Loparev A. (2015). Samodel’nye pistolety-pulemety v belorusskom sovetskom partizanskom dvizhenii perioda Velikoj Otechestvennoj vojny [The Self-made Submachine Guns Used by Belorussian Soviet Partisans During World War II]. Istoricheskoe oruzhievedenie [Weapons History Journal], № 1, pp. 70 — 81.
Abstract:
The article concerns the manufacturing process of submachine guns, both copies and true weapon systems during the guerilla fighting in Belarus in 1941-1943. In the days of World War II the strongest in Europe anti-Nazi guerilla stir was active on the occupied territories of the Belarus Soviet Republic. By 1943 scattered groups of fighters had been organized in a strong well developed structure and to fill in the automatic firearms shortage submachine guns manufacturing was started. It is these weapons the emphasis first of all was made on because the guerilla tactics of “attack-stepback” sought high intensity automatic fire in a short span of time. Mechanical workshops fitted for these weapons manufacturing were organized in a host of military groups. The author studies the features of the submachine guns manufacturing process under the lack of machines and special equipment and describes bright solutions found by partisan artisans to substitute such details as running-fire springs and barrels.
The majority of the weapons were made as copies of famous gun systems PPD-40, PPSh-41, PPS-43 though some artisans made submachine guns on their own design as repetition work. The original automatic firearm systems by Y.A.Menkin, Y.I. Temjakov, N.S. Sergeev, V.N. Dolganov are presented in the article. The author analyses these gun bugs weapon systems which are almost unknown for the specialists and are exhibited now in the Belarus State museum of the Great Patriotic War and studies documents from the Archive of the Republic of Belarus.
Keywords: submachine guns, self-made weapons, partisans, Belarus, workshop, barrel, running-fire spring.