The Vietnam War was one of the final foreign conflicts where returning U.S. military members were allowed to come home with import-legal, semi-automatic military small arms as war trophies, with the required documentation. Though the Soviet-designed SKS carbine and its licensed clones were considered a prize, more than 50 years later, it was learned that two officially described variants unknowingly weren’t the real Russian deal! As a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst and technical equipment specialist for 22 years, my opportunity to examine, conduct live-fire exercises and provide instruction on Communist Bloc small arms was fortuitous. The 1970s was a time when United States military personnel were able to observe, first-hand, Soviet, Chinese and other indigenous Iron- and Bamboo-Curtain military ordnance, well before the American surplus collecting public had a chance to obtain such exotic arms. The People’s Republic of Vietnam, from 1959 until the end of U.S. involvement in South Vietnam in May 1975, continued receiving foreign aid from several Eastern European countries, as well as various Soviet client states. However, without a shred of doubt, the People’s Republic of China was Hanoi’s greatest arms supplier. At the time, U.S. intelligence hardly realized the existence of other licensed variants of the Russian SKS, notably the Romanian Puska Type 56 and East Germany’s “Karabiner S.”
The Soviet Union indeed assisted North Vietnam in obtaining various ordnance, such as surface-to-air missiles and other weaponry that included small arms as well. Generally speaking, the Russian presence in North Vietnam was heavily veiled, despite 3,000 boots on the ground during the Vietnam War. Regarding Russia’s Samozaryadny Karabina Sistemy Simonova (Semi-Automatic Carbine System Simonova) or SKS, an unmistakable reality is that the majority of these carbines taken as “bring-backs,” or trophies of war, were more often Chinese-produced Type 56 SKS carbines. It was no secret that China supplied the lion’s share of these to North Vietnam beginning in 1959.
This Romanian Type 56 is one of Nicolae Ceausescu’s contributions to the North Vietnamese communist cause. Brought back from Vietnam in 1970, this SKS (dated to 1960) was incorrectly recorded as originating from Russia, and its export license also had the same error. Whoever typed out the rifle’s Form 603 noticed the error and rectified it through a line out. Its birch wood stocks and overall condition appear well-preserved in spite of Vietnam’s humid tropical climate. Adrian Van Dyk Collection/Stuart Mowbray photos.
Between 1970 and 1972, I deployed on four temporary duty (TDY) missions to the Republic of South Vietnam, from my home unit in Okinawa, with the 1st Special Forces Group (SAFASIA). I personally noted the presence of some captured Russian SKS carbines—but at a far lower percentage than those of their Chinese-made counterparts. The SKS is, unquestionably, the best-known Communist Bloc semi-automatic carbine, and it is still in service in a number of countries today. It has been seen in several small wars of liberation in both Africa and areas of Latin America, and communist China retains it as a training arm for students, labor battalions or rural reserve units. In the Russian Federation, the SKS is still carried by honor guards lining Red Square on Victory Day, as well as by guards of the tombs of the unknown soldier in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Being a far more traditional rifle design, the SKS can be handled with the dexterity of a conventional rifle far better than the clumsier AK-47, in a practice similar to that of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, “The Old Guard,” that utilizes the well-balanced M14 in lieu of the M16 for precision drill movements at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington D.C. Interestingly, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania also prefer the SKS for special ceremonies as well.
From a combat perspective, the 7.62x39 mm SKS carbine with a fixed 10-shot magazine and underfolder bayonet saw its most prolific hour of combat during the Vietnam War, along with users in Cambodia, Laos and elsewhere worldwide. In regards to battlefield pickups and their documentation, namely the DD Form 603-1 and South Vietnamese customs forms for export, it has been seen that not all annotated forms had been correctly recorded by both U.S. Army provost marshal officers and intelligence authorities. Primarily, this was attributable to so little information being available on numerous SKS variations. In reality, it wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s, the second “golden age” of military surplus arms, that a few previously unknown SKS carbines had been revealed for the first time. Namely, these were the Albanian and Romanian variants. In 1999, while employed by a U.S. government contractor, I had my own introduction to the Albanian “Tipi (Type) 56-1,” observed during the destruction of several thousand small arms at a demilitarization point on the Kosovar-Albanian border. Firearms used by all sides during the Balkan War fell into this category following the dissolution of communist Yugoslavia. Fortunately, some 5,700 Albanian Type 56-1 SKS carbines were spared from the torch and imported into the United States. Another unknown SKS identified in the 2000s, that had actually slipped into American hands earlier on from Vietnam, was the Romanian Pushka Type 56.
In early spring of 1968, Romanian Premier Nicolae Ceauşescu stated he felt terrible that, “American imperialists were killing the peaceful communist Vietnamese people without compunction,” and, subsequently, Romania supplied Hanoi with some 7,350 different small arms, of which 4,225 were the licensed version of the Romanian Type 56 SKS carbine. The neutral Swedish cargo ship, Agnetha Halborg, departed the Bulgarian port of Varna with Romania’s ordnance on Aug. 9, 1968, bound for Haiphong, North Vietnam. What was confusing to U.S. intelligence regarding the Romanian SKS was its serial number, which used Latin alphabet prefixes before the number, followed by a production year that was anywhere from 1958 to 1960. Letters such as AA, EF, GH, FG, CD, CH and others were often used in conjunction with a production year. What should have alerted intelligence personnel to their origin as “other than Russian” was that all had Latin letter prefixes and none were found marked in Russian Cyrillic.
