The video basically matches with what I'd read in various sources. Essentially, though, by the close of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was making substantial use of the submachine gun as a weapon for its assault troops--in fact, whole companies would be armed with submachine guns. But the Soviets were very impressed with the German Stg. 44 both because of the lighter (and less expensive) intermediate cartridge compared to the full power cartridges used in most rifles in WWII; and that it could essentially fill the same role as the submachine gun but with a superior cartridge. Thus, the Soviets developed their own intermediate cartridge and started development of weapons to use them.
As the Soviets started into this development program, they envisioned the same mix of weapons as they had used so successfully in WWII: a standard issue infantry rifle, a submachine gun like weapon for assault troops, and a sniper rifle. The SKS, then, was to replace the Mosin-Nagant as the infantry rifle; the AK was to replace the submachine gun; and the Dragunov rifle would replacing the bolt action sniper/marksman rifles. But as the video points out, once the AK-47 began entering service, the Soviets quickly realized that it could do everything the SKS could do--or, from a different perspective, the SKS couldn't do anything more or better than the AK--so the Soviets decided that the AK would become their standard infantry rifle. Thus, when the modernized AK (the AKM) came out, SKS production ceased in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations.
The video also addresses why China continued to produce and use the SKS after the AKM came out, which was that the Soviets did not want to give the Chinese the technology for the AKM, so the Chinese continued using the SKS until they could figure out their own version of the AK system.
VIDEO: "What is the Point of the SKS?"
Cut-Rate-History (11 min.)
No comments:
Post a Comment