WI Kalishnikov Assault Rifle developed in 1937

Hello Mr. Williams,

Seeing that you co-authored books with Max Popenker, I'm sure that you aware about glorious Soviet tradition to substantiate every R&D with references to "foreign experience". Inferiority complex ran deep in the minds of Soviet leaders, so they could not believe that Soviet engineers could produce advanced design of anything (that could very well contribute to USSR's demise but that's another topic).
This is a common trait in the West today, and accounts for the huge success of consultants:firms emmply them to produce a report and recommendations on some subject; the management provides them with the information they need plus their preferred outcome, and the consultants duly recommmend that outcome! The Directors are satisfied that this must be the right strategy, and everone is happy...

Mkb42 did not have a chance to be captured before Winter 1942-1943, and, although I don't have references handy, I somehow doubts that M1 Carbine was supplied to the USSR within lend-lease before mid-1943 (remembering that American closest ally Great Britain gained access to them in the mid-1943), leaving Soviet designers with precious little time to actually copy new round.

The MKb 42 was indeed captured in late 1942, apparently. I don't know about the M1 Carbine, but it wouldn't surprise me if the USA sent one over by mid-1943.
 
Maybe an earlier Winter War, say 1931-34, or so. The Russkies get the shit smacked out of them somehow (earlier Stalinist purges?). Then, by a stroke (haha!) of luck, Stalin has a minor stroke, is out of action for a while, and a triumvirate or something rules in his stead. They see the sense in a change of doctrine, appoint better military leaders, and start changing the hardware. Maybe the '31-'34 war showed that soldiers start engaging in much closer rangers, making the bolt-action rifles totally crap, and they decide to mass-produce fully-automatic small arms, starting with a submachine gun in early 1936. They continue development, and in late 1937, they make a variation chambered for more compact rifle rounds, rather than full-rifle rounds. Stalin recovers by mid-1938.
I somehow doubt that Stalin would start Winter War in 1931. USSR is poor agricultural nation in the middle of frantic industrialization effort at this point, they desperately needed Western know-how and whatever resources they have are stretched to the limit (remember that this is time of Holodomor, caused by combination of poor crop and excessive grain export to finance industrialization).

As I said, Soviets understood advantages of self-reloading rifle very clearly and were pouring as much resources as they could afford into R&D. They were one of two nations in the world who had large-scale adoption programs for self-reloaders (second being USA). Expect them to move to intermediate round almost 15 years before they did it OTL is not very realistic, especially taking into account logistic problems (introduction of the intermediate round requires 3rd supply chain, as army will be using both 7.62x54R, 7,62 Tokarev and whatever intermediate round they will adopt in this TL). Even at the peak of it's industrial-military might Soviets avoided logistic complications as much as they could and frantically tried to have only 2 mainstream round (that deprived Soviet Army of submachine guns OTL, leaving them with overpovered and unwieldly AKS/AKSU).

This is a common trait in the West today, and accounts for the huge success of consultants:firms emmply them to produce a report and recommendations on some subject; the management provides them with the information they need plus their preferred outcome, and the consultants duly recommmend that outcome! The Directors are satisfied that this must be the right strategy, and everone is happy...
Yeah, I'm aware of this trait, but I meant something else. Management does not have preferred outcome in mind. They are open to suggestions but do not trust their ability to "price the market", so to speak. What they do? Naturally, they look for guidance at "market leaders", asking themselves "What will Warren Buffet do?" So, if you are an R&D chief trying to push your design/market prediction through boardroom full of those boneheads, what would you do? Naturally, you will refer to Warren Buffet already doing exactly the thing you proposed. And it does not matter what Buffet really does.

The MKb 42 was indeed captured in late 1942, apparently. I don't know about the M1 Carbine, but it wouldn't surprise me if the USA sent one over by mid-1943.
Regarding M1 Carbine, I remember seeing stat data on lend-lease @ waronline.org. Soviets did not request any small arms from Allies mainly for the fear of ammo supply problems, and did not receive that many. Some Tompson SMGs, mostly as part of M4 Sherman's kit. Even those were mainly used @ Far North, where closeness to the Murmansk/Arkhangelsk depots alleviated supply problem. And I don't remember any data about M1 Carbines being supplied/issued to Soviet troops. Which, of course, does NOT exclude scenario of few carbines finding their way to Soviet R&D centers.
 
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