A point of note. In Russian "tradition", friendly forces are usually shown in red, and hostiles in blue. Which is an inversion of the Western way of drawing things.
Makes sense, since the Soviets were the Red Army and Americans love blue partially since they used to wear blue uniforms (and dress uniforms were still sometimes blue) and because the US colors are Red White and Blue but white wouldn't make sense and red wasnt a popular choice because of red british uniforms and later red being popular with socialists and communists.
Yes and no. Overall the Red Army had more than enough guns and equipment for all of their troops, yet there are plenty of first hand accounts of the Red Army having crippling supply shortages of even the most basic equipment. The problem was that for the most part the Red Army sucked at unit level logistics. Quite often all the ammo or weapons needed was sitting at a depot just a few clicks behind the lines yet units would be sent into action under equipped.
It should be noted that submachine gun units were an incredibly small microcosm of the war, and no single factor (especially low-level things like the minutae of different small arms) could make a nation's doctrine or performance "good" or "bad". Submachine guns meshed well with the Soviet mindset when it came to aggressiveness on the offensive, but there are many, very complicated ways to skin a cat and every power approached these issues differently (some which were less aggressive, but less costly). Further, the Germans had a relatively high proportion of submachine guns in their units, but they were mostly used by NCOs, Officers, and vehicle crews. Further, they were used by ad hoc raiding groups (which had a similar purpose to the Soviet SMG companies). Overall, while German units did use submachine guns quite a bit, their doctrine on how they could be used beyond the individual soldier-level were not that well developed (at least when compared to the Soviets). The Germans *did* have their assault rifle armed Sturmzug in the Volksgrenadiers as of late 1944, but these types of units had a similar purpose as regular Rifle Platoons (and these platoons usually just used normal weaponry). Although, the internal tactics used by Sturmzug was different because of the different weaponry. Also if you make Enemy at the Gates references your jokes are bad and you should feel bad
From the wiki, it seems only 1.1mil MP40s were made, doesn't seem like 'too many' were made no? Compared to the PPsh-41 alone, which was 6mil+. So was the SMG really a big part of the German military? :/
@@EroticOnion23 They had a high proportion of SMGs when compared to the US basically (which is sort of the benchmark for a lot of my viewers I feel). Germany had more submachine guns than the Soviets on a per unit basis at the beginning of the war, but definitely didn't keep up as the war progressed. In 1944 Germany expended like 450 million rounds of pistol ammo, compared to the Soviet's 2.6 billion (and the Soviets expended 3 billion rounds of Rifle ammo, so they basically used submachine guns and pistols as much as rifles and DP light machine guns). Meanwhile the Americans only used 97 million rounds of pistol ammo from June 1944 to May 1945.
@@EroticOnion23 Possibly although the size difference in forces doesn't explain the disparity entirely, as the Soviets combat forces did not outnumber the Germans by that much and I don't believe they outnumbered the Americans that much. Plus that wouldn't really matter when looking at the ratio of pistol to rifle/machine gun ammo usage within each nation's military. The difference in organization and doctrine is a better explainer for why the Soviets used so much pistol ammo.
Imagine being a german in poland defending the eastern front setting up an ambush. The company walks into your trap and you think you have the jump on them with your 4 machine guns and 8 smgs only for EVERY enemy to spew thousands of bullets in every direction.
@@meloncrusher3316 it about unexpected nature and the luftwaffe is work very good, the soviet know that the nazi would attack them but not that soon, also most of tank in red army is T-26, BT-5, BT-, most of the soviet air force is complete be destroy by the luftwaffe
Those production cost/time figures are impressive. I'd love to see the same done for as many weapons as possible so we can compare. Like the production cost of the FAL vs the M14 or AUG.
War History Online has a cool article on some comparative WW2 gun costs in dollars: www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/rough-guide-costs-of-wwii-guns.html
This is the essence of Soviet industrial doctrine. High-tech, mass production. It is high-tech *production,* not a separate unit of production. Maximum optimization, use of stamped parts, automatic welding (T34) -- all this is a very difficult task for engineers. And it was this that allowed the soviets to lose in the first half of the year the main industrial centers with factories and human resources, evacuate them to the Urals / Kazakhstan, and after all this, still overtake the Reich in terms of production. Moreover, PPSh, T34, IL-2, mortars, etc. had excellent characteristics. Actually, it was after the war that the rest of the world began to switch to the same doctrine of mass production of weapons with cost optimization.
@@eto_el_348 weren’t most of their factories designed and built in Detroit and then disassembled and shipped to Russia? Set up and trained by American engineers
@@leeknivek Yeah probably. The Americans provided a lot of technical help. logistical equipment and fuel. The production of war materials was still handled by the Soviets themselves.
This was very well done, you should be very proud of your work, it was the fastest dang 15 minutes in you tube videos. Thanks for this and please keep up the excellence in this medium. I am a proud veteran of the Army, who thought he knew a great deal on Soviet tactics, techniques and procedures.....well you certainly schooled me, bravo and a high 5 for everyone involved.
@@АнатолийЛаптик-ч1т Там мем скорее в том что несмотря на насличие ПП в распоряжении войск союза до начала зимней войны, оффициальная доктрина списала их на склады и в самом махача с финами они почти не использовались на передовой. Плюс вполне известен факт что ППД не самый дешевый в изготовлении агрегат и как следствие очень плохо выдерживал сравнение с мосинкой когда речь заходит о вооружении действительно огромной Красной Армии. Фины в свою очередь подобные пушки использовали, причем довольно эффективно. Тут собственно разработка и повсеместное внедрение дешевого в производстве ППШ после этого конфликта это не упрек в сторону неоригинальности советского командования, а факт умения учиться на своих ошибках и осознания полезности такого вот вида вооружения. А раз уж на то пошло грех не спиздить что хорошо работает, так например круглый магазин к ППШ был скомунизжен с финского образца.
@@АнатолийЛаптик-ч1т Ну, можно разве что сказать что даже для американцев являвшихся на тот момент одной из передовых экономик мира томсон считался оружием уж слишком сложным и дорогим в производстве. Собственно сами американцы продолжали его упрощать и удешивлять на протяжении всей войны. Тут вроде бы как логичнее взять пример с трофейных образцов проверенных в тяжелых условиях и малом финансировании финской армии чем мучиться с дорогим закупным оружием. Но вот это вот все уже только мои спекуляции, в оличае от предидущего комента я в этом далеко не на 100% уверен. Еще можно заикнуться что круглый магазин как в совецких так и в америкаских пп из обихода со временем вышел в следствии неудобства.
I think it was Stalin who said, that a soldier is much more confident to charge the enemy if he carries a weapon that spews a stream of death and fire like a god of war.
Yea and the alternative was a broomstick. Stalin was an asshole who had his troops shot for merely falling back to cover. The irony of him remarking on his troops' confidence is rich.
