PPS submachine gun
Encyclopedia
The PPS was a family of Soviet
submachine gun
s chambered in 7.62x25mm Tokarev, developed by Alexei Sudayev
as a low-cost personal defense weapon for reconnaissance
units, vehicle crews and support service personnel.
The PPS and its variants were used extensively by the Red Army
during World War II
and were later adopted by the armed forces of several countries of the former Warsaw Pact
as well as its many Africa
n and Asia
n allies.
requirement for a compact and lightweight weapon that would provide similar accuracy and firepower (with a reduced rate of fire) while utilizing more cost-effective means of production than the Soviet PPSh-41
submachine gun being widely deployed at the time. During the design phase, emphasis was placed on simplifying the production process and eliminating most machining operations; sheet
-steel
stamping
was selected to make most of the weapon's parts. These cost-saving measures reduced the amount of machined components to a bare minimum, cutting down machining time by more than half (2.7 hours of machining required to complete a PPS as opposed to 7.3 hours for the PPSh-41). Savings of over 50% were also noted in terms of raw steel usage (6.2 kg instead of 13.9 kg) and the number of workers required to fabricate the individual components and conduct final assembly of the weapon.
Prototypes were evaluated successfully during the spring of 1942, after which the firearm was accepted into service later that year as the PPS-42 (Russian
: Пистолет-пулемёт Судаева—ППС or Pistolet Pulemyot Sudayeva model of 1942). The weapon was put into small-scale production during the Siege of Leningrad
; mass production did not commence until early 1943 at the Sestroryetsk Arsenal (over 45,000 weapons were produced before being replaced by the improved PPS-43). The improvements to production efficiency allowed the Soviets to increase monthly submachine gun output from 135,000 units to 350,000 weapons.
blowback
-operated weapon that fired from an open bolt
. The bolt was cylindrical in shape and contained a spring-loaded claw extractor, which pulled the empty case out of the chamber and passed it to the fixed ejector housed in the lower receiver. The charging handle was integral to the bolt and was located on the right side; it reciprocated during firing. The PPS originally had a fixed but replaceable firing pin, held in place by the extractor spring. Pulling the trigger released the bolt, which moved forward, stripping a round from the magazine, chambering it and striking the primer in one motion.
The weapon was fed from curved 35-round box magazines that were not interchangeable with magazines used in the PPSh-41; nor could the gun use drum magazine
s. It was chambered for the 7.62x25mm Tokarev M1930 pistol
cartridge
.
The submachine gun's rifled barrel (with 4 right-hand grooves) was mounted in a perforated sheet metal heat guard and was equipped with a crude muzzle brake
, consisting of a strip of steel bent into a U-shape that deflected exiting muzzle gases to the sides and backwards, thus compensating for recoil.
A folding stock was attached to the receiver with a spring-loaded catch button on the left side. The stock folded up and over the receiver top cover and the weapon could be fired in this arrangement. The submachine gun also had a pistol grip
but was not provided with a forward grip as the magazine well was intended to fulfill this role. The PPS was usually supplied with two magazine pouches, an oil bottle, bore brush and sling.
s consisting of a fixed front post protected from impact by two sheet metal plates and a flip rear sight with two pivoting notches, for firing at 100 and 200 m.
Towards the middle of 1943 the modernized PPS-43 entered production; efforts were made to improve manufacturing and safety. The ventilated heat shield was integrated with the upper receiver cover, both the barrel and shoulder stock were shortened, the stock's locking mechanism was simplified, the casing ejector was moved to the rear of the recoil spring guide rod, the magazine well angle was increased in the receiver in order to enhance feeding reliability and the safety was improved to block the trigger and lock the bolt in either the open or closed positions.
Outside of the Soviet Union, the PPS was license-produced in Poland
(from 1948) and the People's Republic of China
(Type 54). Several variants were made based on the PPS-43, including a training version built in Poland, chambered for the .22 Long Rifle
rimfire cartridge (fed using standard PPS-43 magazines but modified with an aluminum reduction insert) and the Finnish
M/44 submachine gun. The M/44 was a modified copy with minor differences to the original PPS-43. It fired the 9x19mm Parabellum pistol round and accepted box magazines from the Carl Gustav SMG
or drum magazines from the Suomi M/31
.
In the early 1950s Poland developed a modified version of the PPS-43, known as the PPS wz. 1943/1952 that replaced the folding metal stock with a fixed wooden buttstock. This was mounted to the receiver end plate using two inserts and the receiver take-down hook was bent downwards to accommodate the change. The buttstock has a compartment carved inside of it that contains a standard cleaning kit; the side of the butt has a sling loop. This modification was meant to increase the accuracy of the PPS submachine gun, but minimal gains in accuracy were offset by the increase in weight and size of the PPS wz. 43/52 in comparison to the original PPS-43. Between 1952–1955, the Łucznik Arms Factory in Radom
built approximately 111,000 PPS submachine guns.
