The failed 🇬🇧 WW2 paratrooper SMG almost leaked to the Nazis with firearms expert, Jonathan Ferguson 

I love video's with Ian and Johnathan, I wish they would do more video's together just looking at guns. Would love a forgotten weapon style video with both of them!

Gives a nice mention then flexes on Ian but we have this.

It appears to be entirely mutual too. I just watched another video where Ian is in Leeds, West Yorkshire, at the Royal armouries. It made my day, as I live just a couple of miles along the Calder valley, from Leeds so Ian is actually in my neighbourhood! That's a strange satisfying feeling to know one of my favourite producer is in my neighbourhood.

They're friends IRL

Speck savers has a deal on at the moment. Hurry you might be able to get in.

I think the FG wins as the most beautiful Paratrooper Rifle and this wins as the most Beautiful Paratrooper SMG :D

@@trevorfitzgerald4996 Hahaha

Just imagine if this hadn’t failed… We would’ve had 60 rounds, to the MP40’s 32, in a slick SMG. Especially compared to the Sten… (an amazing gun, but it looks like a failed coathanger abortion) It doesn’t beat the FG for looks though. It’s slick, but it’s not *polished oil slick* slick.

No value judgement intended 😊

Well, until you suddenly find two thousand of them missing. What comes around, goes around, I guess. 😉 Although, to be fair, I would attribute this to Jonathan's personal manner of speaking, which I find quite charming, and the composition of Royal Armouries collection, which includes a lot of British trials pieces.

I believe it's the genetically ingrained British tendency toward understatement @@F1ghteR41

British modesty: being casually off-hand about your priceless possessions is so much more 'classy' than breathlessly hyping them up. "Yeah, we've got a few old paintings",you say, as you lead them up a staircase past a dozen Vermeers, Rembrandts and Turners.

​@@MrHws5mp Well naturally Hugh, you have similar, everybody has such things. Don't they.

A proper Cad then.

I had a university lecturer named Paul Teesdale-Spittle.

@@causewaykayakmore of a “bounder” than a cad

@@64mickh 🤔😂😂

I love this ❤

also in Slovak

More like cheerful.

That sure sounds a bit Chinese 😅

I'd be right happy with 60 rounds of 9mm ready to go in one package.

it doesn't have a pistol grip. fail.

Which also had a useless bayonet !

Indeed

@@deeplorable2913 You don't need a pistol grip to have a good weapon, actually I think guns without them look much nicer than those with them.

@@louiswarmoth7354 Not really, bayonets still formed a big role in tactics of the time so it wasn't useless to them. Now a days with tactics having evolved around Combined Arms Combat and having 30 rounds of death at full auto ready the Bayonet makes less sense. But for WW2, it makes sense that they had to add it to the design, as this was a requirement for most gun designs at the time, at least in the West.

The Smith & Wesson Light Rifle was also made for 9mm Parabellum. It was finely manufactured but poorly designed, the extra wide magazine well holds a pretty normal looking 9mm magazine, the extra space is just a 'chute' for spitting out empties, and there's a lot of practical problems with all that. Very brittle receiver, not one of S&W's prides.

That’s what I thought this thing was at first.

​@@0neDoomedSpaceMarineAlso the S&W wasn't even a full auto, they litterally tried to sell the british millitary a 9mm semi auto carbine like it was 1916.

@@rattlestormrepublic4874 A 9mm semi-auto carbine isn't like the worst idea, if it's closed bolt you can easily get good accuracy out of it and all, but the design for the Light Rifle was just not any good, it would not have benefited from having full-auto fire given its fragility. Mind, the vast majority of soldiers in WW2 were armed with bolt-action rifles, so a working semi-auto pistol caliber carbine would still have a pretty substantial advantage for CQB given the speed and capacity. Of course, an actual subgun would do that and more, and the Light Rifle was categorically inferior to any of the common subguns in WW2, categorically inferior to a Hi-Point carbine, really.

It was

By "collapsible stock"? I guess you mean the butt and the way it fastens to the body? My guess is that you're reading a bit too far into that. The the way it fastens to the body is not the same as the OVP which I think is more meaningful. The OVP has side facing lugs, and the V43 seems to fasten centrally. If you're making a (hopefully) easily assembled gun that is going to have a wooden butt and a tubular body, there's only so many ways you can go about that.

