WB
I thought by military terms if it didn't need support crew
Tuesday, October 23, 2018, 19:09

like a couple guys to hump the ammo, it was a SMG. If it was not the select-fire battle rifle. I have read the same as Woody described myself. But perhaps it's a casual term generally accepted and less technically specific. The BAR is a "machine gun" and it had some support guys? We didn't have anything under that except the Thompson (SMG) and .30 M2 (?) is the latter a SMG?

I'd call any select fire 5.56 or 7.62x39, with 7"-9" barrel a SMG. The full sized battle rifle begins at about 36" overall to me. Perhaps the line is somewhere between the two?

However I'd figure any true pistol caliber MG would fall easily into the SMG category. Then you have the machine pistol... the line between it and the SMG. Many of both have stocks.