By John MarshallThe SKS-45 carbine is encountered widely

throughout the world since its adoption by the Sovi-et Union as a standard frontline weapon in 1949.First employed experimentally in the closing days ofWorld War II, the SKS was the initial Sovietresponse to the newly conceived German assaultrifle, and was the interim “bridge weapon” that tookthe Red Army from the old Mosin-Nagant rifles andcarbines to the AK series of assault weapons. It hasbeen copied throughout the Communist Blocnations, and versions of it faced our troops in Viet-nam regularly. Historic as one of the first firearms touse an intermediate “assault” cartridge and import-ed in large numbers here in the United States, theSKS has an interesting heritage and is still used as amilitary weapon and as a ceremonial piece in Rus-sia and many other nations today.

The acronym “SKS-45” stands for Samozaryad-niy Karabin sistemi Simonova 1945 in Russian ter-minology (Self-loading Carbine, Simonov’s system,1945). It is the brainchild of Soviet designer SergeiGavrilovich Simonov, who adapted the Germanconcept of an assault rifle cartridge to a handysemiautomatic carbine in the waning days ofWorld War II. Simonov was born in 1894 in Fedo-tow, Russia. He started work as a blacksmith andlater became a talented machinist. He entered anengineering school in 1917, and completed thatcourse of study in 1918. He then worked for awhile assembling Federov automatic rifles. In 1922he became a Master Gunsmith, and later achievedthe title of Senior Master Gunsmith, specializing inthe design of semiautomatic weapons. He attendedthe Moscow Higher Technical School to further hisengineering studies, graduating in 1924. In 1926he was assigned to the Tula Arsenal, where heheaded a prototype shop.

Most rifles of the day such as the front line Sovietissue, the Mosin-Nagant, were long, heavy, andfired an overly powerful cartridge, suitable forranges up to 1,000 meters. Statistics showed, how-ever, that most engagements with the enemy werebetween 100 and 300 meters. Accordingly, the Ger-

mans developed a shorter, intermediate-range car-tridge, the 7.92 x 33mm Kurz. This was fired in anew category of weapon, first dubbed the Maschi-nenkarabiner, or machine carbine. The more-or-lesssecret wraps were taken off the mislabeled MP44after Adolf Hitler’s initial objections were overcomeand he finally approved the item officially as theSturmgewehr 44, or 1944 assault rifle. The Sovietspicked up on the concept of the intermediate roundand developed their own version, the 7.62 x 39mmRussian. Simonov’s carbine was a natural match forthis new round, and a few SKS carbines in this cal-iber were tested in combat in the hands of fron-toviks against the Germans in early 1945.

The SKS was based on an earlier Simonovdesign, the AVS-36, which was a full-power, selec-tive-fire rifle. Its configuration also showed theinfluence of the earlier semiautomatic SVT-40 andthe M-44 Mosin-Nagant bolt-action carbines. Thisgave a nice combination of a reduced-recoil semi-auto with the handiness of a short carbine incorpo-rating an integral bayonet.

Following its adoption in by the Soviet Army asa standard weapon, the SKS was manufactured atthe Tula Arsenal from 1949 until 1957, and also atthe Izhevsk Arsenal in 1953 and 1954. The weaponillustrated was made at the Tula Arsenal in 1951.Although gradually superseded by the more versa-tile select-fire AK-47 assault rifle which was almostsimultaneously adopted, the SKS continued to seeservice with non-infantry and second line troops. Itremained in limited service possibly even as late as

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4040 CCLLAASSSSIICC MMIILLIITTAARRYY RRIIFFLLEESS:: TThhe Soviet SKS-45 Carbine

““The Soviet-designed SKS has become,strangely enough, ‘everyman’s weapon’

here in the United States.”

Sept 10 Blue Press Section 2 7/13/10 3:15 PM Page 40