Amazing things sometimes happen in invention and, in particular, military invention. And it so happened that back in the late 40s of the twentieth century, the former American military pilot John L. Hill (article on "VO" "Projects of submachine guns with longitudinal store placement" dated June 5, 2014), an engineer of one of the oil companies, a strange thought came to my mind. He decided that he would be able to develop a submachine gun of his own design. At the same time, his main idea was to create a store of a new design for him, which would make it possible to significantly increase his ammunition capacity without much change in the dimensions of the submachine gun itself. In addition, he did not like the magazines that were inserted into the submachine gun from the bottom. Long magazines were inconvenient in that they rested on the ground and forced the soldier to rise high above the ground for firing. The magazine, placed on top, interfered with aiming, and the side magazine, again, could not be very long, since it interfered with the retention of the weapon.
The futuristic-looking P90 submachine gun would hardly have appeared if not for the revolutionary development of John L. Hill, which remained forgotten.
Apparently, Hill thought about all this for a long time, and it is obvious that he did not like it all. And then he took a truly revolutionary step: he placed a traditional box magazine in a very unusual place - on the upper surface of the receiver. To increase the ammunition load, the cartridges in it were located perpendicular to the axis of the barrel, bullets to the left. Therefore, a seemingly completely ordinary two-row magazine with a completely acceptable length in its submachine gun could hold as many as 50 9x19 mm Parabellum rounds against the usual 30-32.
Swivel mechanism
The John L. Hill submachine gun magazine itself was virtually the same as the magazines for other submachine guns. However, in the submachine gun itself there was a unit that none of the then samples of this weapon had, namely, a swivel mechanism with which cartridges were fed inward through a hole in the receiver. At the same time, before being sent, they were turned 90 °, for which a special feeder was provided in the design of the submachine gun, rotating in a horizontal plane. It turned out that the cartridge, under its own weight, fell on the tray of this feeder, which was mechanically connected to the shutter, and when it moved, it began to rotate and turned the cartridge forward with a bullet. Then the bolt was sent to the chamber of the submachine gun with a special protrusion and fired.
At first glance, such a device significantly increased the complexity of the design, but in fact, the new submachine gun turned out to be quite reliable and worked almost without delay. The rate of fire was also quite acceptable - 450-500 rounds per minute.
With the exception of the original store, John L. Hill's design was generally unremarkable (John Hill's Experimental Submachine Guns 12 December 2017). The automatics had a free shutter with a striker, which was rigidly fixed to the shutter. The receiver was of a simple rectangular shape, the stock was made of wood, in the best traditions of its time. The ejection hole was located at the bottom of the receiver, so that the spent cartridges fell out of the weapon due to their own weight.
Met without enthusiasm
John Hill offered his submachine gun to the US military in 1953.
Diagram from a patent by John L. Hill, which shows the feeding of cartridges from above and the arrangement of the mechanism for their reversal.
However, Hill's proposal did not arouse any enthusiasm among the military. And here's why: the army had truly huge stocks of submachine guns left over from the war. It was planned to switch to new ammunition, new automatic rifles, and to abandon submachine guns altogether. So the 1953 model was made only in a few copies and that's all …
Nevertheless, John L. Hill continued to pursue his brainchild. At the end of the fifties, he completed a new submachine gun H15 or M 1960. And this time he offered it to the police, emphasizing its compactness and large ammunition load.
General arrangement of a submachine gun from John L. Hill's patent.
Cartridges for the H15 used.380 ACP (9x17 mm). At the same time, there were 35 of them in the store with two-row filling. Now the submachine gun did not have a wooden box. Under the receiver was a pistol grip, and a hollow one, through which the spent cartridges were thrown out, which was a very original solution.
In total, approximately 100 H15 submachine guns were made. However, the police leadership did not contact him either. Therefore, all the samples were recycled, and those that have survived are collectible rarities.
Hill's Submachine Gun and Uzi
When comparing the design of JL Hill's submachine gun and the Uzi, it is clearly seen how much the former is more compact than the latter. And if he had brought it to his senses, the United States after that would have been the leader in the market of compact submachine guns for special units and personal protection for a very long time. But what did not happen did not happen.
John L. Hill H15 submachine gun (top) and Uzi submachine gun (bottom)
FN P90 submachine gun
But it is obvious that the technical solutions incorporated in the H15 very much resemble … the technical solutions that the FN engineers used in their P90 submachine gun (article on "VO" "FN P90 submachine gun" dated March 5, 2013), developed in 1986-1987. Belgian engineers. The only thing in which they differ noticeably, well, apart from the general appearance, of course, is the cartridge rotation system. Hill invented a special mechanism for this, while on the P90 submachine gun, the cartridges rotate on the magazine itself. However, in all other respects, including the very principle of the location of the store and their presentation, these two samples are very similar. Similar is the case of spent cartridges through the hollow grip pistol grip fire control.
FN P90 submachine gun without magazine.
Standard P90 with magazine. Thanks to a special integrated collimator sight, you can shoot from it with both eyes open. The ability to fire is fully maintained at night and in low light thanks to the tritium capsule.
P90 "Tactical" equipped with a MIL-STD-1913 Picattini rail.
The latter, however, is not surprising. Because there is evidence that back in the mid-sixties, J. L. Hill was invited to the FN company and were even able to convince him to donate his H15 to them for study.
By the way, the P90 subsequently with good reason entered the family of 4th generation submachine guns, one of the characteristics of which was the high specialization of its individual samples. If before this, it was a kind of tradition to create a kind of universal submachine gun for the needs of both the army and the police, then a trend appeared, the direction of which became highly specialized submachine guns with various purposes.
So, the main difference between the P90 and all its other "older and younger brothers" was the caliber of its new cartridge SS190 (5, 7 × 28 mm), the advantages of which experts attribute high penetrating power and low probability of ricocheting. An initial speed of up to 715 m / s and a pointed shape allow its bullet to penetrate modern bulletproof vests made of titanium and kevlar, from a distance of up to 20 meters.
Cartridges for P90. They don't look like pistol ones at all …
The magazine will be patented by Rene Predazzer, and it also mounts over the receiver and has a capacity of 50 rounds. Conveniently, it is made of transparent plastic, so the shooter can clearly see how much ammunition he used up. However, the cartridge reversal unit is located on the magazine, which makes it technically more complex than conventional direct-fed magazines. But its capacity captivates: after all, 50 is much more than 30 and 32 … By the way, despite the massive appearance, the submachine gun, even with a magazine for 50 rounds, turned out to be not heavy for the Belgians and fully equipped weighs 3.1 kg (standard version) and 3.2 kg (tactical).
Magazine with a device for turning cartridges for P90.
The effective range of fire, indicated by FN, is 200 m, but its rate of fire, again, according to the firm, is 850-1100 rounds per minute. The fire is fired from a closed bolt, which increases the accuracy of shooting, which, by the way, is already very high, as shown by the tests of 2002 and 2003, carried out by experts from NATO member states.
P90 with a long barrel and three Picattini strips.
Today, this submachine gun is in service with special units of 33 countries of the world, and this despite the fact that the weapon is not cheap and this is perhaps the main drawback of this PP - the cost of its production is 3 times higher than the cost of a modern assault rifle and in 5-7 times higher than the cost of an Uzi-type submachine gun, which means that its selling price is much higher …
Girls of the Peruvian army with Kalashnikovs and P90s in 2000
