SMG History

>>34543023

Because the prevailing military doctrine of the time didn't want it. Generals wanted to maximize the range of each individual solider, and this meant bolt actions with huge .30 or .40 caliber rounds. This worked well with their pre-modern battlefield tactics, which WW1 made obsolete in 1918. When that happened, generals realized they needed to give soldiers a way to spray a lot of bullets in a small space in a short amount of time. This is the genesis of SMGs.

Additionally it should be said that another weapon, the pump-action shotgun, proved equally devastating in this role because while tube mag guns are a pain to reload a shooter could pump off 8+ shots while someone armed with a bolt action would still be second or third turn. It goes to demonstrate how important ergonomics are (pump vs bolt).

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>>34543023
Automatic weapons are tricky to get just right and metal stamping was a very recent invention, so almost all weapons were still milled. Production lines take time to set up and then you're taking materials away from other line just as or more important. There were automatic weapons that used pistol calibers before the MP 18 (pic related), but the MP 18 was the the first one to nail the concept.

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>>34543023
>SMG
>Small Mans Gun
Real men only need single fire

They had to develop rimless pistol ammo and magazines that were reliable in addition to building a firearm. That took a while.
And it was new. All new stuff is bad, according to some.

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>>34543286
>Revolvers
>Real man's gun
Real men only need muzzle loaders

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>>34543319
>muzzle loaders
Grug, real man only need rock

>>34543343
>rocks
Real australopithecus only need their teeth

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>>34543343
>rock
>implying any hunter-gather needs more than a sharpened stick

Op if we cloned 1000 of you, and sent all of you back to 1918 to compete against the group that actually developed a machine gun, you probly wouldnt be able to develop a gun that even fired, let alone fired automatically.
Im guess your a liberal homosexual who thinks anyone can engineer, when the reality its that the inferior majority (you) CAN NOT engineer.
Not even to save your life.

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>>34543421
>>34543423
>4,000 B.C
>not using ceremonial bone

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>>34543474
>>34543423
>>34543343
>>34543421
>Be genus Homo
>Need to use tools to survive
Oh im laffin

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>>34543424

>>34543674
Def bait but I feel like he's not wrong tho.

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>>34543507
>having a central nervous system

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>>34543793
>having a nucleus

>>34543023
Well, these guys

>>34543078
>>34543286
>>34543319
>>34543343
>>34543421

hit on the other aspect, which was this underlying mental concept that each shot was very valuable, and needed to be carefully used. Makes sense with a muzzleloading rifle, and the mentality carried forward. The mental jump they needed to make is that ammo can be used almost frivolously by the old standard, and actually be improving on the old method. This guy gets it >>34543312

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>>34543902
>having ribosomes

fucking faggots

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>>34543971
> having mass

Step your game up senpai

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>>34544039
>having time and space
Singularity-fags I swear

>>34543023
Couple o' reasons.

First off, it's tricky to make. The spring needs to take the full weight of the recoil repeatedly which is a metallurgical issue. Stronger springs needed to be developed. Some newer pistols could do this but they would have time to rest between shots.

Second was the lack of cartridges suited for automatic fire. Very few nations used rimless or semi-rimmed ammo since the rim makes it easier to get the bullet back out. However, the rim also makes it harder to stack the bullets together so you can't really fit them into a magazine efficiently.

Lastly, was the theory at the time. The idea was that if you put a man with a sub machine gun against a man with a rifle the man with the rifle would get shots and thus kills first. Trenches would be negated by artillery and you still had grenades for fortified positions.

Nobody thought that barbed wire would be as effective as it was.

>>34544076
>

>>34544676

>>34544076
>>34544039
>>34543971
>>34543902
>>34543793
>>34543507
>>34543343
>>34543319
>>34543286
Muh sides! Muh fucking sides!

>>34543023
It is only easy in hindsight. Many breakthroughs seem trivial looking back on them. I am an engineer and can design and analyze many things because I benefit from volumes of work compiled over centuries by some of the finest minds ever produced. Coming up with an invention is not nearly as easy as copying or modifying it.

>>34543078
>>34543023
>War
>War always changes