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If an imaginative ten-year-old set out to make a toy gun for himself by hooking two pieces of gas pipe together, he might wind up with something looking remarkably like the U.S. Army's newest war tool, the M-3 submachine gun, unveiled last week.

A stark, crude, unlovely shooting iron, the M-3 is nevertheless rugged, light and easy to massproduce. It coughs out a clipful of .45-caliber pistol slugs, can be fired with fair accuracy at short range (as with any submachine gun, the closer the better). Of all-metal construction, the M-3 weighs less than nine pounds, compared to twelve for the famous Thompson "tommy-gun," a standard Army weapon whose relationship to the humble M3" is approximately that of a chronometer to a dollar watch. (Even in quantity production the Thompson gun costs about $40 to make; the M-3 is fabricated mainly from stamped parts and can be turned out for something less than $20.)

Man chiefly responsible for the M-3's development, Colonel Rene R. Studler. was cautious in his predictions for the new gun, pointing out only that its lightness and ease of assembly would make it a valuable weapon for parachutists. But other officers wondered privately whether the M-3 might not be destined to serve as a "revolt gun," to be dropped by parachute to the rebellious people of conquered Europe when the time is ripe. Colonel Studler's gadget will never stir a gunsmith's soul, but to a despairing Pole. Czech or Dutchman it might look like a rare and lovely objet d'art.

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