Partisan detachment during the Great Patriotic War- this is the place where it was impossible to hear the phrase "we can't do it with our own." Often it is the presence own weapons, and not the signs of fitness familiar to the regular army, played a decisive role in deciding whether to accept a new fighter.
“I got the weapon, without which you don’t even ask for them, I got it. And the method was suggested to me by Fedka Sparrow Death - pockmarked like a sparrow’s egg, the son of a collective farm accountant. He was only fourteen, two years younger than me, and in order to nullify my constant advantage in this, Fedka was always looking for something to brag about. This time he took out two "lemon" grenades from the hollow and showed me "
Ales Adamovich "Khatyn story"
"Lemons", and later the rifle were obtained by the heroes where they are no longer useful. There were many who died in the first years of the Great Patriotic War. They were buried in the same place where they were killed. Along with weapons.
In the early years of the spread of the partisan movement, the fighters fought with what they came to the detachment with. These were, among other things, excavated samples of both Soviet and German weapons. There were also samples left over from the First World War. In 1942, partisan gunsmiths were mainly engaged in the repair of damaged weapons and the manufacture of its individual parts. In the same period, the material bases were replenished with tools, materials and devices - the first workshops were created.
1942-1943 became a period of copying. The number of detachments grew, large brigades and formations appeared. The partisans had their first full-fledged workshops. There, copying of factory samples of submachine guns began. Among them are PPD-40 of the Degtyarev system, PPSh-41 of the Shpagin system and PPS-43 of the Sudayev system. During the same period, some workshops acquire machine tools to increase productivity and labor efficiency.
Mid-1943 - mid-1944 - partisan detachments are increasingly reminiscent of an independent army, with own samples weapons. Workshops for the manufacture and repair of weapons are already appearing in many detachments and brigades. A number of gunsmiths are moving away from copying factory designs and developing their own designs. At the same time, production volumes are constantly growing.
One of the most interesting samples of home-made partisan weapons was the submachine gun designed by Yakov Temyakov and Yankel Menkin. It was the result of a combination of design solutions from the captured German Volmer submachine gun and the Soviet PPSh. Outwardly, it looks more like a German model, but the shutter and fuse are similar to those used in Shpagin's design. After the liberation of Belarus, the designers sent one of their homemade submachine guns as a gift to Marshal of the USSR Kliment Voroshilov and the head of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement Panteleimon Ponomarenko.
At the height of the Great Patriotic War, the issue of arming partisan detachments operating in the temporarily occupied territory became acute. Partially, this issue was resolved through trophies and deliveries from big land, but there were many makeshift weapons. One of these samples was a pistol - a concealed carrying machine gun created in May 1943 by the senior gunsmith N. Sergeev from the Znamya partisan detachment of the Razgrom brigade, which operated in the Minsk region. A total of 5 were made submachine guns designed for concealed wear and sudden use at a short distance.
Thanks to the original layout, the "Sergeev" submachine guns had small dimensions and weight. The total length was only 505 mm. In an effort to make the weapon as flat as possible, the self-taught designer abandoned the reloading handle sticking out to the side - its function was performed by a metal casing of the barrel with oval windows, which, when moving backward, engaging with the bolt, put it on a combat platoon.
The submachine gun was mainly intended for automatic fire, but thanks to a special translator, it could also fire single shots.
The presence of two triggers provided a single and continuous fire in the absence of a fire translator. The disadvantage of the weapon was the lack of fixation of the front sight and the possibility of an involuntary cocking. The absence of a shoulder rest also negatively affects the conduct of aimed fire, and effective shooting is possible only at an extremely short distance.
Sights consisted of a front sight and a fixed rear sight (because the real aiming range did not exceed 100 meters). The barrel casing, the receiver, the folding metal shoulder rest, the pistol grip, all the details of the connections - except for the barrel, were made in a handicraft way in the weapons workshop of the partisan detachment using the simplest tools. On July 11, 1944, Sergeev presented one of his submachine guns to the oldest Belarusian partisan and secretary of the Cherven underground district party committee K. K. Kravchenko.
The bolt box of the pistol - machine gun was made by cold forging: top part- from sheet iron, the lower one - from brass artillery shells. The parts were connected with rivets. Both parts were oxidized in a handicraft way using birch tar and onions.
The return spring of the submachine gun was made of wire from a German radiosonde balloon captured by partisans. The weapons were fed from box magazines of home-made design under the original mounting system, with a capacity of 20 to 25 rounds. The ejection of spent cartridges was carried out up - to the right.
For more effective cooling of the weapon and protection of the shooter from burns, the designer used a casing, which at the same time is a muzzle brake, the same as that of the PPSh-41.
By the unusualness of the device, the submachine gun of the Sergeyev system was very different even against the background of the work of other designers of improvised weapons. For the first half of the 20th century, the idea of reducing the size of a submachine gun was relevant. But to realize it while maintaining the combat characteristics turned out only in some cases. So, for example, in France, even before the war, a compact submachine gun MAS-36 was made, in which the reduction in the length of the weapon was achieved by transferring the reciprocating mainspring to the butt.
But usually the designers took the path of reducing the length of the weapon, while reducing its thickness was no less important. The use of a constructive innovation by Nikolai Sergeev - the combination of a namushnik and a cocking handle in one part - was a huge achievement for a partisan master designer who did not have a special technical or weapons education.
In fact, each created sample of the Sergeyev system submachine gun was made for a specific owner, with the features of its future use. In addition to the purely utilitarian meaning of this weapon, it is necessary to emphasize its symbolic meaning. For partisans, homemade weapons were not only a functional item, part of the war. Weapons in general, and homemade weapons in particular, also had sacred meaning, as a symbol of struggle and fortitude. The symbolic meaning of homemade weapons can be read as a metaphor for the guerrilla movement itself. Both weapons and movement were created in the most difficult conditions. Both were created on the basis of local materials and resources, using factory-made parts (rifled barrels for weapons) and with the participation of the Red Army in the partisan movement.
