Soviet PPD-40: Degtyarev's Submachine Gun 

The "1" and "71" markings on the selector got me laughing somehow.

Actually, Soviets were thinking about converting to semi-auto riffles. That's why they weren't sure they needed that many SMG's. In the end, they were making tons of SVT 40's. It was pretty much the 2nd most numerous semi-auto rifle in WWII after M1.

PP stands for Pew Pew.

"Which the russians would make a *slight pause* gazillion of." Beautiful. Never stop documenting guns

Ian, you are mistaken about the fact that the army authorities wanted to leave the soldiers with Mosin rifles. The Red Army was planned to be fully armed with self-loading rifles.Hence the skepticism in relation to submachine guns. And, as far as I remember, one PPD cost as 5 Mosin rifles P.S. I should correct myself about the numbers. PPD cost was about 900 rubles in 1939, while the DP-27 cost 1100 rubles. SVT cost about 700 rubles

This weapon is absolutely beautiful, I don't know what it is but its design speaks to me on a deep level. It looks quite dependable and like it would serve the conscript using it well, like a single blessing from those in command of him. A friend of the commoner.

When Gun Jesus is preaching, it doesn't matter what you are doing. You just sit down and listen ASAP

The full serial number on the bolt (9:25) reads "ЧЕ866". The serial number on the receiver reads "ЧЩ153" Letter "е" precedes letter "щ" in cyrillic alphabet by 20 letters, suggesting that the bolt is from a slightly earlier production gun (I think we're talking a month or less, given the scale of this guns' production run).

The idea to pull SMG was not so stupid as they were fast arming the troops with Tokarev semiautomatic rifles. Of course with hindsight it is easy to criticize but no army really valued SMGs in 1939. Even Finns saw it as a poor man's LMG and the concentrated use was born on the field.

“Because there were some particularly dense people” that was friggin hilarious and made me laugh way more than expected

The lineage of Soviet SMG's of this era always confuses me a little. This helps clear it up. The safety being on the bolt actually makes a lot of sense, since you have to manipulate the bolt to change the ready state of the gun. 12 lbs surprised me- that is about the same as a Thompson. Looks pretty solid. Great video as always. Thank you

you are the ultimate gun historian out there man. when ever i go to a party and firearms are the topic of convo i always tell people to watch your videos to see the evolution of firearms and unique things that make all guns different from each other.

PPSH, heck of a shotgun.

It's been a great year for subgun vids, thank you!!!!!

The British army didn't whant "gangster" weapons in their army either. They thought Better of IT when they met the Germans MP.

Смотрел с русскими титрами, долго смеялся: 10:55 "...он создавался из волоченой трубы и прутков". :) "drawn tube" видимо, подразумевалась "бесшовная цельнотянутая труба", которую изготавливают различными методами, в том числе, и волочением.

Several years ago I was at a gun show and one of the vendors had a de-milled ppsh-41. In my opinion, it looked like someone that hammered it out and welded it together in their garage

upped my pledge to see videos early, definitely worth it. Keep up the good work Ian.

