The most rubbish submachine gun in the United States in World War II, the Lessing
The American Lessing M50/55 submachine gun
This gun is a standard submachine gun of the US military in World War II, but there are only a few Someone knows.
The inventor of the gun is Swedish-American inventor Eugene Lessing, a well-known American designer who applied for more than 60 gun patents in his life.
This man was born as a cowboy, loved guns, and had a wild personality. When he was young, he sold guns to gangsters and was imprisoned for more than a year.
The outbreak of the European War in 1939 made Lessing realize that the United States would be involved in the war sooner or later, and began to study the relatively unpopular submachine guns.
At that time, the United States only had the extremely expensive Thompson submachine gun, which was even more expensive than a light machine gun.
Leshing believes that once a war breaks out, it is absolutely impossible for the U.S. military to purchase such expensive submachine guns in large quantities.
As long as Laixing designs a cheap but functional submachine gun, he can easily make a lot of money.
As a result, Laixing invented the Laixing M50 submachine gun in 1940.
Sure enough, in 1941, Japan was eager to make a move in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and even a fool knew that the United States' entry into the war was imminent.
In this case, in November 1941, one month before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army specially tested the Reiching M50 submachine gun.
The test has only one purpose, which is to replace the Thompson submachine gun.
Laixing’s submachine gun sells for only $60, while the Thompson submachine gun costs as much as $200.
In the test, the shooting accuracy of the Laixing M50 was relatively high, and the recoil of continuous shooting was small, which is conducive to training and actual combat.
Unfortunately, the reliability of the Laixing M50 is not good.
The structure of the gun is very complex, and Lessing did not consider its use in harsh environments when it was originally designed.
In shooting in a clean environment at the shooting range, the Laixing M50 can fire thousands of rounds of bullets without any major problems.
During tests in windy sand, rain and snow environments, Laixing M50 frequently experienced various failures.
The U.S. Army believed that the design of this gun was immature and eliminated it directly.
Interestingly, the US Marine Corps has taken a fancy to the Laiching M50.
Fourth-level Ma Run lacks sufficient funds, so when purchasing weapons, he can only consider the price first.
From the perspective of the Marine Corps, the Laixing M50 is very cheap and can purchase equipment in large quantities. This is the most important thing.
At the same time, Lessing promised to provide an M55 version, which uses a folding simple steel stock. The whole gun weighs only 2.8 kilograms, while the Thompson weighs 4.5 kilograms.
The Marine Corps is not an army. They lack enough heavy weapons and transportation tools and emphasize the use of sidearms for combat. The lighter Laixing M55 is more suitable for them.
At this time, Pearl Harbor in the United States was bombed, and war broke out quickly. All branches of the military must immediately equip a large number of submachine guns.
The Lessing M50/55 submachine gun was equipped with the Marine Corps in 1942, and was also partially equipped with paratroopers and some army units who were seriously lacking submachine guns, with a total of 120,000.
However, the Laixing M50/55 submachine gun soon showed its weakness in actual combat.
The combat environment of the Marine Corps is much worse than that of the Army. In the hot and humid environment of the Pacific Islands, the Lessing M50/55 submachine gun had many malfunctions, almost to the point of being unusable.
The internal structure of the gun is too complex and difficult to maintain in actual combat. The terrible environment of the island caused the gun parts to rust in just a few days, followed by a series of terrible malfunctions.
The famous grease gun at this time, the M3 submachine gun, was born in 1942. The gun sells for only $15, which is much cheaper than the Reiching submachine gun.
The grease gun has a simple structure and high reliability, and quickly replaced the Laixing M50/55 submachine gun.
Leiching submachine guns were completely withdrawn from the front line in 1943, less than a year after serving, and sent to garrison troops in the United States and Pacific Islands, because these soldiers did not need to shoot.
After the United States announced that it had become the "Arsenal of Democracy", it also provided some Lechen M50/55 submachine guns to its allies, mainly guerrillas behind enemy lines.
The failure rate of Laixing is so high that even the guerrillas who are extremely short of weapons are unwilling to use it.
By the end of the war in 1945, the Laixing M50/55 submachine gun was directly remanufactured for steelmaking and was not qualified as a stockpile strategic weapon.
However, the Laixing M50/55 submachine gun is the standard weapon of the US military after all, so many photos have been left.