The Fedorov Avtomat (also anglicized as Federov,
) or FA is a
select-fire
Selective fire is the capability of a weapon to be adjusted to fire in semi-automatic, fully automatic, and/or burst mode. The modes are chosen by means of a selector switch, which varies depending on the weapon's design. Some selective-fire we ...
infantry rifle and also one of the world's first operational automatic rifles, designed by
Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov
Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov (russian: Владимир Григорьевич Фёдоров) (3 (15) May, 1874, Saint Petersburg – 19 September 1966, Moscow) was a Russian and Soviet scientist, weapons designer, professor, lieutenant general ...
in 1915 and produced in the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and later in the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
. A total of 3,200 Fedorov rifles were manufactured between 1915 and 1924 in the city of
Kovrov
Kovrov (russian: Ковро́в) is a city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of the Klyazma River, a tributary of the Oka. Kovrov's population as of the 2021 Census was 132,417, down from 145,214 recorded in the 2010 Censu ...
; the vast majority of them were made after 1920. The weapon saw limited combat in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, but was used more substantially in the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
and in the
Winter War
The Winter War,, sv, Vinterkriget, rus, Зи́мняя война́, r=Zimnyaya voyna. The names Soviet–Finnish War 1939–1940 (russian: link=no, Сове́тско-финская война́ 1939–1940) and Soviet–Finland War 1 ...
. Some consider it to be an "early predecessor" or "ancestor" of the modern
assault rifle.
Design and development
![Stamp of Russia 2016 No 2115 Fedorov Avtomat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Stamp_of_Russia_2016_No_2115_Fedorov_Avtomat.jpg)
The Fedorov Avtomat is a
short-recoil operated, locked-breech weapon which fires from a
closed bolt
A semi or full-automatic firearm which is said to fire from a closed bolt is one where, when ready to fire, a round is in the chamber and the bolt and working parts are forward. When the trigger is pulled, the firing pin or striker fires th ...
. The bolt locking is achieved by a pair of symmetrical plates mounted to either side of the breech and held in place by a sheet metal cover, each with two lugs, one square and one round, mounted at either side of the breech, latching barrel and bolt together through recesses on the bolt. Those plates are allowed to tilt slightly down after about 10 mm of free recoil, unlocking the bolt. A bolt hold-open device is fitted and the firing mechanism is of hammer type.
Captain V. Fedorov began a prototype of a
semi-automatic rifle
A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt-a ...
in 1906, working with future small arms designer
Vasily Degtyaryov
Vasily Alekseyevich Degtyaryov (russian: Васи́лий Алексе́евич Дегтярёв; 2 January 1880, Tula – 16 January 1949, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian engineer who specialized in weapons design. He was awarded the title ...
as his assistant. A model was submitted to the Rifle Commission of the Russian army in 1911, which eventually ordered 150 more rifles for testing. In 1913, Fedorov submitted a prototype automatic rifle with a stripper clip-fed fixed magazine, chambered for his own experimental rimless 6.5 mm cartridge, called the
6.5mm Fedorov. This new rimless ammunition was more compact than the rimmed Russian
7.62×54mmR
The 7.62×54mmR is a rimmed rifle cartridge developed by the Russian Empire and introduced as a service cartridge in 1891. Originally designed for the bolt-action Mosin–Nagant rifle, it was used during the late tsarist era and throughout th ...
, better suited for automatic weapons and produced less recoil, however, the round was prone to occasional jamming. When fired from an 800 mm barrel, this experimental cartridge propelled a pointed jacketed bullet weighing 8.5 grams at an initial velocity of 860 m/s with a muzzle energy of 3,140 J as opposed to the 3,550 J muzzle energy of 7.62×54mmR ammunition from a barrel of the same length. 6.5 mm Fedorov rifles were tested late in 1913 with somewhat favorable results.
In the autumn of 1915, Fedorov was posted as a
military observer
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
to France, in the
Mont-Saint-Éloi
Mont-Saint-Éloi (; vls, Sint-Elooisberg) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.
