SVT-40 without magazine.
The Samozaryadnaya Vintovka Tokareva, Obrazets 1940 goda (Tokarev Self-Loading Rifle, Model of 1940 is a Soviet semi-automatic battle rifle which saw widespread service during and after WWII.
SVT-38[]
SVT-38
The design of the rifle originated in the early 1930s when Fedor Tokarev gave up his attempts to design a recoil-operated self-loading rifle, and concentrated on the gas operating principle. Stalin had a great interest in semi-automatic infantry rifles, and in 1935 a design competition was held. The winning rifle was designed by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov and was accepted into service the next year as the AVS-36. However, problems with the AVS quickly became apparent, and another competition was held, to which both Tokarev and Simonov submitted their improved designs. This time, Tokarev's rifle was chosen. It was accepted for production under the designation SVT-38, with hopes that it would become the new standard issue rifle of the Red Army. Ambitious production plans were made: production was anticipated to be two million rifles per year by 1942. Production began at Tula Arsenal in July 1939.
The SVT-38 is a gas-operated weapon with a short-stroke, spring-loaded piston above the barrel and tilting bolt. Thus it became one fo the pioneers of this configuration, which became widely used. There is some dispute about who exactly first developed this operating principle, as the SVT's mechanism closely resembles Dieudonne Saive's design of 1937; Saive eventually designed the FN FAL, which employs the same operating principle as the SVT.
Soviet small arms were usually of simple and robust construction, designed for use by poorly educated and sometimes poorly equipped soldiers. The SV-38, in contrast, had been designed with weight savings in mind, including its wood stock, receiver, and action. It is gas-operated action, featuring a not readily accessible gas-cylinder cup. It was complex by Soviet standards, and was ill-suited to handling the detrimental effects of firing corrosively-primed ammunition without freqent cleaning.
The SVT-38 was equipped with a bayonet and 10-round detachable magazine. The receiver was open-top, which enabled reloading of the magazine using five-round Mosin Nagant stripper clips. Fairly advanced features for the time were the adjustable gas system, muzzle brake, and telescopic sight rails milled into the receiver. The sniper variant had an additional locking notch for a see-through scope mount and was equipped with a 3.5x PU telescopic sight. This instrument was slightly shorter than the other wise similar PU scope used on the Mosin Nagant rifle.
Towards the SVT-40[]
A German soldier firing a captured SVT-40.
The SVT-38 saw its combat debut in the 1939-1940 Winter War with Finland. The initial reaction of the troops to this new weapon was negative. Among the issues were that the rifle was too long and cumbersome, difficult to maintain, and the magazine had a tendency to fall out of the rifle. Production of the SVT-38 was terminated in April 1940 after some 150,000 examples were manufactured. Subsequently, an improved design, designated the SVT-40, entered production. It was a more refined, lighter design incorporating a modified magazine release. The handguard was now single-piece and the cleaning rod was housed under the barrel. Other changes were made in an effort to simplify manufacture. Production of this improved weapon began in July 1940 at Tula, and later at factories in Ishevsk and Podolsk. Production of the Mosin Nagant continued, remaining the standard-issue rifle to Red Army troops, with the SVT-40 more often issued to non-commissioned officers.
SVT-40
By the time the German Invasion began in June 1941, the SVT-40 was already in widespread use by the Red Army. In a Soviet infantry division's table of organization and equipment, one-third of rifles were supposed to be SVTs, although this ration was seldom achieved. The first months of the war were disasterous for the Sovet Union, and hundreds of SVT-40s were lost. To make up for this, production of the Mosin Nagant rifles were reintroduced. In contrast, the SVT was more difficult to manufacture, and troops with only rudimentary training had difficulty maintaining it. In addition, submachine guns like the PPSh-41 had proved their value as simple, cheap, and effective weapons to supplement infantry firepower. This led to a gradual decline in SVT production. In 1941, over a million SVT-40 wer produced, but in 1942, Ishevsk arsenal was ordered to cease SVT-40 production and switch back to the Mosin Nagant. Only 264,000 SVTs were manufactured in 1942, and production continued to diminish until the order to cease production was finally given in 1945. Total production of the SVT-38/40 was 5,772,085 rifles, of which 51,710 were the SVT-40 sniper variant.
