Greatest battle implement ever devised - SVT-40? Stg44? .. or M1 Garand
- Thread starter steelgray
- Start date
- Status
Coyote Ugly
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Here's the real deal concerning the feed systems for the SVT 40 versus the Garand.
Military planners haven't had much confidence in front line troops for many, many years. So it is that the Lee-Enfield was originally issued with a detachable magazine many of which were actually chained to the gun. The military planners couldn't trust the average farm boy turned soldier to keep from goofing-up and losing his magazine. I'm sure that there were specific cases where this happened and if you are that goof up, presumably what you ‘wanna do is hide your error by ripping off a magazine from somebody else - so they take the blame. I suppose that could be one reason why some gun patterns have magazines that are serialized to the gun itself.
The risk of such a goof up is more than theoretical. The M1 carbine had to be redesigned because it had the safety and the mag release both originally set-up as push buttons on the right-hand side of the gun, just forward of the trigger guard. Apparently, there were instances when soldiers, in a panic, went to push off their safety and instead dropped their mag.
The Garand was originally proposed to have a detachable mag, but somebody said it should have those weird en-bloc clips instead. No valuable and expensive magazine to lose there. the SVT 40 was designed to have a detachable mag, but one of the improvements - that was made, relative to its predecessor, the SVT38 - was that they engineered in a deal where you could tilt the mag catch back which both reduce the risk of the mag catch being moved, in error AND also locked in the magazine. And that configuration, you could feed the gun with stripper clips. The gun was designed for that versatility, as was the M14.
As far as I'm concerned, the SVT 40 is better than the Garand in the feeding Department - because you can feed it from magazines or stripper clips. In practical use, it is easier to load a gun with a mag change while you are running and dramatically easier to load a gun with a stripper clip when you are prone. The Garand doesn't give you this choice.
Obviously, military planners still had their doubts about the intelligence of their troops when the SKS was issued, because it reverted to a non-detachable magazine. That was probably a good thing since this gun ended-up being the frontline firearm in the hands of the N Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. These were mostly peasant soldiers who maybe would have lost that damn magazine somewhere. Not quite sure how you say that in Vietnamese.
Somebody told an interesting story about the Bay of Pigs invasion. Apparently, a lot of the US invaders carried M1 Garands. When these folks were eventually re-supplied, the 30-06 ammo that was dropped was in 1903 stripper clips. This left those hapless invaders to have to get down on their hands and knees in the jungle and try to find previously-ejected empty en-bloc clips. Fortunately, everything else to do with the American invasion at the Bay of Pigs worked out perfectly.
Military planners haven't had much confidence in front line troops for many, many years. So it is that the Lee-Enfield was originally issued with a detachable magazine many of which were actually chained to the gun. The military planners couldn't trust the average farm boy turned soldier to keep from goofing-up and losing his magazine. I'm sure that there were specific cases where this happened and if you are that goof up, presumably what you ‘wanna do is hide your error by ripping off a magazine from somebody else - so they take the blame. I suppose that could be one reason why some gun patterns have magazines that are serialized to the gun itself.
The risk of such a goof up is more than theoretical. The M1 carbine had to be redesigned because it had the safety and the mag release both originally set-up as push buttons on the right-hand side of the gun, just forward of the trigger guard. Apparently, there were instances when soldiers, in a panic, went to push off their safety and instead dropped their mag.
The Garand was originally proposed to have a detachable mag, but somebody said it should have those weird en-bloc clips instead. No valuable and expensive magazine to lose there. the SVT 40 was designed to have a detachable mag, but one of the improvements - that was made, relative to its predecessor, the SVT38 - was that they engineered in a deal where you could tilt the mag catch back which both reduce the risk of the mag catch being moved, in error AND also locked in the magazine. And that configuration, you could feed the gun with stripper clips. The gun was designed for that versatility, as was the M14.
As far as I'm concerned, the SVT 40 is better than the Garand in the feeding Department - because you can feed it from magazines or stripper clips. In practical use, it is easier to load a gun with a mag change while you are running and dramatically easier to load a gun with a stripper clip when you are prone. The Garand doesn't give you this choice.
Obviously, military planners still had their doubts about the intelligence of their troops when the SKS was issued, because it reverted to a non-detachable magazine. That was probably a good thing since this gun ended-up being the frontline firearm in the hands of the N Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. These were mostly peasant soldiers who maybe would have lost that damn magazine somewhere. Not quite sure how you say that in Vietnamese.
Somebody told an interesting story about the Bay of Pigs invasion. Apparently, a lot of the US invaders carried M1 Garands. When these folks were eventually re-supplied, the 30-06 ammo that was dropped was in 1903 stripper clips. This left those hapless invaders to have to get down on their hands and knees in the jungle and try to find previously-ejected empty en-bloc clips. Fortunately, everything else to do with the American invasion at the Bay of Pigs worked out perfectly.
Did you just praise the sks over the stg44? That aught to ruffle some feathers! Lol
When you shoot an M-3 (we're talking the "Grease Gun" here, right?), it's hard not to notice that (relatively heavy) open bolt going kachunk-kachunk as you fire....
