My "Thompson" submachine gun

Texas Star · Sep 16, 2017

"cOMBAT" IS ON yOUtUBE. i MISSED MANY EPISODES WHILE AWAY IN THE USAF AND IT'S BEEN FUN CATCHING UP.

jASON TOLD INTERVIEWERS THAT MORROW DISLIKED GUNS, ALTHOUGH LIKE MANY ACTORS, HE UseD THEM IN HIS ROLE. jASON DID OWN GUNS.

i DON'T THINK HE TURNED DOWN THE tHOMPSON. i THINK THEY GAVE HIM A .30 CARBiNE BECAUSE THAT'S WhAT LIEUTENANTS CARRiED.

thERE SEEMS TO BE JUST THE ONE tHOMPSON. mAYBE THE SET CULD AFFORD ONLY ONE OR IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE sAUNDERS'S SoRT OF SIgNATURE OR CHARACER id gUN?

jASON'S CARBINE iS TOO LATE FoR THE 1944 TimE PERIOD OF THE SHoW, HAS A BAYONET moUNT AND PROBABLY,THE iMProVED REAR SIGHT. He CARRiES A BAYONET, NOT USED YET on carbines.

oNE THING THAT BAFFLES mE IS THAT NOnE OF The SOLDIERS hAS A KNifE AND THEY NEvER CAPTuRE EnEMY WEApONS as souvenirs or to carry. Mainly pistols, in that latter role. Vets I talked to said that German pistols were highly prized. Well, so were Berettas and Jap Nambus.

thiS post is messed up and I haven't time to edit. Just figure it out . Mainly, I wanted to let you know that,"Combat" is on YouTube. The final season, 1967, is in color.

jsfricks · Sep 17, 2017

My grandson would love a toy Thompson like that! I finally recently found him an M1 Garand toy gun, and you can load the clip and then load the clip in the gun, fire with real sound, and on the eighth shot you get to hear the ping. He loves it! Got it at Dollar General but they're hard to find. I'm hoping to come across some more to pick up for his collection

LedFowl · Sep 17, 2017

Texas Star said:
i DON'T THINK HE TURNED DOWN THE tHOMPSON. i THINK THEY GAVE HIM A .30 CARBiNE BECAUSE THAT'S WhAT LIEUTENANTS CARRiED.

I know we're drifting here, but, for what it's worth, I read that in the Combat trivia on Internet Movie Database.

CajunBass · Sep 17, 2017

Now I'd like to have one of those, for the same reason as the OP. Same hero even.

I'm also a child of "Combat." I've got the entire series, all six seasons I think it is on DVD. Unlike most TV shows from my childhood, it holds up quite well. Of course they seem to never run out of ammo, and if they got a Purple Heart for ever wound they'd sink the boat on the way home. No problem. They'd be back next week just as good as new.

I've also got the full set of "12 O'Clock High." That one IMHO didn't hold up as well. The year (with Robert Lansing as General Savage) or two did, but the plots quickly went downhill towards the end. Still worth watching however.

eveled · Sep 17, 2017

I've been afraid.to.watch it. My all time childhood favorite " Rat Patrol" was disappointing when revivsited

BE Mike · Sep 17, 2017

That is one cool toy! I have a buddy who has the real thing and I've shot it a few times. It is pretty easy to hit man sized targets accurately at 50 yards or so when shooting short bursts. I hate to burst your bubble, but Vic Morrow used a wooden Thompson in many scenes because he thought the real thing was too heavy to lug around. I wonder what some WWII vets would think about that?

Maple Trapper · Sep 17, 2017

My childhood Hero was faster than a speeding bullet, and another had a side kick named Patrick Alewishus (SP?) and a wife named Dale Evans, then there was "who was that masked man?" with sidekick Tonto. All were a long time before Combat and such.

Wyatt Burp · Sep 17, 2017

CajunBass said:
Now I'd like to have one of those, for the same reason as the OP. Same hero even.

I'm also a child of "Combat." I've got the entire series, all six seasons I think it is on DVD. Unlike most TV shows from my childhood, it holds up quite well. Of course they seem to never run out of ammo, and if they got a Purple Heart for ever wound they'd sink the boat on the way home. No problem. They'd be back next week just as good as new.

I've also got the full set of "12 O'Clock High." That one IMHO didn't hold up as well. The year (with Robert Lansing as General Savage) or two did, but the plots quickly went downhill towards the end. Still worth watching however.

I watched one episode on You Tube yesterday hoping it wouldn't seem lame to me now. It was excellent. Here it is below. Because the show was in b&w at first, mixing actual German WW2 action footage blended in well here.
I bought the entire series box set of The Wild Wild West. This held real well because it was so campy in the first place. For those who haven't seen Combat!, here's a taste of it...

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvjM4SwBHAA[/ame]

StakeOut · Sep 17, 2017

A gunshop in a nearby town runs events for shooting full auto weapons every so often.There's a small fee plus ammo.