@@michaelsrite822 state your sources (links) for your claims, the Order .227 was created to combat cowardly officers from running away leaving their troops alone and unorganized. More often whenever they caught runaway troops they sent them to a battalion comprised of their kind and were sent to the front lines under heavy supervision. You wouldn't start shooting your own men when you're running low on manpower especially in a scenario like "The Siege of Stalingrad". My sources: th-cam.com/video/JOKAIDpOY80/w-d-xo.html
Brilliant. With so little content without bias of some sort or other. This is great. The evolution of Soviet weapons and combat tatics from Barberossa to Manchuria would be a great subject.. ;)
Amazing stuff. I'm playing Graviteam Tactics, great game emphasizing on combat simulation and less "micro management" kind of game with steep learning curve. SMG squads is featured in some part(well why not, the game is making OOB accurately as possible). You are correct when there were plenty of way to solve a problem. The SMG squads were higly situational and its not a weapon for a major offensive. Rifles and MG will be much better use in all kind of situation but when the terrain get tough, that where SMGs squad steps forward. Just to add some more infos, SMG squads is highly favorable amongs Soviet Self-propelled tanks, as these turretless tanks will eventually fighting in urban areas the smg squads is very useful to protect its flanks. Soviet recons indeed use PPSH, but some favoured the MP40 as it is more compact and lighter. It's personal preference. With the introduction of Sudayev PPS, it is a favourite weapon among scout.
I happen to have a PPSH-41 converted into a blank gun, the receiver markings indicate that it was manufactured in a factory near Moscow in about 1942 serial number 245. I quite like it, it is quite heavy though with a high cyclic rate. Between it and the PPS I think I prefer the PPS. Those drums are cool but they are certainly not all their cracked up to be. They're tedious to load, they won't always work, and if one of the part happens to breaking them the whole drums useless. Heavy as hell too. I prefer the sticks for the PPSH, but they are empty in a flash. Still a great submachine gun
Wow, I recently found your page on the internet (perfectly done and extremely useful, I am using it for my wargame miniatures TO&E) and now I get this vid in recommended and find out you have a yt channel aswell! Interesting video, really wanted to learn more about practical use of those submachine units - keep up the great work!
The late war model that could be made under 3 hours. Well, thats a game changer in the battlefield when you have such an output while your opponent is struggeling an all fronts to keep the troups supplied.
Great video. The red army organization tables are truly fun to analyze, how they evolved from cumbersome to lean out of experience or necessity; you have a lot of material there to make more videos. I personally would like to see the differences of Guards, Airborne and regular infantry rifle units and how/when each was used. Also lend-lease tanks, how were they organized within the tank corps, who got them, were they mixed with national tanks or were they into their own self contained units. Same with "trophy" tanks. Cheers!
The Guards have the same organization as ordinary Riflemen. "Guard" naming was awarded to units that showed some exceptional battle merit or being very effective. So basically any Riflemen division or regiment could be promoted to Guards if performed heroically on a battlefield. After receiving an elite Guards title the unit received a new special Guards banner. The soldiers and officers received a special Guards badge. They also got a significant increase in salary. Some units though were created as Guards from the begging. Usually intended as an elite and high performance force. Like the Katyusha Rocker Artillery units, Special engineering units and airborn units.
They were basically identical; the only difference between a Guards Rifle Regt and a Rifle Regt was that the Guards Regt got a second SMG company. They did have separate TO&Es but the differences mainly had to do with adding more weapons to machine gun platoons, heavy mortar batteries and anti-tank rifle companies (but not creating new units other than the second SMG Company)
The difference is often where and how one would be fighting. In close urban quarters, a SM is the weapon of choice. In a rural area, a rifle is preferrable since it has longer range. Another point: The round magazine looked cool and had a high capacity, it tended to jam, took more room than an equivalent amount of ammo than a linear mag, tended to get in the way when laying down. Yes, a long mag would be a bigger prob, but if you laid it on its side that problem was overcome.
I really appreciate the care and attention that you are giving to the organization and the evolution of soviet forces. You should to some work with TIK and Military History Visualized or the WW2 channel. yes these SMG units would also likely have been born in the hellish urban combat of Stalingrad and many other cities. Also, i was wondering if you could make a video about the organization of soviet logistics and railway warfare doctrine? these are both criminally undercovered topics and a lot of history would lead us to believe those entire armies simply appeared out of nowhere and crossed the vast distances of Russia by magic.
2.5 hours to make a fully functional submachine gun in 1944?! Holy crap, and people diss Soviet industry and engineering, you could start a siege with 0 guns and by the end of the day have a full platoon armed!
Yeah, that’s in ideal conditions. It was probably a little more but the amount of effort required to organise the industry in a way that this level of production could be achieved is truly remarkable.
you mean thousands. The average PPSh drum was 71 rounds, with a group of like 10 submachine gunners you could go through hundreds in a mater of minutes, now multiply that by hundreds or even thousands and that's Stalingrad for you
I watched an interview with a Stalingrad veteran who mag-dumped in panic on a German who popped around a corner a few feet away. He described the sight of the man's flesh and uniform coming apart as like a flight of swallow taking off from a tree.
Damn,I love your voice.In Steel division 2( PC game) , half of the soviet assult squads are only equiped with smg. I think it is unhistorical, now you have corrected my openion, thank you.
1:20 you made a mistake there. There were submachine guns in the Soviet forces in 1939 but the amount's little. The submachine guns used then were PPD-34.
The PPD existed, yes, but it was not officially integrated into the organization of the Rifle Division at the beginning of 1939. If I remember correctly they mostly went to specialists and the NKVD (the NKVD also got a small number of early model Thompson submachine guns in the 1920s which is also interesting). At this time the Soviets had also not embraced submachine guns doctrinally and were giving all the men in their rifle squads rifles except for the DP light machine gunner. They were most likely more enthused about the prospects of new semi-automatic rifles like the SVT-38, as shortly before Barbarossa they had a very overly optimistic TO&E that authorized everyone an SVT
@@BattleOrder A few of the PPD34s were issued to the rifle divisions. You can see it through these historical photos: images.app.goo.gl/H8F2cSmQ8nhySa6G8 images.app.goo.gl/CcgWjJDVwq2gbfLt5 images.app.goo.gl/VBcGt8QYLYdvEaSM9 But yes most of them went to specialists like engineers and the NKVD or the police forces who didn't really need LMGs or rifles. The Soviets thought they could equip their forces all with SVTs until realizing it was really expensive to mass produce and it had reliability issues. The PPSh and PPS cost so much less so they were like oh why not just produce more of those
Japan didn't have the production capability/resources to supply all the ammunition that those smg's would require. Otherwise they surely would have. Japans manufacturing capability was the worst of any of the major powers of the war.
@@annguyenlehoang7779 Strong regional navies yes, but no capacity to sustain losses and outclassed in the Mediterranean by the British and the Pacific by the Americans. Yamamoto knew that if the war lasted for longer than 6 months Japan would have no chance of winning.
@@nathanm9212 even more important for Japan was their ability to transport this ammunition by sea. Increased ammo consumption would require more transport ships that could be attacked by the enemy navy.
It's impressive that, under pressure to produce and get it right the first time (or face the NKVD), Georgy Shpagin was able to create something with such a high cyclic rate of fire; with, according to first-hand sources had a very low failure/jam rate.
Thank you for the work put in and detailed research .It is amazingly detailed and worthy of academic level work.A small tip to add : as early as 42 there is consistent element in diary and memoirs records - company and platoon comanders insisted on swamping casualty's weapons for rifle , in case the casualty s assigned weapon was smg .The common sense deception was designed to retain as many smgs as possible , avoiding the valued weapon being rotated to the rear with injured .Sometimes replacements would be issued smg before being sent to the unit thus overall number of smgs could be maximised .
