Submachine gun: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Part of 6. Owen, Sudayev and others. Submachine guns generation 2 +
Last time we stopped at the fact that during the war years, samples of submachine guns began to appear, as close as possible to the requirements of the time. That is, the most technologically advanced, respectively - cheap, "soldier-resistant", although not without a number of drawbacks. The soldiers took a new weapon with disapproval that speaks of the inertia of human thinking. In fact, for a total war, a weapon must be “total”, and lacquered walnut boxes do not need such weapons at all!
Another thing is that the new models of PP differed in design and design features and were better in some ways and worse in others.
Australian soldier with Owen.
Take for example Australia - the British dominion. The Australians also had to fight. Moreover, a very real threat of a Japanese invasion arose over them. And they expected to receive weapons, and in particular, STEN submachine guns from the metropolis. But ... hopes of this coming true were not destined. And then for good luck of the Australian army with its submachine gun it was “turned up” by Lieutenant Evelyn Owen, who from 1940 had been covering the thresholds of the relevant departments with a pistol with a machine gun of his own design. Need, as they say, the best teacher. Therefore, the decision to adopt a new software was adopted very quickly. True, the trial batch was released immediately in four calibers to select the most suitable. As a result, the traditional caliber 9-mm was the most suitable.
The very first experienced Owen ...
This is Evelyn Owen’s very first submachine gun, which he assembled in his workshop in 1939. This “monster” was powered by .22 LR ring-ignition cartridges, which were charged in turn to the chambers of the 44-charging drum with a gramophone spring. By the way, this PP did not have a trigger! But there was a trigger behind the receiver under the thumb. It was necessary to come up with this! (See “IN” for more on 7.12.2015 and 9.12.2015).
Army submachine gun "Owen".
Outwardly, "Owen" looked, of course, terrible. It was an ordinary water pipe, to which a barrel was attached to the front of the thread. The shutter is free. Barrel - quick detachable. The reloading handle with the shutter is not rigidly connected. But the most unusual thing in it was the store, which was inserted into it from above, and not from below or from the side. Therefore, the aiming devices on it were shifted to the left, but ... this affected the accuracy of the fire very little, since it was mainly from the Owen that was shot from the hip. But the reliability of the supply of cartridges has increased significantly, because now they were pushed down not only by the spring, but also by their own weight. Therefore, the feed system worked without characteristic delays. Do not interfere with the store (containing 33 cartridge) and prone shooting. But with the German MP-40 in their hands, the corps had to be very much lifted and thus most substituted for bullets. The two handles allowed the Owen to be held securely while shooting, and its camouflage coloring, as well as the high rate of fire 700 shots / min., Could not be more consistent with the war in the jungle, which was then waged by Australian soldiers.
The popularity of the “Owen” was so high that in service with the Australian army, it remained until the end of the 50s. And for some reason even a long bayonet was installed on the 1952 modification of the year! He fought in Korea and even in Vietnam. And only in 1962 was replaced with a new sample of F1, which again was designed by Evelyn Owen! Outwardly, he looked like a new English Sterling submachine gun, but had a butt placed in line with the receiver, raised aiming devices and ... a sector store from Sterling again inserted from above. This is truly - “from the good, the good is not looking”!
Submachine gun F1 sample 1962 g.
A vivid example of the creativity of Soviet gunsmiths was the Sudayev PPS-42 submachine gun. It is hardly worth writing about him in detail, since VO already had 16 material about him in February: “PPS: submachine gun for total war”. But, it should be emphasized once again that AI created it. Soudaev in besieged Leningrad, where, however, the factories continued to work, and various equipment remained. The new submachine gun, like most samples of wartime, was all metal, so as not to bother with the processing of wood. The connections were on the stud-axles and welding, the butt was made folding for convenience sake. On the trunk there was a brake-compensator, installed after the front-line tests also directly at the city limits.
PPSH-41 with stores from PPS-42 / 43
PPS-42 itself was upgraded, received the name PPS-43, and it was in that capacity that was adopted for service. And not only in the Red Army, but also in the Finnish army, after the 1944 year, and also standardized in the German army under the designation MR 709 (r). Interestingly, in 1942, a contest was held in the USSR (about its participants in HE were 1 and 4 materials in July 2016) for a sample of a submachine gun devoid of shortcomings of PPSH-41, and Shpagin himself presented a sample of PPSH-2 to it ( the first publication on the BO from 21 November 2013 g.). The factory production of PPS-43 required much less time and metal in comparison with PPSH-41. So, PPSH-41 required 13,9 kg of metal and 7,3 machine hours, but PPS-43 only 6,2 kg of metal and only 2,7 hours. I did not need a wooden butt. So the submachine gun went to the series exactly the design of Sudayev, PPSh-2 did not see the light, and PPSH-41 remained the mass weapon of the Soviet infantry until the end of the war.