​@@tommeakin1732 No, I mean conceptually, the stock detaching at an in-line position on the rear end of the receiver. The locking system is different but the placement is the same. There were plenty of other collapsible stock designs in other SMGs of this period, including the Sten Mk. V which was adopted in place of this gun, but this is the one of the only ones that I know of to use an OVP-style stock. Perhaps it's just a superficial coincidence but it's quite an interesting parallel.

@@jameslawrence2446 "Easily removable" is not the same as "collapsible." A collapsible stock is like what's on the MP7, or on some modern AR platforms (I'm sure there are better examples, but I can't think of others off the top of my head.)

Appreciate the great info. Would like more detailed close-ups. Thankyou

Check out Interwar era subguns in general, a lot have full wooden rifle stocks, finely machined receivers, and not rarely a nice blued finish. The American Thompson is a famous example, because they were the only viable subguns which the US Army could source in any quantity in the beginning of WW2, and there was no simplified economized model yet, those things were extravagantly expensive.

@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine actually, the interwar subguns and pistols, plus some of the semi-auto prototypes, are my favorites. I love the older German machine pistols like the MP-28.

If you check the guys that do parade rifles.Some really nice polished up 1903 and M1 rifles

I think he needs to do so to comply with current you-tube policy and procedures about guns, but yes its a nice consideration.

​@@aidanfarnan4683I do it for the viewers - as yet we've had no YT issues. As we monetise, that may change!

I don't. As far as I can tell it has everything to do with calming the kkona Karens who get hard at the chance to boss around (or one-upping) other folk in the name of "safety". If you've spent only a few days in "firearms communities", you know the type. _"W-w-w-wear your safety glashes!"_ It's also one thing being on a range and another sitting in a museum. I trust Johnathan to look after himself, and maybe the one other guy in the room who's helping him film. He's a grown man who can make that call for himself, and he doesn't need me breathing down his neck and slighting his means to think

@@tommeakin1732 Well, based on what he has said there are people who get concerned at least at him pointing the firearm towards the camera (probably because they instinctually have a respect for the end of a gun) so, it seems decently reasonable to me. But also, it really does not matter either way, takes like 3 seconds to say and sooths those who might care.

@@CatsT.M Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but it strikes me as another little case of pandering to a loud but small camp who like to make their problem someone else's problem. If you flinch when someone passes a gun (almost certainly unloaded) past the camera you are looking at them through, that's something to feel a little ashamed over and you might want to work on, or put up with - it's not something to be proud over and put on others.

I wonder about the dirt and mud trials? That was a complicated box to have to clean out. 😮

Most people outside of the former Czechoslovakia these days are much more familiar with the Czech word _samopal_ for an SMG or an assault rifle, when did terminology change, if you don't mind me asking?

@@F1ghteR41 Term "kulometná pistole", which is technically same as russian "pistolyet pulemyot" or german "maschinepistole", was used before and druing WW2. Afterwards things got a bit chaotic when terms like "samopal" and "automat" were supposed to replace the original term but colided with russian "avtomat" used for assault rifles. There were attempts to distinguish it by calling assault rifles heavy submachineguns but it ended up in adoption of term "samočinný automat" or SA for short for both types of weapons for some reason, resulting in confusion that is still present. I got to look at it again. it is confusing stuff that has more to do with linguistics and political mess...

@@jirja3192 I see, I see. Well, thank you for the insight! It looks like both Czechoslovakia and East Germany kept using the same terms for both the SMG and the 'assault rifle' (despite German having politicaly pretty neutral term Maschinenkarabiner), and so were Romanians until a brief period in the mid-to-late '80s. Poles, on the other hand, kept their term for submachineguns (calqued from the German Maschinenpistole) from pre-war period and called 'assault rifles' simply carbines or automatic carbines, quite alike the Russian definitions. And as far as I get it, the similar thing happened in Hungarian. The Bulgarians, in turn, simply borrowed the Russian term _автомат_ (avtomat). So it seems like if there was any political reasoning in the whole matter, it was either very minimal, or very subtle, or very complicated.