There were units which were fully rearmed to AVT36 (full auto Tokarev rifle 1936) SVT38/40 (semi-auto Tokarev rifles) according to the Soviet rearmament Programm, which as planning to fully rearm irs army with SMG and semi automatic rifles by the end of 1942. Elete units were getting the new weapons first. Unfortunately the rearmament never happened due to a huge loss of semi automatic in 1941. because the most elete troops were the second to face germans right after the NKVD border guards.
Nice nod to the Finnish army use of SMGs in the intro. They realized the effectiveness early on and increased production as much as their extremely limited budget allowed.
I'd have thought that the Spanish civil war would have been more the early impetus for Soviet sub machinegun design with the winter war spurring them to produce them faster and want them to be cheaper for wider deployment. I think this also fits the timeline of smg development better as well.
Orwell notes that on the Aragon front he personally only witnessed a single solitary SMG of Russian origin but hey, that's only one man's viewpoint. Although I may have wrong end of the stick, were you meaning the trench warfare of that conflict using mostly late 19th century bolt action rifles called for and caused influx of SMG production in the Soviet Union?
Also , the primary Soviet SMG , was a damn fast weapon , it was perfect for clearing a room , before the enemy could fully react . Ironically , the Soviet weapon was prefereed by German troops over their own , on the Eastern front . Its high rate of fire , and reliability when filthy , caused German soldiers to adopt it , when they had the opportunity .
Best SMG? PPD-40 DSZ (PPD-40 with a SVT-40 muzzle break and bayonet) But very few were made so it can't be the best. PPSh-41 1250 RPM with 250 meter effective range, and a crude muzzle break + compensator that causes a downward recoil push. But the PPSh has a flaw, the gun was issued with Two 71 round drum magazines that matched the gun, when the soldiers picked up drums from fallen comrades those drums might not work properly in the PPSh they were issued with, in the middle of war you don't have time to find out which drums work reliably in your gun, so they replaced the drum with a 35 Round Sector Magazine that works reliably between guns, it was also cheaper and you can carry alot of them. In 1943 the drums were improved and worked better between guns but are very stiff and difficult to insert into the magwell of some guns increasing the time it takes to reload. Since 6 million PPSh-41s were made you probably have around 9 million drums made, and few million could work well and a few million won't. The PPSh-41 is my favorite gun and undoubtedly the best smg in WWII even with its problems. Now let's talk about other WW2 smgs that are great Beretta M38A Holds 40 rounds and has a compensator that negates recoil It uses special 9x19mm loaded extra hot for increased Range and rate of fire 650+ it is a very well made submachine gun with great accuracy and range and it's not as heavy as the PPSh FNAB-43 a closed bolt Italian smg with an identical muzzle break of the PPSh Obviously the closed bolt gives it great accuracy but the muzzle break and compensator goes a step further, it's rate of fire is about 490-540 RPM so basically the same as an MP-38 MP-41 okay so the MP-40 obviously is the smoothest shooting SMG of WWII thanks to its telescoping bolt that prevents the bolt from hitting the back of the receiver so imagine the accuracy you'd get with a wooden stock attached instead of the wobbly folding stock, its not an MP-40 with a wooden stock tho it's mechanically different. Now let's talk about absurd smgs of ww2 PPT-27 ok so the Soviet Union designed a closed bolt smg that fires 7.62x38mmR nagant Revolver rounds at 1250 rpm. There are even more but if I mention all of them I'll be here for years. Just research ww2 prototype smgs or play enlisted.
Nobody ever hit by a submachine gun bullet ever complained it was underpowered. That is the realm for armchair tacticians. Better to have an underpowered 9 mm than an unreliable M16.
The underpowered comment was mostly to placate the masses I anticipated would complain about the puny 7.62 Tokarev versus their chad, thicc, american muscle .45 acp. Overall it's the right cartridge for the job given the era
@@e.s.g.5997 As a former member of the British Army who served in Northern Ireland, I could be pedantic and say not every weapon is designed to kill. But I do understand your point.
@@e.s.g.5997 Contrary to popular belief, to kill is not the ultimate goal of weapons of war (unlike hunting weapons). The goal is to incapacitate and remove them from the fight. Often it isn't even optimal to kill the enemy, because a wounded soldier will use up more enemy resources than a dead one and therefore be overall more detrimental to their war effort.
I want it point out the ppd there was variants of the ppd the first one was the PPD-34 which came standard a small 25 round stick mag where the 34/38 was an updated design of the POD-34 which gave it a standard drum but holds 73 rounds due to they had to have a small stick to stick in it Later the PPD-40 which was the simplest of the bunch have the well known drum of the ppsh but they’re not interchangeable but holds 2 less rounds and also a different way to hold it the mag Then the ppsh-41 which have the the same mag but different way it stays in the mag well down side of some feeding issues and mags freezing due to how simple it was Also during the winter war the inventor was demanding they use the dang smg but they constantly refuse to use the ppd 34 and 34/38 despite having a good number of such gun
Its actually really weird that no country nowadays actually uses tank riders. It gives extra protección to tanks while providing exacta mobility to foot infantry (not all the countries are rich enough to field enough APC's and IFV's for all of its infantry.
If a squad would have had a sniper or one or two designated marksmen covering their backs those units would have been covered in the 400+ ranges when retreating.
You should take into account that most of 1940s standard issue sniper scopes were beyond awful by any modern standart. It's 3.5-4 times magnification, reticle didn't have any ballistic marks and its lines were usually really thick making impossible to see something behind them and were tend to loose hermetical sealing quickly. In all of sniper stories I've read, it's stated that hitting something beyond 400m with a standard scope was impossible, and all famous ww2 snipers (except, maybe, American ones) were using expensive commercial scopes
I don’t know why 7.62x25 was considered “underpowered” compared to 9mm it makes considerably more energy, and less recoil and flatter shooting. It makes more energy on paper than a .45ACP especially when comparing SMG’s although the 45’s large meplat gives it a considerable advantage in terminal ballistics at close range.
I've seen the organization charts, but no one explained how the smg companies were supposed to be used. This makes much more sense now. Do you have information on Korean War era Chinese small unit tactics? Would the infiltration methods be similar to the Soviet ones illustrated here?
I don't know much about the Korean War right now, however I do know that the North Koreans at present have an infiltration doctrine similar to this (covertly infiltrating enemy lines to attack targets from the rear). For Battalion Ops they allocate a platoon; for Regiment Ops its a company; for Division Ops its 4 to 6 companies from the light infantry battalion; for Corps Ops its 4 to 6 battalions from light infantry and sniper brigades
@@BattleOrder Thanks. I heard due to the hilly terrain and use of night cover, Chinese infiltration were often battalion in size, sometimes regiment, and one at least one occasion a whole division slipped through the lines. As for smg use, Chinese troops made limited use of these weapons until the Korean War. So it seems they adopted Soviet doctrine and perhaps became even more smg centric.
The scheme of Mechanized Brigades and Tank Brigades is not correct. The mechanized brigade had 3 motor rifle battalions and 2 tank battalions. The tank brigade had 1 motorized rifle battalion and 3 tank battalions.
The Mechanized Brigade is incorrect I agree; the shtat we were looking at did not include the Separate Tank Regiment for some reason However, for Tank Brigades, as of February 1942 (the time period where the Tank Brigade graphic is shown) they did have 2 tank battalions (штаты №№ 010/345 - 010/352) although Tank Brigades part of Tank Corps were ordered to have 3 tank battalions as of May 1942. From Dec 1941 to Nov 1943 the tables had 2 tank battalions per tank brigade, moving to 3 tank battalions thereafter.
