The anti-tank gun rose to prominence and became a mainstay of militaries and can still be found in inventories today. Portable assault guns were introduced that provided infantry with broader killing powers - especially for lightly-equipped paratroopers. Beyond rifles and submachine guns were pistols (revolver and semi-automatic types), hand grenades, mortars and machine guns. The German invasion of Poland in September of 1939 forced the small arms industry to reach all new levels of production, particularly in the Soviet Union and the United States, and millions of arms were produced during the span of the war.

However, the submachine gun was a firearms development that was here to stay - embodied by the classic German MP18 and MP38/40 lines, the British STEN, the American 'Tommy Gun' and the Soviet PPSh-41.

The semi-automatic rifle was just beginning to take hold and progress was had by the Americans and the Soviets but others chose to rely on their manually-operated bolt-action Enfield, Mauser and Mosin-Nagant systems. This ensured that many pieces of the World War 1 battlefield would make their way to the battlefields of World War 2. In the period immediately following the end of World War 1, the military powers of the globe saw major restrictions on procurement and development.

At the end of the 1930s, Europe would once again find herself embroiled in Total War, a war that would span into the middle of the next decade, taking with it countless lives in the process. The world was redrawn with all-new borders and new political groups took power which would have major implications in the upcoming global conflict. Despite its separation by some two decades from the First World War of 1914-1918, World War 2 was an extension of the earlier conflict that saw an end to the ages-old empires that once dominated the globe through their various colonies.

World at war guns list