New Theory on Thompsons From Russia

[Freddy]

There have been discussions about the "Russian" Thompson guns, their non-matching serial numbers, etc. Looking at numerous deactivated Thompsons here in Germany, I noticed a few things (they are all from Eastern Europe - presumably Russia? - in very new condition):

Observations:

• Some parts show wear not consistent with the rest of the gun. E.g. on a deactivated M1A1 described later the magazine holder was showing a lot of pitting while the rest of the gun was in pristine condition. There are signs of ejectors removed (traces in the bluing), and sometimes the ejector is "old" (flat) on high serial numbered 1928a1s, etc.
  
• The buttstock assemblies are never matching, i.e. the wood and metal parts when disassembled show different numbers.
  
• Even pristine condition guns are sometimes not numbers matching, instead the frames are force-matched to the receiver even though both are in pristine condition, as if they never saw use. There are numerous threads about the re-numbering here on the board, showing that this is also the case in a lot of parts kits and has nothing to do with the deactivation of the Thompsons I observed in Germany.

My theory on the Russian Thompsons after handling numerous of these (deactivated) guns in Germany:

1. I think ALL these Thompsons at one point - probably for a rebuilding-program - were dis-assembled into every small component / screw / etc.. except for barrel, sights and receiver that stayed together. These components were put on piles and they were then re-assembled from piles. That explains why some otherwise pristine guns have some small parts with wear; and explains why the buttstock-assemblies are never matching. This rebuild program was probably similar to the one done on Russian captured K98k rifles, as will be explained later.
   
2. The people doing the dis-assembly sometimes paid attention to find matching frames and receivers when putting the guns back together, sometimes not... (Maybe different people?) That would explain the force matching. I can imagine a pile of frames, another one of receivers; some workers putting them back together paying attention that the numbers match, some don't care. At a later point non-matching guns are re-numbered.
   
3. I strongly doubt that this disassembly and re-assembly of often pristine guns was done in the US prior to shipping. I am actually quite certain it was done in Russia (or wherever they were stored after the war) after they were shipped.

Could it be that they were rebuilt in the US prior to shipping?

There have been theories on this board that they had been refurbished prior to being sent to Russia - I think that is very unlikely if not impossible:

• During the war, indeed Thompsons were refurbished in the US. There were contracts with AO to do it. Refurbished Thompsons have AO-44 or AO-45 stamps. (see American Thunder II). None of the observed guns from Eastern Europe have such stampings. The re-stamped serial numbers on the frames have a very different font than the US one used at AO and Savage. And I saw mis-matched guns where no part showed any wear and they clearly had the factory finish, proving that they had not been "refurbished". There are Thompsons present of all serial-number ranges, not only "old" ones.
  
• There are many sequentially numbered guns in the Eastern European lots. (e.g. in this thread http://www.machinegu...showtopic=10382 you can see it). One interesting sample: The user Schatzperson mentions two Thompson M1A1s 393,940/1. A friend of mine owns 393937 (deactivated). It is in pristine condition. It is highly plausible if not the only likely explanation that they were shipped from the assembly line. Interesting, that M1A1 393937 has a magazine-catch that has rust-pitting, had been scrubbed off and re-painted black, while the rest of the parts are in pristine condition. Showing that at one point this M1A1 had been rebuilt. You can only replace the magazine catch when pivot plate etc. have been removed. That means that at one point, that pristine M1A1 393937 was disassembled entirely (at least the frame) and re-assembled, putting a worn magazine catch in. The buttstock assembly on that specimen, by the way, is also rather used while the metal retains about 99% original bluing showing that the wood had been replaced at one point, further suggesting that the gun had been rebuilt.

What kind of worn parts do we find on the rebuilt guns?

On all the deactivated guns I saw, there have been two kinds of "worn" parts:

1. Parts that had rusted due to improper storage. They almost always had the rust removed in a rough way and were then painted with a kind of black paint to hide the bare metal.
   
