Gangster Gats: The Battle of Barrington

It was just like Jimmy Cagney. I never seen nothing like it. That fellow just kept a-coming right at them two lawmen, and they must have hit him plenty, but nothing was going to stop that fellow.

– Robert Hayford, eyewitness to the “Battle of Barrington” (1934)

In late 1934, former Dillinger-Nelson Gang member Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis – “Public Enemy No. 1” at the time – was finally chased down by the Division of Investigation (the future FBI) north of Chicago, in what would become the “Battle of Barrington.”

The events that unfolded that day would put any action picture to shame – oddly, they have never been properly covered on film, despite several movie dramatizations. Neither Don Siegel’s Baby Face Nelson (1957), Mervyn Leroy’s The FBI Story (1959), Scott Levy’s Baby Face Nelson (1996), or Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009) make a credible attempt at depicting what actually happened – with only Leroy even trying to stick to the most basic facts.

High-Tech: Converted Glock Machine Pistols

The Glock pistol design allows easy modification into “select fire” or “full auto only” modes. This modification can be achieved using a variety of “low tech” methods, but all rely on the disengagement of the trigger bar from the striker tail at the appropriate moment in the firing cycle.

– Steven Pavlovich, “Select Fire Device Found on Glock Firearms Seized by Western Australia Police” (2014)

 

Machine pistols – that is, selective-fire or full-automatic pistols, not submachine guns – have few real applications. Entry teams use them sometimes because they are more manoeuvrable or can be used one-handed, for example while holding an entry shield or forcing open a door. Bodyguards occasionally use them because they are easily concealed even wearing a business suit yet offer substantial firepower allowing them to disengage from an attack on their patron.

It is important to realise that machine pistol are real close-quarters weapons. Typical range is supposed to be 3 to 5 metres according to firearms instructor Timothy Mullin. For shots at longer distances, they are to be used on semiautomatic to ensure hits.

The pistol manufacturer Glock has offered a machine pistol variant based on its successful Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol since May 1987. However, the Glock 18 machine pistol (GURPS High-Tech, p. 101; Investigator Weapons 2: Modern Day, p. 63) is extremely rare, as it is only sold to government agencies, and even those have few applications for such a weapon, as outlined above.

Ultra-Tech: TST ChemRail

Para uso único Asgari. [For Asgari Use Only.]

‒ User label of the TST ChemRail

Elysium (2013) is one of the more credible attempts at a cyberpunk film, even though many concepts of that genre are so 1980s. Perhaps to make up for this, the film is set in the much more distant future, the year 2154. Nevertheless it features many of the typical cyberpunk tropes, such as the juxtaposition of the sprawling masses and the filthy rich, the wonky cyber gear including datajacks and exoskeletons, the almost instantaneous computer hacking, an orbit community, etc.

And of course it has the weaponry, a mix of the antique – a katana (if that is not taken straight from Shadowrun’s street samurai then it is an incredible coincidence …), an Izhmash AKM assault rifle, and a Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun, both with homing rounds – and the ultra-modern – Cousar Crowe storm carbines with ETC ammunition and 4Sure manportable ground-to-space multiple missile launchers.

The most fun, if not the most realistic, weapon featured in the film is the TST ChemRail Dual-Stage Linear Motor Rifle (LMR) – a variant of the portable rail gun (GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 141).

Tactical Shooting: The Sopranos at 20

What the fuck? I got him, didn’t I? Maybe he’s stunned?

– Peter Paul “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri in The Sopranos #3.11 “Pine Barrens” (2001)

I love The Sopranos (1999-2007); it is simply one of the best telly series ever. I have already looked at a shootout in the first season. Here is another one from the third season, set 20 years ago, examined using GURPS Tactical Shooting.

Investigator Weapons: Fending Off Sharks

Eugene F. McDonald, radio manufacturer and commander of the yacht Mizpah, back from a cruise about the Galapagos Islands in the eastern Pacific, greeted friends here with a tale of fighting great schools of sharks with machine guns. “They were so thick that we were afraid they would endanger the yacht. We killed hundreds of them,” McDonald said. McDonald related that his party, which included several scientists, made discoveries of a scientific nature on the islands so startling that they could not be revealed until after further exploration.

– The Enquirer & Evening News, “Machine Guns Used to Fight Off Sharks” (14-FEB-1930)

 

Lieutenant Commander Eugene “Gene” McDonald, an officer in the US Naval Reserve Force, was the millionaire owner of the Zenith Radio Company in Chicago, Illinois. On 03-JAN-1930, he embarked on a 5-week cruise of the East Pacific, starting in Miami, Florida, and travelling through the Panama Canal. McDonald was the owner and skipper of the Mizpah, a 56-metre luxury yacht built for then-outrageous $1.3 million using components of a discarded US Navy destroyer. While nominally based on Lake Michigan in the Lincoln Park yacht harbour in Chicago, the vessel was seaworthy and was often stationed in Miami. The Mizpah had a 27-man crew and sported eight fully equipped state rooms with real beds rather than cramped berths.