Documents stored in the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus made it possible to establish that Nikolai Stepanovich Sergeev was born in 1916 in the city of Irtyshskoe Omsk region. Graduated from a seven-year school. Before the war, he worked as a mechanic in Barnaul Altai Territory. From here in July 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the front. In early October 1941, after fierce fighting in the Smolensk region, he was captured and ended up in a prisoner of war camp in Uruchcha near Minsk. In November 1942, he fled the camp and joined the partisan detachment, which was then stationed in the Cherven region.
It should be noted that in most cases the command of partisan brigades and detachments was distrustful of former prisoners of war, and at first they did not take part in military operations. So it was with Sergeyev. To begin with, Nikolai was assigned to the household platoon, where a month later, to his great surprise, he was appointed cook, and then the senior cook of the detachment. In March 1943, N.S. Sergeev met with the gunsmith of the detachment P.V. Chigrinov, who invited him to jointly engage in the repair of weapons and the manufacture of home-made machine guns. PPSh systems. The command of the detachment granted Sergeyev's request to be transferred to the weapons workshop. In a report on the work as a gunsmith, Sergeev wrote: "There were five of us craftsmen, and each made his own machine gun. After testing, my machine gun turned out to be better than the others, and the command appointed me the senior master of the detachment workshop."
In addition to making copies PPSH submachine guns Nikolai Stepanovich developed his own design of a submachine gun, lighter and smaller in size. Work on the first sample lasted a month. According to the test results, Sergeyev's invention received appreciated. The submachine gun was delivered by plane to Moscow and on May 1, 1944 was handed over to the head of the BSHPD P.Z. Kalinin. Before the arrival of the Red Army, master Sergeev made five more submachine guns of a similar design.
In addition to working in the weapons workshop, Nikolai Sergeev also took part in military operations, for which he was awarded a medal by order of the BSHPD of May 30, 1944
"Partisan of the Patriotic War" I degree. After connecting with units of the Red Army, according to the list of personnel of the Znamya partisan detachment, Sergeev Nikolai Stepanovich was sent to the disposal of the Central Committee of the CP (b) B. Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR dated December 30, 1948 N.S. Sergeev was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree.
Submachine guns
Individual examples of home-made partisan weapons can claim a worthy place in the treasury of world weapons art. They were developed by people who did not have a professional design education. Therefore, in their work, they often focused not on strangers, but looked for their own solutions. The only sources of design ideas were a few samples of submachine guns: Soviet (PPD, PPSh, PPS) and German (MP-18, MP-34, MP-35, MP-38/40, MP-41), as well as some samples European weapons, such as the French MAS-35, the Italian Beretta M1938A, etc.
I. V. Tavleko and Berman - weapons masters of the partisan brigade
"Assault" Minsk region. 1943
However, the partisans got acquainted with captured submachine guns most often already at the final stage of the struggle. They started only with Soviet weapons. They copied it, removing it from separate nodes
and parts sizes, made patterns, forms, mandrels, blanks reproduced soviet submachine guns with some degree of accuracy. However, in other cases, copying ceased to suit forest gunsmiths. After gaining some experience, they began to see opportunities to improve the design. In his memoirs, for example, master Nikolai Stepanovich Sergeev wrote that he was thinking about developing a weapon design that was superior to factory models. Sergeev, like other masters, had all the grounds for such conclusions.
Submachine guns PPD, PPSh, PPS, like others, were developed by designers and technologists for mass production on rather complex factory equipment, with extensive use of turning and milling (in the case of PPD) and machine stamping (in the case of PPSh and PPS). The partisan craftsmen had the simplest workshop equipment and were limited to it. simple tools
also determined simple technological operations: cold and hot hand forging, riveting and screw connections instead of welding. For these reasons, the manufacture of submachine guns according to factory samples was often difficult. When the master manually knocked out the complex relief of the PPSh bolt box cover, he spent
this is an unproductive lot of time. For optimization technological process he empirically searched for new forms of parts and manufacturing methods. Of course, the process of optimizing production took quite a lot of time in itself, but in the end it gave significant time savings.
The desire to improve the process of manufacturing weapons, together with a creative design search, gave very interesting and original solutions to various components and parts of homemade weapons.
In their simplicity, elegance and effectiveness, some of these solutions can compete with the developments of professional weapon designers. Some of the unique weapons in the catalog have the wording "homemade submachine gun system ..." in the title. It was applied to those samples that, according to available information, were produced in small batches (over 10 units) according to the same design scheme. All firearms listed below are derived from combat state- they drilled and removed the chamber or sawed off the bolt head.
Examples of homemade submachine guns of a unique design:
Place of manufacture: partisan brigade named after P.K. Ponomarenko. Creation time: 1942-1944 Materials: steel, wood, brass. Dimensions: 82.0 x 17.0 x 6.5 cm.
State of preservation: has numerous small mechanical damages. Signs and inscriptions: on the chamber - an arrow in a triangle - the mark of the Izhevsk Arms Plant, the year of manufacture of the SVT-40 rifle is "1940".
Description: 7.62mm homemade submachine gun is an automatic manual firearms, designed for firing bursts and single shots.
Automation works on the principle of free shutter recoil. The submachine gun consists of a barrel, bolt box, sights, trigger mechanism, butt.
Used cartridge - pistol 7.62x25 TT. The material base for the weapon was the bolt box from a self-loading rifle of the Tokarev system arr. 1940 SVT-40. The submachine gun has a bolt box covering a massive free bolt. The fire mode translator is made in the form of a flag
side of the submachine gun. The far position corresponds to a single fire, the near position corresponds to automatic. The submachine gun uses disc magazines for 71 rounds from PPSh. Rifled barrel, as well as the bolt box from the SVT-40. A barrel casing with windows for air circulation is riveted to the chamber. The sighting device consists of a front sight, protected by a namushnik, which is riveted to the barrel casing near the muzzle. Butt wooden, gun-shaped. There are numerous small cuts on the buttstock - traces of its use as a utility board for cutting products.
