully-automatic one in The Last of Us Part II, where it is used by Rattlers and taken off of one by Ellie, equipped with a suppressor that never degrades, cannot be upgraded and holds 20 rounds, despite being modeled with a 30-round magazine.

Smith & Wesson M76

The ersatz American version of the Carl Gustav m/45, the 9x19mm M76 was manufactured in the late 1960s due to Sweden ceasing all arms sales to the US in protest against the Vietnam War, which kind of sucked for the Navy SEALs as the m/45 submachine gun was their jungle weapon of choice. Seeing an opportunity, Smith & Wesson designed the M76 as a close copy of the m/45 to fill this particular gap. By the time the weapon was ready for production, however, the SEALs had moved on to more modern weaponry and had little need for the m/45 or M76, and so it saw little use in Vietnam.

S&W attempted to sell the gun to US police and civilians, but low sales caused S&W to cease production of the M76 in 1974. S&W also used the M76 as a base for a prototype design that used electronically-fired caseless ammunition that was quickly scrapped due to the ammunition being fragile. Despite the gun being an open-bolt design and cheaply manufactured (which was the point behind the weapon), the M76 was one of the most accurate and controllable submachine guns of its time, and were well-liked by the police agencies that decided to buy them. The gun was also popular in 1970s cinema (mainly used as a weapon for the antagonists) due to the inexpensiveness and reliability of the weapon.

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• Cool Action: Like its many counterparts (MP40, M3 Grease Gun, Sten Gun) the M76 is often shown being held by the magazine, which would make the weapon more likely to jam during action. The actual proper way to handle the gun is by gripping the front of the magazine well, but Rule of Cool it is not.

Films — Live-Action

• Most famously used by Lee Marvin in the 1972 cult classic Prime Cut. He even keeps it in a custom briefcase and is shown taping the magazines together jungle style during the climactic Lock-and-Load Montage.
• Is the weapon used by the hijackers in the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
• Charlton Heston's weapon of choice in The Ωmega Man.
• John Cazale uses an M76 with a shortened barrel in Dog Day Afternoon.
• Used by The Joker in The Dark Knight, during the battle with the armored car and Batmobile/Batpod.
• Used by one of the vigilante cops in Magnum Force to gun down a bunch of mobsters at a pool party. Interestingly, the cop actually properly handles the gun by the magazine well instead of the magazine.

Literature

• Robert Shaw's weapon in Black Sunday.

Video Games

• Appears in Mafia III as the Alfredsson M833.

Spectre M4

The Spectre M4 was an Italian submachine gun that was designed in the early 80's. It was designed to be a firearm used for counter-terrorism and close quarters combat. It was light, compact and utilized a unique quadruple-stack "casket" magazine (so named because it looks very much like a coffin) that can hold thirty to fifty rounds, although the way they are designed^*the part of the magazine that actually fits into the magwell is a traditional staggered-column design means it can also fire conventional magazines as well. Primarily designed to chamber 9mm, it can also be chambered for .45 ACP or .40 S&W, which was even rarer. However, this gun saw very limited use outside of Italian and Swiss Special Forces, and production for the weapon ceased in 2001.

Civilian variants had been made to fire in semi-auto mode only and with reduced-capacity magazines. The SITES Falcon or Spectre-HC was a pistol with a removable forward grip and folding stock; generally, ones shipped to America removed both, while those sold domestically in Italy kept them. The SITES Ranger was a semi-auto carbine that was sold mainly in Italy, featuring a removable^*though how easy it was to remove depends on whether it's meant for sale in Italy or elsewhere but non-folding version of the original stock and a longer barrel to comply with Italy's laws on the minimum length for civilian long arms.

The Spectre has two Spiritual Successors. One known as the PM-4 "Storm" by BCM Europearms. And another designed by Brügger and Thomet, known as the KH9 Carbine.

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Anime & Manga

• Petrushka used this submachine gun in Gunslinger Girl. In spite of the series being a serious offender in terms of Improperly Placed Firearms, the Spectre is exactly the appropriate weapon to have here, as she's part of an assassination team sponsored by the Italian government.

Films — Live-Action

• Will Smith's character used a Spectre mocked up as a futuristic weapon in I, Robot.
• The Spectre was one of the guns in Leon's possession in The Professional. The extended cut shows him cocking the gun, but not using it.
• Police Chief Dennis and Constable Purdah from the horror comedy Nothing but Trouble both have the Spectre. Any Spectres shipped in America as the Falcon had the foregrip and folding stock removed and fires in semi-auto, yet the one shown in the movie fires in full-auto.

Video Games

• Alliance of Valiant Arms featured this weapon, however it bears a negative reputation for its recoil and low firepower among players. Althought it can be modified to make it a decent weapon.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops featured this weapon, but it's anachronistic as the game is set during the '60s while the gun wouldn't be introduced until the '80s.
• GoldenEye (1997) featured the Spectre on the Frigate misson, renamed the Phantom. With its fifty round magazine, it can be a decent substitute for the RC-P90. However it was only available in single player for that one mission unless you use the All Guns cheat code. Luckily it's included in the multiplayer for the Fan Remake Goldeneye: Source.
• The Spectre appears as the standard SMG in the Syphon Filter series, starting with The Omega Strain. For some reason in Logan's Shadow, this weapon is used by Somali Pirates of all groups.
• Hard to tell given the isometric view from far away, but the Allied GIs in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 are noted in some supplementary material to use the Spectre as their primary unmounted weapon.
• Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades added the Cold War SMG on Day 17 of Meatmass, 2018.

Web Animation

• Debuts in Episode 5.5 of Madness Combat, where Sanford grabs it from a locker. Notably, the same locker where he grabbed his trademark black bandanna. It would later on be seen in the hands of the Agents in later episodes.

SR-2 Veresk

Russian compact SMG with special gas-operated mechanics usually reserved for assault rifles.

—Description, Battlefield 4

The SR-2 Veresk (Heather) is a Russian submachine gun, first introduced in 1999, designed as a compact weapon for close-quarters combat.

The SR-2 is one of the few submachine guns to be gas-operated, with an action based on the SR-3 Vikhr assault rifle, which in turn based on the AS Val. It is chambered in the 9x21mm Gyurza round, a light round designed to easily penetrate body armor. It features a rather conventional layout, with a 20 or 30-round magazine in the pistol grip, two AK-style switches on either side (the right-side switch controls the safety, the left-side is the fire selector), and a top-folding stock.

Its two other variants are the SR-2M, which features a vertical foregrip for better fire control, and the SR-2MP, which has a vertical foregrip, Picatinny rails on each side of the handguard, and in integral sound suppressor.

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Anime & Manga

• Used by some of the guards in Resident Evil: Damnation.

Video Games

• The weapon appears in Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield and its console version's sequel, Black Arrow. It was supposed to appear in the Vegas games, but was cut, though the weapon's files remain within the game.
• Appears in PAYDAY 2 as part of the Hardcore Henry DLC pack, where it is known as the Heather, its translated Russian name. Its excellent damage, concealment, accuracy, and rate-of-fire make it a good secondary weapon.
• The SR-2M (minus foregrip) is a usable weapon in Splinter Cell: Conviction, with several customization options available.
• Appears in Battlefield 4 as part of the Naval Strike DLC, where it's unlocked with the "Packing a Punch" assignment for destroying 20 boats. It comes equipped with a vertical foregrip by default.
• An unlockable weapon in Alliance of Valiant Arms.
• Appears as a usable weapon in Contract Wars.

Sten gun

You wicked piece of vicious tin!
Call you a gun? Don't make me grin.
You're just a bloated piece of pipe.
You couldn't hit a hunk of tripe.
But when you're with me in the night,
I'll tell you pal, you're just alright!

—Gunner S. N. Teede "Ode to a Sten Gun"

From top to bottom: Sten Mk II, Sten Mk III, Sten Mk V

The classic WW2 British submachine gun, chambered in 9x19mm and first manufactured in 1941. Like the PPSh-41, it was a very crude design but could be easily field stripped and mass produced - even in people's sheds and garages, which was its main claim to fame. It often had a skeletal butt or a folding stock (and in some versions, a grip that's so uncomfortable you have to wonder if the designer was a sadist) but its most distinct feature is the iconic side-mounted magazine. Alongside British soldiers and sailors, it was used by the SAS, officers, paratroopers, Commandos, partisans (who liked it because it could be taken into 3 pieces and concealed), spies and vehicle crews, and even the Germans, who made their own variant, the MP-3008 with a vertical magazine to arm the Volkssturm at the end of the war. Postwar, the Sten gun had a surprising international career and often on both sides of a colonial or proxy war; the Israelis and Arabs in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Communist and Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, the French and the Viet Minh in the First Indochina War, the Dutch and Indonesians in the Indonesian National Revolution, and MACV-SOG and the Viet Cong in The Vietnam War all used the Sten.

