History[]
New Zealand produced some rather interesting vehicles and weapons during WW2 to supplement the armed forces in case of a Japanese invasion, including the infamous Bob Semple tank, an improvised tractor based AFV with sheet metal armor and bren guns as armament.. The country didn't have many natural recources, being a small island country. Thus it relied on other countries (mainly Britan) to provide mutual arms and equipment, most notably the STEN gun. Shipments of STEN guns were few and far between, so in late 1940, a request was made by the New Zealand government for a new submachine gun. The gun had to be simple and easy to produce in small workshops by averagely skilled workers, so the weapon had to be asimple blowback open bolt SMG and chambered in 9x19mm parabellum. An amatuer gunsmith named Harry Williams created the M1940 submachine gun as a stopgap measure and was simple as it gets in terms of the reciever, as it was only two pieces: the bolt and bolt head. It is unfourtunately exposed to the elements aiming to save metal. The weapon was very unreliable, partly in fact due to the usage of STEN magazines, but more so that the weapon is cheaply made and the main spring is subject to bending out of place, causing disastrous results, with a young soldier testing the weapon had severe burns on his hand and face after the spring bent during a full auto firing test, causing the bolt to explode backwards and break the weapon and scald the soldier. The M1940 was deemed a failure and was discontinued. Not much else is known about the M1940 as the original plans were destroyed in a fire in 1973. Only 5 prototypes were made and none survive today.