![]() ![]() Entering service in 1949, the KPV was widely adopted on armored vehicles, as well as into the ZPU family of single, double and quadruple-mount anti-aircraft guns. 50 caliber, increasing range to two miles. In 1944, the Soviet Union also began developing the even beefier KPV heavy machine gun, which fired 14.5-millimeter rounds mustering the twice the power of a. China built its own copy called the Type 54, and license production also took place in Pakistan, Iran, Yugoslavia, Romania and Czechoslovakia. Over a million of these were produced between 19 and exported widely throughout Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. The Soviets decided the DShK had proven quite useful in World War II and devised the improved DShK 38/46 or DsHK-M model with a revised muzzle and belt-feed system. ![]() The upward-firing weapons were also useful for shooting at snipers atop tall urban buildings. The hail of large-caliber anti-aircraft fire Soviet heavy tanks could now generate destroyed or disrupted numerous attackers. ![]() In 1944, this led the Red Army to begin equipping huge Josef Stalin II heavy tanks and JSU-152 “Animal Killer” self-propelled guns with Dushkas atop the turret. Unlike on the Western Allies, Luftwaffe Ju-87G Stuka and Hs-123 ground attack planes armed with tank-busting cannons continued to reap a heavy toll of Soviet armor even late into the war. More exotic mounts included Red Navy patrol and torpedo boats, armored trains and T-40 amphibious tanks However, the heavy weapons obviously lent themselves to vehicle mounts-notably, GAZ-AA trucks sporting single or triple DShKs for protecting mechanized columns from air attack. Around nine thousand DShK’s were produced during World War II, serving primarily in Red Army anti-aircraft units. ![]()
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