199-582: The SKS ( Russian : Самозарядный карабин системы Симонова , romanized : Samozaryadny karabin sistemy Simonova , lit. 'self-loading carbine of the Simonov system') is a semi-automatic rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov in 1945. The SKS was first produced in the Soviet Union but was later widely exported and manufactured by various nations. Its distinguishing characteristics include
398-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
597-465: A hilt mechanism that enabled the bayonet to be attached to a bayonet lug . A sword bayonet could be used in combat as a sidearm , when detached from the musket or rifle. When the bayonet was attached to the musket or rifle, it effectively turned all long guns into a spear or glaive , which made it suitable for both thrusting and cutting attacks. While the British Army eventually discarded
796-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
995-411: A "short sword that can be inserted into the barrel and secured by twisting it slightly" that it is to be used "when the battle have depleted both gunpowder and bullets as well as fighting against bandits, when forces are closing into melee or encountering an ambush" and if one "cannot load the gun within the time it takes to cover two bu (3.2 meters) of ground they are to attach the bayonet and hold it like
1194-466: A bayonet charge did not necessarily cause substantial casualties through the use of the weapon itself. Detailed battle casualty lists from the 18th century showed that in many battles, less than 2% of all wounds treated were caused by bayonets. Antoine-Henri Jomini , a celebrated military author who served in numerous armies during the Napoleonic period, stated that the majority of bayonet charges in
1393-647: A bayonet proper is found in the Chinese military treatise, Binglu [ zh ] published in 1606. It was in the form of the Son-and-mother gun [ zh ] , a breech-loading musket that was issued with a roughly 57.6 cm (22.7 in) long plug bayonet, giving it an overall length of 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in) with the bayonet attached. It was labelled as a "gun-blade" ( simplified Chinese : 铳刀 ; traditional Chinese : 銃刀 ; pinyin : Chòngdāo ) with it being described as
1592-559: A cleaning kit stored in a trapdoor in the buttstock, with a cleaning rod running under the barrel, in the same style as the AK-47. The cap for the cleaning kit also serves as a cleaning rod guide, to protect the crown from being damaged during cleaning. The body of the cleaning kit serves as the cleaning rod handle. In common with some other Soviet-era designs, it trades some accuracy for ruggedness, reliability, ease of maintenance, ease of use, and low manufacturing cost. The Soviet Union utilized
1791-536: A fixed bayonet and a digging implement, the Rice trowel bayonet could be used to plaster log huts and stone chimneys for winter quarters; sharpened on one edge, it could cut tent poles and pins. Ten thousand were eventually issued, and the design saw service during the 1877 Nez Perce campaign . Rice was given leave in 1877 to demonstrate his trowel bayonet to several nations in Europe. One infantry officer recommended it to
1990-556: A fixed bayonet. The trowel or spade bayonet was another multipurpose design, intended for use both as an offensive weapon as well as a digging tool for excavating entrenchments. In 1870, the US Army issued trowel bayonets to infantry regiments based on a design by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Rice , a US Army officer and Civil War veteran, which were manufactured by the Springfield Armory. Besides its utility as both
2189-461: A fixed ten-round box magazine enclosed inside the receiver. It has a tilting bolt and a gas piston operating rod that works to unlock and cycle the action via gas pressure. When a round is discharged, some of the gases in the bore are diverted through the gas port and impinge on the head of the piston. The piston is driven rearwards and the tappet strikes the bolt carrier; a spring returns the tappet and piston to their forward position. The bolt carrier
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#17327767123622388-499: A flat milled on one side near the edge and a corresponding flat milled on the opposite side near the false edge." The blade has a new spear point and an improved one-piece moulded plastic grip, making it a more effective fighting knife. It also has saw-teeth on the false edge and the usual hole for use as a wire-cutter. The wire cutting versions of the AK bayonets each have an electrically insulated handle and an electrically insulated part of
2587-431: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Bayonet A bayonet (from Old French bayonette , now spelt baïonnette ) is a knife , dagger , sword , or spike-shaped melee weapon designed to be mounted on the end of the barrel of a rifle , carbine , musket or similar long firearm , allowing
2786-898: A greater percentage of stamped as opposed to machined parts. In terms of production numbers, the SKS was the ninth most produced self-loading rifle design in history. Nearly all the Warsaw Pact member states adopted the SKS at one time or another, and technical specifications to produce the carbine were shared with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Romania . With the assistance of Soviet or Chinese technicians and generous military grants, armaments factories producing SKS carbines were later established in North Vietnam , North Korea , Yugoslavia , and Albania as well. While remaining far less ubiquitous than
2985-563: A hallmark of modern warfare . The use of bayonet charges to force the enemy to retreat was very successful in numerous small unit engagements at short range in the American Civil War, as most troops would retreat when charged while reloading. Although such charges inflicted few casualties, they often decided short engagements, and tactical possession of important defensive ground features. Additionally, bayonet drill could be used to rally men temporarily unnerved by enemy fire. While
3184-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
3383-616: A large muzzle brake and a fixed gas system covered with a metal shroud. Simonov's design was based on the operating mechanism of the PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle he'd previously developed for the Red Army the same year. On 1 July 1941, the Artillery Committee of the Red Army noted in its records that the Simonov's self-loading carbine, designated SKS-41, satisfied its basic "tactical and technical requirements". The Committee praised
3582-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
3781-727: A long sword bayonet for the Model 1898 Mauser rifle, which had a 29-inch barrel. The bayonet, the Seitengewehr 98 , had a 50 cm (19.7-inch) blade. With an overall length of 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m), the German army's rifle/bayonet combination was second only to the French Lebel for overall 'reach'. After 1900, Switzerland, Britain, and the United States adopted rifles with barrel lengths shorter than that of
3980-545: A low price and in bulk." Between 1988 and 1998, several million SKS carbines exported from China and the former Soviet Union were sold on the commercial market in the US. The SKS rifle is very popular in Canada, with some users referring to it as "Canada's rifle". While the SKS is imported for commercial sales in Canada, it is affected by Canadian firearms legislation , which prohibits high capacity magazines . Under Canadian law,
4179-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
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#17327767123624378-570: A multi-purpose knife and wire-cutter when combined with its scabbard. It can even be used by troops to cut their way free through the relatively thin metal skin of a crashed helicopter or airplane. The current USMC OKC-3S bayonet bears a resemblance to the Marines' iconic Ka-Bar fighting knife with serrations near the handle. The AK-47 was adopted by Communist China as the Type 56 assault rifle and includes an integral folding spike bayonet, similar to
