EQUIPPING THE RED ARMY WITH INFANTRY SMALL ARMS DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

The article is devoted to the problem of production and equipping the Red Army with infantry small arms during the Great Patriotic War. The armament programs adopted in the pre-war period are considered. The USSR managed to implement a large-scale program of equipping the armed forces with self-loading rifles, which was progressive for its time. However, the problems that arose in connection with the catastrophic start of the armed conflict for the USSR required a sharp increase in the production of small arms for new formations. The evacuation of enterprises associated with the production of small arms led to a catastrophic drop in the production of heavy machine guns and self-loading rifles. The emphasis on the production of submachine guns turned out to be forced, explainable from the point of view of production, and not tactical necessity. In addition, submachine guns in the realities of the era gave rise to the problem of a shortage of spare magazines for this weapon. The factors that influenced the volumes and nomenclature of the weapons produced, and the military leadership’s assessments of the current situation are examined. The article compares the infantry weapons systems of the Red Army and the US Army in World War II, which were initially based on similar concepts. The phenomenon of the influence of the USSR industry on the development of the armed forces and the organization of the troops is traced. It is concluded that the production of small arms in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War, from the perspective of the pre-war concept, was in a deep crisis, which required suboptimal and often hasty decisions. These decisions were curtailed and actually cancelled in the post-war period, when the possibility of systematic development of the armed forces appeared.