"TOMMY" GUNS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 180, 1 August 1941, Page 5

"TOMMY" GUNS

TROOPS LEARN USE:| i . I "DEADLIEST WEAPON"' , i i ■■ I INSTRUCTIONAL COURSE ! I j J The Thompson sub-machine gun, , claimed to be. for its weight, the ; ideadliest weapon ever devised byj! ;man, is now being used for instruc-' jtional purposes at Xgaruawahia' I training camp. j; A special course of instruction in\ ■■the use of the gur. is to begin at the 1 Northern Military District School o(<\ 'instruction, Narrow Neck, on Mon- I; :day. The guns were seen in public! ;in Auckland for the first time on ! Friday last, when an infantry plajtoon carried the weapons in the [patriotic appeal procession. It is •also being used at the Burnham jmobihsation camp near C'hrisichurch. ! Weighing only JOilb. the "tommy" gun is small and compact, easy '•<■> carry, quick to sight, and has terrific shocking power at a range under jGOO yards. Ii is the mo>t effective iassault weapon of modern warfare. The "tommy" gun was the chief , weapon of the Nazi parachutists in ;their landings on Crete, and was, [used by the Germans in Belgium ' 1 France, Norway and Greece. ; Their main advantage is that they'. , give individual soldier., great fire j power without reducing their ir.obil- ( iity, and are extremely effective in street fighting, .such as'occurs in dis- 1 [lodging an enemy from a village. Firetl From Waist. j The gun is usually fired from the ; I waist, and does not need to be accu- • rately sighted for use at close ranee. It can fire sincle shots or in burst; a? the rate of 700 to 000 rounds a iminute. At long range, up to about j 600 yards, it is still effective if skil- < fully sighted. The crun i- fifed r> -.■>■. nn aperture sight fur thi.-■ l> pc «.•:

It is an American invention, tak-. jing its name from the Thompson Automatic Gun Company, and was first used by United States police in their war against gangsters. Later the gangsters acquired "tommy" guns, and used them in their battlef among themselves and also with th| ; authorities. It was the favourite weapon of Al Capone and his followers. They called it "the,chopper." because it literally chopped its victims with its high rate of fire. Others in America's spectacular underworld who used ( ithe gun were John Dillinger and, !•Killer" Burke. ] Many Advantages. |1 In ordinary infantry work it has ' been found that a rifle has not a T sufficiently high rate of fire for effec- ( tive use in viiids and on patrols, and. ■ jwhile a light automatic such as the , Bren gun can be used, it is heavy i where much crawling has to be ({one janu may v>e too siow in coming into ; !action. A "tommy" gun. however.' (weighing only 1011b. overcome^': ;those disadvantages, and can be , 'brought into action almost as quickly ' 'as a pistol. j In dry weather its incendiary hul- : lets drive the enemy out of hi- : flaming cover into the open, where i he can quickly be mopped v.p by i machincsrf;un fire. Perhaps its main ' quality iS the elemr-m of .-urpri-e ii ' create.--, and us effect on iv.uralc i-■ dead!>".