Comments by "TotalRookie_LV" (@TotalRookie_LV) on "Forgotten Weapons"
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Greeting from Latvia!
This model of Winchester made it into our literature classics, I don't know, how it is now, but when I went to secondary school one of the must read books were "Dvēseļu putenis" (Blizzard of Souls)written by Aleksandrs Grīns, who himself served in Latvian Riflemen units first under Russian Empire and later as part of army of independent Latvia. In the novel Winchester 1895 was used by the father of the main protagonist sort of as a marksman rifle, and it's stock got covered with more and more markings for each German killed.
It was a good rifle, however there is a common complain about lever action rifle - when you are in prone position in a field under machineguns fire, it's quite easy to get shot in the right shoulder due to the way how one moves while reloading, something like this doesn't happen with bolt action rifles. Even worse, if one kept the rifle vertically while loading from a stripper clip, lever is sticking down making rifle noticeably higher, so if that man wanted to check what he is doing and rose his head up... better to be shot in a shoulder than let Germans to score a headshot.
P.S. Since WWI there are such grim/cool placenames in Latvia as Nāves sala (the island of Death) and Ložmetējkalns (the Machinegun hill).
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Russians usually say, that SKS was a backup, a "plan B", an insurance in case if the idea of an assault rifle - AK doesn't take off. Besides SKS used proven technologies, while stamping used on AK was still brand new back then.
IIRC in Soviet comedy "Maxim Perepelyica" (Максим Перепелица) made on 1955 or 1956, starring very famous actor of the period Leonid Bikov (Леонид Быков), where the main heroe serves in army, you can see soldiers carrying mostly SKS's and some AK's, which is unusual and rare, as, just as you said, the period when something like this was happening was really short.
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I guess SMGs wasn't just considered a silly idea, there was some ideological background - SMGs were considered a weapon of police in those damn capitalist countries (Germany with MP18, USA with "Thompson" etc). Then came the Winter War and 'oh, shhhh....!!!"
P.S. Also, during the war partizans (guerillas) found out, that it is easier to make a replika of a supposedly more complicated guns like PPD, than a PPSh, I guess that's because in a "Khaiber pass" level workshop, where the main tools are a file and a hammer, it is easier to copy milled, than stamped parts.
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