The iconic Tommy gun fires .45 caliber handgun ammunition. That makes it a submachine gun. (Shutterstock photo)
TLDR: Submachine guns use handgun ammunition. Machine guns use rifle ammunition.
If a gun-toting character pulls the trigger and holds it there while the business end goes bang-bang-bang, then there’s an excellent chance that firearm is a submachine gun or a machine gun (warning: does not apply to characters requesting someone pull their fingers). But what’s the difference between those two terms? Or is there one?
The Difference: Caliber and (sort of) Size
“Sub” comes from Latin, and means to “be under.” That should give you a hint about how “submachine guns” differ from “machine guns,” the latter of which actually comes from a Latin word meaning “to wreck some shit” (still looking for a source for that definition).
Given the “sub” definition, it’s sometimes said submachine guns are undersized versions of machine guns. That can be true, but it’s a little backward. Submachine guns use handgun ammunition, and are basically dressed up pistols. Machine guns use rifle ammunition, and are basically dressed up rifles. Rifles are larger than handguns, so naturally machine guns are larger than submachine guns.
This holds true most of the time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean every submachine gun is smaller in length or weight than machine guns.
The infamous AK-47 fires 7.62 x39mm ammunition, which is roughly equivalent to the .308 rifle caliber over here in the U.S. That means the AK-47 is a machine gun, not a submachine gun. Damn metric system. (Shutterstock photo)
A Great Time to Go Generic
Writing around convoluted grammar and sentence structure is an old writer’s trick. It’s the same with submachine guns and machine guns. If you’re unsure, just pick one of those two generic terms and stick with it. Whatever point or purpose those firearms are trying to make is clear enough without getting more specific. They’re fully automatic firearms, not corn dogs.
Terminology Cheat Sheet
Here’s a quick cheat sheet to avoid some easy pitfalls with this terminology.
AR-15: Nope, the AR-15 isn’t a submachine gun or a machine gun. It’s not even an assault rifle. Read more about AR-15s here.
Assault Rifle: Many, but not all, machine guns (not submachine guns) are assault rifles. If it meets the criteria in this post, then you’re good to go.
Assault Weapon: Don’t use this term. At best, it’s vague. At worst, it introduces something politically loaded for no good reason. Read up on assault weapons in this post.
Fully Automatic Pistol/Fully Automatic Handgun/Fully Automatic Rifle: Even though they’re technically correct, I’ve not heard of “fully automatic pistol” or “fully automatic handgun” being used all that often. “Submachine gun” or “machine pistol” are the better bets. “Fully automatic rifle,” on the other hand, is a solid substitute for “machine gun.”
Machine Rifle: It’s tempting to use this term given machine guns use rifle ammunition, but writing in a “machine rifle” will probably win you a doofus award. Don’t be a doofus. Just write “machine gun.”
Referring to a “Submachine Gun” as a “Machine Gun” Upon Second Reference: I think this works. If a character is using a submachine gun on the first reference, and you call it a “machine gun” on the second reference as an abbreviated form, that’s kosher. Just don’t call it a corn dog. It’s not a corn dog.
Sub-Machine Gun vs. Submachine Gun: Pick one style and stick with it. I think “sub-machine gun” looks funky, and not in the good way like when I dance at wedding receptions. “Submachine gun” is the better of the two.
Submachine Pistol: Even though they fire handgun ammunition, substituting in “submachine pistol” for “submachine gun” is just too weird for this planet (and your fiction). However, “machine pistol” is a thing, and is covered a little later in this post.
Tactical Rifle: A good, but probably not great, catch-all for any military-esque, shouldered firearm. If you’re going for a generic depiction, pick submachine gun or machine gun and stick to it.
Machine Pistols
When submachine guns get down to handgun size, they’re sometimes called “machine pistols.” I think machine pistol is a better term than “submachine gun” at that point, even if the former is technically a subset of the latter.
That’s a Glock Model 18 in the video above, which is a great example of a machine pistol. It’s the only fully automatic model that Glock produced, although some semi-automatic models are convertible. That’s for another post. (I don’t recommend trying to do that, by the way.)
Your Characters’ Submachine Guns and Machine Guns
What kinds of bullet hoses are you assigning your characters? Leave a comment below.
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Excellent post, Ben, as usual. Personally, I’ve never used a machine gun in my stories. If I ever do, this is the first place I’ll come. 🙂
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Thanks, Sue! I haven’t, either, seeing as how I like to keep the weapons simple. I think a machine gun or submachine gun is too easy, unless it’s a military setting. A knife or a revolver, now the stakes seem higher.