The design was cheap and rather ugly-looking (it could take as little as 5 hours work to make in a simple metalworking shop with materials that cost less than a full pound) and it often jammed due to poor feed from the MP 40-style magazine (the most infamous example being the Assassination Attempt on Reinhard Heydrich) - but soldiers and partisans loved it anyway (or, rather, didn't have a choice). The magazine was a deliberate design choice, with the hope that the British could resupply themselves with captured MP 40 magazines in a pinch. It quickly improved over the course of WW2, including rapidly increasing reliability as production standards rose, but never developed very far from its ugly looks and finicky magazine. It was eventually phased out by the very similar Sterling SMG, which improves on it mostly by being more ergonomic and having reliable magazines. Just like its successor, the Sten can also accept a bayonet. The Sten was also praised for being able to fire without any lubrication compared to the Thompson, which made it pretty popular in the Pacific Theater and in Vietnam.

• Cool Action: It is often held by the magazine in fiction. In reality, this would make the gun more prone to jamming, as it misaligned the feed lips. The proper way to hold it was by the slanted section in front of the trigger guard, or by the heat shield. Both of these methods, however, were less than comfortable, and the latter method was a good way to burn your hand, so some soldiers chose to do the magazine hold anyway.
• Cool Accessories: The Sten had many different stocks, which were often linked to where they were manufactured. British-made Stens (the middle picture) had a rather uncomfortable stock which was simply a pipe with thin, curved pieces welded on near the gun for the shooter's non-trigger fingers and on the butt to rest against the shoulder. Canadian Stens (pictured at the top) have skeleton stocks (in the same design as the first Sten produced, hand-built by one of its designers), which made for a more comfortable grip. The Sten Mk II could also use a suppressor for clandestine missions, being one of the first submachine guns to use such an accessory. Of course, these variants are noted as the Sten Mk IIS, and sometimes have a fabric cover◊ over the rear part of the suppressor that both acts as a grip and protects the user from burning their hand (which was one of the biggest problems with the gun).^note An example: During D-Day, Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis accidentally grabbed the hot barrel of his Sten after single-handedly taking down a German machine gun nest with it. A finger-sized blister appeared on his palm, which Hollis later described as one of the most painful wounds he suffered during the war. The suppressor itself was one of the best ever designed - by British and American accounts, the only sound that could be heard was the gun's bolt moving.
• Trivia: It's frequently assumed that the Sten was designed to use the exact same magazines as the German MP 40. This is not quite the case - rather, they're copies of the magazines for the MP 40's immediate predecessor, the MP 38. At a glance the differences are in spirit more than anything, but they're just enough that the mags aren't actually completely interchangeable. A Sten magazine will technically fit into an MP 40, but would require modification to the 40's magwell to hold in place, while an MP 40 mag won't actually fit into a Sten.

• Battlefield 1942 gave it to Allied medics whenever the Allied side of the map was the British. Road to Rome gave it to Free French medics, and Secret Weapons of World War II added a suppressor-fitted version for SAS troops on their corresponding maps.
• Frequently appears in Commando Comics stories in the hands of officers or the protagonists.
• Common in the Call of Duty series, though hard to use effectively given the lack of Universal Ammunition (the real Sten was chambered in the same round as the German MP 40, which by gameplay mechanics introduced after the series stopped using it would have meant ammo for it was everywhere). United Offensive makes notable use of a suppressed variant in a few SAS-centric levels. Black Ops III interestingly features two different versions, "Shadows of Evil" and the other Zombies maps using a cross between the Mk III (the front with full barrel jacket) and the Austen (the separate pistol grip and stock) called the "Bootlegger" (though running it through the Pack-a-Punch machine renames it to "Ein Sten"), while a later update added a Mk V to multiplayer.
• The Nailgun in Team Fortress Classic is based off the Sten.
• Appears alongside the later Sterling many, many times in the Classic Era of Doctor Who.
• The Canadian model◊ is used The Bridge on the River Kwai.
• Sawn-off prop replicas are used in The Guns of Navarone.
• The crew of the Nautilus use ornate mockups in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
• In The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the Sten is wielded by Rick O' Connell during the final battle, who is also one of the few fictional characters to actually hold it by the heat shield instead of the magazine.
• Seen in the hands of Falsworth in Captain America: The First Avenger.
• This gun is no stranger in the Medal of Honor series despite the games focusing on the American's POV.
  • French Resistance member Manon Batiste uses the Sten Mk II in Underground.
  • A Sten Mk V appears in the expansion packs for Allied Assault with a wooden stock. The player holds it by the magazine even though the Mk V should have a pistol grip.
  • A Sten Mk II is usable in the second half of Rising Sun after Joseph Griffin was transferred the OSS. It is suppressed but has a small magazine of 20 rounds. Unlike the previously mentioned games, Griffin holds the gun by the suppressor instead of the magazine◊.
• The poem "Ode to a Sten Gun" written by a Canadian soldier best describes the gun with affection while calling out its flaws.
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein features a suppressed variant. Ammo is common, as it shares ammo with the MP 40s that every other Nazi you kill with it drops, and it surprisingly hits like a truck,^note each shot from the Sten has the same damage value as one from the considerably higher-caliber Thompson but it's also harder to use outside of ambush tactics on lone enemies or small groups due to its suppressed nature making it one of the few handheld, non-gatling or energy weapons in a video game that can overheat, in exactly ten shots no less. Helga von Bulow's elite guards also use it - and, surprisingly, are not cheating bastards about the overheating issue, being just as susceptible to it as the player.
• The Sten Mk. III is used by Commonwealth forces in Men of War, seen mostly in SMG infantry and tank commander's hands, but a suppressed version can be wielded by the British SAS and Commandos.
• British Lieutenants use this weapon Company of Heroes. The Royal Commandos use the silenced variant with deadly results.
• Used by both the attacking ninjas and SPECTRE mooks in the final battle of You Only Live Twice.
• Used by a German thug in the anime Noir.
• Famously shows up in A Rebel In Time by Harry Harrison, where a racist colonel brings a Sten and its blueprints to the Civil War-era South. His choice of technology turns out to be more than suitable for the 1840s, as the Sten is simple enough to be manufactured quickly and with readily available materials.
• Day of Infamy features the Sten Mk II as an option for the Commonwealth; the game's focus on realism naturally means it is one of the few where the weapon is held correctly. In co-op modes, the assault class can attach a suppressor to turn it into the Mk IIS, while the officer class is given access to the Mk V with wooden furniture.
• The Mk II variant is a 3-star T-Doll in Girls' Frontline, given free to players after completing some early-game quest. She is widely recommended as a Disc-One Nuke for beginners, as her solid stats allow her to keep up with rarer units while not consuming as much resources as them.
• Appear in the ARMA III: S.O.G. Prairie Fire DLC in the hands of the American MACV-SOG operators, surprisingly enough. Scouts use the suppressed version, but it's also possible to remove the suppressor.

Sterling

A popular submachine gun due to its reliability and stylish design. While holding it by the side-mounted magazine is not recommended, most agents do.

—Description, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way

The Sterling is a 9x19mm British submachine gun in use during and after World War II - some early models saw service during Operation Market Garden as the "Patchett submachine gun". It was intended to replace the Sten, but did not officially replace the Sten until nearly a decade after the war, in 1953. It is easily recognizable by its side mounted magazine similar to the Sten (it can load both straight Sten magazines and its own curved 34-round ones), its perforated hand guards (in some models), and its underfolding skeleton stock. It saw very few changes in design while in service, eventually being replaced by the L85 assault rifle. It is still manufactured today in some countries, including India, and Spanish and Chilean derivatives exist, the former known as the CETME C2, which is also chambered in 9x23mm Largo or 9mm Bergmann-Bayard and distinguishable from the Sterling by its straight magazine as opposed to the Sterling's curved one, its different pistol grip and its charging handle being on the top instead of on the side, which can fold and has a sliding dust-cover for its slot in the receiver, while the latter is known as the FAMAE PAF and distinguished from the Sterling by its lack of a barrel jacket, shortened receiver, collapsible stock with plastic buttplate, HK-style cocking handle, shorter barrel with a spoon compensator and simpler iron sights. After the 70s, its role in fiction is largely replaced by the MP5 and Uzi. This is one of the few submachine guns to accept a bayonet, but they were rarely used outside of ceremonial duties.