In 1953, the West German
border guards (Bundesgrenzschutz
) adopted the Spanish
-made DUX-53 and DUX-59 submachine guns, copied from the PPS-43 by way of the Finnish M/44. The Vietnam
ese K-50M also borrowed elements from the PPS design, while in the 1950s, Hungary
combined basic features of the PPS-43 with the bolt safety of the PPSh-41 in the unsuccessful M53.
In 2010, Pioneer Arms, of Radom poland, began producing a semi-auto only version of the PPS design, called the PPS-43c. The gun, sold with its stock fixed in the closed position, is legally considered a pistol. The gun is of a closed bolt,hammer fired, blow back operated design.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
submachine gun
Submachine gun
A submachine gun is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges. It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. The submachine gun was invented during World War I , but the apex of its use was during World War II when millions of the weapon type were...
s chambered in 7.62x25mm Tokarev, developed by Alexei Sudayev
Alexei Sudayev
Alexey Ivanovich Sudayev was a Russian weapons designer. He created the PPS submachine gun and the AS-44 assault rifle....
as a low-cost personal defense weapon for reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
units, vehicle crews and support service personnel.
The PPS and its variants were used extensively by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and were later adopted by the armed forces of several countries of the former Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
as well as its many Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n allies.
History
The PPS was created in response to a Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
requirement for a compact and lightweight weapon that would provide similar accuracy and firepower (with a reduced rate of fire) while utilizing more cost-effective means of production than the Soviet PPSh-41
PPSh-41
The PPSh-41 was a Soviet submachine gun designed by Georgi Shpagin as an inexpensive, simplified alternative to the PPD-40. Intended for use by minimally-trained conscript soldiers, the PPSh was a magazine-fed selective-fire submachine gun using an open-bolt, blowback action...
submachine gun being widely deployed at the time. During the design phase, emphasis was placed on simplifying the production process and eliminating most machining operations; sheet
Sheet metal
Sheet metal is simply metal formed into thin and flat pieces. It is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and can be cut and bent into a variety of different shapes. Countless everyday objects are constructed of the material...
-steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
stamping
Stamping (metalworking)
Stamping includes a variety of sheet-metal forming manufacturing processes, such as punching using a machine press or stamping press, blanking, embossing, bending, flanging, and coining. This could be a single stage operation where every stroke of the press produce the desired form on the sheet...
was selected to make most of the weapon's parts. These cost-saving measures reduced the amount of machined components to a bare minimum, cutting down machining time by more than half (2.7 hours of machining required to complete a PPS as opposed to 7.3 hours for the PPSh-41). Savings of over 50% were also noted in terms of raw steel usage (6.2 kg instead of 13.9 kg) and the number of workers required to fabricate the individual components and conduct final assembly of the weapon.
Prototypes were evaluated successfully during the spring of 1942, after which the firearm was accepted into service later that year as the PPS-42 (Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Пистолет-пулемёт Судаева—ППС or Pistolet Pulemyot Sudayeva model of 1942). The weapon was put into small-scale production during the Siege of Leningrad
Siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
; mass production did not commence until early 1943 at the Sestroryetsk Arsenal (over 45,000 weapons were produced before being replaced by the improved PPS-43). The improvements to production efficiency allowed the Soviets to increase monthly submachine gun output from 135,000 units to 350,000 weapons.
Operating mechanism
The PPS was an automaticAutomatic firearm
An automatic firearm is a firearm that loads another round mechanically after the first round has been fired.The term can be used to refer to semi-automatic firearms, which fire one shot per single pull of the trigger , or fully automatic firearms, which will continue to load and fire ammunition...
blowback
Blowback (arms)
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gases created by the ignition of the propellant charge....
-operated weapon that fired from an open bolt
Open bolt
A semi or full automatic firearm is said to fire from an open bolt if, when ready to fire, the bolt and working parts are held to the rear. When the trigger is pulled the bolt goes forward, feeding a round from the magazine into the chamber and firing it...
. The bolt was cylindrical in shape and contained a spring-loaded claw extractor, which pulled the empty case out of the chamber and passed it to the fixed ejector housed in the lower receiver. The charging handle was integral to the bolt and was located on the right side; it reciprocated during firing. The PPS originally had a fixed but replaceable firing pin, held in place by the extractor spring. Pulling the trigger released the bolt, which moved forward, stripping a round from the magazine, chambering it and striking the primer in one motion.
