The PPSh-41 submachine gun is not just a well-known (at least externally) submachine gun of the Second World War, which habitually complements the common images of a Belarusian partisan or a Red Army soldier. Let's put it another way - in order for all this to be so, it was necessary in due time to solve a number of very serious problems.
Each type of weapon also forms the tactics of its use. At the time when a submachine gun was being created in the USSR, the main and only weapon of an infantryman was a magazine rifle. From the time of the invention of gunpowder and until that time, despite the proliferation of machine guns and the use of automatic rifles (tactically being a lightweight replacement for the same machine guns), despite the perfection of magazine rifles, weapons that only fire single fire continued to remain in the hands of a soldier. These are hundreds of years of a single-shot rifle and tens of years of a magazine rifle. In this system, the idea of the device and tactics of using the machine gun in the infantry is to some extent comparable to the idea of the fourth dimension.
Submachine guns appeared at the end of the First World War. Due to the lack of ideas about the most profitable tactics for using a new type of weapon, the shape of submachine guns gravitated towards magazine rifles - the same awkward butt and wooden stock, and the weight and dimensions, especially when using large-capacity drum magazines, did not imply that maneuverability. which the submachine guns later acquired.
The idea of a submachine gun is to use a pistol cartridge for automatic shooting in an individual weapon. The low power of the cartridge, in comparison with the rifle, allows you to implement the simplest principle of operation of automation - the recoil of a massive free breechblock. This opens up the opportunity to make weapons extremely simple, both structurally and technologically.
By the time the PPSh was created, a number of fairly advanced and reliable models of submachine guns already existed and were distributed. This is the Finnish Suomi submachine gun of the A. I. Lahti system, and the Austrian Steyer-Solothurn C I-100 designed by L. Stange, and the German Bergman MP-18 / I and MP-28 / II designed by H. Schmeisser, the American pistol the Thompson machine gun and our Soviet PPD-40 submachine gun (and its early modifications), produced in small quantities.
With an eye on the foreign policy of the USSR and the international situation, it is clear that the need to have a modern model of a submachine gun in service, albeit with some delay, is also ripe in the USSR.
But our requirements for weapons have always differed (and will differ) from the requirements for weapons in the armies of other countries. This is the maximum simplicity and manufacturability, high reliability and reliability of action in the most difficult conditions, and all this - while maintaining the highest combat qualities.
The PPSh submachine gun was developed by the designer G. S. Shpagin in 1940 and was tested along with other models of submachine guns. According to the test results, the PPSh submachine gun was recognized as the most satisfying the requirements set and was recommended for adoption. Under the name "7, 62-mm submachine gun G. S. Shpagin arr. 1941" it was put into service at the end of December 1940. As indicated by DN Bolotin ("History of Soviet Small Arms"), the survivability of the sample designed by Shpagin was tested by 30,000 shots, after which the PP showed satisfactory accuracy of fire and the good condition of the parts. The reliability of the automatics was tested by shooting at elevation and declination angles of 85 degrees, with an artificially dusty mechanism, in the complete absence of lubrication (all parts were washed with kerosene and wiped dry with rags), by shooting 5000 rounds without cleaning the weapon. All this makes it possible to judge the exceptional reliability and reliability of the weapon along with high combat qualities.
At the time of the creation of the PPSh submachine gun, the methods and technologies of stamping and cold working of metals were not yet widespread. Nevertheless, a significant percentage of PPSh parts, including the main ones, were designed for production by cold stamping, and individual parts - by hot stamping. So Shpagin successfully implemented the innovative idea of creating a stamping machine. The PPSh-41 submachine gun consisted of 87 factory parts, while the machine had only two threaded places, the thread was simple fastening. For the processing of parts, it was required with a gross output of 5, 6 machine-hours. (The data are given from the table of technological assessment of submachine guns, placed in the book by DN Bolotin "History of Soviet small arms").
In the design of the PPSh submachine gun, there were no scarce materials, there were not a large number of parts requiring complex processing, and seamless pipes were not used. Its production could be carried out not only at military factories, but also at any enterprises with simple press and stamping equipment. This was the result of the simple principle of operation that allows you to implement a submachine gun, on the one hand, and a rational design solution, on the other.
Structurally, the PPSh submachine gun consists of a receiver and a bolt box, connected by a hinge, and in the assembled machine locked by a latch located in the rear of the receiver, a trigger box located in the box, under the bolt box, and a wooden box with a butt.
A barrel is placed in the receiver, the muzzle of which goes into the barrel guide hole in the front of the receiver, and the breech goes into the bore of the liner, where it is pinned by the hinge axis. The receiver is also a barrel casing, and is equipped with rectangular cutouts for air circulation, cooling the barrel during firing. In front of the oblique cut of the casing is covered with a diaphragm with a hole for the passage of the bullet. Such a device of the front of the casing serves as a muzzle brake-compensator. Powder gases, acting on the inclined surface of the diaphragm and flowing up and to the sides through the casing cutouts, reduce recoil and reduce the barrel pull up.
Bolt box PPSh-41
The barrel of the PPSh submachine gun is removable and can be detached during complete disassembly and replaced with another. A massive bolt is placed in the bolt box, compressed by a reciprocating mainspring. In the rear part of the bolt box there is a fiber shock absorber, which softens the bolt impact when firing in the extreme rear position. A simple safety device is mounted on the bolt handle, which is a slider moving along the handle, which can go into the front or rear cutouts of the receiver and, accordingly, close the bolt in the front (stowed) or rear (cocked) position.
