The DSzK is a Soviet 12.7 mm large-caliber machine gun (MG) from the period of World War II, post-war and modern times. The total weight of the weapon was 35.5 kilograms, with a length of 158.6 cm and a barrel length - 106.6 centimeters. The effective range for ground targets was about 1500-2000 meters, and for air targets - about 2000 meters. The muzzle velocity was about 850 m / s.
In 1930, the famous designer of small arms, Vasily Diegtarev, developed the DK large-caliber machine gun, which in turn was based on the DP machine gun. However, the construction was not very successful. However, shortly thereafter, the DK rifle was modernized by, among others, Georgi Szpagin, entering service in 1938 under the designation DSzK. In 1946, another weapon modernization was developed, designated as DSzK wz.1938/46 or - more often - DSzKM. During World War II, the Red Army used it primarily for air defense. In this role it was mounted on e.g. IS-2 or IS-3 tanks. It also became the basic type of MGM in the armies of the Warsaw Pact until the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. The DSzK rifle is still used today in many Third World countries. These weapons (already after 1945) took part in a very large number of armed conflicts, such as the Six-Day War (1967), the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Iran-Iraq War (198-1988) or the Afghanistan (1979-1989).
The Red Army at the end of the civil war and the Soviet-Polish war
(1919-1921) had a relatively large number of heavy machine guns (machine guns in short) Maxim wz. 1910. It was an obsolete weapon at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. Its main disadvantages were the high production costs and the very large weight of the weapon. However, despite attempts to introduce a new heavy machine gun into the service of the Red Army, these efforts did not bring the desired effect. Although the DS-39 rifle was introduced, it did not live up to all hopes and turned out to be unreliable. As a result, at the start of the German-Soviet war in 1941, the production of this obsolete weapon was resumed. It is worth adding here that in 1941 there were three rifle companies in the Soviet infantry battalion, and each of them had a heavy machine gun platoon with two rifles (usually Maxim wz. 1910), and the battalion included a full company heavy machine guns. It was not until 1943 that a new machine gun, SG-43, was put into production. From 1943, it was introduced first in guard units, and later also in other branches of the Red Army.