Submachine gun 2
Creation time: 1942-1944 Materials: steel, wood, leather. Dimensions: 77.5 x 26.5 x 5.0 cm.
Preservation: has numerous minor mechanical damages 
Description: The submachine gun is an automatic handgun designed to
for firing bursts. Used cartridge - pistol 7.62x25 TT. Automation works on the principle of free shutter recoil.
The submachine gun consists of a barrel, a bolt box, sights, a trigger mechanism, and a stock. The barrel is locked by a massive free gate, preloaded by a reciprocating mainspring. 
Submachine gun "Star"
Author: master L. G. Minaev. Creation time: 1943-1944 Materials: steel, wood, brass, leather.
Dimensions: 60.0 x 17.0 x 5.5 cm. Signs and inscriptions: on right side bolt box engraved inscription - "L. G. Minaev. 
Other
This section includes several other types of improvised weapons that are not submachine guns.
The small number of items in this section is due to the fact that weapons of this type were made by partisans in very limited quantities. Submachine guns were priority in the work of all partisan gunsmiths, and other types of weapons were made secondarily.
Important for the partisans at the final stage of the struggle were those who received
widespread homemade rifle grenade launchers. The most popular was the simple and reliable design of the system by engineer T. E. Shavgulidze, who worked as an instructor in a subversive
affairs at the headquarters of the Minsk partisan formation. The grenade launcher system he proposed in 1943 was based on the Mosin rifle. A barrel-mounted cylindrical nozzle-mortar was made for the rifle. The mortar was usually made from a sleeve from 45 mm artillery shot.
At the bottom of the nozzle, a part from the bayonet to the Mosin rifle was welded. It served as a fastening of the nozzle to the barrel of the rifle. Before firing, a grenade was inserted inside the mortar, which was made from a fragment of a water pipe and filled with explosives. Throwing a grenade occurred when a rifle was fired with a blank cartridge.
The firing range, depending on the weight of the grenade, could be from 100 to 300 or more meters.
The simplest single-shot pistols were made from any improvised
material, details military weapons. As a rule, they had poor accuracy and combat range, were inconvenient to use and unreliable. They were used most often only at the initial stage of the partisan struggle, since real opportunity their use in combat was extremely small due to poor accuracy and inconvenience. In addition, such "self-propelled guns" were also dangerous: when firing rifle cartridges from homemade pistol there was a high probability of breaking the simplest locking mechanism, made in the form of a hook, which pounced on the chamber and was inserted into the loop on the other side of the weapon. The manufacture of homemade guns was not uncommon in partisan detachments. The material base for them was mainly the remains Soviet artillery and armored vehicles that littered the battlefields in the summer
1941. In a number of cases, these were repaired guns, in which some of the less important parts were replaced. So, for example, a tool from the museum's collection, which was repaired by putting it on wheels from a peasant cart, cannot be considered homemade. The remaining mechanisms of this gun were factory-made and did not need repair. However, the gun of the Iskra partisan detachment of the Razgrom brigade of the Minsk region, presented here, is classified as homemade, since the brigade’s masters had to radically change and rework the tank gun, which was fundamentally not adapted for use as a field gun. The use of artillery has always given partisans an advantage in combat with punishers or guards who are not accustomed to such firepower. settlements. However, the lack of ammunition for these guns made their use sporadic.
45 mm improvised gun
Authors: masters - V. P. Deryabin, I. S. Zhidovich, P. Semirzin-Rusak, I. Sasunkevich, E. M. Volodko-Grebenshchikov, partisan detachment "Iskra" of the "Razgrom" brigade, Usokhi village, Pukhovichi district, Minsk region . Time of creation: 1943 Dimensions. 380.0 x 117.0 x 170.0 cm.
Description: made on the basis of the 20K tank gun of 1935 from light Soviet tank on a homemade carriage with wheels from a seeder.
On the left is the commander of the Iskra partisan detachment of the Razgrom brigade V.P. Deryabin,
on the right - the commissar of the Iskra partisan detachment of the Razgrom brigade G. A. Shcherbakov
Left - I. S. Zhidovich, gunsmith Detachment "Iskra" brigade "Rout". 1973, on the right - V. M. Volodko Grebenshchikov, gunsmith of the Iskra detachment of the Rout brigade
Shavgulidze rifle grenade launcher - PGSH (Shavgulidze partisan grenade launcher)
Author: designer - T. E. Shavgulidze, demolition instructor at the headquarters of the Minsk partisan unit. Creation time: 1943-1944
Dimensions: 149.0 x 13.0 x 5.0 cm. Description: consists of a Mosin rifle No. 52552 and a grenade launcher attached to the rifle barrel. The nozzle is made of a 45-mm artillery shell and a fragment of a bayonet for a Mosin rifle. 
PGSH grenade launcher blueprint
Found in our time grenade launcherPGSH:
Another invention of Shavgulidze is a wedge for derailing enemy trains:
A simple device attached to the rails diverted the wheels of the train that had run into it to the side, as a result of which the entire train went downhill.
After the Great Patriotic War, Tengiz Shavgulidze became the author of 85 inventions successfully used on the railway and in the subway
Pistol homemade single-shot
Homemade pistolsingle shot, under
cartridge 7.62x25 TT.
Place of manufacture: special squad "Combat" of the Minsk region. Creation time: 1943-1944
Materials: steel, cupronickel. Dimensions: 13.5 x 7.5 x 1.8 cm. Description: single-shot pistol chambered for 7.62x25 TT.
Camping forge of the partisan detachment "Razgrom" of the "Razgrom" brigade, Minsk region.
At the forge on the left - P. Boyarko, on the right - F. A. Shurygin
The Soviet partisan movement is a unique phenomenon. It consisted of people, most of whom had nothing to do with the army before the war, and those who, being a soldier, had already experienced all the horrors of encirclement and captivity. All of them, by the will of fate, finding themselves in the occupied territories and having no connection with the Soviet troops, did not get scared and did not give up. Their main problem at the initial stage of the struggle was not even the occupiers and collaborators, but the banal lack of weapons.
