Was the SKS used in the Korean War?

[Silent Bob]

I have seen some apocryphal hints that the SKS carbine was used by Communist troops in Korea, but I can't find nothing definite that the SKS was indeed used. Most every resource I can find mentions the NKs and the ChiComs as using everything from PPSH and other Russian burp guns, Moisin Nagant bolt-actions, to captured Japanese rifles from WWII. Anybody here know for sure?

 

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

Check this out:

http://www.simonov.net/battlehistory.htm

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Yes they were. David Hackworth as mentioned coming up against them in his books. The Russian SKSs were used. China began manufacturing their own version in 1956.

 

[Phil McGrath]

Yes there is even mention of there use in Jim Wilsons book "RETREAT HELL"

 

[Mike Irwin]

Yes, but not many, and most, if not all, were encountered in the hands of Chinese troops.

It's doubtful whether the North Koreans had any.

Most common by far were various Moisin-Nagant rifles and various flavors of Soviet submachine guns.

It also apparently wasn't uncommon for US troops to encounter Korean irregulars armed with Japanese Arisaka rifles left over from WW II.

 

[Fed168]

The Osprey color series on the Korean War has a plate with a communist soldier toting an SKS.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Apparently the Chinese didn't have many guns of any type. In Disaster In Korea, Lt. Col. Roy E. Appleman states that only about 1/3 of the Chinese infantry had shoulder arms and handguns. Most of their infantry were armed with grenades and these were the troops that were in the first wave of attacks.

A large quantity of the weapons the Chinese did use in Korea came from America. These included the M1, BAR, Thompson, light and heavy machineguns, 60mm and 81mm mortars and 105mm Howitzers. These weapons came from the 2,000,000+ troops of Chiang Kai-shek that surrendered at the end of their civil war in 1949.