Why did being assigned as a machine gunner in the Red Army mean you’d be dead within your first three battles? 85% of Soviet soldiers who manned Maxim or DP28 machine guns never survived the war. That’s higher than flamethrower operators, higher than tank crews, higher than penal battalion troops. Only 15 out of every 100 machine gunners live to see victory.

 And the reason why? Well, it reveals one of the darkest truths about how the Soviet Union actually fought World War II. Let’s begin. When Germany launched Operation Barbarasa on June 22nd, 1941, the Red Army collapsed. Within 3 weeks, the Germans destroyed 28 Soviet divisions and captured 300,000 prisoners. By December, Soviet casualties exceeded 4.

5 million men. Now, I know those numbers sound almost abstract, but think about it. That’s more than the entire population of Los Angeles just gone in 6 months. Stalin needed bodies to stop the German advance, and he needed them fast. The solution was brutal and simple. Sacrifice machine gun crews to buy time for everyone else.

 Soviet military doctrine viewed machine guns as defensive [music] anchors, not mobile support weapons. Once a Maxim or DP28 was set up, it didn’t move. The crew didn’t retreat. They held position until overrun, then died in place. And here’s what gets me about this. This wasn’t poor tactics or battlefield chaos. This was official policy written into Red Army field manuals and enforced by NKVD blocking detachments positioned behind Soviet lines specifically to shoot anyone who ran.

 German Blitzkrieg tactics depended on speed and momentum. Armored spearheads would punch through defensive lines while infantry mopped up resistance. Soviet commanders couldn’t match German mobility or firepower, so they chose attrition. Machine gun crews became human trip wires, obstacles designed to slow the German advance, just long enough for Soviet forces to escape or prepare the next defensive line.

 The gunners weren’t expected to survive. They were expected to die slowly, and both sides knew it. Now, before we get into the weapons themselves, look at the math here. The Soviet Union produced approximately 600,000 Maximm 1910 machine guns and over 795,000 DP28 light machine guns during the war. Each gun required a crew of at least two men, the gunner and an assistant who fed ammunition and carried the spare barrel.

That’s nearly 3 million men assigned to machine gun crews over 4 years of war. If 85% died, that’s 2.5 million dead machine gunners, more than the entire Red Army had at the start of the war. The Maxim M1910 was a water cooled heavy machine gun based on Hyram Maxim’s 1884 design.

 The Soviets had been using it since 1910, hence the designation. It fired 600 rounds per minute and was absolutely devastating in prepared defensive positions. But it weighed 45 lb for just the gun itself. Add the wheeled mount and the total weight exceeded 90 pounds. The water jacket required four lers of water to prevent the barrel from overheating.

 In winter, that water froze solid, cracking the jacket and making the gun useless until thawed. Imagine trying to fight inus30° weather while your primary weapon literally freezes. The Germans had the MG42, which weighed 25 lbs, fired 1,200 rounds per minute, and could swap barrels in 5 seconds. The Maxim required 10 minutes to properly set up and couldn’t be moved quickly once positioned.

 German troops learned to spot the distinctive shield and wheel silhouette, call in mortar fire, and destroy the position before the crew could displace. It was like painting a target on your back. The DP28 light machine gun was more mobile, but had its own fatal flaws. It weighed 20 lb with its distinctive pan magazine mounted on top.

 You’ve probably seen it in movies, that weird circular magazine. The bipod was flimsy, prone to breaking under recoil. The recoil spring weakened after sustained firing, causing frequent jams, and that pan magazine limited suppressive fire. You could empty it in 5 seconds of automatic fire, then spend 30 seconds reloading while completely exposed.

 German infantry learned to rush DP28 positions during magazine changes. They’d literally count the seconds and charge. Soviet machine gun ammunition came in 250 round metal cans for the maxim carried by the assistant gunner along with a spare water can, tools, and a spare barrel. Total load exceeded 60 [music] lb.

 DP28 gunners carried four to six pan magazines in canvas pouches, another 20. Both crew members also carried their personal rifles, bayonets, gas masks, and rations. They were the slowest, most burdened men in any Soviet infantry unit. When the order came to retreat, machine gun crews couldn’t keep pace. Most were overrun and killed.

 But here’s the thing, and this is what really gets dark. Soviet doctrine explicitly forbade machine gun crews from retreating under any circumstances. Written orders from the Stavka stated that machine gun positions were to be held to the last man and last cartridge battalion and company commanders who allowed machine guns to withdraw faced court marshal.

 The crews themselves faced execution by NKVD blocking detachments if they abandoned their weapons. So you either died to the Germans in front of you or you died to your own side behind you. Some choice. Let me put you in that position. It’s September 1942 outside the city of Reev. You’re 20 years old, conscripted three months ago.