@@BattleOrder Yes, I see. tank regiment (two separate tank battalions (staff number 010/87 - 422 people), in 1943, reorganized into tank battalions (staff number 010/394))
Sorry but your labeling of the 7.62×25mm Tokarev as 'small' is misleading and ultimately just incorrect. The cartridge was never considered underpowered by the combatants on either side during the war nor is it considered as such today. Such a characterization of the round is followed immediately by your own admission of contradictory data. Without unnecessarily listing the easily available spec's I'll just say this- 7.62 Tokarev was admired by all on the eastern front with lots of photographic evidence of beutewaffen to prove it and it's still considered a spicy pistol caliber cartridge to this day. I realize it's not like you shit all over the round and also that it's a bit 'nit picky' on my part but I felt the need to clarify. Anyway I love your stuff, true ace tier content! Please keep em' coming and thanks!
Depends on what you mean by powerful. Penetrating power - yes, stopping power - not so much. US .45 and 9*19Para are heavier and kick harder, at the price of low muzzle velocity and poor ballistics. Though with rpm of 1000 rounds low stopping power doesn't mean that much.
@@FeldwebelWolfenstool i think you don't understand what stopping power is. It's the ability of the projectile to trasfer it's energy to the object it hits. If the bullet goes cleanly through, it's energy is wasted. Yes it can go through armor, which is good as long as your target is armored. Otherwise it's better to have the bullet shatter and do horrible damage to soft tissues, thus stopping the target immediately.
@@FeldwebelWolfenstool Dude, he isn’t saying that the Tokarev round could penetrate body armor, he’s saying that due to its size, it won’t be able to as easily stop the momentum of a person as other, heavier rounds.
So red army got production of sheet metal -43 down to less than three hours per unit…and then had to go with milled receiver initially on AK due to lack of technology? Did I get that correct? Great video, especially if you just watched 1944 movie this weekend about Estonian troops using all these weapons and tank riding tactics.
Can you cover early 20th century Cavalry and Dragoon units? There isn't much written about them as forces became more mechanized and emphasis of study was placed on them instead of "archaic" horsemen, in despite of how important they still were as late as WWII
Great info! So,let me ask. Just out of curiosity. What might have been the chance of an ordinary rifleman (a private) being issued a ppsh-41 as early as,say 1942?
Well, even before the winter war soviets had submachine guns. However 1939 experience in Poland has shown the Soviet High command that you can barely get within the range of an SMG (most firefights were or relatively open ground) and therefore it's best to arm squad leaders will semi-automátic rifles. So the Soviet army started winter war with many machine Guns in stockpile but none in the army apart from the NKVD (police) and artillery units (for self defense) after having experienced Finnish SMG's Soviet sent their stockpiled PPD (Ancestor of PPSh-41) and placed an order for construction agencies to develop a cheaper than PPD Submachine gun. PPSh-41 won the competition.
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A point of note. In Russian "tradition", friendly forces are usually shown in red, and hostiles in blue. Which is an inversion of the Western way of drawing things.
That is strangely convenient.
Makes sense, since the Soviets were the Red Army and Americans love blue partially since they used to wear blue uniforms (and dress uniforms were still sometimes blue) and because the US colors are Red White and Blue but white wouldn't make sense and red wasnt a popular choice because of red british uniforms and later red being popular with socialists and communists.
Ha so the maps would read the same way no matter who looked at them
* Soviet tradition *
@@girthbrooks39 it's the same on maps before the revolution. Only opponents were usually marked in black.
-You were told that half of the soviet army don't have rifles
-They have smg's
Other armies: "Rifles are nice."
USSR: "A PPSH for every comrade."
It wasn't a choice for many countries.
@@WordBearer48 too bad for them
communism would be real nice if they could do cars and other 'luxuries' the same way they did the ppsh
@@Pellagrah True, in a way. But "luxuries" don't win wars.
US Army: "DA TING GO SKRRRRAAA PAPAKAKAKA SKIDIKI PAPA AND A PUMPUMPURRRUMPUM SKYA PUMPUMPUMPUMPUMPUM"
So the "Two soldiers - one rifle" myth is actually correct, since the other one was carrying an SMG...
Hahaha, love this comment
Ha ha ha, right. Quantity indeed ha a quality of its own, mofos.
The stormtroopers always use submachine guns not the rifles
How to counter wehrboo
Yes and no. Overall the Red Army had more than enough guns and equipment for all of their troops, yet there are plenty of first hand accounts of the Red Army having crippling supply shortages of even the most basic equipment. The problem was that for the most part the Red Army sucked at unit level logistics. Quite often all the ammo or weapons needed was sitting at a depot just a few clicks behind the lines yet units would be sent into action under equipped.
It should be noted that submachine gun units were an incredibly small microcosm of the war, and no single factor (especially low-level things like the minutae of different small arms) could make a nation's doctrine or performance "good" or "bad". Submachine guns meshed well with the Soviet mindset when it came to aggressiveness on the offensive, but there are many, very complicated ways to skin a cat and every power approached these issues differently (some which were less aggressive, but less costly). Further, the Germans had a relatively high proportion of submachine guns in their units, but they were mostly used by NCOs, Officers, and vehicle crews. Further, they were used by ad hoc raiding groups (which had a similar purpose to the Soviet SMG companies). Overall, while German units did use submachine guns quite a bit, their doctrine on how they could be used beyond the individual soldier-level were not that well developed (at least when compared to the Soviets).
The Germans *did* have their assault rifle armed Sturmzug in the Volksgrenadiers as of late 1944, but these types of units had a similar purpose as regular Rifle Platoons (and these platoons usually just used normal weaponry). Although, the internal tactics used by Sturmzug was different because of the different weaponry.
Also if you make Enemy at the Gates references your jokes are bad and you should feel bad
I subscribed even before I watched the video based on this disclaimer. The nuance you provide makes your channel worth learning from.
From the wiki, it seems only 1.1mil MP40s were made, doesn't seem like 'too many' were made no? Compared to the PPsh-41 alone, which was 6mil+. So was the SMG really a big part of the German military? :/
@@EroticOnion23 They had a high proportion of SMGs when compared to the US basically (which is sort of the benchmark for a lot of my viewers I feel). Germany had more submachine guns than the Soviets on a per unit basis at the beginning of the war, but definitely didn't keep up as the war progressed.
In 1944 Germany expended like 450 million rounds of pistol ammo, compared to the Soviet's 2.6 billion (and the Soviets expended 3 billion rounds of Rifle ammo, so they basically used submachine guns and pistols as much as rifles and DP light machine guns). Meanwhile the Americans only used 97 million rounds of pistol ammo from June 1944 to May 1945.
@@BattleOrder Interesting, do you think that is heavily due to the sheer magnitude of the eastern front compared to the west? i.e. rounds per soldier.
@@EroticOnion23 Possibly although the size difference in forces doesn't explain the disparity entirely, as the Soviets combat forces did not outnumber the Germans by that much and I don't believe they outnumbered the Americans that much. Plus that wouldn't really matter when looking at the ratio of pistol to rifle/machine gun ammo usage within each nation's military. The difference in organization and doctrine is a better explainer for why the Soviets used so much pistol ammo.
Imagine being a german in poland defending the eastern front setting up an ambush. The company walks into your trap and you think you have the jump on them with your 4 machine guns and 8 smgs only for EVERY enemy to spew thousands of bullets in every direction.
