#thompson m1

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Entraînement de l'Armée Populaire de Libération au pistolet-mitrailleur Thompson M1921 – Chine – 1930's

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Historical Trivia: Soviet Tommy Guns

The Red Army's use of submachine guns is legendary with millions of PPSh-41s and PPs-43s manufactured during the Second World War. However, it is largely unknown that the American Thompson submachine gun was technically Soviet Russia's third submachine gun.

In 1942 the US began Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union to help repel the German invasion.  These included almost 15,000 tanks and vehicles such as M3 (Lee), M3 (Stuart) and M4 (Sherman) tanks. These tanks were shipped with a full inventory of equipment including Thompson submachine guns for the crews.  In addition to those shipped with the tanks there were also larger individual shipments of Thompsons and ammunition. By the end of the war the US Lend-Lease programme had imported almost 140,000 Thompson M1928A1s, M1s and M1As many of these were produced by Savage Arms.  When compared to the six million PPSh-41s produced during the war this was a drop in the ocean.

Unissued Soviet Thompson's in their original shipping cases (source)

While the Soviets received the Thompsons, they were not widely issued for a number of reasons. The standard Soviet PPSh-41s and PPs-43s were chambered in 7.62×25mm while the Thompson was chambered in .45ACP this meant that resupply of troops issued with them was problematic as Russia had no means of producing the larger calibre ammunition - even if they had this would have been impractical.   Another issue was the conditions on the Russian Front, freezing temperatures meant that the Thompson M1928A1s initially sent didn't perform well.   Extraction became unreliable and the bolts would occasionally seize up.

This meant Thompson's were primarily issued to rear echelon troops or put into store when sufficient numbers of the PPSh-41 became available. The photographs above show Soviet tank crews with their Lend-Lease M3 Stuart tanks and a squad of Russian naval infantry.  In recent years some of the Russian Thompsons have been imported back to the US with many being found in mint condition - unissued.

Sources:

Image One Source

Image Two Source

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