The trigger box houses the trigger and release mechanism. The button for switching the types of fire is displayed in front of the trigger and can take the extreme forward position, corresponding to single shooting, and the extreme rear position, corresponding to automatic shooting. When moving, the button moves the uncoupler lever away from the trigger oppressor, or enters into interaction with it. When the trigger is pressed, the bolt released from the cocked, moving forward, deflects the disconnector lever down, and the latter, if it is in engagement with the trigger yoke, squeezes it and thereby releases the trigger, which returns to its original position.
Initially, a drum magazine with a capacity of 71 rounds was adopted for the PPSh submachine gun. The magazine consists of a magazine box with a lid, a drum with a spring and a feeder, and a rotating disk with a spiral comb - a snail. There is an eyelet on the side of the magazine case, which serves to carry the magazines on the belt in the absence of bags. The cartridges in the store are placed in two streams, on the outer and inner sides of the spiral ridge of the snail. When feeding cartridges from an external stream, the snail rotates together with the cartridges under the action of a spring-loaded feeder. In this case, the cartridges are removed by the bend of the box located at the receiver, and are displayed in the receiver, on the ramming line. After the cartridges of the outer stream are used up, the rotation of the snail is stopped by the stopper, while the outlet of the inner stream is aligned with the receiver window, and the cartridges are squeezed out of the inner stream by the feeder, which, without stopping its movement, now begins to move relative to the stationary snail.
PPSh-41 modification with a night vision device
To fill the drum magazine with cartridges, it was necessary to remove the magazine cover, start the drum with the feeder for two turns and fill the snail with cartridges - 32 cartridges in the inner stream and 39 in the outer one. Then release the locked drum and close the magazine with a lid. There was also a simple device for accelerating the equipment of the store. But all the same, as can be seen from the description, the equipment of the store, in itself not difficult, was a long and complicated matter in comparison with the equipment of the now widespread box magazines. In addition, with a drum magazine, the weapon was quite heavy and cumbersome. Therefore, during the war, along with the drum, a much simpler and more compact box-type sector magazine with a capacity of 35 rounds was adopted for the PPSh submachine gun.
Initially, the PPSh submachine gun was equipped with a sector sight designed for shooting at a distance of up to 500 m, cut into every 50 meters. During the war, the sector sight was replaced by a simpler swing-over sight with two slots for firing at 100 and 200 m. Combat experience showed that such a distance is quite sufficient for a submachine gun and such a sight, which is simpler in design and technology, does not reduce combat qualities of weapons.
PPSh-41, modification with a curved barrel and a box magazine for 35 rounds
In general, during the war, in conditions of mass production, with the release of tens of thousands of PPShs every month, a number of changes were consistently introduced into the design of weapons aimed at simplifying the production technology and greater rationality of the design of some units and parts. In addition to changing the sight, the design of the hinge was also improved, where the cotter pin was replaced with a split spring tube, which simplified mounting and replacement of the barrel. The magazine latch has been changed, reducing the likelihood of accidentally pressing it and losing the magazine.
The PPSh submachine gun has proven itself so well on the battlefields that the Germans, who generally widely practiced the use of captured weapons, from rifles to howitzers, willingly used the Soviet machine gun, and sometimes German soldiers preferred the PPSh to the German MP-40. The PPSh-41 submachine gun, used without design changes, had the designation MP717 (r) (the "r" in brackets stands for "russ" - "Russian", and was used for all captured Soviet weapons).
Drum magazine for 71 rounds
Drum magazine for 71 rounds, disassembled
The PPSh-41 submachine gun, converted for firing 9x19 "Parabellum" cartridges using standard MP magazines, had the designation MP41 (r). Alteration of the PPSh, due to the fact that the 9x19 "Parabellum" and 7, 62 x 25 TT (7, 63 x 25 Mauser) cartridges were created on the basis of one sleeve and the diameters of the bases of the cartridge cases are completely identical, was only to replace the 7, 62-mm barrel for 9 mm and installation in the receiving window of an adapter for German magazines. In this case, both the adapter and the barrel could be removed and the machine gun could be turned back into a 7.62 mm sample.
The PPSh-41 submachine gun, having become the second consumer of pistol cartridges after the TT pistol, required not only an immeasurably larger production of these cartridges, but also the creation of cartridges with special types of bullets that are not required for a pistol, but are necessary for a submachine gun, and not a policeman, but a military model. Were developed and adopted, along with the previously developed cartridge for the TT pistol with an ordinary bullet with a lead core (P), cartridges with armor-piercing incendiary (P-41) and tracer (PT) bullets. In addition, at the end of the war, a cartridge with a bullet with a stamped steel core (Pst) was developed and mastered in production. The use of a steel core, along with saving lead, increased the penetrating effect of the bullet.
Due to the acute shortage of non-ferrous metals and bimetal (steel clad with tombak) and the growing needs of the active army for cartridges, during the war, the production of cartridges with a bimetallic, and then completely steel, without any additional coating, cartridge case was established. Bullets were produced mainly with a bimetallic shell, but also with a steel one, without coating. Brass sleeve has the designation "gl", bimetallic - "gzh", steel - "gs". (At present, in relation to automatic and rifle-machine-gun cartridges, the abbreviation "rs" means a lacquered steel sleeve. This is a different type of cartridge case.) Full designation of cartridges: "7, 62Pgl", "7, 62Pgzh", etc.
PPSh-41 with a drum magazine for 71 rounds
PPSh-41 with a box magazine for 35 rounds