Great video. In the video about Soviet weapons made in Europe or the United States, there are often many myths and nonsense - and it is very nice to see your accurate, calm and detailed description of an interesting sample of weapons. Allow me to add a little bit about the prices of weapons. You rightly said that the main reason for the replacement PPD for PCA is that the PCA was much cheaper and easier to manufacture. This is absolutely true, but it is necessary to clarify that the reason why the generals decided to remove the PPD from service was in many ways too high price of this gun. In 1936, the PPD-34 had a price of 1350 rubles apiece. For comparison - gun DP has a cost of 787 rubles, Mosin's rifle (according to different sources, probably different configuration) 90 to 162 rubles, revolver Revolver - 50 rubles. The USSR planned to equip the army with automatic rifles SVT (880 rubles for bulk purchases in 1940), and when this rifle went into production - the military no longer saw the point in an expensive submachine gun. The Soviet infantry unit of 11 people on staff had to have at least 8 SVT-38 rifles (SVT-40 after modernization), the DP machine gun and only two remained fighters received the submachine gun or Mosin's rifles. The military simply saw no reason to change a powerful automatic rifle SVT submachine gun with a range of effective fire 200 meters. After the Finnish war, the situation changed, the need for submachine guns was realized-especially in conditions of shortage of expensive SVT rifles. And immediately began work on creating the most simple and cheap submachine gun, the new competition was won by PPSH-41. For the price, it is sufficient to say that in the beginning of the war it cost about 500 rubles, but by 1943 the technology allowed to make a PPsH at a price less than the cost of the Mosin rifle is about 140 rubles. After the German attack on the USSR had to be abandoned upenov of infantry weapons rifles SVT - huge amount of weapons was lost at the beginning of the war, and massively encourage polneye had to be armed. Expensive the SVT not good for mass weaponry poorly trained newcomers, and the main weapons forced has become combination of cheap, but still effective rifles Mosin and PPSH. Well, after you capture the first samples Sturmgewehre in 1942 in the USSR was immediately returned to the development of weapons under the intermediate cartridge. This cartridge and weapons for it were proposed before the revolution an outstanding gunsmith and a theorist of weapons of Fedorov, Creator of the automatic rifle model 1915, which is often called the first assault rifle. Fyodorov studied in detail different schemes of automation and in his book on weapons proved that the rifle cartridge is overly powerful for mass automatic weapons, and the pistol is too weak. So he offered his own "intermediate" cartridge caliber 6.5 mm, and have developed under a rifle. Unfortunately, the Russian Empire could not afford the production of a new cartridge, and when the need arose - a rifle Fedorov was asked to shred by a Japanese rifle 6.5 mm Arisaka cartridge This cartridge was weaker than Russian 7,62 * 54, but still too powerful to be called "intermediate" - however, Fedorov was able to adapt his rifle under him, and she was mass-produced in 1915. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TqSAV0WksRo.html Before the war the Soviet Union also repeatedly talked about the need to create a new, intermediate cartridge developed some samples but could not afford too expensive large-scale experiments. When received the samples of the first German Sturmgewehr became clear that the future of such weapons. In 1943 was created the cartridge 7.62 * 39 (first known as the 7.62 * 41), and in 44 year the competition already byi presents the first models of assault rifles for this cartridge. As a result, after a series of contests out of dozens of the proposed options, AK-47 was recognized as the winner, which was essentially a combination of the most successful ideas of the samples submitted for the contest.

9:06 Extremely easy disassembly, simplicity which works well, a Soviet era goal.

