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.

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.

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.

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.

Investigator Weapons: Armed at the Opera

Although by now rather old news, I’d like to mention that The Unspeakable Oath #25 contains my article “Armed at the Opera,” in which I examine props and procedures that would be useful for a successful “Night at the Opera” of your modern DELTA GREEN agents. Large parts would also be interesting reading for Armed Investigators of the Mythos in any period. And of course, there are loads of other cool articles by other fine chaps in there. Check it out!

Investigator Weapons: Charles Reber, Armed Investigator?

In the 1930s, Charles Reber, a US Army veteran of the Spanish-American War and an ex-Major with the Oklahoma National Guard, was a pioneer ballistics and fingerprint expert with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation & Identification, who consulted on numerous cases.

This alone would make him an interesting example for an Investigator of the Mythos. During the hunt for Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, he was also painted as a template for an Armed Investigator in newspaper articles like “One-Man Army Rigs Auto for Sudden Battle” in The Fresno Bee (08-JUN-1934):

Though he looks like a staid schoolteacher [!], is quite and unassuming, Reber is as expert with a gun as with his ballistics apparatus … Inside his sedan he has rigged out a rolling arsenal. By reaching up with his left hand he can pull a sawed-off shotgun, loaded with buckshot, from a rack in the car. With his right hand he can claw down a Browning automatic rifle. Reaching forward he can pull a Thompson sub-machine gun from a rack on the dash of the car, where it is flanked by holders containing clips [sic] of ammunition. In the seat with him he can reach a Colt .45 automatic or a long-range German Luger automatic of smaller caliber, but deadly accuracy. On the floor, in a case, he can reach hand grenades, [tear] gas bombs and extra clips [sic] of ammunition ‒ shotgun shells, high power rifle cartridges and pistol ammunition, all carefully arranged to be “handy.” In the back seat, for long range work, he has an old Krag-Jorgensen [sic] army rifle, made famous in the Spanish-American war for its deadliness. Its sights are carefully adjusted, with wind gauge, elevation, and important other arrangements.

Investigator Weapons: The Strange Case of Harold Severy

Everything had gone fine until 1915, [Harold Severy] said, when he noticed that people were sticking their tongues out at him. Severy believed that his persecutors had a ringleader, and that lodges had been organized in various cities to torment him. His enemies, he thought, obtained advance information of his whereabouts and plans, apprising each other by underground communications. He tried to escape them by moving from New York to Baltimore, he said, but they caught up with him. Still trying to escape, Severy fled to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago … Returning East, he came to Albany, where his tormentors soon caught up with him and began to cluck their tongues at him. Severy decided finally, he said, that the only way to stop the persecution was to shoot with a … gun.

‒ New York Herald Tribune, “Albany Terror of ʻ16 Dies Mad at Matteawan” (22-JUL-1936)

 

On 01-FEB-1916, 25-year-old Harold Severy, dubbed “Jack the Shooter” by the press, was arrested in Schenectady, New York, for the murder of James Irving and the assault of three others. He had shot them on 28-JAN-1916 in Albany, New York, with a .22-calibre Stevens single-shot rifle without stock that had been fitted with a Maxim Model 1912 sound suppressor and a wire assembly to trigger the shot with the gun concealed up his right sleeve and the wire being pulled by a twist of his right hand.

At the Movies: Sicario

Kate, this isn’t something that I dreamed up myself. I don’t have the authority to hire advisors, or authorize joint agency missions, or fly agents from Air Force bases. Are you understanding me? These decisions are made far from here, by officials elected to office, not appointed to them. So, if your fear is operating out of bounds, I am telling you, you are not. The boundary’s been moved.

‒ FBI Special Agent in Charge Dave Jennings in Sicario (2015)

This is a film review of Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario (2015) with an eye towards using it in Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game.