2. Parts that showed legitimate wear from use. They are more rare than the ones mentioned above but still around.
   

My theory:
Wherever these guns were sent (Russia or some other Eastern European country) a few were used (as proven by pictures showing Russian soldiers with Thompsons), causing wear on some specimen. Due to humidity / improper storage, others were rusty or damaged after being stored for a while. At some point, therefore, there was an order probably to disassemble all of them (pristine and damaged) into parts and re-assemble them, sorting out unservicable parts. The buttstock-assemblies, for example, should be matching from factory, but they aren't on these guns. The Russian rebuilt K98s are an interesting example, because they were disassembled and re-built as well as we know.

How far were they disassembled when rebuilt?
I noticed as well on many deactivated Eastern European Thompsons that the drawlines on the barrel and receiver don't match. But in my opinion the barrels were like this from the factory: There are multiple threads on this board that the drawlines often didn't really line up on WW2 produced M1928a1 Thompsons. Also, I observed on deactivated guns that the "P" is always on top of the barrel where it should be. Also, they are drilled only one time for the compensator in the observed specimen. Therefore, I am quite certain that during rebuilding, they were not re-barreled. In my opinion they were disassembled in their components except for barrel, sight etc. which would be difficult to disassemble. Again, this is comparable to the Russian rebuilt K98s: Action and barrel often match, but no other parts, proving that receiver and barrel often stayed together. The Russians capturing those K98s disasssembled them all and re-built them from piles of parts. I am certain that not all K98s actually needed rebuilding. It was probably simply ordered to disassemble and re-assemble ALL K98s. Similar with the Thompsons, I am quite certain.

What about the re-stamped numbers?
The Russian rebuilt K98 rifles are almost never number-matching besides barrel and receiver that stayed together during the dissassembly. But all other parts were then force-matched. In the case of the Thompson, some workers tried to match receiver and frame when re-assembling, some didn't and simply put together random receivers and frames.
In the end, there was probably an order to make sure the final guns had matching numbers. Those frames not matching were then re-stamped with the receiver's number. Some frames are re-stamped with two different numbers, probably showing that during storage, there had been multiple rebuilding programs.

When were they rebuilt?
The rebuilding of the Thompsons certainly took place a while after they were delivered. As we see by the rusty spots that were cleaned and re-painted black, they must have been exposed to bad storage for a while. I know a deactivated otherwise pristine condition Savage-made 1928a1 that has the compensator and barrel pitted underneath the black paint, proving that the rust was probably from bad storage and not from usage - there was no wear at all on receiver or frame except for the rust pitting in front that had been painted over black.

Parts kits vs. deactivated guns:
I am pretty certain that the parts kits offered in the US were from the same source as the deactivated guns in Germany. The re-stamped numbers on the frames have the same font as those on the deactivated guns judging from the photos, and it's in the same position. It makes sense that there is one large "source" of those delivering to different countries in different forms of deactivation.

Conclusion:
I do not know where these guns are from, but they are almost certainly from Eastern Europe as most sources (sellers, the thread mentioned above) state that. They were probably new when sent over; and were probably sent over during the course of production, starting with 1928a1 with Lyman sight until M1A1. That is explained by so many pristine samples and sequential serial numbers. Some of them were used, others were damaged due to improper storage. At one point in time there was likely one or multiple rebuilding program where all guns, regardless of damage, were taken apart into parts and rebuilt. Worn / rusty parts were "repaired" wherever possible. That explains otherwise pristine guns with some worn parts. And some pristine guns that have non-matching numbers on frame and receiver. Some workers probably paid attention to keeping frame and receiver together, others didn't, and those guns were re-stamped with the new serial number on the frame. I have observed multiple deactivated guns where both frame and receiver show not the slightest sign of wear - still they included some "used" parts and were not matching numbers.

What do you think of my theory? I am pretty certain it would explain a lot of issues on the "Russian" Thompsons.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Freddy

[dalbert]

Freddy,

 

Sounds like a viable theory based on personal experience with many example Thompsons. I like the part about some people caring, while others didn't care...Quite likely in a communist environment.

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

[DZelenka]

Freddy,

 

Sounds like a viable theory based on personal experience with many example Thompsons. I like the part about some people caring, while others didn't care...Quite likely in a communist environment.

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

Quite likely in any environment.

[dalbert]

 

Freddy,

 

Sounds like a viable theory based on personal experience with many example Thompsons. I like the part about some people caring, while others didn't care...Quite likely in a communist environment.

