I believe Kalashnikovs first design was actually a submachine gun. It didn't go anywhere but it got the attention of the higher ups, and he went on to design the AK. Essentially what they wanted was a better, more powerful submachine gun sort of thing that was cheap and easy to use
@@booqueefious2230 even after adoption of the AK47 it first fell into the SMG role while the SKS remained in the rifle role. eventually the Russians switched the AK to the rifle role. the Chinese stuck with the old system with the Type 56 family until later
doesnt it come from the german STG being called a machine pistol before hitler found out when some officer asked for more of these new rifles? im sure the reds copied the stg so it would make sense
The first actual Squad Automatic Weapon, sure we had the B.A.R. before that, but the RPD was really the true predecessor to modern SAWs used today with the intermediate cartridge.
Chauchat and BAR were designed in WW1 for different purpose. Walking fire rifle or something like that After Ww1, US decided to assign new role for it and put a worse sight on it also.
@@WALTERBROADDUS technically you are right, the Chauchat was definitely the first saw, being belt fed in an intermediate caliber designed to be capable of usable fire from the shoulder and to be operated by a single individual as part of a squad... On no wait it wasn't...
@@Dominik189 A SAW doesn't have to be in an intermediate cartridge or belt fed. It is more of a role than a firearm. For example, the BAR may not have been designed as a SAW, but it was used as one.
The feed system on the RPD has one significant advantage over the MG/M60 one - thanks to the way the track for the roller is built and to the fact that the whole system has a biasing spring, one can close the top cover with the bolt in any position without any risk of destrouing the feed system. It's basically much more idiot-resistant than any of the other guns that use a system like that (except for the designs with a telescoping roller).
@@cgi2002 Like every other country have PhD's that fill their infantry battalions. Please. Besides, the Soviets always had a conscription-based army in mind while designing their weapons. If literally every male is expected to carry a weapon *in any country*, you're bound to end up with a lot of idiots in the ranks.
@@Rasbiff most western countries have basic levels of educational requirement (some higher than ohers), and don't use conscription, and those that do tend to link it to some form of education, rather than just for the numbers to make their force look bigger. Also few western forces have soldiers as just "rifleman man", they tend to prefer most soldiers to multitask. Every soldier may be a rifleman, but they also tend to be something else too. For example my cousin is trained as a mechanic, EOD and a cook, but he is still a rifleman when needed. Also Russia is damned cold, and has historically had issues with alcoholism, or as some deem it "anti-freeze".
@Jimmy Two Times the video it self clearly contradicts your statement... Also the fact the gun in the video is Chinese manufactured also blows your statement out of water. It was made by quite a few nations and I've personally seen and handled a few, including a Russian one. Outside of Russian and Chinese, they were all shitty, Chinese ones were okay but Russian one was freakin amazing.
Because of the downward ejection and the “drum” ammo container, the RPD also inspired the Balanced Ammunition Delivery System or B.A.D.S. for the FN MAG.
@@johnybloom5575 Yeah, it was quite soft shooting and very easy to keep on target. Even though it was the first automatic weapon I shot, I had no difficulty with controlling the length of my bursts and could pull off single shots. I suppose such ease of handling was important for a gun intended for a conscript army.
The mg3 had desintegrating links aswell the solid belts were only for training (atleast thats the intend). The drum was more a first contact thing so you have 50 rounds on hand when running into the enemy while on patrol but it didnt take long for them to make a mounting bracket for a 100 round polymer box under the gun
Both Seal teams and SOG operators used RPD due Stoner 63 shortages . Another plus since it 7.62x39 it would cause great confusion when they ran ambushes and was well liked by the Seals and SOG teams and sometimes was used with a sawed off barrel
@@fab006 afaik he cant take criticism well, doesn't like to quote reputable sources in his articles and has a reputation of being a toxic a-hole in online discussions. I may be wrong tho
@@olegdemianenko3054 can't say anything about him but I'm toxic sometimes too in online discussions. Only on the other subjects not the guns, because you need to deal, with a bunch of idiots on the net who think, that they know something but they had no clue about the matter.
