Soviet Infantry with the DP-28, WWII (XX0016)

The DP-28 and the Soviet Rifle Squad on the Attack

Two machine guns anchor this scene: a Degtyaryov DP-28 with its distinctive flat pan magazine firing from the prone position, and behind it a water-cooled Maxim on its wheeled Sokolov mount. Around them the riflemen go forward. This is the Red Army infantry of the middle and later war, organised around exactly this combination.

The pan-magazine machine gun

The DP-28 is recognisable at a glance from the 47-round pan lying flat on top of the receiver. The design was deliberately simple — few moving parts, tolerant of dirt, cheap to manufacture in enormous quantity — which mattered more in Soviet conditions than refinement did. The pan was slow to reload and awkward to carry, but it fed reliably in mud and frost, and the weapon gave each rifle squad a base of automatic fire it could move with.

The Maxim, still in service

The heavier gun behind it, the M1910 Maxim on its wheeled carriage with the armoured shield, was a design of the previous century still in front-line use in 1943. It was extremely heavy, needed a crew, and required water for cooling — but it could sustain fire far longer than any air-cooled weapon, which is why it was kept in service for defensive work and for supporting an attack from a fixed position.

The submachine gun in the officer’s hands

The PPSh-41 carried by the shouting figure in the foreground, with its 71-round drum, was produced in the millions and defined Soviet close-quarters fighting. Entire sub-units were equipped with it, riding on tanks and going into buildings and trenches where a bolt-action rifle was a liability. The combination of squad machine gun and mass submachine guns gave Soviet infantry a very high volume of fire at short range.

Reading the uniforms

The steel helmets are the SSh-40, the pattern that replaced earlier models from 1940 onwards; the officer nearer the centre wears the soft pilotka side cap with binoculars, and shoulder boards are visible — these were reintroduced in the Red Army in January 1943, which places this scene firmly in the second half of the war.

Numbers, and what they cost

The Red Army of 1943–45 was the largest and, by the end, among the most tactically capable armies in Europe, having rebuilt itself after catastrophic losses in 1941. That rebuilding was paid for in a scale of casualties without parallel on any other front of the war, and it is worth holding both facts together when reading a scene like this one.