PPSH-2
Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers massively armed with them during the Korean War and the Vietnam War against the French. It was delivered to many countries of the world, so it still occurs. In the Wehrmacht, it was used under the designation MP 41 (r), but it was remade for the 9 × 19 mm “Parabellum” cartridges, although trophy samples that were not redone were also widely used. In this modification, the barrel was replaced and the receiver was placed under stores from MP 38 / 40. Their alteration was carried out in 1944 in the arms workshops located in the Dachau concentration camp, where they produced about 10 thousands of such submachine guns.
Either China or Korea. And, by the way, everything is the same, the main thing is that everything is with PPS-43.
K-50 - Vietnamese version of PPSH.
Type 50 - China.
And this, of course, is sunny Africa ... And again PPS-43. Well, how could it not help the class brothers in their struggle against the vile white colonialists ?!
In addition, the same PPSH-41 also served as a model for a number of, so to speak, hybrid models. This was, for example, M49 - the Yugoslav submachine gun, adopted by the army of Yugoslavia in 1949 year. It has a lot of design elements taken from the PPSh-41, but a lot from the Italian submachine gun Beretta M38. At first glance, this is almost an exact copy of PPSH-41. However, he has a completely different receiver, and if you disassemble it, there will be even more differences. The fuse was borrowed from the Beretta, but the firing mechanism and the fire interpreter from PCA-41, and they also had almost identical lodges. Thanks to the tubular design of the receiver, this submachine gun was easily disassembled - it unscrewed the back cover and it was possible to remove both the spring with the shock absorber and the bolt.
Yugoslavian M49.
Fighter of the Yugoslav army with M49.
The M49 was in service with the Yugoslav Army for a relatively short time and was replaced by a slightly more compact and cheaper in production model of the same caliber M56 Zastava. Interestingly, this PP was, on the contrary, copied by Yugoslav engineers from the German MR 40, but ... and this is the most interesting, made for our Soviet 7,62-mm pistol cartridge and equipped with a magazine from PPP-43 just like the M49 model. The main difference from the German automaton again was the simplification of the basic design. The telescopic casing of return springs in it was replaced with one big spring, the bolt was even more simplified, and for some reason they put a bayonet on the barrel! The main drawback of both samples is the caliber; experience has shown that 9-mm is still preferable for submachine guns.
МХNUMX Zastava.
In general, all these examples are probably very good examples to the fact that war is the best teacher, who very quickly helps to overcome inertia, old traditions, and the inertia of thinking peculiar to the entire human race. Although not completely ... But we will tell you about this next time!
To be continued ...
Another thing is that the new models of PP differed in design and design features and were better in some ways and worse in others.
Australian soldier with Owen.
Take for example Australia - the British dominion. The Australians also had to fight. Moreover, a very real threat of a Japanese invasion arose over them. And they expected to receive weapons, and in particular, STEN submachine guns from the metropolis. But ... hopes of this coming true were not destined. And then for good luck of the Australian army with its submachine gun it was “turned up” by Lieutenant Evelyn Owen, who from 1940 had been covering the thresholds of the relevant departments with a pistol with a machine gun of his own design. Need, as they say, the best teacher. Therefore, the decision to adopt a new software was adopted very quickly. True, the trial batch was released immediately in four calibers to select the most suitable. As a result, the traditional caliber 9-mm was the most suitable.
The very first experienced Owen ...
This is Evelyn Owen’s very first submachine gun, which he assembled in his workshop in 1939. This “monster” was powered by .22 LR ring-ignition cartridges, which were charged in turn to the chambers of the 44-charging drum with a gramophone spring. By the way, this PP did not have a trigger! But there was a trigger behind the receiver under the thumb. It was necessary to come up with this! (See “IN” for more on 7.12.2015 and 9.12.2015).
Army submachine gun "Owen".
Outwardly, "Owen" looked, of course, terrible. It was an ordinary water pipe, to which a barrel was attached to the front of the thread. The shutter is free. Barrel - quick detachable. The reloading handle with the shutter is not rigidly connected. But the most unusual thing in it was the store, which was inserted into it from above, and not from below or from the side. Therefore, the aiming devices on it were shifted to the left, but ... this affected the accuracy of the fire very little, since it was mainly from the Owen that was shot from the hip. But the reliability of the supply of cartridges has increased significantly, because now they were pushed down not only by the spring, but also by their own weight. Therefore, the feed system worked without characteristic delays. Do not interfere with the store (containing 33 cartridge) and prone shooting. But with the German MP-40 in their hands, the corps had to be very much lifted and thus most substituted for bullets. The two handles allowed the Owen to be held securely while shooting, and its camouflage coloring, as well as the high rate of fire 700 shots / min., Could not be more consistent with the war in the jungle, which was then waged by Australian soldiers.