In service, SVT-40s frequently suffered from vertical shot dispersion. Many rifles were poorly seated in their stocks allowing the receiver to shift upon firing, though selective shimming with birch chips was practiced as a field modification. For a sniper rifle, this was unacceptable, and production of the specialized sniper variant of the SVT was terminated in 1942. At the same time, milling of the scope rails in the receivers of standard SVT-40 rifles was also discontinued. Other production changes included a new, simpler muzzle brake design. To supplement the Red Army's shortage of machine guns, an SVT version capable of full-automatic fire was produced in 1943, and was designated the AVT-40. It was externally similar to the SVT, but its modified safety also acted as a fire selector. A larger 15 or 20 round magazine was reportedly designed for use with the AVT, but this is unconfirmed and there are no known examples. The AVT featured a slightly stouter stock; surplus AVT stocks were later used on refurbished SVT-40s. In service, the AVT proved to be a disappointment: automatic fire was largely uncontrollable, and the rifles often suffered breakages under the increased strain. The use of the AVT"s automatic fire mode was subsequently prohibinted, and production of the rifle was relatively brief. A shorter carbine version (sometimes called the SKT-40) was designed in 1940 and was reportedly produced in small numbers; but again, this is somewhat disputed. As a field modification, standard SVT's were sometimes modified into carbine configuration, with varying degrees of success and work quality. A prototype version chambered for the new, shorter 7.62x39mm round was developed, but was not accepted for production.
SVTs outside of the Soviet Union[]
The first country outside the Soviet Union to employ the SVT was Finland, which captured some 4,000 SVT-38s during the Winter War, and over 15,000 SVT-40s during the Continuation War. The SVT saw extensive use in Finnish hands, though malfunctions and breakages were common due to different Finnish ammunition and often an incorrectly adjusted gas recoil system. Germany and other Axis countries captured hundreds of thousands of SVT-40s from the Eastern Front (WWII). As the Germans were short of self-loading rifles themselves, the SVT (designated as G.259(r) by the Wehrmacht) saw widespread use in German hands against their former owners. The Germans issued their own operating manual for the SVT. Study of the SVT-40's gas-operated action also aided in the development of the German Gewehr 43 rifle.
Legacy[]
SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle made at Tula Arsenal in 1941.
After the war, SVTs were mostly withdrawn from service and refurbished in arsenals, then stored. In Soviet service, new weapons like the SKS and the AK-47 as well as the later SVD made the SVT obsolete, and the weapon was generally out of service by 1955. Only a few SVTs were exported to Soviet allies and clients. Reportedly, some SVTs were used by Cuban revolutionaries in the 1950s. The Finnish Army retired the SVT in 1958, and about 7,500 rifles were sold to the US civilian market through firearm importer Interarms. This marked the end of SVTs in regular service. In the Soviet Union, SVTs were kept into storage until the 1990s, when many rifles were sold abroad, along with several other Russian surplus military weapons. Currently, the SVT is fairly widely availiable for collectors and historical enthusiasts, and is highly sought. The rifle's popularity is due to a combination of the inexpensive nature of its 7.62x54mmR ammunition, favorable aesthentics, historical significance, and pleasant shooting characteristics.
Despite its relatively brief service career, the SVT was a prolific weapon on the Eastern Front during WWII, and it had considerable impact on European battle rifle designs during and immediately after the war. The German G-43 was influenced by the SVT in its design, as was Simonov's experimental carbine during the closing stages of the war (which would later become the SKS). The FN FAL and its ancestor FN-49 employ the same locking mechanism and operating principle as the SVT, although as mentioned above, this is most likely coincidental. As a service weapon, the SVT had its problems, but so did contemporary semi-automatic battle rifles made by other countries. The main reason for the gradual downfall of SVT usage in combat was not its technical disadvantages; rather, the reason was that with the immense, continual demand for rifles in the front lines, Soviet factories could produce other, simpler designs in far greater quantities in the same length of time it took to produce the SVT.