4577-673: A number of Japanese type 30 rifles for the Royal Navy during the preceding years. U.S. authorities in turn adopted a long (16-in. blade) bayonet for the M1903 Springfield short rifle, the M1905 bayonet ; later, a long sword bayonet was also provided for the M1917 Enfield rifle. The experience of World War I reversed opinion on the value of long rifles and bayonets in typical infantry combat operations. Whether in
4776-596: A number of semi-automatic as well as select-fire rifles during World War II , namely the AVS-36 , SVT-38 , and the SVT-40 . However, the primary service rifle of the Red Army remained the bolt-action Mosin–Nagant , which fired the powerful but heavy 7.62×54mmR round. Even prior to the war, the Red Army had recognized that these weapons were obsolete and initiated a program to modernize its existing small arms, although this
4975-596: A permanently attached folding bayonet and a hinged, fixed magazine. As the SKS lacked select-fire capability and its magazine was limited to ten rounds, it was rendered obsolete in the Soviet Armed Forces by the introduction of the AK-47 in the 1950s. Nevertheless, SKS carbines continued to see service with the Soviet Border Troops and second-line and reserve army units for decades. The SKS
5174-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
5373-469: A radical change in Soviet tactics rendered it obsolete." However, even at the time of its introduction, Soviet military strategists had always desired an infantry rifle with more firepower than the SKS. They needed a weapon that better permitted the infantry to give massed automatic fire during an offensive. Military historian Edward Ezell suggested that the SKS was always intended to be an interim solution, and
5572-535: A result, a light machine gun more compatible with the rest of the rifle squad's weapons was requested. This would result in the adoption of the RPK light machine gun. The RPK was derived directly from the AK and had an identical manual of arms. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) first noted the SKS replacing the Mosin–Nagant with front-line Soviet units in Europe in 1954, and began compiling detailed information about
5771-504: A rifled musket, but longer than that of a carbine. These were intended for general use by infantry and cavalry. The "reach" of the new short rifles with attached bayonets was reduced. Britain introduced the SMLE (Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield), in 1904. The German M1898 Mauser rifle and attached sword bayonet was 20 cm (eight inches) longer than the SMLE and its P1903 bayonet, which used
5970-641: A semi-automatic carbine chambered for a lighter cartridge as early as 1941, owing to recent complaints about the effectiveness of the SVT-40. In fact, one of his earliest prototypes was chambered for the 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge, which was also used in the PPSh-41 submachine gun. He also built at least one prototype chambered for the larger 7.62×54mmR cartridge. Unlike previous Soviet semi-automatic rifles, these utilized fixed five or ten-round magazines loaded from stripper clips. They were also distinguished by
6169-421: A series of small five-man fireteams to attack the weakest point of an enemy's defenses. The Chinese assault team would crawl undetected within grenade range, then launch surprise attacks with fixed bayonets against the defenders in order to breach the defenses by relying on maximum shock and confusion. If the initial shock failed to breach the defenses, additional fireteams would press on behind them and attack
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6368-409: A spear". Early bayonets were of the "plug" type, where the bayonet was fitted directly into the barrel of the musket. This allowed light infantry to be converted to heavy infantry and hold off cavalry charges. The bayonet had a round handle that slid directly into the musket barrel. This naturally prevented the gun from being fired. The first known mention of the use of bayonets in European warfare
6567-456: A spike with a triangular cross-section rather than a flat blade, with a flat side towards the muzzle and two fluted sides outermost to a length of 15 inches (38 cm). It had no lock to keep it fast to the muzzle, and was well-documented for falling off in the heat of battle. By the mid-18th century, socket bayonets had been adopted by most European armies. In 1703, the French infantry adopted
6766-402: A spring-loaded locking system that prevented the bayonet from accidentally separating from the musket. A triangular blade was introduced around 1715 and was stronger than the previous single or double-edged model. The 18th century introduced the concept of the sword bayonet , a long-bladed weapon with a single- or double-edged blade that could also be used as a shortsword . Its initial purpose
6965-520: A strong impression on UN forces that fought in Korea, giving birth to the description of "human wave". The term "human wave" was later used by journalists and military officials to convey the image of the American soldiers being assaulted by overwhelming numbers of Chinese on a broad front, which is inaccurate when compared with the normal Chinese practice of sending successive series of small teams against
7164-526: A tour of the Tula Arms Plant , where they observed the assembly of SKS carbines. General Erlu expressed an interest in acquiring the technology for the SKS, as China had previously only been granted a license to produce the Mosin–Nagant, which was by then a rather antiquated design. After negotiations between Mao Zedong and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev , the Soviet Union agreed to transfer
7363-507: A true assault rifle was developed." There was a proposal that the SKS could be retained as a dedicated marksman rifle, but it failed to meet the accuracy requirements and this role was subsequently filled by a new weapon, the SVD . In June 1955, the Soviet Union hosted a military and civilian delegation from the People's Republic of China led by General Zhao Erlu . The Chinese delegation was given
7562-582: A twelve-inch (30 cm) blade. While the British P1903 and its similar predecessor, the P1888, was satisfactory in service, criticism soon arose regarding the shortened reach. One military writer of the day warned: "The German soldier has eight inches the better of the argument over the British soldier when it comes to crossing bayonets, and the extra eight inches easily turns the battle in favour of
7761-643: A weak point in the line. It was in fact rare for the Chinese to actually use densely concentrated infantry formations to absorb enemy firepower. One use the Germans in World War II made of bayonets was to search for people in hiding. One person hiding in a house in the Netherlands wrote: "The Germans made lots of noise as they came upstairs, and they stabbed their bayonets into the wall. Then what we'd always feared actually happened: A bayonet went through
7960-557: A weapon; the teeth were meant to facilitate the cutting of wood for various defensive works such as barbed-wire posts, as well as for butchering livestock. It was initially adopted by the German states in 1865; until the middle of WWI approximately 5% of every bayonet style was complemented with a sawback version, for example in Belgium in 1868, Great Britain in 1869 and Switzerland in 1878 (Switzerland introduced their last model in 1914). The original sawback bayonets were typically of
8159-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
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8358-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
8557-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
8756-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
8955-438: Is attained by moving the elevation slide to the rear of the ladder as far as it will go. The Yugoslav M59/66A1 has folddown luminous sights for use when firing under poor light conditions, while the older M59 and M59/66 do not. All military SKSs have a bayonet attached to the underside of the barrel, which is extended and retracted via a spring-loaded hinge. Both blade and spike bayonets were produced. Spike bayonets were used on
9154-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
9353-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
