When the Soviets encountered the Suomi SMG with a drum during the Winter War, they saw the tactical advantage of a high-capacity magazine and moved to adopt that idea for their own SMGs.
Degtyaryov’s PPD-34 was modified into the PPD-34/38 to accept a 71-round drum, which required a central vertical feeding hub (the “feed tower”) to guide cartridges from the spiral drum into the bolt — an extra mechanical interface that had to be precisely seated.
That feed tower made the drum heavier, fiddlier, prone to misalignment/dirt and slower to swap in the field.
Later PPD-40/PPSh-41 designs reworked the drum/feed interface for greater robustness and interchangeability, removing much of the 34/38’s practical drawbacks.
Gameplay – a tradeoff alternative to PPSh-41 box on BR3
a) PPD-34/38 could have larger magazine but slower reload, maybe more spread/recoil due to heavy and finicky drum magazine, and maybe lower ROF (~800?), while PPSh-41 box can be faster to reload, higher ROF but have smaller magazine (so that both could have pros and cons).
b) PPD-34/38 would come out of the shadow of PPD-40 on BR4 and would actually be used ingame by someone for once.
c) On BR3, PPD-34/38 would appear in its more natural, early war maps, such as Moscow, Rzhev and Stalingrad, recreating nostalgia of the Good Old Enlisted.
It’s a valid concern that other factions’ “mains” could cry out for their own drum mag BR3 SMGs, indeed.
That kind of powercreep would not be ideal.
Then again, I am never in favor of mirror-balance, so my ideas about the game don’t revolve around “Su-9 1946/AS are necessary because STG/Me 262” dogma.
The reason why the PPD-1944 works with a drum at BR 3 is because the rate of fire is otherwise subpar. Rate of fire is arguably the most important stat (unless damage and dispersion are tanked as a result, like the Obrez SMGs), and an upgraded 920 RPM is simply too high, in addition to having 71 rounds, to be compensated for by reduced damage. No other BR 3 SMG would come close. In my opinion, the PPSh-41 Box and Uragan are perfect options for the Soviets. If they want something with a larger magazine with low or average damage at BR 3? Make sure the RoF sits around 600-700 RPM (what would otherwise be BR 2 with a regular magazine capacity). There may be some partisan SMGs that would fit those characteristics, but I can’t remember for certain.
And I feel like adjusting the RoF outside of what was historically accurate (although maybe the rate of fire technically gets lower if 7.63mm Mauser or a pistol load 7.62mm Tokarev was used?) kind of defeats the purpose of strictly wanting weapons to be historically accurate. I would rather have a prototype with the preferred specifications, than to warp something that was in service outside of what it’s identity should be.
It still helps to explain why. It’s never productive to assume someone would understand our logic without us explaining a word. This forum has a very diverse crowd, in terms of what brings them to the game, and therefore we all have different priorities and views.
I know for my own posts, it gets annoying when no one gives feedback, even if you try to explain the logic in detail and ask for it.
No, because it would be very annoying to have an entire squad with body armor and PPD-34/38 but if the body armor is removed and the PPD-34/38 is nerfed I support it
If we break it down by individual stats: reload would likely have to be 5 seconds, dispersion would likely have to be equal to the Obrez.
It’s putting the weapon in a completely neutered state just to make a BR 4 SMG BR 3. I would rather give it some compromising stats but generally equal value to the PPD-40. Maybe the reload is slower due to the magazine geometry, but it gets better recoil?
Well, I don’t think we have historically accurate guns at all, do we?
As far as I know the same caliber has different damage numbers on different guns, Nagant revolver doesn’t kill a dude point blank, and MG-42 on SdKfz 251 overheats in 0.0001 seconds.
Not to mention stuff like PPSh Silenced and Hino Komuro, which most likely didn’t even exist in WW2, or the infamous Uragan, whose stats are only guessed and sugegsted, since most likely it was a one-off partisan thingy.
Well, here I’m coming from the opposite angle – personally I would like to see iconic WW2 stuff used ingame as much as possible (even with their worst/best case scenario stats for “balance”), with as few prototypes as possible (and never better than actual WW2 stuff).
its also a premium squad which inherently limits the amount of people using it as opposed to having free tech tree guns you can give to anybody who can equip an smg
I’d prefer to have all guns be represented as they should be in terms of magazine capacity, rate of fire, etc. I think it’s a tragedy when hard stats get skewed for “balance” just to shoehorn something where it belongs. This happened way too much with World of Tanks when it started alienating it’s fanbase around 2017 (for example, Conqueror UFP became 152mm instead of 130mm, when other game-specific stats could have been adjusted instead). Stuff like damage and reload speed within reason, recoil, dispersion, and other more nebulous stats make more sense than changing what makes a gun that gun.
I agree with all of the weapons you listed being off, they really should consider changing them, or making strong considerations before introducing said weapons in a half-assed way (at least the Hino can likely be model-swapped with the Watanabe rifle and keep the stats the exact same).
Kind of repeating myself on the last point, but if you have to change the identity of a weapon to make it fit a certain role, I don’t think it’s worth it. We can agree to disagree, but the developers seem keen on preseving historical rate of fire with all of the changes I’ve helped them make. For the most part, I think the Soviet SMGs are near-perfect in terms of how they are currently tiered and balanced, with some specific minor tweaks.
I agree with these hard stats.
And I don’t intend for PPD’s drum to hold fewer rounds or shoot slower than it’s (lowest possible) RoF.
However, reload time, spread, recoil, damage (drop) are ingame parameters which can be tweaked here and there, I believe.
Yes but it’s a shame that PPD-34/38 is basically the ugly duckling of the least played BR in the game.
(and PPSh-41 is stuck on fantasy BR with laser beams spam)
While stuff like Uragan (partisan made one-off) are widely and efficiently used.
Speaking speficially to the PPD-34/38 being the “ugly duckling” of the least played BR, I think that speaks more to how it’s been balanced, and the lack of incentives to play BR 4.
Again, I’d rather see the PPD-34/38 and PPD-40 be sidegrades, and BR 4 get some semi-auto buffs, and possibly even some XP/silver bonuses for playing it?
I’d say damage and recoil both are at minimum semi hard stats that have to be more carefully looked at than others. It makes very little sense for the same calibre, and I mean something like 7.62 Tokarev specifically not just every 7.62 calibre, fired from the same barrel length to do different amounts of damage. And, in my opinion, Recoil should be dependant on the calibre in question and it not being that way makes a weapon like the Fedorov Avtomat as strong as it is. A Rifle’s damage without a rifle’s recoil makes it far stronger than other Assault Rifles, especially now that a bayonet was added, while not having the drawbacks a weapon ike it has in real life.