Often, the people's avengers had to unnoticed by the enemy under the cover of night to collect what was left after regular battles. But thanks to the ingenuity of our people, the partisans learned not only to repair what they found, but also to make familiar weapons from improvised means, and sometimes even create their own exclusive samples.
"Wedge"
In 1942 railways occupied Belarus was flooded with German trains. At short intervals, they walked and walked, delivering soldiers, weapons and equipment to the Eastern Front. The main task of the guerrillas in this region was to reduce the number of trains reaching their destination, but in light of the acute shortage of explosives, most of these missions looked more like suicide. Groups of poorly armed people with crowbars and wrenches became easy prey for German patrols. It is not known how it would have ended if it were not for the lieutenant of the railway troops Tengiz Shavgulidze, who fled from German camp and joined the Belarusian partisans. Relying on his natural ingenuity and experience of serving in the railway troops, he created a device that acted on the principle of a railway switch and effectively derailed German trains.
The system, called "Wedge", weighed 20 kilograms and consisted of, in fact, the wedge itself and the slope rail, fixed on the base. The fixture could be bolted to the rail in just a few minutes. Front wheel locomotive, running into a wedge, lost contact with the rail and was transferred from inside rail to the outside. As a result, the entire echelon went downhill. The wedges of Shavgulidze proved to be the most effective and easy-to-make weapon of sabotage groups, which acted even better than explosives. The fact is that when a mine was blown up under the train, it disrupted the air brakes, from which they automatically worked and the last wagons echelon avoided crash. When the Klin entered the business, the train was completely destroyed. This invention helped the Belarusian partisans inflict considerable harm on the occupiers and at the same time save a large number of explosives.
Interesting fact: Tengiz Shavgulidze personally tested his invention. He slipped unnoticed to railway tracks and installed the "Wedge" in about a minute. The first German echelon, having run into a disposable arrow, dived down a slope. Only after that Shavgulidze proposed his invention as an alternative to mines.
PPD-40
The Degtyarev submachine gun is the first weapon of this type made in the USSR. Along with this, the PPD also became the first Soviet automatic weapon that fell into partisan detachments. He ended up there along with miraculously surviving border guards and soldiers of the Red Army who emerged from the encirclement. PPD is a typical representative of the first generation of submachine guns, which were made with an eye on the German MP-18 and MP-28. With the outbreak of war, the manufacture of such weapons in the factory became a complicated and expensive undertaking, so Degtyarev's invention was quickly replaced by a simple and cheap PPSh. But factories are one thing and partisan workshops are quite another. Paradoxical as it may seem, but in the conditions of primitive equipment and an acute shortage of tools for partisan nuggets, it was the PPD that turned out to be the most optimal in manufacturing - it could be assembled from what was at hand.
Handicraft PPD, which belonged to a soldier from the brigade. Kirov of the Minsk partisan unit (http://popgun.ru)
The main components were made from pipes of various diameters, the barrel of a Degtyarev DP-27 machine gun or a rifle was perfect as a barrel. Sawing a long rifle barrel, a partisan gunsmith could make two or even three submachine guns. Of course, the quality of such handicraft weapons at first left much to be desired, but it was still better than going to the enemy with with bare hands. Unfortunately, there is no reliable information about which of the partisan detachments was the first to manufacture their own PPDs.
Interesting fact: The baptism of fire for PPD was Soviet-Finnish war 1939-1940 There he showed himself as an effective weapon, which, in turn, influenced the attitude of the Soviet leadership towards submachine guns. Prior to that, they were considered exclusively police weapons, designed to suppress the protests of the striking proletariat.
Partisan PPD from the exposition of the TsMVS (http://popgun.ru)
PRGS
In 1943, the already mentioned Tengiz Shavgulidze worked at the Headquarters of the Minsk partisan movement as a demolition instructor, so he, like no one else, knew how badly the partisans lacked hand grenades. In the spring of the same year, he presented the command with a grenade of his own manufacture. Hand grenade Shavgulidze was a piece of a water pipe with a fuse in the form of a Fickford cord and a detonator cap. This invention gained great popularity among the partisans, since destructive force homemade products were many times superior to regular ammunition.
By the end of 1943, about 7,000 Shavgulidze grenades were made in the handicraft workshops of the Minsk region. The nugget designer did not stop there, and in the same year he invented a partisan rifle grenade launcher. The PRGSh was easy to manufacture, like all partisan weapons. A mortar was made from a cartridge case from a 45-mm projectile, which was attached to the barrel of a shortened Mosin rifle. All the same Shavgulidze grenades were used as a projectile. The shot from the mortar was due to blank cartridge. The range of the grenade was approximately 500 meters. By January 1, 1944, the partisan detachments of the Minsk Brigade already had 120 PRGSH.
An interesting fact: Shavgulidze is also credited with the authorship of various ingenious mines. One of these is considered a surprise mine, which looked like an ordinary rifle cartridge, but the filling was not gunpowder, but an explosive. The partisans threw such a surprise into the enemy machine gun ammunition, and at the first turn, the machine gun and its crew failed.
Partisan rifle grenade launcher Shavgulidze (http://guns.allzip.org)
PPSh
The Shpagin submachine gun, without a doubt, can be called the most mass weapons Great Patriotic. It is a symbol of war, which is reflected in most of the monuments dedicated to the feat of the people. However, to produce it in field conditions it was very difficult: powerful presses were required, which were not available to the partisans. Therefore, forest craftsmen replaced stamping with forging. The second problem was the shops, and if there were no problems with the production of sector samples for 35 rounds and they were mastered rather quickly, then the disk magazines required the release of feeder springs, which were almost impossible to make in artisanal conditions.
Handicraft PPSh in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk (http://popgun.ru)
For this reason, most partisan PPShs were equipped with factory magazines, but some craftsmen found a solution. As the ill-fated feeder spring, a spring from a gramophone was used. These cases should be recognized as isolated ones, since it was sometimes more difficult to get a gramophone under the conditions of occupation than a new PPSh. By the way, the first PPSh-41 was made in artisanal conditions by a certain master P.V. Chernigov, gunsmith of the Razgrom partisan brigade operating in the Minsk region. The Mogilev nuggets from the partisan brigade "Chekist" set a kind of record, having made ten PPShs at once from March 30 to July 3, 1943. In total, by July 1944, they had assembled 122 Shpagin submachine guns from improvised materials and broken weapons.