@@tysopiccaso8711 Well, part of one anyway. Like the watercooled barrel on the Fallout 4 "assault rifle". Or how the HK G11 was classified as a one-handed SMG in Fallout 2. I just meant they should get their weapon types straight, that's all.
@@PrototypeSpaceMonkey the fallout 4 assault rifle wasn't made for infantry but rather power armor which makes sense when you consider they're basically giants with no fine motor skills
I remember hearing an employee of one of the local firearm shops say in conversation that "the rpd is just an AK set up to feed from a belt"... I had to fake some coughing (this was years back pre-covid) to cover up my laughter.
Degterev was the king of keep it simple and i dont think i've ever heard of one of his designs not being reliable. he found something that worked and stuck with it
The only downside of the tilting bolt is the hazard with the user in the event that the lug breaks off with wear and tears more than rotating bolts might shorten its lifespan. RPD work, but not work well enough, hence, it got faded quickly.
Surprisingly refined and well thought out design. It really shows some elegant implementations of keeping things simple but effective with smart design. Shame about the gas system though, that could have been done better.
@@Royalmerc the design concept for early squad based automatic weapons didn't call for a quick change barrel as they were not supposed to be used for fully automatic sustained suppression like an actual LMG. And since LMG's were in theory common enough that you had an LMG team nearby for that, your automatic rifleman (that's what this was designed as), existed to be somewhat mobile and lightweight.
"Long been hypothesised...." Never thought would hear such words being said outside of some groundbreaking discovery of a subatomic particle or something...
Actually motivation for adoption of M43 cartridge was the desire to increase effective range of submachine guns. PPSh was good up to 150 metres, military wanted to double it, as distance of 98% of gun fights was less than 350 metres.
Hi Ian! A long awaited video for me. However I think you made a mistake. The Hungarian company FÉG did in fact produce the RPD as far as I know. There is an original example in a Slovakian shooting range, which has "TŰZ" and "0" on the safety. Tűz is the Hungarian word for fire. A Hungarian firearms magazine reported on this a couple of years ago during a visit to the machinegun shooting event held at this particular range.
Yes, he probably had a brain fizz at the end, given that he actually pointed out earlier in the video that the Hungarians made a special belt when they produced the guns and that the Chinese borrowed several design elements from the Hungarians.
I have a decommissioned Soviet RPD sitting here in my office in England, almost mint and still strips cocks and dry fires...I have a nice collection including a Martini Henry MK IV, a Marlin Safety rifle 1892 model which dates from 1896 in .32 rimfire, and a flintlock pistol by Henry Nock of London which dates to around 1798...now there is a forgotten weapon!
@@charlesfollette9692 weren't shotguns basically useless past 10 meters? I'll never forget a friend of mine unloading a full mag of the aa12 on me and none of the rounds making it to me lol
The 1887 was op as hell, especially dual wielding. That “shotgun” was the most broken weapon in the game, it could destroy anything from pretty far distance
It would be really cool if Ian could do an overview series of the numerous different Soviet machine guns and what roles they were designed and used for. There seems to be a bewildering variety and my eyes glaze over a bit whenever I see one of those acronyms.
I kind of like flapper-locked guns. Just the mechanics are cool. I wish the concept of flapper-locked pistols had become more popular. There were probably very good reasons for that, but still... one can dream.
@@thesmallestminorityisthein4045 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-j2Fbaz3T7Rc.html I found a comment under this video claiming the maxim 9 is an asymmetric roller-delayed blowback. It's interesting how the seller really doesn't want to name the system.
Reciprocating charging handles are a bloody nightmare. The SLR had an easy to use gas regulator, it was useful, it allowed you to run at a low gas setting helping you to mitigate recoil, usually you wouldn't need to gas it up under normal use because by the time the vun got dirty enough for you to have to crank the gas up you were usually in a situation where you could at least field strip and clean it.
Something so very Soviet about that bolt which affixes the buttstock to the trigger group. "How do we attach it Comrade? Pins? Countersunk screws? A dovetail joint?" "We stick Big Bolt through it." "Da."
