Was the M3 Grease Gun any good?

They were still using them in the Gulf War. It was a good gun as far as cheap stamped subguns go. Not as modern as, say, an Uzi.

How often do dismounted tankers have to fight? Have they ever? It's not like a table-top wargame.

What's the point of a vertical magazine? What advantage does it confer over a side-feeding mag which does not impede you when firing from a prone position?

Theyre good guns, but they do have some pretty senseless design decisions. First they had this absurd ratchet cocking handle, they rightly figured that that needed to go, so they replaced it with a conventional charging handle. Trouble is, they got bored half way through and never bothered to actually add the new handle so all late war M3s are charged by literally jamming your finger into the ejection port and pulling the hot bolt back by hand. Jesus Christ what are you doing.

Probably the best mass issue SMG of the war, but there was room for improvement that should have been obvious from the outset.

Unironically the best SMG of WW2.

Lightweight, .45 stronk, slower more controllable rate of fire that conserved ammo, easy and cheap to mass manufacture, simple design made it reliable and easy to maintain, troops loved it, stayed in service till the 90s.

Its only real downside is that it had very crude sights.

Attached: M3 Grease Gun.webm (1024x576, 2.71M)

It didn't fit in with their tactics. Remember that they had the perfectly good MP18 and the MP28 that followed it. At a time when the tactics were all about the MG and the riflemen team supporting it there was not much perceived need for an SMG. The MP38 and -40 were developed for the paratroopers, to be handier than having all the weapons dropped in separate containers. Being popular, it was also given to the MPs and the NCOs - broadly speaking, only one in 20 infantry weapons was an SMG. Most of the rest were rifles.

The Germans had not really planned for a lot of close combat; the MGs and the Stukas and the field artillery were supposed to deal with the enemy. But it happened, so they utilized everything they could capture to help out. The production was however phased out for weapons of higher importance.

Because they had better guns? Cheap guns are for poorfags who weren't prepared and by the time the Germans realized they had become poorfags it was already 1944.

Vertical is better for balance when standing and crouched. Can still tilt it sideways if needed when prone.
This is the more use case for subguns.

Especially keep in mind how heavy these stamped magazines compared to aluminum and polymer today, and compared to the weight of the rest of the gun.

Better than the Thompson.

It was alright. Not the most comfortable, but it was dependable and easily shootable, GI's were hesitant at a first glance, but they came to respect it, and it made it much easier to train recruits, endearing higher ups.

The low cost and faster production was important too, as the Thompson was VERY very expensive to make, and took a lot of time, leading to shortages and gaps in equipment, so advancing to the M3 meant far more subguns on the battlefield.
It's a bit like the Sten, but much better made, due to much more consistent production and better cost effectiveness.

The M1 Carbine would not have cut it for a subgun role, it was too long and the .30 Carbine cartridge, while well performing at ranges longer than what a .45 subgun can reach, is ungodly loud and bright from the comparably stumpy barrel length a subgun has to have, and its nice ballistics really hinge on the 16" barrel, not to talk about the carbine magazines not being all that great.
It was a good PDW, which in a pinch could do reasonably well in CQB, but in no way were you meant to bring it to frontline combat if you could possibly help it, the Korean War shows why this was not viable.

A WW2 era subgun needs a good 30rd magazine and an open-bolt action to allow for low cost (to offset the higher cost of the magazines, which you will need lots of), and to allow for lots of rapid fire and bursts without ever having to worry about cookoff.

Was not even close to as jammy, the magazines were similar but much better made on average, and it even had a springloaded dustcover on the ejection port, protecting against the elements.

$100 is a steal for a reliable automatic weapon, mind.

People issued an mp40 prior will be more familiar with its handling.

It's less likely to be confused with an enemy sten gun from a distance and thus less likely to cause friendly fire.

That's just my guess

Which is why the M2 carbine would have been perfect for both rolls and I need one please dear Jow Forumsube let me have one

They kinda sorta did that with the Sturmgewehr, use low quality steel to stamp the body and mags, then save better steel for critical parts like the barrel, trunnion, piston, bolt-carrier group, etc.
They were somewhat cost effective, and did of course perform better in combat than subguns and bolt-action rifles, but the rifle ends up having a quite limited lifespan, and the magazines even more so.

It was great when it got the ammo and mags to shine, and when they were brand new, but by 1945 everything was fucking fucked, and you'd be lucky to be issued 30rds of 7.92x33mm a month, and even before this, it wasn't uncommon to be issued one or two mags less than intended.

