Founder of Soviet firearms design, creator of the DP-27, DShK, and PTRD
In May 1943, Stalin asked him which machine gun to adopt. Degtyaryov chose not his own DS-39 but Goryunov's rival SG-43: 'The SG-43 is unquestionably the superior model.'
The son of hereditary Tula gunsmiths with three years of parish schooling, Degtyaryov rose from tsarist army private to founder of Soviet firearms design. Learning automatic weapons as Fyodorov's assistant, he headed the USSR's first firearms design bureau at Kovrov from 1918 and completed the DP-27 light machine gun in 1927, the Red Army's standard squad automatic through 1945. Nineteen of his designs entered service including the DShK, PPD, PTRD-41, and RPD, while his bureau became the Degtyaryov Plant (ZiD), still a major Russian arms manufacturer. Second-ever Hero of Socialist Labour after Stalin, four-time Stalin Prize winner, and Major General, Degtyaryov drew the genealogy of Soviet infantry weapons from the 1920s through 1945.
Career Timeline
- 1901–1905Gunsmith and armourer, Oranienbaum Officers' Rifle School
- 1906–1917Assistant to V.G. Fyodorov on the first Russian automatic rifles
- 1918–1931Head of experimental workshop, Kovrov Machine Gun Plant — USSR's first firearms design bureau
- 1927DP-27 light machine gun adopted by the Red Army
- 1930–1939Development of DK/DShK heavy machine gun, PPD submachine gun, and DS-39 medium machine gun
- 1940–1949Chief of Special Design Bureau (OKB) at Kovrov; Doctor of Technical Sciences; Major General
- 1941Emergency design and mass production of PTRD-41 anti-tank rifle (Stalin Prize 2nd Class)
- 1944Completed RPD light machine gun; promoted to Major General of Engineering-Artillery Service