Man, like the AK, there's simply not enough parts to break. Such a piece of work, so rough that I can imagine a broke one might actually look like a refined version.
there was prototypes in 5.45x39 with combined feeding (from mags or belt) in 70’s. army tried them and decided that price/performance/effectiveness not worth it and development was shut down.
Also - once you dump a belt through it, it really shows that it was not meant for large volumes of fire. Most commonly they just cease up and you have to let them cool a bit. On the other hand - I've never managed to overheat a barrel in one I run - it always stops working before one can do that.
I now have a great appreciation for modern links with how they individually eject after being fired. Although I also hate them when I kneel or lay down on them.
We had exactly one RPD in the batallion. It didn't work. The designated machine gunner (physically, the smallest and the shortest of us all) couldn't shoot it anyway because he was never issued any ammo for target practice. And we had *two* target practices over two years. Ah, the brilliant Soviet Army of the 1980s.
We were firing this yesterday and it was just as filthy as this...OK Ian. I swear to God Sarge. It was dirty like this when I got it! LOL Thanks for another interesting video Ian. I fired a pile of rounds through an RPD at a local range when I was working over in Asia. A very easy LMG to handle and quite accurate at range.
13:22- Regarding the gas regulator, I would like to clarify the information. The Shooting Manual for the 1957 edition of the RPD gives the following instructions: The position of the regulator "2" is the main one. Position "3" is used if the machine gun is dirty and has begun to delay and malfunction in firing. Position "1" is reserved. It is used in the case when the rate of fire of the machine gun has increased markedly. That is, the parts have run in so much that the frictional resistance is minimal and the speed of movement has become too high. In this case, the regulator is moved to position "1". But according to the Manual on Small Arms, this is done only on the condition that the machine gun will work reliably.
That feed drum is interesting for a 'belt carrier'; makes me wonder why a similar carrier wasn't made for, say the M60, or why no enterprising chap with a welding torch didn't add a couple of 'prongs/snaps/protrusions' where such a belt carrier could be hung. I remember 'hearing' that some experienced Aussie troops (with time in combat in Malaya and Borneo) jury rigged something like a canvas canteen holder to hold the belt (size unknown) and a couple of commo wire loops to just put it into place, though I might have been for the Aussie version of the FN MAG. I mean the alternative is wearing your ammo like you were Pancho Villa. That being said, I wonder what a quick use carry/feed drum would weigh with 50 to 100 rounds of .308 in it, not to mention how noisy such a beast would be, being carried in the bush.
Here’s another reason “Y” the RPK took over the RPD’s place… according to the GunBusters series by the Kalashnikov Group, the RPK outperformed the RPD by 33% at approximately 1200 rounds sustained fire, compared to approximately 800 for the RPD.
The rpd seems better suited to the modern doctrine and practice of not having 1k rpm rates to comserve ammo..? Thought they usually left those ammo eaters on airplanes and mobile vehicles.
@@reimuhakurei2123 without the necessity loading the belt first.. If soviet at time introduced a quick change barrel rpd.. Whilst keeping the rest intact..
@@reimuhakurei2123 the rpk mag compatibility does make sense. Pretty sure another video on Inrange mentioned that feature. The high rate of fire still kind of doesn't make sense but it is Russian doctrine we're talking about. I'm not super into weapons on a micro level but the rpd is very aesthetically pleasing and seemed like a very pleasant weapon to shoot. Just a little more refinement would have made it all the more interesting and capable. Oh well.
11:24 - belatedly noticed, reviewing. There were no early release shields on Soviet machine guns. But in the future, the shields began to be present both to the left and to the right of the machine gun's tape receiver. Machine guns of early production passing through the army arsenals had to be equipped with shields made by arsenals, as well as gas chambers of a new type of closed type. All instructions were contained in the RPD Repair Manual published in 1958. On my demilitarized Soviet RPD (named RPD-O in the documents, where O means hunting), issued probably in 1950, the shield on the right is present.
it would have been nice if you covered the use of this weapon by MACV-SOG and particularly Franklin D Miller, MOH winner who used this weapon with the modification that SOG chopped the barrel down in length. one problem that SOG faced was getting replacement belts for the weapon, so they were required to hang on to them and not drop them and leave them behind in a firefight.
