An exhibition has been set up in St. Petersburg to display weapons of the Second World War, the Voice of Russia reports. The staff of the War History Museum of Artillery, Engineer Troops and Army Signal Corps has timed it for a memorable date. – The Red Flag was hoisted over the Reichstag on May 1st 1945 as the symbol of victory in the most terrible war of the 20th century.
The exhibition is a major project dedicated to the 65th Victory Day. The exhibition lays emphasis on small arms, since it is not only troops and nations, but also gun designers that fought in the Second World War. The outcome of military operations would often depend on the quality, reliability and the rate of production of weapons during the war, says a Fellow with the War History Museum Fyodor Zorin, and elaborates.
We have set up the exhibition, Fyodor Zorin says, to show the weapons that our fathers and grandfathers used to fight and win Germans, just as the weapons of our allies, - the United States and Britain. We also show, of course, the weapons of our enemy. Visitors are free to make comparisons. We’ve got on display almost all weapons that were used in the war. These are magazine and semiautomatic rifles, machineguns of all types, namely light machineguns, medium machineguns and aircraft machineguns, and also submachine-guns.
The Soviet arms were so easy to make and/or assemble that they left the German counterpart far behind, the Russian expert says. Besides, the Soviet Union manufactured arms in such huge quantities that it simply crushed the enemy war industry. Fyodor Zorin says that the exhibition also features a number of absolutely unique weapon designs.
This is the Bra-Mit tool to make firing noiseless, Fyodor Zorin says. This is the first time ever that the tool has been exhibited. This is the first Soviet silencer, designed back in the 1930s. Of course, it was imperfect in many ways, but did its main job well. It was a dual-chamber tool, with a smaller cartridge, so the gun report was silenced through a partial release of powder gases.
The silencer was designed by the Mitin brothers. And it was after them that the tool was named Bra-Mit, or Brothers Mitin. It was meant to be used with the Nagan revolver and the Mosin rifle. During the Second World War the silencer was used by sharpshooters, reconnaissance groups, the Interior Ministry special-purpose troops in the enemy rear, to quietly wipe out Germans.
Some exhibits exist in a single copy, like Marshal Voroshilov’s personal pistol, as well as the Shpitalny-Kamaritsky chain aircraft machinegun that Tula arms-manufacturers presented Joseph Stalin with. The organizers believe that since the exhibition will be on until October, the visitors will be able to se quite a few things of interest. After all, St. Petersburg boasts the world’s richest collection of the Second World War weapons.