It doesn’t matter how much fire power you have if your walking into an ambush.
Germans used panzer 2s vs t34s during barbarossa and still won decisively
@@meloncrusher3316 it about unexpected nature and the luftwaffe is work very good, the soviet know that the nazi would attack them but not that soon, also most of tank in red army is T-26, BT-5, BT-, most of the soviet air force is complete be destroy by the luftwaffe
You missed out on Assault Engineer-Sapper brigades I believe. SMGs, steel armor and flamethrowers all the way. Could be a topic for a new video
Инженерные войска. В современной России до сих пор имеется спецназ инженерных войск.
Nice video, appreciate the research
Hey thanks mate!
@Watson Cristiano bruh, that’s not cool. Your prolly a bot commenter
Keep it up, I see a lot of potential in this channel.
That's the plan!
@@BattleOrder maby make video about ww2 body armour. I think Soviet combat engineers had it.
Those production cost/time figures are impressive. I'd love to see the same done for as many weapons as possible so we can compare. Like the production cost of the FAL vs the M14 or AUG.
War History Online has a cool article on some comparative WW2 gun costs in dollars: www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/rough-guide-costs-of-wwii-guns.html
@@BattleOrder i had the same question so thank you for the response. hope to see this channel grow
This is the essence of Soviet industrial doctrine. High-tech, mass production. It is high-tech *production,* not a separate unit of production. Maximum optimization, use of stamped parts, automatic welding (T34) -- all this is a very difficult task for engineers. And it was this that allowed the soviets to lose in the first half of the year the main industrial centers with factories and human resources, evacuate them to the Urals / Kazakhstan, and after all this, still overtake the Reich in terms of production.
Moreover, PPSh, T34, IL-2, mortars, etc. had excellent characteristics. Actually, it was after the war that the rest of the world began to switch to the same doctrine of mass production of weapons with cost optimization.
@@eto_el_348 weren’t most of their factories designed and built in Detroit and then disassembled and shipped to Russia? Set up and trained by American engineers
@@leeknivek Yeah probably. The Americans provided a lot of technical help. logistical equipment and fuel. The production of war materials was still handled by the Soviets themselves.
A interesting fact: In Vietnam national security education classes, AK-47 is still classified as submachine gun.
That makes sense; the Ak was designed as an upgunned submachine gun concept.
Chinese army had also classified type56（AK-47 Chinese version）as a submachine gun .
AK was thought as it. Moreover, the East German denomination was Maschine Pistole.
Squad automatic
Đức Nguyễn Anh không ông hồi tui học nhớ ghi là tiểu liên mà
All very logical for the soviet mindset and situation. Thank you for the educational video.
Yes that's why they won.
Damn that is a lot of firepower.
You mean a lot of Daka :D
must have been a godsend in city fighting late in the war
Gear Hammer
*WAAAG-*
This was very well done, you should be very proud of your work, it was the fastest dang 15 minutes in you tube videos. Thanks for this and please keep up the excellence in this medium. I am a proud veteran of the Army, who thought he knew a great deal on Soviet tactics, techniques and procedures.....well you certainly schooled me, bravo and a high 5 for everyone involved.
Никогда бы не подумал что подобное узнаю из англоязычного источника. К слову, хороший контент, продолжай в том же духе
Спасибо!
Ну,и чего? Сказал,что мы,мол,пп у финов переняли,хотя у нас был ппд.Причем,в таких же количествах,как и suomi. Мальчик на снимке-не с ппш,а с ппд.
@@АнатолийЛаптик-ч1т Там мем скорее в том что несмотря на насличие ПП в распоряжении войск союза до начала зимней войны, оффициальная доктрина списала их на склады и в самом махача с финами они почти не использовались на передовой. Плюс вполне известен факт что ППД не самый дешевый в изготовлении агрегат и как следствие очень плохо выдерживал сравнение с мосинкой когда речь заходит о вооружении действительно огромной Красной Армии.
Фины в свою очередь подобные пушки использовали, причем довольно эффективно. Тут собственно разработка и повсеместное внедрение дешевого в производстве ППШ после этого конфликта это не упрек в сторону неоригинальности советского командования, а факт умения учиться на своих ошибках и осознания полезности такого вот вида вооружения.
А раз уж на то пошло грех не спиздить что хорошо работает, так например круглый магазин к ППШ был скомунизжен с финского образца.
@@ivansterliagov6561 да? Почему не у Томпсона?
@@АнатолийЛаптик-ч1т Ну, можно разве что сказать что даже для американцев являвшихся на тот момент одной из передовых экономик мира томсон считался оружием уж слишком сложным и дорогим в производстве. Собственно сами американцы продолжали его упрощать и удешивлять на протяжении всей войны.
Тут вроде бы как логичнее взять пример с трофейных образцов проверенных в тяжелых условиях и малом финансировании финской армии чем мучиться с дорогим закупным оружием.
Но вот это вот все уже только мои спекуляции, в оличае от предидущего комента я в этом далеко не на 100% уверен.
Еще можно заикнуться что круглый магазин как в совецких так и в америкаских пп из обихода со временем вышел в следствии неудобства.
I think it was Stalin who said, that a soldier is much more confident to charge the enemy if he carries a weapon that spews a stream of death and fire like a god of war.
Yea and the alternative was a broomstick.
Stalin was an asshole who had his troops shot for merely falling back to cover. The irony of him remarking on his troops' confidence is rich.
@@michaelsrite822 state your sources (links) for your claims, the Order .227 was created to combat cowardly officers from running away leaving their troops alone and unorganized. More often whenever they caught runaway troops they sent them to a battalion comprised of their kind and were sent to the front lines under heavy supervision. You wouldn't start shooting your own men when you're running low on manpower especially in a scenario like "The Siege of Stalingrad".
My sources: th-cam.com/video/JOKAIDpOY80/w-d-xo.html
Nah, that's highly unlikely that Stalin ever said anything like that. He had a very measured and reserved way with words.
@@michaelsrite822 Are you talking about order 227?
Or maybe execution for desertion, the standard practice of any military during WW2?
@@ayrnovem9028 Much more reserved and thoughtful than people think he was, sadly didn't translate into his policy but you can't have everything
Brilliant. With so little content without bias of some sort or other. This is great. The evolution of Soviet weapons and combat tatics from Barberossa to Manchuria would be a great subject.. ;)
Amazing stuff. I'm playing Graviteam Tactics, great game emphasizing on combat simulation and less "micro management" kind of game with steep learning curve. SMG squads is featured in some part(well why not, the game is making OOB accurately as possible).
You are correct when there were plenty of way to solve a problem. The SMG squads were higly situational and its not a weapon for a major offensive. Rifles and MG will be much better use in all kind of situation but when the terrain get tough, that where SMGs squad steps forward.
Just to add some more infos, SMG squads is highly favorable amongs Soviet Self-propelled tanks, as these turretless tanks will eventually fighting in urban areas the smg squads is very useful to protect its flanks.
Soviet recons indeed use PPSH, but some favoured the MP40 as it is more compact and lighter. It's personal preference. With the introduction of Sudayev PPS, it is a favourite weapon among scout.
Also they loved the mp40 because germans wouldnt pay that much attention to the sound of mp40s firing somwhere, but they would to ppsh
You should check out Company of Heroes 2. Shock troopers get a ppsh and body armor and can throw grenades
Yea sure already finished with COH. Once I play Graviteam I never go back to acrade RTS.