Too long, not good enough magazines, it's the same carbine but with a fire selector.
It's a good PDW, but it just is not a subgun.

Unironically one of the best SMGs produced (A1) and one of the most logical fire rate for a SMG.

>not good enough magazines
magazines were fine as long as you never reloaded them more than once or twice

recoil too high to be an effective submachinegun

It's still in use to this day by Filipino special forces, and was in US military issue until the mid '90s until replaced by the M4

Attached: m3-grease-gun.jpg (550x300, 29K)

I mean adjustible sights were not super useful. It's a .45 ACP smg, it theoretically didn't need to shoot out past 200 yards and if you were asking it to then that means something is wrong and you should ask the guy with the m1 garand or springfield to do it.

This . German tactics were about getting the general machine gun (like an mg42 as the iconic example) into position to rip and tear, with everyone else being in a role to enable the machine gunners to move around and flank, buy them time to set up, and once set up their job was to defend the MG position and support them with ammo running as needed. SMGs were more for close quarters and point blank defense of the MG position to them, not general use. Not that it COULDN'T be used for lots of flanking and clearing, just that they didn't always see it that way.

I had heard you could use a .45 in place of your finger, but Idk if that's true or just post-war rumor.

Also like 1/10th the price, which was the big motivator.

I ain't arguing, I'd love me a $100-200 open bolt smg. If it was legal mind you.

The M3 and M3A1s were in inventory by the 90s, but basically was only used by tankers, because someone figured armored vehicle crew could use something better than a pistol in case things really went to shit, and those old things were obviously long since paid for.

Infantry hadn't used the Greasegun since like, Korea. The M16 rifles (then eventually, gradually, various carbine versions of it) had completely replaced their use of SMGs.

The PPS43 was arguably a little bit better, though it would soon be made completely obsolete.

this looks neato and i want one

it's honestly the peak of what an SMG should be, just an unbreakable, tiny, cheap, easy to shoot lead thrower.

>Special forces used it right up until the mp5 so about 35 years after ww2
Realshit? Got any sources on that? I believe you, I'm just curious.

I wonder if it could be made any lighter, you have to figure that modern steel and polymer could probably replace a lot of the original design. Maybe shave a pound off it.

Sure it could be made lighter. That would be at the cost of precision. The Skorpion, just to pick one, only weighs half of what the M3 does. Even if it was made in .45 it would still be in that weight area. That's comfy for the needs of a driver. Would I head into combat with one, if I could have an M3? Rather not. I like the idea of actually hitting someone if they will otherwise keep firing at me.

It's a plain blowback open-bolt gun, in a steel body, yeah, you could probably make that lighter with modern materials.

In use in Vietnam, 25 years later
35 years would be 1980

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Recoil would could be countered with a brake, but that would make the already obnoxious muzzle blast from like an 8" carbine even worse.

And the magazines really aren't acceptable to me, a magazine which you can only really reload a couple of times before they get unreliable is not viable for an infantry combat weapon.
You can't have that shit on the frontline, we saw why this was a problem with the beginning of the M16, and the FAMAS, and even back at the time people were paying attention to the not so great magazines of the MP40 and Sten, which weren't designed as disposable, but were fairly fragile.

It's an open bolt sub-machinegun. It's already about as inaccurate as it gets dork. Weight isn't really a thing that makes a gun accurate. In adition it's an 8lbs fucking sub-machine gun. It could be substantially lighter. You don't know what you're talking about.

Your name alone was proof of that though.
It could be done a lot lighter and smaller, yes. Step one would be completely redesigning the thing to use a stamped receiver. The bolt is always going to be heavy if the blowback design is retained.
It was in limited use by SF/Delta. They didn't really have many options for suppressed weapons back then.
books.google.com/books?id=uLP1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT116&lpg=PT116&dq=delta force grease gun&source=bl&ots=5ztB0mp6So&sig=ACfU3U1-zkmR3G18rhaYJ3f7qbK5rHVJAw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPl9u7qYHjAhV2FjQIHSQICZ84ChDoATACegQIBxAB#v=onepage&q=delta force grease gun&f=false
That ugly ass long link is to a book on the m3 grease gun. Mentions its use even into the 80s.