The timing of this episode seems to coincide with the release of a certain series featuring said weapon. Combine that with Ian's comments on Hecate II, it's almost as if... Ian is also a man of exquisite taste👌
I traded a cheap 16mm "spy camera" that I hated for one of these from an advisor in IV Corps Area i Vietnam. I wanted an AK-47 but he did not have one to trade. Unfortunately, I never shot it because I couldn't get my hands on any 7.62x39mm belted ammo. I sold it later on to a River Patrol guy for slightly more than I had paid for the camera. Lots of weapons got traded around like this in Vietnam.
I read "The Hidden War" a book on soviet-afghan war by Artyom Borovik, he was a war reporter close action like some US journalists in Vietnam. In the book, the soviets soldiers always refer to an AK as a submachinegun. So I assume it was really viewed as a submachinegun in the soviet army.
@@F1ghteR41 Possible, I think Artyom wrote the book in english himself, i don't see any translator mentioned. but the proper term is use for machinegun for example. When a translation is impossible it's mentioned.
I'm not Afghan vet nor even served in military. But i'm from military family and watched a lot of interviews by afghan vets in Russian and I've never heard that AKs called other than "автомат" = assault rifle. I don't think that SMG concept was even that recognizable in miltary as in SU (and later in Russia) civillian weapon strictly regulated and we don't have weapons with auto rate of fire. Also since 50-s till 90-s SU didn't made new SMG's. So i think that is translation issue.
@@rongman6492 it's possible he got the wrong translation and put all over the book. We need someone to check the book in russian XD so we could see what was the original text.
@@Rochb63 Yep i checked in the book and it's called exactly "автомат". Also i looked into some of dictionaries and yes "автомат" can be translated as SMG. But nobody use it like this, as we have special name for SMG's "пистолет пулемет" also we have literal counterpart for assault rifle called "штурмовая винтовка" but nobody use it, even AK translates as "Автомат Калашникова". So in 99% of cases when somebody say "автомат" they mean assault rifle, for example m16 is definitely called "автомат".
Some Studies and Observations Group teams would take RPD's, cut the barrel down to just in front of the gas block, insert a piece of linoleum into the belt box to eliminate the rattle, and create a 125 round belt, to create a very controllable LMG.
Great video! I’m an old jarhead who humped an M-60 Echo 3 around for 4 years and I have never seen this weapon before. Thanks for your work and excellent presentation! Semper Fi. 👍
I listened to “A few hard men” on audiobook last week and it kept referencing the Rhodesians using rpds with chopped barrels. I immediately went to youtube yo see if Ian had a video on it - with no results. Thanks for posting - ask LAV if he can get his hands on one - would love to see how they look compared to this.
Do you have a source for that? I've spoken with many who were with MAC-V-SOG, and when these things are mentioned it is not described as anything they'd want to carry.
What was the PLA thinking. You got a type 50 SMG PPSH41 copy. Then there's the type 51 pistol TT-33 copy . Then there's the type 52 pistol PPK copy. Then we have type 53 rifles M44 copy, LMG DP-27copy, and HMG SG-43. Also a 82mm, and a 120mm mortars. Like they gotten lazy with the designs. Then there's a type 54 pistol. A upgraded version of the type 51 TT-33 copy. Then they got lazy again and designed type 56 to there AKM, SKS, RPD, and RPG copy's.
At first I thought it was a major mistake forgoing a quick-change barrel, but I think the 'meltdown tests' from IV8888 prove that you really don't need a quick-change barrel for 7.62x39. Most of the heat comes from the friction of the bullet against the walls of the barrel, not the burning powder, and the slower velocity bullet cuts that down considerably.
These were great guns my buddy's recon team had at least one sawn off RPD when they went into the field he has an interesting story about finding on on a dead NVA and lugging it around for 4 days only to have it save there bacon during extract after his CAR-15 took a round to the bolt disabling it apparently he ordered the Russian ones over the Chinese ones now I get what he meant by stupid Chinese dust covers