Ian, I realize that you are just retelling what some Russian historians have written, but unfortunately these are often the sort of people who would not tell you the whole truth, or even distort the facts to support their personal points of view. Personally I see nothing dumb in the decision to remove the PPD from active service in February, 1939. Just as always, it is all in the context. First of all, please remember that it was the PPD-34, with a 25-round stick magazine, which was not a very useful gun to begin with. According to the original plans, it was designed to replace the Nagant revolver as an officer's sidearm, to give the officers who took part in the actual fighting some weapon that could be of some actual use on the battlefield - more so than a revolver of a semi-auto pistol. Also, it was to be given to gun & machine gun crews, drivers, etc. Essentially, it was a semi-automatic carbine with an option to fire in short bursts, which depleted the magazine really quickly (the user's manual quite definitely recommended single shots as the primary firing mode). Think M2 Carbine or Model 60 Reising, not Suomi analog. The next thing to consider, and a very important one, is the price. At the time, the gun was extremely pricey - comparable to a DP machine gun. What would you prefer for the same price, a full-blown light machine gun or the above described light carbine, suitable only for officers and second-line troops ? I suppose the answer is obvious. Later versions were simplified a lot, both in design and manufacturing technology, but still not cheap & easy to manufacture. And that didn't happen until the Winter War, which led to the possible combat role of an SMG being completely revised. So, you have a small amount (no more than 5000) of expensive, but questionably useful SMGs, that have more or less successfully undergone the military trials... what would you do with this bunch of guns in peacetime ? Leave them in the army, to let the the recruits quickly wear them down, or storage them in depots, to have at least some weapon of this type, albeit imperfect, in the time of need ? To me, the answer is just as obvious. The order, published February, 10, 1939, prescribed to keep the SMGs "in good order" and "each supplied with a suitable amount of ammunition", and also to stop the production of new ones until "a better system is developed". An absolutely justified decision for piece time, when everyone thinks that there is still enough time to come up with something better. SMGs are ridiculously simple guns to study, so there was no much need to keep them in active service to familiarize the troops with them. Some PPDs were left where they we really needed - with the Border Guard and the Escort Troops. And finally - the "particularly dense people in the war ministry" who wanted "to stick with everyone having just a bolt action rifle" - sorry, but that's just rubbish. The plan of the "particularly dense people in the war ministry" (namely, the Artillery Committee of the Artillery Directorate of the Red Army) was that by 1942, the primary weapon of the Soviet infantry would have been the Tokarev semi-auto rifle, a far, far superior weapon compared to the PPD (or any SMG, for that matter). It was also significantly less expensive than the PPD-34, to boot. The SVT was officially adopted on February, 26 1939 - several days after the above mentioned order to stop the manufacturing of the PPDs and to put the remaining guns into storage. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. The SVT was obviously (and justifiably) the first priority project, it was deemed vital to start mass production and familiarize the soldiers with this new weapon before the next big war. For the second-line troops, the Tokarev carbine was developed, which not only was a superior weapon by itself, but also made logistics much simpler, because it used the same type of cartridges as the main battle rifle (the reason why the US military uses the M4 carbines, not PDWs with their fancy proprietary cartridges, am I not right ?). And the SMGs were put somewhere at the end of the priority list. Still, the Committee was intent on eventually introducing another, more refined and cheaper SMG. That intent would eventually materialize in the PPSh, which by far didn't just jump out of nowhere in the summer of 1941 - the development of a replacement started in late 1930s).

Awesome, awesome gun, and throughly enjoyed listening to Ian talk about it

5:35 At this point Ian goes out and lets Robot Ian take over the presentation.

one of the best gun channels on yt

also, in the very early prototypes of these, 7,63x25 mauser was used in the trials as the soviets had a ton in surplus from there c96 stockpile from the early 1920s but as they were to weak of a round it delayed the production of these as tokarev round was not it big production at that time.

0:38 umm... I think he was Vasily Alekseyevich Degtyaryov not Feodor Degtyaryov. Anyways, great video as always. :)

Two hypotheses for this particular gun being a mixture of different versions: (1) From what I've read, after the war with Germany started, a bunch of PPDs were made from parts remaining at the Kovrov plant (the main PPD production facility); (2) tens of thousands of these guns were made in 1941-42 in the besieged Leningrad, including factories that used to make PPDs earlier. The latter seems more plausible here, given that it's a Finnish capture. (Alternatively, it might have been the Finns who used these captures well after the war, and were probably running out of spare parts at some point.)

AWESOME VIDEO! KEEP EM UP IAN!

У этого парня очень классные ролики. Он знает и любит оружие как специфическую, но яркую форму материализации технической фантазии человека.. Меня корёжило только от энглиша. С русскими субтитрами всё стало идеальным. Спасибо.

What a handsome, solid-looking gun. Thanks for this video.

SA-marking on the gun tells an interesting story. Weapon is clearly a captured example of PPD. These weapons were relegated to Coastal Troops of the Finnish army because of variety of reasons. Main reason being that ammunition logistics were easier to troops that didn't use all that much ammuniton. PPD is 7.62 x 25 Tokarev, which was in short supply on the Finnish side of the front during the war, so Finnish army supplied these weapons with 7.63 x 25 Mauser caliber ammunition which worked reasonaby well in spite of a milder load.

This is meat and potatoes. Every time FW uploads a table top like this, it makes my day. Keep it up!

I waited so long for a video on the PPD..Thanks you guys!?

I really hope some day that Ian would make a video of PPS 43. One of or the best SMG of WW2.