The plus ammo is the thing to watch out for.

I figured 1 minute on the 50cal BMG would drain my bank account quicker than a card skimmer at a gas station.

sheepdawg · Sep 17, 2017

My dad was a WWII vet, in the Wehrmacht, captured by the Americans, October 1944. Combat was strictly verboten in our house as was Hogan's Heroes, Rat Patrol, 12 O Clock High, etc.

jdlii · Sep 17, 2017

I had a "1903" type rifle, with a bayonet, as a kid, that was made in TN. There was one company that made a nice looking "Luger" that used the green cap rolls and I wore two of those out. My cousin had a "1911" type toy pistol and when the trigger was pulled, the slide actually moved to the rear. It too, accepted the green cap rolls.

I didn't have a toy Thompson but, did have an "M14" and when the batteries were in the "magazine" it produced a thumping sound for semi and full auto modes.

I finally acquired my "Thompson", an Auto Ordinance, semi automatic version and it filled the desire that I had to own one. My Dad carried one during his tenure with the 32nd Inf. Div. in the So. Pacific.

A photo of my daughter shooting our semi auto version is attached. The target she is shooting at is not in the photo. The accuracy of this firearm is quite impressive with the "issue" sights.

DWalt · Sep 17, 2017

Back when I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was a Thompson squirt gun. It was plastic and about half-scale (no buttstock though), but the molding was very detailed. It held a lot of water, far more than a squirt pistol, and put out a powerful stream. I have fired many full auto weapons, but a Thompson is not one of them.

BE Mike · Sep 17, 2017

sheepdawg said:
My dad was a WWII vet, in the Wehrmacht, captured by the Americans, October 1944. Combat was strictly verboten in our house as was Hogan's Heroes, Rat Patrol, 12 O Clock High, etc.

My now deceased Viet Nam Vet friend's father (also deceased) was a POW. He was held captive in a Nazi camp. Hogan's Heroes wasn't watched in that household because his father felt it belittled the experiences of POW's held by the Nazis.

KSDeputy · Sep 17, 2017

I got to hold and shoot one at a training class. I loved that it was .45 as we were were carrying new model 645 at the time.

DWalt · Sep 17, 2017

Long ago, I worked with a vet who had been a POW in a German camp. As a result of that experience he had a bitter hatred for all Germans and wasn't bashful about letting the world know his feelings.

holo · Sep 17, 2017

Shot the old grease guns back in the day they were fun but a lot to hold onto

Wyatt Burp · Sep 17, 2017

BE Mike said:
My now deceased Viet Nam Vet friend's father (also deceased) was a POW. He was held captive in a Nazi camp. Hogan's Heroes wasn't watched in that household because his father felt it belittled the experiences of POW's held by the Nazis.

I just thought it strange that Shultz carried a Krag rifle.

panther · Sep 17, 2017

I've never had the chance to shoot a real Thompson, but when I worked in a gun store, we traded for a Volunteer Arms copy. They have a trigger on them that looks like it was made by Mattel. The gun was reliable, but not terribly accurate. You can burn through alot of .45 with one of those. They are expensive toys. And, yes, I did have flashbacks of every WWII movie I've ever seen while shooting it. Also every 1930's gangster movie I've ever seen.
That is a cool toy. I wonder if any store today would carry something like that, or ban it because it would offend the snowflakes.

Camster · Sep 17, 2017

jdlii said:
I had a "1903" type rifle, with a bayonet, as a kid, that was made in TN. There was one company that made a nice looking "Luger" that used the green cap rolls and I wore two of those out. My cousin had a "1911" type toy pistol and when the trigger was pulled, the slide actually moved to the rear. It too, accepted the green cap rolls.

I didn't have a toy Thompson but, did have an "M14" and when the batteries were in the "magazine" it produced a thumping sound for semi and full auto modes.

I finally acquired my "Thompson", an Auto Ordinance, semi automatic version and it filled the desire that I had to own one. My Dad carried one during his tenure with the 32nd Inf. Div. in the So. Pacific.

A photo of my daughter shooting our semi auto version is attached. The target she is shooting at is not in the photo. The accuracy of this firearm is quite impressive with the "issue" sights.

I had a 1903 toy rifle as a kid.It had a genuine web sling and M1 carbine sight on it.The sling eventually went on an old .22,and the sight was given decades later to a friend that owned a few carbines.

sheepdawg · Sep 17, 2017

BE Mike said:
My now deceased Viet Nam Vet friend's father (also deceased) was a POW. He was held captive in a Nazi camp. Hogan's Heroes wasn't watched in that household because his father felt it belittled the experiences of POW's held by the Nazis.

My dad thought it belittled Germans, he absolutely despised Col. Klink. I can hear him now, "That fool wouldn't have lasted 30 minutes in the Luftwaffe." "He be busted to private and put on the next train for Russia if he was lucky."

Fortunately my father was treated very well by the Americans.

My "Thompson" submachine gun

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