For the gun enthusiasts here

Chock · 06-24-07, 09:31 PM

The drum magazine on the 1920's-era Thompson machine gun was (and still is) expensive to produce in comparison to the 30 and 20-round box magazine versions (although most early versions of the Thompson could use both types of magazine). The drum magazine actually needed to be wound up with a clockwork mechanism in order to provide the spring pressure to feed the rounds too, which as you can imagine was part of the reason for its expense, as well as being massively complicated, which is one of the chief reasons why the military version of the Thompson used the box magazine instead. It's also much easier to carry box magazines on your person than drum mags, and drum mags are tedious and slow to reload in comparison to 30-round box mags.

Having said that, many WW2 German troops would happily pick up and use a Russian PSP sub machine gun if they could find one when fighting house-to-house, as the rate of fire and capacity made these drum-fed weapons good for assualt, where advancing under covering fire was more important than perfect accuracy.

The drum magazine does, however, have one other advantage in comparison to high capacity box magazine-fed weapons, which is also the same reason why bullpup designs are now popular with the military, in that they can be easily fired whilst lying down. If you've ever tried to fire an AK-47 from a prone position, you will know what I'm talking about here!

Chock

06-24-07, 09:31 PM	#10
Chock Sea Lord Join Date: May 2005 Location: Under a thermal layer in chilly Olde England Posts: 1,842 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	The drum magazine on the 1920's-era Thompson machine gun was (and still is) expensive to produce in comparison to the 30 and 20-round box magazine versions (although most early versions of the Thompson could use both types of magazine). The drum magazine actually needed to be wound up with a clockwork mechanism in order to provide the spring pressure to feed the rounds too, which as you can imagine was part of the reason for its expense, as well as being massively complicated, which is one of the chief reasons why the military version of the Thompson used the box magazine instead. It's also much easier to carry box magazines on your person than drum mags, and drum mags are tedious and slow to reload in comparison to 30-round box mags. Having said that, many WW2 German troops would happily pick up and use a Russian PSP sub machine gun if they could find one when fighting house-to-house, as the rate of fire and capacity made these drum-fed weapons good for assualt, where advancing under covering fire was more important than perfect accuracy. The drum magazine does, however, have one other advantage in comparison to high capacity box magazine-fed weapons, which is also the same reason why bullpup designs are now popular with the military, in that they can be easily fired whilst lying down. If you've ever tried to fire an AK-47 from a prone position, you will know what I'm talking about here! Chock