Geography
Mont-Saint-Éloi is situated northwest of Arras, at the junction of the D341 and the D49 roads, on the ...
sector. Here he was impressed by the ubiquity of the French
Chauchat
The Chauchat ("show-sha", ) was the standard light machine gun or "machine rifle" of the French Army during World War I (1914–18). Its official designation was "Fusil Mitrailleur Modele 1915 CSRG" ("Machine Rifle Model 1915 CSRG"). Beginning i ...
and by the firepower it brought, but less so about its mobility. According to Fedorov's memoirs, it is here he came up with the idea of introducing into Russian service a weapon with firepower intermediate between the rifle and the light machine gun, but with mobility comparable to a rifle. His decision to adapt his semi-automatic rifle design for this purpose was one of wartime expediency. Fedorov set to the task upon his return to Russia in January 1916. He retained the mechanism of his semi-automatic rifle, with the major addition of a
selective fire
Selective fire is the capability of a weapon to be adjusted to fire in semi-automatic, fully automatic, and/or burst mode. The modes are chosen by means of a selector switch, which varies depending on the weapon's design. Some selective-fire we ...
switch. The fixed magazine was replaced by a curved 25-round detachable
box magazine
A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device for a repeating firearm, either integral within the gun (internal/fixed magazine) or externally attached (detachable magazine). The magazine functions by holding several cartridges with ...
. Due to limited trial nature of its production, most of its parts were custom fitted and not interchangeable, including the magazine. Therefore, in practice, the Fedorov was issued to the troops with only three magazines, which would be reloaded through the breech via standard 5-round Arisaka
stripper clips
A stripper clip (also known as a charger or charger clip, especially in British and in Commonwealth military vocabulary) is a speedloader that holds several cartridges (usually between 5 and 10) together in a single unit for easier and faster lo ...
.
Production of the new cartridge was out of question so it was decided to convert 6.5 mm Fedorov rifles to use the Japanese
6.5×50mmSR Arisaka
The 6.5x50mmSR Arisaka is a semi-rimmed rifle cartridge with a 6.5 mm (.264 in) diameter bullet. It was the standard Japanese military cartridge from 1897 until the late 1930s for service rifles and machine guns when it was gradually repla ...
ammunition which was in abundance, having been purchased from Japan and the United Kingdom along with
Arisaka rifles. (About 763,000 Arisaka-type rifles were imported to Russia,
along with approximately 400 million cartridges for them; domestic production of the Arisaka cartridge remained insignificant though.
) The change of ammunition involved only minimal changes to the rifle, including a chamber insert and a new range scale for the rear sights. The somewhat less powerful Japanese cartridge meant that the muzzle velocity was only about 654–660 m/s because of constrained barrel length.
A US Army analysis from the early 1950s considered that the Fedorov Avtomat was unreasonably complex to manufacture and that it suffered from rapid overheating of the barrel on automatic fire.
[ Russian tests indicated that the gun could fire about 300 rounds continuously before heat buildup rendered it inoperable. This was still an improvement compared to the Mosin–Nagant M1891 rifles, which would begin to smolder after 100 rounds. The main factor in the increased heat dissipation was the metal shroud over the barrel at the end of the forearm, which acted as a radiator. In terms of accuracy, Russian data indicates that when fired in short bursts the Fedorov Avtomat could reliably hit targets having a profile of 0.6×0.5 m at a distance of 200 m. At 400 m the dispersion increased to 1.1×0.9 m and at 800 m it was 2.1×1.85 m. Consequently, burst fire was only considered effective up to about 500 m.