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

Quite likely in any environment.

 

DZelenka,

 

How true. Great point. I deal with it every day in a capitalist environment. Have to "pokeyoke" processes as much as possible so that no matter the level of individual quality motivation, the process design keeps it in check. But Lean principles weren't necessarily in play in the USSR in WWII...

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

[gijive]

Freddy,

 

I would like to see your documentation that the guns were "sent over between 1941 and 1943." The idea that someone would take apart every gun down to the smallest screw and spring, put them all in piles and then put them back together again, makes no sense to me. If you have seen enough of the parts kits that came in, probably almost eight years ago now, some of the barrels had obvious wear. They weren't all pristine unfired. The one thing you are missing about the butt stocks not matching is that many of the butt stocks are replacement stocks with no number stamped in the wood. Following your theory that they all were brand new and taken all apart only to be put back together, all the butt stocks should have numbers stamped in the wood, especially if you are convinced that they were all shipped over before the M1 went into production. I, for one, don't buy your theory. Someone rebuilt these guns at some point, whether it occurred overseas or not, I don't know. I don't believe they stored unused guns for all those years just to take them apart, down to the smallest component, and put them back together again.

[buzz]

the US army did several massive rebuild programs on the Garand rifle

 

the guns were stripped down into big piles of parts

 

the parts were gauged and the bad parts were thrown away and replaced with new parts

 

bad barrels were taken off receivers and replaced

 

the stocks were sanded on big belt sanders or replaced

 

the garands were re-assembled completely at random, parkerized, dunked in cosmoline and stored

 

eventually they found their way to CMP and sold to the public

 

the guns that were lend lease to other countries came back with weird Danish birch stocks and Danish barrels

 

even the garands that didn't get arsenal rebuilds were repaired at the unit level and had parts swapped

 

 

so when you buy a garand, unless it was very late production it's typically going to be a bunch of mismatching parts

 

nobody cares about originality when they are rebuilding 1000s of guns

 

 

I don't buy this story about the Russian parts kits

 

has it ever been proved they came from Russia?

 

also, why wouldn't they be assembled from stacks of parts just like the garands?

 

maybe the parts kits are literally just pieced together from some crates of NOS parts and used parts somebody found in Germany or Utah or who knows where

 

when it comes to guns, I don't believe any story until it's been reasonably proved

Edited August 27, 2015 by buzz

[giantpanda4]

Buzz,

 

These aren't garands.

These aren't redone by the US Army after being shipped.

And though I would be first in line at Port Clinton if they were, they ain't coming to the CMP!!

 

I know the pic of the guy sitting in front of literally hundreds of Garands in the theatre swapping whetever he could to get them running again. Have we seen one of Thompsons like that? With Soviet soldiers doing the swapping?? Not likely that they documented that, eh?

[shadycon]

????Maybe they were shipped what ever was avaiable, new or used????

[jim c 351]

gijive,

I recall when I was a teenager my fathers American Legion Post received 12 Springfield rifles from the government.

The rifles were all covered with cosmolene , so my father volunteered to clean them.

There were both 1903 and 1903A3 in the group. We stripped them down and threw the parts in a pail with cleaner.

We sent 2 or 4 rifles out to be chrome plated and reassembled the rest, mismatched of course.

Some rifles were well used and some were like new.

So,----if Thompsons were sent to anywhere, would they have been spiffy clean or coated with cosmolene?? Would the guns have all been new or returns from the front or training camps?? If I were in charge I would have sent the new guns to our troops and the used guns to the Ruskies. But that just me.

If the guns were not mismatched when the Ruskies received them, they surely would have been after the guns were cleaned of cosmolene.

I have 2 M1928A1 kits. One has a pitted bore and one has a shiny bore.

Are we making more out of this than we should??

Jim C

[buzz]

The point I was making is that when a gun is still a weapon in the field and not yet a collector item, nobody cares about originality.

 

The soldiers don't care, the rebuilders don't care, and the original manufacturer doesn't care.

 

 

Gun collectors come up with incredibly complicated guesses about how guns were made and used.

 

Nothing complicated like that ever happens in real life. In real life, everything is about speed and efficiency.

