![\"DP_LMG_Polish_Army-640x300\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/02\/dp_lmg_polish_army-640x300.jpg?w=620\")
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Since 1928, the battlefields of the world have seen an oddball Soviet-era weapon that proves the truth of the old saying, \u201cLooks aren\u2019t everything.\u201d\u00a0Its nickname was once \u201cStalin\u2019s phonograph\u201d \u2014 and the staccato tune it plays is the sound of automatic fire.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014<\/em>\u00a0better known as the DP light machine gun \u2014 has spilled a lot of blood.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0early, the young Red Army still cast an interested eye on the fighting.\u00a0Many Soviet generals were impressed with light machine guns used during World War I such as the Lewis Gun<\/a>, a weapon originally purchased by the Tsarist regime for Russian use.<\/p>\n The Lewis was an interesting weapon for the time \u2014 it fired rifle cartridges, had a pistol grip, a bipod and\u00a0distinctive pan-shaped magazine. A pan magazine differs from other drum magazines because the cartridges are stored perpendicular to the axis of the magazine\u2019s rotation as it feeds ammunition into the weapon.\u00a0The pan magazine mounts\u00a0on top of the firearm where it lays flat, making the machine gun look like it has a old-fashioned phonograph turntable attached.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n\u00a0Even today, U.S. forces or foreign military observers occasionally encounter the DP in the hands of belligerents such as Somali militias and Taliban fighters. In fact, for a weapon considered obsolete since the 1960s, armed forces around the world still found reasons to keep the DP at hand.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nDesigned by one of the Soviet Union\u2019s best \u2014 and often overlooked\u00a0\u2014 firearms innovators, the DP has only a few working parts and famously tolerates battlefield grit and dirt. It is a light machine gun designed for a peasant\u2019s use.<\/div>\n\n