• Trivia: The Sterling and its magazines were designed in a way that, while the Sterling could use Sten magazines, the Sten could not use Sterling magazines - the Sterling mag sits too deeply in the Sten's magwell for the bolt to go into battery, and if one were to modify the Sten to hold the Sterling mag in the same position as a Sten magazine then the bolt would miss picking up new bullets from it entirely. This was an intentional feature, to ensure that government buyers after the war bought the gun itself rather than trying to rely on old Stens with new magazines.

• James Bond movies of The '60s and The '70s featured this weapon prominently during Final Battle scenes.
  • You Only Live Twice — Seen on a gun rack as part of SPECTRE's arsenal and wielded by some ninjas and most of the SPECTRE mooks.
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service — Used by Draco's men and is George Lazenby's Bond's primary weapon during the assault of Piz Gloria. It is the first submachine gun (or handheld automatic weapon, period) to be used by Bond on film.
  • The Spy Who Loved Me — The main weapon of Karl Stromberg's henchmen. In the third act, Bond (Roger Moore) and the captive submarine crews break free, storm Stromberg's army's armory and use them during the battle onboard the Liparus supertanker.
  • For Your Eyes Only — Some of Columbo's men have these.
• Featured in both No One Lives Forever games as the "Gordon SMG". It's especially prominent in the sequel, which features both the standard L2A3 and the integrally-suppressed L34A1. Its description pokes fun at the fact that side-mounted magazines like it has aren't meant to be used as a grip but almost universally are anyway.
• The Stormtroopers' E-11 blaster rifles in Star Wars are actually visually modified Sterlings with tiny magazines, WWII tank scopes, and plastic ridges along the handguard. As are the DH-17 blaster pistols carried by the Rebel troopers on the Tantive IV and in a few other places, with a different (and more extensive) set of visual modifications. The DC-15S carbines used by some clone troopers in Revenge of the Sith, though all-CGI, are likewise based on the Sterling. And, most recently, the F-11D blasters the First Order troopers use in The Force Awakens are modified derivatives of the same Sterling design, only with Stormtrooper-white furniture, larger scopes, the power pack moved to the other side, and the never-deployed folding stock of the E-11 repurposed as a folding vertical foregrip (with Captain Phasma getting a customized version with an actual fixed stock).
• Aika Zero has shown Aika with a Sterling Mk 7.
• Doctor Who. Used by UNIT in the 1970s (or was it the 80s?), particularly Sergeant Benton.
• Used for The Caper in The League of Gentlemen (1960), as they'd been stolen from a British army barracks.
• The Goodies. In "Scoutrageous" Bill and Graham (as the notorious Lone Scout + 1) are captured by female members of the Salvation Army armed with these.
• Wielded by Badass Adorable girl child Susan in the 2009 BBC remake of The Day of the Triffids.
• Used with bayonets by the Dust Men in inFAMOUS.
• Both the standard Sterling and the silenced version are available in the Blue Sun mod for 7.62 High Caliber.
• Appears in PAYDAY 2, as the Patchett L2A1 (a reference to its designer, George William Patchett). Becomes the Sterling L34A1 when fitted with the Suppressed Barrel mod, or the Sterling Mark 7 "Para-Pistol" when fitted with the Short Barrel. It can also be modified to resemble the above E-11 blaster rifle with the Heatsinked Suppressed Barrel and Short Magazine.
• In Insurgency, the Sterling Mk. IV was added in a 2015 update as a new vintage Insurgent weapon. It costs 2 supply points and can be fitted with a variety of attachments, including its original Patchett suppressor.
  • Insurgency: Sandstorm added the Sterling L2A3 as a usable weapon for the Insurgent Breacher in the Nightfall update, costing 1 supply point, making it the cheapest submachine gun in the game. When equipped with a suppressor, it turns into a L34A1.
• The Canadian C1 variant appears as one of Frost's weapons in the Operation Black Ice expansion of Rainbow Six Siege. Interestingly, Frost originally held it by the magazine up until the later Operation Skull Rain update, where it was changed to have her grip it correctly. Like all the other guns in the game, it tracks a round left in the chamber after reloading partway through a magazine, despite it being an open-bolt weapon that doesn't work like that.
• Evil hippie Kickalong prominently uses a Sterling in several scenes in the final Quatermass TV story.
• The Sterling is one of the many submachine guns available in the Firearms: Source mod. It features the regular L2A3, the L34A1 Suppressed model, and the Mk7A4, which is essentially a scaled-down version that's now a machine pistol.
• Father Ted episode "Old Grey Whistle Theft" has a member of the Irish Army shoot Father Williams with one when he flees from a checkpoint after they find a large consignment of guns at his house. This weapon was never issued to Irish soldiers.
• The C1 is one of the available submachine guns in Ghost Recon Wildlands. El Cerebro carries a customized C1 called "Experimento #42".
• One of Ann's usable weapons in Persona 5, called the Sterlidge. Stronger variants known as the Trooper and MP2 Prototype can also be purchased after completing Kamoshida Palace.

Suomi KP/-31

The KP/-31 was possibly the best submachine gun of World War II. It had great accuracy and a high rate of fire. The Russians copied the design, but their version never reached the same high standard.

—Description, Battlefield V

The Suomi KP/-31 is a Finnish 9x19mm submachine gun, used during World War II, and regarded by many as one of the most successful submachine guns of the war. Designed in the late 1920s and produced from 1931 to 1953, the weapon saw service in the Winter War, and soon proved to be a formidable piece of machinery, being highly controllable and accurate with a high rate of fire and large magazine capacity, going all the way up to 71-round drums, with the only major downside being that it was expensive to produce. The weapon was so good that the Finns kept it in service until 1998, and it left a lasting impression on the Soviets, who until then had been dismissive of submachine guns, with them copying the 71-round drum magazine for their PPD-40 and PPSh-41 submachine guns. The weapon also came in SJR, bunker and tank variants, the former adding a muzzle brake (though Aimo Lahti was displeased with this, as he believed that it decreased muzzle velocity and reduced the weapon's reliability, and even sought to have the designer court-martialed) and the latter two having a pistol grip instead of a shoulder stock, and the weapon was unusual in that it had a replaceable barrel secured with four lugs rather than threads.

Besides the Finns, the KP/-31 also saw service with many countries throughout Europe, as well as Paraguay, Bolivia, Egypt, Israel and Indonesia. Both sides in the Spanish Civil War used the KP/-31, and it also saw use with the Italian Partisans. The Swiss, Swedish and Danish made their own copies, known as the Hispano-Suiza MP43, Husquarna kpist m/37 and Madsen M/41 respectively, which had their own modifications. Notably, the Swedish variant introduced a 50-round "coffin" magazine, which would later be used by the Finns in the Continuation War and the Swiss with their own copies, and serve as an inspiration for the casket magazines used by the Spectre M4.

• Appears in both Forgotten Hope games, used by the Finnish forces with 71-round drums. The sequel also adds the SJR, which uses 50-round "coffin" magazines instead.
• The KP/-31 is the second available submachine gun for the Medic in Battlefield V, with 20 round stick magazines by default, though it can be upgraded to 50 round "coffin" magazines. It has the highest fire rate of all the submachine guns in the game, and is extremely popular in multiplayer. A suppressed version can also be found in the Nordlys War Story in single player.
• Added to Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades on the 12th day of the 2018 Meatmas update, fitted with 71-round drums.
• The KP/-31 is used by Red Army troops in Deadfall Adventures, loaded with 71-round drums and with a flashlight mounted.
• Used by Lt. Fyodorov and Yefreytor Stepan in The Turning Point (1945), notably in Klaus' headquarters.
• The KP/-31 is used by the titular character in Max Manus during his flashbacks to his time fighting for Finland in the Winter War.
• Used by Soviet counter revolutionaries in the first episode of Babylon Berlin when they take over a train.
• Shows up briefly in the hands of a soldier in the Night Raid 1931 episode "Hunt in the Dark".
• Ian McCollum takes a look at one here.
• One of the 5-star SMGs in Girls' Frontline. Suomi is depicted as stereotypically Finnish: she dislikes close contact, has a grudge against Soviet/Russian weapons, and is a massive fan of metal music.
• The KP/-31 is a usable weapon in Vigor, loaded with 71-round drums plus one round in the chamber.

TDI/KRISS Vector

This sub machinegun stole the limelight in 2006. It sports a unique recoil system which makes it easy to control while laying on the trigger. Basically, that means you can throw lead downrange and it won’t be scattered all over the place like the dignity of an old man at a children's urinal.

