WI: The soviet union invents an AK earlier?

As the Great Patriotic War starts, soviet spies in Germany acquire the blueprints of a new weapon being developed by the Nazis, something they're calling "Maschinenkarabiner", though no prototypes has been produced yet. It's a full auto rifle that uses an intermidiate caliber.
Upon analisys by Soviet engineers, the design is deemed flawed, but the concept gives insights of a new kind of weapon. Combining elements of different guns, they're able to produce a weapon capable of selective fire. Morevoer, the weapon is simple, reliable and easy to use. One of the Generals overseeing the project calls it "The T-34 of rifles".
The Chief engineer of the project is a young man called German Korobov, and thus the weapon is named Avtomat Korobova-1942, AK-42.
The weapon will be tested by a single company in the battle of Stalingrad.

What happens?
 
Last edited:
I can't see the Russians aquiring a design from the Germans, experiment with producing a prototype of this weapon to meet Russian requirements, and get sufficient numbers in production in time for Stalingrad. The prototypes of the Maschinenkarabiner1942, both MKb 42(H), and MKb 42(W) in OTL, weren't tested until late '42/'43. Even if these problems were overcome by the Russians, Small arms were one of the few things that were not aquired through Lend-Lease, so any new small arms development is sure to disrupt production of much needed weapons.
 
I can't see the Russians aquiring a design from the Germans, experiment with producing a prototype of this weapon to meet Russian requirements, and get sufficient numbers in production in time for Stalingrad. The prototypes of the Maschinenkarabiner1942, both MKb 42(H), and MKb 42(W) in OTL, weren't tested until late '42/'43. Even if these problems were overcome by the Russians, Small arms were one of the few things that were not aquired through Lend-Lease, so any new small arms development is sure to disrupt production of much needed weapons.

Not the most reallistic of backstories, I know. And the pace of the progress made by the design bureau is mary sueish. The entire concept is rather ASB.
But, for the sake of argument, let's say that a single company is equiped with this AK-42 at the battle of Stalingrad, for testing purposes. Production is marginal at this point.
How would this company fare, and how would the Russian High command react to this new weapon?
How will the rest of the world react to an eariler AK-47 analogue?
 
I don't think you'd see it doing a whole lot better then the PPSh (I think that's the right capitalizations?) which did a perfectly fine job of turning people into ground meat up close.
 
Top