Interesting fact: The Germans also appreciated the PPSh. They often converted trophy weapons chambered for the 9x19 mm Parabellum cartridge and a magazine fromMP-40. In the Wehrmacht, such modifications of the PPSh were designated 9-mm Maschinenpistole 717 (r). In turn, the SS preferred PPSh as they were produced from Soviet factories and preferably with a drum magazine.
Concealed carry submachine gun designed by Sergeev
Between the spring of 1943 and the summer of 1944. senior master of the Razgrom partisan brigade, Nikolai Stepanovich Sergeev, developed and manufactured five submachine guns of his own design. Sergeev's invention was intended for concealed carry and unexpected use at short distances. The submachine gun was designed for the 7.62 × 25 mm TT cartridge. Main Feature of this sample was the shutter - neither on one side nor on the other side did the receiver have a cocking handle. To cock the submachine gun, it was necessary to pull the aiming sight towards you. The metal casing mated with the bolt and put it on a combat platoon. This arrangement, coupled with a small size (50.5 cm long), made the weapon flatter and more suitable for concealed wear.
Concealed-carry submachine gun designed by Sergeev. Minsk Museum of the Great Patriotic War (http://popgun.ru)
Basically, Sergeev's PP was intended for automatic fire, but there were several samples that had a special translator for switching to single-player mode. In this submachine gun, everything except the barrel, which Sergeev borrowed from the PPSh, was made in an artisanal way using the simplest tools. Of course, it also had its drawbacks. So, for example, effective shooting from this weapon could only be carried out at distances of no more than 100 meters, and some samples could be cocked involuntarily. In addition, some specimens did not have a shoulder rest, which also had a negative effect on the accuracy of fire. But if we proceed from the fact that such a weapon should have been used unexpectedly for the enemy and on close range, then such a submachine gun could have a significant impact on the success of the operation.
An interesting fact: Sergeev's concealed-carry submachine gun was produced by him for a reason, but for a specific owner, taking into account the peculiarities of its further use. In addition, such weapons were also sacred for the partisans. For them, it was a symbol of struggle and fortitude.
Concealed carrying submachine gun of their exposition TsMVS (http://popgun.ru)
teaching staff
The Sudayev submachine gun was developed in 1942 (PPS-42) in besieged Leningrad. Aleksey Ivanovich Sudayev embodied in this model all the features that should be inherent in wartime weapons: low ammunition consumption and ease of production and use. This submachine gun reached the partisans already in its second modification, PPS-43. This model had a shortened barrel and stock, the barrel casing and the receiver were one piece, the fuse box and the shoulder rest latch were also changed. The main material for its manufacture was sheet steel, which was available in the workshops of partisan gunsmiths.
The partisans liked this simple and trouble-free weapon, but it never received much distribution in their ranks. It's all the fault of the period in which the teaching staff came to the people's avengers: at this time Soviet troops already led offensive operations and gradually transferred fighting on the territory of other countries. Perhaps if this submachine gun had appeared a year or two earlier, it would have ousted all other types from partisan workshops. automatic weapons. Several samples of the 1943 Sudayev submachine gun, produced by partisan workshops, can still be found in museum collections in Russia and the CIS.
An interesting fact: the PPS was taken out of service only in the mid-50s, when it was replaced by the AK-47. However, for a long time PPS was used by special mobile units of the DPRK, as well as by terrorist groups around the world. The terrorists, by the way, like the partisans, fell in love with the PPP because of its reliability, simplicity, and the ability to make it in artisanal conditions.
Group photo of the command staff of the Poltava partisan formation named after. Molotov. Most partisans are armed with Sudaev submachine guns (http://warhistory.livejournal.com)
Dolganov submachine gun
This submachine gun was created in 1944 by a partisan of the Groza brigade operating in the Vitebsk region, Vasily Nikolaevich Dolganov. He, having experience in military operations, realized that the best course of action for partisan detachments was the principle of "hit - retreated." It was difficult to adhere to this principle due to the lack of a sufficient number of automatic weapons in the brigade, and Dolganov proposed his own solution. Using the pre-war experience of a toolmaker, he made his own submachine gun. The barrel was borrowed from the DP-27, the drum magazine from the PPSh, the shutter in the past was the shaft of a broken German car, the casing of the bolt box was a drainpipe. A barrel of gasoline served to make elements of the firing mechanism, and Dolganov made the butt from a piece of thick wire.
He fired PPD cartridges 7.62 × 25 mm TT, the rate of fire was approximately 600 rounds per minute. Sighting range did not exceed 200 meters, which was a worthy indicator for submachine guns of that time (especially handicraft ones). Dolganov gave the first PPD for testing to his fellow soldier, who, after the first battle, gave a high rating to the weapon. Soon the whole brigade was collecting parts for the gunsmith, and Vasily Nikolaevich made several dozen of his submachine guns.
Interesting fact: The main drawback of the PPD was a retractable butt, which had an unreliable mount. Also, when loading a drum magazine, it was necessary to equip not 71 cartridges, for which it was designed, but a maximum of 69, even better 67 - then there were no problems when shooting.
TM-44
In 1944, two gunsmiths from the Kotovsky partisan detachment operating in Belarus, Yakov Temyakov and Yankel Menkin, developed their own submachine gun based on the PPSh and MP-40. The automation scheme was as follows: a free shutter, a rigidly fixed drummer, firing from the rear sear. The fire mode is only automatic, ammunition is supplied from a sector magazine for 35 rounds of 7.62 × 25 mm TT. There were no safety devices on most of the samples. For the manufacture of barrels for the TM-44, as in most similar homemade products, cut barrels from Mosin rifles and Degtyarev machine guns of 1927 were used. Water pipes and frames for bicycles went to the manufacture of the receiver (aka casing) and butt elements.