—Survival Guide, Far Cry 3

A submachine gun developed by American company Transformational Defence Industries (now known as KRISS USA), the Vector uses an unconventional off-axis delayed blowback operation they refer to as the "Super V" system, which reduces recoil by directing recoil force downward through a weight attached to the bolt that pushes downward while the bolt is recoiling. It is primarily chambered in .45 ACP or 9x19mm, though it can also be chambered in .40 S&W, .22 LR, 10mm Auto, 9x21mm or .357 SIG. It is designed to use the same magazines as the respectively chambered Glocks. It's a frequent guest star in video games due to its futuristic appearance and rather exaggerated marketing. It was also known as the "Kriss Super V" (a name used in earlier marketing for the Vector) due to it sounding cooler. KRISS also believes enough in its recoil mechanism that they unsuccessfully attempted to apply it to a .45 pistol (KARD), a 12-gauge shotgun (MVS), and .50 BMG machine gun (Disraptor).

The Vector, however, has yet to see widespread use for a few reasons: the gun itself is prohibitively expensive and internally very complex. Early reviews stated that its recoil dampening system, while effective in semi-automatic, is virtually useless in controlling the gun during fully automatic fire, especially in its original .45 version (ironically, the original models were chambered for .45 specifically to show off the mechanism's supposed ability to "tame" the cartridge). Early attempts at extended 30-round magazines specifically for the .45 Vector (since Glock never officially made .45 magazines with larger capacities than the standard 13) were also unreliable due to weak springs; later extended models with stronger components were marked for a long while as "25+", meaning that while 30 is the actual maximum capacity, the maximum you could fit before it started failing to properly feed was anywhere between 25 to 30 depending on your luck with the build quality - more modern "MagEx2" extended magazines, also available in 9mm (offering 40 rounds at once) and 10mm Auto (33 rounds), seem to have fixed these issues. Defying common depiction of media during the late 2000s and early 2010s where it was expected to be a standard issue for NATO (or equivalent) forces, as of 2023, the only countries to make noticeable official use of the weapon are Thailand (used by the Royal Thai Army and Police), Bangladesh (first-gen models used by their police and the Army using second-gen models), and Panama (used by the National Police).

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Anime

• The first prototype version shows up in Episode 11 of Angel Beats! used by Yuri "Yurippe" Nakamura.
• In Triage X, terrorist Wild Hunt uses a Vector SMG as her main weapon.

Films — Live-Action

• Dual wielded by Alice in Resident Evil: Retribution. It appears the guns themselves realized the absurdity of being held akimbo; they were not fitted with stocks, foregrips, optics or even ironsights.
• A leaked script for Deadpool had Deadpool using one of these. It was incorrectly called a "Kriss .45 Caliber TDI". One later properly shows up in Deadpool 2, grabbed by Cable and later jury-rigging several other guns to it to turn it into one of his trademark BFGs.
• Used by multiple characters in the Total Recall (2012) remake.

Live-Action TV

• Showed up in one of the season finales of CSI: New York where the mechanism was cited as the reason two bullets hit the exact same spot on somebody, and was called the Kriss Super V.
• Showed up in two episodes of Season 1 of Person of Interest, both times in Reese's hands. Presumably he knows the recoil-managing system isn't effective on fully automatic, because he only ever fires it in single shots.

Video Games

• Used as the basis of one of the weapons in The Conduit.
• The KRISS K10 makes its Battlefield debut in Hardline as the 'K10'. On release, it was prone to wiping out entire squads in multiplayer due to its high damage and ridiculous rate of fire, which has then been subjected to many nerfs since.
  • The gun would also make a return as available submachine guns in Battlefield 2042, now renamed as the "K30".
• Seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops II, and Ghosts; the middle refers to it as the upgraded K10 variant, but shares none of its unique attributes beyond the slightly extended barrel. The latter calls it the "Vector CRB", which is correct for a civilian semi-automatic version but not the full-auto SMG variant that the game actually uses. A modified version with a shortened receiver returns in Season 4 of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) as the Fennec.
  • Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare features a weapon called the "SAC3", which is like a futuristic Vector (as if it wasn't already futurized enough) but is light enough to permit Guns Akimbo (the weapon is always used two at a time).
  • Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare goes the More Dakka route for a gun already famous for its dakka and gives us the "Karma-45", a Vector with a second magazine well.
• Shows up in Army of Two: The 40th Day.
• Shows up in MAG as the Kurtis .45ACP, strangely as SVER's PDW despite being an American weapon and SVER being a primarily Russian faction.
• Usable in Homefront, called the Super V submachine gun.
• Makes an appearance in Far Cry 3 as the "Vector .45 ACP". The standard form is only unlockable after reaching the second island, but the signature version "Shredder" (which attaches an optic, suppressor, and extended magazines) can be unlocked very early on by finding ten memory cards. Far Cry 4 features both versions again, again making the standard form a late unlock (part of the last batch of weapons unlocked on the northern island) while allowing the Shredder to be unlocked relatively early depending on how much time you spend working on your Karma.
• Added with the 2012 Christmas update to Killing Floor, as the most expensive of the Medic's guns. It's also the only one for the class to use ironsights rather than a red dot sight. It reappears in Killing Floor 2 as the SWAT's tier 4 weapon, having a red dot sight this time, where it's slightly weaker than lower-tier options like the UMP but competes with one of the fastest rates of fire and very low muzzle flip.
• Available in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, where it's GhostLead's weapon for most of the campaign. It returns in Ghost Recon Wildlands, now named the "Vector .45 ACP", the normal version stashed in a UNIDAD base in Media Luna and a unique "Mendeleyev" version unlocked on capturing Marcus Jensen.
• Available as a very expensive, high end weapon in the Blue Sun mod for 7.62 High Caliber.
• Available in Watch_Dogs, also called the "Vector .45 ACP" like the Far Cry 3 example (Ubisoft must like the name). It's one of the game's highest-rated weapons and has an unlockable "Spec-Ops" version with an attached suppressor.
• Appears in PAYDAY 2 with the Gage Ninja Pack DLC, originally as the "Kross Vertex" before being renamed to the "Polygon" in a later update.
• Unlocked at Rank 23 in the multiplayer mode of Spec Ops: The Line with a non-removable suppressor.
• Added to Rainbow Six Siege, once again as the "Vector .45 ACP", as a primary weapon for the G.E.O. specialist Mira from the Operation Velvet Shell update. It's one of the weaker submachine guns to make up for its ludicrous rate of fire. As of Operation Chimera, CBRN specialist Lion has a fictional enlarged version, upchambered for 7.62mm NATO and fitted with the same 50-round drum magazines as the GSG9's G8A1, labeled as the "V308".
• Appears in The Division in three variants — the "Vector .45 ACP" with standard folding stock, the stockless SDP version as "Tactical Vector .45 ACP", and a "First Wave Vector .45 ACP" with M4-style stock and elongated barrel. All three variants reappear in the sequel alongside an exotic version called "Chameleon", a First Wave Vector modified with custom light-refraction technology.
• Appears in GoldenEye (2010) as the Strata SV-400. It's by far the best SMG in the game, having max damage, accuracy, range and rate of fire. The only weapon that matches its strengths is the Ivana Spec-R (an IMI Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle).
• The Vector appears as a relatively uncommon spawn in Player Unknowns Battlegrounds. It is one of the most powerful weapons of its class due to its fairly high rate of fire, provided you can find attachments to compensate for its flaws. It initially comes with an underwhelming 13-round magazine, but can be upgraded to a 25-rounder alongside various attachments like muzzles, foregrips, scopes and even the "tactical stock".
• One of the most common guns in RUINER, the "KRIS SV-4", is based heavily off of the Vector, modified with a larger barrel and forend to qualify as assault rifle instead.
• Appears as a 5-star T-Doll in Girls' Frontline. Her dialogue gives a heavy impression of The Eeyore, partly from seeing herself as a disposable tool. Ironically, due to her Incendiary Grenade skill, official comics and the fans also paint her as something of a Pyromaniac.
  • In the manga, Commander Gentiane also wields a Vector during the Sangvis attack on G&K's hidden base.
  • One of the featured T-Dolls in the The Division collaboration event is Agent Vector, who uses the aforementioned First Wave variant.
• Mutant Vector K10s with the barrel profile of an MP7 and an enlarged, curved magazine resembling that of the MP5 are used by Dwarf Gekko in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Between using pistol bullets and Raiden being a cyborg, they're almost beneath notice.
• The standard NATO submachine gun in ARMA III, where it's known as the "Vermin", primarily used by pilots and other roles that don't have the room to carry the MX rifle. Generally regarded as one of the best SMGs in the game, due to its high rate of fire and being the only one chambered in .45, giving it a power advantage over the others chambered in 9x21mm.
• In Splinter Cell: Blacklist, it appears as the "Vector .45ACP", the second unlockable submachine gun in the game, and is used by Briggs at the end of the Abandoned Mill mission to hold off Commandos while he and Sam extract.
• As one of the few gun-wielding characters in Arknights, Exusiai uses a Vector as her primary weapon. Correspondingly, she has one of the fastest attack speeds out of all Snipers, with skills that boost her rate of fire even further.
• One of the Vector's first appearances was in the Asian free-to-play FPS Point Blank/Project Blackout/Piercing Blow. If the game itself isn't infamous for being an Allegedly Free Game, the insanely high rate of fire, being fitted with a holographic sight for precision, and the ability to dual wield makes the Vector the definite weapon of choice for paying players.
• The Vector appears as the Raptor in Hitman 3.
• Someone at BioWare circa 2012 must've liked the Vector, as the majority of the submachine guns from Mass Effect 3 take design cues from it. In addition to the returning M-12 Locust from Mass Effect 2, the Blood Pack Punisher and M-25 Hornet are particularly unsubtle with this inspiration.
• The Vector appears in Trepang2 as the standard submachine gun of the game. It incorrectly holds 50 rounds, and is modeled after the civilian SBR version despite firing in full-auto. It's fitted with a vertical foregrip by default and can be further modified with a suppressor or extended barrel, a Laser Sight, and its stock folded in or extended.
• Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades has two versions of the Vector. The standard, full auto model, and the semi-auto only 'Carbine' version. The main difference between the two is that the Carbine version has a barrel shroud permanently fixed, and can only be obtained via random weapon drops in Take and Hold.
• Available as the "Manta" in Intruder, where it's the basic long arm.
• The 12.7mm SMG in Fallout: New Vegas mainly resembles the Vector in design with a top-mounted magazine reminiscent of the P90.

