The Soviet PPSh-41 Submachine Gun
The Red Armys WWII Widow Maker of the Eastern Front Still in Service
Jun 10, 2007
The designation of the weapon was Pistolet Pulemjot Schpagina model of 1941, or rather PPSh-41. Its design was by Soviet weapons guru Georgii S. Shpagin and was very basic. It was a short 33 inch (828mm) long blowback operated fully automatic submachine gun with a 10 inch (265mm) chrome lined barrel inside a wooden stock. It weighed 12 pounds (5.4 kg) when loaded with a 71-round drum magazine or about 9 1/2 pounds with the more reliable and preferred 35-round box magazine. It fired the same round as the Soviet Torkarev pistol, the 7.62x25mm cartridge. This bottlenecked cartridge was significantly more powerful than the 9x19mm Parabellum round used by German and Allied armies for submachine guns and is comparable to the more modern 40cal SW round used by law enforcement around the world today. The 7.62x25mm carried a 85grain bullet that came from the barrel at a scorching 1500 feet per second. This allowed the weapon to still be very deadly (read as-it can shatter bone and penetrate thirty inches in gelatin in modern tests) at up to 100 meters and beyond. In a pinch it could also fire the same 7.63x25mm round as the Broomhandle Mauser. Its rate of fire was a super fast 900 round per minute (the British Sten gun was only 550!) This pistol sized round and the weight of the weapon allowed for practically no felt recoil when compared to other weapons.
Production started at the end of 1941. The weapon was extremely simple and could be mass produced by semi-skilled laborers in basic shops. It was made of 87 components and required about 7 man-hours to produce. This was many times less than regular rifles or even comparable submachine guns (its rival submachine gun -the Soviet PPD took 14 man-hours to produce). At its peak factories produced 3000 units per day, allowing entire units to be equipped exclusively with these burp guns. If you have seen any pictures of the post-1941 Soviet Army you will find it almost impossible not to find a PPSh-41 in the photo as end run production amounted to some 6 million weapons. Soviet 'frontoviks' loved firing the weapon and it has been likened to using a water hose. It even is the weapon of choice of Soviet Great Patriotic War monuments. The weapon was so well liked that the German army used all of the PPSh-41s that it captured under the re-designation MP 717(r). Its only problems were that in its rate of fire was sometimes seen as being too fast, being capable of emptying its magazine in only a few seconds of sustained fire. Early production magazines were also unreliable but this fault was corrected rapidly. Post World War Two it was largely replaced by the new SKS and AK series assault weapons but it still had a long life left.
It was hugely popular in Soviet satellite countries and the weapon saw extensive use in Korea, Vietnam, Angola and other such Cold War hotspots. It went on to be the first submachine gun manufactured by China as the Type 50 submachine gun from 1950 onward. The PPhsh 41 was also made by Fémáru Fegyver és Gépgyár (FÉG), Budapest, during 1948-55 and issued to the Hungarian Army, Police and Border Patrol as late as 1990. In Hungarian service it was known as the 1948 Minta Geppisztoly. While not officially issued anymore it is still seen in the hands of military men the world over sixty years later. The Russian State Arsenal is selling off some of it available stocks for those readers looking to arm a small country or two. Two pictures below reference this fact. One is of a US marine in Iraq in 2004 using a captured (?) PPSh-41 to clear a stairway. The second is of Russian Army Guardsmen carrying very well cared for PPSh-41s in the annual VE-Day Victory Parade in Moscow in 2007.
If it still works, why throw it away?
Sources
Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941: A City and its People at War, Profile Books, 2006,
The Official Red Army PPSh-41 Submachine Gun Manual, 1957 published in English by Russian Military Translations
Steven J. Zaloga Red Army Handbook 1939-1945, Sutton Press 2003
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