Features
The PPS had a trigger mechanism that allowed only fully automatic fire and a manual safety that secured them against accidental discharges. When in the "safe" position (engaged by sliding a metal bar forward of the trigger guard), both the bolt and trigger were disabled.The weapon was fed from curved 35-round box magazines that were not interchangeable with magazines used in the PPSh-41; nor could the gun use drum magazine
Drum magazine
A drum magazine is a type of firearms magazine that is cylindrical in shape, similar to a drum. Instead of rounds being stored flat, as in a more common box magazine, rounds in a drum magazine are stored in a spiral around the center of the magazine, facing the direction of the barrel.There are...
s. It was chambered for the 7.62x25mm Tokarev M1930 pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
cartridge
Cartridge (firearms)
A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...
.
The submachine gun's rifled barrel (with 4 right-hand grooves) was mounted in a perforated sheet metal heat guard and was equipped with a crude muzzle brake
Muzzle brake
Muzzle brakes and recoil compensators are devices that are fitted to the muzzle of a firearm or cannon to redirect propellant gases with the effect of countering both recoil of the gun and unwanted rising of the barrel during rapid fire...
, consisting of a strip of steel bent into a U-shape that deflected exiting muzzle gases to the sides and backwards, thus compensating for recoil.
A folding stock was attached to the receiver with a spring-loaded catch button on the left side. The stock folded up and over the receiver top cover and the weapon could be fired in this arrangement. The submachine gun also had a pistol grip
Pistol grip
On a firearm or other tool, the pistol grip is that portion of the mechanism that is held by the hand and orients the hand in a forward, vertical orientation, similar to the position one would take with a conventional pistol such as the M1911....
but was not provided with a forward grip as the magazine well was intended to fulfill this role. The PPS was usually supplied with two magazine pouches, an oil bottle, bore brush and sling.
Sights
The PPS was fitted with a set of open-type iron sightIron sight
Iron sights are a system of shaped alignment markers used as a sighting device to assist in the aiming of a device such as a firearm, crossbow, or telescope, and exclude the use of optics as in telescopic sights or reflector sights...
s consisting of a fixed front post protected from impact by two sheet metal plates and a flip rear sight with two pivoting notches, for firing at 100 and 200 m.
Variants
Outside of the Soviet Union, the PPS was license-produced in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(from 1948) and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
(Type 54). Several variants were made based on the PPS-43, including a training version built in Poland, chambered for the .22 Long Rifle
.22 Long Rifle
The .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge is a long established variety of ammunition, and in terms of units sold is still by far the most common in the world today. The cartridge is often referred to simply as .22 LR and various rifles, pistols, revolvers, and even some smoothbore shotguns have...
rimfire cartridge (fed using standard PPS-43 magazines but modified with an aluminum reduction insert) and the Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
M/44 submachine gun. The M/44 was a modified copy with minor differences to the original PPS-43. It fired the 9x19mm Parabellum pistol round and accepted box magazines from the Carl Gustav SMG
Carl Gustav M/45
Kulsprutepistol m/45 , also known as the Carl Gustav M/45 and the Swedish K SMG, is a 9 mm Swedish submachine gun designed by Gunnar Johnsson, adopted in 1945 , and manufactured at the Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori in Eskilstuna, Sweden. The m/45 was the standard submachine gun of the...
or drum magazines from the Suomi M/31
Suomi M-31 SMG
The Suomi KP/-31 was a submachine gun of Finnish design that was in service during World War II. It was a descendant of the M-22 prototype and the KP/-26 production model, which was revealed to the public in 1925...
.
In the early 1950s Poland developed a modified version of the PPS-43, known as the PPS wz. 1943/1952 that replaced the folding metal stock with a fixed wooden buttstock. This was mounted to the receiver end plate using two inserts and the receiver take-down hook was bent downwards to accommodate the change. The buttstock has a compartment carved inside of it that contains a standard cleaning kit; the side of the butt has a sling loop. This modification was meant to increase the accuracy of the PPS submachine gun, but minimal gains in accuracy were offset by the increase in weight and size of the PPS wz. 43/52 in comparison to the original PPS-43. Between 1952–1955, the Łucznik Arms Factory in Radom
Radom
Radom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...
built approximately 111,000 PPS submachine guns.
In 1953, the West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
border guards (Bundesgrenzschutz
German Federal Police
The Bundespolizei is a uniformed federal police force in Germany. It is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of the Interior...
) adopted the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
-made DUX-53 and DUX-59 submachine guns, copied from the PPS-43 by way of the Finnish M/44. The Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese K-50M also borrowed elements from the PPS design, while in the 1950s, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
combined basic features of the PPS-43 with the bolt safety of the PPSh-41 in the unsuccessful M53.
In 2010, Pioneer Arms, of Radom poland, began producing a semi-auto only version of the PPS design, called the PPS-43c. The gun, sold with its stock fixed in the closed position, is legally considered a pistol. The gun is of a closed bolt,hammer fired, blow back operated design.
Users
- Used Chinese Type 54s.: Used both Soviet PPS submachine guns and Chinese Type 54s.: Used domestically produced model.: Built PPS-42, and PPS-43