@@F1ghteR41 The political part is with Soviets constantly intervening into Czech weapon development, since they wanted everyone just to make AKs, Simonovs and Tokarevs (ironically czech derivates of Tokarev pistol that were beter than poor vz.52 were rejected by our politicans) but mainly it looked like they tried to avoid adding the term "Assault" to some of their weapons after WW2. Czechs actually did tried to push the term assault rifle or "útočná puška" translated from german "sturmgewehr" but it was rejected. (Side note, Emanuel Holek, creator of ZB vz.26, ZB vz.37 and later Bren and BESA gun used term Stossgewehr and Sturmgewehr back in early 20's for his SMG, trying to unsuccessfully convince Czechoslovak officers who preffered rifles)

@@jirja3192 First of all, I don't think you're being fair in blaming the Soviets here. Czechoslovakia in particular dodged even the basic cartridge standardization for quite a while, keeping 9×19 until the early fifties, 7,92×57 & 7,92×33 until the latter part of the same decade, inventing its own intermediate cartridge amidst all of this and also readopting .32 ACP in the early '60s. So much for the Soviet pressure! And then there's the SA vz. 58, which, while sharing the cartridge, doesn't go even a step further and has a proprietory magazine, and the same goes with the LK vz. 52/57 & UK vz. 59 with their proprietory links. And to be frank, the story of the Czechoslovak TT variants being rejected in favour of problematic, yet fully domestically designed Vz. 52 sounds a lot like the issue of 'not invented here', which is quite the opposite to any foreign pressure. And it looks like they've succeeded, since the only Soviet-designed small arms the ČSLA actually adopted in large quantities were SGM (TK vz. 43) and SVD. Was it for the better? I doubt it, to be fair, and, as the story of the LADA project shows, it was recognized by the military and political leadership as well, albeit too late to change anything. One can also compare and contrast the issue here with what the French got themselves into when sticking to the 7,5×54 and thus FSA Mle 1949/56 with its 10-round magazine, which was clearly inadequate for the rapidly changing battefield. And I wouldn't even get into the similarity of training line of reasoning, which seems to be the driving force of change to the M16/HK416-pattern of weapons among many NATO or NATO-adjacent nations these days. As for the term 'assaul rifle', it goes back before Holek, as at least as early as 1918 it was used by Isaac Lewis in the form of 'assault phase rifle'. And in fairness to the Czechoslovak military, they were far from the only ones who rejected or neglected SMGs at that time.

He doesn't want to bleed ON his art.

​ Yup, you'd lend him tools readily enough.

Reliability in the field. A soldier would rather have two 30 round magazines that always work than one 60 round magazine that almost always works.

@@alltat This is the usual downfall of all these novelty magazines, like quad-stacks, which also appeared about that time. In this case there's also the complicated feed interrupter in the gun itself, that's likely prone to fouling, being that close to chamber of a blowback gun and also to ejection port.

Did anyone see the 3 mags taped side by side in the Swiss rifle from '57? It was in a competition which required stenous action as well as fast accurate shooting.

​@@F1ghteR41I would also add that even if it worked flawlessly in trials, these are carefully made individual examples. There is a good chance that mass produced magazines would be much less reliable than the prototypes.

@@88porpoise That is fair, but I was writing under the assumption that it would either became obvious in larger-scale troop trials with serial-made magazines, which would moot any further discussion until the issue would be resolved one way or another, or they would perform more or less as intended, hence the question of the base of comparison would become relevant. STEN was far from the best gun in terms of reliability of feeding, and thus one has to be sceptical towards any reports of such increase with obvious mechanical trouble spots in view regardless, until better (read - less favourite towards the problematic newcomer) comparison could be obtained.

I suspect it, like oh so many novelty magazines, had reliability issues, which weren't so obvious when compared to STEN, which had its share of feeding problems itself.

We thought we'd cracked it with a white tablecloth and sticking to the tweed jacket but I'll pass it along :)

@@jonathanferguson1211 I would say this video is a marked improvement in terms of having enough light to illustrate features you are pointing out. I get Rob's point about the dark background, but if I had racks of unicorn firearms sitting around I'd likely show them off as well. ;)

stormtroopers can't stab the wide side of a sandcrawler, as with their aiming.

They also pretty much universally suck as stocks.

I thought the same thing!