Temyakov and Menkin submachine gun, TsMVS Museum (http://popgun.ru)
The source of springs was padded balloons and aircraft seats. Any parts of a cylindrical shape were suitable for the shutter - from the mill shaft to the axes of the German infantry fighting vehicles. Most of details of the trigger mechanism, self-taught designers carved from iron barrels for fuel. Craftsmen carved the lining for the pistol-type handle from a cow horn. Visually, the TM-44 resembles the MP-40 or MP38, but when comparing these submachine guns, it becomes noticeable that the Belarusian counterpart is much longer than the German one, and besides, it is much heavier.
An interesting fact: In total, 45 copies of the TM-44 were manufactured by Temyakov and Menkin. They gave the very first one to the commander of their battalion, V.Z. Komarov, and now it is in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk. In addition, TM-44 can be seen in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow.
Statistics
Nothing was impossible for the partisan gunsmiths. To understand how much they contributed to the fight against the invaders, just look at the statistics of the master partisan brigade named after Valery Chkalov, which was formed in 1943. During its existence, its craftsmen repaired 1250 rifles, 278 submachine guns, 120 pistols, made approximately 2100 parts for rifles and machine guns, and all this without taking into account the fact that the partisans sculpted themselves from improvised means. Also, do not forget that the masters often did not have the right education, tools and drawings. They did everything by eye and relying only on their experience.
The partisans were not limited to small-town inventions, they sent the best and most proven developments to " big land", so that from there they were transferred to other partisan detachments. So, according to approximate estimates of the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement, in the period from January 1 to August 1, 1944, 43 rationalization and inventive proposals were submitted to them for examination, and 21 of them were approved and production was launched in partisan workshops. In addition, four proposals received a review and were sent to the appropriate authorities for further conclusion, for another five proposals, additional data and drawings were requested from the authors, and only 15 ideas were rejected.
All of the above does not fit at all with the image of a partisan that the modern film industry paints for us. For many of us, a partisan is a kind of narrow-minded village peasant in an earflap and padded jacket, whom the German Sonderkommandos chase through the forests, and he shoots back from an old Berdanka. The Soviet partisan movement was unique phenomenon who rallied all sectors of society from peasants to the intelligentsia. People who ended up in partisan brigades have already managed to look at the war from all angles. What broke many, for them became an incentive to continue the struggle. They believed that if you managed to survive, then you need to make every effort. possible efforts and help their land to throw off the shackles of occupation - after all, the partisans, unlike regular troops, had nowhere to retreat, and there was simply no one to rely on except themselves, and the weapons that the partisans created "on the knee" with the help of the most primitive tools - the most the best of that proof.
The Soviet partisan movement is an interesting phenomenon. It consisted of people, most of whom had nothing to do with the army before the war, and those who, being a soldier, had already experienced all the horrors of encirclement and captivity. All of them, by the will of fate, finding themselves in the occupied territories and having no connection with the Soviet troops, did not get scared and did not give up. Their main problem at the initial stage for the frequent struggle was not even the occupiers and collaborators, but the banal lack of weapons.
Often, the people's avengers had to unnoticed by the enemy under the cover of night to collect what was left after regular battles. But thanks to the ingenuity of our people, the partisans learned not only to repair what they found, but also to make familiar weapons from improvised means, and sometimes even create their own exclusive samples.
In 1942, the railways of occupied Belarus were flooded with German trains. At short intervals, they walked and walked, delivering soldiers, weapons and equipment to the Eastern Front. The main task of the guerrillas in this region was to reduce the number of trains reaching their destination, but in light of the acute shortage of explosives, most of these missions looked more like suicide. Groups of poorly armed people with crowbars and wrenches became easy prey for German patrols. It is not known how everything would have ended if it were not for the lieutenant of the railway troops Tengiz Shavgulidze, who fled from the German camp in 1942 and joined the Belarusian partisans. Relying on his natural ingenuity and experience of serving in the railway troops, he created a device that acted on the principle of a railway switch and effectively derailed German trains.
Wedge Shavgulidze
The system, called "Wedge", weighed 20 kilograms and consisted of, in fact, the wedge itself and the slope rail, fixed on the base. The fixture could be bolted to the rail in just a few minutes. The front wheel of the locomotive, running into a wedge, lost contact with the rail and was transferred along the slope rail from the inside of the rail to the outside. As a result, the entire echelon went downhill. The wedges of Shavgulidze proved to be the most effective and easy-to-make weapon of sabotage groups, which acted even better than explosives. The fact is that when a mine was blown up under a train, it disrupted the air brakes, from which they automatically worked and the last train cars avoided a crash. When the Klin entered the business, the train was completely destroyed. This invention helped the Belarusian partisans inflict considerable harm on the invaders and at the same time save a large amount of explosives.
Interesting fact: Tengiz Shavgulidze personally tested his invention. He quietly made his way to the railroad tracks and set up the Wedge in about a minute. The first German echelon, having run into a disposable arrow, dived down a slope. Only after that Shavgulidze proposed his invention as an alternative to mines.
German train derailed
The Degtyarev submachine gun is the first weapon of this type made in the USSR. Along with this, the PPD also became the first Soviet automatic weapon that fell into partisan detachments. He ended up there along with miraculously surviving border guards and soldiers of the Red Army who emerged from the encirclement. PPD is a typical representative of the first generation of submachine guns, which were made with an eye on the German MP-18 and MP-28. With the outbreak of war, the manufacture of such weapons in the factory became a complicated and expensive undertaking, so Degtyarev's invention was quickly replaced by a simple and cheap PPSh. But factories are one thing and partisan workshops are quite another. Paradoxical as it may seem, but in the conditions of primitive equipment and an acute shortage of tools for partisan nuggets, it was the PPD that turned out to be the most optimal in manufacturing - it could be assembled from what was at hand.
