Owen Gun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Owen Gun
Australian soldiers armed with Owen Guns in New Britain in 1945 (AWM 018320)
Type	Submachine gun
Place of origin	Australia
Service history
Used by	Australia, Britain, New Zealand, United States
Wars	World War II, Malayan Emergency, Korean War, Vietnam War
Production history
Designed	1939
Number built	50,000
Specifications
Weight	4.21 kg (9.37 lb)
Length	806 mm (32 in)
Barrel length	247 mm (9.75 in)

Cartridge	9 mm Parabellum
Caliber	9 mm
Action	Blowback
Rate of fire	700 round/min
Muzzle velocity	420 m/s (1250 ft/s)
Feed system	32 round detachable box

The Owen Gun, which was known officially as the Owen Machine Carbine, was an Australian submachine gun designed by Lieutenant Evelyn (Evo) Owen in 1939. It was the main submachine gun used by the Australian Army during World War II.

1 History
2 Production and use
3 Design
4 External links

[edit] History

Private Evelyn Owen Circa 1942.

The Owen was the only Australian-designed service firearm of WWII. Evelyn Owen, an inventor from Wollongong, was 24 in July 1939 when he presented his prototype .22 calibre "Machine Carbine" to ordnance officers at the Victoria Barracks in Sydney. The gun was rejected because the Australian Army at the time did not recognize the value of the submachine gun and did not accept them for service, not to mention the fact that many British colonies/dominions did not usually use home-built designs. Following the outbreak of war, Owen abandoned work on the gun and joined the army as a private.

About two years later, Evelyn decided to try a direct approach to a manufacturing concern. He knew that Vincent Wardell, who was the manager of the factory John Lysaght, at Port Kembla, used to drink on a Friday night at the Illawarra Hotel in Wollongong. Evelyn was acquainted with the owner's daughter and asked if the gun could be passed on directly to Mr Wardell during one of his visits. Consequently, one Friday night, the owner of the hotel Hilda Condon 'the Blue Wren' passed the prototype over the counter in a sugar bag and suggested that he should take look at the weapon. Wardell became intrigued by the weapon's simplicity and arranged to have Owen transferred to the Army Inventions Board, where he recommenced work on the gun. The army continued to view the weapon in a negative light, but the government took an increasingly favourable view. The prototype was at the time equipped with a drum magazine.

The choice of calibre was an unsettled issue. As large quantities of .45 cartridges were available at the time, it was decided to adopt it for the Owen Gun. Official trials were organised, and Lysaght made 3 versions in 9 mm Parabellum, .38/200 calibre and .45. As a comparison, Sten guns and Thompson submachine guns were used as benchmarks. As part of the testing all the guns were immersed in mud and covered with sand to simulate the likely environment in which they would be used. The Owen was the only gun that still operated after the treatment. Although the test showed the Owen's capability, the army could not decide on a calibre and it was only after intervention from the higher levels of government that the army ordered the 9 mm variant.

[edit] Production and use

Australian Women’s Army Service in training

The Owen went into production at the Lysaght factory at Port Kembla. Between March 1942 and February 1943, Lysaght produced 28,000 Owen Guns. However, the initial batch of ammunition turned out to be the wrong type and 10,000 of the guns could not be supplied with ammunition. Once again government intervention overrode military bureaucracy, and took the Owen Gun through the final production stages and into the hands of Australian troops at that time fighting the Japanese forces in New Guinea. Approximately 50,000 Owens were produced from 1941 to 1945.

Christmas parade in Sydney, 1942

Although somewhat bulky the Owen rapidly became very popular due to its reliability. It was so successful that it was ordered by the US and New Zealand. The Owen was used in front-line service in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. It remained a standard weapon of the Australian Army until the early 1960s, when it was replaced by the F1 submachine gun.

[edit] Design

The Owen was a simple blowback design firing from an open bolt. It is easily recognizable due to its rather unconventional appearance, including a magazine mounted on top of the breech and a side-mounted sight. The placement of the magazine allowed bullets to simply fall into the chamber, rather than be pushed into it by a spring, which could fail sometimes or get jammed. Another unusual feature was the separate compartment inside the receiver which isolated the small-diameter bolt from its retracting handle by a small bulkhead. This prevented dirt and mud from jamming the bolt, and made the Owen a highly reliable weapon in jungle fighting. Like the Sten, the Owen had a non-folding wire buttstock, but also had pistol grips.

To facilitate cleaning, the ejector was built into the magazine rather than the body of the gun, allowing the barrel to be rapidly removed by pulling up a spring-loaded plunger in front of the magazine housing. After removing the barrel the bolt and return spring are removed in a forward direction, completely dismantling the gun.