What Happened to the MP38/40s?
 

A friend of mine and I were discussing some news photos from Africa in which an angry mob displays weapons from every place and time over the past century. Soviet, German, American, Belgian, British, etc. We have also seen photos from Iraq featuring an amazing variety of weapons. But, I don't recall seeing any MP38/40s - why not? Or is it just my imagination?

The Germans made zillions of these things, so they were surely captured in large quantities. All other German WWII small arms found their way into various hands after the war - I think that Lebenon was armed with the Stg-44, Israel had a bunch of K-98s, MG-42s were everywhere - but I can't recall seeing the MP-38/40. Even if the Western Allies dumped them in the sea, the Soviets never threw anything away, so they had to go somewhere. Anybody?

H

A friend of mine had one in Viet Nam and we "played" with it a few time....I think total production of MP-40's was about 1 million.....

I recall a couple of years ago someone posted a link to photos taken at a depot in Eastern Europe that showed large piles of them and other weapons in an open lot just rusting away.

Doesn't Hollywood have them all?

They were used by many nations after WW2. Especially nations who had been occupied by the German Army. Stockpiles of them have made their way all over the globe. I think that they are considered by non-collectors to be beyond their reliable service life...

RON, I think the photo you were thinking of was of M3 and M3A1 Grease guns... I have seen that photo many times... I don't recall ever seeing one of MP38/40's stacked like that...

I know of one MP-40 that got welded up prior to the first machinegun amnesty in the 60's... it was not registered and was owned by a very racist guy who worked in a factory as a welder in North Philadelphia... he had purchased it from a WW2 vet ...after some friends and I overheard him brag that he planned on using it to terminate a bunch of the minority people in his neighborhood, someone made a discreet call (that's before there was such a thing as caller-id to the BATF and told them what he had, and what he planned to do with it...They paid him a visit that very week.

He avoided prosecution for violation of the NFA by agreeing to weld it up in front of a BATF agent. They made him cut into it multiple times with an acetylene torch and weld the receiver to the bolt and cut through the chamber/receiver, the trigger housing... and also the inserted magazine.

It was a wall-hanger after that, and as much as we hated to see a nice souvenier like that destroyed, the only alternative was to take the chance that this alcoholic bigot would use it... a real no-brainer.

As mentioned by all, MP40s were distributed around the world after WW2. The reason you don't see many in use is that the AK47 became ubicutous and were either sold cheap or given away free by the Soviets. The AK was much more desirable than the MP40 for most uses. The MP40 is considered a second generation subgun trying to compete against UZIs and other third generation subguns which were a glut on the post-war market.
The Norwegians had them as standard equipment in all their armor up until the 1980s
The US issued them to Ruf Puf and irregular units in Vietnam.
I have it from a good source that the US still has thousands in a warehouse here in the US, ready to be issued when plausible deniability is required.
Thousands were cut up and imported as kits into the US prior to 19 May, 1986. These were remanufactured as "tube guns" and now form the majority of transferrable MP40s on the US market.
God only knows how many are languishing in Russian warehouses

Snagged this off the net

I scrounged a chrome MP 40 in RVN.

They were issued to early CIDG troops.

Friend of mine in an early A Camp told about a couple of crates of Lugers showing up in a bunch of odds and ends.
They distributed them to company cadres.
He got Navy model and lost it in a stream.
A Camps were under control of the VNs and supplies got wierd and interesting at times

As alanint mention, we used the in our military after ww2. And in some low priority or 'non fighting' divisions as late as into the 90s. (Not in lack of MP5's at the time, but rather just forgotten 'upgrades'. I know of a home guard medical guy who had one in his closet when I spoke to him in -95!)
I can't believe these MP40's has been sold somehow.. so that only leaves us with two alternatives for the majority of them; -stored away by the thousands or -melted down by the thousands.
I believe there is a 50% chance for both. The same probably goes for all other occupied countries that used them.

A hell of alot of them are stashed away in the backs of closets of widows around the US. I hear of or see at least three a year.

We found a crate of contraband weapons on a river junk. There were at least 3 or 4 in the crate with a bunch of Eastern Block weapons. We had to turn them over to the "Spooks". Never saw what all was in the crate. The Russians filtered a bunch of stuff into VN, including P-38s, MG-34s and 42s.