Quite often you can hear the idea that the best Soviet machine gun is the Sudaev submachine gun, and not at all the Shpagin submachine gun. Statements of this kind are not devoid of meaning, since PPS-43 is indeed better than PPSh-41 in a number of parameters. At the same time, a natural question arises as to why the Soviet industry did not start producing Sudayev's assault rifles in the same quantities in which Shpagin's assault rifles came out?
Automatic weapons in the Red Army have a long and rich history. The importance of the production of assault rifles for infantry units in the USSR was appreciated even before the outbreak of World War II. As a result, in the mid-1930s, the Degtyarev submachine gun was born. The weapon was produced from 1934 to 1943 and was most widely used during the Finnish War. However, in 1940, a new Shpagin submachine gun appeared, which was able to surpass its predecessor in almost all respects.
In addition to better firepower, the PPSh-41 had a higher technological performance. So the production of one PPD-34/38 required about 10-11 hours of work at a specialized weapons enterprise. At the same time, the PPSh-41 was created at the same factories in about 7 hours. The military liked the new submachine gun, first of all, due to its simplicity, reliability and simply phenomenal firepower for those times. However, after the start of the Great Patriotic War, problems began with the production of PCA.
The economy was transferred in line order to the military track, specialized enterprises were moved to evacuation. The production of PCA was transferred, among other things, to non-core factories, which, as it turned out, could not cope (not always, but very often) with the release of two important structural elements: a wooden bed and a drum shop. Even specialized factories did not cope with the release of the latter in the best way due to which, even before the war, many PCA without stores were formed in warehouses. The reason for this is the complexity of the drum magazine device. Also in some regions of the USSR there were problems with wood for the production of a bed.
As a result, at the beginning of 1942, a whole complex of problems emerged that the domestic industry faced with the production of automatic machines. The military demanded weapons, the industrialists demanded simplification of the design. This led to the next round of design competitions, as a result of which the PPSh-2 and PPS-42 were born. Both machines came out quite good, but the main advantage of the PPS-42 was even greater manufacturability - it took about 4 hours to produce it. Even later, the PPS-43 appeared, which was able to surpass the PPSh-41 in a number of important parameters, including the accuracy of fire, although it was inferior to the first in terms of the rate of fire. But the most important thing was that the PPS-43 had a metal butt and a horn magazine, which greatly simplified its release.
And all would be fine, but the situation at the front and industry by the beginning of 1943 had once again changed. Domestic production got the opportunity to produce a representative number of PPSh-41. In addition, the Shpagin machine gun of 1940 also received a carob magazine, which made it possible to use machines that had been idle until that moment in warehouses. All this made the PPS-43 virtually unnecessary in linear units, especially considering that the infantry liked the firepower of Shpagin's creations much more. Not the last word in the "verdict" of the PPS-43 was played by the fact that by 1943 the USSR was able to increase the production of pistol cartridges, and therefore it was no longer necessary to abandon the PPSh.
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And yet the PPS occupied its niche on the front, although the Sudaev assault rifle did not become as popular as its chronological predecessor. If the Shpagin submachine gun was primarily loved in the infantry, then the 1943 submachine gun was much more fond of tankers, scouts and paratroopers.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about if the German "Tiger" was so goodwhy it was not copied to the USSR.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/010121/57245/
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