 

I've done factory work. A small factory might be spending $100k a day on salary and overhead, so nothing is ever permitted to slow down the product shooting out the door.

 

If IHC ran short of barrels, then HRA gave them extras. Then 50 years later all the collectors are coming up with convoluted stories to explain the big mystery.

 

 

Along those lines, it is hard for me to imagine the army scrounging around for used thompsons to send to Russia during the frenzy of production during WWII.

 

They were running factories 24 hours a day and building new ones at the same time.

 

The industrial capacity of the USA increased by a factor of 4 during the war.

 

They would load trains up with so many cars it would take an hour for a train to roll through a town.

 

All the normal rules went out the window in favor of production.

 

I think they would have just grabbed a pile of crated thompsons and shipped them.

 

Also, I'm not sure but I don't think they shipped new guns in cosmoline, I believe that was for storage.

 

 

I'm not going to believe that these kits are Russian guns until somebody can verify the story somehow.

 

In gun collecting, you have

 

1. raw first-hand data with documentation and proof

 

2. sober and intelligent guesses based on the raw data

 

3. guesses based on looking at a gun and making something up that might be true or might not

 

4. dumb gun shop BS stories that sound nifty

 

 

Unfortunately, the gun collecting community has a hard time distinguishing between between the 4 categories.

 

I'm not blaming anybody or climbing up on a high horse.

 

I'm just saying that a story about a gun defaults to #3 or #4 until some provenance exists.

 

Note that as soon as #3 or #4 get printed in a book, they magically are considered #2 by most collectors.

Edited August 28, 2015 by buzz

[Motorcar]

I'm not going to believe that these kits are Russian guns until somebody can verify the story somehow.

 

Many years ago when these first hit the market long before you joined this group it was verified. We had a member here that was overseas and photographed the cases prior to shipment and posted the photos here. Then another member that is an ATF agent posted pictures of them being imported here. Many photographs of the crates open with contents existed during that early amazing time.

 

They would load trains up with so many cars it would take an hour for a train to roll through a town

 

A short train nearly standing still can take an hour to go through town, trains in the 1940's came nowhere close to the lengths we operate today.

[Motorcar]

The buttstock assemblies are never matching, i.e. the wood and metal parts when disassembled show different numbers.

 

I believe that is a non issue, on wartime guns the numbers on the butt plate and the stock itself don't match from production. That has been documented in a couple of books I think.

 

I purchased one of the early parts kits when they started importing them, unfired and pristine in every aspect, go figure...

[buzz]

Don't think I'm trying to fault you guys or play the hero

 

the majority of Thompson collectors seem to hunt for facts in a very dedicated, detailed and serious way, it is impressive

 

I'm just somewhat skeptical about everything related to history or gun collecting

 

I wish I had been around for the initial flood of kits, I would have bought some

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

The unidentified photographer of this photo alleges that this is an original Lend Lease crate of unissued TSMGs sent to the Soviet Union.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Arthur Fliegenheimer

[bug]

Did we white letter guns then?

[gunhistorian]

To show my ignorance -- and my dismal misfiling of important "stuff" -- my impression was that most TSMGs provided the Soviets were '28s, though I suppose we provided a bunch of M-1s to either the Sovs or Yugoslavia (seems like a bunch of M-1 TSMGs were floating around the former Yugoslavia -- at least for that epic Clint Eastwood movie (brain freeze!) about the U.S. Army guys finding out about and "illegally" seizing Nazi gold. Also, wouldn't the cosmoline need to be removed to deactivate the guns (and the guns stripped)? Admittedly not down to the last screw or spring. Reassembly of the dewatted guns would probably lead to mismatched parts. I've got to find my U.S. Army In World War II (unpublished) manuscript on Lend-Lease to get some idea of the materiel we sent to the Sovs. . .

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

Other than the staged photo of Soviet sailors with 1928 TSMGs, there isn't much photographic evidence that the Soviets even sporadically used the TSMG on the Eastern front in 1941, 1942, 1943...

Why would the Soviets at the conclusion of WWII spend the time to strip down unissued weapons to the last component and then assemble these parts into a complete weapon at some later date? Do the parts take up less space than assembled TSMGs?

