Counterfactual: The US Army Adopts The M42 .45 Uzi SMG As The M3 In Early 1942...

[Trajan]

I think as gun people we overemphasize the importance of small arms in twentieth century conflicts.

[williejc]

I've enjoyed shooting other people's submachine guns for about 40 years. The Thompson is my favorite. I love it. That said, I don't see that using any other .45 sub gun would make any difference. One reason is that mastering the sub gun requires much more time and effort than are spent in qualifying. Another is that the sub gun's role in our military has been marginal at best. So the expert sub gun user would likely have had zero effect on achieving military objectives.

Even with my age and arthritic condition, I can still do some fancy stunt shooting with a handgun. I used to do the same with the Thompson while playing in gravel pits. In both cases, it was stunt shooting, and the ability to stunt shoot is not a requirement to be an accomplished shooter in combat.

[SteyrAUG]

I'd be willing to bet that the plastic grip panels and for-end of the UZI would be made of wood since plastics weren't used in the American firearms industry in the 40's. I'm curious as to how that would effect the overall weight of the gun (And I bet it would look pretty good like that too).

Also, is that your own personal UZI Steyr?

They would be bakelite in all probability. And no that isn't my personal Uzi, although I have an IMI original.

[C-grunt]

I think it would have made a small difference in the Pacific campaign. Many of the Marines were still using 1903s so the advantage of the Garand wasnt there. The Uzi would have been cheaper to produce than the Thompson and therefore could have been given out in greater numbers to the Marines. More short range firepower could lower the number of Marine casualties.

Both of my grandfathers were in the Pacific theater in WW2. One was a Marine engineer who was in several of the big name battles. He carried a 1903 and talked about how much better that SMGs were in the jungle. Unfortunately he passed before I could ever have any really good conversations about the war with him. My other grandfather was security forces for the Army Air Corps. He said he much preferred the M1 Carbine to the Garand of the Thompson due to weight.

[Jellybean]

I think it would have made a small difference in the Pacific campaign. Many of the Marines were still using 1903s so the advantage of the Garand wasnt there. The Uzi would have been cheaper to produce than the Thompson and therefore could have been given out in greater numbers to the Marines. More short range firepower could lower the number of Marine casualties.....

Pretty much exactly what I thought when reading the original post.
Not a game changer in the large sum of things,, but cheaper to produce than a Tommy and so far beyond a M3 or Reising, it's not even funny.
And of course the increased mag capacity, vs the basic 20rd. mags for the Thompson.

That being said, proposing fighting the Jap/Nazi hordes with any SMG BUT a Thompson is sheer small arms heresy right there...

[MountainRaven]

I feel like introducing the Uzi SMG in lieu of the Grease Gun to the time stream would have had about as much of an impact as introducing the M4A3E8 Sherman tank in 1942 in lieu of the M3 Grant/Lee: It might make a small difference every now and again, but in the big picture it would not have made much difference at all.

I just wished I could take a Conex container full of Kalashnikovs, PKMs, RPGs, mags, and ammo to the Alamo.

I read a short story set on Deep Space Nine's holosuites featuring O'Brien and Bashir taking a shot at Santa Anna before the Battle of the Alamo. Short version is that Santa Anna decided to skip the Alamo and crushed Sam Houston's army. Then went back and sacked the Alamo and Texas remained part of Mexico.

The lesson being that sometimes you need to lose a battle to win a war (see also: Thermopylae, battle of).

As a kid, I would fantasize about taking an M60 back to the American Revolution along with about 3000 rounds of ammo. Sounds crazy I know but something has to pre-occupy the mind of a 3rd grader.

You should read Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove: Time-traveling South African slave traders basically give the Army of Northern Virginia circa 1862 thousands of Kalashnikovs and probably millions of rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition.

I think it would have made a small difference in the Pacific campaign. Many of the Marines were still using 1903s so the advantage of the Garand wasnt there. The Uzi would have been cheaper to produce than the Thompson and therefore could have been given out in greater numbers to the Marines. More short range firepower could lower the number of Marine casualties.

Both of my grandfathers were in the Pacific theater in WW2. One was a Marine engineer who was in several of the big name battles. He carried a 1903 and talked about how much better that SMGs were in the jungle. Unfortunately he passed before I could ever have any really good conversations about the war with him. My other grandfather was security forces for the Army Air Corps. He said he much preferred the M1 Carbine to the Garand of the Thompson due to weight.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that despite the shear numbers of Thompsons evident in the hands of Marines that it wasn't actually part of any USMC TO&E. And many of the Thompsons the Marines used early in the war were M1928s and M1928A1s, originally ordered for use guarding mail carriers, in China, and the Banana wars. In fact, while many photographs of Army soldiers in Europe show M1 and M1A1 Thompsons, there is a photo that's quite famous of Marines fighting on Okinawa with a Thompson-armed Marine who is using an M1928A1.

So I don't know that it would have had much of an impact early in the Pacific, either.

[Moose-Knuckle]

I read a short story set on Deep Space Nine's holosuites featuring O'Brien and Bashir taking a shot at Santa Anna before the Battle of the Alamo. Short version is that Santa Anna decided to skip the Alamo and crushed Sam Houston's army. Then went back and sacked the Alamo and Texas remained part of Mexico.

The lesson being that sometimes you need to lose a battle to win a war (see also: Thermopylae, battle of).

Sound logic and as a fellow Trekkie I agree. It was the anger from the butchering of the men at the Alamo that aided in the routing of Santa Anna and his army (which was the largest standing army in the world at the time).

[SteyrAUG]

Sound logic and as a fellow Trekkie I agree. It was the anger from the butchering of the men at the Alamo that aided in the routing of Santa Anna and his army (which was the largest standing army in the world at the time).

I still think US Marines running around the Pacific theater with a M42 (M3) Uzi would be awesome. Make for some spectacular B&W photos. Instead of Marines facing Banzai charges with dual 1911s, they really could go dual Uzi's Chuck Norris style.

[Todd00000]

How does this change the war

It seems the consensus is it would not have changed the war, maybe a new question is would we have had fewer casualties?

[Todd00000]

As a kid, I would fantasize about taking an M60 back to the American Revolution along with about 3000 rounds of ammo. Sounds crazy I know but something has to pre-occupy the mind of a 3rd grader.

We've all done that, after I toured the Normandy area I thought about what it would have been like if I had landed with my M2A2 Bradley company. An extremely capable vehicle but still venerable to enemy fire. I imagined it would have been a protected asset during the daylight and then let loose to do what no one else could, hunt at night.