Soviet options "Uzi"
Submachine gun "Uzi" chambered for 9x19 mm Parabellum was named in honor of its developer - Uziel Galya. The weapon was created in 1948 year and adopted for use in 1954, since this model is produced by Israel Military Industries concern, having survived a lot of changes and upgrades, but retaining the worldwide recognizable layout - a barrel that attaches to the barrel . Today, it is Israel’s Uzi that is the reference model of such a layout, but even before it appeared in a number of countries, among which was the Soviet Union, similar models of small arms were assembled. In the USSR, these were submachine guns of Shuklin, Rukavishnikov and Pushkin, which were created during the years of the Great Patriotic War.
Prerequisites for the emergence of submachine guns appeared in the years of the First World War, when the question of raising the firepower of infantry divisions became quite acute. The solution was one - the saturation of troops with automatic weapons. The first way to solve the problem was the development of automatic rifles. But indeed, working samples of such weapons appeared only in the second half of the 1930-ies, before that they simply could not come to replace the magazine rifles, at best, being used only partially, while fully automatic rifles became mass weapons only in 1940-e years At the same time, the need for troops in light automatic weapons did not disappear anywhere. Therefore, the designers turned to the creation of automatic weapons under the pistol cartridge. The first such models were designed in the years of the First World War and at the same time they received the name which established itself for them - submachine guns.
In this case, submachine guns were never considered as a substitute for rifles, it was a complementary weapon built into the infantry infantry weapon system. Mainly due to the low power of the pistol bullet and the short range of fire. Submachine guns increased the power of infantry fire at close range, were indispensable in assault operations, were excellent for scouts, paratroopers, and also went to the armament of crews of various combat vehicles, as they had smaller dimensions than rifles.
The history of the appearance of "Uzi"
By the beginning of World War II, the submachine gun was finally formed as a portable automatic infantry weapon for an infantryman, which allowed continuous continuous machine gun fire with pistol cartridges. The effective range was low and did not exceed 200 meters, but for close combat this was more than enough. During the Second World War, various models of pistols and machine guns were massively used by warring countries, while work continued on the creation of new models of such weapons. It was during the war years in the USSR that works were going on to create models of submachine guns, resembling the layout of the famous “Uzi” all over the world today.
It can be noted here that at the dawn of the formation of its own armed forces, Israel was experiencing problems with various types of weapons, including small arms. The Israeli army was armed with many models of weapons produced in different countries, including numerous German, English, American and Soviet-made submachine guns. At a certain stage, the MP40 submachine gun was used as a regular weapon for all types of troops. However, this weapon was technically difficult and expensive, so by the end of the 1940-s in Israel, work began on developing its own sample of a submachine gun that would not be inferior to the MP40 in efficiency, but was simpler, adaptable and adapted to local production conditions and available machine park.
As a result, the Israeli engineer Uziel Gal presented his own vision of such weapons to the military. In terms of layout and appearance, the novelty was in many ways a repetition of the Czechoslovak submachine gun Sa. 23, which was developed by designer Y. Holechekom in 1948, and already in 1949, was launched into mass production. The Czech model was intended primarily for paratroopers and differed advanced at the time the scheme. At the same time, it is not known whether Gal was familiar with the Czechoslovak development, and even more so with the Soviet prototypes that had been tested for five years before the Czech submachine gun.
Soviet submachine guns
Back in 1942, in the USSR, tests of a Shuklin design submachine gun with a similar layout began. Unfortunately, the images of this model of small arms did not reach us, but the description and the GAU test report remained. The discovery of these models for the general public is largely related to the activities of the small arms researcher and historian Andrey Ulanov. Creating a new submachine gun, Comrade Shuklin was guided by the following ideas: he hoped to create a sample of small arms that would be portable and comfortable with constant wear, would be light and replaced personal defense weapons, which were used as revolvers and pistols. main qualities of the existing submachine guns.
