PP: what is the history of creation and application

In a wave of growing interest in small arms, more people are beginning to delve into the subtleties and differences of its various types and patterns. And now, to describe automatic weapons, it's not enough just to "call" it with an automatic machine. In this article we will talk about this kind of automatic weapons, like a submachine gun (PG). What is PP, what is the history of the creation and scope of this weapon? We will try to answer these questions briefly, but, if possible, it is possible to answer.

Description of PP

What is a submachine gun ? This is an automatic weapon that uses a pistol cartridge for firing. The low power of such a cartridge makes it possible to make the weapon compact and light, while maintaining a great firepower at short distances. A small effective range of fire with a pistol cartridge determines the scope of PP. This is a melee: in trenches, buildings, field fortifications. Here, along with a high density of fire, there is another positive quality of the PP: its bullets (having a weak energy) do not ricochet from the walls and arrows. So, when firing in the room, the shooter does not risk getting his own bullet back.

History of the creation and use of PP

What is PP, you now know. How effective is the machine gun fire? Mankind learned about this during the First World War. The military immediately had a desire to obtain weapons with the capabilities of a machine gun, but not so heavy and bulky that they could use a separate fighter. And such weapons were created, but the representations of that time about the range of the fire fighting (the distance of the rifle fire) did not allow the first samples of the submachine guns Villar-Perosa M1915 (Italy) and Bergmann-Schmeisser MP.18 (Germany) to achieve recognition.

Up until the beginning of World War II, the army did not recognize the merits of the PP. When the tank wedges learned to easily break any defense, and the fire contact distances dropped to two hundred meters, the submachine gun became a truly massive army weapon. Sweeping firepower, simplicity of production and low cost, unpretentiousness in handling made such models of submachine guns as PPSh, PPS, MP, Thompson and STEN legendary. With the advent and spread of the intermediate patron PP lost their place in the army assault rifles (machine guns).

Modern submachine guns

After leaving the linear parts of the armies of the world, the PP continues to serve in the police and all sorts of special forces. There its quality is still in demand, and the application is often more appropriate than more powerful automatic machines. In addition, the use of modern materials and technologies in the design of PP allowed to significantly increase the combat capabilities of these weapons. So, it was possible to eliminate the seemingly "generic" lack of PP - the inability to break through easy protection (bulletproof vest or car body).

New cartridges, such as the domestic PP2000 submachine gun, use the 8 mm steel plate to easily penetrate at a distance of ten meters or more. In this case, the bullet (as it should be a PP bullet) does not ricochet and has sufficient stopping action. The use of plastics allowed to improve the mass and dimension characteristics of modern PPs by an order of magnitude and make them insensitive to corrosion. There are even modifications of automatic weapons under the pistol cartridge, for example, PP1901 "Vityaz". In general, this type of automatic weapons firmly occupied in the modern world a niche of a fighter with crime and terror. Wherever and by whomsoever applied, everywhere demonstrates PP, what is high mobility and overwhelming firepower.