@@zahfa7608 play steel scrote 2....same people that made wargame poop dragooon
@@МихаилЧерников-п2т
That sounds like a myth. If you heard a familiar weapon firing, you'd assume they are engaging enemy forces
I happen to have a PPSH-41 converted into a blank gun, the receiver markings indicate that it was manufactured in a factory near Moscow in about 1942 serial number 245. I quite like it, it is quite heavy though with a high cyclic rate. Between it and the PPS I think I prefer the PPS. Those drums are cool but they are certainly not all their cracked up to be. They're tedious to load, they won't always work, and if one of the part happens to breaking them the whole drums useless. Heavy as hell too. I prefer the sticks for the PPSH, but they are empty in a flash. Still a great submachine gun
"They rode tanks into battle" how badass can you get.
Not bad, although "They rode into battle on the outside of Apache gunships" is rather _more_ badass. Just sayin'.
@@robashton8606 there were no gunships in ww2 you dumbass
...he never claimed that there were?
*There could be joke about additional tank armor*
Can you imagine how many bullets would be flying if you took on a Heavy soviet machine gun squad?
The finest example of accuracy by volume. It would take a brave German soldier to poke his head out against a literal 'rain of lead'
At 50m, incredible. At 250m, negligible. Get close, comrades, and use grenades.
Love the channel keep up the awesome work, always nice to see a GOOD in depth history channel.
that T-26 towing a Maxim at 13:23 is cute to me for some reason
Wow, I recently found your page on the internet (perfectly done and extremely useful, I am using it for my wargame miniatures TO&E) and now I get this vid in recommended and find out you have a yt channel aswell! Interesting video, really wanted to learn more about practical use of those submachine units - keep up the great work!
Glad you found it helpful!
@@BattleOrder Once again thanks for valuable and well researched vid, hope to see more both here and on your website
The late war model that could be made under 3 hours. Well, thats a game changer in the battlefield when you have such an output while your opponent is struggeling an all fronts to keep the troups supplied.
Great video. The red army organization tables are truly fun to analyze, how they evolved from cumbersome to lean out of experience or necessity; you have a lot of material there to make more videos.
I personally would like to see the differences of Guards, Airborne and regular infantry rifle units and how/when each was used. Also lend-lease tanks, how were they organized within the tank corps, who got them, were they mixed with national tanks or were they into their own self contained units. Same with "trophy" tanks.
Cheers!
The Guards have the same organization as ordinary Riflemen. "Guard" naming was awarded to units that showed some exceptional battle merit or being very effective. So basically any Riflemen division or regiment could be promoted to Guards if performed heroically on a battlefield. After receiving an elite Guards title the unit received a new special Guards banner. The soldiers and officers received a special Guards badge. They also got a significant increase in salary.
Some units though were created as Guards from the begging. Usually intended as an elite and high performance force. Like the Katyusha Rocker Artillery units, Special engineering units and airborn units.
They were basically identical; the only difference between a Guards Rifle Regt and a Rifle Regt was that the Guards Regt got a second SMG company. They did have separate TO&Es but the differences mainly had to do with adding more weapons to machine gun platoons, heavy mortar batteries and anti-tank rifle companies (but not creating new units other than the second SMG Company)
Your channel should be so much more popular than it is.
Keep going!
The difference is often where and how one would be fighting. In close urban quarters, a SM is the weapon of choice. In a rural area, a rifle is preferrable since it has longer range. Another point: The round magazine looked cool and had a high capacity, it tended to jam, took more room than an equivalent amount of ammo than a linear mag, tended to get in the way when laying down. Yes, a long mag would be a bigger prob, but if you laid it on its side that problem was overcome.
I really appreciate the care and attention that you are giving to the organization and the evolution of soviet forces. You should to some work with TIK and Military History Visualized or the WW2 channel. yes these SMG units would also likely have been born in the hellish urban combat of Stalingrad and many other cities.
Also, i was wondering if you could make a video about the organization of soviet logistics and railway warfare doctrine? these are both criminally undercovered topics and a lot of history would lead us to believe those entire armies simply appeared out of nowhere and crossed the vast distances of Russia by magic.
2.5 hours to make a fully functional submachine gun in 1944?! Holy crap, and people diss Soviet industry and engineering, you could start a siege with 0 guns and by the end of the day have a full platoon armed!
Yeah, that’s in ideal conditions. It was probably a little more but the amount of effort required to organise the industry in a way that this level of production could be achieved is truly remarkable.
" Shock Troops Has Arrived "
This is fantastic content. Invaluable
Jesus, imagine hundreds of tokarev rounds being fired in city enviroments like Stalingrad and Berlin
you mean thousands. The average PPSh drum was 71 rounds, with a group of like 10 submachine gunners you could go through hundreds in a mater of minutes, now multiply that by hundreds or even thousands and that's Stalingrad for you
I watched an interview with a Stalingrad veteran who mag-dumped in panic on a German who popped around a corner a few feet away.
He described the sight of the man's flesh and uniform coming apart as like a flight of swallow taking off from a tree.
Damn,I love your voice.In Steel division 2( PC game) , half of the soviet assult squads are only equiped with smg. I think it is unhistorical, now you have corrected my openion, thank you.
Next videos Rank in USSR Armed Forces
(NCO's, SNCO and OFFICER)
What time period?
Thanks for the suggestion 👍
@@noodles5438 1930-1945
Joseph Stalin that would be pretty cool
A very useful coverage. I was informed. Thanks for posting.
1:20 you made a mistake there. There were submachine guns in the Soviet forces in 1939 but the amount's little. The submachine guns used then were PPD-34.
The PPD existed, yes, but it was not officially integrated into the organization of the Rifle Division at the beginning of 1939. If I remember correctly they mostly went to specialists and the NKVD (the NKVD also got a small number of early model Thompson submachine guns in the 1920s which is also interesting). At this time the Soviets had also not embraced submachine guns doctrinally and were giving all the men in their rifle squads rifles except for the DP light machine gunner. They were most likely more enthused about the prospects of new semi-automatic rifles like the SVT-38, as shortly before Barbarossa they had a very overly optimistic TO&E that authorized everyone an SVT
@@BattleOrder A few of the PPD34s were issued to the rifle divisions. You can see it through these historical photos:
images.app.goo.gl/H8F2cSmQ8nhySa6G8
images.app.goo.gl/CcgWjJDVwq2gbfLt5
images.app.goo.gl/VBcGt8QYLYdvEaSM9
But yes most of them went to specialists like engineers and the NKVD or the police forces who didn't really need LMGs or rifles. The Soviets thought they could equip their forces all with SVTs until realizing it was really expensive to mass produce and it had reliability issues. The PPSh and PPS cost so much less so they were like oh why not just produce more of those
At the mid of winter war, the amount of PPD was around 5 000. In next few months of winter war, this amount almost trippled
@Battle Order
Are these Thompson's you speak of, the same ones Prigozin was flaunting on social media videos the other week?
I always wondered why the Japanese didn’t develop and use a SMG more
Seems it would have been a perfect weapon for them
Japan didn't have the production capability/resources to supply all the ammunition that those smg's would require. Otherwise they surely would have. Japans manufacturing capability was the worst of any of the major powers of the war.
@@nathanm9212 yeah . japan and italy didnt have that many factory :/ but they all have quite a strong navy .
