Soviet Pistols – Tokarev, Makarov, Stechkin and others, Leroy Thompson

Soviet Pistols – Tokarev, Makarov, Stechkin and others, Leroy Thompson

The book covers a wide range of pistols, starting with the pre Revolutionary Smith & Wesson revolvers and Nagant M1895 revolver. Sizable sections cover the wartime Tokarev TT-30 and TT-33 and the post war Makarov PM, Stechkin automatic pistol, the PSM pistol, . There is also material on early semi-automatic pistols, a variety of ‘silent pistol’s for special forces use and underwater pistols. The technical section fills just under half of the book.

As always the book is lavishly illustrated. Some of the most useful pictures show the disassembled guns, giving us a view of the insides of each type. There are also good cut away plans showing the working mechanisms.

We then move on to a look at their use in combat. After a very brief look at the First World War and Revolutionary periods, we move onto the Winter War and Second World War, a much better documented period. Large numbers of the M1895, TT-30s and TT-33s were captured by the Finns and then Germans, so they were used on both sides on the Eastern Front. On the Soviet side they were used by all of the normal operators of hand guns – officers, tank crews, aircrews etc. However they were also used extensively by partisans, as they were available in large numbers, and by snipers for use in close quarters fighting where their sniper rifle wouldn’t be so effective.

There is also an interesting section on the post-war use of these weapons, which covers Soviet and post-Soviet uses, and includes comments from the author’s own experience of testing these weapons in his professional capacity.

The Impact chapter looks at the use of these Soviet pistols in other countries, both members of the Soviet bloc and allies and insurgents elsewhere. This section also looks at the construction of these guns in other countries, mainly as licence built copies within the Communist world. 

The author clearly knows these weapons very well, and has test fired just about all of them. This shows in the clarity of the text, and also in the choice of illustrations, which support the text very well.

Chapters
Introduction
Development
Use
Impact
Conclusion

Author: Leroy Thompson
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 80
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2022


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