Favorite/best sub machine gun

Not yet really proven is it? Has it been accepted by any major forces or units yet? I had a book that's about 10 years old now that said at the time that the P90 was undergoing trials with the Belgian armed forces, but I never heard the results.

What about ammunition? The 9mm Parabellum comes in for quite a bit of stick as being a poor "Man-stopper", how does the P90's round compare?

 

ithe P90's ammo to my sources is actually ment to be vry powerful because the rounds are in the style of rifle rounds

 

Some Belgian soldiers (VIP bodyguards) in Kosovo carried P90s.
We saw them quite a few times at my base.

 

From: http://world.guns.ru/smg/smg13-e.htm

Caliber: 5.7x28mm SS190
Weight: 2.54 kg empty; 3 kg loaded with magazine with 50 rounds
Lenght: 500 mm
Barrel lenght: 263 mm
Rate of fire: 900 rounds per minute
Magazine capacity: 50 rounds
Effective range: 200 meters


The FN P90 submachine gun (SMG) was developed in the late 1980s as a defensive weapon for the troops whose primary activities does not include small arms - vehicle and tank crew members, artillery crews etc. Standart pistols and SMGs chambered for pistol rounds were proved ineffective against enemy soldiers, wearing armour (bulletproof) vests, so FN Herstal developed a new round with enhanced penetration - the SS190. This round looks like scaled downt 5.56mm NATO round and forces the pointed, steel core bullet to the 600-700 meters per second at the muzzle, thus being capable to defeat standart CRISAT helmets and armour vests at reasonable distances (50-100 meters).

The P90 is a blowback operated, selective fire weapon. It is fed from 50-rounds box magazines, made from transluscent polymer. The magazine is being located above the barrel, with the cartridges being aligned at 90 degrees to the barrel axis. Each magazine has built-in ramp that rotates cartridge to align it with the barrel prior to chambering it.

The P90 controls are completely ambidextrous, with charging handles located at the both sides of the weapon, and the safety/fire mode selector is located below the trigger. The P90 also features downward ejection of the spent cases. P90 is built in bull-pup configuration, with polymer stock, and features built-in reflex collimator sight with 1X magnification and reticle automaticaly ajustable to the light level, as well as a set of the backup open sights. P90 may be equipped with special silencer, that should be used with special, sub-sonic variant of the 5.7x28mm cartridge.

P90 may be referred as a forerunner of the PDW (Personal Defence Weapon) concept, that arose in last 4 or 5 years.

P90 is used by Saudi Arabia, Peruan Special Forces and some special units of Thailand army, and offered for export by FN.

Sounds like an interesting weapon, sounds like they chose the option of putting a small fast bullet through a target rather than having a larger slower one bouncing off body armour...

 

yes certainly, ive never heard that concept before using a rifle(scaled down) round for a SMG

 

Well it's not entirely that innovative since it's doesn't seem really much more than a cut down 5.56 (Slightly bigger bullet, slightly shorter case), the Germans basically did that with the Mp43 and the Russians with the SKS/AK47.

I suppose it's kind of an intermediate-intermediate cartridge.

What interests me is that it's reversed the trends of the last century where with SMGs "Stopping Power" was preferred by seeming to go instead for Penetrating Power. It looks like the designers have accepted the apparent weakness of 9mm Parabellum against modern body armour, so have decided instead to go for a smaller but faster bullet that will be more likely to penetrate something like Kevlar.

 

yeh that is probally it, but i still like the p90 for its looks and its unique way of ejecting its spent cases

 

Yeah, it was good enough to make the cover of "Military Small Arms of the 20th Century"... It looked really futuristic back then!

What's your opinion of the EM-2?

 

i dont know much about it but i think the 7x43mm would be better than the 5.56mm, but it is a very ugly gun in my opinion and has limmeted magazine capacity with 20 rounds.

 

I thought it looked kind of like a better looking SA-80.

 

i dont like either

i think both of them are very ugly, i like the steyr tho and FAMAS, but back to SMGs

 

Yeah, OK then.

But keeping to the subject of bullpups, appart from the P-90 are their any other bullpup SMGs?

 

See the end of this thread: http://www.china-defense.com/forum/inde ... 064&st=560

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

the steyr had a SMG model to my knowlege

 

You mean these little beauties?

http://www.steyr-mannlicher.com/index.php?id=625

 

This?

Its only an assault rifle chambered to 9x19mm. Not real, purpose-built SMG.

 

yeh and i think there is a slightly different looking model as well

 

Talking of the Steyrs there's also the TMP and another Uzi-style Machine pistol/SMG they did.

This prompts the next silly question then:

What defines the difference between a Machine Pistol and an SMG? I know Machine pistols have always been basically unpopular because the recoil and accuracy problems of having full auto on a small frame, but when does an SMG become a Machien Pistol?

 

i think its somethin about haveing a fixed stock? im not sure but that could make sense since the majority of pistols dont have stocks, but some have folding stocks stocks

 

Basically, a machine pistol is a handgun which has been modified to fire full-auto. It usually comes with some kind of folding or (more commonly) detachable stock or foregrip, and can often be had with an extended magazine, but remains almost as compact as a pistol.

An SMG is purpose-designed for automatic fire and uses high-capacity magazines, together with a fixed or folding (but not detachable) stock and (usually) a longer barrel. It noirmally fires from an open bolt (MP5 excepted). It is considerably bulkier and heavier than a pistol, which makes it more controllable on auto fire (assuming the same ammo).

There are of course some 'grey areas', with guns like the Micro-Uzi being the size of pistols.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum