Who designed the German MP- 18I submachine gun?

19 16, Bergman Arsenal submitted their latest plan to the German Gun Inspection Committee-a real free-bolt submachine gun. Its first model is MP- 18I submachine gun, and 19 18 was tested at the beginning of this year. In the summer of the same year, after a series of optimized designs, it was named MP- 18I submachine gun, which was officially installed in the German army. The parts of the gun are processed separately in many factories and finally assembled by Bergman Arsenal, so the gun is also called Bergman submachine gun.

The chief designer of the gun is Hugo Simaeys, who worked hard for the gun.

The MP- 18I submachine gun was installed in the summer of 19 18, and was distributed by the German frontline troops at the end of World War I.

The MP- 18I submachine gun has only five parts, namely bolt assembly, gun body assembly, magazine assembly, gun stock assembly and barrel assembly. If MP- 18I submachine gun has only 37 parts without screws, the gun adopts the principle of automatic mechanism of free gun and can only be fired repeatedly. The bolt mass is 650g, which is beneficial to saving the processing cost and reducing the firing rate. In the process of pushing the bolt into the bore, the elastic hook separates the primer from the needle to prevent the failure of premature ignition. After the projectile is in place, the shell hook hooks the bottom edge of the projectile.

Although the processing of this gun is somewhat complicated compared with the riveting and welding processes popular during World War II, its manufacturing process has reached a very advanced level at that time. MP- 18I submachine gun is very simple in structure compared with Ruger automatic pistol, Italian Wille Palosha submachine gun and Mao Se M 19 17 semi-automatic carbine, except for the stock and trigger seat. The most complicated part of the whole gun is the magazine and barrel. If these two parts are provided in advance, a skilled gunner can make an MP- 18I submachine gun in one day.

MP- 18I submachine gun is the first submachine gun in the world which adopts the principle of free gun automatic, and its design simplifies the production process. The MP- 18I submachine gun is also the first submachine gun in the world with pre-impact firing mode. This principle was further improved by Becker in Germany and successfully applied to 20 mm artillery.

The principle of MP- 18I submachine gun to realize frontal impact firing is simple and its structure is not complicated. Its bore is several thousandths of an inch shorter than that of a 9mm Barabem pistol, and the firing pin fires the primer before the front end face of the bolt hits the rear end face of the bore. At this time, the cartridge case began to recoil under the action of gunpowder gas, which partially offset the kinetic energy of the bolt forward, reduced the forward speed of the bolt, and reduced the impact of the bolt on the tail end surface of the bore. In addition, the residual kinetic energy of the forward movement of the bolt effectively prevents the muzzle from jumping up.

From the analysis of the whole action process, the firing principle of MP- 18I submachine gun makes the automatic cycle process more stable and effectively improves the shooting accuracy. At the same time, the recoil of the shell can offset part of the forward kinetic energy of the bolt, so the weight of the bolt can be appropriately reduced, which is helpful to the weight reduction of the whole gun.

Almost no submachine gun in the world has a simpler firing mechanism than MP- 18I submachine gun. When the trigger is pulled, the firing resistance iron directly moves downward for a short distance under the action of the trigger, and the bolt is loosened, so that continuous firing is started until the trigger is loosened, and the firing resistance iron is reset under the action of the iron resistance spring to hang the bolt. The drawing handle is clamped in the drawing handle groove of the bolt machine and integrated with the bolt machine after assembly.

In the process of shooting, the gun moves back and forth with the bolt. Because the bolt of MP- 18I submachine gun is cylindrical, in the process of automatic circulation, the handle always moves along the handle groove on the shell, so the handle also plays the role of radial positioning of the bolt, and the handle groove can also discharge the sundries falling into the gun. This design is applied to many guns, such as MP-28, MP-4 1, Lanchester submachine gun and so on.

In order to speed up the production of MP- 18I submachine gun, the German Firearms Inspection Commission asked Hugo Simes to use the existing P08 spiral drum. There is also a saying that the German Firearms Inspection Commission also asked Hugo Simes to use the Lugar P08 pistol with 203mm barrel, but this is not the case. The barrel of 203mm pistol is not suitable for MP- 18I submachine gun because their radial dimensions are inconsistent.