 You’ve had two weeks of training on the Maxim. Your unit is defending a small village against a German armored advance. Your sergeant points to a barn overlooking the main road and says, “Set up there. Hold until ordered to withdraw.” You know the order to withdraw will never come. You and your partner drag the Maxim and its mount into the barn’s hoft.

 You have three ammunition cans, 750 rounds total. You fill the water jacket from a nearby well. You feed the canvas belt. You clear the sightelines through the barn’s window and then you wait. The German column appears at dawn. Five panzer for fours followed by halftracks carrying infantry. Your sergeant gives the signal.

 You open fire for maybe 30 seconds. You feel powerful. Tracers arc toward the German column. You see infantry diving for cover. You see a halftrack swerve off the road. And then everything changes. German doctrine was ruthless and efficient. Spot the machine gun. Suppress with rifle fire. Call mortars. Destroy [music] it.

 Your muzzle flash gave away your position instantly. The first mortar rounds land short. The second salvo hits the barn. The roof caves in. Your partner is killed instantly by shrapnel. You’re wounded, bleeding from your leg and shoulder. The maxim is still operational. Soviet doctrine says you keep firing. You feed another belt. You press the trigger.

 The gun roars. More German infantry go down. Then a Panza 4 rotates its turret toward your position and fires a single 75 mm high explosive shell. The barn explodes. That’s how most Soviet machine gunners died. Not in glorious last stands, but in collapsing buildings buried under rubble, blown apart by artillery they never saw coming.

 German afteraction reports from 1941 and 1942 described the same pattern endlessly. Spot Soviet machine gun called fire mission. Position destroyed. Advance continues. It was almost mechanical. One German lieutenant wrote in his diary, “Recovered after the war, the Russians never abandon their machine guns. We’ve killed hundreds of them this way.

 They die without inflicting serious casualties. It seems wasteful, but I suppose they have men to spare.” He was right. Soviet commanders didn’t care about efficiency or kill ratios. They cared about buying time and machine gun crews were the currency. The Battle of Stalingrad in late 1942 became a machine gunner’s graveyard.

 Soviet forces positioned Maxims and DP28s in every ruined building, every shell crater, every pile of rubble. German infantry would spot a position, assault it, kill the crew, and move forward only to encounter another machine gun 50 yards later. Soviet commanders fed fresh crews into the same positions over and over, knowing each crew would die within hours.

 One building, later called the Red October factory, went through 23 different machine gun crews in 2 days. 23 [music] crews. 2 days. None survived. Now, something did change in 1943. As Soviet forces began pushing westward after Stalingrad and Kusk, machine gun doctrine evolved. Mobile warfare required flexibility. Crews were finally given discretion to displace after firing.

 They were taught fire and maneuver tactics. Survival rates improved slightly, rising from 15% to perhaps 25%. But the damage was already done. Between 1941 and 1943, the Red Army had burned through its [music] experienced machine gunners. Replacements received almost no training. By 1944, men were handed a DP28, given a 10-minute demonstration, and sent to the front.

 They didn’t know how to set proper fields of fire. They didn’t know how to camouflage positions. They didn’t know when to displace. Casualty rates for these untrained crews reached 90%. Nine out of 10 dead. A Soviet veteran named Dmitri Kalanin, [music] interviewed in 1995, described his experience as a DP28 gunner in Ukraine, 1944.

 I was assigned the gun after the previous gunner was killed. No one told me how to use it. My assistant and I figured it out by watching. We lasted 4 days. On the fourth day, German mortars found us. My assistant died instantly. I was wounded in both legs. A medic pulled me out during a lull, disobeying direct orders. He was reprimanded for saving my life instead of leaving me to die. Think about that.

Reprimanded for saving a life. Even in 1945, as Soviet forces advanced into Germany and victory was certain, machine gun crews continued dying at horrific rates. German defenders fighting desperately on their own soil targeted Soviet machine guns with veteran precision. They had had four years of practice after all.

 After the war, the Soviet Union never acknowledged the sacrifice of its machine gunners. Official histories praised tank crews, snipers, guards, rifle divisions. Machine gunners were barely mentioned, perhaps because their story revealed too much about Soviet tactics. Perhaps because admitting 2.5 million men were deliberately sacrificed as human obstacles didn’t fit the heroic narrative of the Great Patriotic War.

The few survivors carried the weight forever. They’d watched friends die beside them, seen replacement crews arrive and die within hours, knew they’d been expendable from the moment they were handed the gun. Kalinan said it simply in his interview. We weren’t soldiers. We were ammunition. Our job was to be spent so others could advance.

Most of us were. Today, when historians analyze Soviet victory in World War II, they focus on tank armies, deep operations, partisan warfare. But the machine gunners revealed a darker foundation, a willingness to spend human lives without hesitation. They were given the most dangerous job on the battlefield.

 denied any option to retreat and replaced immediately when killed. 85% never came home and their commanders knew it would happen before they ever loaded the first belt.