Gun identification

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herkyguy

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So, bored on a flight and trolling the interwebs, I stumbled onto this photo. It's allegedly a 1940s arctic patrol conducted by the US Coast Guard. Is it a Thompson SMG or something else?

Also, with the temps well below freezing up that way, I assume they were using guns that lubricated with grease? It's interesting to me because most of the 'unique' guns seen in the arctic are meant for dealing with polar bears and a .45 ACP doesn't quite fit that bill.

I was flying in and out of Greenland years ago and the guys we were dropping off carried .375 H&H caliber rifles.
 

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Definitely a Thompson, cocking handle cutout, magazine, forearm, etc are all distinctive.

While 45 ACP isn't the best bearstopper on earth, I'll bet that Thompson was the best option available in the arms locker at that moment; alot handier than a Garand, and definitely better than a 1911.
 
Remember as well that there was a real invasion up in the Aleutians back then so the armaments had nothing to do with wildlife and everything to do with the Japanese soldiers... From what little I've read of that part of WWII the environment was the overwhelming challenge all of the forces in that area faced (on both sides....). I'm sure we probably have a few members here that could tell you exactly what was needed to keep any firearm functioning properly in serious arctic conditions (Me, I'm at the other end of things, working in the Everglades whenever I have customers - on the fishing side of things..). A short tour in a very bad place many years ago (1971) pretty much ended any hunting interest for me...


As far as the 375 H & H goes - it's still pretty popular - my brother, who lives a subsistence lifestyle north of Palmer on the Glenn Highway - has three of them...
 
Wow, its a M1927 Thompson complete with Cutts compensator and drum mag!
If its early '40s, the ship was probably the USCGC Danmark, if after '46, probably the Eagle, which still serves today as the Coast Guard seamanship training vessel.
 
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yep. TSMG M1921, 1928, or M1928A1. The M1 series had a side cocking handle and could not take the 50 or 100 round drums as this one obviously can. These had an easily removable butt stock and GREAT rear sights. I have used a 1928 on semi to hit milk jugs and paint cans with great regularity at 200 yards using those sights. The rear is a peep when standing or a notch when folded down as they were normally for carry. Despite all the movies and barracks tales (sea bag stories in this case I guess) the Thompson in short burst or on semi were quite controllable. With the 50 round drum in place and targets at 25 meters or less some impressive long burst could be kept in the general area of the targets. If things got hair/close on could throw the gun up to the shoulder and look through the actuating knob (it had a U shapped cut aligned with the sights) put the front site on the target and pull the trigger. While this wasted ammo at a distance at ten yards it was very fast and very quiet good enough.

Below is about 1978 down along "Guano Gultch" there was a little stream on a friend's property and we made some pop up targets with weights and dental floss for a reactive course there a time or two. Down hill is a bank with a bit of an over hang to catch bullets splashing in the shallow water. Yes I was firing when the picture was taken. This position was described in the Thompson Information supplied to police agencies when the gun was still new. In a general way, as in for "firing amongst them" it actually worked. You can also see in this picture that my hair was going 39 years ago. I blame the M1 helmet system! I certainly can not wear that Citadel T-shirt these days!

-kBob
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Apparently the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish Naval reconnaissance team which has been operating in northern Greenland since 1941 and could presumably field any weapon it wants, still chooses to be armed with the M1917 rifle for reliability and hitting power in Arctic conditions..

The Sirius Patrol uses the standard .30-06 168-grain military rifle round and also civilian hollow-points. The patrolmen feel that the full metal jacket bullet on the military round is best against polar bears at long range, but that the hollow-points are better against an enraged musk ox. Typically, the patrolmen arrange their stripper clips so every third round is a hollow-point.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Dog_Sled_Patrol

Tinpig
 
It's clearly a Thompson (probably an M1928A1), with a drum magazine.

That's a traditional Grand Banks fishing schooner (note the fishing dory stowed on the deck). That would place the location in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Canada.
 
That's a tommy gun, but back then it was no more "unique" than a M4 or M16 today. Standard issue weapon, obsolete or close to it by the end of WW2.
 
In those cold conditions, I wonder if they really would use grease. Wouldn't grease be so cold that it would jam the mechanism? Isn't it more likely that they would use a "dry" lubricant like graphite powder?
 
Hmm, doesn't look like any cooling fins, wouldn't that make it a 1920?
Hard to tell from the picture whether it has a finned barrel, or not. It certainly has the Lyman rear sight.

