The WW2 Double-Magazine MP40/I
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- The MP40/I was an experimental modification of the MP-40 submachine gun developed by the Erma company (we think) in late 1942. It was presumably developed in response to complaints of Soviet fire superiority with SMGs because of their large drum magazines (and also the larger number of SMGs used by the Soviet forces compared to German units).
The concept is a pretty simple one - the regular magazine housing was replaced by a much wider housing with a sliding block that held two separate standard magazines. One of the two magazines would always be positioned where it could feed and fire, and when that magazine was empty the shooter could simply slide the block to one side and move the second (still full) magazine into position to fire. The prevented the need to fish around in a slow magazine pouch to find a new magazine when a reload was needed.
However, there were several disadvantages to the dual magazine system. For one thing, an MP-40 with two full magazines hanging off it becomes quite the heavy and poorly-balanced weapon to handle and carry. The additional open areas required for the sliding block were much more prone to gather dirt and foul than the standard gun, and the extra weight on the relatively thin receiver tube often contributed to creases or other damage to the magazine well and ejection port areas of the gun, rendering them unusable. The large amount of m metal removed from the receiver tube also left it much more vulnerable to bending than a standard MP40.
Only a small number of these guns were ever made (around the middle of 1943), and very, very few survive today. They were made form preexisting gun retrofitted, and do not appear have comprised any specific serial number block. In addition to the magazine housing, the conversion process also involved slightly shortening the ejector and reshaping the bottom of the buttplate so that it would clear the new magazine release catches.
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Life before duct tape required a whole lot of engineering.
Except there was duct tape during this time, they just didn't think to use it for more than just sealing boxes.
other tapes were available...
G Nelson That’s funny you say that because the Germans actually had a very low supply of rubber and oil they didn’t even have enough to fill their vehicles.. and there was duck taped back then the United States military used to have a ton of green ducted tape
@@JohnSmith-wo2qp well that got real dark real fast
@@JohnSmith-wo2qp Thanks, I hate that image.
Germany at war.
Army: "We have a problem."
Industry: "Alright, here is a solution."
Army: "...this did not solve my problem at all."
Industry: "Maybe, but check out the quality of the machining!"
I thought it was very stupid that the US Army did not equip their soldiers in the Korean War with German assault rifles. They were lying around en masse in Germany. The STG 44 would have been a lifesaver
@@ad220588 U forget the korean war was only 5 years after ww2.
A german weapon use after ww2 as a American solider would be a scandal.
Sry because my english.
Ich weiß nicht ob du Deutsch kannst, aber wir waren halt die besiegten. Ihr stolz war einfach nur zu groß. Gottseidank meiner Meinung nach.
Wenn sie das STG 44 kopiert hätten wäre es nichts besonderes mehr gewesen. Bsp ak47.
Und Mauser wurde ja nach dem zweiten weltkrieg aufgelöst viele gingen danach nach h&k. H&k darauf hin Verbesserte das STG 44 daraus entstand ja auch letzten Endes das g3 + mp5 und daraus das g36, welche hochangesehene Waffen sind. Die ganze Debatte dass das G36 schlecht schießen soll finde ich sowieso unsinnig.
F.B.I. So the American military would probably have been pretty painless in using German „Firepower“
@@ad220588 Nobody making spare parts and 8x33mm ammo would make that a poor idea at best. The best course of action would have been getting rid of .30 caliber supremacism, adopting Enfield's EM-2 and pressing it into service ASAP.
@@ad220588 Maybe, but a lot of Korean War vets were also WW2 vets, and i dont think theyd be thrilled being issues Nazi-made weaponry that murdered millions of their brothers in arms. Adopting an assault rifle at that point may have been a good idea though.
They call it
*MP80*
😂💕 lol best one yet.
Sheeet. Mp64....😑🙄
uranus is mine no
a squad carrying these is called an mp320
XenuVelo QUICK HANS CALL IN THE 320th
Leave it to the Germans to over-engineer an alternative to duct-taping a couple of mags together...
That's exactly what I was thinking.
@@FirstnameLastname-py3bc At least we don't vote Trump!
Classic German design
Back then duck tape existed?
Nothing about this is over-engineered - this is a totally simple and trivial implementation, with clear benefits over taping 2 mags together.