[DZelenka]

Are those bright shiny rivets I see on those two 1928A1s?

[bustagutt]

Sometimes I think it's perhaps easy to apply present day mindset or moreover a collectors mindset to circumstances of 70 plus years ago when arguably it was a mindset of chaotic paranoia, suppressed panic all mixed with a decent splash of ignorance. Reasons for mismatched parts and numbers are likely many and varied. As well as whole units, a mammoth heap of spares were shipped to allied forces. At wars end all this stuff was either scattered - big time or destroyed. The last 20 - 30 years has seen increased interest and more and more collectors and so now all this stuff gets mopped up and reassembled piecemeal. Here in euroland we can't help for tripping over all this stuff. Cheaper to run a woodstove on butts and grips than firewood.

I am a new boy and not in the least bit inclined to exaggerate to impress.

Yikes! Gotta skip, meteorite just landed in yard.

[mnshooter]

Are those bright shiny rivets I see on those two 1928A1s?

 

If you're referring to the collection of dummy guns in the crate, -yes.

[DZelenka]

Dummy guns or lend lease?

[reconbob]

_{Yes, the guns in the crate are dummy guns. There is a very similar picture on the Omega website.}

 

_{There is no question that the lot of Russian kits came out of Europe. They were not here in the}

_{United States.}

 

_{When I think about these kits I think about the great number of trigger frames with 2 or even 3}

_{serial numbers. What circumstance would have caused them to be numbered like this? The only}

_{reasonable theory I can think of is that the guns were rebuilt or refurbished 2 or more times and}

_{at different times. You would not refurbish a gun, number the trigger frame to match, then do it}

_{all over again and renumber the frame again. So some of these guns went thru multiple rebuilds}

_{spread out over some period of time - months or years...}

 

_Bob

[buzz]

at what point in history would the Russians have put these guns to so much use that they needed to be rebuilt several times.

 

apparently they did not really use them much during wwii due to a lack of ammo

 

okay, so it might be conjectured that the guns were rebuilt in America prior to being sent to russia

 

so when during 1942 to 1945 did the US army rebuild thompsons numerous times?

 

if it happened in the USA, why aren't there a lot of mil surp thompsons bearing the same multi-rebuild marks?

 

and why don't they have US arsenal rebuild marks?

 

something doesn't compute

Edited August 27, 2015 by buzz

[buzz]

maybe the thompsons were used by some other military like west Germany or korea and instead of being returned they were broken up for scrap

 

then the kits found their way to Russia somehow

[TD.]

Arthur makes a great point in his point. Show me where the Russians used the Thompson gun in mass during World War II.

 

On page 69 of my book I noted the cancellation of the "Russian (U.S.S.R.) requirements for Caliber .45 Submachine Guns" in a letter dated May 13, 1943. There is probably more documented information concerning the delivery and use of the Thompson gun by the Russian military in World War II.

 

Of course, that does not answer the question where all the "parts kits" came from. Those that deal in munitions tend to keep quiet on these types of deals. It may be years before the truth is known. I initially became suspicious about the advertising and Internet claims regarding these parts kits being from brand new unused guns when I saw a bunch of part kit frames with the original serial numbers completely ground off and a new six digit hand-stamped number applied. Other frames retained the original serial number but also had a hand-stamped number toward the front of the frame that would be visible with the butt stock attached. Sometimes the hand-stamped number matched the frame serial number; sometimes not. This told me these particular guns were kept at one time in vertical gun racks allowing easy access to the serial or perhaps inventory number.

 

We know for a fact reproduction or fake L type rear sights were substituted for the original 1928 Lyman adjustable rear sights so this part could be sold separately. This by itself indicates the morality of some of those that originally procured these kits. I also recall after the initial kits appearing on the market were sold, finding a kit with a good barrel became an issue. I suspect that the best quality parts and parts kits were offered first with the lower quality parts passed on later. Based on my limited observations I do not believe all the parts kits were taken from unused or new guns. Just the condition of the wood indicates many of these guns saw some use.

 

This is a great subject, one that does require more research. This and previous posts on MachineGunBoards.com will be of value to future researchers.

 

All good stuff!