9552-455: Is common in military rifles. Although it can diminish precision, its effect on practical accuracy in a rifle of this type is limited. The front sight has a hooded post. The rear sight is an open notch type which is adjustable for elevation from 100 to 1,000 metres (110 to 1,090 yd). There is also an all-purpose "battle" setting on the sight ladder (marked "П", for "Прямой выстрел", meaning "Straight shot"), set for 300 metres (330 yards). This
9751-405: Is driven rearwards, which causes it to lift and unlock the bolt and allowing it to be carried rearwards against the recoil spring. This allows the fired cartridge case to be ejected, and as the bolt is returned to its original position by the recoil spring it strips a new round from the magazine and chambers it. The SKS magazine can be loaded either by hand or from a stripper clip which seats in
9950-525: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
10149-422: Is mostly considered an ancillary weapon , usually of last resort, and is rarely used (if wielded at all), although it is still displayed routinely for ceremonial purposes. The term bayonette itself dates back to the 16th century, but it is not clear whether bayonets at the time were knives that could be fitted to the ends of firearms, or simply a type of knife. For example, Cotgrave's 1611 Dictionarie describes
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#173277671236210348-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
10547-545: Is of a wave of soldiers with bayonets fixed, "going over the top" and charging across no man's land into a hail of enemy fire. Although this was the standard method of fighting early in the war, it was rarely successful. British casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme were the worst in the history of the British army, with 57,470 British casualties, 19,240 of whom were killed. During World War I, no man's land
10746-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
10945-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
11144-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
11343-479: Is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of
11542-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
11741-489: Is widely used for hunting, notably by First Nations in Canada . The leadership of the Assembly of First Nations voted unanimously to express opposition to the amendment. The amendment was eventually withdrawn due to the widespread opposition. Surplus SKS carbines are available in their original chambering for sale to any Russian citizen with a rifle purchase permit. The bayonet must be removed, and an additional pin added to
11940-403: The 15th Alabama Infantry Regiment and other Confederate regiments. Other bayonet charges occurred at Gettysburg, such as that of the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment . This was ordered in desperation by General Hancock earlier on July 2 in order to delay a Confederate brigade's advance long enough to bring up reinforcements for the holed Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Still another bayonet charge
12139-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
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#173277671236212338-527: The AKM Type I bayonet (introduced in 1959) was an improvement of the original design. It has a Bowie style (clip-point) blade with saw-teeth along the spine, and can be used as a multi-purpose survival knife and wire-cutter when combined with its steel scabbard. The AK-74 bayonet 6Kh5 (introduced in 1983) represents a further refinement of the AKM bayonet. "It introduced a radical blade cross-section, that has
12537-732: The Afghan mujahidin with Type 56 carbines during the early years of the Soviet–Afghan War . During the Dhofar Rebellion , SKS carbines were smuggled into Oman by sea, most likely by the Soviet Union, to arm Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO) insurgents there. The Eritrean Liberation Front used large numbers of SKS carbines during the Eritrean War of Independence . The Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) used
12736-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
12935-462: The Chassepot and Snider–Enfield ) and sword bayonets suitable for mass production and used by police, pioneer, and engineer troops. The decision to redesign the bayonet into a short sword was viewed by some as an acknowledgement of the decline in importance of the fixed bayonet as a weapon in the face of new advances in firearms technology. As a British newspaper put it, "the committee, in recommending this new sword bayonet, appear to have had in view
13134-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
13333-408: The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment , was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the battle. In 2009, Lieutenant James Adamson of the Royal Regiment of Scotland was awarded the Military Cross for a bayonet charge while in Afghanistan. Adamson had run out of ammunition so he immediately charged a Taliban fighter with his bayonet. Lance Corporal Sean Jones of The Princess of Wales's Regiment
13532-471: The Second Sino-Japanese War , the Japanese were able to use bayonet charges effectively against poorly organized and lightly armed Chinese troops. "Banzai charges" became an accepted military tactic where Japanese forces were able to rout larger Chinese forces routinely. In the early stages of the Pacific War (1941–1945), a sudden bayonet charge could overwhelm unprepared enemy soldiers. Such charges became known to Allied forces as "Banzai charges" from
13731-403: The Simba Rebellion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The rebels appreciated the carbine for its relatively compact size, light cartridge, and chrome-lined bore (which made it resistant to rust and corrosion in the tropical climate) over the much bulkier Western battle rifles used by Congolese security forces. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIG) favored
13930-485: The Six Day War , which saw thousands of the carbines captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). During its own evaluation of the weapon, the IDF described the SKS as "first rate in several respects" but noted the difficulty of loading the fixed magazine quickly with stripper clips, especially during night fighting operations when visibility was poor. Beginning in the 1960s, vast quantities of obsolete and redundant SKS carbines from military reserve stocks were donated by
14129-476: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
14328-614: The United States Armed Forces in Vietnam that captured examples were used by opposing force (OPFOR) units during training exercises designed to simulate battlefield conditions there as early as 1969. Captured SKS carbines were also prized as war trophies among individual US military personnel, and a number were brought back to the United States by returning veterans over the course of the Vietnam conflict. The SKS found particular favour in southern Africa, where it
14527-578: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
14726-683: The War in Abkhazia , War of Dagestan , and the war in Donbas . Militant factions in the Balkans frequently used smuggled SKS and Type 56 carbines alongside the Yugoslavian M59/66 derivative during the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2016, the SKS remained in the reserve stockpiles of over 50 national armies, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet bloc. After World War II, the SKS design
14925-669: The de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It
15124-474: The knife bayonet type. The development of the bayonet from the 17th century onwards led to the bayonet charge becoming the main infantry tactic throughout the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century. The British Army under Wolesley, the later Duke of Wellington, evolved its tactics to adopt the "Volley and Bayonet Charge" from the earlier "Highland Charge" tactic of Highland regiments under his command. These proto "fire and maneuver" tactics were first introduced to