These old guns were so much more creative and quirky than modern firearms. Forgotten Weapons 2050 gonna be like, "I'm Ian, here's another AR-pistol from 2019."
There are many interesting firearms out there nowadays, but they all get drowned in yet another AR-15 ripoff.
Ian jr.
@@Ruhrpottpatriot Future Ian will probably review guns like the Hudson pistol or the the SilencerCo Maxim 9.
@@AldanFerrox Yeah probably. Tbh. I think that the second amendment in the US is destroying gun culture. If availability were lower, prices would be higher and good developers could actually do stuff instead of pumping out yet another AR clone because the system is dirt cheap.
There's a few places that run classy "cowboy" gun comps and the only guns allowed are limited to a certain range of velocities to bring them down to 1800's levels of effectiveness.
So you see a lot of people hand loading rounds for single actions, and modifying parts and purchasing different rifling to meet different accuracy standards from over a hundred years ago.
Just as well, a limited culture doesn't necessarily mean more interesting designs. We live in the age of plateaued design, and information. There are loads of nations where the populace doesn't have any real gun rights and the last weapon produced that could be considered unique is just another bullpup with the parts in different places or an amalgalm of different pre-existing designs.
Problem: SMGs need more ammo per.
Russians: Tapes two mags together.
Americans: Issues more SMGs.
Brits: Makes mags cheaper/gun fire slower.
Germans: Builds this
The Russians just built more subguns to give to the human wave troops. The American pretty much stayed with what was had. The Germans? The designed an entirely new class of firearm to largely replace the subgun.
japanese: put bajonettes on SMGs
@@scumroyalsgaming I am pretty sure the japanese during wwii would have added a bayonet to anything including a grenade if they could
"Germans could have won WW2 with just this 1 trick!"
Charles Adams the Russians built the best sub gun during the war, no need to switch things up
Always interesting to hear about weapons used by Pixelated Germany.
Well if people see a swaztika they'll explode
Oh wait nothing will happen
Yeah I caught that and it pissed me off. Its part of history people.
@@lancekilkenny721 but history will trigger emotionally weak snowflakes though...🙄
Yeah the graphics weren't as advanced back then so everything looked like that.
Everyone else: it is over-engineered.
Germans: how do you mean OVER engineered?
Germans: we like to call it ÜBER engineerd
It is under-engineered. They modified the lower part of the gun... ok, I'll see myself out.
If as Ian suggests there is a genuine risk of bending at the mag well then it is under engineered, just over designed.
darko djogo - Everybody but the Swiss. To them that is minimalistic.
@ yup, for CH it"s rude, crude and underengineered, pure improvisation.
Gee MP-40, how come your army lets you have 2 magazines?
MP-40 magazines are straight, never curved! Always separated, never in drums!
Connor McLernon Duct tape is not avievible to germans in ww2
Erma Engineer: "I was going to go about designing a usable drum magazine for the MP40, but then the panzershockolade kicked in..."
i can't believe they actually named meth as tank chocolate. and i thought schokakola was strong stuff.
Der stukapillen
Blitzchokolade
@@grahamlopez6202
It's "die" in Plural, always. "Pille" just so happens to require it in singular as well (and for compound nouns the gender always is that of the last word).
@@klobiforpresident2254 plural? What, do you think I'm a man MADE of amphetamines?! You get one.
"You should try double-feed magazines, they're much more user-friendly"
"Double magazine it is then"
"Close enough"
A bigger or a drum magazine would have solved the problem.
My brain: “why not make it double-barrelled while we’re at it?”
That would be bad ass! I want one of those double barrel ARs! 😀
Josh Glover lol, mp 40 is an smg
@@nicholasholloway8743 Yes I understand that. I was talking about 2 different things.
Josh Glover
We’re talking about SMGs
There is a double barreled AK-47. It is glorious
Red Orchestra 2 upgrade
Now if they could just upgrade the entire game to be as good as 1...
Oh I didn't remember wrong so, very nice
@@Antigonus. I got plenty of downvotes on Steam by saying RO 1 was superior to RO 2. RO 2 came out with so many corridor shooting-like maps. Tanks don't really play much of a role in combined arms combat. Damn shame :/
Your comment beat me to it hahaha
@@Antigonus. my only 2 issues with 1 were how slow you are and how it felt sluggish. RO2 should have had usable Paks and Panzerfausts like its predecessor.
