@SeraphimDawn  
Yes, I saw both Fedorov rifle and AVT-40 in the Artillery museum in St-Petersburg. Fedorov’s invention wasn’t bad at all- but the destruction of monarchy in Russia and the chaos of early 1920s caused all the recearch and development to stop. But several thousands of Fedorov automatic rifles were still in service in the Red Army. Some documents say that they even used those weapons in Finland in 1940. But the lack of japanese-pattern ammunition caused to take Fedorov rifles out of service. It was an interesting weapon, using the only suitable ammunition at that moment (japanese cartridges were 20% weaker than european, just because the recoil of the euro cartridges was too strong for small-frame japanese soldiers). Anyway, the standard rifle cartridge is just too powerful to use in automatic weapons, exept machineguns. BTW, the Americans had a special cartridges for their light M1 carbine- those were quite similar to the idea of “intermediate” ammo, but it didn’t came to their mind to make the bullets more sharpened and aerodynamic, like the rifle ones. If they’ve done that- the automatic M1 carbines could become the first successful assault rifles in the world.

@AGM  
I believe there was also a rare full-auto version of the SVT-40. The AVT-40, thing kicks back like a horse.
 
Many people believe the German STG-44 was the first assault rifle in the world. Maybe the first successful rifle that many future assault rifles were built around on.  
But even earlier. The Russian Empire developed the Fedorov Avtomat that for some reason chambered the Japanese 6.5×50mmSR Arisaka cartridge.

@Lupin Quill  
Mosin Nagant was designed by a Belgian and Russian and was first put into service by the Russians in 1891. Along with the 7.62×54mmR cartridge still widely used today.

@SeraphimDawn  
the 7.62x54 is still the only full-size rifle cartridge in Russia, but that’s sort of OK because since 1950s such powerful ammo is not used in personal weapons anymore and there is no need to develop “the same, but more new”. 7.62 NATO cartridge was introduced in 1950s only because there was desperate need to unify the ammunition among dozen of countries that had different calibers before. As for the Soviets- they understood the advantage of intermediate power cartridges that were partially used by Germans since 1943 and started to produce light SKS carbines even before AK was invented.  
As for Mosin-nagants- they are used in minor conflicts by some rebel forces that has no access to modern weapons. Bolt-action rifles are clearly obsolete for mass usage now, except their sniper modifications.

@SeraphimDawn  
You forget the M1911 sidearm, well in use for over 100 years now. But yes, a lot of sturdy eastern weapons trace their roots back to WW2.

@AGM  
The Germans were in turn, overconfident that they didn’t even adequately prepare for the Russian Winter. That was their downfall.
 
Speaking of Russian guns. The Mosin Nagant appears to be still encountered by soldier in conflicts all over the world to this day. chunk of the rifles dating back to WW2. That has to be like the longest service life of any firearms in the world. Many surviving examples still work precisely. The 7.62×54mmR that was used in the Mosin Nagant and the SVT-40 rifles are still used in Dragunov Sniper Rifles.

@SeraphimDawn  
I’d say the whole Europe was ill prepared, assuming what has happened before 1941. The reasons of that 1941 catastrophe are clear now- Stalin knew Hitler was crazy bastard that wouldn’t stop in Poland and will obviously go further. So the Soviets managed to sign a “peaceful” pact in 1939, Hitler even let them get some Polish territories- and those territories played a role of trojan horse for the USSR. The Soviets had to reinforce those territories and build new military bases there (because old soviet forts and bases were now far away from new border). They didn’t manage to build proper line of defence there, while old line was weakened and still in progress of moving to new positions. Almost whole soviet army was relocated to nw positions- but the logistics, the communication lines -were far from perfect, so in 1941 Germans just ripped through soviet defence and destroyed tre,endous amounts of tanks, airplanes and artillery not in fight, but just in the storage bases and on airfields. This was the deadliest fuck-up that USSR ever had.

