Posted on 02/24/2016 6:14:00 AM PST by C19fan
Since 1928, the battlefields of the world have seen an oddball Soviet-era weapon that proves the truth of the old saying, “Looks aren’t everything.†Its nickname was once “Stalin’s phonograph†— and the staccato tune it plays is the sound of automatic fire.
Used by the Russians to gun down both the Finns and the Nazis, hefted by Chinese communist and North Korean troops fighting United Nations forces, and carried by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese when attacking American soldiers, the Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyaryova Pekhotny — better known as the DP light machine gun — has spilled a lot of blood.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Isn’t that a BAR?
My #5 is the semi-auto version.
Note the shape of the receiver.
#6 is a BAR.
No, it is not an American BAR, it is a Soviet-era DP light machine gun. Both the BAR and the DP were used in the infantry support role. Both were far lighter than the Browning M1917 or M1919 series belt-fed machine guns or the M1910 Maxim belt-fed machine gun. Both the BAR and DP fired the standard rifle cartridge of the day; 30-06 Springfield for the Americans and the Russian 7.62x54R Moison-Nagant M1891. Capacities of the BAR and DP magazines were different also; the BAR’s held 20 rounds and the DP’s held 47 rounds. Both guns were gas operated. Early models of BAR (M1918) did not have a bipod, but the M1918A2 BAR used in WW2 and Korea did. The DP had a bipod from the outset. The DT light machine gun was a variant specifically used on tanks and came with a kit to turn it into a ground gun. There was also a variant of the DP used on pre-WW2 Soviet aircraft.
BAR hunting rifle: rotating bolt, fires from closed bolt position
BAR squad automatic weapon: rising bolt, fires from open bolt position.
The RPD fires the 7.62x39 round and does not have select fire.
One BAR is a prissy boutique hunting rifle with fragile bluing and only 5 shots and the real BAR is a 20 rd magazine rugged full-auto combat weapon to provide the base of fire for a Fire Team.
One is for ambushing deer and the other is for warfare.
No comparison.
Yeah ...
Trivia: What is that lump top-center on the BAR receiver for?
And that is the famous gun that Davy Crockett killed when he was only three. “killed him a BAR....”
Not trivia: crucial part of the design. Locking lug recess.
I have a little bit of history with the Soviet DP. I was in a Vietnamese fortified post called PK17 in the Spring of ‘66 and I was invited out into the local Ville to have dinner with the family on one of the ARVN troops. Later that evening we headed back to PK17 on foot after dark in a heavy rain.
We were wearing ponchos over us and our weapons and we passed a Vietnamese squad going down the same road, opposite direction. They were wearing ponchos too and as we passed the last man, I saw that he had a DP on his shoulder. I asked my buddy - “who are they” and he said “shut up, they’re VC”. I turned to shoot but decide not to - there was about 15 of them and two of us and most of them had already disappeared into the rain and the dark.
And, after the Soviet invaders no longer needed things of this world, their handy and reasonably portable and reliable automatic weapon was picked up by Finnish marksmen, who then turned them against their former masters.
Including former Finnish President Mauno Koivisto, who during the Second World War [*Continuation War* in Finnish terms] was a DP machinegunner in the raider force led by Finland's most decorated soldier Lauri Torni. And one of his favoured *Emma* DP guns, abandoned for lack of ammunition, is still on display in a Russian museum
Kalashnikov Firearms Museum in Izhevsk, Udmurtia's capital. Jukka Virtanen, Mikko Rib and Rib Maikki get to know the assortment of items. Smith stunned the museum guide by telling all that the President Mauno Koivisto's personal weapon during Great Patriotic War [Soviet name for WWII] was a Russian Dektjarev-automatic rifle, or "Emma", whose official name was the PK M 27 DP.
[Seen here with KP31 *mowing machine* submachinegun with 71-shot drum: What would be going through young Mauno Koivisto's mind while waiting for the enemy....]
The Finns got a few Lewis guns from the Russian invaders in '39 as well.
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