Since 1928, the battlefields of the world have seen an oddball Soviet-era weapon that proves the truth of the old saying, “Looks aren’t everything.” Its nickname was once “Stalin’s phonograph” — and the staccato tune it plays is the sound of automatic fire.
Used by the Russians to gun down both the Finns and the Nazis, hefted by Chinese communist and North Korean troops fighting United Nations forces, and carried by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese when attacking American soldiers, the Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyaryova Pekhotny — better known as the DP light machine gun — has spilled a lot of blood.
Even though the newly-created Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union made a separate peace with the Central Powers and ended its involvement in World War I early, the young Red Army still cast an interested eye on the fighting. Many Soviet generals were impressed with light machine guns used during World War I such as the Lewis Gun, a weapon originally purchased by the Tsarist regime for Russian use.
The Lewis was an interesting weapon for the time — it fired rifle cartridges, had a pistol grip, a bipod and distinctive pan-shaped magazine. A pan magazine differs from other drum magazines because the cartridges are stored perpendicular to the axis of the magazine’s rotation as it feeds ammunition into the weapon. The pan magazine mounts on top of the firearm where it lays flat, making the machine gun look like it has a old-fashioned phonograph turntable attached.
However, the Red Army wanted a lighter weapon than the Lewis. The Soviet government wanted a domestically produced machine gun that could be manufactured by an unskilled workforce.
Read the Remainder at War is Boring
Being a machine gun, not legally obtained… but sounds like a better weapon in a SHTF situation, more than other modern weapons if the ammo is still available..