If the Ak47 Was Never Invented Would the SKS have taken its Place?

[mr..plow]

Just for the sake of Disscusion...So please lets keep this civil.

Say Kalishnkov never invented the famous AK47 do you think the SKS would have taken its place? Say with improvements of a higher capacity magazine and or a detachable 30-rd mag model like the SKS-D taken place of the AK?

Besides the AK varinets have the Russians produced any other guns that were as famous as the SKS or AK?

 

[762]

I thought the SKS's design was based on the AK47, what am I missing here?

 

[JImbothefiveth]

They could have made it take detachable hi-capacity magazines, and a selector switch, but that would be radically different from the SKS many of us here own. Plus, detachable SKS magazines are known for poor reliability.
I think they would have been inspired by the m-16, and either copied it or made their own fully-automatic weapon.

Besides the AK varinets have the Russians produced any other guns that were as famous as the SKS or AK?

There's the Mosin-Nagant.

I thought the SKS's design was based on the AK47, what am I missing here?

SKS came first, but I don't think the AK was based on it.
I'd say the AK-47 is out of the SKS's class, for war purposes, with the SKS being more similiar to the Garand.

 

[newdude]

Besides the AK varinets have the Russians produced any other guns that were as famous as the SKS or AK?

Mosins. While the non gun people don't know as much about them, they are still very well known.
EDIT: oops, beaten to it....

 

[nwilliams]

delete

 

[HorseSoldier]

Say Kalishnkov never invented the famous AK47 do you think the SKS would have taken its place? Say with improvements of a higher capacity magazine and or a detachable 30-rd mag model like the SKS-D taken place of the AK?

Kalashnikov designed the AK as part of a Soviet competition for an assault rifle design using their intermediate power cartridge. So, if Kalashnikov were not in the picture with the AK design, presumably one of his competitors would have gotten the nod instead. (As it was, features from competing designs were incorporated into the production version of the AK, if I remember correctly.)

 

[ThomasT]

In one of the gun mags I was reading it was mentioned that the SKS was based on the Russian anti-tank rifle. This SKS was just a scaled down version of the ant-tank rifle.

The SKS was adopted and put in production just in case the AK was a failure.

I'm just quoting what I read so no nasty rebuttles please.

 

[SDC]

Highly doubtful; the Russians had already adopted the 7.62x39mm round in 1943 (based on an earlier 7.62x41 round), and their design boards were already concentrating on the "assault rifle" (shturmovy vintovka) theme. Here are a couple of their prototype designs from 1944, from S.B. Monetchikov's "History of Russian Assault Rifles".

Prilutsky bullpup:


Tokarev:


Sudaev:


Kuzmischeva:



PS. Both the SKS and PTRS were developed around the same time, from an earlier rifle that Simonov had entered in competition against Tokarev's SVT-40; the Russians had already adopted a gas-operated 14.5mm anti-tank rifle (the Rukavishnikov M1939), but couldn't get it into production because it was too complicated, so they went with two designs that worked and were easy to produce; the PTRS and PTRD.

 

[Timthinker]

HorseSoldier is correct that the Soviet design teams had access to a variety of rifle designs, including the German Sturmgewehr 44. With these facts in mind, it seems probable to conclude that something other than an SKS variant might have been produced. While this conclusion is speculation, it is not uninformed speculation. The AK-47 did not spring into existence uninspired by other rifle designs. That is an important fact to recall when discussing hypothetical questions such as the one posed here.


Timthinker

 

[Autopistola]

Nice pics, I've never seen those before and they may be the only such pics on the net. I'd like to know more about that bullpup.

 

[MAKster]

The SKS would likely have been the standard rifle into the 1950s but would have ultimately been modified or replaced by a rifle that used detachable magazines. Similar to how the Garand with its enbloc clip was replaced by the M-14 with its detachable magazine.

 

[MisterPX]

The Simonov was designed and produced BEFORE the AK.
Like others have said, if MK had died in his tank, some othter designer's rifle would have been adopted.

 

[WardenWolf]

There were some later SKS models that were manufactured with detachable magazines. And some aftermarket stocks that have a pistol grip. Long story short, the SKS could have done everything the AK did. However, the SKS is a bit heavier due to all that furniture. Russia has never been particularly concerned about weight, though. I think the SKS would have most likely been kept and upgraded.

 

[RP88]

Kalshinov's entry in the competition didn't look anything like the AK-47 we see. Alot of ideas from other competitors with the STG-44 in model mind was what they were aiming for, and thus were incorporated into the final design.

IMO, something more similar to Kuzmischeva's designs would have come up if MK didn't submit a design.

 

[elmerfudd]

I don't think so. I suspect the production costs would be too high.

 

[-v-]

Very doubtful that the SKS mod.1945 would have been kept around. From the lessons that the Soviets learning from WW2 on the Eastern Front, they knew that what wins engagements was sheer volume of fire. Heck, that's why towards the end they had entire regiments armed with nothing other then automatic weapons so that they could maximize the volume of fire in an engagement. It is highly doubtful that they would have kept a semi-automatic weapon as their standard issue weapon, as in their eyes it was nearly obsolete when it was first issued. That said, it was seen as a good "bridge" rifle from bolt-action & semi-automatic full power rifles to intermediate-powered assault rifles, and thus was kept in circulation, eventually filling the niche of a PDW for non-front line troops. In all likelihood, if Kalashnikov did not design his famous rifle, it would have been an AT, AD, or AS (Avtomat Tokareva, Avtomat Degatyeva, or Avtomat Siminova) that would have taken its place. Bear in mind that the AVS-36 (Automatic rifle Siminov mod. 1936) was the first general-issue Soviet battle rifle, although a 9lb automatic weapon firing the 7.62x54r round proved to be more practical on paper then it did in the hands of (questionably) trained infantry.