That said (and esp. with the slower rate of fire), it's manageable after a fashion - and automatic....
One thing I'm still not 100% clear on is the M-3's apparent hatred for charging-handles; I've not heard of many cases of "M-3 thumb", but charging the thing weirded me out more than once....
Here's something kinda cool. As far as I can tell Fedor Tokarev would agree with most of you as to how the SVT-40 could have been made a better gun - but the got overruled. These pages (from the Chumak book on the SVT 40) basically tell the story of what "Fed" had in mind. The first pictures are of his various prototypes - with shorter barrels and a peep sight - "for **rist sake". Pretty close to a short-barreled M14 BUT produced in the late 30's or early 40's - and yup some were selective fire!
It is clear that most/ all of Federov Tokarev's prototypes, for these rifles, envisaged a handy carbine length rifle. See http://www.kalashnikov.ru/medialibrary/2a0/v-raznyh-variantah.pdf.
However, I believe that the Army ended-up saying (in Russian) - "decent design you got there Fed, but we will only accept it if you give it a really goofy long barrel".
The photo at the lower right is what he actually got approved in a carbine configuration - in '41 called the SKT-40. A bunch of these (2,000 or so) were made in the No. 314 Mednogorsk factory before the factory had to be moved to the other side of the URAL mountains. After that the pattern was continued by field cutting full length SVT-40 by WW2 military armorers. I have heard that when Marstar (I think) imported a bunch of WW2 vintage SVT-40-type guns from Finland nearly half of that shipment were SKT-40 pattern guns.
Summing-up, the LONG SVT-40 with the - forward mounted tangent sight - was just Fed's answer to giving the Guberment what they wanted (over his objections) 'cause Siberia is just way too cold.
I've already said that IMO the SKT-40 was the Greatest battle implement of WW2
Last edited:
He makes some good points regarding the ratio not being 10:1. However, We are still talking hundreds of thousands of soldiers and later in the millions over what the Germans had. The ratios try to make it seem much less of a difference than what it would seem on the battlefield. Let's look at the death toll of the Russian soldiers which for the first year 1941 was 1 million more than the Germans killed. compare this now to the Modern United States Army with 1,374,699 active personal. That first year the Germans killed just slightly less than the equivalent of the entire US military during fighting in 1941. The Germans lost over 312,000. The Russians lost over 1.3 million.
Look at the graph with the numbers where it was only a 1:52 to 1 in the beginning of 1941. Well that in reality as the graph shows means the Russians had 4, 369, 345 more troops.
The problem I see with his hypothesis is that the larger the numbers the smaller the ratio, however it's still a ton more troops. A small difference means hundreds of thousands more troops. Or in this case in 1941 it's the equivalent of putting 3x the current United States military on that front over what the Germans had. The larger the armies the smaller the ratio, however only because the numbers are so large. It's the old you are only getting 3% interest. Sucks for $100, but if you have 4 million in the bank it's suddenly a fair chunk of change.
Good point that the ratio wasn't as many think. I include myself in that. However, the numbers are significant even if the ratios don't seem like it. Going to say it would and did make a difference. Also look at the kill ratio for the Germans. "Only" 2, 3 or maybe 4 times is what he states in the video. That worked out to 1 million more Russians killed over the German casualties in the first year. That is significant. Less so when you look at it in a ratio rather than pure numbers.
Once again to put this into perspective:
The United States lost 418,000 soldiers in WW2.
The Germans lost 4.3 million in WW2
The Russians lost 8.8 to 10.7 million in WW2.
Completely agree though that you could see the difference when the Germans were no longer the surprise attacker against unprepared troops. Plus, the Russians actually had some decent equipment. Mosin Nageant was a reliable bolt action. SVT 40 was a good semi auto (contrary to what many on here have tried to state), Semi auto pistol such as the TT33 was good. T34 was a heck of a tank with sloped armor and was copied as well.
Last edited:
Here's something kinda cool. As far as I can tell Fedor Tokarev would agree with most of you as to how the SVT-40 could have been made a better gun - but the got overruled. These pages (from the Chumak book on the SVT 40) basically tell the story of what "Fed" had in mind. The first pictures are of his various prototypes - with shorter barrels and a peep sight - "for **rist sake". Pretty close to a short-barreled M14 BUT produced in the late 30's or early 40's - and yup some were selective fire!
It is clear that most/ all of Federov Tokarev's prototypes, for these rifles, envisaged a handy carbine length rifle. See http://www.kalashnikov.ru/medialibrary/2a0/v-raznyh-variantah.pdf.
However, I believe that the Army ended-up saying (in Russian) - "decent design you got there Fed, but we will only accept it if you give it a really goofy long barrel".
The photo at the lower right is what he actually got approved in a carbine configuration - in '41 called the SKT-40. A bunch of these (2,000 or so) were made in the No. 314 Mednogorsk factory before the factory had to be moved to the other side of the URAL mountains. After that the pattern was continued by field cutting full length SVT-40 by WW2 military armorers. I have heard that when Marstar (I think) imported a bunch of WW2 vintage SVT-40-type guns from Finland nearly half of that shipment were SKT-40 pattern guns.