I was going to go to bed but... (always drops around 11pm local time) Awesome :)

"Something something Degtyarev" - Ian 2017

Just to be nitpicky, the Winter War ended in March 1940 so this gun couldn't have been captured any earlier than the summer of 1941 when the Continuation War started after a little over a year of peace between the two 'wars'. Cool video nontheless, nothing quite like these early submachine guns! :)

I must correct you here, Ian. Contrary to the popular sources on the subject Soviets never removed SMGs from service in 1939. They decided to stop production of PPDs as it was kinda expensive gun and costed almost as much as DP-28 machine gun. So they moved all 5000 PPDs to storage to keep them in working condition for the future major war. Also historian Alexey Isaev connect this particular decision with adoption of SVT-38 rifles, so no, Soviet generals weren't stupid and didn't want to keep their soldiers armed with bolt-action rifles.

Ian's style is so clear and informative, I wish he did videos on more mainstream weapons as well. Watching this, I immediately want to know more about PPSH-41s and Finnish Soumos, but alas, have to settle for videos made by less capable presenters.

My favorite weapon in Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45

I don't know if anyone agrees, but whenever Ian talks about past iterations o the guns being presented, it would be nice to see brief pictures of it while he's talking. If they exist, of course.

That looks sweet.. great job.

The "1" and "71" switch really made me laugh more than it probably should'eve.

PP stands for pistolet- pulyemyot (pistol-machine gun)

i must say i enjoy your videos the best for me are under 20 min. much like this one, i understand this a like a love affair with guns for you. thank you for all the work you do. Jeffrey age 67

Finally! I've been waiting for this so long

Отсутствие люфтов магазина это здорово, но перезарядка в горячке боя трясущимися руками требует простоты, а здесь нужно точно попасть маленькими ребрами магазина в маленькие пазы магазиноприемника. Для барабанных магазинов все-таки нужен прямой участок, что и подтвердила история их развития.

funny, i was just thinking about the Soviet WWII submachine guns the other day and wondering if Ian would ever do an episode on them, and here we are :)

Oh, I totally forgot this existed! What an interesting submachine gun. No pun intended.

Thank you .

Спасибо за перевод ! Я подписан на канал уже 3 года но у него не было перевода

Great !

Coping the M/31 "Suomi" box magazine is the only one Russian admitted coping.

Maybe the odd parts could be explained by the Finnish capture? Who knows what Finnish gun smiths did to it during and after the war?

*nice shoot!*

Это оружие выглядит стильно и просто. Как рассказывают ветераны, провёл один раз по горизонтали и все лежат.

Thanks for a really good review! And btw, why shouldn't we admit that we copied some ideas from the Finns?))) Nothing bad in that, it is a common and normal practice, and we've got a lot copied by the others

4:03, When they touch your firing mechanism just right

All hail! The time has finally come to review some more Soviet stuff! Thanks a lot Ian!

I wonder if the reason the sights are odd for the late manufacturing is the Fins had a couple of these sub-guns in “eh”-condition, and so they just put the best parts together into the gun you see now. Just my hypothesis.

Lovely :)

Decomissioning SMG's in 1938 wasn't just a someone's dumb idea - right at the same time they were upscaling production of SVT's wich were replacing AVS as a standard infantry rifle. Generals do wanted some long-range firepower, and due to the absence of decent mashineguns - this was a way Didn't work out due to the lack of time and production capabilities though, but we had to try

Very good.

Any chance we'll get a Suomi KP-31 video in the future?

Heh, the gun has 2 fire modes - 1 round per trigger pull and 71 rounds per trigger pull.

Who are you kidding: the PP in Russian SMG designation stands for "Pew Pew".

Gun Jesus spake, "Lo, Degtyaryova gave the people the instrument of pewing, and the people rejoyced. For it is of the pewing that peace is brought across the land." - the gospel of Kalashnikov, chapter 7, verse 62.

Sweet unit.

We need a volume book series of 'History's Forgotten Weapons.'

Been meaning to ask, has Ian made or is planning to make a vid about the Carl Gustav m/45-m45 B "Swedish K" Kpist? Would love to hear his opinion on one of my favorite guns.

