How on earth is it fantasy? We quite literally have photographic evidence of their existence!
Anyways I’m not actually sure the NKVD had the 50 round drum for their M1921 Thompsons ironically. I also think the 50 round Thompsons are pretty bad BR5 weapons as well but ymmv. And as a final note, considering that to my knowledge the 50 round Lend Lease Thompsons were used in semi-decent numbers, that config could arguably fit in the tech-tree instead.
So I did some further research and while I’m currently a bit unsure about the Vickers situation I can, with a reasonable degree of confidence, say that the Soviets did actually buy the license for Christie’s design as opposed to only just a couple of tanks to copy.
I just explained it. There’s proof of 1, uno, singular, most likely the only one they had. Should the Brits get some fun new toys just because the Royal Armouries had some rare examples of fire-arms as well? Even if they somehow had more, do you think they had 13 more? They didn’t have enough for for a whole squad, one event weapon would have been enough as a curisoity. This is the fantasy.
If they somehow managed to get their hands on a luxury 100-round drum (that’s what they were, they were incredably expensive, the same value of a expensive car at the time), then they likely got their hands on several 50 round drums too, though yes the 20-round stick mag would have been the most common magazine most likely.
Whilst technicly correct, glosses over the murky details of the deal. Christie himself said that he was lead to belive there were more sales in the future, which never came, and thus felt cheated for making such a generous introductory deal. The Soviets then went on to use his designs for later developments, which was not covered under the agreement. So yes, whilst they purchased production rights, they weren’t exactly fair and open about it, nor did they even honour the agreement that was made in bad faith afterwards.
How the heck does a photo of an example prove that there’s only one magazine? What you’re saying is pure conjecture, opinion, guesswork. All the photograph proves was that they had at least one 100rnd drum. Ultimately, unless archive diver in Russia manages to dig up some order receipt or NKVD inventory count, we’ll probably never know for sure exactly how many magazines they had so in the end we can only work with what we have and so in this framework of limited evidence it is reasonable to use that photograph as proof that the NKVD had 100rnd magazines in their inventory. Also think about it, why the heck would the Soviets just buy a single hundred round magazine? What would be the point in doing that? These Thompsons weren’t meant to be range toys for the NKVD, they were tools of their trade.
Also how is the Royal Armouries example even remotely comparable? As stated before, the NKVD bought these Thompsons as equipment to be used, not museum pieces.
While that is a logical assumption that’s all it is, only an assumption. I personally haven’t seen any evidence of the NKVD having 50rnd mags with their Thompsons though admittedly I wouldn’t be surprised if some Russian source on the subject mentions them having it.
Yea I haven’t done a full dive into this topic so maybe it’s true maybe it’s not. This topic was kind of a massive sidetrack but I never said that the Soviets were super duper honest businessman (I mean hell, they basically tricked a US shipbuilding company into building an advanced water tunnel for them in the USSR), my ultimate point at the beginning was that the interwar Soviets absolutely were willing to make deals with western nations for military and industrial products and services, arguably these deals were extremely important to the Soviet’s interwar industrisation progress.
Never said it proves there’s only one, I said that it’s only proof that at least one existed. What you are suggesting is also conjecture, and a wild one at that.
Which makes this statement false, there is no proof that there was ever more than one.
Likely to find out how viable they are, and to reverse engineer and copy them should they be deemed as useful I would assume. They no doubt came to the same conclusion as everyone else, they were unreliable, bulky, heavy, hard to carry around and expensive (especially if you want to make them right).
Not to mention that it probably looked cool, the Thompsons were meant for guard duty looks are a important aspect. You can’t fault the Soviets for not understanding optics.
Also, we don’t ecactly know how these Thompsons were procured either, whomever got their hands on them to smuggle them through Mexico could just as well have… aquired them without exact thought to the composition of magazines, it could just have been what was in inventory at certain locations, or the things that were easy to pilther without anything looking suspect (a slight dip into the supply here and there). The 100-round mag could as easily have just been something thrown in because it was amongst the things they had access to, as to it having been deliberatly aquired, we just don’t know, and I doubt we ever will, gangsters and criminals don’t exactly keep records.
And you are so very different? Maybe, at least mine are logical.
The whole point of what I’m saying is that, unless new documentation is uncovered, trying to determine the exact amount of Thompsons or magazines the NKVD acquired during the period is impossible. Ultimately, with what information we can get all we can do is say that “yes the 100 round Thompson was a thing that the NKVD had” and that is good enough to justify it as a weapon for an event squad. Trying to pin down the exact number they had is fruitless and trying to come up with fanfics about how oh they actually had one magazine or whatever makes zero sense due to it being ultimately an unproveable hypothesis.
There is nothing to give any kind of credence to the idea that they only purchased a single 100rnd drum to evaluate and test it. And considering that the Soviets decided to make high capacity drum mags for their domestic SMGs all the way up to until the PPS-43, that conclusion you came up with about them deciding that high capacity mags were a waste clearly was not what they thought.
Also, the claim that they were used to look cool for guard duties is again, just guesswork. While it has been suggested that some of them may have been used by the personal guards of Stalin considering that they were purchased for use by the NKVD, the secret police, chances are they were more likely used to round up and “deal with” political dissents. I can’t imagine that branches of the Communist system openly flaunting their use of a capitalist weapon system to the public for clout would be that good of an idea either but once again that’s more theorycraft. Even we were to go along this theory and say that’s actually what the Thompsons and the 100 round mag(s) were purchased for, presumably you would need multiple of those magazines for the multiple members of that unit. Let’s say perhaps 4 mags, or 6?
As for theory 3 about a 100rnd mag just basically ending up being bought by accident due to the murky nature of the purchase, arguably that’s the least likely of the situation. As you’ve stated yourself the 100rnd magazine was a very rare and very expensive piece of paraphernalia for the Thompson. That’s not something that appears or disappears without much thought or notice.
Compare all this to the theory that “oh they purchased some 100rnd drum mags because they wanted to use those with their Thompsons”.