Tactical Shooting: El Camino ‒ A Breaking Bad Movie

“Your .22, against my .45. Winner takes all.”

“Like the Wild West?”

“Yeah. Like the Wild West.”

‒ Neil Kandy and Jesse Pinkman in El Camino ‒ A Breaking Bad Movie

 

El Camino ‒ A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) is set immediately after the end of the last episode of the highly enjoyable series Breaking Bad. It features an interesting shootout which I examine here in GURPS terms, specifically using GURPS Tactical Shooting.

Investigator Weapons: The Reverend’s Guns

Although he had two bulletproof vests and two revolvers, the Rev. Martin Green, colored, pastor of a church at 4421 South State street, went to the offices of the Detective magazine yesterday and tried to purchase a Thompson machine gun [sic]. The police were notified and he was arrested. His only explanation was that he wanted to be sure he was able to protect himself and his congregation. Dr. William Hickson of the psychopathic laboratory is to examine the minister.

– Chicago Daily Tribune, “Well Heeled Colored Pastor Tries to Buy Machine Gun” (20-AUG-1926)

 

The 36-year-old reverend had come to the right place – “Al” Dunlap, editor of the magazine The Detective at 1029 South Wabash Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, had a thriving side business selling steel-lined Dunrite “bullet-proof” vests (GURPS High-Tech, p. 66; Investigator Weapons 1: The 1920s and 1930s, p. 49) of his own design and make, and Thompson submachine guns in .45 ACP (GURPS High-Tech: Pulp Guns 1, pp. 28-30; Investigator Weapons 1, pp. 87-89). Dunlap distributed no less than 65 of the submachine guns during the 1920s, at least three of which ended up in the hands of gangsters like “Fred Burke” or the Touhy Gang ‒ he was not always as circumspect about his customers as in this instance. John Dillinger’s favourite Model 1921AC submachine gun had originally been supplied by Dunlap to a sheriff’s office before it was stolen by Dillinger.

High-Tech: Caseless Ammunition and the H&K G11, MP11, and MG11

The streamlined plastic butt of an H&K didn’t exactly hurt, either, and Rydell could see one peeking out of Svobodov’s open flak vest. Couldn’t remember the model number … Shot that caseless ammo looked like wax crayons, plastic propellant molded around alloy flechettes like big nails … Orlovsky was pulling out his H&K … Nothing in the world ever sounded like caseless ammunition, on full-auto, out of a floating breech. It wasn’t the sound of a machine gun, but a kind of ear-shattering, extended whoop.

– William Gibson, Virtual Light (set in 2005)

Ever since the 1980s and for much of the 1990s we have been promised caseless ammunition and the advanced weapons firing them. If not now, then very soon. Science-fiction authors and designers of games like Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, and Twilight: 2000 were positive that we would see them in the immediate future. Even industry authorities were taken in by the hype. Master Gunner Ian Hogg claimed in Jane’s Infantry Weapons, 17th Edition (1991) that the famous H&K G11 assault rifle and its 4.73×33mm caseless ammunition were in production and had already been issued to West German “special forces” in 1990 ‒ when in fact the rifle actually never entered production and furthermore the Bundeswehr had no such forces at the time, unless one counts the tiny Kampfschwimmer (combat diver) and Fernspäher (long range recon) units. Similarly, Sergeant Kevin Dockery erroneously reported in his appropriately titled book Future Weapons (2007) that at least 1,000 G11 rifles had been produced …

Gangster Gats: “Red” Barker’s Ghouls

A band of ghouls seeking to rob the grave of George (“Red”) Barker, slain claimant of the gang power of Al Capone, was driven from Mount Carmel cemetery in a heated gun battle early today.

– News Journal, “Gun Battle Is Staged Over Grave of Gangland Leader” (22-JUN-1932)

 

I have previously expressed doubt whether gangsters and Mythos investigations are a good fit. I am still not entirely convinced, but you could probably make it work. Recently I stumbled over an article in the Chicago News Journal, which reported that on 22-JUN-1932, shortly after midnight, four or five “ghouls” had tried to disinter the body of Chicago Outfit member George “Red” Barker in Section 26 of the Mount Carmel cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.

Tactical Shooting: Mission: Impossible ‒ Fallout

Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible ‒ Fallout (2018) is the latest instalment in the somewhat tired but still fun Mission: Impossible franchise. The highly cinematic films are prime examples for GURPS Action scenarios. Nevertheless much of the shooting is actually reasonably realistic. I take a look at a short scene in which IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) shows off his gunfighting skills, and analyze how it would play out in GURPS terms, specifically using GURPS Tactical Shooting.