 

[jerkface11]

I like the Kuzmischeva

 

[-v-]

That was true of WWII but that was a front war. Those are rare today. Since the dawn of the helicopter age wars are fought much differently. It's sometimes hard to supply a unit with enough ammo to make battles about volume of fire. It's different when you have to carry all that ammo with you than it was when you could pick some up off a vehicle. It still works if the helicopters are flying. But if they aren't able to resupply the troops can't rely on volume of fire. Even in the Battle Of The Bulge the troops were very limited in how much ammo they had because the planes were grounded due to bad weather. That made it very hard to drop ammo to the troops who were surrounded. Today's battlefield creates a lot of situations where the troops are surrounded because they fly in to the middle of enemy territory. The first mission of the Air Cav in Vietnam found that out the hard way too.

While that is true, like I said, the AK-47 or any possible variants thereof that could have taken its place were designed around the lessons of WW2, with an eye towards WW3 being fought in a similar fashion. The general lesson from WW2 was that if a unit was encircled and not quickly rescued by outside forces, it would be quickly destroyed. The entire eastern front, to a large extent, revolved around this tactic of encirclement and elimination of enemy forces, be it the Battle of Stalingrad, Kursk, the defeat of Army Group Center, or the many battles over Kharkov were all at its core encirclement battles. Even the battle of the bulge was nothing more then the rehash of the standard operating procedure of the eastern front which was encircle the enemy and annihilate him.

 

[SDC]

Autopistola, Monetchikov doesn't go into much detail on the Prilutsky design, but he says that it's a gas-operated design, and he shows a stripped view; it looks as if two tabs on the bolt carrier are used to cam the breech-block up and down to lock/unlock the rifle.

 

[Autopistola]

Kewl! Looks like the abandoned bastard child of an AK and an SKS.

 

[SDC]

Looks like the abandoned bastard child of an AK and an SKS.

Actually, that's a pretty good description for one of the rifles that Simonov submitted for the 1952 trials when they were looking for a replacement for the AK-47 (and which the AKM ended up winning). Simonov's rifle was basically a select-fire SKS, fitted into a package with a collapsible stock, and which looks sort of like an AKMS if you look fast (or after a 24 of beer).

AKS-52:


stripped:

 

[MTMilitiaman]

And just to expand on the differences between the SKS and the AK, the SKS was (is) a short-stroke gas piston operated semi-automatic rifle with a tilting block mechanism used to lock the bolt. The AK is a long-stroke gas piston operated select-fire rifle utilizing a rotating bolt.

The Garand is a long stroke gas piston operated semi-auto using a rotating bolt, so actually, the AK has more in common with the Garand than the SKS does, mechanically speaking. In fact, while I don't think it has ever been proven MK copied anything from the Stg-44, it has been well established that he did borrow heavily from the Garand in the operation of the Kalashnikov's trigger mechanism.

The SKS is a decent rifle, but it doesn't fit the Russian's military doctrine, which favors quantity over quality for pretty much everything. They came to appreciate the ability of massed fire to overcome shortcomings in individual weapons training by a poor conscript army. While clearing buildings and city streets, the Ppsh SMG was used extensively because its large capacity and automatic fire fit this doctrine. The Russians were looking for a similar concept from a rifle with a little more range and power. The SKS didn't provide this, and regardless of how it could have been modified to fit this role, the Russians felt it necessary to replace it. In the process, they gave us one hell of a truck/trunk gun though, and a pretty decent Ranch Rifle. I still don't understand how people pay Ruger's prices for a Mini-14/30 when an SKS is just as accurate, more reliable, and far more durable at 1/3 the price, but whatever...

 

[max popenker]

Without Kalshnikov, the winner of the 1947 trials would be the Bulkin automatic rifle. In fact, AK-47 heavily borrows on the Bulkin in certain aspects of design...


Bulkin automat during trials was more accurate than AK but a tad less durable, it came a close second.
In design, it is almost the same as AK - gas operated, rotary bolt, long stroke piston. In fact, the AK-style top cover that is locked in place by the projection on the return spring guide was borrowed from Bulking prototype of 1946 - during the time Soviet practice was to encourage designers to copy successful ideas from competitors or anyone else - after all, all intellectual property belonged to the state, and such copying was in the sake of the sate and the people.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Yes the Russians certainly adopted heavy fire tactics after WWII but I think they could have done quite well with semi-autos like the SKS. I think modern battles have proven that to be true. Much of it depends on the battlefield of course. In close quarters battles it's certainly better to have a weapon capable of a high rate of automatic fire.

The US adopted firepower intensive tactics, and the equipment to make it happen, after WW2, also -- claiming there's a whole lot of difference between us and them in that respect is kind of shaky and requires ignoring a lot of evidence.

The real difference between the US and Soviet doctrine was not one emphasized firepower while the other emphasized riflemen (since whichever approach one emphasizes you still get guys who are mostly horribly inaccurate in combat). The difference was that the US developed a system where massed firepower was applied on the battlefield much more efficiently due to better communications and where low level leadership could exercise initiative to get the steel onto target.

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

The Garand is a long stroke gas piston operated semi-auto using a rotating bolt, so actually, the AK has more in common with the Garand than the SKS does, mechanically speaking.

If by having more in common mechanically speaking you mean having very little in common with the gas system, you're right.