The Soviet designer-gunsmith embodied his idea in the form of a model with a free gate, while to ensure the stated qualities of portability and lightness and to bring the weapon closer to the pistols, Shuklin used a bolt that bore on the barrel, and he also minimized the stroke of the bolt (to 40 mm). Using this scheme, the designer received a fairly massive bolt - 0,6 kg, but the total length of the weapon was only 345 mm, and the barrel length - 260 mm. Neither the general view of this submachine gun, nor the drawings of the model have reached our days. But according to the description that has been preserved, it can be stated that, in addition to the bolt that runs to the barrel, there was also a magazine that was inserted into the grip of the weapon. The model was certainly interesting, but not for the 1942 year, when the situation at the front was extremely tense, and GAU was just not up to the implementation of pilot projects and their revision to mass production.
The following deficiencies identified were listed in the Gauk’s review of the Shuklin submachine gun: 1) Complicated manufacturing technology, the bolt and barrel, due to their configuration, required a large number of turning and milling (especially) jobs from workers; 2) difficulties in obtaining the necessary accuracy of the fight with a small weapon weight; 3) the high sensitivity of the presented submachine gun to pollution, since sand and dust between the barrel and the shutter caused delays when firing, the same was confirmed for the sample of the Rukavishnikov submachine gun. Given the identified deficiencies in the GAU, it was considered impractical to further develop the presented model.
In the same 1942, a model of a Rukavishnikov design submachine gun was tested at GAU. Apparently, the model has been preserved to our time and today is in St. Petersburg in the funds of the famous Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Communications. The submachine gun stood out for its round-shaped receiver and the shoulder rest forward. As in the model of Shuklin, the shop was also inserted into the handle, which made the models look like ordinary pistols. The second-hand hold handle and forearm on the Rukavishnikov model were missing. The fate of this sample was the same as that of the Shuklin submachine gun. The commission found the weapon difficult to manufacture, noted the low manufacturability of the model. The sensitivity of the submachine gun to pollution was also noted, leading to delays in firing.
Already in the year 1945, the USSR returned to promising ideas from 1942 more. The result of rethinking the previous work was a new submachine gun designed by Pushkin. In the GAU report, a short shutter (45 mm) and a magazine inserted into the handle were noted for this model. The submachine gun itself was distinguished by the presence of a vented barrel casing and a muzzle brake. The stock is made in the form of a shoulder rest, it was collapsible. The new submachine gun was more compact and lightweight than mass-produced by the Soviet industry PPP. However, the weight gain of the Sudaev submachine gun was not so straightforward. As noted by Andrei Ulanov, in many ways, this gain was achieved by reducing the mass of the shutter, which lost 165 grams compared to the famous PPP shutter. With the reduced mass of the shutter, the Pushkin submachine gun stood out for its rate of fire - up to 1040 rounds per minute against the 650 of the model Soudaev. And here the high rate of fire combined with the light bolt was a bad combination. The measurements showed that he came to the extreme rear position immediately four times faster than on the Soudaev submachine gun, while the shutter speed was 7,9 m / s.
It was difficult to speak about some kind of reliability, survivability and durability of a system with similar indicators. Doubts testers appeared immediately and only confirmed during firing trials. There were no complaints about the submachine gun when shooting single shots, but automatic fire immediately revealed all the problems of the weapon. The extreme rate of fire did not allow making more 2-3 shots, there were delays, misalignment and skipping of cartridges were recorded. Another problem emerged, the valve did not withstand such loads and began to collapse, small cracks were noted on it even before the tests, after the cracks became only more. From the set of characteristics, it was decided to suspend work on this project, the GAU report noted that obtaining a workable weapon model and ensuring the required survivability of the bolt with this design is unlikely.
Although the Soviet submachine guns Shuklin and Rukavishnikov did not pass the GAU tests and received negative conclusions, the very fact of the appearance of similar models of small arms and the layout chosen by the designers cannot be ignored. Bringing submachine guns in wartime conditions was a difficult task, but the layout itself was 100% correct, which was later confirmed by life itself. A bolt that runs to the barrel, a magazine located in the control handle, a folding butt - all this after the war will be embodied in the Czech submachine gun Sa. 23 and its derivatives, and a little later at the most famous to date representative of this layout scheme - the Israeli "Uzi".
Information sources:
https://gunsforum.com
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/history_of_weapons
https://www.kalashnikov.ru
http://hisgun.ru
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