15323-568: The trench knife , trench club , handgun , hand grenade , and entrenching tool . Soldiers soon began employing the bayonet as a knife as well as an attachment for the rifle, and bayonets were often shortened officially or unofficially to make them more versatile and easier to use as tools, or to maneuver in close quarters. During World War II , bayonets were further shortened into knife-sized weapons in order to give them additional utility as fighting or utility knives . The vast majority of modern bayonets introduced since World War II are of
15522-442: The "floor" of the magazine and allowing the rounds to fall out). When the magazine is expended, a small stud engages the bolt and holds it to the rear, in effect functioning as a bolt hold open device. After the magazine platform is depressed by the insertion of ammunition, the stud continues to hold the bolt at the rear of the receiver until the bolt is pulled slightly back, at which time it drops into its normal position and releases
15721-542: The 1949 Tula Russian SKS-45, the Chinese Type 56 from mid 1964 onward, and the Albanian Model 561. The Yugoslavian-made M59/66 and M59/66A1 variants are the only SKS models with an integral grenade launching attachment. The SKS is easily field stripped and reassembled without specialized tools, and the trigger group and magazine can be removed with an unfired cartridge, or with the receiver cover. The rifle has
15920-470: The 1980s. However, the SKS found a longer second life in the service of various Soviet-aligned nations, in particular the People's Republic of China. The Chinese state manufactured it for decades after production had ceased in the Soviet Union, mainly to arm its vast military reserves and militia forces. The SKS was in general issue with regular units of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for thirty years as
16119-476: The 1990s and 2000s. Before adopting domestic AK-47 derivatives, a number of non-aligned nations such as Egypt and Yugoslavia adopted the SKS as a standard service rifle. The Egyptian Army used the SKS extensively during the Suez Crisis , and a number were captured and evaluated by Western intelligence agencies in the aftermath of that conflict. Some Egyptian forces were still armed with the SKS as late as
16318-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
16517-424: The AK, both original SKS carbines and foreign variants can still be found today in civilian hands as well as in the arsenals of insurgent groups and paramilitary forces around the world. The SKS has been circulated in up to 69 countries, both by national governments and non-state actors. In 2016, it was still being widely circulated among civilians and non-state actors in at least five of those countries and remained in
16716-484: The AK-47, with its select-fire capability, compact size, and larger detachable magazine, was more appropriate for this role than the SKS. As a result, the AK-47 gradually replaced the SKS as the standard service rifle of the Soviet Army throughout the 1950s. A US Army review of Soviet tactics and weapons found that "the SKS was phased out of infantry use in the late 1950s, not because of any inherent faults, but because
16915-532: The AK-47. The SKS was officially designated as a carbine, although it did not fulfill the same role as the M1 carbine used in the United States Army at the time, and more resembled a traditional infantry rifle both in terms of design and envisaged role. Simonov's early 7.62×39mm models were quickly pressed into service with troops of the 1st Belorussian Front during the final months of World War II. The SKS
17114-942: The ANC in the 1980s and 1990s. East Germany and the Soviet Union both armed various factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with SKS carbines from the 1950s through the 1970s; these were used against the IDF and in various internecine clashes during the Lebanese Civil War . The Soviet carbines were initially shipped to PLO training camps in Egypt, where the Egyptian Army provided instructors to train PLO fighters in their use. Both Type 56 and Soviet SKS carbines were used by Simba forces during
17313-570: The Americans were surprised that the Japanese did not employ banzai charges at the Battle of Iwo Jima . The term " human wave attack " was often misused to describe the Chinese short attack —a combination of infiltration and the shock tactics employed by the People's Liberation Army during the Korean War (1950–1953). A typical Chinese short attack was carried out at night by sending
17512-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
17711-459: The British Army by the 42nd Highlanders (Black Watch) at Fontenoy in 1745 although, they had been used by their antecedents, (The Independent Highland Watch Companies) prior to that. As early as the 19th century, military scholars were already noting that most bayonet charges did not result in close combat . Instead, one side usually fled before actual bayonet fighting ensued. The act of fixing bayonets has been held to be primarily connected to morale,
17910-533: The British Army mounted bayonet charges during the Falklands War , notably the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the Battle of Mount Longdon and the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards during the final assault of Mount Tumbledown . In 1995, during the Siege of Sarajevo , UN peacekeepers of the French 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment charged Serbian forces at the Battle of Vrbanja bridge . Actions led by
18109-565: The FALs 22 mm NATO-spec flash hider. Its spear-type blade is offset to the side of the handle to allow the bullet to pass beside the blade. The current British L3A1 socket bayonet is based on the FN FAL Type C socket bayonet with a clip-point blade. It has a hollow handle that fits over the SA80/L85 rifle's muzzle and slots that lined up with those on the flash eliminator. The blade
18308-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
18507-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
18706-468: The Japanese battle cry. By the end of the war, against well organized and heavily armed Allied forces, a banzai charge inflicted little damage but at high cost. They were sometimes conducted as a last resort by small groups of surviving soldiers when the main battle was already lost. Some Japanese commanders, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi , recognized the futility and waste of such attacks and expressly forbade their men from carrying them out. Indeed,
18905-526: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
19104-420: The Mosin–Nagant, which made it easier to handle in dense foliage and urban environments. Simonov deliberately designed the SKS with loose-fitting parts, making it less likely to jam when dirty, inadequately lubricated, or clogged with carbon residue. This was a notable departure from the relatively tight tolerances on the previous generation of Soviet semi-automatic rifles, and was also part of the design process of
19303-467: The Royal Fusiliers when raised in 1685. The major problem with plug bayonets was that when attached they made it impossible to fire the musket, requiring soldiers to wait until the last possible moment before a melee to fix the bayonet. The defeat of forces loyal to William of Orange by Jacobite Highlanders at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689 was due (among other things) to the use of
19502-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
19701-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
19900-421: The SKS and Type 56 carbines specifically alongside Makarov and TT-33 type pistols: "A firearm of that quality could not be made for the price it was being sold. The people selling these firearms in the former Soviet bloc countries assumed control of these stockpiles after the fall of communism ... [therefore] they had no manufacturing cost. These weapons were pure profit, so they could afford to sell them at
20099-612: The SKS as one of its primary small arms during the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence . Captured PAIG carbines were stored and later re-issued by Portugal to its local colonial units, primarily for garrison duties. A number of Type 56 carbines were acquired and used alongside the more ubiquitous AK-pattern rifles by the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the Troubles . China also supplied