]
Production and service
In 1916, the Weapons Committee of the Russian Army decided to order no less than 25,000 Fedorov automatic rifles. In the summer of 1916, a company from the 189th Izmail Regiment was equipped with eight Fedorov Avtomats. Trained in tactics with the new weapon, they concluded that the Fedorov worked best as a crew-served weapon: the gunner armed with the Fedorov, and an ammo bearer armed with an Arisaka rifle. As both weapons used the same ammo and same 5-round stripper clips, this allowed for the greatest flexibility. It also allowed for the ammo bearer to fire defensively, while the gunner reloaded. It was also recommended that the primary mode of fire be in semi-automatic, as the Fedorov would rapidly overheat in full-automatic. After completing their training, the company was deployed to the Romanian front in early 1917. It was supposed to report back valuable combat experience with the new weapon, but this did not happen because the company disintegrated during the Kerensky Offensive. About 10 other Avtomats were given to the Russian naval aviation
The Russian Naval Aviation ( rus, Авиация Военно-морского флота России, r=Aviatsiya Voenno-morskovo Flota Rossii) is the air arm of the Russian Navy, a successor of Soviet Naval Aviation. The Russian Navy is divid ...
; Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia (russian: Александр Михайлович ''Aleksandr Mikhailovich''; 13 April 1866 – 26 February 1933) was a dynast of the Russian Empire, a naval officer, an author, explorer, the brother-i ...
telegraphed back that his pilots found it more suitable than the Chauchat in light aircraft.
In early 1917, the order for Fedorov rifles was limited to 5,000 weapons. However, only about 100 Fedorov Avtomats had been produced before the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, when production was halted. The gun's cost estimated in 1918 was 1,090 rubles; in comparison the cost of a Madsen light machine gun was around 1,730 rubles at that time.
In 1920, Lev Kamenev found the Fedorov Avtomat to be a promising design and authorized a limited production run. The Avtomat was used to equip Red Army units in the Karelian sector during the Karelian Uprising, particularly the ski battalion of Toivo Antikainen. Reports from combat experiences with the gun during 1921–1922 were very positive as long as spare parts were available. In 1923, 10,000 copies of a 46-page manual for the gun were printed.
Despite some noted reliability issues and performance issues, the Fedorov Avtomat was deemed acceptable for Red Army use in a 1924 review. However, due to supply problems, Soviet leaders decided to abandon all weapons using foreign ammunition. As a consequence, production of the Fedorov Avtomat was halted in October 1925. Only 3,200 Fedorovs were manufactured between 1915 and 1925.
At the time of its use, the Fedorov Avtomat was one of only three practical fully automatic rifles in service, the other two being the American M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle
The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is a family of American automatic rifles and machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the . ...
and the French Chauchat. Although these alternative rifles were initially intended for mobile assault fire, both models became more or less exclusively used as stationary light machine guns due to their higher weight and caliber. However, the lighter, lower recoil Fedorov Avtomat, which was less than half the weight of the BAR and CSRG, retained a unique niche role as a mobile assault rifle. Despite this pioneering status, the Fedorov Avtomat was not without its flaws, and was notoriously difficult to clean, maintain, and repair.
After 1925, the rifle was withdrawn from service and put in storage; the last unit to give it up was the Moscow Proletariat Red Banner Rifle Division in 1928. During the 1939–1940 Soviet–Finnish war, an acute lack of individual automatic weapons led to the reintroduction of the stockpiled Fedorovs into service. They were sent to the Karelian front, mostly to military intelligence units. It is presumed that most of the Fedorov Avtomats were expended or destroyed during that war.
Terminology
Initially Fedorov wanted to call the class of weapons to which his new gun belonged ручное ружьё-пулемет (lit. "handheld light-machine-gun", i.e. a lighter class than ружьё-пулемет which denoted light machine gun
A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridges of the same caliber as the other riflemen of the sam ...
s like the Madsen), which reflected his tactical thinking behind the development of the weapon. This designation appeared in a September 1916 article in the journal of the Artillery Commission. Fedorov's superior, General Nikolai Filatov is credited for introducing the much shorter term "avtomat" for the gun—a neologism derived from the Greek word 'automaton
An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...
' and synonymous with the English word " automatic", this is the one that stuck. Written records of this new term being applied to the gun date to 1919.
