Small arms of the USSR in WW II?

[greyhound]

Given the recent thread about German small arms (and the fact that I just bought my first Mosin Nagant and watched "Enemy at the Gates" again),
I thought there might be interest in what most of those German small arms were up against.

My pitiful knowledge:

Main battle rifle was the Mosin Nagant 91/30 in 7.62x54R ( as well as earlier variants).

There was a M44 carbine, basically a shortened 91/30.

Semi auto pistol (Tokarev?) in 7.62x25? I also see lots of revolvers (Nagant) but I'm not sure which was more prevelant.

Not sure of the name, but late in the war didn't they have lots of sub machine guns (I always see them with drum magazines).

I guess their main battle weapon was just sheer mass of men!
"The man with the rifle shoots! When the man with the rifle is killed, the man with the bullets picks up the rifle. The man with the rifle shoots! When the man..."

 

[El Tejon]

[Professor Barsook dons tweed jacket with leather patches, drains vodka bottle, and strides to podium]

The submachine gun you reference is the PPSh M1941. It was fed with a 71 round drum or 25 round magazine and chambered in 7.62x25mm. The cyclic rate was approximately 800 rpm.

The PPS M43 was also very common especially toward the end of the war. The 43 is the all metal stamped machine pistol from Leningrad in the same caliber. Others were in use including the PPD, the M34/38 (earlier versions of the M41), captured Italian and German machine pistols, and lend-lease American machine pistols (harder to supply at times).

The standard infantry small arm was the 1891. Diffferent versions of this weapon were around in smaller numbers--the Dragoon, the 91/30, sniper version of 91/30, carbine M10, carbine M38, and the M44. Self-loading weapons were present (the SVT, M40) but not in large numbers excepting speciality units of the NKVD, for example.

The pistol that you reference was the TT33. Orginally adopted in 1930 it underwent slight improvements and became the Tokarev M1933. There was also a training version in .22 and a smaller version in .25 that personnel such as Commissars carried.

Pistols were confined to officers and Commissars as badges of rank. Revolvers, TT33s, American lend lease, captured Finn and German weapons were also used.

You mention nothing about machine guns? Have those down?

 

[Mike Irwin]

OK, the standard handguns for the Soviet Union were the TT-33 and the later TT-34 variant. There may have been a few of the TT-30 running around, too.

The revolver was the Model 1895 Nagant, the famous "Gas Seal" gun in 7.62 mm.

It's hard to say which was more prevalent, but I'd bet on the Nagant simply because it had been in production for so long, and it stayed in production until 1944 or so.

There were apparently any number of Soviet rifles and carbines in use during the Great Patriotic War.

The rifle was the 1891/30. There were also model 1910, 1938, and 1944 carbines.

There were also two semi-auto rifles employed during the war, the Tokarev SVT-38 and the SVT-40. The 38 was an earlier version that was modified into the SVT-40 to correct some deficiencies and make it easier to mass produce. The 38 was withdrawn from service, and the 40 was issued mainly to specialty troops such as snipers, who could be expected to understand and better care for the gun.

The Soviets employed 3 submachine guns: the PPD, the PPSh 41G, and the PPS-42.

The PPD (designed by Degtyarev) was largely based on the German Bergman. Earlier versions used box magazines, but the 1940 reworking, largely done to make it better for mass production, also introduced the 71 round drum, copied almost directly from the Finnish Suomi.

The PPD was largely replaced by the PPSh, which was even simpler to mass produce, and was by far the most common submachine gun ever manufactured. Some estimate that nearly 20 million of this version were made.

The Germans, early in the war, captured so many of them that they rebored them to 9mm and issued them to troops.

The PPS-42 was an expediency measure, designed in Leningrad in 1941, and made to make the most use of sheet metal stampings, welds, and simple production methods. Simple, to the point, and effective.


The standard Soviet squad machine gun was the DP 1928, another Degtyarev design. It used a Lewis-type pan magazine, and used two swinging flaps on the bolt that were cammed into place by the firing pin to accomplish the lockup. An effective, simply gun that saw service well into the 1970s in Communist Satellite nations. It may still be in ready reserve in nations like China and North Korea.

 

[chaim]

I have read in a few places that about 200 prototypes of the SKS made it into service by the end of WWII but I don't know for sure if it is true or not (certainly plausable, if they had 200 working prototypes by then the Soviets were not the types to not use whatever they had on hand).

 

[Nightcrawler]

One of their more common machine guns was a variant of the M1910 Maxim gun, in 7.62x54mmR. Often employed on a "Slokov" wheeled mount, or a sled mount.

 

[Phil Ca]

When I was in Germany I bought a 1895 model Nagant in 7.62 with a Star and 1929 stamped on the side. It was a seven shot revolver and I used to have M1 carbine ammo reloaded to shoot in it. After the powder was poured, the bullet was inserted and pressed so it would be even with the top of the casing. They fit in the chamber and I fired it a few times to be able to say I had done so.

One time as army intellegence(oxymoron?) team came to Coleman Barracks and put on a show to keep us apprised of the developments of the Soviet Union. They had flags and babbers arounf the theatre and were playing the Russian Anthem and the Internationale on the audio system.

When the guys came out to do their skits and tell us what was up with the Sovs they were wearing Russian uniforms from General down to private. They were carrying Russian weapons and had them on the stage to look at up close. They all spoke Russian an or Polish.

I asked my first sgt. to allow me to attend the program the following day. I took my Nagant revolver and had the chief guy look at it. They had one with a broken grip and a problem with the cylinder. They wanted to buy or trade for mine. I was holding out for a dewatted PPsh with a 71 round drum. They offered any uniform in their wardrobe. I could have had a major in the artillery or a colonel iun the armored corps uniform.

I did not make the trade so I brought the pistol home. Later in the air force I traded it for a small set of German binos and three silver dollars.