20298-493: The SKS during its insurgency until the early 1980s, when it ceased militant operations. Cuban and Grenadian military forces used the SKS during the 1983 US invasion of Grenada . The US Army captured 4,074 SKS carbines during the invasion, mostly from arms depots. By the early 1980s, the SKS had been almost entirely superseded in worldwide military service by the AK-47 and its derivatives. The increasing proliferation of cheap AK-pattern rifles in most asymmetric conflicts also ended
20497-472: The SKS is classified as a non-restricted firearm provided the magazine has been modified to accept five rounds or retrofitted with entirely new five-shot magazines. When the Canadian government introduced an amendment to the pending Bill C-21 that would have expanded and changed the basis for classifying assault weapons under the law, the resulting ban on the SKS was a particular point of contention because it
20696-622: The SKS rifle. Some Type 56s may also use the AKM Type II bayonet. The latest Chinese rifle, the QBZ-95 , has a multi-purpose knife bayonet similar to the US M9. The FN FAL has two types of bayonet. The first is a traditional spear point bayonet. The second is the Type C socket bayonet introduced in the 1960s. It has a hollow handle that fits over the muzzle and slots that lined up with those on
20895-469: The SKS-41 for its light weight and the design of its fixed magazine; it recommended that 50 pre-production models with ten-round magazines be presented to the Red Army for trials. The SKS-41 was to be chambered for the 7.62×54mmR cartridge for logistical reasons, as the Soviet government wished to adapt its existing rifle barrel production lines for the new carbine. Red Army evaluation of the SKS-41 prototypes
21094-643: The SKS/Type 56 carbine alongside AK-pattern automatic rifles, although the Vietnamese forces had largely transitioned to the latter while the PLA had not. The Type 56 carbine was retired from PLA service in the late 1980s, when it was replaced by the Type 81 assault rifle . Aside from ceremonial purposes, it remained in limited use as a training rifle for military cadets and members of the Chinese state militia during
21293-542: The Soviet Union and China to left-wing guerrilla movements around the world. The increasing ubiquity of the SKS altered the dynamics of asymmetric warfare in developing nations and colonial territories, where most guerrillas had previously been armed with bolt-action rifles. For example, the SKS served as one of the primary arms of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War . The weapon type was encountered so frequently by
21492-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
21691-463: The Soviets simply pushed it into production because they wanted any rifle chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge in general service as soon as possible, while a select-fire assault rifle was still being perfected. Small arms expert John Walter concurs in his works, noting that the SKS was "ordered into series production largely to gain experience with the new M43 intermediate ammunition and buy time while
21890-488: The Type 56 carbine, although the primary production line was established at the Jianshe Machine Tool Factory, officially designated Factory 296. The Chinese carbines were mostly identical to the Soviet weapon, although their receivers were produced with carbon steel rather than the Soviet specified chrome-nickel alloy steel. Over the course of production, the Type 56 carbine was also manufactured with
22089-519: The Type 56 carbine. In the Sino-Indian War of 1962 , the semi-automatic carbine gave the PLA a distinct advantage over the Indian infantry, then armed with bolt-action Lee–Enfield rifles. During the mid 1960s, China developed the Type 63 assault rifle to replace the Type 56, but it failed to meet the PLA's standards and did not enter general service. In 1978, the typical PLA infantry battalion
22288-467: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
22487-489: The World War I battlefield. It required a strong arm and wrist, was very slow to recover if the initial thrust missed its mark, and was easily parried by a soldier who was trained to expect it, thus exposing the German soldier to a return thrust which he could not easily block or parry. Instead of longer bayonets, infantry forces on both sides began experimenting with other weapons as auxiliary close-quarter arms, including
22686-450: The attack as "the most complete bayonet charge by American troops since Cold Harbor ". The location subsequently became known as Bayonet Hill. This was the last bayonet charge by the US Army. Millett was awarded the Medal of Honor . On 23 October 1962, during the Sino-Indian War , 20 Indian soldiers led by Joginder Singh fixed bayonets and charged a force of 200 Chinese soldiers. While
22885-475: The barrel, to modify the SKS sufficiently from its status as a military arm and render it legal for civilian sales. The carbines are relatively inexpensive in Russia, making them attractive to hunters on a budget. Examples of the SKS modified as smoothbore weapons and firing the unique .366 TKM cartridge are also available on the Russian commercial market. These weapons are legally classified as shotguns, and are favored by Russian sport shooters and hunters who possess
23084-465: The bayonet as "a kind of small flat pocket dagger, furnished with knives; or a great knife to hang at the girdle". Likewise, Pierre Borel wrote in 1655 that a kind of long-knife called a bayonette was made in Bayonne but does not give any further description. There are some accounts that place the invention of the bayonet in either France or Germany as early as 1570. The first recorded instance of
23283-427: The bayonet serves as a useful training aid in building morale and increasing desired aggressiveness in troops. Today's bayonets often double as multi-purpose utility knives, bottle openers or other tools. Issuing one modern multi-purpose bayonet/knife is also more cost effective than issuing separate specialty bayonets, and field/combat knives. The original AK-47 has an adequate but unremarkable bayonet. However,
23482-414: The bolt carrier. To load the rifle, the cocking handle on the right of the bolt is retracted, and if the magazine is empty the bolt will remain at the rear. When the magazine is fully loaded, the bolt is pulled slightly back then released, at which time it will chamber the first round. Cartridges stored in the magazine can be removed by pulling back on a latch located forward of the trigger guard (thus opening
23681-550: The bolt still has remnants of cosmoline embedded in it that retard firing pin movement. As it is triangular in cross section with only one way to properly insert it (notches up), slamfires can also result if the firing pin is inserted in one of the other two orientations. In most variants (Yugoslav models being the most notable exception), the barrel is chrome-lined for increased wear and heat tolerance from sustained fire and to resist corrosion from chlorate-primed corrosive ammunition, as well as to facilitate cleaning. Chrome bore lining
23880-443: The bolt to chamber the next round. While early (1949–50) Soviet models had spring-loaded firing pins, which held the pin away from cartridge primers until struck by the action's hammer, most variants of the SKS have a free-floating firing pin within the bolt. Because of this design, care must be taken during cleaning (especially after long storage packed in cosmoline ) to ensure that the firing pin can freely move and does not stick in
24079-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
24278-578: The charge would prove futile for Singh and his men, it initially threw the Chinese off guard and forced a retreat despite outnumbering them 10 to 1. On 8 May 1970, National Guardsmen attacked student demonstrators with bayonets at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The demonstrators were protesting the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the killing of four students at Kent State University. Eleven were injured, some seriously. In 1982,
24477-412: The close confines of trench warfare, night time raiding and patrolling, or attacking across open ground, soldiers of both sides soon recognized the inherent limitations of a long and ungainly rifle and bayonet when used as a close-quarters battle weapon. Once Allied soldiers had been trained to expect the throw point or extended thrust-and-lunge attack , the method lost most of its tactical value on
