Thursday 5 April 2018

Mosin vs PPSh

"Jume 16th, 1943
To the Chief of Staff of the 28th Army

1. Totalling up the reports of unit commanders from the division regarding whether or not infantry squads should have rifles or the PPSh, I report that:
  1. The PPSh is the most effective weapon of the infantry squad.
  2. Saturation with the PPSh should be no more than 50%. Leave rifles in the hands of excellent marksmen and snipers (preferably sniper rifles with optical scopes to shoot at a range of over 400 meters). 
Division Commander, Guards Colonel Dobrovolskiy
Chief of Staff, Major Panin"

6 comments:

  1. Was a unit armed like that a heavy burdon for the suply chain? I mean ammunition and spare parts suply?

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    1. The Soviets always counted on losing a large percentage of men. This greatly simplified logistics. New men carried their own ammo and those left over got to pick from the dead.

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    2. "The Soviets always counted on losing a large percentage of men. This greatly simplified logistics. "

      Well, no, even if your statement were true, it would not 'simplify' logistics, it makes it more complex. The Red Army didn't feed individual replacements into units in combat the way the US Army did, so your concept doesn't make much sense even on its own merits. They (like the Germans) kept units in the line even as their strength declined....then when time allowed, they'd pull them off the line, add a bunch of new troops in, integrate them, and go back into combat.

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  2. Small arms ammunition is a tiny, tiny component of the supply chain. So the increase in ammo consumption that would happen as a result of issuing more automatic weapons is really a blip in a very large blob of supply.

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    1. Also, 7.62x25mm Tokarev weighs roughly a quarter or so of 7.62x54mmR (going by the numbers I could quickly find). Oughta be able to ship a lot of the things in the capacity freed up by the lessened demand for rifle rounds.

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    2. True. But again, small arms ammo is a vanishingly small percentage of all ammunition supply, not to mention all other kinds of supply.

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