PPsh-41

[Ed and Tammy]

Thompsons- In American Thunder II,The military Thompson submachine guns, author Frank Iannamico states on page 150, "A classified government document entitled Defense Aid dated 1942, revealed that...(info on Brit lend lease)...Russia was sent 137,768 Lend Lease Thompsons" "An additional 34,800 Thompsons were shipped as armament in combat vehicles" (My note- not broken down by country, so, only a fraction of the 34,800 went to Russia w/ lend lease vehicles). On page 307, he quotes Lt. Col. V.H. Krulak's comments to the ordnance committee in 1943- ...(Criticisms of Thompsons)..."I know the Russians like it, but, I believe they just don't know any better." Lastly, the pristine late type Thompson 1928A1 kits now on the market are coming out of Russia. I think a safe estimate is that Russia received at least 150,000 Thompsons in WWII (Plus some Reisings also. If anyone is interested, I'll try to find those figures.) All that being said, I have a semi-auto Thompson which I use when I reenact US, and I really enjoy it, but I just feel that it's totally inappropriate for a Soviet impression. Consider the size of the Red Army. 150,000 is a tiny fraction of a percent. PPSH 41-Small Arms review Vol.11, No.2, Nov. 2007-"Captured PPsh41 submachine guns were issued to German troops and their allies as the MP717(r) in its original chambering of 7.62x25. A bit later...a 9mm conversion was developed for the PPsh by the Germans. The nomenclature for this version was MP41(r)." (not to be confused with the German MP41). The coversion unit consisted of a 9mm barrel, and a mag well adapter. It used standard MP40 mags. Based on this info., a German with a PPsh41 is apparently not that unusual, if enough captured weapons existed for them to bother with a conversion kit and official nomenclature. The kits are available from InterOrdnance. A German with an MP41 (r) would be a unique and historically correct impression. (At least in my opinion, though, this should probably be confined to Eastern Front events.)