I have had the pleasure of shooting a few when I was an LEO [ my agency had a Naval model with a 3 digit serial # ].
BUT it was HEAVY and cumbersome,and remember I was young and strong back then !.
I owned a semi auto [ yes the REAL Tommy gun ] and it too was a burden to hump.
During a enemy charge it would have been GREAT to have,humping it through any boondock would REALLY stink !.
If y'all remember the TV show "Combat" with Vic Morrow,that was his weapon as commander and he wore stick mags.
the drum mag was VERY HEAVY and a true PITA to carry while in the gun.
Not much better in a mag pouch [ grab 100 rounds of .45 acp and add about another box to simulate the weight of empty mag = NOW hang that about 14" from the front of a 9 POUND gun ].
Scaatylobo, I recall that show --
COMBAT! -- very well from my misspent youth. In fact I have it on DVD now and it still holds up. Well, it's about WW2 and I guess it really doesn't matter so much when a WW2 show was made if it was done well... In line with your comment on the weight of the Thompson;
Actor Rick Jason (Lt. Hanley) was originally supposed to have carried the Thompson. Rick Jason was not your average Hollywood liberal. I really don't know what his politics were but he WAS an avid hunter and he reloaded his own specialty ammo. He knew what it was like to "hump" a gun around all day long and when the
COMBAT! prop man handed him the Thompson, he refused it and asked for the lightest rifle they had, which is how his character wound up with the carbine.
Actor Vic Morrow "inherited" the 1928 Tommygun (which he called the "jammomatic") and after a couple of weeks he complained about the weight.
In response the MGM prop department built him a wooden dummy Thompson.
Now, among
COMBAT! fandom there's a segment that try to analyze each shot to try to determine if the Thompson Vic Morrow was carrying was the real deal or the wood version.
I've handled a real Thompson at gunshows and have a dummy Thompson (made from a real 1928 with a aluminum receiver) as a wallhanger, a photo of which I use on websites as an avatar) so I agree with your assessment of the weapon.
But, remember it was
actually a WW1 design. AND, it's an
ICONIC weapon.