Summing-up, the LONG SVT-40 with the - forward mounted tangent sight - was just Fed's answer to giving the Guberment what they wanted (over his objections) 'cause Siberia is just way too cold.
I've already said that IMO the SKT-40 was the Greatest battle implement of WW2
Very cool. Thanks for sharing that.
When talking about the bay of Pigs invasion,I read that a lot of the invaders were equipped with 1941 Johnson rifles, they would have been happy with
30-06 rounds on stripper clips or even loose rounds,Johnsons can be reloaded either way and not even a need to open the action,just keep shoving the cartridges in through the loading port.
Actually, while I don't know much about the 1941 Johnson, what you have mentioned reminds me that it had a lot going for it and could have been a serious contender for the "Greatest battle ..." if it hadn't been short-changed. I guess that the need for lubricated ammo was a deal breaker. They always talked about the need to go into action with a well-lubricated Johnson. Maybe a fluted chamber would have made all the difference.
Owning a Johnson I can tell you it doesn't come close to the Garand or SVT 40 in terms of engineering sophistication. It obviously suffered from lack of development which a small independant manufacturer couldn't give it. Could it have been refined into something actually competitive with the Garand? I really doubt it- too weird!
milsurpo
milsurpo
I think the recoiling barrel was the main design fault with the Johnson.
Except for some sporting rifles and shotguns, at the moment, I cannot think of any successful military rifle with a recoiling barrel.
Machine guns, like the MG-34, MG-42, and artillery are a different matter.
Except for some sporting rifles and shotguns, at the moment, I cannot think of any successful military rifle with a recoiling barrel.
Machine guns, like the MG-34, MG-42, and artillery are a different matter.
The USMC used the Johnson rifle in small quantities on Guadalcanal - before they were issued Garands (their main rifle on the 'Canal was still the 1903 Springfield) and they didn't like them, primarily because the attachment of a bayonet greatly affected its reliability (Marines love the bayonet - especially in WW1 and II).
One thing he really didn't get into was that a significant fraction of the Russian uniformed personnel were used as full time laborers, and were somewhat the equivalent of the 15 million impressed laborers used by the Axis in the course of the war, rather than being regular soldiers, even if they were counted on paper as such.
The use of so-called labor armies continued right up to the end of the Soviet Union.
Coyote Ugly
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
The Marines that used them in the Japanese Theatre gave the Johnson Rifle high ratings. Because the US Gov't favored Springfield for contracts, and Melvin Johnson had an attitude
when negotiating, he got the short end of the stick, the Gov't went with Springfield and the Garand even though the Johnson had several features that the Johnson didn't have. The Johnson can be taken down to the barrel, stock and receiver in 3 pieces and was popular with the paratroopers for that reason.
when negotiating, he got the short end of the stick, the Gov't went with Springfield and the Garand even though the Johnson had several features that the Johnson didn't have. The Johnson can be taken down to the barrel, stock and receiver in 3 pieces and was popular with the paratroopers for that reason.
You are leaving out the;
Romanians One million plus
Hungarians million plus
Italian Expeditionary Corps
Finnish Army another what three quarter million
and contributions from Slovakia, Croatia, Spain, Bulgaria.
I like the SVT40.
Fairly light weight for the round and reliable.
Already stated its' use. widespread adoption, even by Germany and Finns.
Attempts prewar at more widespread adoption being halted and interrupted by the war.
Something to compare it to perhaps is the Swedish Ljungmann.
Used in the ratio of one per section until they finally had enough postwar to issue two per section.
Wanted to use it as a standard issue, but numbers and cost made it impossible.
The Ljungmann would make another good contender for 'best', probably and even better choice in the 6.5mm round.
Given the numbers though, it makes the SVT40 look pretty widespread.
Looking at the Garand, makes one wonder if it would have been an even better success if it were adopted in the .276(?) as they originally wanted? The recoil of the 30'06 may have been a handicap.
Seems like that fight for a 6.5-6.8mm round just wasn' t a thing from only the thirties was it now?
If I had to pick a second war rifle, hold on to your hats,,,I'ld probably go with the SKS.
An intermediate cartridge and totally dependable weapon that did squeak into the end of the war.
Fairly light weight for the round and reliable.
Already stated its' use. widespread adoption, even by Germany and Finns.
Attempts prewar at more widespread adoption being halted and interrupted by the war.
Something to compare it to perhaps is the Swedish Ljungmann.
Used in the ratio of one per section until they finally had enough postwar to issue two per section.
Wanted to use it as a standard issue, but numbers and cost made it impossible.
The Ljungmann would make another good contender for 'best', probably and even better choice in the 6.5mm round.
Given the numbers though, it makes the SVT40 look pretty widespread.
Looking at the Garand, makes one wonder if it would have been an even better success if it were adopted in the .276(?) as they originally wanted? The recoil of the 30'06 may have been a handicap.
Seems like that fight for a 6.5-6.8mm round just wasn' t a thing from only the thirties was it now?
If I had to pick a second war rifle, hold on to your hats,,,I'ld probably go with the SKS.
An intermediate cartridge and totally dependable weapon that did squeak into the end of the war.
- Status