@@annguyenlehoang7779 Strong regional navies yes, but no capacity to sustain losses and outclassed in the Mediterranean by the British and the Pacific by the Americans. Yamamoto knew that if the war lasted for longer than 6 months Japan would have no chance of winning.
An Nguyen Le Hoang But no fuel for them.
@@nathanm9212 even more important for Japan was their ability to transport this ammunition by sea. Increased ammo consumption would require more transport ships that could be attacked by the enemy navy.
It's impressive that, under pressure to produce and get it right the first time (or face the NKVD), Georgy Shpagin was able to create something with such a high cyclic rate of fire; with, according to first-hand sources had a very low failure/jam rate.
There were previous designs before his own, he basically just took the PPD-40 and heavily improved upon it.
Thank you for the work put in and detailed research .It is amazingly detailed and worthy of academic level work.A small tip to add : as early as 42 there is consistent element in diary and memoirs records - company and platoon comanders insisted on swamping casualty's weapons for rifle , in case the casualty s assigned weapon was smg .The common sense deception was designed to retain as many smgs as possible , avoiding the valued weapon being rotated to the rear with injured .Sometimes replacements would be issued smg before being sent to the unit thus overall number of smgs could be maximised .
Dude you have great quality content! This is amazing.. This is gonna blow up
There were units which were fully rearmed to AVT36 (full auto Tokarev rifle 1936) SVT38/40 (semi-auto Tokarev rifles) according to the Soviet rearmament Programm, which as planning to fully rearm irs army with SMG and semi automatic rifles by the end of 1942. Elete units were getting the new weapons first. Unfortunately the rearmament never happened due to a huge loss of semi automatic in 1941. because the most elete troops were the second to face germans right after the NKVD border guards.
I loved the old Medal of Honor song in the background. Nice detail.
Nice nod to the Finnish army use of SMGs in the intro. They realized the effectiveness early on and increased production as much as their extremely limited budget allowed.
Imagine defending the trenches and all the sudden you hear. Brrrrrrrrr everywhere
Bonus points for the OG Call of Duty soundtrack playing softly in the background.👌
Brilliant video, how did I not know this channel!
Drinking game: take a shot everytime he says "Machine gun"
Dammit I came down here JUST to make that comment lol
That sounds dangerous
Do it tournament ladder style with the last person left alive as the champion
Great video. Thank you for your good work
Fun game: take a drink every time he says some form of “machine gun” or “machine gunner”
I'd have thought that the Spanish civil war would have been more the early impetus for Soviet sub machinegun design with the winter war spurring them to produce them faster and want them to be cheaper for wider deployment. I think this also fits the timeline of smg development better as well.
Orwell notes that on the Aragon front he personally only witnessed a single solitary SMG of Russian origin but hey, that's only one man's viewpoint. Although I may have wrong end of the stick, were you meaning the trench warfare of that conflict using mostly late 19th century bolt action rifles called for and caused influx of SMG production in the Soviet Union?
Also , the primary Soviet SMG , was a damn fast weapon , it was perfect for clearing a room , before the enemy could fully react . Ironically , the Soviet weapon was prefereed by German troops over their own , on the Eastern front . Its high rate of fire , and reliability when filthy , caused German soldiers to adopt it , when they had the opportunity .
Litterally this video:
The real supermen in 1943.
Learn how to use the word "literally".
@@michaelsrite822 oh sorry
Excellent video
Thanks!
I always figured the russians used SMG so much becuse they had the best SMG.
Best SMG?
PPD-40 DSZ (PPD-40 with a SVT-40 muzzle break and bayonet)
But very few were made so it can't be the best.
PPSh-41 1250 RPM with 250 meter effective range, and a crude muzzle break + compensator that causes a downward recoil push.
But the PPSh has a flaw, the gun was issued with Two 71 round drum magazines that matched the gun, when the soldiers picked up drums from fallen comrades those drums might not work properly in the PPSh they were issued with, in the middle of war you don't have time to find out which drums work reliably in your gun, so they replaced the drum with a 35 Round Sector Magazine that works reliably between guns, it was also cheaper and you can carry alot of them. In 1943 the drums were improved and worked better between guns but are very stiff and difficult to insert into the magwell of some guns increasing the time it takes to reload. Since 6 million PPSh-41s were made you probably have around 9 million drums made, and few million could work well and a few million won't. The PPSh-41 is my favorite gun and undoubtedly the best smg in WWII even with its problems.
Now let's talk about other WW2 smgs that are great
Beretta M38A
Holds 40 rounds and has a compensator that negates recoil
It uses special 9x19mm loaded extra hot for increased Range and rate of fire 650+
it is a very well made submachine gun with great accuracy and range and it's not as heavy as the PPSh
FNAB-43 a closed bolt Italian smg with an identical muzzle break of the PPSh
Obviously the closed bolt gives it great accuracy but the muzzle break and compensator goes a step further, it's rate of fire is about 490-540 RPM so basically the same as an MP-38
MP-41 okay so the MP-40 obviously is the smoothest shooting SMG of WWII thanks to its telescoping bolt that prevents the bolt from hitting the back of the receiver so imagine the accuracy you'd get with a wooden stock attached instead of the wobbly folding stock, its not an MP-40 with a wooden stock tho it's mechanically different.
Now let's talk about absurd smgs of ww2
PPT-27 ok so the Soviet Union designed a closed bolt smg that fires 7.62x38mmR nagant Revolver rounds at 1250 rpm.
There are even more but if I mention all of them I'll be here for years.
Just research ww2 prototype smgs or play enlisted.
Excellent video keep it up buddy...
Great work!
Looks like a promising channel. Keep up the good work!
Nobody ever hit by a submachine gun bullet ever complained it was underpowered. That is the realm for armchair tacticians. Better to have an underpowered 9 mm than an unreliable M16.
The underpowered comment was mostly to placate the masses I anticipated would complain about the puny 7.62 Tokarev versus their chad, thicc, american muscle .45 acp. Overall it's the right cartridge for the job given the era
@Tranhoang Long I hear you... It's the same with all the keyboard warriors telling me how shit the SA80 is.
@@laurancerobinson In the end, every weapon makes it's goal - to kill.
@@e.s.g.5997 As a former member of the British Army who served in Northern Ireland, I could be pedantic and say not every weapon is designed to kill. But I do understand your point.
@@e.s.g.5997 Contrary to popular belief, to kill is not the ultimate goal of weapons of war (unlike hunting weapons). The goal is to incapacitate and remove them from the fight. Often it isn't even optimal to kill the enemy, because a wounded soldier will use up more enemy resources than a dead one and therefore be overall more detrimental to their war effort.
I want it point out the ppd there was variants of the ppd the first one was the PPD-34 which came standard a small 25 round stick mag where the 34/38 was an updated design of the POD-34 which gave it a standard drum but holds 73 rounds due to they had to have a small stick to stick in it
Later the PPD-40 which was the simplest of the bunch have the well known drum of the ppsh but they’re not interchangeable but holds 2 less rounds and also a different way to hold it the mag
Then the ppsh-41 which have the the same mag but different way it stays in the mag well down side of some feeding issues and mags freezing due to how simple it was
Also during the winter war the inventor was demanding they use the dang smg but they constantly refuse to use the ppd 34 and 34/38 despite having a good number of such gun
I have just discovered your channel with this video. OMG you are so good. Subscribing!
Its actually really weird that no country nowadays actually uses tank riders. It gives extra protección to tanks while providing exacta mobility to foot infantry (not all the countries are rich enough to field enough APC's and IFV's for all of its infantry.
