The Top 5 Submachine Guns in the World

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Military weapons evolve due to natural forces. While we might debate our intimate kinship with apes or whether my ancient forebear was actually a paramecium, that military weapons change due to battlefield and industrial influences is pretty cut and dried. For the gun nerd committed to his craft, the details can actually be fascinating.

Submachine guns (SMGs) as an entity developed in response to tactical convulsions on the blood-soaked battlefields of World War 1. At places like Verdun, Ypres, and Belleau Wood, massive land armies hammered away at each other. The end result was a stagnant hemoclysm most horrible. Such stuff as the tank, tactical air support, and man-portable automatic weapons were all developed to help the grunts get out of the trenches to advance and seize territory. The pistol-caliber SMG was one of the more significant byproducts of that ghastly place.

The Italian Pistola Mitragliatrice Fiat Mod. 1915 or Villar-Perosa was normally the first. However, despite being an automatic weapon that fired a pistol cartridge, this novel pintle-mounted machinegun was actually first imagined as an aircraft gun. Stream Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade if you’d like to see an example in action. The first true SMG was the German MP-18. The MP-18 fed 9mm Para ammunition via a side-mounted 32-round snail drum designed for the P08 Luger pistol. Meticulously crafted, the MP-18 was both heavy and expensive. However, it put true controllable automatic firepower in the hands of the Sturmtruppen. 

Since that time, the state of the art has advanced apace. While other guns not covered here were produced in much greater quantities, these examples were chosen for their historical significance along that evolutionary timeline. There are certainly those who will disagree with my selections, but these each represent a fairly radical transition from what was to what was to come.

The MP40

The German MP40 was an evolutionary development of the previous MP38. Both guns look about the same in dim light, and most of the parts will interchange. However, the MP38 was built around a milled tubular receiver, where the MP40’s receiver was stamped out of a sheet steel flat. The MP38 can be distinguished from its later sibling by the longitudinal grooves milled into the receiver tube and a dime-sized lightening hole cut into each side of the magazine well.

The MP40 fires 9mm Para from a 32-round double-column, single-feed box magazine. The gun runs from the open bolt and is full auto only. The MP40 makes the cut because it was the first mass-produced military firearm to be formed from steel pressings and to eschew wood completely in its construction. The furniture on the MP40 was formed from a novel synthetic material called Bakelite. There were smaller, cheaper, more efficient designs in use at the time, but the MP40 took SMGs into the Industrial Age.

The Uzi

An Israeli Army officer named Uziel Gal designed his eponymous Uzi submachine gun in the years immediately following WW2. The fledgling nation of Israel suffered under international arms embargoes, while her neighbors banded together to push her people into the sea. Amidst such existential chaos, the Israelis needed an efficient military firearm that could be produced both inexpensively and locally. Major Gal’s Uzi was just the ticket. The prototypes were completed in 1950. The gun was first saw service four years later.

The full-sized Uzi is selective fire and operates from the open bolt. It incorporates the telescoping bolt design pioneered in the Czech ZK476. Magazines typically hold either 25 or 32 rounds and feed through the pistol grip. There is a fairly complex ratcheting system built into the charging handle to prevent accidental discharges due to rough handling or sloth.

The same basic Uzi chassis has been shrunken down into several more compact versions, and the gun has been chambered in .22LR, .41AE, .45ACP, and 9x21mm in addition to 9mm Para. With more than ten million copies in service, the Uzi is the most-produced SMG in military history. That fact, combined with its novel stamped-steel construction, earns the gun a place on our list.

The MP5

The HK MP5 developed from the G3 battle rifle that itself evolved from the Spanish CETME. The CETME was an evolutionary development of the prototype StG-45 that was nearing production when WW2 ended. The MP5 utilized the same roller-delayed blowback action used by its larger cousins.

Developed in the 1960’s, the MP5 first saw active service in 1966 with German border guards. The MP5 feeds from 15 and 30-round double-column, double-feed box magazines and is a truly modular design. The basic MP5 action has been shrunk down to the sub-compact MP5K and MP5K PDW. The sound-suppressed MP5SD utilizes a ported barrel to drop the velocity of standard ball ammo into the subsonic range. Little is more efficient, even more than half a century after its introduction.

Until being supplanted by stubby rifle-caliber carbines, the MP5 was the apex predator among armed professionals in the West. Much of this stemmed from the successful televised SAS assault on Princes Gate in London in 1980. After seeing that dynamic footage, every cop on Planet Earth coveted a set of black fatigues and an MP5. The MP5 fires from the closed bolt and is both accurate and controllable as a result. At 800 rpm, the rate of fire is just a bit spunky for my tastes. However, the gun is a precision instrument in trained hands. 

The MAC10

The Military Armaments Corporation never officially used the term MAC10. We gun nerds came up with that on our own. However, the MAC10 represented a revolutionary transformation in manufacturing techniques. That transformation ultimately turned out to be a bit of a dead end. The MAC10 was produced in both 9mm Para and .45ACP. The MAC11 was a smaller version chambered in .380ACP. The MAC11 is not much bigger than an M1911 pistol and cycles at a blistering 1,600 rpm. All of these guns were produced almost entirely from inexpensive steel pressings welded to shape. These weapons were designed from the outset to accept a sound suppressor.

Despite the diminutive nature of the chassis, the MAC10 was nonetheless still fairly heavy. The basic gun weighed about what an M16A1 did. However, it was eminently packable due to its compact size. While the MAC10 was not terribly precise, particularly when compared to such rarefied designs at the MP5, it was available in quantity in the 1970’s and 80’s before the accursed 1986 machinegun ban. The MAC10 has therefore long been considered the gateway drug to fancier, more expensive machineguns for many an advanced American gun collector.

The HK UMP

UMP stands for Universale Maschinenpistole or Universal Machine Pistol. The UMP never did make a huge splash on the LE market. However, the gun does represent a quantum advance in materials science when compared with other competing designs. The UMP is the Glock of submachine guns. The 9mm version only weighs 5.1 pounds.

Despite the use of advanced polymers in its receiver, the UMP action is fairly uninspired. The gun fires from the closed bolt via a simple blowback mechanism. Swapping out the barrel, bolt, ejector, and magazine lets you run 9mm, .40S&W, and .45ACP in the same gun. Magazines include a transparent window to help keep track of rounds remaining, and the fire control units are modular like those of the legacy MP5. However, they are not interchangeable between the two platforms. One of the more curious aspects of the UMP is its sedate rate of fire. Considering an MP5 runs at 800 rpm and an HK416 cycles at 850, the UMP’s comatose 600 rpm rate seems incongruous by comparison. However, the gun is exceptionally controllable as a result.

Introduced in 2000, the UMP has seen action in relatively small quantities with military and police forces around the globe. However, it just never found the same commercial legs as did the MP5. However, the UMP laid the foundation for the MP7 and numerous other advanced Personal Defense Weapons that came later. You can catch an example in action at the end of my favorite James Bond movie, Casino Royale. 

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