Web Video

• Reviewed and tested here by Skallagrim.

Thompson submachine gun

"There's only one thing that gets orders and gives orders. And this is it. That's how I got the south side for you, and that's how I'm gonna get the north side for you. It's a typewriter. I'm gonna write my name all over this town with it, in big letters!"

—Tony Camonte, Scarface (1932)

The weapon of the saint and the sinner.^note From top to bottom: M1928 Thompson with drum magazine and grip, M1928A1 Thompson with 30-round stick magazine, M1A1 Thompson

The gun that made the Twenties roar. One of the first "true" submachine guns - at the very least, the gun that introduced the name for the concept - it was the brainchild of John T. Thompson, a US Army officer who sought to give infantry more firepower than standard bolt-action rifles without compromising their mobility, since period machine guns were bulky crew-served apparatuses that couldn't be easily moved.

The weapon is fired from an open bolt and operated using the Blish Principle, using the varying friction of inclined surfaces to create a kind of delayed blowback (an idea copied from naval guns, of all places), though how effective this was is debatable, as later models that ditched the setup in favor of straight blowback worked just as well.

In any event, the result was a weapon with the fire rate of a machine gun but chambered for handgun-sized .45 ACP ammo (hence the "sub" in submachine gun). This allowed a single soldier to carry one right up to a fortified enemy position like a trench or MG nest and "sweep" it clear. Intended for use in the stalemated trenches of World War I, the armistice was signed just as the first production run was coming off the assembly lines; the original models were as such sold to civilians (as there was no law in America against civilians owning full-auto weapons at the time), which is where most of the weapon's modern infamy has come from.

The "Tommy gun" has a rather exaggerated reputation as a gangster weapon, mostly due to a few high-profile users. While Al Capone's men, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and John Dillinger did make use of them, a Thompson was quite a pricey weapon for its day and the weapons of choice for the majority of actual gangsters were concealable handguns or sawed-off shotguns^note Two Thompsons cost as much as a contemporary Ford automobile, with a single Thompson running about $200 back in those days. That's roughly $2800 USD today when adjusted for inflation; in the modern day, most weapons available to civilians that surpass that sort of price are the rarest of guns or unreasonably-huge things like the Barrett M95. Nevertheless, it is de rigeur for any Capone-esque, old school gangster badassery in media. Goes great with fedoras and pinstripes, too.

On the other side of the law, the Thompson was adopted by few American police forces (most departments balked at the price, like everyone else) but it found better favor among Federal agencies. These included the Postal Service (for protecting against mail robberies aboard trains and the like), the nascent FBI, and some foreign militaries. The United States Marine Corps also adopted the weapon in limited numbers, and gave mostly positive reviews of the ones they had for the "Banana Wars" in Central America.

In 1938, the US military officially adopted the Thompson as a service weapon. When World War II began, the gun was Lend-Leased to many countries allied with the United States. The British obtained large numbers of M1928s and used them extensively throughout the war, even after they were officially replaced by the Sten in 1943. America's entry into the war upped the demand considerably, resulting in the heavily simplified M1 of 1942, with the even-more-simplified M1A1 appearing the following year. The Thompson was also very popular in the lawless and war-torn China of the 1920s. The handful that found their way there at the beginning of the decade - mainly to the gangsters in Shanghai - were quickly reverse-engineered and copied by warlord armies. Nationalist China received large amounts of M1928A1s, M1s and M1A1s through Lend-Lease and quickly adopted the Thompson as their main submachine guns in the later years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Prior to the war, they'd produced their own copies of the M1921 at the Taiyuan Arsenal in Shanxi province, including several thousand chambered in 7.63x25mm Mauser.

The Thompson was retired more-or-less immediately after World War II, as SMG design had evolved to prefer low-cost, mass-production weapons like the M3 "Grease Gun" and Sten, and the Thompson was expensive and slow to produce by comparison. Nevertheless, Tommy guns were popular, and remained in at least limited use by GIs well into the Vietnam War and saw frequent use by the South Vietnamese forces. America also continued loaning Thompsons to Nationalist China after the Chinese Civil War restarted in 1946. But it made no difference, with the supply of Thompsons ending after Truman's arms embargo on the Nationalists, and the Communist forces were victorious by 1949. They then went on to use those very same Thompsons against American forces in Korea. Captured ex-Chinese Thompsons were quickly turned back around in American and South Korean hands.

All models of the Thompson are select-fire weapons, and are effective up to about 50 meters. The gun has a reputation for being hard to handle due to its heavy weight (about 10 pounds empty), but according to many users, it's controllable if you fire in short bursts, and has relatively average recoil compared to other SMGs (thanks to the hefty weight). It can be fed by 50- or 100-round drum magazines, or 20- and 30-round stick magazines. British and American troops found that the stick magazines were considerably better for general combat, as they were lighter, easier to load,^note Stick mags were simply pulled downwards to remove and pushed upwards into the magwell to attach; drums had to be slid in from the side, not to mention that the bolt had to be open for a drum to fit (the Thompson did have a bolt hold-open to facilitate quick mag changes even after emptying the gun, but the drums didn't have a proper follower to interface with it). Drum magazines also had to be wound in order to put the ammo under spring tension; discovering during combat that you forgot this step and had a temporarily non-functional magazine would be a distinctly bad thing. less likely to jam, and less noisy.^note The rounds in a drum magazine tended to rattle, making a conspicuous noise Tommy guns were praised as hard-hitting, reliable weapons, though the M1928, in particular, could be a pain in the ass to strip and clean.

The original version of the Thompson was the M1921, which featured a high-quality finish, adjustable sights, and a vertical grip. The M1928 was the first variant adopted for military use, featuring a finned barrel and a heavier actuator that slowed the rate of fire, with the later M1928A1 version (introduced just before the attack on Pearl Harbor) introducing a horizontal foregrip. Both the 1921 and 1928 could accept a Cutts compensater to reduce recoil. In 1942, the simplified M1 variant entered production, including many upgrades that were adapted from suggestions by British troops. The primary differences of the M1 from the earlier versions are that the bolt handle and ejection port are moved from the top of the receiver to the right side, the barrel cooling fins and Cutts compensator are omitted, the vertical grip is replaced by a straight horizontal grip, and the rear sight is simpler. The Blish mechanism is also ditched in favor of simple blowback operation. The even simpler M1A1 entered production later the same year, which added distinctive protective "wings" along the rear sight, and had the firing pin and bolt combined into one piece. Finally, the M1 and later M1A1 cannot use drum magazines like the earlier Thompson variants.^note In earlier versions, a stick magazine will leave a noticeable gap between the front of the mag and the front edge of the magwell, while a drum will fill that gap. The M1 simply moved the front edge of the magwell in a bit closer to the rear so stick mags fill the entire space.

