# German vs Russian weapons in World War II **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 9, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318 "2012-04-09T23:01:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/21 "2012-04-10T21:12:40Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > From the same cite as above (the TV) Russians preferred textile hats to the German’shelmets, which apparently kept heads a few degrees warmer. Paul Carrel in _Hitler turns east_ mentions that some German troops in the first winter died because they were wearing steel helmets (the fluids in their brain froze :eek:). ---
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/22 "2012-04-10T22:11:58Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The Mosin Nagant rifle is inferior to the German Mauser, the British SMLE, and the American Springfield rifles IMO. Right at the top of the list of its shortcomings is its safety that is so difficult to use that it might as well not have one. Is gun. Is not safe. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/23 "2012-04-10T22:42:36Z")
> [@detop](#): > > Paul Carrel in _Hitler turns east_ mentions that some German troops in the first winter died because they were wearing steel helmets (the fluids in their brain froze :eek:). While it can get very cold in Russia, it’s not like the atmosphere is made of liquid nitrogen. What Mr. Carrel describes is probably physiologically impossible - the fluids in your brain might freeze after you die, but they aren’t going to flash-freeze from wearing a helmet. Furthermore, a human being is not just going to stand there and let his head freeze without doing something. I doubt the number of German soldiers who actually froze to death was a significant number (I can’t find it right now.) The effect of an uprepared army in winter warfare is largely a combination of two problems; 1. Disabling but non-fatal injuries like second and third degree frostbite, trench foot, pneumonia, and various other things that drain an army of manpower, and 2. The inability to effectively operate in a winter climate. Nobody thinks about it until they’re in it, but if your troops don’t have things like skis or snowhoes and have no motorized transport, just moving around is difficult. Deep snow is insanely hard to walk through, ice is tough on horses (most of the German army walked and used horses and mules to pull supplies, and their horses were wholly unsuited to arctic conditions) and it’s harder to find your way around because visibility is reduced and a lot of visual cues are buried in snow. If your equipment is unsuited to arctic temperatures, it doesn’t work. Cold soldiers are demoralized, miserable, insubordinate, tire easily, and act more slowly and less capably at everything except finding a warm place to sit. Military operations in snow are different at a tactical level, too; winter changes the way sound carries, changes the way you have to conceal positions and personnel, changes the effectivess of artillery, and changes the manner in which units must rest and shelter at night. An army unprepared for winter would have a significant disadvantage _even if they never suffered a single cold-related casualty,_ just because they would simply be a less adept army. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/24 "2012-04-10T22:58:01Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > **(Stormfront liar infiltration alert)** > > Yes, the Germans did invade Russia to kill Jews, you liar: > > This is a falsification of history, you liar. > > What are you talking about, you liar? **MODERATOR WARNING** **Colonial**. You’re been here long enough to know our rules in General Questions. You don’t call someone a liar, muchless a “stormfront” liar. You can attack the post but not the poster. Don’t do this again. **samclem** , moderator ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/25 "2012-04-11T03:16:05Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > If you want to look for things that made the papasha reliable, there are better places to look than the chrome-lined bore. The 7.62 x 25mm cartridge is bottlenecked, for starters. It’s easier to get a bottleneck cartridge to feed reliably than it is one that is straight walled or, like the 9mm, has a minimal taper. The PPSh series also featured the characteristically Russian generous clearances between moving parts; always a good idea in a weapon that has to function even when dirty or in intense cold. The drum was nominally a 71-rounder, but in practice was downloaded by several rounds due to (uh-oh!) jamming problems. Drum magazines, for just about anything, are notoriously slow to load and complicated to manufacture. The Soviets phased out the drum and replaced it with a conventional box magazine. > > WRT drum magazines: I remember reading some years ago that British commandos in the early days of the war preferred the box magazines for their Thompsons as the drums were slow to load, rattled loudly, and were an inconvenient size and shape. Per Wiki the chrome parts enabled “long intervals between cleaning”, which I would think promoted the weapon’s anti-jamming property. Wiki also states: “Its parts (excluding the barrel) could be produced by a relatively unskilled workforce”. Perhaps magazine manufacture should be considered entirely separate, though. ---