For an Arizona rancher, you nailed the pronunciation of the pistolyet - pulyemyot

They were admiring AVS-36 semi-automatic rifles, not mosin bolt rifles. Simonov auto-rifle was a sort of sacred cow for soviet generals of late 30-s. Just for information

"There is no safe version of this" How very Soviet

That sight was added by the Finn’s for better accuracy in ranging, it is a scaled down version of the incremental adjustment M39 sight 👍

Would love to see a comparison of WW2 anti tank rifles and their effectiveness

Ian, do you know anything about the maximum RPM of the PPsH-41 ? because information on the internet is very saturated

PPSH, heck of a shotgun

Just a shot in the dark, but if the serial number is toward the end of manufacturing possibly they were trying to use up old stockpiles of parts at the end of production so they didn't get left with piles of parts they already paid to manufacture.

I'm happy to finally see this!

Outstanding vid! I would like to know if this PPD fired from an open bolt, and also what cartridge it fired. (Maybe everyone else already knows this.) Thanks again.

It was definitly captured in the Continuation War, becsuse by the time the Winter War Ende in early 1940 the tooling for the PPD wasn't ready yet. The first PPDs got to the troops around august 1940.

good show

5:36 Robo-Gun Jesus subroutine loaded.....

5:35 Everyone is gangsta untill Robo-Ian kicks in

I have read that the 71 rnd drums were #'d to the gun and not really interchangable on either the PPD-40 or PPSh-41

Out of curiosity, where did you get the "Gazillion" figure from? I fully believe it but I'm curious where it was written.

My grandfather, found one of these in a field, when he was working.

5:35 Above "1941" there's a Izhmash stamp i think, the arrow.

Is it just me or is the recoil spring non uniform I.e the thickness of the wire increases/decreases from one end to the other? Sorry I'm in need of a better internet connection.

PP stands for Pistolet Pulyemet (Пистолет Пулемёт) You've said it right!

In the same period of time automatic and semiautomatic rifles were in work so it wasnt some fans of mosin-nagant, it was autorifles-enthusiasts as you already know. I sopose.

Best part of morning poop rite hear. Thanks for all the great content. Praise gun Jesus.

The lad knows his guns...I'm thinking ex navy seal/green beret.Interesting vids.

Practically Powerful Submachine gun Hell

I remember having read somewhere that the partisan gunsmiths could make ppd's behind the front.

Maybe the manufacturer did some housekeeping when the production was ending by using up remaining leftover parts, current or not?

I'm sure he's covered it and maybe it might be up on his website, but has Ian covered stamped weapons. I'm very interested in what that entails and the history of it. I know the problem with the early AK's was that they took a while to make milled because Russian stamping technology wasn't up to task until later what they came out with the AKM yet we know that countries around the world had the ability to stamp weapon parts. So really a comprehensive history of stamping lol. Maybe a good book out there?

Can someone explain me how the exchangeable barrel of the MG42 worked? I tried to look it up and saw another video of Forgotten Weapons, but it didn't explain how it can be accurate, when the barrel is moving with every shot and can be tilted, indicating that it has little contact to the frame. The second thing, I'd like to understand is how mass moving affects the recoil. Apparently HK G3 is worse than an FN FAL in this respect, but MG42 and the 50cal Berret seem to work fine, despite so much mass involved in cycling.

Regarding the end of production: "Meanwhile, the production of PPD in the initial period of the war was temporarily restored in Leningrad at the Sestroretsk tool plant named after S.P. Voskov and, from December 1941, at the plant named after A.A.Kulakov. In addition, at the Kovrovsky plant in the experimental workshop, about 5,000 more PPDs were manually assembled from the available parts. In total, in 1941-1942, 42,870 PPDs were manufactured in Leningrad - the so-called "blockade release" they were used by the troops of the Leningrad and Karelian fronts. Many PPDs of Leningrad production had, instead of a sector sight, a simplified folding, simplified form of a fuse and a number of other minor differences. " (Russian Wiki) That's a substantial portion of pre-war production.

ČŠČ 153 (the marking on the pepeda) that is the hardest shit to pronounce