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The AK-47’s 7.62×39 cartridge is not really equivalent to our .308; it’s actually a bit less powerful than the venerable .30-30. But it is close to being a rifle cartridge.
Terminology quibbles: in a military context, a machine gun is likely to be a weapon that must be mounted on a tripod or other fixed mount, and it might fire a full-power .30 caliber rifle round (.30-06, .308, .303 British) or even the big .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun). These guns are serious hardware and would be of limited value in most works of crime fiction.
Fully automatic rifles and carbines like the AK-47, AK-74, M-16, M4 and others are nearly always selective-fire weapons (the user can opt for either semiauto or full auto) weapons, and they are often referred to as assault rifles–but this is admittedly a very sloppy phrase, and writers who want to arm their characters with one of these firearms would be well advised to do some further research in order to become knowledgeable and convey authenticity. Sidebar: such weapons are not easily available to civilians. . . .
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I was about to point out what you just said: in most uses “machine gun” refers refers to a fully-automatic weapon that is designed to fill a support role. The the OP seems to give the impression that “machine gun” include assult rifles. Usually machine guns a) have large capacity( belt/drum magzing fed) b) capable of a high rate of fire c) often fitted with a bipod(light machine gun) or tripod(heavy machine gun) depending on it’s application. I am aware that some definition of machine gun such as some state law classifies assult rifles as machine guns, but people just don’t use this term that way.
PS in a fire team, the guy who uses a machine gun is called support / support gunner / machine gunner or just gunner. Support role in a fire team is very important, because of his ability to provide heavy suppression.
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Indeed, AK-47 and AK-74 are assault rifles, not machine guns, though they have light machine gun “cousins”, the RPK-47 and RPK-74. In addition to what you said, assault rifles are not made for continuous fire (in particular suppression), they are too prone to overheating and other reliability issues, and are not designed to be used with tripods e.g.. One could belt-feed an AK, or feed it with a 100 round drum, for instance, but it would not be a logical choice most of the time. You are not supposed to fire more than a couple dozen rounds (e.g. 2x 20-30 round magazines) in short succession with an assault rifle. (Although there is a Youtube video of a guy shooting 300 rounds through an AK, setting it on fire.)
Assault rifles also usually have a fire selector for single round and/or 2 or 3 round burst and/or fully automatic fire. Machine guns usually support only fully automatic fire (it’s what they are made for, and not having a fire selector means less probability of failure). Many machine guns are also designed so that the barrel can be changed quickly under battlefield conditions, if necessary due to either heat or wear, and machine gun teams often carry at least one replacement barrel.
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A machine gun is a crew-served weapon. Hence, the Minimi is called a Squad Automatic Weapon.
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What about Sturmgewehr 44?
What about Fedorov?
Can machine gun be written as machinegun?
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Some stuff:
The AR-15 can be a machine gun if it is select-fire; the very first “testing phase” AR-15 pattern rifles issued in Vietnam weren’t M16s, they were AR-15s.
The criteria in that post are flawed, I posted a comment in that post about what is wrong.
The term “machine gun” is any select-fire firearm, regardless of caliber All submachine guns are machine guns, but not all machine guns are submachine guns. A submachine gun is determined by caliber.
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For clarification:
AR-15: any AR-15 pattern rifle (though usually used to refer to civilian models), regardless of fire mode.
Assault Rifle: military classification of rifle; consider when the term first became widely used, with the Stg-44, vs. the other longer rifles of the time. Carbines usually just have a shorter barrel or are shorter in general.
Machine gun: any select-fire firearm. (The military definition is different.)
Submachine gun: any machine gun that is chambered for pistol-caliber ammunition.
I would like to know what the term is for a semi-automatic submachine gun; would it be subgun (sub-gun), or something else? Because subgun sounds too informal.
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A machine gun classifies as a gun that shoots out 6 bullets per second or 5 to 7, miniguns need to shoot 8 while and assult rifle only shoots 3 to 4 bullets a second making the AK-47 a assult rifle not a machine gun
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I’m going to allow this comment on my site only to point out how absolutely incorrect this is. There is no basis for this anywhere.
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This whole post is just a bunch of bs, OP is ignorant.
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Shut up idiot … the post is great, it’s intersting … your post is bs, if you’ve got nothing constructive to say just shut up.