The construction of the Greasegun is pretty clever for the time.
Rather than cobbling together the receiver from a piece of tube and some small sheets with some welding, as with the Sten (or machining an entire block as for the Thompson), two sheets of steel are stamped as a left side and a right side, then welded together to form the entire body of the gun, complete with an actual pistolgrip. Really fast, and really consistent. Of course, this was a gun meant for a real and modern factory production line, while the Sten was designed so that some dude working in a garage or basement could put one together from commonly available parts and tools, both for resistance in continental Europe, and for at home, if things started getting too ugly, the Average Joe doesn't have access to a big stamping press or the capability of making dies for it.

Air Force Security Police also used M3s until they were phased out in the early 80s by the M16 and GUU-5

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It's stamped? I always assumed it was like the Sten. That is fucking cool.

Slightly more complex than that (you would have to bend a few sections into place, then attach a few small parts here and there), but yeah, it was quite expedient.

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It was a Great weapon and the US Used them up until after the First gulf war.

Nah, man, PPSh and PPS were better guns overall and cheaper to make. The only thing the M3 has over them is that the mags didn't have the notorious "Find One That Works" bullshit like the PPSh did.

Haven't handled one but they were used up until the 90s so I guess they were fine or at least acceptable.

I carried an M3A1. With the stock extended it was a dam fine SMG the purpose of which is suppressing fire and close combat. After proper training one can be very accurate. They were not prone to jamming as there are so few moving parts. I really liked mine

Mine was made by the US headlamp company, they cost about $13 to make, the STEN cost $7

You get out of a track to take a dump, you'll want an smg

Durrr. It was built long before anyone imagined a second war to end all wars durr. It was plentiful and reliable durr. It had a reputation long before its government service of being bad ass piece of hardware. Durr. Guys who got issued them properly got a damn good dose of confidence. Durr. Why does op talk stupid and his shit is retard.

M3 was fucking dope. It just hit battle field late.

>Durr. Why did the greatest manufacture entity in the world crank out something old heavy when all the other war torn poor kids were stamping pot metal.

Durr.

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The M3A1 has a separate indent milled into the bolt to place your finger in to cock the bolt to the rear, the recoil springs are weak, a child can pull the bolt back. As a result the M3A1 ha s 5 moving parts, the ejection cover acts as the safety

PPS-43? Yes, that gun is similarly very smartly made and economical (using somewhat different approaches, actually cleverly working around limitations in working with sheet metal), but the PPSh-41 was not that good, they had serious problems with consistency in guns and magazines, one drum may fit properly and work in some guns, but not at all in others, meaning they had to spend time pairing up sets of drums with guns, which is a problem the M3/M3A1 and PPS-43 never had, it's a serious production bottleneck.

The curved stickmags they devised later were slightly more reliable, but only barely, and the smaller capacity isn't endearing when you have a crazy high rate of fire.
The PPSh-41 isn't bad in ideal conditions (the volume of fire does count for something), but conditions just frequently weren't ideal.

it was a good, combat effective weapon that (for the most part) worked. It had occasional fuckups from the magazine and sometimes the charging handle. better than the thompson by a pretty long shot imo (the tommy gun was heavy as hell and based off of my Korea vet grandpa's stories everyone he knew that had one hated the shit out of it and would purposefully trade it for an M1). At the same time, guns like the PPS 43, Beretta M1938 series, and MP 40 were better either because of their reliability and smoother operating.

tl;dr- it worked fine.

Follow up for Mr.Durr. because we fucking could lol.
I'm not emotionally invested in the Tommy. But like, what? Basic economics. It was heavy, but it worked well. We were already cranking them out. Britistan got tired of paying for them in gold. Then invited the sten. So if ur bent little Morty cocks got something for stampies. Bow down and thank type writer Tommy. LOL the box of nerds under this British (Nigel "Mooo'oohmed" mash beans) guy

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>and sometimes the charging handle
That wonky crank. What they ended up doing for the A1 version was to delete the crank entirely, even making away with the conventional idea of a charging handle, and just cutting a big notch in the bolt which you'd grab onto with your thumb, to just push the bolt back onto the sear (together with a larger ejection port and accompanying dustcover).

Made the gun even cheaper and faster to make still, and more reliable, you wouldn't have to worry about burning your thumb, as the bolt would just not get that hot.

Attached: M3A1 Greasegun, .45ACP.jpg (2830x3563, 1.8M)

I guess the weak springs explain the slow rate of fire. Wonder if one could boost it slightly by putting in somewhat stronger springs?

