In films about the Great Patriotic War, our Red Army soldiers, as a rule, are armed with PPSh submachine guns, and German soldiers are certainly armed with angular MPs. To some extent, this corresponded to reality, given that this type of automatic weapon, designed for firing pistol cartridges, both single shots and bursts, was one of the most widespread. But it arose not at the end of World War II, but 25 years before it began.
The First World War became a test for many European states and a real test of their weapons. In 1914, all armies experienced a shortage of light mechanical weapons, they even converted heavy machine guns into light machine guns, which were individually equipped with infantrymen. An exceptionally shortage of this type of weapon was felt by the Italian army, whose soldiers had to fight in mountainous conditions.
The very first submachine gun was presented in 1915 by the Italian design engineer Abel Revelli. It has preserved in its design many of the properties of the usual "machine tool" - twin 9-mm barrels, with breech breech rests on the butt plate with two handles, into which a launch device was built, providing firing from the entire barrel in turn or from both together. For the automatic operation, Abel Revelli used the recoil of the bolt, the recoil of which was slowed down by the friction of specially provided bolt protrusions in the grooves of the receiver (Revelli grooves).
The production of a new type of weaponry was quickly established at the factories of the Vilar-Perosa and Fiat firms, and already at the end of 1916, most of the infantrymen and crews of combat airships were equipped with them. However, it soon became clear that the submachine gun of the designer Abel Revelli was complex, massive, it was characterized by an exorbitant consumption of ammunition, and the accuracy of firing was extremely unsatisfactory. As a result, the Italians were forced to stop the production of double-barreled automatic monsters.
Germany, of course, did not develop much faster than its opponents in time, but outstripped them in terms of quality. Patented by the designer Hugo Schmeisser in December 1917, the MP-18 pistol was a rather elaborate design, which was later copied in many European countries. The main automation device was similar to the Italian one, but without friction suspension of the bolt recoil, which made it possible to simplify the weapon mechanism. Outwardly, the MP-18 resembled a shortened carbine, with a barrel covered with a metal casing. The receiver was placed in a familiar wooden stock with a traditional forend and example. The drum magazine, borrowed from the 1917 Parabellum pistol, held 32 rounds. The trigger mechanism provided firing only in mechanical mode, therefore the MP-18 turned out to be extremely sloppy. Until the end of hostilities, the Bergman factory produced 17 thousand units of submachine guns, a huge part of which, however, did not manage to get into the active army.
In our country, the first submachine gun, or as it was also called - "light carbine", was made in 1927 directly under the cartridge of the then widespread pistol of the "revolver" system by the famous gunsmith Fyodor Vasilyevich Tokarev. However, tests have shown the uselessness of such low-power ammunition.
In 1929, a similar weapon was made by Vasily Aleksandrovich Degtyarev. In fact, it was a slightly smaller sample of his own DP light machine gun - the ammunition was placed in a new disk magazine with a capacity of 44 rounds, which was installed on the receiver, the breech was locked by a bolt with sliding working combat larvae. The model of the designer Vasily Degtyarev was rejected, pointing out in the commentary to the decision taken at a large weight and an excessively high rate of fire. BEFORE 1932, the designer finished work on a different, completely different submachine gun, which after 3 years was adopted for arming the command staff of the Red Army.
In 1940, our army had at its disposal submachine guns of the Degtyarev system (PPD). How effective this weapon was, was shown by the Soviet-Finnish war. Later, Boris Gavrilovich Shpitalny and Georgy Semenovich Shpagin took up the development of new models. As a result of field tests of experimental examples, it turned out that "Boris Shpitalny's submachine gun needs to be improved," and Georgy Shpagin's submachine gun was recommended as the main weapon for arming the Red Army instead of PPD.
Taking the PPD as a basis, Georgy Shpagin conceived a weapon that was as primitive as possible in terms of technical parameters, which he succeeded in the final version. In the experimental version, after a few months, there were 87 parts, despite the fact that there were 95 of them in the PPD.
The submachine gun created by Georgy Shpagin worked according to the free breech thesis, in the front of which there was an annular piston that covered the rear of the barrel. The cartridge primer, which was fed into the store, was hit by a pin attached to the bolt. The trigger mechanism is designed for firing single shots and bursts, but without a salvo restriction. To increase accuracy, Georgy Shpagin cut off the front end of the barrel casing - when firing, the powder gases, hitting it, partly extinguished the recoil force that was gravitating to throw the weapon back and up. In December 1940, the PPSh was adopted by the Red Army.
TTX PPSh-41
Length: 843 mm.
Magazine capacity: 35 rounds in a sector magazine or 71 rounds in a drum magazine.
Caliber: 7.62x25 mm TT.
Weight: 5.45 kg with drum; 4, 3 kg with a horn; 3, 63 kg without magazine.
Effective range: about 200 meters in bursts, up to 300 m in single shots.
Rate of fire: 900 rounds per minute.
Advantages:
High reliability, shoots regardless of conditions, even in severe frost. The striker in very severe frost reliably breaks the capsule, and the wooden butt does not allow the hands to "freeze".
The firing range is about twice that of its main competitor, the MP 38/40.
The high rate of fire created a high density of fire.
Disadvantages:
Somewhat bulky and heavy. With a drum-type magazine, it is very uncomfortable to carry it behind your back.
Long loading of a drum-type magazine, as a rule, the magazines were loaded before the battle. "I was afraid" of small dust particles much more than a rifle; covered with a thick layer of fine dust, began to misfire.
Possibility of making an accidental shot when falling from a height onto a hard surface.
A high rate of fire with a lack of ammunition turned into a disadvantage.
The bottle-shaped cartridge was quite often warped at the time of filing from the store into the chamber.
But even with these seemingly significant shortcomings in accuracy, range and reliability, the PPSh was many times superior to all types of American, German, Austrian, Italian and British submachine guns available at that time.
During the war, weapons have been repeatedly improved. The first PPSh was equipped with a special sector sight, designed for aimed shooting up to 500 meters, but as practice has shown, the effective use of weapons was only at a distance of up to 200 meters. With this in mind, the sector sight was completely replaced by an easy-to-manufacture one, as well as zeroing in an L-shaped reversing sight for shooting at 100 meters and over 100 meters. The experience of military operations has confirmed that such a sight does not reduce the basic qualities of the weapon. In addition to making changes to the sight, a number of minor changes were made.
The PPSh was the most common automatic weapon of the Red Army infantry during the Great Patriotic War. They were armed with tankers, artillerymen, paratroopers, scouts, sappers, signalmen. It was widely used by partisans in the territory occupied by the Nazis.
PPSh was widely used not only in the Red Army, but also in the German one too. Most often, they were armed with the SS troops. In service with the Wehrmacht army consisted of both a massive 7, 62-mm PPSh, and converted under the cartridge 9x19 mm "Parabellum". Moreover, alteration in the opposite direction was also allowed, it was only necessary to change the magazine adapter and the barrel.