Handicraft PPD, which belonged to a soldier from the brigade. Kirov Minsk partisan unit
The main components were made from pipes of various diameters, the barrel of a Degtyarev DP-27 machine gun or a rifle was perfect as a barrel. Sawing a long rifle barrel, a partisan gunsmith could make two or even three submachine guns. Of course, the quality of such handicraft weapons at first left much to be desired, but it was still better than going to the enemy with bare hands. Unfortunately, there is no reliable information about which of the partisan detachments was the first to manufacture their own PPDs.
An interesting fact: the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 became a baptism of fire for the PPD. There he showed himself as an effective weapon, which, in turn, influenced the attitude of the Soviet leadership towards submachine guns. Prior to that, they were considered exclusively police weapons, designed to suppress the protests of the striking proletariat.
Partisan PPD from the exposition of the TsMVS
In 1943, the already mentioned Tengiz Shavgulidze worked at the Headquarters of the Minsk partisan movement as a demolition instructor, so he, like no one else, knew how badly the partisans lacked hand grenades. In the spring of the same year, he presented the command with a grenade of his own manufacture. Shavgulidze's hand grenade was a piece of a water pipe with a fuse in the form of a Fickford cord and a detonator cap. This invention gained great popularity among the partisans, since the destructive power of homemade products was many times greater than regular ammunition.
Tengiz Shavgulidze (left) and a typical partisan workshop (right)
By the end of 1943, about 7,000 Shavgulidze grenades were made in the handicraft workshops of the Minsk region. The nugget designer did not stop there, and in the same year he invented a partisan rifle grenade launcher. The PRGSh was easy to manufacture, like all partisan weapons. A mortar was made from a cartridge case from a 45-mm projectile, which was attached to the barrel of a shortened Mosin rifle. All the same Shavgulidze grenades were used as a projectile. The shot from the mortar was due to a blank cartridge. The range of the grenade was approximately 500 meters. By January 1, 1944, the partisan detachments of the Minsk Brigade already had 120 PRGSH.
An interesting fact: Shavgulidze is also credited with the authorship of various ingenious mines. One of these is considered a surprise mine, which looked like an ordinary rifle cartridge, but the filling was not gunpowder, but an explosive. The partisans threw such a surprise into the enemy machine gun ammunition, and at the first turn, the machine gun and its crew failed.
Partisan rifle grenade launcher Shavgulidze
The Shpagin submachine gun, without a doubt, can be called the most massive weapon of the Great Patriotic War. It is a symbol of war, which is reflected in most of the monuments dedicated to the feat of the people. However, it was very difficult to produce it in the field: powerful presses were required, which were not available to the partisans. Therefore, forest craftsmen replaced stamping with forging. The second problem was the shops, and if there were no problems with the production of sector samples for 35 rounds and they were mastered rather quickly, then the disk magazines required the release of feeder springs, which were almost impossible to make in artisanal conditions.
Handicraft PPSh in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk
For this reason, most partisan PPShs were equipped with factory magazines, but some craftsmen found a solution. As the ill-fated feeder spring, a spring from a gramophone was used. These cases should be recognized as isolated ones, since it was sometimes more difficult to get a gramophone under the conditions of occupation than a new PPSh. By the way, the first PPSh-41 was made in artisanal conditions by a certain master P.V. Chernigov, gunsmith of the Razgrom partisan brigade operating in the Minsk region. The Mogilev nuggets from the partisan brigade "Chekist" set a kind of record, having made ten PPShs at once from March 30 to July 3, 1943. In total, by July 1944, they had assembled 122 Shpagin submachine guns from improvised materials and broken weapons.
Interesting fact: The Germans also appreciated the PPSh. They often converted trophy weapons chambered for the 9x19 mm Parabellum cartridge and an MP-40 magazine. In the Wehrmacht, such modifications of the PPSh were designated 9-mm Maschinenpistole 717 (r). In turn, the SS preferred PPSh as they were produced from Soviet factories and preferably with a drum magazine.
German sergeant in cover with captured PPSh
Concealed carry submachine gun designed by Sergeev
Between the spring of 1943 and the summer of 1944. senior master of the Razgrom partisan brigade, Nikolai Stepanovich Sergeev, developed and manufactured five submachine guns of his own design. Sergeev's invention was intended for concealed carry and unexpected use at short distances. The submachine gun was designed for the 7.62 × 25 mm TT cartridge. The main feature of this sample was the shutter - neither on one side nor on the other side did the receiver have a cocking handle. To cock the submachine gun, it was necessary to pull the aiming sight towards you. The metal casing mated with the bolt and put it on a combat platoon. This arrangement, coupled with a small size (50.5 cm long), made the weapon flatter and more suitable for concealed wear.
Concealed-carry submachine gun designed by Sergeev. Minsk Museum of the Great Patriotic War
Basically, Sergeev's PP was intended for automatic fire, but there were several samples that had a special translator for switching to single-player mode. In this submachine gun, everything except the barrel, which Sergeev borrowed from the PPSh, was made in an artisanal way using the simplest tools. Of course, it also had its drawbacks. So, for example, effective shooting from this weapon could only be carried out at distances of no more than 100 meters, and some samples could be cocked involuntarily. In addition, some specimens did not have a shoulder rest, which also had a negative effect on the accuracy of fire. But if we proceed from the fact that such a weapon should have been used unexpectedly for the enemy and at close range, then such a submachine gun could have a significant impact on the success of the operation.
An interesting fact: Sergeev's concealed-carry submachine gun was produced by him for a reason, but for a specific owner, taking into account the peculiarities of its further use. In addition, such weapons were also sacred for the partisans. For them, it was a symbol of struggle and fortitude.
Concealed carrying submachine gun of their exposition TsMVS
The Sudayev submachine gun was developed in 1942 (PPS-42) in besieged Leningrad. Aleksey Ivanovich Sudayev embodied in this model all the features that should be inherent in wartime weapons: low ammunition consumption and ease of production and use. This submachine gun reached the partisans already in its second modification, PPS-43. This model had a shortened barrel and stock, the barrel casing and the receiver were one piece, the fuse box and the shoulder rest latch were also changed. The main material for its manufacture was sheet steel, which was available in the workshops of partisan gunsmiths.