>Was it good?
Yeah.
>Is a grease gun better than a Thompson in a tactical sense?
Nah.
>Are two grease guns better than a Thompson in a tactical sense?
Hell yes.

>Korea
Even the m1 carbines were worn the fuck out by then. Of course beat to shit Tommie's were trash.
>. At the same time, guns like the PPS 43, Beretta M1938 series, and MP 40 were better either because of their reliability and smoother operating.
Like what? What's your argument? After leaving the factory they were better? Or after being issued to combat troops during the 2ND ww they would have still been better? Korean era troops were rolling with used up shit. Are you implying stamped guns will hold up better than milled steel guns?

No argument that US arms during Korea were not armoured property. Are you saying that a bertta smg is better than used af Thompson?

One of the platoon sgts in medevac company I deployed with, as part of three 3rd ID avn brigade, was in desert storm. He was a fresh medic private in a mech infantry bn then.

He told war stories about the gulf war to the new privates. While we were in Iraq. One of them is about how all he had at first was a m9 pistol. While walking through a formation of tanks and other tracks, to get to his ambulance. Some sgt on an Abrams asks him if that pistol was all he had. He said yes, and so the sgt told him to hold up. He ducks into the tank and comes back out with out with a m3 and a dozen loaded mags. Tells him to take it and don't worry about returning it. So he spent the rest of desert storm with a grease gun. Then turned it onto his armorer when they got back to Germany. The armorer hearing how the medic got it. Just decides it isnt worth the trouble to properly check it in. So he just puts it on the rack. The SMG was still there in the armory 5 years later when the medic left.

sf used them in 'nam

>isnt worth the trouble to properly check it in. So he just puts it on the rack. The SMG was still there in the armory 5 years later when the medic left.
hopefully it made its way back to the states where it found a good home

this is how good it was

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>Is a grease gun better than a Thompson in a tactical sense?
>Nah.
Objectively fucking wrong

The M3a1 is an amazing SMG, easy to shoot, comfortable, it's just great

I shot one side by side with a Tommy gun and holy shit the difference was night and day. Stock on the Thompson is too low, loo long, the gun climbs and is generally shit. The M3a1 just sat there and put 45 wherever I wanted in beautiful low ROF glory.

I have a few transferable machine guns on form 4s that’s i bought from an old NFA dealer a while back. He had an M3A1 I wanted but didn’t want to get rid of it. After shooting it I completely understand. Light recoil and slow rate of fire make it super easy to keep on target.

Slight correction there. Brits wanted Tommys, as many as they could get, but manufacture could not meet both Brit, US, Chinese and others' needs at the same time after both USA and England started to build her armies in earnest. The Sten was England's solution to the shortage of Tommies. They were already made the Lanchester, a flat out and very good copy of the MP28, but manufacture of that was both too slow, too costly, and requiring scarce materials.

The UZI is even better, just get one of those

The Thompson was also very expensive, and Britain famously paid for a lot of them with gold bullion.

Uzis are great, but there's not a lot of transferable Greaseguns.

No doubt. It just wasn't the number one issue at the time.

Wiki: "The Sten emerged while Britain was engaged in the Battle of Britain, facing invasion by Germany. The army was forced to replace weapons lost during the evacuation from Dunkirk while expanding at the same time. Prior to 1941 (and even later) the British were purchasing all the Thompson submachine guns they could from the United States, but these did not meet demand. American entry into the war at the end of 1941 placed an even bigger demand on the facilities making Thompsons. In order to rapidly equip a sufficient fighting force to counter the Axis threat, the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, was commissioned to produce an alternative. "

Tank crews in desert storm were using them.

The Grease Gun is a strong contender for "best SMG fielded in WW2" alongside the PPS and the MP40. The slow cyclic ROF was actually a great boon for the weapon because it made it easily controllable. An M3 can be fired full-auto with almost no muzzle climb. Of course, part of that also comes from how heavy the gun is, but they didn't have all kinds of fancy polymers back then, so there was no way around that.

Forgetting something?

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>Realshit? Got any sources on that? I believe you, I'm just curious.
In his book, Eric Hanley says that Delta Force started out with M3 grease guns as their primary weapon, but within a year, they had purchased MP5 submachine guns to replace them most of them. A small number of grease guns were retained because .45 ACP is naturally subsonic, which is advantageous if you're using a suppressor for stealth purposes. For context, Delta was activated in 1978.

