DShK Heavy Machine Gun

The development of the DShK (Degtiarev-Shpagin Large Caliber) was started in 1930. DShK was accepted into the Red Army in February 1939. The machine gun uses 12.7 mm cartridges based on ammo for the British Vickers machine gun of the same caliber. The bullets come in armor piercing B-30 and AP/incendiary B-32 varieties. Prior to the war, 2000 DShK machine guns had been produced, but in January 1944 the number of machine guns in the army was 8440. In February 1945 the first set of 250 modernized DShKM's was produced, which mainly saw service after the war.
In its anti-aircraft role, it was successfully used against low flying aircraft. A collimator sight was used when utilizing the machine gun for AA purposes. DShK's versatility was due to its installation on mounts designed by I.N.Kolesnikov. The firing on ground targets was conducted from the wheel base, when the mount's three legs were collapsed. When firing at the air targets, the wheels were separated and the mount was deployed as a tripod. The redeployment form one role to the other was done in minutes.

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