Machine Pistol

The machine pistol is a new class of weapon introduced in Modern Warfare 2. A machine pistol is a fully-automatic handgun-style firearm. The boundary between submachine guns and machine pistols, however can be a bit hazy, since both have similar origins and roles. Both are pistol-caliber, fully-automatic close-range weapons. Submachine gun is usually used to describe a weapon scaled down from a larger automatic weapon, while machine pistol is used to describe a weapon scaled up from a handgun.

Machine pistols and submachine guns have their origins in World War I, where soldiers needed better weapons than bolt-action rifles for trench warfare. The first pistol was the German MP 18, a handgun with rifle-like properties and fully-automatic. It was the first fully-automatic weapon that wasn't a heavy machinegun, leading to the development of man-portable automatic weapons. After some experimentation, the Germans were able to modify existing pistols to be fully automatic, such as converting a C96 into an M172 Schnellfeuer. Machine pistols never fully caught on except in niche roles; Tank crews and boarding parties were among the few military roles that would require a compact, powerful weapon.

By the 1970s, machine pistols made a small resurgance; the MAC-10, VP-70, M93R, and Glock 18 were developed over time as the need for such a weapon evolved, usually alongside handgun development. A few compact submachine guns, such as the MP5K, MP9, and Mini-Uzi are sometimes classified as either submachineguns or machine pistols.

In Modern contexts, the machine pistol is useful as a concealable, portable weapon that offers more firepower than a handgun, used by SWAT teams, security personnel, criminals, and some military special forces, though the role of the machine pistol in military is largely supplanted by the personal defense weapon like the P90.

In the Call of Duty series
All current machine pistols are labeled as such in Modern Warfare 2. Call of Duty 4, however, had a few that were in the submachine gun class.

Call Of Duty 4

 * Mini-Uzi
 * Skorpion

Modern Warfare 2

 * Glock 18
 * PP-2000
 * Mini-Uzi