World at War MP40 dual mag 😳
I can respect the hell out of Treyarch for actually putting research into this
Red Orchestra 2 were first, one of THE BEST WW2 games I've ever played.
PTSD simulator 2 would be a more appropriate name.
too bad it doesn't work like it would in real life. you'd have a slight delay after 32 to swap to the next mag and have a longer reload at the end. still cool that they actually modelled it correctly tho
Russia * has drum mags *
Germany: "we need more ammo!"
Mad scientist: "WHAT IF WE PUT 2 MAGS TOGETHER!"
Germany: *"we'll take it!"*
"You know those MP40s that are like, double MP40s, you know?"
It was too early to manufacture a triple or quad-staked magazine.
@@alvaroasi too early or too ambitious?
i cannot see that swapping mags as normal takes anymore time than this complicated maneuver!as many here have said taping two together was just as effective! instead of all this engineering to no real purpose it never occured to them to make a double feed magazine.
@@mikekemp9877 I don't either, I just said this as a joke because they literally had numerous options to go with: drum mags of various sizes, extended clips (to an extent), mags taped together or an impractical contraption that adds complexity that isn't needed. Despite the flaws & drawbacks you'd think a drum mag would have been the 1st choice after all the ppsh had one & German engendering was surely able to make a relatively reliable drum mag so this contraption seems completely unnecessary but it would make for a unique attachment for a WW2 shooter game like battlefield or Call of Duty
“Hey fam we need more ammo per MP40”
“Maybe a drum mag?”
*exec ripping a line of coke* “Fuck it let’s just add another magazine”
"A video game thing"
How dare you attack me so personally....
...
Red orchestra 2 was awesome.
TherealTenman ‘83 is gonna kick ass
Red Orchestra 2 is still awesome.
"It's a great sort of video game thing," said Ian, as I booted up Red Orchestra 2 to play with the MP40/I
And who says the Germans don't have a sense of humor?
"HANZ! I hav run out of ze ammo!"
"Slide ze magazine Franz."
"Oh ja, I'm guud now."
Had the US Army used STG 44 assault rifles from Hanz during the Korean War, then Joe would have survived the war there. ;)
“Frahkensteen” is a joke on so many levels here
Liked the Young Frankenstein reference
Not really ... It's only on one level... A reference to the movie Young Frankenstein...
@@KenMabie and the whole stain/stein dillema, like Berenstain/Berenstein bears
@@KenMabie Well that 'steen' is how you would expect it to be pronounced as a Jewish-American name... in reference to a Nazi German gun lmao
Ken Mabie
Abby Normal?!?
Hmm, played redorchestra for a long time and second mag was 90% always used in intense moments as a backup.
Yep, when you have time you can just reload one of them. That's not the point tho, I guess added weight and clumsiness are more important
Yeah this seems kind of like a magazine cutoff semi-solution similar to how bolt-actions were used before. Then as a backup you had the second one already loaded in the gun.
I love how Ian now says "PePeSha" like a true Russian :o]
Well, that’s not exactly true. There’s no such vowel as “Э” in English alphabet, which is kinda deep “E” from the word “ten”, so it still doesn’t sound exactly right 😁 We pronounce it as PэРэSha lol.
@@yanot80 Знаю, но всё же звучит гораздо ближе к оригиналу, чем ПиПиэСэйч :о]
@@leshatcatski5089 ну да, тут соглы.
@@yanot80 in German we have ä which is the same
Does it come free with the juggernaut perk?
Engineers: "What do you need to be more effective on the battlefield?"
Soldiers around the world, through history of mankind regardless of nationality and borders: "MOAR DAKKA!"
When the next match is on Dome
But the PPSh is better
add stopping power and victory is assured
@@justinkrieger1559 Real SS Honor Guards use Double Tap
Wehrmacht: How heavy will these new smgs be?
(Probably) Erma: Yes
SJOAK 408 underrated comment
When you take a second to think about it, these firearms from WW2 that are still so contemporary in our minds and in some cases like this one, looking brand new, are actuallly almost 80 years old. Of all the way tech, small arms are the ones that never saw that super fast paced evolution, unlike vehicles, aircrafts, comms, armour, optics, etc. It's amazing.
Seems like making a drum mag for the MP40 would have been a much easier solution
They had snail magazine but there was a problem.
Or, you know, duct tape.
Drum mags generally are less reliable, you won't see much use of them in the real world.
Or just copy the Lanchesters' 50 round stick mag, problem is do the Germans even know that exists and happen to steal enough copies of it to be... Well, copied?
@@mandernachluca3774 They're pretty good, if built by Finns.
Oh dear god this thing.
We need more ammo per reload on our smg’s.
Everybody else: drum mags or longer stick mags
Germans: but what if we massively over engineer this instead...
IMO, this is under-engineered. If they would've made some funky bolt that would intermittently take a bullet out of two magazines, then this would've been fantastic. None of the problems with drum magazines, nor the issues with massively long stick mags.
This looks like the manufacturer didn't want to waste the time of any of their engineers, so they asked the janitor to just throw something together.
@@jakobholgersson4400 It's over engineered because this entire system boils down to having two mags that you switch between and it's much easier to either tape or clip two mags together.
D U C T T A P E
Damn I’ve seen this before on Call of Duty world at war, was a beast
I've never met the MP-40/I in w@w
...though in game it was treated just as a large 64 round mag, not 2 32 round mags. You reload after firing 64 rounds, not 32, swap to the other mag and continue firing, and then reload both. Shame, would be a way to nerf it in multiplayer.
@Eye Patch Guy oh. Ok
WaW MP40 gang where y’all at?
Not actually WAW but Medal of Honor Airborne player reporting in, got my ceremonial bayonets ready
I am german its my gang
In jail where yall belong
I was more of a type 100 guy
@@AtrociousAK47 Why use that when rifle is fine? *Cradles bayoneted Arisaka*
I remember learning about this variant while in middle school… I had more free time then I needed
Where did you go to school? A military school?
Than*. That's why you had so much free time.
mortimer snerd Ian V. Hogg’s book?
george spear The C. B. Colby books? I loved those.
Engineers: We made it so you can remove the mag housing from the gun.
Germans: Why one would do this?
Engineers: I don't know.
- A few years later -
Germans: We need larger mags in our SMG
Engineers: Hold my bier
Reloading the empty magazine after sliding in the new one is effectively just using one magazine.
Unless you have an assistant gunner... 🤔
The extra mag would only be used in an emergency. You'd still load after every 32 shots.
I love these videos about obscure historical weapons and weapons systems.
Ah yes the best weapon in World at War
No matter your opinion on the concept, you have to admit that is a beautiful steampunk looking creation.
The colours of the metal, the grooves and curves. It just looks like it's from Bioshock or some fan art.
One day ill have the disposable income to be able to afford something this cool and rare. Till then, I continue to live vicariously through Ian's videos.
More bang for your buck, literally.
"The Germans thought the Soviets had better SMGs, the Soviets though the Germans had better SMGs."
Fellas, we can reach an agreement: the Finnish had the best SMGs
Finns and Italians led the game imo. The Beretta Model 38 is underrated, as is the Suomi.
@@thetomatoking9714 Spaghetti Uzis are the best SMGs
This system came to mind (not saying it'd make sense, but I thought of it) when I saw that the G11 stored multiple magazines parallel to each other.
The G11 is the holy grail of all prototype weapons. It has a similar magazine storage system but, the MP40 stores them vertically and you can hold only one extra magazine rather then two. But, it is similar enough where it could’ve been inspiration for the G11K2.
I'm interested to see how much this fetches at the end.
1. It's a German WW2 weapon
2. A German WW2 experimental weapon
3. It's an NFA transferable MG
"a few millimeters" ... I think Ian is turning metric.
