TWO CARTRIDGES

[rpbcps]

I had to smile when reading this, the soviet military hierarchy thoughts on a military role for submachine guns seemed to reflect those of the British military hierarchy, pre 1940.

 

"In the 30s, the submachine guns, which we often call automatic rifles, were underestimated in the Red Army, believing that they were not suitable for the army, but rather "for American gangsters, when robbing banks." Therefore, in February 1939, the RPM (Degtyarev submachine gun) were withdrawn from production and armaments, withdrawn from the troops and deposited in warehouses. Only a very small order to prevent production from completely dying was given by General Vlasik for the NKVD border troops. But in the same year the Soviet-Finnish War began, and it suddenly turned out that a submachine gun in capable hands in a wooded area is a very formidable weapon. Finnish skiers from the thicket appeared like ghosts, in a matter of seconds they rained down on the Red Army men a shower of lead from their Suomi and disappeared even before the surviving Red Army came to their senses. This situation has reached the top. Comrade Stalin was indignant:

STALIN. ... A 100-charge American submachine gun [Thompson-ET submachine gun] was known, it was with the Chekists, but it was believed that it was a police weapon, that in the army this weapon did not matter. It turned out the opposite, that for the army a machine gun is a highly necessary phenomenon, and intelligence represented it exclusively from the political side, that it was not suitable for war ”

 

http://temezhnikov.narod.ru/tuhta/20_pp.htm#_[4]_%D0%97%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%8F_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%B0._1939-1940._%D0%9A%D0%BD._1-

 

Translated from Russian by Google on Google Chrome.

 

Stay safe

 

Richard