"SMGs in SCW" Topic

I've got another question. This time about submachine guns:
Were they used by NCOs, how often ?
What should be the proper cartridge pouches for those armed with SMG ?

In Spain? Whoever could get their hands on one used it. Suomis and Bergmanns were the most common. Proper cartridge pouches? Whatever you had available. Usually rifle cartridge boxes and pockets.

Source – was a SCW re-enactor for years and spent a long time reading up and poring over photographs and accounts.

Most people carried rifles or pistols. Very few SMGs kicking about, and the people that did have them hung onto them for dear life.

What country would they get the SMG from? Did they use drums or rectangle?

George Orwell complained in his book that SMGs were issued to unit based in Barcelona to control the population not issued to front line troops.

In Valencia Military Museum is a "Naranja" a locally made SMG.

Also Germany supplied the Bergman SMG

there were a lot of submachine guns i SCW
link
types used in Republica army only

@Rudy Nelson – private arms dealers, Italy, Germany, Russia. Magazines used were whatever was supplied, and whatever was to hand – drum or box, or both.

As noted above, they were pretty rare and more often used as 'police' weapons.

A few of my chaps have Bergmans.

An SMG isn't much use if the other guy is 1000 yards away on top of another hill.

At the moment of the 1936 military rebellion, Spanish Army equipment and armament were still outdated, or in updating process. SMGs had only started to be purchased and distributed among Security Forces and Army, so I'd say they would be scarcer than normal for a pre-WWII army.

Local production of licensed EMP-35s and Vollmer-ERMAs had just started, reaching a number of 50,000 by the end of war. BTW, their popular nickname of 'naranjeros' was closely related to their being produced in Valencia, a region whose oranges production is renowned. 'Naranjero' nickname was henceforth applied in the Spanish Army to almost anything SMG-ish looking for a long time.

Another local SMG was the Catalan made Labora-Fontbernat, an elegant weapon produced in numbers of 2,000.

Small numbers of Thompson M28s were also acquired by the Catalonian government for its police --either using drums and rectangles for ammo.

Bergmann MP18s, MP28s and even Danish made MP34s were (relatively) common in both sides. Suomi mod. 31 and Tallinn mod. 23 were also used by Republicans, or SIG mod. 1920 and Beretta 1918/30 and 1938 by Nationalists.

Not to count 'pirate', unlicensed local copies…

Lluis,
please answer my question about cartridge pouches

I'd say they would be scarcer than normal for a pre-WWII army

And in most armies in the 1930's, SMGs were in rather limited use, and NCOs typically armed with rifles.

And a lot of the WW2-era weapons were not in issue yet (or very rare) in their parent armies, so not a lot of war-aid coming into the country.

Photos are almost entirely men with rifles.

please answer my question about cartridge pouches

I have little info about the matter, but tomorrow morning (Europe time) I'll send you the few photos I've found on the subject

I own a magazine shown in the 2nd photo. It is stamped "Industrias de Guerra de Cataluna 1937"

Yes "Indústries de Guerra de Catalunya" (IGC, in short) was a bureau created by the Catalan Government to co-ordinate the region numerous small factories war effort, distributing commissions and priorities among them.

This is why production from these factories (ammo boxes and magazines, hand grenades, hand weapons… were stamped with IGC logo --this consisting of a simplified Catalonia coat of arms encircled by the bureau name, or often just the wording forming a circle.

Even armour was so marked with that logo (Sadurni tanks, Torras and Constructora Field tiznaos).

IMHO reenactors are not example as rifles replicas are available, while early SMGs aren't. On the other hand there were several thousands od SMGs in use, and they were somehow employed, for example by ncos od regular Army od both sides.

A quick look through the photos I have collected show that the most common users of SMGs are the Guardia Civil who generally have a rectangular black leather pouch worn at the waist. I have one photograph of a member of a Republican volunteer ambulance crew holding a Bergman M18 with a circular magazine, but he is dressed in overalls and has no obvious pouches.

SMG were widely issued to paramilitaries. Assault Guards and Civil guards seem to have received most with the Carrbaneros a distant third. These men would have the Leather pouches mentioned above, I have seen twin and triple capacity pouches. Army units who were issued with SMG, and while not common they were issued, would have similar pouches or canvas copies. Militias who managed to get SMG, probably from raiding armouries would often only have one or two mag's and would carry them in pockets or a bag.

Fatman

To expand upon Gunnerphil's post

"The Assault Guards had one submachine-gun between ten men and an automatic pistol each; we at the front had approximately one machine-gun between fifty men, and as for pistols and revolvers, you could only procure them illegally. As a matter of fact, though I had not noticed it till now, it was the same everywhere. The Civil Guards and Carabineros, who were not intended for the front at all, were better armed and far better clad than ourselves." Orwell G. – Homage to Catalonia, Chapter 10.

I have long suspected that Orwell used sub machine-gun and light machine-gun interchangeably in this passage (and probably a few others).

Also in Zizkov military museum in Prague there is a German SMG (an MP-28 iirc) that was used in the SCW.