24676-572: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
24875-526: The distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
25074-461: The early 1990s as well. Due to the high volume of initial imports, the SKS became one of the most affordable centerfire rifles available to American sports shooters, retailing for as little as $ 70 per weapon in the early 1990s. Dale Armstrong, a former firearms tracking analyst with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), commented on the volume of cheap surplus weapons, naming
25273-520: The enemy infantryman's rifle and attached bayonet, like the infantryman's pike of bygone days, was thought to impart a tactical advantage on the battlefield. In 1886, the French army introduced a 52-centimetre-long (20.5 in) quadrangular épée spike for the bayonet of the Lebel Model 1886 rifle , the Épée-Baïonnette Modèle 1886 , resulting in a rifle and bayonet with an overall length of six feet (1.8 m). Germany responded by introducing
25472-651: The exclusion of all other designs, noting that "the entrenching [ sic ] tools of an army rarely get up to the front until the exigency for their use has passed." The Rice trowel bayonet was declared obsolete by the US Army in December 1881. Prior to World War I, bayonet doctrine was largely founded upon the concept of "reach"; that is, a soldier's theoretical ability, by use of an extremely long rifle and fixed bayonet, to stab an enemy soldier without having to approach within reach of his opponent's blade. A combined length of rifle and bayonet longer than that of
25671-405: The fact that bayonets will henceforth be less frequently used than in former times as a weapon of offence and defence; they desired, therefore, to substitute an instrument of more general utility." One of these multipurpose designs was the 'sawback' bayonet, which incorporated saw teeth on the spine of the blade. The sawback bayonet was intended for use as a general-purpose utility tool as well as
25870-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
26069-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
26268-455: The forward position within the bolt. SKS firing pins that are stuck in the forward position have been known to cause accidental "slamfires" (the rifle firing on its own, without pulling the trigger and often without being fully locked). This behavior is less likely with the hard primer military-spec ammo for which the SKS was designed, but as with any rifle, users should properly maintain their firearms. For collectors, slamfires are more likely when
26467-442: The gas piston. The gas tube and upper handguard could now be removed as needed to access the gas port and piston for cleaning. The appearance of a 7.62×39mm prototype revived interest in Simonov's design, as only he and one other weapons designer, Alexey Sudayev , were able to produce rifles chambered for the new round on short notice. Sudayev's prototype was a less conventional, more compact assault rifle which more closely resembled
26666-631: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
26865-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
27064-430: The gun to be used as an improvised spear in close combats . The term is derived from the town of Bayonne in southwestern France , where bayonets were supposedly first used by Basques in the 17th century. From the early 17th to the early 20th century, it was an infantry melee weapon used for both offensive and defensive tactics , usually when charging in mass formations or human wave attacks . Today, it
27263-424: The heavy sword-type, they were issued to engineers, with to some extent the bayonet aspect being secondary to the "tool" aspect. Later German sawbacks were more of a rank indicator than a functional saw. Generally, an average of 6% of all bayonets were sawbacks for non-commissioned officers. There were some exceptions, such as the kurzes Seitengewehr 1898 model, all of which were of the sawback design and meant for what
27462-456: The later AK-47 . A second 7.62×39mm semi-automatic carbine contender was later offered by Mikhail Kalashnikov ; this was based heavily on the M1 Garand . Kalashnikov's carbine appeared too late to participate in the Red Army's initial evaluation, and was rejected as the decision had already been made to submit the SKS for field trials. The SKS was light, simple, and considerably shorter than
27661-548: The longer, if both men are of equal skill." In 1905, the German Army adopted a shortened 37-centimetre-long (14.5 in) bayonet, the Seitengewehr 98/05 for engineer and pioneer troops, and in 1908, a short rifle as well, the Karabiner Model 1898AZ , which was produced in limited quantities for the cavalry, artillery, and other specialist troops. However, the long-barreled 98 Mauser rifle remained in service as
27860-431: The making of a clear signal to friend and foe of a willingness to kill at close quarters. The bayonet charge was above all a tool of shock. While charges were reasonably common in 18th and 19th century warfare, actual combat between formations with their bayonets was so rare as to be effectively nonexistent. Usually, a charge would only happen after a long exchange of gunfire, and one side would break and run before contact
28059-577: The more easily obtainable shotgun purchase permit. The .366 TKM cartridge is a 7.62×39mm cartridge case necked out to accept a .366 caliber slug. Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was
28258-459: The more than 70 years of use worldwide, the SKS has seen use in conflicts all over the world. Initially, the SKS was a rarity in the US, with the only examples being souvenirs brought back by returning veterans of the Vietnam War. Beginning in 1988, thousands of surplus and newly manufactured Chinese Type 56 carbines were imported in the US. Russia also began exporting the SKS to the US during
28457-576: The musket's barrel, which allowed the musket to be fired and reloaded while the bayonet was attached. An unsuccessful trial with socket or zigzag bayonets was made after the Battle of Fleurus in 1690, in the presence of King Louis XIV , who refused to adopt them, as they had a tendency to fall off the musket. Shortly after the Peace of Ryswick (1697), the English and Germans abolished the pike and introduced socket bayonets. The British socket bayonet had
28656-527: The new service rifle. The CIA observed that the AK-47 was being introduced at the same time to replace the PPSh-41 submachine gun. Two years later, the SKS was used by Soviet troops and Hungarian partisans alike during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution . Thereafter, while the SKS was retained for various auxiliary duties, it ceased to have any real military significance in the Soviet Union. Only a small number remained in active service, mostly with support units, until
28855-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
29054-405: The open resulted with one side fleeing before any contact was made. Combat with bayonets did occur, but mostly on a small scale when units of opposing sides encountered each other in a confined environment, such as during the storming of fortifications or during ambush skirmishes in broken terrain. In an age of fire by massed volley , when compared to random unseen bullets, the threat of the bayonet
29253-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
29452-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
29651-463: The overall Battle of Gettysburg was won by the Union armies due to a combination of terrain and massed artillery fire, a decisive point on the second day of the battle hinged on a bayonet charge at Little Round Top when Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain 's 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment , running short of musket ammunition, charged downhill, surprising and capturing many of the surviving soldiers of
29850-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
30049-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
