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Post by phantom12321 on Dec 22, 2005 1:18:39 GMT -5
Now I know the airborne carried the five cell pouches on their chests for thompson ammo but how did infantry usually carry them? five pouches on the waist? or did they prefer the satchel bags?
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Post by 2nd Bat on Dec 22, 2005 20:40:42 GMT -5
Troops in all wars do anything and everything that made sense. Occassionally a units SOPs restrict adaptations according to taste. The Thompson five pocket mag pouch was designed (airborne or straight leg) to be worn on the belt . Both airborne and leg Infantry adapted it to whatever made sense to them. You more often see the Thompson diagonal on the suspenders on Airborne troops but there are also pictures of line troops doing it as well. I've never seen a picture of a Marine that way (they always seem to have it on the back of their belts) But that by no means they always were always placed there.
With 2 million Infantrymen in uniform throughout the war you can imagine that virtually anything would be authentic.
The satchel bags were (I believe) generally used as a dump bag but also held fresh mags. One thing to note with the satchel bags is you almost never see them with the cloth interior section dividers. The troops cut them out in almost all cases. Unfortunately this caused the magazines to rattle around more and make more noise but they were way less hassle then carefully sliding magazines in when the magazines were empty. This is based on veteran interviews. Since cutting out the inner liners was almost universal this leads me to believe the satchel was mostly used as a dump pouch for spent magazines.
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Post by CPL. Mills 2nd Rangers on Dec 22, 2005 20:51:54 GMT -5
there was the thompson clip bag: the marines have the 3 clip pouch, they hold the 30 round clips
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Post by phantom12321 on Dec 23, 2005 2:01:55 GMT -5
I had one other question, I have seen the pouches for the barrel clips for the Thompsons. Did they see much action during the war? I know on the full sized tommy guns they were fairly common but were they commonly used with the government edition
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Post by CPL. Mills 2nd Rangers on Dec 23, 2005 3:20:25 GMT -5
the marines used them i believe, I think I saw a guy with one, when I was watching a show about the marines in WWII, here is the bag for it
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Post by gunfreak on Dec 23, 2005 4:51:35 GMT -5
just a question, when did it become the norm to have 30rd mags for the Thompson in ETO.
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Post by 2nd bat on Dec 23, 2005 20:28:04 GMT -5
Great reference pictures Pvt Mills!
The drum magazine was rare and could only be used on the M1928. The much more common later produced M1A1 would not accomodate it without modification. The Marines had a large number of M1928s as did the British early in the war. (British Tommies!) ) Marines stationed in China (before formal hostilities) often had the drum magazines and pouches which they kept. Usually when you see a Marine with a M1928 and drum magazine they were thought to be "China marines" or old dogs.
30 round mags were out prior to D-day and varied in issue from unit to unit. Airborne and ranger elements got them first. Probably in time for Scicily but I don't know for sure.
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