The popularity of the “Owen” was so high that in service with the Australian army, it remained until the end of the 50s. And for some reason even a long bayonet was installed on the 1952 modification of the year! He fought in Korea and even in Vietnam. And only in 1962 was replaced with a new sample of F1, which again was designed by Evelyn Owen! Outwardly, he looked like a new English Sterling submachine gun, but had a butt placed in line with the receiver, raised aiming devices and ... a sector store from Sterling again inserted from above. This is truly - “from the good, the good is not looking”!
Submachine gun F1 sample 1962 g.
A vivid example of the creativity of Soviet gunsmiths was the Sudayev PPS-42 submachine gun. It is hardly worth writing about him in detail, since VO already had 16 material about him in February: “PPS: submachine gun for total war”. But, it should be emphasized once again that AI created it. Soudaev in besieged Leningrad, where, however, the factories continued to work, and various equipment remained. The new submachine gun, like most samples of wartime, was all metal, so as not to bother with the processing of wood. The connections were on the stud-axles and welding, the butt was made folding for convenience sake. On the trunk there was a brake-compensator, installed after the front-line tests also directly at the city limits.
PPSH-41 with stores from PPS-42 / 43
PPS-42 itself was upgraded, received the name PPS-43, and it was in that capacity that was adopted for service. And not only in the Red Army, but also in the Finnish army, after the 1944 year, and also standardized in the German army under the designation MR 709 (r). Interestingly, in 1942, a contest was held in the USSR (about its participants in HE were 1 and 4 materials in July 2016) for a sample of a submachine gun devoid of shortcomings of PPSH-41, and Shpagin himself presented a sample of PPSH-2 to it ( the first publication on the BO from 21 November 2013 g.). The factory production of PPS-43 required much less time and metal in comparison with PPSH-41. So, PPSH-41 required 13,9 kg of metal and 7,3 machine hours, but PPS-43 only 6,2 kg of metal and only 2,7 hours. I did not need a wooden butt. So the submachine gun went to the series exactly the design of Sudayev, PPSh-2 did not see the light, and PPSH-41 remained the mass weapon of the Soviet infantry until the end of the war.
PPSH-2
Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers massively armed with them during the Korean War and the Vietnam War against the French. It was delivered to many countries of the world, so it still occurs. In the Wehrmacht, it was used under the designation MP 41 (r), but it was remade for the 9 × 19 mm “Parabellum” cartridges, although trophy samples that were not redone were also widely used. In this modification, the barrel was replaced and the receiver was placed under stores from MP 38 / 40. Their alteration was carried out in 1944 in the arms workshops located in the Dachau concentration camp, where they produced about 10 thousands of such submachine guns.
Either China or Korea. And, by the way, everything is the same, the main thing is that everything is with PPS-43.
K-50 - Vietnamese version of PPSH.
Type 50 - China.
And this, of course, is sunny Africa ... And again PPS-43. Well, how could it not help the class brothers in their struggle against the vile white colonialists ?!
In addition, the same PPSH-41 also served as a model for a number of, so to speak, hybrid models. This was, for example, M49 - the Yugoslav submachine gun, adopted by the army of Yugoslavia in 1949 year. It has a lot of design elements taken from the PPSh-41, but a lot from the Italian submachine gun Beretta M38. At first glance, this is almost an exact copy of PPSH-41. However, he has a completely different receiver, and if you disassemble it, there will be even more differences. The fuse was borrowed from the Beretta, but the firing mechanism and the fire interpreter from PCA-41, and they also had almost identical lodges. Thanks to the tubular design of the receiver, this submachine gun was easily disassembled - it unscrewed the back cover and it was possible to remove both the spring with the shock absorber and the bolt.
Yugoslavian M49.
Fighter of the Yugoslav army with M49.
The M49 was in service with the Yugoslav Army for a relatively short time and was replaced by a slightly more compact and cheaper in production model of the same caliber M56 Zastava. Interestingly, this PP was, on the contrary, copied by Yugoslav engineers from the German MR 40, but ... and this is the most interesting, made for our Soviet 7,62-mm pistol cartridge and equipped with a magazine from PPP-43 just like the M49 model. The main difference from the German automaton again was the simplification of the basic design. The telescopic casing of return springs in it was replaced with one big spring, the bolt was even more simplified, and for some reason they put a bayonet on the barrel! The main drawback of both samples is the caliber; experience has shown that 9-mm is still preferable for submachine guns.
МХNUMX Zastava.
In general, all these examples are probably very good examples to the fact that war is the best teacher, who very quickly helps to overcome inertia, old traditions, and the inertia of thinking peculiar to the entire human race. Although not completely ... But we will tell you about this next time!
To be continued ...
Information