Adding to the confusion was the fact that, well after the Cold War subsided, certain Romanian defense officials in high places frequently denied the SKS was ever built or used by them. Indeed, they were, but the arms had been produced under a “forced licensing system” harshly imposed by the Soviets, due to Romania’s fervor as a Third Reich ally—especially given the brutality with which Soviet subjects were treated by Romanian forces during World War II, particularly in Ukraine. By the time this small number of Romanian SKS carbines was imported in the early 2000s, though, the question was largely academic.
The front, left receiver flat of this bring-back East German Karabiner S (l. & middle) was heavily defaced to hide the East German defense ministry’s MiFNV mark. Even in such rough condition, an example like this will draw prices from collectors in the high four figures—and even five figures at times. The forward portion of the Karabiner S (r.) lacks a cleaning rod mount among other subtle differences from Russian and Romanian models. Howard Bearse Collection and photos.
Another SKS version brought back from Vietnam mistakenly recorded as being of Russian origin, but in far smaller numbers compared to the Romanian version, was the East German Karabiner S, the German Democratic Republic’s licensed variant. Unlike the Romanian Type 56, these had purposefully defaced markings in an attempt to hide their origin. One of my colleagues, Allo Junger, a former East German National Volks Armee Stabsoberfahnricht (the equivalent of a chief warrant officer in the U.S. Army), located both post-German-unification and pre-1990 DDR ordnance documents at the old Dresden and Leipzig archival library. He was fortunate to have retrieved these prior to many such records being destroyed by the Merkel government.
This magnificently preserved East German Karabiner S displays obvious differences from all other SKS carbines of its genre, namely the classical German cut-out in the buttstock for a sling and the lack of provision for an external cleaning rod. The as-new gun was presented to Lt. Gen. Garrison H. Davidson, commanding general of the Seventh Army, during his change of command upon his departure from West Germany. Present for the building of the Berlin Wall, it was one of three Karabiner S examples swiped near Potsdam during a conference and hid in a U.S. Army officer’s vehicle trunk that was not subject to search. There were two East German military members involved in the theft, which saw them compensated well. The gun is one of the Holy Grails of SKS collecting, and none were ever imported. This detail of the German Karabiner S (inset, r.) illustrates the clarity of its markings—1960 was the banner year of production, with 1961 being the lowest year of manufacture. Adrian Van Dyk Collection photos.
In brief, the East German Karabiner S was, in reality, manufactured using Soviet-licensed Polish tooling and equipment that was purchased or bartered through the Warsaw Pact inter-member exchange program. In 1956, Poland’s general staff voted against manufacture of the SKS, designated in Poland as the “karabin samopowtarzalny Simonowa” or “ksS.” The reason simply being that it was felt the AK system could do anything the SKS could and having a detachable 30-round magazine and selective-fire capability was a plus. The East German Karabiner S, however, had a few features that differed from its Russian counterpart: a traditional Mauser-style stock, with a central sling cut in the buttstock; the omission of a cleaning rod, as the traditional German pull-through chain was preferred; and a subtle change to the bolt carrier. From 1959 to 1961, a total of 147,120 were produced at both the Ernst Thaelmann and Richard Sorge military manufacturing factories. Following a vote a year after the Fourth Congress, by the East German Zentralkomittee, it was in 1965 to 1966 that three shipments of East German military arms were shipped from Rostok to the port of Haiphong, North Vietnam, totaling 12,250 firearms. Among these were 8,250 of the Karabiner S semi-automatic SKS-type carbines. Interestingly, unlike Romania’s shipments, the East Germans implemented a policy of “source restriction,” or “quellenbeschränkungsverfahren,” meaning that certain markings indicating a gun’s origins required defacing before shipment. Primarily, the sunburst marking on the left receiver flat of the Karabiner S and MiFNV, Ministerium für Nationale Verteidigung (Ministry for National Defense) was blotted out with a series of “X” marks, most often seen on most EG Karabiner S carbines brought back from Vietnam, or even Latin America or Africa. Even though a form DD-603 was not available for inspection, two that I observed 48 years ago had the nation of origin listed as “Russia,” simply because many arms-processing clerks in Vietnam often did not have highly detailed arms identification reference materials. The East German Karabiner S was known to U.S. Army intelligence personnel since 1963, as at least two were brought back from West Germany. However, neither the Romanian Type 56 nor the Karabiner S’s presence in North Vietnamese hands was known until years later.
Realistically speaking, at the time, any and all SKS war trophies observed by U.S. provost marshals or intelligence personnel to have Latin letter prefixes and markings during their registration were listed as “Russian.” Today, with the SKS having become a highly specialized area of military arms collecting, the question has become one worth exploring. Comparing sheer numbers of various licensed SKS carbines, researchers have at last proven which is the real Russian SKS versus one of the design’s many international clones.
References:
Personal notes of Alec Antonescu, captain, ordnance, former Romanian People’s Army
Allo Junger, former National Volks Armee, staff warrant officer, GDR
The Collectors Guide To The SKS, George Layman, Mowbray Publishing 2023, Woonsocket, RI
