I am translating a text written by a Russian soldier who was a scout in a rifle battalion that was involved in the defence of Moscow in 1941.
He is basically giving the battalion TO&E and refers to the submachine gun platoon (this was quite a common concept in the RKKA - they even had SMG companies for large-scale CQB).
He says, and here I translate directly:
The platoon of SMG'ers was armed with PPD-38s and American Remingtons
Now I have never heard of a Remington SMG but maybe there were such things - or does he mean they had Remington pistols or carbines as sidearms in addition to the Degtyarev SMGs? Does anyone have any info about the use of Remingtons in the 'Great Patriotic War'?
I am translating a text written by a Russian soldier who was a scout in a rifle battalion that was involved in the defence of Moscow in 1941.
He is basically giving the battalion TO&E and refers to the submachine gun platoon (this was quite a common concept in the RKKA - they even had SMG companies for large-scale CQB).
He says, and here I translate directly:
The platoon of SMG'ers was armed with PPD-38s and American Remingtons
Now I have never heard of a Remington SMG but maybe there were such things - or does he mean they had Remington pistols or carbines as sidearms in addition to the Degtyarev SMGs? Does anyone have any info about the use of Remingtons in the 'Great Patriotic War'?
I think that they may have referred to the Mosin Nagant m91/30 rifles that Remington built for the Imperial Russain government. They contracted for 1.5 million rifles with Remington. However, few were delivered before the fall of the imperial government and most were never shipped. I think that this is what is being referred to.
There is also a possiblity that they may have received Remington made US Model 1917 rifles. Some of these were used by US troops when they were sent to help the White Russians during the revolution. Doubltless many were abandoned or captured and probably fell into the hands of the Reds. Just as WWII showed us, the Russians are nothing if not frugal with their weapons resources and they probably refurbished and reissued whatever they had in arsenal stores during the Great Patriotic War. They have always been the ultimate pragmatists when it comes to military expediency.
97th Sig Bn, 7th Army, Boblingen, Germany, 1960-63
I was not aware of Remington's role in the production of the MN rifle - very interesting.
However, it appears that the actual rifle platoons of this guy's battalion were equipped with Tokarev SVT-40 semi-automatic rifles. He makes several explicit references to them.
What is beginning to seem likely to me is that the SMG platoon were partly equipped with Thompson SMG's and used Remington ammunition. I think that Remington were involved in the production of ammo that could be used for the Tommy. The writer, being in the recce platoon himself, may just have seen cases of Remington ammunition and assumed that Remingtons were the weapons used by the men.
I know that the Thompson was used a fair amount at the outset of the war but was phased out as the Soviet troops preferred the increased stopping power and rugged construction of the PPSh-41.
Let's set a few things in order.
Remington never produced the M91/30 rifle, which is the Soviet updated version of the Mosin Nagant.
Remington (and another company, New England Westinghouse) did produce the earlier version of the Mosin Nagant, the vintovka, 3-lini, obr. 1891g. That rifle was manufactured from 1916-1918 and about 1.5 million were produced; all but about 300,000 were shipped out of the US from Bridgeport, for the Russian Army. Some of those were not delivered but most were. By the end of WW1 the Russians, now the Soviets, had acquired maybe 800,000+ Remington/N.E.W. obr.1891g. rifles.
As to their use in the early days of World War 2--even though the Soviets had produced many 91/30s by the time of WW2, hundreds of thousands of those 91/30s were lost in the initial battles on the Eastern Front.
Anyway, reserve/scratch units called up to fight in the Battle of Moscow could've concievably been armed with PPDs and old WW1 era Remington Mosin Nagants pulled out of storage.
Plenty of photos of the defence of Moscow show Red Army units armed with everything available, including all the old obsolete rifles they had in storage from WW1. That includes Lebels, Enfields, of course older models of Mosin Nagants., Winchester 1895 muskets in 7.62x54r, and old Lewis and Chauchat and Colt machine guns.
The only real functional difference between the Remington produced 1891 rifles and the Russian made, modernized 91/30 are that on the 91/30 the sights were updated and the barrels were slightly shortened.
So, every rifle to the front!
Hope this helps.
Want another Remington Mosin story? During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-38, the Soviets sold huge numbers of Remington-made Mosin rifles to the Spanish Republican Army. To disguise the origin of the rifles, they were delivered in wooden cases stuffed with Mexican newspapers...as the story goes, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade received their Remingtons, and referred to them as "Mexicanski" rifles.
