M3

M3

Quotes

M317
Gun Information
Full name	United States Submachine Gun, Cal. .45, M3
Country of origin	United States
Manufacturer	General Motors, Ithaca Gun Company
Game Information
Faction	Griffin & Kryuger
Manufactured / Revised by	I.O.P.
Voice actor	Yamane Nozomi
Artist	November
Released on	CN, TW, KR, EN, JP
Chibi Animation
Variant: Default Click the marked area to switch between animations. For details regarding animations, please see Animations on the Wiki.

How to obtain

NORMALHEAVY Timer 1:30:00. See T-Doll Production for details.

DROP Can be obtained from many battle stages from Chapter 1-4 onward.

REWARD Not obtained as a reward

Exclusive Equipment

OSS Suppressor

Union Skill

There is no union skill for this T-Doll.

Stats / Data

Stats

Health	Ammo	Ration
93(x1) → 185(x1) / 925(x5)	25(x1) / 85(x5)	20(x1) / 60(x5)

Damage	11 → 30	Evasion	9 → 67
Accuracy	2 → 13	Rate of Fire	46 → 68
Move Speed	12	Armor	0
Crit. Rate	5%	Crit. Damage	50%
Armor Pen.	15

Equipment

Ranking of this Doll's specs relative to other Dolls of the same type.

Ranking of this Doll's specs relative to every other Doll.

Tiles

Affects assault rifles

Increases accuracy by 40%

Increases evasion by 30%

Skill1

name	Hand Grenade
icon	Grenade
text	Throws a grenade that deals ($damage_value)x damage to enemies within a 2.5 unit radius.
initial	3
cooldown	20	19.6	19.1	18.7	18.2	17.8	17.3	16.9	16.4	16
damage_value	1.8	2.2	2.6	3	3.4	3.9	4.3	4.7	5.1	5.5

	name of skill here

 

Weapon Background

The M3, officially designated the 'United States Submachine Gun, Cal. .45, M3', is an American-made automatic submachine gun designed for the US Army in 1942. It was designed to be a cheaper, easier to produce replacement for the famous Thompson submachine gun, and is chambered for the same .45 ACP pistol cartridge. The M3 was commonly referred to as the "Grease Gun" or simply "the Greaser", owing to its visual similarity to the mechanic's tool. The M3 began to enter front line service in mid 1944, but due to delays caused by production issues and approved specification changes, the M3 saw only limited combat use in World War II. The updated M3A1 variant was used in the Korean War and later conflicts.

In 1941, the US Army Ordnance Board observed the effectiveness of submachine guns employed in Western Europe, particularly the German MP 40 and British Sten submachine guns, and initiated a study to develop its own submachine gun of a similar style. They came up with a list of requirements for the gun, which called for an all metal weapon of sheet metal construction in .45 ACP, designed for fast and inexpensive production. It also needed to have a low cyclic rate of fire to make it easier to manage recoil, and be decently accurate. George Hyde, a machinist at General Motors, was given the task of designing the weapon, and five prototypes would be produced and submitted for Army testing by late 1942. During these initial tests, the weapon performed well, scoring high marks in both the accuracy and endurance departments. There were some malfunctions noted by the testers, but these were found to almost all be the result of poor/damaged magazines. The prototype was formally approved by U.S. Army Ordnance in December 1942 as the U.S. Submachine Gun, Caliber .45, M3. Around 606,694 of the M3 variant submachine gun would be produced between 1943 and 1945.

After its introduction to service, mechanical issues with the M3 were reported in February 1944 by stateside units in training, who cited early failure of the cocking handle/bolt retraction mechanism on some weapons. An investigation revealed several deficiencies in the construction of the M3's bolt retraction mechanism, together with issues concerning barrel removal and retention as well as easily bent rear sights. As a result, several improvements were made. These included a new dust-cover design, modifications to the ejector, a metal guard around the magazine release, and a strengthened rear sight. In December 1944, in response to field requests for further improvements to the basic M3 design, an improved, simplified variant of the M3 was introduced, known as the M3A1. 15,469 M3A1 submachine guns were produced before the end of World War II, and 33,200 more would be made during the Korean War.

The M3 is an automatic, air-cooled blowback-operated weapon that fires from an open bolt. Constructed of plain 1.5 mm-thick sheet steel, the M3 receiver was stamped in two halves that were then welded together. This made the M3 incredibly simple to manufacture, as only a handful of parts required precision machining. The bolt was drilled longitudinally to support two parallel guide rods, upon which were mounted twin recoil springs. This configuration allows for larger machining tolerances, and makes the gun reliable even in wet, sandy, or muddy conditions. The weapon's only safety is the hinged ejection port dust cover. This cover has a metal tab on the underside that fits into a notch in the bolt, locking it in either the forward or rearward position. The M3 has no mechanical means of disabling the trigger, and the insertion of a loaded magazine loads the gun. With receiver walls made of relatively thin-gauge sheet metal, the M3/M3A1 is subject to disabling damage if dropped on an open dust cover – the covers bend easily, negating the safety feature. Dropping the gun on a sharp or hard surface can dent the receiver enough to bind the bolt.

With its stamped, riveted, and welded construction, the M3 was originally designed as a minimum-cost small arm, to be used and discarded once it became inoperative. As such, replacement parts, weapon-specific tools, and sub-assemblies were not made available to unit-, depot-, or ordnance-level commands at the time of the M3's introduction to service. It was originally hoped that the M3 could be produced in numbers sufficient to cancel future orders for the Thompson, and to allow the army to gradually withdraw the more expensive Thompson from front-line service. However, due to unforeseen production delays and requests for modifications, the M3 was introduced later than expected, and purchases of the Thompson continued until February 1944. The M3 would see limited use in the later years of the Second World War, and the improved M3A1 model would see service in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. During the Korean War, existing M3 guns in service were converted to the improved M3A1 configuration using additional parts. The M3 and M3A1 were largely withdrawn from U.S. frontline service beginning in 1959 and into the early 1960s, but continued to be used until the mid-1990s as on-vehicle equipment aboard armored vehicles.

Gallery

Main artwork

Gallery consisting of artworks used primarily in-game. For information on how to obtain certain costumes, see Skin Catalogue.

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  Full damaged artwork

Trivia

• In the Girls' Frontline 4coma, M3 is shown as wanting to be helpful in her squad. However, she begins to doubt her role in the team after being called a 'grease gun'. The 'grease gun' moniker comes from the M3's similarities to an actual grease injector gun.
• The OSS version of the M3 includes a silencer and booby trap system called the 'Bushmaster Device'. The device consists of a triggering hook and pull-type trigger. If the firing safety is off and the tripwire is pulled, the striker pushes the spring, launching the hook and depressing the M3's trigger until the magazine is empty. The silenced M3 was intended to be used by US OSS (now known as the CIA) and British SOE (Special Operation Executive).
  • It should be noted that a special barrel for the M3 is needed in order to attach a suppressor. However, the performance of the suppressor itself is considered very poor compared to the M3's British competitor, the STEN.
• After the discovery of the 'Krummlauf' curved barrel for the ^AR StG44StG44 , the US army began to experiment with curve-barreled M3s in 1945. Initially, the curve-barreled version of the M3 was intended for tank crews, to allow them to fire back from within the tank cupola or driver's hatch at assailants. Aside from the armored crew version, the infantry version was intended to be fired from a foxhole, windows, and around wall corners without exposing themselves. Neither of these designs were ever adopted due to accuracy issues, a fault they shared shared with the 'Krummlauf'.