Hello, dear sir,
got some more information about misterious PPsh silenced and a new hero - a PDSH. Wondering - what it could be? Lets take a look at some research.
And now about another invention of the staff of the special workshop and other equally talented gunsmiths. The initiative was given by State Security Major P.I. Zuev on December 18, 1941, an oral order to begin "work on the manufacture of the first sample of a PPSh-type submachine gun. This was caused by an acute shortage in the warehouses of the school of domestic automata. As a result, the soldiers of the special school went on missions behind enemy lines armed only with rifles, which potentially made them vulnerable during fire fights with groups of enemy machine gunners.
Work began on the same day, December 18. So, in the end, through collective efforts, the famous creation of Georgy Semenovich Shpagin, the PPSh-41 submachine gun, was born -
a new unique submachine gun, the PDSH, which stands for “Partisan and sabotage school.” Already in the same December, the first two copies were produced. And mass production began at the end of January 1942, that is, after the major of the State Security P.I. Zuev managed to “knock out” through the leadership of the regional NKVD for the needs of the school and deliver “the minimum necessary equipment.”
The Kulibins from the special workshop conquered the next peak of their weapons skills in the spring of forty-two - they "completed the construction of a small submachine gun of the Mauser pistol type in a wooden block [correctly, a holster] weighing 2.5 kilograms.
As a result of the well-coordinated and friendly work of the workshop team under the direct supervision of the GB [State Security] Major T. The Zueva partisan detachments formed by the school [as of May 1942] are fully equipped with automatic weapons of their own manufacture." And now every new sabotage and partisan detachment formed at the school from former cadets received not one or two machine guns, as before, but from three to eight. Source: TSAMO: F.4611, op.5, D.2, ll.46-47
Unfortunately, it is not known exactly how many PDSH submachine guns and Mauser K 96 pistols converted into mini-submachine guns were produced, but they clearly counted in the tens and hundreds. So far, alas, it has not been possible to find copies of these rare samples of domestic military firearms in museum collections. But the research work in this direction by interested historians of the special services continues, which, in turn, cannot but inspire hope for success. And on January 8, 1942, five “devices for silent shooting” were tested at the NKVD special demolition school in Moscow and the Moscow Region. But on January 7, without waiting for the results of those tests, the chekist officer P.N. Zuyev made a written request to the top officials of the 2nd (leadership of partisan formations) department of the 4th (frontline work - intelligence, sabotage and terror behind enemy lines) department of the regional NKVD about “how many of these 5 devices you can put the 6th set into service.” Source: TSAMO: F.4611, op.5, D.2, ll.21
Unfortunately, it is still unknown what these models of silencers were and how they were used by the fighters of the sixth edition of the special school.