@AGM  
So most of the casualties suffered by the Soviets were from the initial stages of the German invasion on the Eastern Front. The Red Army was ill prepared at that time.

@SeraphimDawn  
Counting the casualties never gets old while talking about WWII in the internets. I admit that the Soviets lost more soldiers in WWII than the Axis forces (not only germans, because there were also italian, romanian and even Spanish troops fighting on the Axis side, while they were not so cruel with civilians and less effective in combat). But hey, we suffered most tragic losses in 6 months of 1941, and no other of the next full years could match those casualties. So the huge amount of deaths was caused by the sudden invasion, when literally hundreds of thousands soldiers were captured and then died in concentration camps, or were taken by surprise and then fallen in hopeless efforts to break the circled enemy lines and retreat deeper into the country to meet the reserve divisions and regroup. It was the largest thrgedy in the history of wars and the Soviets had literally no chances to hold their borders back then. But since 1942 the losses were somewhat equal.

@AGM  
But not without suffering tremendous amount of casualties. But yeah, in close quarter urban combat, the Soviets had a distinct advantage.

@SeraphimDawn  
as far as I know, MP-40 weren’t so widespread in first-line troops, it was the weapon of NCOs and second-line staff, such as engineers or vehicle crews. The german fire team was built around the machinegun- a machinegunner, a dozen of soldiers with bolt-action rifles and an NCO with MP-40. Sometimes the co-gunner had an MP instead of rifle. Only some special operations squads or military police were widely armed with SMGs. The Red Army command soon realised that it would be better to have a squad of soldiers with PPSHs in every company, and let them support the riflemen where they needed it, and make the fire teams more mobile. I worked, and later in 1944-1945 machinegunners were even used to cover the advanc the tanks in street fights in eastern Europe.

@AGM  
The 7.62×25mm Tokarev is a heavy round for a pistol cartridge. Yeah, that gave Soviet Forces an advantage over the Germans who were armed with 9mm MP40s.

@SeraphimDawn  
Would you a 7.62mm PPSH?

@SeraphimDawn  
Well, I guess it’s because the military of 1930s needed a regular infantry weapon, to increase the firepower of an infanry squad without arming them all with heavy and unreliable automatic rifles. It’s not a PDW, so it has rather long barrel to shoot single rounds more accurately. Small caliber and high velocity of a bullet provides sufficient accuracy at distance of about 200 meters, you can’t do that with something like M3 or modern submachine guns, that has barrels only 4-5 inches long

@AGM  
Looks pretty long for a SMG.  
It’s almost the same length as the AK.

@SeraphimDawn  
it was in museum, not in the military. Not sure about the stockpiles of PPSH, I guess most of them were sold to some third-world countries in 1950s -1960s, to support pro-communist regimes.  

@AGM  
Does the Russian military still have stockpiles of PPSH-41?

@Kakapo  
well, that makes sense- it’s really rather just long than “big”. I say it because I happened to see a PPSH in real life and hold it in my hands for a while. It didn’t seem large for me, even if I’m only 5’8” tall. People were a bit smaller back in 40’s, I suppose.

@AGM  
I thought it was to scale; AJ’s frame is stocky but still smaller than a male so the SMG might look larger in comparison.
 
It only took a hard look to suspect the gun might be a little too long. That said, duly noted.

@Jackarunda  
Many Soviet-made equipment have been captured by Nazi Germany and re-issued to the western front during the war. And in turn, captured by Americans and other participants on the western front.

the PPSH needs to be 20% smaller, really. It’s a submashine gun, not an assault carbine

@Jackarunda  
That’s what I was asking.

that looks like a Russian firearm… a Soviet-era Russian firearm…
 
why would AJ have that?

@Poptard  
It’s just part of the request.
 
Besides, you could wave the gun off as being one of only a few she could get. There are also American gun enthusiasts who happen to operate Eastern Bloc weapons, so this doesn’t strike me as being very out of place in that regard.