MP 40

The MP 40, short for Maschinenpistole 40, is a German submachine gun chambered for the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge. It was designed in 1938 by Heinrich Vollmer, drawing on the earlier MP 38, and Erma Werke produced an estimated 1.1 million of them between 1940 and 1945. Infantry squad and platoon leaders, paratroopers and the crews of armoured fighting vehicles carried it on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. Allied troops often called it the Schmeisser, after the designer Hugo Schmeisser, although he had no part in its design or development and held only a patent on its magazine. Variants included the MP 40/I and the MP 41, and the gun stayed in use with various forces around the world after the war.