Welcome aboard!
ah he is coming out. as metric
Well it's good to see an american embracing the metric system further than the 9mm
Why didn’t they just quad stack and lengthen the magazines?
you're talking about german engineers. that would be too crude
In my readings on German tanks of WWII there was mention of using the radio operator’s MP 40 through a small opening in the glacis plate. The first versions did not have a ‘proper’ ball mount for a MG34. This might of been useful for that gunner. The advantage would be the use of standard magazines instead of a unique one. If the bow gunner/radio operator had to dismount, he could use his MP40 with one magazine just like any other soldier. The ridge of metal under the barrel was there to prevent the gun recoiling back into the tank(really bad things would happen then) when fired through the opening in the armor. All my armor books are still packed so I can’t verify this or which model of the Panther tank needed this. All later versions of the tank had a proper ball mount and MG34.
2:38 Fun Fact: The German Pronunciation of the "stein" in Frankenstein actually more closely resembles the first (English) version than the second version. Also your pronunciation of "Franken", was almost correct, good job.
Heck yes! Been wanting to see more on this gun since I got into machine guns!
Drum mag: "Am I a joke to you?"
Awesome video - nicely done and thank you!
I'd love to see a mag change on the clock vs a standard mp40. I kind of doubt this saved much if any time. Especially if you continue the timer to a third magazine.
You'd only use the extra mag when needed. You'd still reload after 32 shots.
What about taking 4 slides, and 8 magazines? Put 3 slides in an open pouch, shoot Nr 1 and 2, pull slide out off gun, grab new slide out off pouch and insert. Ready.
Indeed, as i always do enjoy a good bit of insight and knowledge!
The sweeds built a quad stack magazine for their m/37 Suomi smgs.
Thank you , Ian .
I immediately thought of the crate in A Christmas Story: “Frageelee”
It's a major award and must mean Italian!
Very cool video. Thanks for showing this rare gun. There are not many existing examples left. In the U.S. probably less than six examples.
I was literally just thinking the other day about when you would have this on the channel and lo and behold
Actually Ian on the subject of making the SMG heavier. I've read that contrary to how video games portray them, PPSH41s were rarely issued with 71 drums because the drums made the gun very heavy and were prone to jamming. What I read is that Soviet shock troops would go into battle with a fully loaded PPSH drum but after that jammed or ran out they would switch to 35 round stick mags for the rest of the battle.
It’s my taste in silly guns like these why I will probably die with $.05 in my account and a $5 million dollar collection.
If the part that slides in the magazine assembly is relatively cheap to manufacture, you could conceivably have 2-3 of those, each with 2 magazines already inserted, in the soldier's webbing. Then, you can reload two magazines at once, since its evidently easy to remove that part.
As a soldier, I would appreciate the fact that I can switch to the 2nd mag, then replace the empty one when Im able, without ever having to put the weapon in a vulnerable state. Vs just have a 70 round drum mag.
Ian in first minute of fiddling with it shows that the sliding block is easier to fully remove from gun by accident than align it to the other mag, missed opportunity in just designing the dust cover to protect full and empty mags instead of making it so you just take off the whole assembly with magazines in the bracket and just slap a new double mag on. or better yet, make it a crew served smg where when you feed a new mag on slide bar from left side, the empty magazine on right is ejected.
0:54 Yet, as we all know, the Italians had the best submachine gun in the Beretta 38A.
I really like the idea of being able to have a full magazine ready in case as you reload the other
Hi Ian, you showcased this (or) a similar one years ago. My question is: Is this MP40 config "common" or a sort of prototype stage of a MP40 that never was?
Mike Drölf I pretty sure he did, I was thinking the same thing
I explain the repeat at the end of the video. These are extremely rare.
Deja-Vu someone? i think i saw this same video the last year....
Me too
yeah, a revisit to the "MP80"; this is a different specimen found in the wild.
That gun was not original; this one is and has several different details as a result.
@@ForgottenWeapons Thanks you for the answer Ian! Cheers from Panamá!
Always feels like seeing a ghost whenever I see those little eagle stamps. spooky history
That's rare, an advert Ian's video!!
Ridiculously complex and heavy solution to a problem that can be redeemed with a simple drum mag.
I caught the Mel Brooks hint Ian! Bravo
This would be much better if you had multiple double magazines. No disadvantage of every other reload being much slower.
I'm surprised they didn't try to come up with a way for the mags to slide themselves over
The chipmunk amongst the MP40s ;)
Girls locker room : Ew my hair is so bad today!