If a squad would have had a sniper or one or two designated marksmen covering their backs those units would have been covered in the 400+ ranges when retreating.
You should take into account that most of 1940s standard issue sniper scopes were beyond awful by any modern standart. It's 3.5-4 times magnification, reticle didn't have any ballistic marks and its lines were usually really thick making impossible to see something behind them and were tend to loose hermetical sealing quickly.
In all of sniper stories I've read, it's stated that hitting something beyond 400m with a standard scope was impossible, and all famous ww2 snipers (except, maybe, American ones) were using expensive commercial scopes
@@ВячеславФролов-д7я Thanks for the input , yes I wasn’t taking the technological approach more so in that time’s USSR
I don’t know why 7.62x25 was considered “underpowered” compared to 9mm it makes considerably more energy, and less recoil and flatter shooting. It makes more energy on paper than a .45ACP especially when comparing SMG’s although the 45’s large meplat gives it a considerable advantage in terminal ballistics at close range.
That Medal of Honor Allied Assault theme on the background 👌👌👌
Really liked your graphics for this.
I've heard that the soldiers afectionately called the submachine gun "Papasha".
Even the Germans used captured Soviet submachine guns
Keep up the good work king
Great video
yooo this is underrated
I've seen the organization charts, but no one explained how the smg companies were supposed to be used. This makes much more sense now. Do you have information on Korean War era Chinese small unit tactics? Would the infiltration methods be similar to the Soviet ones illustrated here?
I don't know much about the Korean War right now, however I do know that the North Koreans at present have an infiltration doctrine similar to this (covertly infiltrating enemy lines to attack targets from the rear). For Battalion Ops they allocate a platoon; for Regiment Ops its a company; for Division Ops its 4 to 6 companies from the light infantry battalion; for Corps Ops its 4 to 6 battalions from light infantry and sniper brigades
@@BattleOrder Thanks. I heard due to the hilly terrain and use of night cover, Chinese infiltration were often battalion in size, sometimes regiment, and one at least one occasion a whole division slipped through the lines.
As for smg use, Chinese troops made limited use of these weapons until the Korean War. So it seems they adopted Soviet doctrine and perhaps became even more smg centric.
The scheme of Mechanized Brigades and Tank Brigades is not correct. The mechanized brigade had 3 motor rifle battalions and 2 tank battalions. The tank brigade had 1 motorized rifle battalion and 3 tank battalions.
The Mechanized Brigade is incorrect I agree; the shtat we were looking at did not include the Separate Tank Regiment for some reason
However, for Tank Brigades, as of February 1942 (the time period where the Tank Brigade graphic is shown) they did have 2 tank battalions (штаты №№ 010/345 - 010/352) although Tank Brigades part of Tank Corps were ordered to have 3 tank battalions as of May 1942. From Dec 1941 to Nov 1943 the tables had 2 tank battalions per tank brigade, moving to 3 tank battalions thereafter.
@@BattleOrder Yes, I see. tank regiment (two separate tank battalions (staff number 010/87 - 422 people), in 1943, reorganized into tank battalions (staff number 010/394))
Excellent video and presentation, great job
Glad you liked it!
Sorry but your labeling of the 7.62×25mm Tokarev as 'small' is misleading and ultimately just incorrect. The cartridge was never considered underpowered by the combatants on either side during the war nor is it considered as such today. Such a characterization of the round is followed immediately by your own admission of contradictory data. Without unnecessarily listing the easily available spec's I'll just say this- 7.62 Tokarev was admired by all on the eastern front with lots of photographic evidence of beutewaffen to prove it and it's still considered a spicy pistol caliber cartridge to this day.
I realize it's not like you shit all over the round and also that it's a bit 'nit picky' on my part but I felt the need to clarify. Anyway I love your stuff, true ace tier content! Please keep em' coming and thanks!
1:50 ...the Tokarev necked round is quite powerful...especially thru a longer barrel...
Depends on what you mean by powerful. Penetrating power - yes, stopping power - not so much. US .45 and 9*19Para are heavier and kick harder, at the price of low muzzle velocity and poor ballistics. Though with rpm of 1000 rounds low stopping power doesn't mean that much.
@@ЯБезымянный-о5ф ...bullshit to that..the Tokarev round alone can defeat body armour.
@@FeldwebelWolfenstool i think you don't understand what stopping power is. It's the ability of the projectile to trasfer it's energy to the object it hits.
If the bullet goes cleanly through, it's energy is wasted. Yes it can go through armor, which is good as long as your target is armored. Otherwise it's better to have the bullet shatter and do horrible damage to soft tissues, thus stopping the target immediately.
@@ЯБезымянный-о5ф tacticalgunreview.com/tokarev-review/
@@FeldwebelWolfenstool Dude, he isn’t saying that the Tokarev round could penetrate body armor, he’s saying that due to its size, it won’t be able to as easily stop the momentum of a person as other, heavier rounds.
Ma ntemayor returnee just xouple days ago, now it looks like you are back too.
Im very happy.
So red army got production of sheet metal -43 down to less than three hours per unit…and then had to go with milled receiver initially on AK due to lack of technology? Did I get that correct?
Great video, especially if you just watched 1944 movie this weekend about Estonian troops using all these weapons and tank riding tactics.
Most unit's that were fully equipped with SVT-40 semi-automátic rifles were steamrolled during the first two months of the war.
Correct. It’s a shame too, it’s a fantastic rifle when built well.
Channel unique lots of potential. Keep up the good work.
Thanks mate
Germans focused on Machinegun tactics while Soviets focused on Submachinegun tactics, we all know who will prevail in the end.
Keep up the good work! you deserve alot more than 6.48k subs
Great video !
Can you cover early 20th century Cavalry and Dragoon units? There isn't much written about them as forces became more mechanized and emphasis of study was placed on them instead of "archaic" horsemen, in despite of how important they still were as late as WWII
Great video fella 🫡 Have you done one for Finland ww2 ?
great video! keep up the good work
Can you please tell us about how effective each tactic is if possible
Great info! So,let me ask. Just out of curiosity. What might have been the chance of an ordinary rifleman (a private) being issued a ppsh-41 as early as,say 1942?
Thank you so much! I've had trouble sleeping, but this video fixed that.
9:10 bruh was not expecting this level of cool wtf
Various channels are recommending you. I just joined. Looks good.
Neil Wilson who if I may ask?
Best submachine gun of WW2.
Nobody appreciated the power of Dakka like the Soviets.
Nicely done. The absence of political propaganda bullshit in your video is a huge deal.
Excellent stuff
Thank you kindly
They’re like light infantry or skirmishers.
Ok, now I stumbled upon military tactics courses and, with proper real-life training, can become a commander. Nice. I was born in the right age.
So much nostalgia from the background MoHAA music
nice videos!
Thanks!
Well, even before the winter war soviets had submachine guns. However 1939 experience in Poland has shown the Soviet High command that you can barely get within the range of an SMG (most firefights were or relatively open ground) and therefore it's best to arm squad leaders will semi-automátic rifles. So the Soviet army started winter war with many machine Guns in stockpile but none in the army apart from the NKVD (police) and artillery units (for self defense) after having experienced Finnish SMG's Soviet sent their stockpiled PPD (Ancestor of PPSh-41) and placed an order for construction agencies to develop a cheaper than PPD Submachine gun. PPSh-41 won the competition.