Posted on 06/13/2018 8:15:31 PM PDT by Simon Green
The U.S. Army recently put word out that it wanted submachine guns for conventional forces, and gun-makers were quick to respond.
Ten companies are currently vying to supply troops outside the special operations forces realm with subguns for the modern battlefield. Officials said they wanted a weapon with full/semi-automatic selectable variant and a Picatinny rail, among other features, and organizations from Sig Sauer, Inc. to Colt answered the call.
“For the first time in a long time, the Army is looking at a subgun for conventional forces,” Todd South of Military Times reported Wednesday. “Special operations forces have carried these guns for a very long time, but your conventional soldiers and Marines don’t really have them in their arsenal until now.”
The Army received the following submissions:
Z-5RS, Z-5P and Z-5K Sub Compact Weapons; Zenith Firearms
B&T MP9 Machine Guns; Trident Rifles, LLC
MPX Sub Compact Weapon; Sig Sauer, Inc.
5.5 CLT and 5.5 QV5 Sub Compact Weapon; Quarter Circle 10 LLC
PTR 9CS Sub Compact Weapon; PTR Industries, Inc.
MARS-L9 Compact Suppressed Weapon; Lewis Machine & Tool Company
CZ Scorpion EVO 3 A1 Submachine gun; CZ-USA
CMMG Ultra PDW; CMMG, Inc.
Beretta PMX Sub Compact Weapon; USA Corporation
CM9MM-9H-M5A; Colt’s Manufacturing Company, LLC
“Another subgun option the Army could consider is [Heckler & Koch’s] MP5,” Mr. South reported. “The [MP5 MLI] is an improved version on what they’ve had for decades. It’s pretty familiar to a lot of people. A lot of folks growing up like I did in the 1980s and 1990s might have seen it. The Navy SEALs carried it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at m.washingtontimes.com ...
Such weapons are mainly defensive, sometimes issued to drivers, couriers and the like in the Korean Conflict.
M3A1 Grease Gun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lk6VPPZ1S4
Subguns can be much more effectively suppressed than an AR carbine in 5.56x45.
Grease Gun...
THANKS! re
You’re welcome. My father trained with one of those among other things.
If they’re going to something other then the 5.56 IMHo they should start making the M2 again with a telescoping stock and pistol grip on the stock and at the trigger instead of mucking around with 9mm.
Yes, the M3 is out of the question for the reasons you mentioned. It’s also on the heavy side at 9.7 lbs loaded.
I never shot one but my father was issued this weapon at the end of WWII and didn’t like it. A family member who served in Iraq (MLRS crew member) didn’t think much of it either.
I’ve fired the MP5 and the Swedish K model; I preferred shooting the K. It felt more compact and controllable than the MP5.
Permanent polymer pic rails (though the top rail can be replaced by an armored, yet it’s still interfacing with a polymer receiver) are a liability for both durability and precise optics zeroing. Plastic may prove fine for a police gun but the Army would have to implement this as a military subgun. There’s a reason classic military subguns are built like a tank.
There’s been questions from hard use owners about the durability of the CZ EVOs plastic feed lips in its translucent plastic mag. Compare these to UZI or MP5 mags and remember the US Army intends to adopt a military subgun.
The controls are HK-like but user testing has noted a design flaw in the current models where the safety interferes with hand coordination. CZ rushed out a temporary fix and then realized the expedient solution wasn’t ambidextrous. That’s a problem indicative of unsatisfactory real world testing that might not have gotten out of the design phase at Hk.
Finally the CZ is designed as a straight blowback subgun. This means implementing a heavy bolt group and a lot of reciprocating weight. That’s fine on the slow-firing much heavier UZI but the CZ is very light weight being made almost entirely of polymer. The CZ has a fairly high cyclic rate. Users have reported shot-to-shot accuracy issues in all select fire modes. There is also a question of gas and debris blowback to the user in a high cyclic straight blowback design when suppressed. The US Army is still going to be beholden to 124-grain NATO spec 9mm which is fairly hot and gassy in my experience. The MP5 has some gas venting from the chamber but it’s delayed roller lock action does mitigate it fairly well.
I’m sure the CZ is good but it’s high plastic construction for lightness isn’t the most important positive attribute for rugged military use. The design issues with CZ realizing problems after release is not very Hk-like to be honest.
There’s no other subgun (including the Hk MP5) as reliably battle tested as the rugged slow cyclic rate UZI. There’s no subgun as surgically precise as the Hk MP5. I think the US Army should examine the positive traits of both of those designs before they adopt a modern subgun. The CZ Evo doesn’t yet match the best traits of either of those elder subguns.
The reason the M-3 grease gun lived so long, was that it fit very nicely inside a tank. Its role was that of a ‘crew served weapon’ for when one of the crew dismounted the tank. The M-1, M-14, and M-16 were too long to find a safe storage location inside of a cramped tank compartment. I remember one of our 2LT Forward Observers taking his M-16 inside the tank he used to FO from, after being told NOT to by the CO, and the M-16 ending up as a pretzel.
Other posters have mentioned the slow cyclic rate of the grease gun as a deficiency for being a SMG and I agree. I had a friend who was a LRRP in Vietnam and he swore by the Swedish K SMG he carried on patrols.
I have no comment on which of the new SMGs should be adopted but the Grease Gun’s day is passed as a general issue SMG.
The Turret Monster has eaten a lot of M-16s.
The ‘turret monster’ was a M-60A2, that was quite cramped. My battery commander and the tank company commander agreed that I would draw a M-1911 from the tank company armorer whenever we went out on alerts or training on the M-60A2 that was my forward observation vehicle. I really liked having the azimuth indicator and laser range finder when we did polar plot fire missions. And the armor of the A2 was a tad thicker than my regular jeep, although I was the only tank in the company that had 3 antennas.
Remember RATT Rigs, M880s, 5 ton expando vans, M113s, plain green fatigues, black boots and SP/5, SP/6 and SP/7?
I think expando-vans are going to make a significant comeback. Our C2 nodes have lost a LOT of mobility over the course of the GWOT. We really need to change that.
I loved my 5 ton expando that was my S-2 vehicle with its tacfire terminal and target plotter when I was the DivArty S-2 in Germany. I shared it with the Counter-battery Radar Company plotting section.
Don’t hear much about the M60A2 these days.
It had an interesting turret.
Sometimes I think about buying a new Jeep Wrangler to remind me of the miles I rode in the old Quarter Tons. I’d have to break the heater in it to be truly like the old ones, though.
Yep.
“Breaking starch.”
Thank you for your insights. Appreciate it.
All of that being said, I “get” the thinking behind a H & K MP5 choice. But if the desire is to give support troops a reasonable weapon, do we really need to buy MP5s? Or perhaps an updated M3 or Swedish K gun for lots less money?
I’m just trying to explore the intellectual foundations for a MP5 - class SMG.
We also should note that practically every nation with the machine tools has attempted to locally design/manufacture a SMG.
Indeed, and the reason is simply because pistol calibers produce so much less.... Energy. Compact to a fault, lowest recoil, easiest to suppress, is all great till you run into something that requires more of everything you compromised ... I think my next upper will be a 1 in 6 twist .224, 12 inch carbine chambered for 100grn frangibles, and a generic surefire can will make it work just fine.
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