Boys looker room : *Talking about how to defend norway and what weapon to use*
The first thing I thought when you took out the dual magazine 'well', was 'Huh, that large round piece that's left would be a great housing for a drum mag.' I suppose that at that point of the war, they weren't looking to develop yet another complicated accessory in their manufacturing process and logistical chain, but something like a scaled down version of the 'saddle' drum of the MG34 with only one drum might have been interesting, even if only developed for 'close assault troops'.
Didnt you cover this before...?
E: ah yep.
Which I explain at the end of the video.
I can imagine them carrying spare mag.s as they did for the single mag. setup, and I can see them carrying this one with 1 or 2 mag;s in it. ..... and when needed add the other mag. to have more fire power available if they needed it.
And when the 2 are empty take 1 or 2 full mag.s from your pouch and reload as needed.
my (german) Mind went immediately to how you can improve this and make a sort of "addon" Mag holder piece with a spacer inbetween, that keeps 2 mags together at the perfect distance, so you can still use the normal mp40 magazines and reload them the same way by taking them out and putting another double stack back in again
basicaly reload 2 mags at the same time
edit: maybe even with a latch, that can be used to press both mag release buttons at the same time
Redi mag for the AR made something that sounds like that.
You dont have too. Just take slide with the two empty mags out and put another slide with two full mags in.
@@Scoobz187 i know, but that's not overengeneered enough
Neat design, I wonder why nobody else tried it, especially on a modern gun.
This is both impressively ingenious, and hilariously terrible.
Awesome find!
They should have made a drum magazine.
Dropit I was gonna say MP-41 but..no. No they didn’t.
It's such a German thing to look at an issue like this and decide that modifying the gun with some weird contraption was a better idea than just designing a larger mag, or even a drum mag.
I love the Young Frankenstein reference...as my handle would indicate.
And two years later this is the primary weapon of the premium assaulter german squad for Berlin Campaign in Enlisted.
You might has well of taped 2 magazines together
1. too simple to be German :D
2. did Germany actually have duct-tape in WW2?
PitchBlackYeti how could I forget it must be an over engineered solution lol
Quite interesting weapon. So much work went into it, not just someone welded a other mag holder to the gun, they even made a slider for easier switch. So awesome, but they could have use it. I held a empty ppsh once and it was damn heavy. But I get it, ppsh was for spraying, while mp-40 was more accurate, so why throw that away
When you can’t afford MG 42
Interchangeable magazines? If not then gutted. I definitely think reloading the empty while the loaded is in place is where this becomes an awesome advantage, means there's never a moment your gun is unable to fire.
Im so early, the Germans still have a chance at winning World War II
Nice
Which means never?
@@thehikerboy1 yup
Love this...that said...in combat don't need added stress of unreliable magazines and weapon fracturing, sh...t....
It’s “Frankensteeen!”
Rex Law “I beg your pardon?”
“My name it is pronounced Fra-kin-steen.”
German: More magazine capacity!
Gunsmith: Okay, okay, I got you.
*makes this*
German: TOO HEAVY!
Gunsmith: _REALLY!_
Russians: My SMG has more ammunition than yours!
Germans: It's not the magazine size that counts, but how you use it
Also Germans:
Americans: screw it tape two mags together
It seems like the more practical solution from a handling/operational perspective (to me, anyway), would have been a slightly wider magwell to accommodate a double stack/feed setup and one of those 4x wide mags that are basically two double stacks feeding into a single double stack for feeding, I forget if those have a more 'technical' term. That way you've got roughly double the ammo on-tap without this funky magazine swapping... thing.
That said, I'm no engineer, so perhaps there's complications there I'm not aware of.
You have alredy review this gun about 3 years ago
Which I explain at the end of the video.
@@ForgottenWeapons shooting it?
Extremely cool
Why didn't they just make a drum mag?
Because Germany
You don't see many drum mags in the real world sadly. They're much less reliable than stick mags, far costlier to produce, take longer to 'bomb up, are harder to store in traditional webbing and are far more complex leading to more things that can break
I think if there was ever doctrine produced for this, you'd basically keep a reserve magazine for emergencies and otherwise operate and load it one at a time like a regular MP40.
Faster than reloading, fast switch for magazines, and when you have a malfunction with a drum mag (they could use instead) easy to solve just change mag row.
I like this.