In contemporary Russian terminology, the word "avtomat" (literally translating to "automatic") typically denotes the equivalent of the English-language terminology "assault rifle", such as the Avtomat Kalashnikova for example. This differs from the terminology typically used when referring to automatic full-power cartridge rifles, such as the AVS-36
The AVS-36 (from ''Avtomaticheskaya Vintovka Simonova 1936 model''; russian: Автоматическая винтовка Симонова образца 1936 года (АВС-36)) was a Soviet automatic rifle which saw service in the early year ...
and AVT-40
The SVT-40 (Samozaryadnaya Vintovka Tokareva, Obrazets 1940 goda, "Tokarev self-loading rifle, model of 1940", Russian: Самозарядная винтовка Токарева, образец 1940 года, often nicknamed "''Svetlana, Sveta'' ...
, which instead use the separate terminology "avtomaticheskaya". Contemporary Western writers have struggled to classify the Fedorov Avtomat. Some consider it to be an "early predecessor" or "ancestor" to the modern assault rifle, while others believe that the Fedorov Avtomat was the world's first assault rifle. The dispute centers on whether the cartridge, which was "one of the least powerful rifle-caliber cartridges then in use", counts as a full-power or intermediate-power cartridge, and whether or not official doctrine and combat practice also contributes to such designation. This raises the question of whether it is necessary at all to apply modern nomenclature to weapons that precede it and are clearly defined in the terms of the time. Still other writers argue that the Cei-Rigotti
The Cei-Rigotti (also known as the Cei gas rifle) is an early automatic rifle created in the final years of the 19th century by Amerigo Cei-Rigotti, an officer in the Royal Italian Army. Although the rifle was never officially adopted by any mili ...
(which predates the Fedorov by 20 years) was the world's first assault rifle because it was also select-fire and chambered for an intermediate-power cartridge; however, its 25-round magazine was fed by stripper clips rather than being detachable, although prototypes with magazines up to a capacity of 50 rounds reportedly existed.
See also
*List of Russian inventions
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
*List of battle rifles
Battle rifles are full-powered rifles, full-length, fully automatic or semi-automatic rifles that have been adopted by a nation's military. The difference between a battle rifle and a designated marksman rifle is often only one of terminology wit ...
*Ribeyrolles 1918 Automatic Carbine
The Ribeyrolles 1918 was an attempt to manufacture an automatic rifle for the French forces. It was chambered in the experimental 8×35mm round, used straight blowback, was fed from a 25-round detachable magazine and had an effective range of 4 ...
* Mondragón rifle
*Furrer M25
The ''Leichtes Maschinengewehr Modell 1925'' (shortened to Lmg 25) is a Swiss recoil operated light machine gun designed by Colonel Adolf Furrer of Waffenfabrik Bern in the 1920s and produced from 1925 to the 1960s.
It was the first machine gun in ...
*Huot Automatic Rifle
The Huot Automatic Rifle was a Canadian World War I era light machine gun project.
Design and development
In 1916, the Canadian Expeditionary Force was desperately short of light machine guns. Since the Ross rifle had finally been taken out of s ...
*M1941 Johnson machine gun
The M1941 Johnson Light Machine Gun, also known as the ''Johnson'' and the ''Johnny gun'', was an American recoil-operated light machine gun designed in the late 1930s by Melvin Johnson. It shared the same operating principle and many parts with ...
*Sturmgewehr 44
The StG 44 (abbreviation of Sturmgewehr 44, "assault rifle 44") is a German assault rifle developed during World War II by Hugo Schmeisser. It is also known by its early designations as the MP 43 and MP 44 (''Maschinenpistole 43'' and ''44''). ...
*Tokarev Model 1927
The Tokarev Model 1927 submachine gun was an experimental firearm developed in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Fedor Vasilievich Tokarev as part of the Soviet Union's drive to be self sufficient in armaments. It was a blowback-operated, ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
*
*
{{WWIRussianArms
Automatic rifles
Russian inventions
Rifles of the Russian Empire
World War I Russian infantry weapons