No such thing as a 1920 Thompson (unless you count the toolroom prototypes, which were Model 1919's). The first 15,000 made were Model 1921's, and that's all that were made until WW2 began to loom. (They didn't sell well.) Even the first M1928's were restamped M21's. Finned barrels were standard on all of these. Some had the Cutts compensator, and some did not.

During M1928A1 production, there was a changeover from finned barrels to smooth barrels, and from the Lyman rear sight to a simple "L" sight. This was for the sake of cost saving and simplification. I once owned a '28 Thompson that had both a smooth barrel and an "L" sight. (I foolishly sold it before the big runup in values.)
 
In those cold conditions, I wonder if they really would use grease. Wouldn't grease be so cold that it would jam the mechanism? Isn't it more likely that they would use a "dry" lubricant like graphite powder?
Maybe, but the drum magazine would not run properly unless the rotor was packed with grease (sort of like a wheel bearing). The drum would probably jam if they used graphite powder there.
 
In those cold conditions, I wonder if they really would use grease. Wouldn't grease be so cold that it would jam the mechanism? Isn't it more likely that they would use a "dry" lubricant like graphite powder?

A good field expedient was pencil lead, really a type of graphite. The drum mags would eventually be phased out standard military use. Aside from the lube situation, they were more complicated than the military desired, and allowed the rounds to rattle, which is suicide on night patrols in enemy territory.
IIRC later 1928s had smooth barrels, lacked the Cutts, and had the L rear sight as production shifted to the M1 version and 1928 parts ran out.

I think the mag in the picture might be the larger 100 round mag, not the 50....but I could be wrong, it isn't a really good photo.
 
Graphite was the long time standard cold weather gun lube. We have low temperature synthetics now, but they didn't then.
I've never shot a drum magazine, all my friend's Thompson mags are sticks, even for the 1928A1.
 
Graphite was the long time standard cold weather gun lube. We have low temperature synthetics now, but they didn't then.
I've never shot a drum magazine, all my friend's Thompson mags are sticks, even for the 1928A1.
Why be careful?
 
"...obsolete or close to it by the end of WW2..." Still in use during the SEA War games of the 1960's.
Doesn't look big enough to be a 100 round mag.
"...if they really would use grease..." Nope. Bone dry or maybe whale oil. Grease turns to concrete in the cold.
SMG's had nothing to do with Nanuck or any other beast. They had to do with their size. Easier to store a Chopper than an M1 Rifle. Even though a Chopper isn't exactly a wee thing.
 
I was always under the impression that some specialized units preferred the M14 in arctic conditions because it used grease as lubrication.
 
Update:

The 'Corsair Fleet' was formed around 1942 and consisted of a pretty diverse and eclectic group that was affiliated with the Coast Guard Reserve to patrol the US coast for U-boats and attack 'when able.' They were also called the 'Hooligan's Navy' and the owner of the loaned ships apparently automatically inherited the rank of Chief Boatswain's Mate.

https://www.uscg.mil/history/articles/BeachPatrolCorsairFleet.pdf

Check out the section on the Corsair Fleet. Pretty much your average American volunteer given a machine gun and sent out to sea on anything that floated.
 
Something to remember about Alaska - most of it is far enough from any town authorities that you end up getting a police response that's pretty much only a trooper or two from the State troopers - that means for practical purposes most folks will on their own for, at times, hours before you ever see a guy with a badge... Of course, as my brother a long time resident there says... "you're pretty polite with strangers since everyone is carrying or has his weapons in his/her vehicle..."

Kind of like that WWII volunteer situation, just dealing with whatever the problem is on your own...
 
Thompson 1928/1928A1 manufactured in WWII could have the finned barrel with compensator, smooth barrel with compensator, and in field repair could recieve an M1/M1A1 smooth barrel with just a front sight, no compensator.

Frank Iannamico, American Thunder: The Military Thompson Submachine Guns, Moose Lake 2000.
 
My dad turned 97 the other day. One of his war stories from his Navy days involves the invasion of North Africa (in 1942, as I recall) and his first official military firearms experience...with a Thompson sub-machine gun.

As his ship came closer to the the fighting, he was on the bridge with the captain. Their ship was in more of a support role, but the captain was rather alarmed by their proximity to the action, so he took a Thompson out of a locked cabinet and asked my dad, "Do you know how to use one of these?"

My dad said, "No," so the captain took him on deck to the rail and showed him how the gun functioned, then let him fire several bursts off the bow. The Thompson was apparently a common weapon on many US naval vessels. According to my dad, the big joke among sailors was that after the invasion of North Africa, rank and file Navy guys all went back to the US to get basic firearms training. It was early in the war (for the US) and many sailors were involved in the operation without ever having been trained in firearms use. My dad was among them.
 
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