Nevertheless, the manufacturing process manual of 203mm barrel of MP- 18I submachine gun and P08 gun shows that their manufacturing processes are very similar from beginning to end. Therefore, we can only say that the processing of MP- 18I submachine gun barrel at that time was based on the tooling equipment used to produce P08 pistol barrel. We can get a glimpse of the following data:

The maximum barrel diameter of 1 and P08 is 22mm, and the maximum barrel diameter of MP- 18I submachine gun is 2 1.7mm, which is only 0.3mm smaller than the former.

2. The distance from the rear end face of the barrel shoulder of 2.P08 to the tail end of the barrel is 18.9mm, and the corresponding size of MP- 18I submachine gun is18.4 mm. ..

These data are very close, but generally speaking, the size of MP- 18I submachine gun is slightly smaller than that of P08 pistol, and the other parts of them are not interchangeable.

3. The barrel of 3.P08 pistol is screwed with the shell, and the MP- 18I submachine gun is interference fit. Judging from the maximum diameter of the connecting part between them, the diameter of MP- 18I submachine gun is only larger than that of P08 pistol1.1mm. It can be explained that the dimensions of the threaded part of P08 pistol barrel before machining are exactly the same as those of MP- 18I submachine gun.

4. The quasi-constellation of the barrel of the ordinary Luger pistol is integrated with the whole barrel, the distance from the muzzle is 17.5mm, and the radial dimension of the quasi-constellation is 14.7mm, which is slightly larger than the maximum diameter of the conical part of the barrel. There is no sight on the barrel of MP- 18I submachine gun, and its sight is installed on the radiator cover. The size of the boss at the front end of the barrel is 4.3mm larger than that of the ordinary Luger barrel. It has two functions: first, it acts as a retaining ring to prevent the barrel from moving forward; Second, as the center positioning, ensure the coaxial assembly of the cylinder and the heat dissipation cover.

5.MP- 18I submachine gun and P08 pistol are symmetrically distributed on the circumference of 180, which is also one of the evidences to prove that they come from the same production line.

6. The maximum diameter of barrel taper of 6.P08 pistol is 16.3mm, and the minimum diameter is 13.5mm, which is exactly the same as that of MP- 18I submachine gun.

The MP- 18I submachine gun is highly reliable, simple to make, good in service, economical and practical ... People who have used it are full of praise for the MP- 18I submachine gun, and what they praise does not include the P08 snail drum that was forced to use by the German Firearms Inspection Commission.

Hugo Simais designed the world's first double-row single-entry magazine and applied for a patent. This magazine can hold 20 9mm Ballaben pistols. Hugo Simes tried to use this magazine on MP- 18I submachine gun, but the German Firearms Inspection Committee asked Hugo Simes to equip MP- 18I submachine gun with P08 spiral drum with a capacity of 32 rounds.

The purpose of this decision is to make up for the shortage of ammunition capacity of MP- 18I submachine gun, but another problem is that MP- 18I submachine gun equipped with P08 spiral drum is not conducive to the long-range attack of troops. The spiral drum of P08 pistol is fragile, easy to destroy, expensive and complicated to manufacture. The production relies too much on manual trimming and needs tools for loading. What is even more paradoxical is that it is also a product of Lushengge Company, and its magazine with 8 rounds of ammunition capacity cannot be loaded with MP- 18I submachine gun in an emergency due to the protrusion on the magazine ... which has many shortcomings.

Although Hugo Simes's double-row single-entry magazine is not as good as his father's, in view of the bureaucracy of the German Firearms Inspection Commission, it is required that the MP- 18I submachine gun must adopt Luger's P08 spiral drum, and the angle between the barrel axis and the magazine slot axis must be designed to be the same as that of the P08 pistol.

The more serious problem is that the ammunition supply port of MP- 18I submachine gun is located on the left side of the gun body. Therefore, after inserting the spiral drum of P08 pistol, the center of mass of the gun body moves to the left seriously, and the consequences can be imagined. In order to reduce the weight of the gun, balance the center of mass and shorten the length of the gun body, Hugo Simes requires that the interface between the bullet and the drum must be equipped with a strengthening sleeve. Because if there is no reinforcing sleeve, the roller will lose its positioning point in the normal feeding position, and then it will be inserted into the gun too deeply, and the gun will not work.