30248-435: The plug bayonet. The Highlanders closed to 50 yd (46 m), fired a single volley, dropped their muskets, and using axes and swords quickly overwhelmed the loyalists before they had time to fix bayonets. Shortly thereafter, the defeated leader, Hugh Mackay , is believed to have introduced a socket bayonet of his own invention. Soon "socket" bayonets would incorporate both socket mounts and an offset blade that fit around
30447-405: The popularity of the SKS as a standard guerrilla arm. At that time, the majority of the remaining carbines still in active use were being issued to state-sponsored militias and other paramilitary formations for internal security duties. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, SKS carbines proliferated in various civil wars and regional conflicts throughout the former Soviet republics, including
30646-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
30845-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
31044-417: The primary infantry small arm. Moreover, German military authorities continued to promote the idea of outreaching one's opponent on the battlefield by means of a longer rifle/bayonet combination, a concept prominently featured in its infantry bayonet training doctrines. These included the throw point or extended thrust-and-lunge attack. Using this tactic, the German soldier dropped into a half-crouch, with
31243-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
31442-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
31641-802: The regiment allowed the UN peacekeepers to retreat from a threatened position. Two fatalities and seventeen wounded resulted. During the Second Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan , British Army units mounted several bayonet charges. In 2004, at the Battle of Danny Boy in Iraq, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders charged mortar positions of the Mahdi Army . The ensuing hand-to-hand fighting resulted in an estimate of over 40 insurgents killed and 35 bodies collected and nine prisoners. Sergeant Brian Wood, of
31840-461: The reserve and training inventories of over 50 national armies. A few years after the SKS was brought into service in 1949, it was rendered obsolete for the Soviet military by the new AK-47, which was adopted in increasing numbers by Soviet front-line units throughout the 1950s. During the early 1950s, the typical Soviet rifle squad was organized on the basis of the SKS and the RPD light machine gun, which
32039-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
32238-447: The rifle and fixed bayonet held close to the body. In this position the soldier next propelled his rifle forward, then dropped the supporting hand while taking a step forward with the right foot, simultaneously thrusting out the right arm to full length with the extended rifle held in the grip of the right hand alone. With a maximum 'kill zone' of some eleven feet, the throw point bayonet attack gave an impressive increase in 'reach', and
32437-415: The same point until a breach was created. Once penetration was achieved, the bulk of the Chinese forces would move into the enemy rear and attack from behind. Due to primitive communication systems and tight political controls within the Chinese army, short attacks were often repeated until either the defenses were penetrated or the attackers were completely annihilated. This persistent attack pattern left
32636-401: The scabbard, so it can be used to cut an electrified wire. The American M16 rifle used the M7 bayonet which is based on earlier designs such as the M4 , M5 and M6 models, all of which are direct descendants of the M3 Fighting Knife and have a spear-point blade with a half sharpened secondary edge. The newer M9 has a clip-point blade with saw-teeth along the spine, and can be used as
32835-417: The sea of projectiles, explosions, and flames. A bayonet charge through no man's land often resulted in the total annihilation of entire battalions. The advent of modern warfare in the 20th century made bayonet charges dubious affairs. During the Siege of Port Arthur (1904–1905), the Japanese used human wave attacks against Russian artillery and machine guns, suffering massive casualties. However, during
33034-403: The six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and
33233-626: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
33432-443: The sword bayonet, the socket bayonet survived the introduction of the rifled musket into British service in 1854. The new rifled musket copied the French locking ring system. The new bayonet proved its worth at the Battle of Alma and the Battle of Inkerman during the Crimean War , where the Imperial Russian Army learned to fear it. In the 1860s, European nations began to develop new bolt-action breechloading rifles (such as
33631-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
33830-415: The technology for the SKS, as well as the AK-47 and the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Parallel production lines for the SKS and the AK-47 were set up in China the following year. Chinese production of the SKS continued for decades after it ceased in the Soviet Union, and over nine million had been manufactured as the Type 56 carbine in that country by the 1980s. Eighty Chinese factories eventually tooled up to produce
34029-441: The thin wallpaper above the closet, exposing the three people who were hiding there. 'Raus!' cried the Germans. 'Out!'". During the Korean War, the French Battalion and Turkish Brigade used bayonet charges against enemy combatants. In 1951, United States Army officer Lewis L. Millett led soldiers of the US Army's 27th Infantry Regiment in capturing a machine gun position with bayonets. Historian S. L. A. Marshall described
34228-615: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
34427-454: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
34626-567: The various models of the Mosin–Nagant as the standard Soviet infantry rifle. The AK-47 assault rifle and the RPD machine gun , both firing the same 7.62×39mm cartridge, were introduced into Soviet service around the same time to complement the SKS. During the 1950s, the Soviet Army rapidly mechanized its existing infantry formations, shifting primarily from light infantry on foot to a much more mobile force deploying from armored vehicles. This fundamental shift in tactics called for large volumes of automatic fire to be delivered from moving vehicles, and
34825-488: Was actually made. Sir Charles Oman, nearing the end of his history of the Peninsular War (1807–1814) in which he had closely studied hundreds of battles and combats, only discovered a single example of, in his words, "one of the rarest things in the Peninsular War, a real hand-to-hand fight with the white weapon." Infantry melees were much more common in close country – towns, villages, earthworks and other terrain which reduced visibility to such ranges that hand-to-hand fighting
35024-447: Was also used in large quantities by uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. Between 1963 and 1990, the Soviet Union shipped 3,362 SKS carbines to MK through the guerrillas' external sanctuaries in Angola and Tanzania. SKS carbines captured from MK by the South African security forces were used to arm militias of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) during its internal power struggle with
35223-408: Was awarded the Military Cross for his role in a 2011 bayonet charge. Today, the bayonet is rarely used in one-to-one combat. Despite its limitations, many modern assault rifles (including bullpup designs) retain a bayonet lug and the bayonet is issued by many armies. The bayonet is used for controlling prisoners, or as a weapon of last resort. In addition, some authorities have concluded that
35422-550: Was chambered for the same 7.62×39mm ammunition. The RPD's role was the designated squad automatic weapon, laying down suppressive fire in support of infantry armed with semi-automatic carbines. The Soviet Army wanted all members of the rifle squad to have the ability to use fully automatic fire as needed, which played a pivotal role in the AK gaining favor as the standard infantry weapon over the SKS. The SKS and RPD were also very different weapons with no interchangeable parts, and they required separate training and maintenance programs. As