Leave it to the Germans to design weapons for paratroopers when they don’t have enough fuel to keep planes in the air

Great SMG of the cheap class.

It’s not a MP5 or Swedish K or MAT, but it wasn’t meant to be, which is consider to be the 3 best SMGs.

And those are later designs.

WW2 era I’d probably choose the Grease Gun or Sterling or Burp gun (PPS/h)

After coming to the obvious conclusion that the m3 was one of the best smgs of ww2, the best way to determine if the pps was better is to understand that while the pps43 was oviously designed for combat, the m3 excelled as a weapon fof pogs, which was actually a very common role.

The MP38 was designed in 1938. Luftwaffe had ample amounts of planes back then, and the fuel they needed to fly them. This was the period in time when all major countries were working on the paratrooper concept and many found themselves needing new types of weapons for the new type of war.

PPSH41 fucking sucks in nearly every way possible. The grease gun blows it out of the water

Having shot the 41 next to an M3a1, the M3 is better in literally every way.

The best SMG would be the Danuvia, Suomi or Beretta M1938 all are better than the stamp shits.

Heavier, shit stock, stupid grip safety, and RoF higher.

the Beretta M1938A and its subsequent variations were better than the thompson and M3 for a whole host of reasons (better double stack double feed mag, more controllable automatic fire, better accuracy, and just nicer manufactured parts), the MP-40 was better for also being a bit better made and having (in my opinion) a much nicer folding stock and the pneumatic recoil buffer which makes the thing recoil less, and the PPS 43 was better for being more reliable and cheaper to produce but still very combat effective.

The only people who say its so good only had Stens as their point of reference, nobody else used it so we're totally reliant on their narrow testimony. And Australians cant be trusted as far as you can throw them, so be your own judge.

Id vote for the Owen gun. Bonus points for being designed by an Alcoholic Strayan

The Kp/31 was very reliable, but it's heavier than an M1 rifle and expensive and time consuming to make, these are not endearing traits.

It's kind of the same problem as the Thompson, it works well, but it's too damn heavy and expensive.

>Nobody else ever used it
This is objectively false.

Yeah
Don’t let this meme die

>Netherlands, Malaysia, Indonesia
huh. Regardless, I still maintain that the sample size and quality of accounts to be unreliable and lacking objectivity. Just strikes me as a bunch of nationalist bogans in the 60s meme'd its reputation up and the historians of the time just took it and ran with it, like so much other fuddlore to come out of pre-internet firearms discourse.

There's also the fact that USMC serving alongside Australian soldiers are known to have had the chance to carry it too, though there too you run the risk of less than objective sources on a relatively obscure firearm. Gun Jesus got to tear one down recently and plans on trying to find one he can fire at some point, so that should be interesting.

Quantity is a very valuable quality. Who cares if it's the best performing submachine gun when you can only produce 1 while you can make 10 grease guns for that price.

>Approx. USD $15 (1943; equivalent to $217 in 2018)
>655,363 produced
Thompson Submachinegun for comparison
>225 USD (equivalent to $3,283 in 2018)
KP/31
>all I could quickly find is that it was "high"
>~80,000 produced
Sten
>$11
Mp40
>~$24

Why was Thompson so expensive?

And was it bad apart from the high cost?

>And was it bad apart from the high cost?
Very heavy. The thing was 10 pounds, empty. Not that the M3 was lightweight by any stretch, but it was at least manageable.

I believe tankers just got rid of using em like 10 years ago

I remember reading that Russian tankers who were given thompsons via Lend-Lease ended up hating it, just because of how un-compact the weapon was.

initial guns had a lot of weird things like finned barrels and the whole blish lock thing made out of bronze (or brass? i don't remember) and a lot of milled shit
by the time they got it down to the m1a1 version it was about three times the cost of a m3, which is probably principally because of the milling, the wood, and there's just more stuff in general

This dude really said tilt it sideways when prone for an smg with a fat stick out the bottom

Reading this and thinking of how the army today handles it’s keep on weapons makes me hhhnnngggg at the thought of an unaccounted for weapon

It was essentially a first generation SMG that got pressed into service a war later, with some exceptionally strange design choices too. It was more in use because it was the design that the US had to hand than any other reason.

Real seldom, but someone figured "Well, maybe SOMETHING could happen, they oughta have something besides their sidearms."
Then someone chimes in with "What about these old .45 subguns gathering dust? We wouldn't have to hold any trials or spend money on something new."