The MP- 18I submachine gun is simple in design and easy to maintain on the battlefield. The first step of its decomposition is the same as all firearms: check whether there are bullets in the chamber. After confirming that there is no bullet in the chamber, push the bolt to the front position, and press the buckle at the end of the shell with your thumb to open the shell. This action process is similar to operating a single-shot loaded shotgun. Turn the box cover by 1/8 turns, then take off the box cover, take out the recoil spring, and pull back the handle to take out the bolt. Then, pull the striker out of the bolt. The combination action is to do the decomposition action backwards.

When the bolt is put into the case, you should pull the trigger to prevent the iron piece from falling and make way for the bolt, so as to install the bolt smoothly. The process of unloading barrels is not complicated. First, remove the sight with a wooden hammer and a punch, and then screw out the heat dissipation cover and remove the barrel. During barrel loading, it must be noted that the barrel loading slope must be aligned with the barrel loading position, and the distribution of the shell-lifting hook groove and the shell-throwing frame is 180, so as to ensure that the shell-lifting hook can smoothly enter the shell-lifting hook groove when the bolt is in the front position after barrel loading.

The MP- 18I submachine gun has low firing rate and is easy to control long-range firing, but it does not have single-shot function. Generally speaking, the MP- 18I submachine gun can shoot at least three bullets at a time when pulling the trigger. This shows that the iron spring force of MP- 18I submachine gun is too weak to return iron in the time interval between two bullets.

The butt of MP- 18I submachine gun is a little short for people of medium height. The shooter's eyes were too close to the door when aiming at his cheek. The gun adopts a narrow V-shaped notch door, and the sight is a wide trapezoid. Although it is beneficial to capture the fast-moving target in the vicinity, it is not enough to aim at the small target in the distance.

Generally speaking, the safety of MP- 18I submachine gun is still relatively high. When pulling the bolt to the rear position, turn the bolt handle clockwise to make it catch in the safety groove of the box cover. At this time, even if the handle of the lock tongue bumps out of the safety groove under the action of external force, the lock tongue will jam the lock tongue, so that the lock tongue cannot re-enter.

However, MP- 18I submachine gun, like other submachine guns with similar designs, has an insurmountable disadvantage, that is, it cannot guarantee the safety of the gun in the closed chamber position and when the cartridge is inserted in place (the weapon is in the closed chamber state, so as to avoid debris from entering the gun through the shell throwing window). In this state, once an external force hits the butt of the gun, even if the soldier crosses the trench, it may go off.

This is because in the process of impact, the gun will recoil under the action of inertia, cross the bullet into the position, but not reach the iron block position, and then re-enter and fire. After realizing this danger, the MP- 18I submachine guns after World War I were all equipped with insurance mechanisms to lock the bolt in a closed barrel.

Although the overall structure of MP- 18I submachine gun is very simple, the designer's needle design is the icing on the cake. The firing pin of MP- 18I submachine gun is a separate part. After being assembled with the bolt, its tail end is connected with the compound spring, so that the striker always extends from the front end of the bolt under the pressure of the compound spring. From the actual effect, this design is no different from the traditional needle positioning, but the means of realization is much more complicated. Later, in the improvement of MP- 18I submachine gun, the firing pin was changed to a fixed type, and the tail end of the gun was directly connected with the compound spring.

There are various speculations about the output of MP- 18I submachine guns in Germany during World War I, and the number varies greatly, ranging from 3,000 to 35,000. From a scientific point of view, the serial number on the MP- 18I submachine gun during World War I should be a reliable basis.

Judging from the preserved MP- 18I submachine guns, the serial numbers on the guns are basically distributed between 50 and 3000, indicating that the output of MP- 18I submachine guns at that time should be around 3000.

Regardless of the specific quantity, those MP- 18I submachine guns distributed to special training teams played an important role. At the same time, some of them were assigned to soldiers who were responsible for guarding trenches, and these soldiers were better at shooting at each other with Maxim machine guns in bunkers, and MP- 18I submachine guns could not play their due role in their hands. Therefore, a considerable part of the 3000 MP- 18I submachine guns put into battle were wasted.