35621-399: Was conducted late in the evening on July 2 by the 137th New York Infantry Regiment defending the extreme right flank of the Union line on Culp's Hill. The charge of several companies managed to temporarily stall the advance of the 10th Virginia Infantry Regiment long enough for the 14th Brooklyn to move in on the 137th's right and repel the attack. The popular image of World War I combat
35820-462: Was considered more prestigious units, such as machine gunners, telegraph troop and colonial troops. The sawback proved relatively ineffective as a cutting tool, and was soon outmoded by improvements in military logistics and transportation; most nations dropped the sawback feature by the early 20th century. The German army discontinued use of the sawback bayonet in 1917 after protests that the serrated blade caused unnecessarily severe wounds when used as
36019-415: Was exported in vast quantities and found favour with insurgent forces around the world as a light, handy weapon which was adequate for guerrilla warfare despite its conventional limitations. Beginning in 1988, millions have also been sold on the civilian market in North America, where they remain popular as hunting and sporting rifles. The SKS is a gas-operated carbine with a conventional wooden stock and
36218-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
36417-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
36616-411: Was in the memoirs of Jacques de Chastenet, Vicomte de Puységur. He described the French using crude 1-foot (0.30 m) plug bayonets during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) . However, it was not until 1671 that General Jean Martinet standardized and issued plug bayonets to the French regiment of fusiliers then raised. They were issued to part of an English dragoon regiment raised in 1672, and to
36815-757: Was interrupted by the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 . Among the military development programs the Soviet Union had monitored in other countries were the Finnish, Swiss, and German developments in intermediate rifle cartridges. These had limited range and muzzle velocity compared to the 7.62×54mmR and other contemporary rifle rounds such as the 7.92×57mm Mauser and the .30-06 Springfield , but also possessed numerous advantages: they were cheaper to manufacture, permitted easier weapons handling due to their much-reduced recoil and muzzle blast, and enabled infantry to carry more due to their small size and light weight. They could also be fired from shorter and lighter rifles. The Red Army's interest in an intermediate cartridge
37014-439: Was later adopted by other military forces, including the U.S. Army. In response to criticism over the reduced reach of the SMLE rifle and bayonet, British ordnance authorities introduced the P1907 bayonet in 1908, which had an elongated blade of some seventeen inches to compensate for the reduced overall length of the SMLE rifle. The 1907 bayonet was essentially a copy of the Japanese Type 30 bayonet, Britain having purchased
37213-451: Was licensed or sold to a number of the Soviet Union's allies, including China, Yugoslavia, Albania, North Korea , North Vietnam , East Germany , and Romania. Most of these nations produced nearly identical variants, with the most common modifications being differing styles of bayonets and the 22 mm rifle grenade launcher commonly seen on Yugoslavian models. Differences from the "baseline" late Russian Tula Armory/Izhevsk Armory SKS: In
37412-402: Was manufactured at Tula Arsenal from 1949 to 1958, and at the Izhevsk Arsenal from 1953 to 1954. Altogether, the Soviet Union produced 2.7 million SKS carbines. Throughout the Cold War , millions of additional SKS carbines and their derivatives were also manufactured under license in the People's Republic of China , as well as a number of countries allied with the Eastern Bloc . The SKS
37611-457: Was more than enough power to wound or kill a soldier at typical battlefield range. Limited production of the new ammunition type commenced in 1944. Hurried efforts were made to introduce a rifle capable of firing the new cartridge, and the first prominent design was offered by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov . This was known as the Samozaryadny Karabin sistemy Simonova (SKS), or Simonov's self-loading carbine system. Simonov had already been working on
37810-440: Was much more tangible and immediate – guaranteed to lead to a personal gruesome conclusion if both sides persisted. All this encouraged men to flee before the lines met. Thus, the bayonet was an immensely useful weapon for capturing ground from the enemy, despite seldom actually being used to inflict wounds. During the American Civil War (1861–1865) the bayonet was found to be responsible for less than 1% of battlefield casualties,
38009-423: Was often hundreds of yards across. The area was usually devastated by the warfare and riddled with craters from artillery and mortar shells, and sometimes contaminated by chemical weapons . Heavily defended by machine guns , mortars , artillery , and riflemen on both sides, it was often covered with barbed wire and land mines , and littered with the rotting corpses of those who were not able to make it across
38208-416: Was piqued when stocks of 7.92×33mm Kurz ammunition were captured from the Wehrmacht , and by the end of 1943, Soviet technicians had developed a similar cartridge based closely on the German design, the 7.62×39mm M43 . Early trials showed that the new round had the penetrative capacity to pierce three panels of plywood, each of 2.25 cm thickness, at a six hundred meter range. Red Army officials believed this
38407-399: Was shelved due to the German invasion, and did not resume until Simonov rechambered his weapon to accommodate the 7.62×39mm cartridge in 1944. He also made a number of other detail improvements to his original carbine, omitting the large and unwieldy muzzle brake, adding a folding bayonet, and replacing the metal gas system shroud with a removable wooden upper handguard and gas tube which housed
38606-443: Was still armed with 360 Type 56 carbines and 221 Type 56 assault rifles . PLA forces armed primarily with Type 56 carbines fought Soviet troops armed primarily with AK-47s during the Sino-Soviet border conflict . During the Sino-Vietnamese War , PLA infantry armed primarily with Type 56 carbines engaged Vietnamese infantry armed with the same weapon and its Soviet equivalent. The conflict was notable in that both sides commonly fielded
38805-425: Was still undergoing active field trials when Germany surrendered to the Allies in May 1945. At the war's end, the trials commission in the 1st Belorussian Front recommended the carbine be accepted into general service as the SKS-45. Mass production was delayed while the SKS underwent minor technical changes and alterations as a result of its trial performance during the war. By the end of the 1940s, it finally superseded
39004-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
39203-419: Was to ensure that riflemen could form an infantry square properly to fend off cavalry attacks when in ranks with musketmen, whose weapons were longer. A prime early example of a sword bayonet-fitted rifle is the Pattern 1800 Infantry Rifle, later known as the " Baker Rifle ". Sword bayonets were used by German Jagers in the 18th century. The hilt usually had quillons modified to accommodate the gun barrel and
39402-399: Was unavoidable. These melees, however, were not bayonet charges per se, as they were not executed or defended against by regular bodies of orderly infantry; rather, they were a chaotic series of individual combats where musket butts and fists were used alongside bayonets, swords, and polearms. The bayonet charge was a common tactic used during the Napoleonic wars . Despite its effectiveness,
39601-495: Was used by a number of insurgent armies fighting to overthrow colonial rule in Angola , Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South West Africa (Namibia). After Angolan independence, the Soviet Union delivered up to 5,000 SKS carbines to support the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during that country's lengthy civil war . The MPLA's primary opponent, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), commonly used Type 56 carbines supplied by China. The SKS
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