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LOL! I learnt a ton from this post and it’s very informative. just some jealous imbeciles who don’t like to be taught what they don’t know. again, excellent article 🙂
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Watch a military movie. Look for salutes. Look at how wrong the salutes are. Then realize they had a former military officer as a military consultant. Apparently no one cares about details so no one cares when ‘machine guns’ gets misused. So it is also is for assault weapons. Even Dictionary.com has redefined it’s definition to suit the liberal masses. Wikipedia and Google translation services have followed suite. Sturmgewehr is storm gun, not ‘assault weapon’ as Google intimidatedly proclaims. The world is doomed when it’s sources for information are influenced by the roiling sturm of idiocy. Bow to the masses and suffer their fate. Stand for truth and die with pride.
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Hi! I’m writing a character that needs to be able to fire out a large amount of ammunition in a short time period, but they have to stay relatively mobile while doing so, being able to quickly move from one building to another and stay lightweight. Is there a good gun for this? This exists in somewhat of a utopian future, so at least having weapons to base hers off of would be incredibly useful! (I’m relatively new to writing, so if you have any related tips for writing about guns in general, that would be a big help too!) Thanks for posting so many informative articles, your website has been a big help!
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If mobility and firepower is an issue, I would suggest a submachine gun (examples of which are MP5s) as they are fully automatic/burst fire depending on the trigger pack, are pistol caliber, and are generally lighter weight.
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Learned and enjoyed the many view points.
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The AK-47 is a gas-powered assault rifle. It is not a machine gun or a submachine gun.
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It’s been said here a few times now Ben, and I think you might want to update this post for the sake of accuracy. You provided the picture of an AK-47 as an example of a machine gun, which it is not.
A machine gun is a belt-fed firearm intended for continuous, or long duration fire. They are meant to provide support fire through suppression of the targets. In other words the bullets keep coming, so the enemy keep their heads down. It’s hard to shoot back while hiding under or behind cover. They will always either be tripod, or pintle mounted, and are typically a crew-served weapon.Examples of a Machine Gun are: Maxim Gun (7.92x57mm Mauser), M1917/M1919 Browning Machine Gun (.30 calibre), Vickers Gun (.303 British), and the Browning M2 Machine Gun (.50 calibre BMG)
Your basic definition of a submachine gun is mostly accurate: a firearm utilizing pistol calibre ammunition. The part you are missing is that submachine guns are typically intended for close quarters combat. As such they have a select-fire capability, typically: Full-auto, burst(two or three round), and semi-auto (one squeeze one shot)They were originally intended as a compact weapon capable of putting an obscene amount of fire into a small space very quickly. They sacrifice accuracy and range to accomplish this.Examples of a Submachine Gun are: Uzi (9x19mm), H&K MP5 (9x19mm), H&K UMP (9x19mm), MP40 (9x19mm), Colt M1921A Thompson “Tommy gun” (.45ACP).
As for Machine Pistols, that is a bit of a grey area. The first submachine guns created by the Germans were named Maschinenpistole which was translated by the western nations into Submachine gun.
Machine pistols can rightfully be considered a sub-group of submachine guns, but for the purposes of differentiation, what classifies a machine pistol is it’s size.
An example of the differences would be the variants of the Uzi SMG:
The standard Uzi weighs about 3.5 kg (7.72 lbs), is from 445mm (17.5 inches) long without stock, up to 640mm (25.1 inches) long with a stock/extended, and will fire 600 rounds per minute. It is a perfect example of a submachine gun.
The Mini Uzi is a smaller version weighing 2.7 kg (5.9 lbs), is 360mm (14.1 inches) long with the stock folded, up to 600mm (23.6 inches) with the stock extended, and it will fire 950 rounds per minute.
It is small enough to use one handed, and could be considered a Machine Pistol.
The Micro Uzi (yes they made an even smaller one) weighs in at 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs), is from 282mm (11.1 inches) to 486mm (19.1 inches) in length, and fires 1,200 rounds per minute.
Its dimensions are such that it is actually difficult to get both hands on it in a practical manner, and it is better used one-handed.
Due to its size, I would hesitate to ever call the standard Uzi a machine pistol (although you could and not be wrong), if we’re looking for a point of differentiation between SMGs and MPs, and using the size criteria as I mentioned earlier, then the Mini Uzi, and certainly the Micro Uzi are unapologetically Machine Pistols.
I think your article was okay Ben, as far as it goes, but going forward you might find benefit in further educating yourself on the subject, before publishing a definitive explanation of that subject. In the future, should you have any questions regarding the world of firearms, or weaponry in general, I am happy to help.
Cheers
Shawn
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