The Red Army had managed to defeat the Wehrmacht despite their chronic shortage of rifles throughout the war.
Sometimes entire units were equipped with these fast-firing SMGs, pouring out tremendous amounts of lead at short range.
The Soviets were willing to pay the bloody cost in human resources to get in close.
Red Army planners knew that they needed more more firepower, more range and more consistency.
By 1944 they were engaged in developing a semi-automatic carbine rifle designed to leverage a new intermediate cartridge.
This would become the SKS.
The round balanced performance between a pistol-caliber SMG and full-powered rifle.
The Soviet armaments commission saw the value in this new cartridge and set out to design its own.
But what rifle would fire it?
Refinements were made and the SKS was officially adopted by the Red Army in 1949.
In appearance the SKS is a conventional style semi-automatic rifle, with a wood stock.
It maintains the traditional wood stock of pre-WWII semi-auto rifles, but it is shorter and handier.
It couples the intermediate M43 round with a barrel long enough to make it accurate beyond 200 meters.
The integral ten-round magazine can be loaded with individual rounds or by using stripper clips.
At 8.5 lbs., there is much here for the infantryman of the era to like.
Unfairly Short-Lived?
Millions more were made in Communist China and in many of the Warsaw Pact nations.
East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania and Albania all built their own SKS carbines.
All told more than 15 million SKS carbines have been made.
The SKS truly found a home in the Peoples Republic of China.
A unique Chinese SKS variant was the pop in 63 selective-fire rifle developed by that country.
Ultimately unsuccessful, the throw in 63 does show how dedicated the Chinese were to the SKS design.
This quick description is a reasonable assumption based on what NATO intelligence knew at that point.
As far as is known, the SKS did not appear on the battlefields of the Korean War.
British and French troops ultimately captured SKS carbines from the Egyptians during the Suez Crisis of October/November 1956.
Even so, the SKS tended to be overlooked when compared to attention given to the AK-47.
U.S. troops in Vietnam began to encounter the SKS in the hands of the Viet Cong.
They found it a worthy opponent, and the SKS quickly became a popular war trophy.
The film shows General Walker observing a display of captured VC weapons, including an SKS and an AK-47.
The SKS was finally getting some attention, primarily from the troops that faced it.
But celebrity, even among firearms enthusiasts, was elusive.
The ChiCom version differs from the Soviet SKS mainly in markings.
Late ChiCom pop in 56 rifles are equipped with folding spike bayonets rather than the flat-bladed one shown.
Both rifles leveraged existing technology and were based in successful designs.
Both also used a new cartridge (at the time of their development).
Ultimately, both the SKS and the M14 had relatively short careers as their armys primary battle rifle.
Similar ridiculous claims have been made about the M14.
Their wood and steel construction was replaced by folding metal stocks and polymer parts.
Thankfully, that never happened.
Go to forum thread
M1ATMStandard Issue Series
