The Thompson Light Rifle was an attempt by the

Auto-Ordnance Company Auto-Ordnance was a U.S. arms development firm founded by retired Colonel John T. Thompson of the United States Army Ordnance Department in 1916. Auto-Ordnance is best known for the Thompson submachine gun, used as a military weapon by the Alli ...

to manufacture a light rifle for the

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

. The overall weapon was based on their well proven

.45 ACP The .45 ACP ( Automatic Colt Pistol), also known as .45 Auto, .45 Automatic, or 11.43×23mm is a rimless straight-walled handgun cartridge designed by John Moses Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic pistol. After su ...

submachine gun A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine (firearms), magazine-fed automatic firearm, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to descri ...

, although the original .30 Carbine caliber rifle was based on the M1921/27 variants. It worked well but due to the war effort was found expensive for mass production and its weight defied the concept of a light rifle. The only major differences from the Light Rifle and SMG was the barrel shroud which housed a quick barrel change device similar to the

MG42 The MG 42 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 42'', or "machine gun 42") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Enteri ...

and pressed steel components to ease production and reduce weight. The in-line stock reduced barrel climb improving accuracy. The Thompson Light Rifle was more reliable and accurate than the

M1 carbine The M1 carbine (formally the United States carbine, caliber .30, M1) is a lightweight semi-automatic carbine chambered in the .30 carbine (7.62×33mm) cartridge that was issued to the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War, and t ...

that was adopted and also came with the capability of select fire, which made it close to the likes of the

StG-44 The StG 44 (abbreviation of Sturmgewehr 44, "assault rifle 44") is a German assault rifle developed during World War II by Hugo Schmeisser. It is also known by its early designations as the MP 43 and MP 44 (''Maschinenpistole 43'' and ''44''). ...

. Auto-Ordnance also submitted two other models not based on the Thompson SMG for tests in the .30 Carbine competitions in May and June, 1941. Their first light rifle was a more conventional rifle with recoil-operated locked-breech action and weighed about 5.5 pounds. The modified version tested September, 1941 was semi-auto only, had 80 parts, and was found difficult to disassemble and reassemble.Larry Ruth, ''M1 Carbine: Design, Development & Production'', Gun Room Press, 1979, , pp. 20, 21.

References

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Thompson "Light Rifle" (M1 Carbine) Prototype
.30 Carbine firearms Assault rifles of the United States Trial and research firearms of the United States

See also

References

External links