PPS-43 - the best submachine gun of the Great Patriotic War
The partisans liked this simple and trouble-free weapon, but it never received much distribution in their ranks. It's all the fault of the period in which the teaching staff came to the people's avengers: at that time, Soviet troops were already conducting offensive operations and gradually transferring hostilities to the territories of other countries. Perhaps if this submachine gun had appeared a year or two earlier, it would have ousted all other types of automatic weapons from partisan workshops. Several samples of the 1943 Sudayev submachine gun, produced by partisan workshops, can still be found in museum collections in Russia and the CIS.
An interesting fact: the PPS was taken out of service only in the mid-50s, when it was replaced by the AK-47. However, for a long time PPS was used by special mobile units of the DPRK, as well as by terrorist groups around the world. The terrorists, by the way, like the partisans, fell in love with the PPP because of its reliability, simplicity, and the ability to make it in artisanal conditions.
Group photo of the command staff of the Poltava partisan formation named after. Molotov. Most partisans are armed with Sudayev submachine guns.
Dolganov submachine gun
This submachine gun was created in 1944 by a partisan of the Groza brigade operating in the Vitebsk region, Vasily Nikolaevich Dolganov. He, having experience in military operations, realized that the best scheme of action for partisan detachments was the principle of "hit - retreated." It was difficult to adhere to this principle due to the lack of a sufficient number of automatic weapons in the brigade, and Dolganov proposed his own solution. Using the pre-war experience of a toolmaker, he made his own submachine gun. The barrel was borrowed from the DP-27, the drum magazine from the PPSh, the shutter in the past was the shaft of a broken German car, the casing of the bolt box was a drainpipe. A barrel of gasoline served to make elements of the firing mechanism, and Dolganov made the butt from a piece of thick wire.
Submachine gun of the Dolganov system
He fired PPD cartridges 7.62 × 25 mm TT, the rate of fire was approximately 600 rounds per minute. The aiming range did not exceed 200 meters, which was a worthy indicator for submachine guns of that time (especially handicraft ones). Dolganov gave the first PPD for testing to his fellow soldier, who, after the first battle, gave a high rating to the weapon. Soon the whole brigade was collecting parts for the gunsmith, and Vasily Nikolaevich made several dozen of his submachine guns.
Interesting fact: The main drawback of the PPD was a retractable butt, which had an unreliable mount. Also, when loading a drum magazine, it was necessary to equip not 71 cartridges, for which it was designed, but a maximum of 69, even better 67 - then there were no problems when shooting.
In 1944, two gunsmiths from the Kotovsky partisan detachment operating in Belarus, Yakov Temyakov and Yankel Menkin, developed their own submachine gun based on the PPSh and MP-40. The automation scheme was as follows: a free shutter, a rigidly fixed drummer, firing from the rear sear. The fire mode is only automatic, ammunition is supplied from a sector magazine for 35 rounds of 7.62 × 25 mm TT. There were no safety devices on most of the samples. For the manufacture of barrels for the TM-44, as in most similar homemade products, cut barrels from Mosin rifles and Degtyarev machine guns of 1927 were used. Water pipes and frames for bicycles went to the manufacture of the receiver (aka casing) and butt elements.
Temyakova and Menkin submachine gun, TsMVS museum
The source of springs was padded balloons and aircraft seats. Any parts of a cylindrical shape were suitable for the shutter - from the mill shaft to the axes of the German infantry fighting vehicles. Most of the details of the trigger mechanism were cut out by self-taught designers from iron barrels for fuel. Craftsmen carved the lining for the pistol-type handle from a cow horn. Visually, the TM-44 resembles the MP-40 or MP38, but when comparing these submachine guns, it becomes noticeable that the Belarusian counterpart is much longer than the German one, and besides, it is much heavier.
An interesting fact: In total, 45 copies of the TM-44 were manufactured by Temyakov and Menkin. They gave the very first one to the commander of their battalion, V.Z. Komarov, and now it is in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk. In addition, TM-44 can be seen in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow.
TM-44 engraved "In memory of com. regiment Bakradze D.I. from p / o them. Kotovsky, 10.05.44"
Statistics
Nothing was impossible for the partisan gunsmiths. To understand how much they contributed to the fight against the invaders, just look at the statistics of the master partisan brigade named after Valery Chkalov, which was formed in 1943. During its existence, its craftsmen repaired 1250 rifles, 278 submachine guns, 120 pistols, made approximately 2100 parts for rifles and machine guns, and all this without taking into account the fact that the partisans sculpted themselves from improvised means. Also, do not forget that the masters often did not have the right education, tools and drawings. They did everything by eye and relying only on their experience.
Guerrilla workshop
The partisans were not limited to small-town inventions, they sent the best and most proven developments to the “mainland”, so that from there they would be transferred to other partisan detachments. So, according to approximate estimates of the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement, in the period from January 1 to August 1, 1944, 43 rationalization and inventive proposals were submitted to them for examination, and 21 of them were approved and production was launched in partisan workshops. In addition, four proposals received a review and were sent to the appropriate authorities for further conclusion, for another five proposals, additional data and drawings were requested from the authors, and only 15 ideas were rejected.
Partisan company on the march
All of the above does not fit at all with the image of a partisan that the modern film industry paints for us. For many of us, a partisan is a kind of narrow-minded village peasant in an earflap and a padded jacket, whom the German Sonderkommandos drive through the forests, and he shoots back from an old Berdanka. The Soviet partisan movement was a unique phenomenon that rallied all sectors of society from peasants to the intelligentsia. People who ended up in partisan brigades have already managed to look at the war from all angles. What broke many, for them became an incentive to continue the struggle. They believed that if they managed to survive, then they should make every possible effort and help their land throw off the shackles of occupation - after all, the partisans, unlike regular troops, had nowhere to retreat, and there was simply no one to rely on except themselves, and weapons that partisans created "on the knee" with the help of the most primitive tools - the best proof of this.
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