A semi-automatic version of the M1921, the Model 1927, was also made for civilians. In 1974, Auto-Ordnance would design the 1927A1, a variant of the M1927 with almost completely redesigned internals to fire from a closed bolt and increased the barrel length to 16.5 inches in order to be legally considered a rifle. Semi-automatic variants are still quite a popular weapon in the American (and, oddly enough, German) civilian gun market. Some variants are sold with synthetic furniture and Picatinny rails.

• Cool Action: Pulling it out of hiding (especially from a violin case), holding it at the waist and saturating the room, then leaving as if nothing had happened.

• Practically compulsory for any Prohibition-era gangster movie. The gun actually first appeared in Little Caesar, but it really took off once the original 1932 Scarface was released.
• Just about all World War II movies, video games and TV shows. In games, it's usually more powerful than the MP 40 but harder to get ammo for. Some make the mistake of having the mil spec version firing from a drum magazine. As a note, use in non-American hands isn't necessarily a case of Improperly Placed Firearms, as all the other Allies received many of them as part of Lend-Lease.
  • Of note for video game Thompsons is that its bolt locking open on an empty stick magazine (meaning that the charging handle doesn't have to be yanked back in the process of reloading) will almost never be modeled. This is either due to ignorance on the part of the animators, or because a reload where nothing is pulled isn't as satisfying.
• The Thompson's reputation is discussed in the original novel The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, where the hijackers use them to take over the subway train. Their leader is an ex-mercenary who knows his weapons and chooses the Thompson specifically for its fearsome reputation, noting that even firearms experts who should know better flinch a bit when they see it.
• Used to get past the censors in Batman: The Animated Series by gangsters, also giving the series a nice Film Noir flavour. It's shown to work differently from the real thing in a few ways; in particular, one of Scarecrow's henchmen in "Nothing to Fear" loads his by opening a swing-out door on the bottom of the drum and loading some form of belt or circular stripper clip before closing it again.
• Likely inspired by the above, this is the signature weapon of The Family in City of Heroes. Beating enough of their bosses unlocks this as a skin for the Assault Rifle powerset.
• Seen frequently in the hands of both criminals and lawmen in Public Enemies.
• Two-Face's Mooks in Batman Forever used them.
• The Joker is occasionally seen wielding a Tommy Gun, which he sometimes combines with a fedora.
• New Reno is rife with these in Fallout 2. And they all suck, possibly due to being almost three hundred years old.
  • The Laser RCW in Fallout: New Vegas is basically a laser-firing Tommy Gun. The Honest Hearts DLC also adds the original M1A1, with optional weapon mods to add the famous Cutts compensator and drum magazines.
  • The Submachine Gun in Fallout 4 is a cross between the M1928A1 and M1A1 with a tiny drum magazine and a sawed-off stock. It can be modified to have a finned barrel, Cutts compensator and full stock, although it can't be given the vertical foregrip.
• Some US soldiers in Goldfinger (the others have M1 carbines and M14s).
• One of the most powerful weapons in Resident Evil 4, where it's called the Chicago Typewriter (a reference to how it was used in The Roaring '20s, as per the quote at the top). Normally it's an M1 fired properly at shoulder level as per usual, and even though ammo for it is infinite, there's still a reload animation should you choose to swap mags for compulsion's sake. Playing the game with the gangster outfit added in the Playstation 2 version changes the model into the more iconic "Chicago-style" M1928 with a front foregrip and a drum magazine; also, if you hit reload, Leon will scoff smugly and adjust his fedora^note if you do it three times, he'll toss the hat up, catch it and strike a pose, just because it looks awesome. Ada gets the M1928 by default in her Separate Ways campaign, though she has no reload animations whatsoever. She fires it from the hip just like her TMP. It returns in Resident Evil: Revelations 2 as an M1 with a 100-round drum magazine, unlockable in the extras menu after beating the game, and is the only submachine gun that Barry can use.
• Used in BioShock by the hero and mooks alike. It returns in Infinite's Burial at Sea DLC, in a beautiful art-deco finish.◊
• The Mask: "A TOMMY GUN!"
• Features heavily in the anime of Baccano!, which is to be expected as it's mostly set in New York during the 30s.
• Also features in the film version of Dick Tracy.
• In "One Lonely Night", Mike Hammer recovers a Tommy gun from a crashed FBI vehicle and later uses it to blow away a bunch of Dirty Communists who are torturing Velda.
• Famously used as the basis for the rifle portion of the M41A Pulse Rifle in Aliens. This did not do their weight any favors, with the actors referring to the weight of the props as "extreme". A loaded Thompson weighs in at 10.8 pounds, while the prop had various plastic parts and an underbarrel shotgun encased in a shell; the actual prop would have been nearly 20 pounds.
• Used by Pinstripe and his mooks in Freedom Force.
• Michael Jackson memorably (not to say randomly) pulls one out during the legendary "Smooth Criminal" music video featured in Moonwalker.
• In The Wrath of God, both the Jack Higgins book and The Film of the Book starring Robert Mitchum, "Father" Oliver van Horne tells some Banana Republic cops he's got the proper identity papers. He reaches into his luggage ... and blows them away with his Thompson. "That was one hell of a Mass, Father!"
• The Thompson is available in 7.62 High Calibre, in both the M1A1 version and the M1928 version. Both are extremely heavy, and the M1A1 can't accept the drum magazines.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, The Pain somehow manages to create a fully functional M1921 Thompson out of live hornets. Not quite sure how that's supposed to work, but that's Metal Gear for you.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker allows the MSF to produce the M1928 for the player's use once they procure design specs for it.
• The M1921 is one of the standard weapons in Blood, with optional Secondary Fire of sweeping it in front of you like a '20s gangster (rather appropriately since the game ostensibly is set in the '20s). Also available akimbo with the correct powerup.
• A common sight in L.A. Noire. Like 7.62 High Calibre, it's available in both box magazine and drum-magazine flavors, although the latter must be purchased via DLC.
• Seen being used ineffectually by police officers against giant robots in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
• Bones: At the end of the episode "The Bikini in the Soup", Brennan gives Booth (alone on Valentines Day after his relationship with Hannah went belly-up) a Valentines Day treat by meeting him at the shooting range with a pair of Tommy guns she "borrowed" from the Jeffersonian vaults. The two of them enjoyed firing the guns at targets while doing cheesy James Cagney impressions.
• Capt. Miller in Saving Private Ryan is the only member of The Squad carrying an SMG, so it's naturally one of these in military trim.
• Star Trek had Tommy guns galore in "A Piece of the Action", which took place on an alien world that modeled their society after a book on Chicago Mobs in the '20s. At one point, Spock listened to a radio commercial for "Bang Bang, maker of the sweetest little Tommy gun..." which he found "Fascinating".
• Star Trek: First Contact has a scene where Picard deals with some pursuing Borg drones by fleeing into the Holodeck and activating a 1920s gangster scenario with the safety protocols disabled, allowing him to pick up a simulated Tommy gun and gun down the drones. Immune to phasers doesn't mean immune to bullets, after all.
• Killing Floor added an M1A1 Tommy gun to its arsenal for the 2012 Halloween event, meant to be used by Commandos. Later DLC added "Dr John T. Thompson's Lead Delivery System" and a Rising Storm-style M1928, both with drum mags. As of 2018's Twisted Christmas update, the M1928 is back for Killing Floor 2, its status as a submachine gun that was extensively used by the military making it a cross-class Commando and SWAT weapon.
• Rising Storm has the M1928A1 variant available exclusively for the Squad Leader and Commander classes. Upgrades include a 30-round box magazine, a Cutts compensator, and later, a 50-round drum magazine and a grip, which essenially turns it into an M1928. There's even an achievement called "Al Capone's violin" once you unlock all the upgrades for it.
  • It's back on Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, where the M1A1 is the main South Vietnamese SMG. On some early and mid-war maps and in campaign mode, it's also available for the USMC Pointman and Combat Engineer classes as an alternative to the M3 Grease Gun.
• Day of Infamy features two versions of the Thompson; the M1928A1 variant for the Commonwealth faction and the M1A1 for the US Army. The M1928A1 comes with a 20 round box mag by default, but can be upgraded to either a 30 rounder or even the 50 round drum mag and a foregrip. The M1A1 doesn't have much choices, but interestingly the Officer class can choose to replace the M1A1's sturdy iron sights with the much smaller and less obstrusive 'L' peep sights of the earlier M1 Thompson.
• Men of War features various models of the Thompson; the standard M1A1 with 20 round stick magazines issued to common SMG infantry, a 30 round version issued to squad leaders or assault infantry and a M1928 with foregrip loaded with 50 round drum mags for more elite units like the US Army Rangers or British Commandos.
• The Tomislav in Team Fortress 2 is a massive Chainsaw-Grip BFG version of a Thompson M1928. The sniper's default Submachine Gun, on the other hand, is a hybrid of the M1A1 and the MAS-38. The game mod Open Fortress also adds a regular Tommy gun to be used for the new Mercenary class.
• Grand Theft Auto V features the Thompson as the Gusenberg Sweeper.^note This is a reference to famous Mafia hitman Frank Gusenberg, who ironically was one of the several people killed with a Thompson in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Despite being modeled with the 50-round drum, its magazine only holds 30 bullets until it's upgraded.
• In League of Legends, the Mafia Skins for Graves, Twitch & Miss Fortune give them gangland-inspired Thompsons.
• Thompsons with drum magazines are one of the weapons used by Panther Claw Mooks in the various versions of Cutey Honey. Depending on the series, they may be gold plated.
• Ardeth Bay expresses a preference for the Thompson in The Mummy Returns and uses one as his primary weapon throughout the film.
• In the Angels With Filthy Souls mini-movies found throughout the Home Alone film series, Johhny the gangster uses one of these on anyone who pisses him off.
  Alright, I believe ya. But my Tommy Gun don't!
• Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has a weapon called the "ASM1" which is basically a futuristic, tactical Thompson with a telescopic stock. You can even get a drum magazine variant or equip it with a foregrip just to complete the imagery. The gun is also (despite many nerfs) considered to be the most balanced and reliable SMG in the entire game.
• Nearly all of the gangsters in Capcom's unreleased Kingpin wield Tommy guns.
• Due to the gang violence of the Prohibition era still being fresh in many people's minds, Mooks in Golden Age Marvel comics were shown using Thompsons with drum magazines, including Axis soldiers. However, Bucky Barnes is typically depicted using a Thompson M1928A1 in WW2 stories, and policemen occasionally pack Thompsons in Silver Age and Bronze Age comics. Spider-Man's foe Hammerhead is very fond of Thompsons, as part of his "20's gangster" schtick, and arms all his henchmen with them (to the ridicule of other supervillains' Mooks). The Maggia are also seen using Thompsons from time to time. Infamously, a Thompson was the weapon used to murder Frank Castle's family.
• Appears in PAYDAY 2 as the Chicago Typewriter. It has a high magazine capacity, ample damage, and can be modded for good concealment, but has less-than-spectacular accuracy, a slow reload, and its sights are hard to use.
• One of many weapons found in Player Unknowns Battlegrounds is the M1928A1, complete with the trademark foregrips and high-capacity drum magazines as findable add-ons.
• The first two Serious Sam games (The First Encounter and The Second Encounter) have an "M1A2" Tommy gun rechambered for 5.56mm as a low-key alternative to the Minigun.
• During Judge Dredd's "Cursed Earth" arc, Thompsons with drum magazines are the standard weapons for the judges of Las Vegas, foreshadowing that they're actually gangsters in judge uniforms. Dredd himself makes use of one to take control of the city when temporarily divested of his Lawgiver.
• US Rangers can be upgraded to use Thompson submachine guns in Company of Heroes.
• In Futurama, Bender finds one just before the fight with the cast of the original Star Trek, noting how he could shoot them with it, before he empties the gun into the air for the hell of it. The Robot Mafia and Robot Santa also tend to use a laser-firing version (likely inspiring the Laser RCW from Fallout: New Vegas above).
• Angel Dust from Hazbin Hotel wields a variety of SMGs, but his primary ones are a pair of heavily-customized drum-mag Thompsons which have been decorated with silver webbing designs.
• 91 Days is an anime set in 1920s gangland America. Of course the Thompson is going to show up, although it doesn't start appearing in large numbers until the end of the series.
• A staple in the Mafia series, showing up mainly as a late-game weapon in Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, though a player who knows where to look can find one in the third mission.
  • Mafia II has both M1928 and M1A1 varieties appear, the former being Joe's weapon, and one particular scene having several being used to completely annihilate a bar frequented by the resident Greaser Delinquent. The M1A1 only appears in the hands of one of the paratroopers from the first level and the police start using them at the highest wanted level.
  • The M1A1 appears in Mafia III as the Trench 1938. A modified version with a vertical foregrip and drum magazine is also available through the Family Kick-Back DLC and possesses the highest magazine capacity of all SMGs in the game, despite the actual M1A1 being unable to take drum magazines.
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein features the M1A1, first acquired from a resistance member. Stronger than the MP 40 owing to its bigger bullets, and it doesn't overheat like the silenced Sten can, but the trade-off is that, since it's an Allied weapon and you're constantly behind Axis lines, ammo for it is extremely rare.
  • Wolfenstein: The New Order features it again in its prologue chapter, this time an M1928 with some odd embellishments and additions, simply called the "SMG". Among its odd additions are the sight wings from the military M1A1, wider magazines that hold 40 bullets at a time, and the occasional metal vertical foregrip bolted onto the handguards of some NPCs' guns. Unfortunately, it's the weaker weapon now, standing no chance against the slightly-less-modified Sturmgewehrs the enemy uses for the chapter, and with ammo once again in short supply; it doesn't get any upgrades in the prologue, and it doesn't even get any sort of future equivalent in the main game.
• An M1928A1 appears in The Division as a exotic-quality submachine gun, only being found through caches or completing events. It comes with a 50-round drum as the "Tommy Gun", or a 30-round stick as the "Thompson M1928". Only the magazine can be modified, but all Thompsons come with a permanent "Carefree" trait, which gives a 11% boost to hip-fire damage.
• As the Medal of Honor series has traditionally focused on American soldiers in WWII, the Thompson is no stranger to it, appearing in just about every game in the series set during the war. As expected, most of the games feature the M1A1, though Pacific Assault uses the M1928 owing to the Marines' difficulty in acquiring M1s or M1A1s in significant numbers. Vanguard and Airborne also use the 1928, in both cases starting out with 30-round stick magazines and able to upgrade to 50-round drums; the latter game goes further and also allows the player to reattach the infamous Cutts compensator and vertical foregrip, with all the upgrades also bestowing a higher rate of fire that essentially turns the gun into the original M1921.
• Appears in all three Brothers in Arms titles as one of the preferred weapons for assault team members, as well as Fire team and heavy weapons teams on occasion. Notably, the 1928 variant appears in Hell's Highway, given to Baker by Irish Guards tank commander Redwood to help clear Eindhoven. He later uses this again around the end of Operation Market Garden.
• In the music video for "On Melancholy Hill" by the Gorillaz. Noodle uses an M1928A1 Thompson to battle the Air Pirates attacking the cruise ship she was taking to Plastic Beach.
• Somewhat frequent in the Battlefield series, befitting its origins as a WWII shooter.
  • The M1A1 is used in 1942 as the primary weapon of the Medic class for the American, British and Canadian forces.
  • The M1928A1 is available in 1943, and the exact same model can also be unlocked in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, where it's misidentified as the M1A1. It's treated a little oddly, particularly ejecting a spent casing when the bolt is pulled back during a reload, despite it being an open-bolt weapon.
  • An update for Battlefield Hardline, concurrent with the release of the "Criminal Activity" DLC, added the M1A1 as a free all-kit weapon. It can be modified with the integrated vertical grip and the drum magazines of the 1921 and 1928.
  • The original "Annihilator" model was added in an update for Battlefield 1.
  • Battlefield V also includes the M1928A1 as a Medic weapon, by default with 20-round magazines but able to take the 50-round drums once you unlock them. Billy Bridger, the protagonist of the "Under No Flag" War Story, uses one with a 30-round mag that somehow holds 50 bullets as his starting weapon in gameplay (in cutscenes he has a Sten).
• Joseph Joestar makes use of an M1928A1 with a drum magazine and foregrip, which he memorably pulls out of nowhere, to successfully attack a vampirized Straizo in New York.
• If he takes the right path, Henry from Bendy and the Ink Machine can temporarily get his hands on an M1921 Tommy Gun in Chapter Three, which has an 18-round drum, lightly stuns everything but "Bendy", and can kill The Projectionist in 16 shots. It's a Game-Breaker in comparison to all of Henry's other weapons, which consist of things like a Fire-Axe, a Pipe Wrench, a Random Pipe that Boris found laying around somewhere, a Syringe, and a Toilet Plunger.
• KanColle has this gun as basis for USS Saratoga's plane launcher, with her flight deck attached on top of the gun. Her plane storage is therefore represented by the default stack mags, and a few drum mags (which she stores underneath her skirt).
• Available in Girls' Frontline as a five-star SMG T-Doll. She uses the M1928 version with forward grip and drum mags (though fitted with the semi-auto M1927's longer barrel and using the military M1A1's side-mounted charging handle and sights), and her design echoes gangsters of the '20s and '30s, including calling the player "Boss" rather than "Commander" and proclaiming a like for a world without police. Interestingly, the weight of the gun is also acknowledged - rather than acting as a tank by dodging bullets like other, lighter SMGs, she tanks by way of a massive health pool and an ability that puts up a force field to completely negate damage for a few seconds.
• Cuphead has one that looks to be the M1928 or M1921 version sitting on the back wall in Porkrind's Shop, but it's only there for looks.
• Ian McCollum from Forgotten Weapons fires practically all available variants of the Thompson to compare their performance. Interestingly, he finds the M1921 to be the most controllable. Its heavy weight acts as a recoil buffer and the insanely high rate of fire makes for a very consistent recoil impulse that is comparable to a constant shove as opposed to a series of annoying rapid-fire kicks to the shoulder. That said, the iron sights are useless when spraying from the hip, but that doesn't mean much when the intended victim is within fifty feet of the Thompson.
• Deadbolt has the Tommy Gun appear rarely in certain levels, its first appearance being in Puff's basement. It's best used to take out the Bouncers that guard him, and it does that job well- with its massive magazine size and decent burst accuracy, it'll take out several undead before running dry, and maintains this perk until late in the game where enemies can outrange or outlast it.
• The iconic first Wonder Woman cover on Sensation Comics #1 depicts a gangster trying to shoot Wonder Woman with a Tommy Gun while she deflects the bullets.
• Warren Zevon gave us the unforgettable mercenary Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, who kicks ass even in (un)death.
• As expected for the Prohibition setting of Problem Sleuth, the Tommygun is one of the go-to weapons of the good guys' side, whether it be for Aggressive Negotiations or as a master key. The Smith-Corona Blotsplitter, the most powerful tommygun in the comic, is amusingly enough also a literal typewriter.
• Hell Let Loose features the M1A1 as one of two submachine guns available for the US, alongside the M3 Grease Gun. By default, it's available for the US assault class, while it can be unlocked through leveling the Automatic Rifle and Anti-Tank classes. The British Forces Rework updates add the M1928 and M1928A1 variants for the British Forces in both North Africa and Western Europe, available in both the 30-round stick and 50-round drum magazine variants.
• A stockless M1928A1 is one of Ann's available weapons in Persona 5, called the Tommy Gun. A stronger variant known as the No Mercy is also available.
• The M1928A1 appears as a DLC weapon in Hitman: Absolution alongside the Public Enemy costume, called the Bronson M1928 in-game, and can be used in Contracts mode.

