Heckler & Koch MP5

The Heckler & Koch MP5 (German: Maschinenpistole 5, lit. 'Submachine gun 5') is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s by German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. It uses a similar modular design to the Heckler & Koch G3, and has over 100 variants and clones, including select fire, semi-automatic, suppressed, compact and even marksman variants. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous militaries, police forces, intelligence agencies, security organizations, paramilitaries and non-state actors.

Attempts at replacing the MP5 by Heckler & Koch began in the 1980s, but despite functional prototypes having promising performance, a formal successor did not enter commercial production until 1999, when the Heckler & Koch UMP was developed. However, despite being more expensive, the MP5 remained the more successful of the two designs, because of its preexisting widespread use, design familiarity and lower recoil due to its roller-delayed action as opposed to the UMP's straight blowback action.

History

Heckler & Koch, encouraged by the success of the G3 Rifle in 1959, developed a family of small arms consisting of four types of firearms all based on a common G3 design layout and operating principle. The first type was chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO, the second for 7.62×39mm M43, the third for 5.56×45mm NATO and the fourth for 9×19mm Parabellum. The MP5 was created for the fourth type as the HK54; under the HK naming system, this categorizes it as a selective fire carbine chambered in a handgun cartridge.

Development began in 1964, and in 1966 the HK54 was adopted by the Bundesgrenzschutz and by Bundeswehr special forces, initially as the MP64, before being redesignated as the MP5. The MP5A1 was introduced in the late 1960s and was the first model to feature the front ring sight and "Slimline" handguard.