The United States of America was the first major power to arm its army with automatic rifles after the outbreak of World War II. Nevertheless, the pioneer in this area was the Soviet Union, the introduction of self-loading rifles in the army which began even before the start of the largest armed conflict in history humanity. The best of all in the end turned out to be the SVT-40 rifle, which even the gloomy Nazi weapon genius of Germany liked.
It was 1938 when the first attempt to adopt an automatic rifle for the Red Army, the ABC-36, was crowned with complete failure. The weapon turned out to be frankly unsuccessful and his project was abandoned in favor of a new one proposed by the famous gunsmith Fedor Tokarev, who is also known for his TT pistol. The SVT-38 rifle, chambered for 7.62x54 mm, was born. The baptism of fire of the new weapon was the Winter War of the USSR and Finland, although there the rifle showed itself not from the best side. Even the Finns, who seized almost 4 thousand samples of the new "miraculous" weapon, did not pay much attention to it. By 1940, in the USSR, the release of the 38th model was curtailed, thereby limiting the circulation to only 150 thousand copies.
The SVT-38 rifle was sent for revision, as a result of which a new, significantly improved model, SVT-40, was released. The weapon turned out to be extremely successful, as a result of which the Red Army planned to replace at least a third of its Mosin rifles with a new model of weapons, the production of which was carried out in Tula. The first samples of rifles that entered the army relied only on sergeants and the best shooters (fighters who had differences in training or the corresponding badges).
However, the full-scale introduction of an automatic rifle in the USSR faced certain difficulties. He could not promptly establish a really large-scale production of SVT-40, since it was necessary to preliminarily improve the factories. Mainly only the Tula Arsenal could handle the production. Moreover, in 1941 the Second World War began. The accelerated transfer of the economy to a war footing and the evacuation of enterprises to the rear also did not contribute to the acceleration of production. There were also difficulties with rearmament on the part of the army: the handling of SVT required a different level of qualification from the soldiers of the Red Army. It was also impossible to raise it in the conditions of mobilization in 1941. At some point, the production of SVT was completely stopped, because by the end of 1941, German tanks were already near Tula.
Just as the SVT-38 rifle at one time fell into the hands of the Finns, who did not appreciate the Soviet development too highly, the SVT-40 rifle fell into the hands of the Germans. The latter appreciated the Soviet development at its true worth. The model with the index 40 was closely studied by German designers, as a result of which the green was given in Germany. light to his own project of a self-loading rifle - Gewehr 43, which is based on a Soviet rifle Tokarev.
In total, 1.6 million SVT-40 rifles were produced during the war years. In fact, this is not so much. For comparison, in 1942 alone, the Soviet industry produced 1.5 million copies of the PPSh submachine guns. Nevertheless, the SVT were very popular at the front. The rifle can often be seen in old photographs. Separately, it is worth mentioning that during the war years, 51 thousand SVT sniper modifications were produced. These rifles were equipped with a "rail" for mounting a 3.5 or 6x telescopic sight. An important advantage of the self-loading sniper rifle was that it allowed the shooter to remain focused after the first shot and continue firing. By the way, the famous "Lady Death" - Lyudmila Pavlichenko fought with SVT-40 in her hands.
Many would like to compare the domestic SVT-40 with its "Vlasov" relative Gewehr 43. However, it is much better to compare it with the American M1 Garands, which was released during the war years with a circulation of 6 million copies. So the American self-loading rifle became one of the symbols of the allied forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the most massive self-loading rifle during the Second World War. For all its many advantages, the M1 Garands still lost to its Soviet counterpart in a number of parameters. The American carbine weighed almost 5 kg, while the Soviet one - 3.8 kg. The Americans had an 8-round magazine, while the Soviet rifles received a 10-round magazine. In addition, the SVT was much easier to recharge.
In fairness, it should be noted that the Soviet rifle loses to the American one in shooting accuracy, especially at long distances. And although the SVT-40 was far from an ideal weapon, it is important to understand that it was she who largely paved the way for the further development of the Soviet weapons school. And most importantly, the SVT-40 was ideally adapted for the difficult conditions of war and the specifics of Soviet industry.
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If you want to know even more interesting things about weapons, then you should read about how grandfather got a gun: can it be legalized.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/301220/57295/
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