**Author:** ![Woodenspoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bc79bd/32.png) [@Woodenspoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woodenspoon)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/26 "2012-04-11T04:43:45Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Cornholio](#): > > This is nonsense, the German High Command (OKH) on the Eastern Front had no interest in doing this, their priority was a military victory, and increasingly carrying out the military wishes of the Fuhrer. > > What happened behind the lines had no initial bearing on the war in Russia as far as weapons and resources are concerned, the bulk of the dirty work you allude to being carried out by police units, local militia and convalescing soldiers unable to yet return to the Front, as well as “second grade” non-Germanic SS units. Very few frontline fighting units were involved in “rounding up Jews to kill”, the Germans didn’t invade Russia to kill Jews. > > It is true that considerable resources were tied up in designated anti-partisan operations, especially as the advance turned into retreat and Red Army commanders were inserted into partisan groups, making them a serious problem for the Germans as they became organised fighting units, not bandits. > > But ONE atomic bomb, or weapon of similar clout, might have been enough to stop the war, certainly on the Western Front, where the resolve to smash the Reich wasn’t as solid as you may believe. It’s not that far-fetched, remember that the war being fought between the Western Allies and Germany was far more “civilised” than on the Eastern Front, we had no real unanimous desire to throw our troops into an all-out revenge assault on Germany, despite the gung-ho attitude of certain US commanders. > > It wouldn’t have taken much to break the Allied will to throw more lives at the Western Front, as was nearly shown by the Ardennes Offensive. With a stalled Allied advance and a truce at, say, the pre-war German borders, everything could have been turned Eastwards. (Some German Top Brass also believed fervently that the Western Allies would gladly accept a truce and _join_ them in the struggle to throw back the Red Army advance into Western Europe.) > Although the Germans apparently weren’t close to making an A-bomb, their jet engine research was doing well - V2 rocket attacks were having a serious demoralising effect on the UK population, far more than the Blitz or the V1, because there was no warning. > The ME 262 would have been a serious problem for the Allies had it appeared earlier in the war, no Allied fighter could catch one. > Think of the infamous Tiger tank - Allied units on the Western Front would shit themselves at the very mention and would be ready to retreat from this pretty formidable, but not invincible tank. If the Germans had had Tigers at every place the Allied advance faltered because of rumours they were ahead, they would have had to have produced 4 times the amount they actually did. Self-propelled guns and Tank Destroyers were cheaper, easier and faster to manufacture, but had nowhere near the same psychological clout, an important consideration against an enemy who may not be totally committed to throwing themselves at your line of defence. Imagine the impact of a new supertank on the horizon… > > The Germans still had too many different weapons, despite Speer’s efforts to streamline production and cut down the numbers of different guns and tanks. Even the most basic weapons were still far better in quality and more complicated and over-engineered than the crude Russian mass-produced stuff. The Russians also could put a peasant behind every cheaply cast gun, and push them forward to either soak up German fire, or to victory through overwhelming the defence (although admittedly, the Red Army had progressed by that point in the war from the mass infantry wave assaults to co-ordinated infantry/tank/artillery tactics) > > The Germans were running out of suitable fighting manpower, they had no reserves of “cannon fodder” to swamp the enemy. New pilots had a few hours of training and were then put up against Allied aces with the inevitable results. As the war drew to a close, fuel was an issue for sorties, let alone training. You can’t fly planes or drive tanks without fuel, no matter how many you have waiting to roll, even if you have managed to scrape together people to man them. The germans were diverting resources in rounding up the jews, like it or not trains are a strategic resource, never mind the rest, their efforts to rid themselves of the jews undermined their own war fighting capacity. never mind the brain power they lost. wonder weapons require numbers, it doesn’t matter they had tiger tanks, as i said they had too few, and too complicated with no efficient logistical support. wonder weapons are good when they are created in addition to sufficient regular armed forces, this is what the us had with its massive over production of everything, the germans simply couldn’t afford to do what they were doing and thus undermined their regular war fighting forces through those diversions. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/27 "2012-04-11T20:36:32Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > Wiki also states: “Its parts (excluding the barrel) could be produced by > a relatively unskilled workforce”. For a well designed firearm this is a statement of the blindingly obvious, and would also have been true of the M1, Lee Enfield, etc. A gun’s parts are just interchangeable machined parts that are mass produced on ordinary industrial machines. You don’t have highly skilled artisans making the guns by hand, no matter whose rifle it was. I’ve been in rifle factories and they’re just ordinary machine shops… .. except for the production of the barrel, which is quite a unique process. ---
**Author:** ![Dravin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dravin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dravin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/28 "2012-04-11T21:08:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Military operations in snow are different at a tactical level, too; winter changes the way sound carries, changes the way you have to conceal positions and personnel, changes the effectivess of artillery, and changes the manner in which units must rest and shelter at night. An army unprepared for winter would have a significant disadvantage _even if they never suffered a single cold-related casualty,_ just because they would simply be a less adept army. You’ve sparked my curiosity. Could you elaborate on how winter changes the effectiveness of artillery? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/29 "2012-04-11T21:47:11Z")
From what I understand, Germany began to have a serious labor shortage, starting in 1942. So many men had been killed in Russia (over 240,000 dead by January 1942), that despite drafting all young men of military age, the army was also compelled to draft industrial workers. This lead to the need to import slave labor from occupied countries. While all this was going on, millions of Jews were being murdered-why didn’t the Germans use them as industrial workers? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/30 "2012-04-11T21:58:36Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > While all this was going on, millions of Jews were being murdered-why didn’t the Germans use them as industrial workers? [They did.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_labor_in_Nazi_Germany) ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/31 "2012-04-11T22:02:01Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > From what I understand, Germany began to have a serious labor shortage, starting in 1942. So many men had been killed in Russia (over 240,000 dead by January 1942), that despite drafting all young men of military age, the army was also compelled to draft industrial workers. This lead to the need to import slave labor from occupied countries. > While all this was going on, millions of Jews were being murdered-why didn’t the Germans use them as industrial workers? > [@Alessan](#): > > [They did.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_labor_in_Nazi_Germany) There was even a relatively obscure movie made about it: [Schindler's List (1993) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/) ---
**Author:** ![sasamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@sasamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sasamu)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/32 "2012-04-12T01:21:56Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Nobody thinks about it until they’re in it, but if your troops don’t have things like skis or snowhoes and have no motorized transport, just moving around is difficult. Deep snow is insanely hard to walk through, ice is tough on horses (most of the German army walked and used horses and mules to pull supplies, and their horses were wholly unsuited to arctic conditions) and it’s harder to find your way around because visibility is reduced and a lot of visual cues are buried in snow. If your equipment is unsuited to arctic temperatures, it doesn’t work. Cold soldiers are demoralized, miserable, insubordinate, tire easily, and act more slowly and less capably at everything except finding a warm place to sit. Military operations in snow are different at a tactical level, too; winter changes the way sound carries, changes the way you have to conceal positions and personnel, changes the effectivess of artillery, and changes the manner in which units must rest and shelter at night. An army unprepared for winter would have a significant disadvantage _even if they never suffered a single cold-related casualty,_ just because they would simply be a less adept army. True. You could also add up what often happens during wartime when an infantry unit is deployed on an elongated forced march by foot, regardless of the era, army, climate or officers. During this “endless” march, at some point all kind of issued gear starts to find their rest on the roadside. Steel helmets, field shovels, engineer axes and machetes, “extra” clothing, even secondary weapons and so on. Primary weapon and ammo is carefully taken care of, but everything else is at some point about to be ditched. Officers can’t and sometimes even won’t rise any issue on this, they have their hands full and they know they will need every single man under their command without further issues. Yeah, in the end those soldiers will be sorry without the shovel they tossed away just a 30 miles before they suddenly need to dig into soil. But everyone who did that can’t blame anyone else but themselves. Nowadays it’s a different thing, a “taxi ride” there and back is truly an essential feature in modern warfare. It’s not about the men, it’s about fast moving with even more gear. Regarding of what OP asked, check out the Finns at WW2. While at it on their own turf and climate the Finns used pretty much everything they had to throw at Russians, no matter where it was originally made. They had Finnish, Russian, Swiss, Spanish, German, British, American, French and Italian made weapons. Some of those weapons (like Brewster Buffalos) were not even taken seriously in their country of origin. It was like some damn salad of hardware they had at their disposal. In the end they lost, but if you look into statistics the outcome was pretty impressive. Yours, Sasamu ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/33 "2012-04-12T01:48:31Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > For a well designed firearm this is a statement of the blindingly obvious, and would also have been true of the M1, Lee Enfield, etc. A gun’s parts are just interchangeable machined parts that are mass produced on ordinary industrial machines. You don’t have highly skilled artisans making the guns by hand, no matter whose rifle it was. I’ve been in rifle factories and they’re just ordinary machine shops… > > .. except for the production of the barrel, which is quite a unique process. No one has suggested that any moderrn army is equipped with weapons made by hand by “skilled artisans”. However, I expect that many modern manufactured items, including guns, require a significant number of workers who ought to be termed “skilled”; that was certainly true on the shop floor I was associated with for 19 years in various production and QA/QC/engineering positions. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/34 "2012-04-12T01:59:12Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > For a well designed firearm this is a statement of the blindingly obvious, and would also have been true of the M1, Lee Enfield, etc. A gun’s parts are just interchangeable machined parts that are mass produced on ordinary industrial machines. You don’t have highly skilled artisans making the guns by hand, no matter whose rifle it was. I’ve been in rifle factories and they’re just ordinary machine shops… > > .. except for the production of the barrel, which is quite a unique process. Of the widely issued rifles from that war, the M1 required the most sophistication in production. Garand had to design tooling and processes as well as the rifle itself. That said, once he had done that work, many companies were able to produce the M1, not all of which were gun companies. The other rifles were 19th century guns that could be produced with 19th century technology. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/35 "2012-04-12T10:46:39Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Of the widely issued rifles from that war, the M1 required the most sophistication in production. Garand had to design tooling and processes as well as the rifle itself. That said, once he had done that work, many companies were able to produce the M1, not all of which were gun companies. The other rifles were 19th century guns that could be produced with 19th century technology. It’s interesting to look at some of the diverse non-gun related companies ending up producing firearms during WWII - car manufacturers, sewing machine makers, agricultural machinery manufacturers, vacuum cleaner makers, and so on. An even wider range made components for guns, too. And an interesting data point for the thread: All WWII Russian small arms (not including anti-tank guns, captured weapons, or Lend-Lease stuff, obviously) fired a 7.62mm projectile. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/36 "2012-04-12T11:45:06Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > And an interesting data point for the thread: All WWII Russian small arms (not including anti-tank guns, captured weapons, or Lend-Lease stuff, obviously) fired a 7.62mm projectile. When the Russians liked something, they stuck with it. The U.S. sent them a whole bunch of Studebaker US6 trucks early on as part of Lend-Lease, and when they later offered to send them newer, better trucks, the Soviets said nope, we like the Studebaker, we know how to work with it, please send us more. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/37 "2012-04-12T13:03:07Z")
I read in several trustworthy sources that the common 7.62 bore size across different weapons was an effort to save money and streamline manufacturing processes. The same machinery could be used to bore out barrel blanks for more than one weapon type. Makes some sense, but I note they got away from that idea quickly following WWII. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/38 "2012-04-12T13:33:04Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I read in several trustworthy sources that the common 7.62 bore size across different weapons was an effort to save money and streamline manufacturing processes. The same machinery could be used to bore out barrel blanks for more than one weapon type. Makes some sense, but I note they got away from that idea quickly following WWII. In a way. Remember that the most common small arms calibers in the USSR until the 70s were the 7.62X39 and 7.62X54\*. On the NATO side, the 7.62X51 is a shortened version of the 30-06 and was adopted as the NATO standard. The US switched to the 5.56 in the late 60s but many NATO countries kept the 7.62X51 until the 80s. \*I’m not sure how quick and thorough the switch to 5.45X39 was. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/39 "2012-04-12T13:41:01Z")
> [@Dravin](#): > > You’ve sparked my curiosity. Could you elaborate on how winter changes the effectiveness of artillery? Possibly he’s referring to the fact that artillery does not burrow into the earth and explode underground (or partly underground) in winter, but bursts right on the frozen surface. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318/40 "2012-04-12T14:06:38Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > In a way. Remember that the most common small arms calibers in the USSR until the 70s were the 7.62X39 and 7.62X54\*. On the NATO side, the 7.62X51 is a shortened version of the 30-06 and was adopted as the NATO standard. The US switched to the 5.56 in the late 60s but many NATO countries kept the 7.62X51 until the 80s. > > \*I’m not sure how quick and thorough the switch to 5.45X39 was. Everything from pistols on up had been .30 caliber, dating all the way back to the goofy Nagant revolver. In the early 50’s the 9 x 18mm Makarov became their standard pistol round. They used it in the Makarov pistol, the misbegotten Stechkin machine pistol, and an assortment of submachine guns. Most of the smg’s were either not widely issued or never entered serious production . You can laugh at them[here.](http://world.guns.ru/smg/rus-e.html) Since the Russians never throw weapons away, the 7.62 and 5.45 variants of the AK were both in inventory and issue at the same time. The 5.45 in its wood stock variants has grooves cut into the sides of the stock as a tactile way of identifying the weapon’s caliber in darkness. In the early 90’s they introduced the PSM and its ridiculously overhyped 5.45 x 18mm cartridge into the mix alongside the still-issued Makarov. For the sake of sanity, let’s just ignore all their more fanciful underwater weapons, integrally silenced cartridges, and not-really-commercial-but-not-military-either cartridges based on the 7.62 x 54 R case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-vs-russian-weapons-in-world-war-ii/618318.md?page=3)