Villar-Perosa and derivatives

Designed in 1914, the Villar-Perosa M1915 was originally designed to be used as an aircraft mounted weapon. Given that this weapon uses pistol cartridges that was much weaker than 9mm Parabellum, the weapon failed spectacularly in its original intended role. Hoping to salvage this weapon, the Italian military deployed this to ground forces. In spite of the More Dakka nature of having two guns in one package, the distinct lack of a stock and traditional trigger as well as open-ended magazines that let dirt and mud in made the Villar-Perosa impractical. Most soldiers often cut the weapon in two and attached a stock if they could, creating a more practical SMG, if less effective than the contemporary MP 18 due to smaller magazines (32 rounds of the MP18 vs. 25 of the Villar-Perosa) and the aforementioned weaker cartridges.

The weapon system would see two derivatives: Villar-Perosa's OVP (developed by the original designer as soon as he was informed the weapon was being reassigned to infantry, or possibly the actual original design) and the Beretta M1918 (from which Beretta would develop its famous Model 38. The Beretta model would end up being the preferred of the two and would see use well into World War II. These weapons, apart from the fact that they were more traditionally designed SMGs, also had their fire-rate reduced from a high 1500 rounds per minute to a more controllable 900 rounds per minute.

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Films — Live Action

• A Villar-Perosa^note actually a mockup made from a pair of Beretta 38/42 submachine guns is mounted on the biplane Indy and his father use to escape from the zeppelin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In an infamous scene, the elder Dr. Jones manages to accidentally shoot the plane's own tail with it.
  Indy: Dad! Are we hit?
  Henry: More or less... Son, I'm sorry. They got us.
• The Sicilian. Another mockup can be seen carried by one of Giuliano's bandits.

Video Games

• The original Villar-Perosa appears in Battlefield 1918 and Battlefield 1, with the latter appearance being as a special weapon alongside its derivative, the Beretta M1918, under the designation Automatico M1918.
• The OVP appears in Sniper Elite 4 as a Downloadable Content weapon.
• Isonzo has the original Villar-Perosa serve as the standard-issue light machine gun for the Royal Italian Army, available as an unlockable weapon for the Assault class. It is notably the only man-portable automatic weapon in the entire Italian arsenal.

Walther MPL/MPK

A German submachine gun developed by Walther in line with military and police re-armament plans in West Germany, the MPL/MPK (the former having a longer barrel, and the latter a shorter barrel) is a simple, inexpensive blowback submachine gun with an unusual bolt design that consists of a hollow tubular weight that is actually placed above and parallel to the barrel, housed in a separate channel in which it reciprocates when the gun is fired. The weapon also features a thin wire stock, an ambidextrous selector switch, and was designed to use a suppressor. The weapon was adopted by Naval and Police units in Germany at the time, and also saw some use with US Special Forces, but after the Munich Massacre and the adoption of the Heckler & Koch MP5 by GSG-9, the Walther MP was completely overshadowed, and sales of the weapon declined until production ended altogether in 1983 with around 27,000 guns produced.

The weapon was exported to other countries, but didn't see much foreign success either, its most notable foreign user being the Mexican Navy. Of the two variants, the MPK was the more successful one, seeing use with some South American countries and Zimbabwe, but neither variant saw major use.

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Anime & Manga

• The MPL appears in Violence Jack in the hands of Harem's soldiers and Hell's Wind Bikers.
• The MPL is used by Amestrian soldiers in Fullmetal Alchemist.
• An MPK is seen Natsuko's arsenal in episode one of Re: Cutie Honey, and she later dual-wields a gold-plated one alongside an M4 after taking it from a fallen Panther Claw goon.
• The MPK is used by some gangsters in File #15 "Game! Chie Sagamiono's Rematch" of You're Under Arrest!
• The MPK appears in Kochikame.

Films — Live Action

• Both variants of the MP are prominently use by Sweepers in ''Equilibrium.
• The MPK is used by Czech VB officers in The Living Daylights.
• The MPK is used by A-6 security personnel in Spawn.
• The MPK is used by terrorists in Ticker.

Live-Action TV

• The MPL is used by various Colombians and US close protection officers in the Ultimate Force episode "Charlie Bravo".
• Akiba Red uses the MPL in Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger as part of a strategy against Shimokitazawa in "Take Flight Leader! The Painful Trap of Deluded Photography".
• The MPK is used by the second fake Kray Brother in Whitechapel (TV Series) to shoot up the pub where DI Chandler is located.
• The MPK is used by the Nigerian militia leader in Episode 10 of Strike Back when Section 20 commandos raid his hideout.
• The MPK is fired by a thug in the Miami Vice episode "Free Verse".

Video Games

• The MPL is a usable weapon in the multiplayer and Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops, where it holds the correct 32 rounds in multiplayer, but 24 rounds in Zombies. It is notably one of the only two submachine guns in the game that can use Dual Mags, the other being the AK74u. A bizarre hybrid of the MPK and Accuracy International Arctic Warfare was also added as a submachine gun in Season 2 of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War called the LC10, where it was originally chambered in .45 ACP in Warzone, but later changed to 9mm Parabellum, though the muzzle brake and flash guard attachments still have the .45 caliber shown as part of their names (and mislabeled .45 APC).
• The MPL appears without a stock as the Hampton MPL in No One Lives Forever in the hands of UNITY commandos, Magnus Armstrong's paratroopers, and H.A.R.M. henchmen early-game. It holds 30 rounds, can be fitted with a sound suppressor, and can use incendiary, Dum-Dum and FMJ ammunition.
• The MPL appears a high-tier submachine gun in Fallout Tactics, without a stock.
• The MPK was added to Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades on day 11 of the Meatmas 2020 Advent Calendar event.
• Both MPL and MPK were added to Girls' Frontline as four-star SMGs, MPK as an energetic traceur and MPL as a more quiet and reserved girl.

Web Video

• Ian McCollum looks at the MPL here.

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