The myth of the SKS in WWII

[miner49r]

I ran across a post pointing to an article by Chumak and had to share. You can go to the website and use the translate feature in your browser for the english version

https://www.kalashnikov.ru/wp-content/c ... index.html

Here is the start of the article - it is worth reading it in its entirety

SCS, which never entered the battle

POSTED BY: РУСЛАН ЧУМАК 07/15/2018

On the Simonov self-loading carbine of the SKS model of 1941 with a 7.62 mm rifle cartridge 7.62 × 53R
In the circles of people interested in weapons, there is no one who does not know the 7.62-mm self-loading carbine Simonov SKS. But despite the widespread fame of the SCS, the history of its creation is still "covered in darkness" and accompanied by delusions. One of them is the story that in 1944 the party of SKS carbines was tested on the 1st Belorussian front. This information is given in the well-known book by D. N. Bolotin, “The History of Soviet Small Arms”, and it was specifically stated that these were Simonov carbines chambered for arr. 1943
The story of the SKS carbine that fought at the front became widespread in the circles of weapon lovers, becoming an integral part of the "biography" of the SKS. However, this is a mistake: the SKS carbine did indeed pass tests at the front, but ... it was a completely different SKS, not the one that everyone knows, but its prototype, developed in 1941. And - and this is the most important thing - it was not designed for an intermediate cartridge, model 1943, but for a classic 7.62 mm rifle cartridge. Extremely compact and almost weightless (weight without cartridges and a bayonet of 2.9 kg), this carbine and now makes a strong impression with its ease of handling. Made by a small series, the carbine remained virtually unknown to researchers of the history of domestic weapons,

In 1940, even before the completion of work on developing the self-loading rifle of the SVS, S. G. Simonov began creating a carbine at its base. It cannot be said that only Simonov was engaged in the development of weapons of this type: in 1940–1941 self-loading and automatic rifles were designed in several design offices: TsKB-14 (Tula - FV Tokarev), EPB of plant No. 314 (Tula ), KB plant number 74 (Izhevsk). They all developed carbines based on the SVT-40 series rifle. The OKB-180, headed by S. G. Simonov, created a carbine of the original design. At the end of 1940 — beginning of 1941, four samples of self-loading carbines were ready for testing at the same time in the USSR:
- Tokarev TKB-65 designs;
- Design of the plant number 74;
- designs of the EPB of plant No. 314;
- Simonov SVS-53 designs.