Distribution of Soviet issued small-arms

[FinMC]

Hi,

I can' find anything on this, but 1943 - 45 how did the soviets issue out their small arms?

Were SMG's reserved for Officers and NCO's? or were they spread according to need/unit.

[Eugen Pinak]

SMGs were issued according to the unit TOE. Armament (and some equipment) of each officer/soldier was marked in the TOE, so if it say you had to carry SMG, you got to carry SMG. At least in theory

[Art]

Long story short: from late 1941 each rifle regiment was given a SMG company with about 100 men. Ditto for the rifle brigade. Additional SMGs were given to rifle companies and scout elements. Concrete numbers were increasing as more SMGs became available. In June 1943 one platoon in every rifle company was reorganized as a SMG platoon:
viewtopic.php?f=79&t=238167
Large numbers of SMGs were also given to engineer/sapper units and crews of anti-tank guns.

[Art]

Table of equipment for the rifle regiment T/O 04/550 from December 1942. Keep in mind that actual proportion of SMG after 1942 became larger than specified by tables of organizations:

[Sheldrake]

The same question was asked and discussed here. I did my best to answer this question in post #3
http://www.ww2f.com/threads/soviet-infa ... ost-851206

[Gary Kennedy]

The odd thing about that reduced strength Platoon outlined in the old Red Army Handbook, is that I've not seen it in any of the multiple versions of reduced strength organisations that appeared on pamyat-naroda. The only place I have seen it is in a German intelligence document, in one of the Sturmpanzer.com downloads.

My site includes translated versions of various Red Army Shtat (tables of organisation) and everything I've found on weapons issue and changes for 1943 onward are detailed in there.

Gary

[Sheldrake]

The odd thing about that reduced strength Platoon outlined in the old Red Army Handbook, is that I've not seen it in any of the multiple versions of reduced strength organisations that appeared on pamyat-naroda. The only place I have seen it is in a German intelligence document, in one of the Sturmpanzer.com downloads.

My site includes translated versions of various Red Army Shtat (tables of organisation) and everything I've found on weapons issue and changes for 1943 onward are detailed in there.

Gary

I suspect the T&OE was not always the same as the number of soldiers on the ground and the equipment available.

[Art]

As already mentioned in other topics actual organization was determined by sub-T/OEs which were issued by an individual front. Each of these sub-T/OEs was an adaptation of official T/OE 04/550 etc to certain personnel strength, say 5000 men or 6000 men or 7000 men. Quite frequently there were several simultaneous adaptations with different personnel strength applied to different divisions.

[Art]

Related document: instruction "Actions of the submachine gun company in combat" issued in February 1942:
https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=455009080