Hi. I am new to this board, and this is my first post to the forum, but I was a Combat! fan back in the '60's, when the series was still on TV! (I know, I'm OLD!). It is great to see a site dedicated to something that a lot of us grew up with, and will never forget. Now to my question: In some of the episodes, I have noticed that the German troops are packing something that, at a quick glance, looks like an MP40. But when you really take a close look, it definately was not. It looks like something that the prop people built to resemble an MP40, but it is not very convincing. Does anyone have more info on this?

By Louis Vierne (Louisvierne) (209.172.22.148) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 01:44 am:

This is only common-sense speculation, but in the "background" scenes with "several krauts holding MP 40's", they were likely wooden mock-ups. There just weren't that many MP40's available to a TV film company's prop department! In close ups, and for "weapon firing" shots, it was the real thing,
of course. Related factoids: Rick Jason's M1 carbine was registered to the Culver City, CA Police Dept. And Vic Morrow's "real" Thompson (he used a wooden mock-up in distance shots) was a Chicago gangland-era original Thompson, which was rare in WW II. Vic's had the (old) top bolt and Cutts compensator on it - few of the Thompsons built for the GI's in WW II had those - they had a *side* mounted bolt, and no Cutts compensator. They also had internal differences. The Thompson was also built for the British troops as part of the lend-lease loot, (in 9mm Parabellum caliber) and was called by them the "Lancaster" if I remember correctly.

Louis Vierne

By Al Caron (Sgthorvath) (192.41.148.220) on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 03:58 pm:

Thanks for all those factoids, Louis; talk about interesting! Watching the shows as a kid, we were in awe! But now, although the memories are still there (as well as V.C.R.'s), we can record the shows and watch them in slow motion!
But the show was ground-breaking, and I know it will remain as one of my all-time favorites!

By Chris Trucchi (Securityboy) (151.203.83.179) on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - 07:58 pm:

What you are seeing is a H&R Reising SMG made up to somewhat look like an MP38/40. MGM had a few of these guns made up. Over the last couple of years a couple have popped up on the market, running a little higher in price than a Reising but well below MP38/40 prices. Had an opportunity to buy one of them, but didn't think it was worth it. Just a side note I've been collecting NFA (machineguns) for years. I am for sure no Thompson expert, but the Thompson and Lancaster are two completely different guns. US did supply thompsons to allies under lend lease, but these were regular thompsons in 45acp. There are and were only a relatively small number of 9mm thompson ever made, to be honest I don't think they ever made any real production of them in 9mm.