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Originally posted by PerryC: A smg fires pistol bullets (9mm, .45) so it has a very short range. A lmg fires full sized rifle bullets giving it the longer range. Lmgs usually have much hihger rates of fire as well. PerryC pro patria

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Originally posted by Gavris Narcis: Full sized rifle bullets means that them were more longer (not thicker) then SMG bullets (pistol bullets) ? Or what ? By the way, what means .45 ? If I make a summary of what you say then a short bullet have a short range than the same type but more longer ? It is corect ? Really, I was don't know this ! Leo.

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Originally posted by Gavris Narcis: Full sized rifle bullets means that them were more longer (not thicker) then SMG bullets (pistol bullets) ? Or what ? By the way, what means .45 ? If I make a summary of what you say then a short bullet have a short range than the same type but more longer ? It is correct ? Really, I was don't know this ! Leo.

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Originally posted by Mike Wood: Hello... As has been stated above, the SMG or sub-machine gun (also called the MP or machine-pistol, as in MP-38) fires a pistol bullet and the light machine-gun fire a rifle bullet. A typical MP bullet would be the .45 calibre bullet. It takes 100 calibre (or caliber in modern English)to make one inch. So, .50 calibre is one half inch. This is a measure of diameter of the projectile. The .45 calibre comes to about 11.25mm (about 25 per inch) or 26 gauge (gauge is the number of projectiles required to make a pound, so a 12 gauge shotgun has 12 slugs per pound). The pistol bullet is shorter than a rifle bullet and does not have very much gun-powder in the shell. Muzzle velocities are low, in the case of the .45, about 450 feet per second. A typical light machine-gun bullet, such as the .30 calibre with the 1906 casing, or .30/06 is about three times as long and contains much more powder. This produces muzzle velocities in excess of 3000 feet per second. Just as important, is the barrel length of the weapon and the rifling in the barrel. The longer the bullet is pushed down the barrel, the faster it is going when it comes out. There is also a raised, steel spiral traveling along the inside of the barrel which cuts a groove in the bullet and causes it to spin. This groove and spinning cause the bullet to fly. In the case of the M-14 for instance, the bullet actually rises 6 inches over the first 500 meters. Note that in some old gun designs, such as shot-guns, there is no rifling. Machine-pistols have short barrels and light machine-guns have long barrels, so the bullets comes out faster and are spinning faster from the light machine-gun and therefore travel much, much farther and are much, much more accurate. For instance, the Thompson SMG has an effective range of about 25 feet. The M-60 light-machine gun (based on the M-42 Spandau) has an effective range of about 1100 meters. In short, the machine-pistol was designed to kill people at very, very short ranges (such as those found in a convenience store) and light machine-guns were designed to kill or suppress military troops at medium to long ranges. In World War II, most countries developed the infantry squad, which was one light machine-gun and supporting troops. These supporting troops were armed with rifles. It was assumed that the light machine-gun would suppress the enemy, while the riflemen actually killed them. Often, the squad leader would be armed with a machine-pistol. The purpose of this was two fold. Since he was supposed to be commanding troops and not firing his own weapon, giving him a very short ranged weapon kept him from using it. Also, if the enemy did close to pistol range, the machine-pistol gave an excellent, short range, addition to the squad fire power. At pistol range, a little longer bayonet range, troops were really in hand to hand combat and did not need commanding. Hope this Helps... Michael Wood