Riddle me this

[LRRPF52]

The 1921 Thompson is heavier than the Garand, had hardly any effective range, heavy magazines when loaded, so lots of squeeze for not much juice.

102 years old. Thompson contracted Colt to manufacture them, since Thompson had no real manufacturing capacity.

They had about 20,000 of them made in 1921, and didn’t sell all of those until about 1937. Sales were really slow, only getting some small deals with the US Postal Service, loaned to USMC, and later sold to the US Navy in 1928 with the 1921/28 model modification of existing 1921 Thompsons with an overstamp.

I went on a Thompson SMG history binge when researching the NFA, and basically most information about it was erroneous, especially J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and the DOJ claims in 1934. They told Congress that there were 500,000 underworld bank robbers like John Dillinger out there with Thompsons, Colt Automatics (1911s), and sawed-off shotguns. They brought in reps from Colt to testify how many they had produced for Thompson, only to learn the numbers were minuscule.

Pump action shotguns were a late-1800s invention.

But I’m really looking at 1955-present. I can’t think of any Army-driven small arms program that has been widely-successful other than the AR-15, which Army Ordnance tried to kill. USAF and Special Operations Forces in the US and UK really drove the early demand for it. USAF wanted it early but was delayed until 1962 as the Army tried to make the M-14 production lines work, but was going through all sorts of manufacturing problems and delays. The Army reluctantly agreed to let the AR-15 be manufactured as a stop-gap until they could get their wunderwaffen SPIW flechette dart rifle/grenade launcher combo developed. Ha ha!

Those things were abominations: