Some considerations about heat shields and mags:
You can hold a short gun by the shield, but not only.
That was the original intended purpose,
but you could hold it in many ways.
For the best controllability, holding it by the shield is the easiest.
There are quite a few SMG’s from that era that had shields
(Bergmann’s, Carl Gustav’s, Lahti’s, Suomis, Russian PP series and a lot others).
This one is of the many types of Bergmann’s:
ID-ing some SMGs from that era may be a little confusing.
Some of the most known Russian SM
PPD (PPD-34, PPD-34/38, PPD-40) (
Deghtyarev),
variant/copy of Bergmann MP-28 (Schmeisser),
could be held by the wood stock in the back of the drum (difficult),
where it had inlets in the wood to facilitate the grip,
by the wood in the front of the drum, or by the shield.
The mag was a close copy of the Suomi drum,
to this day arguably the best drum.
Suomi mag:
PPSh-41 (
Shpagin) could be held the easiest by the shield.
The drum was the same mag used by PPD-40.
PPSh shield was quite complex and a very fine example of combination
muzzle brake / anti-climb compensator / gas booster.
PPSh shield had few variants concerning the holes’ size/shape,
round or semi-square tube, shape of the front area, or sight.
PPS- 42/43 (
Sudaev) could be held by the stock
behind the mag (difficult), or by the shield.
PPS had a protruding muzzle brake and anti-climb compensator.
The original Russian PPS could not use PPD or PPSh drums.
It had its own dedicated banana mag.
It had an interesting over-the-top folding stock.
As a life-long student of the AK underfolders,
I can say that the PPS over-the-top folder
makes me think that the Russians went thru the pain
of experimenting with few designs, they didn’t just
blindly copy the German MP folder.
The Finnish made a copy in 9mm (M/44),
that could use the drum from M/31 Suomi and few other mags.
Few years later, the mag housing of the M/44 was modified
to also accept Swedish mags from Carl Gustav SMG
in addition to all other mags it could take.
To make matters even more complicated,
the Finns had their own philosophy concerning
shields and muzzlebrakes/compensators on SMG’s.
They often said that compensators work
only on shorties and don’t do fcuk-all on
long barrels (kind of true).
From left
-KP/-31,
-KP/-31 SJR with compensator,
-Korsu-Suomi (the vacuum-cleaner like nozzle was for
for gas disposal when firing from enclosed spaces as bunkers),
-Tank-Suomi,
-and Barrel Unit SS-II, that is a silenced variation of model 1995.