Bergmann MP18

The MP18 is a German submachine gun designed by Hugo Schmeisser and manufactured by the Bergmann arms company, introduced into German army service in 1918 during the final months of the First World War and widely regarded by historians of small arms as the first mass-produced, genuinely practical submachine gun fielded by any army. Firing pistol-caliber 9mm Parabellum ammunition from a drum magazine at a fully automatic rate, it gave a single soldier a volume of close-range firepower previously available only to a crew-served machine gun, and it was issued in particular to German Stormtrooper units, whose infiltration tactics relied on small squads moving quickly through and around enemy trench lines rather than advancing in a single continuous wave. Though the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war restricted Germany's postwar production and possession of submachine guns, the MP18's basic layout and drum-magazine feed strongly influenced submachine gun designs developed by other countries in the interwar years that followed.