The Tokarev-designed weapons relied on gas operation with a locking block cammed downwards at the rear into a recess in the receiver floor. The SVT38 was the first of the Tokarev automatic rifles, replacing the Simonov AVS, probably as being more simple, but it was itself fragile.
A more robust version, the SVT40 shown here, was characterized by the removal of the earlier rifle's externally mounted cleaning rod, which was mounted instead, as per convention, beneath the barrel. There was only a single barrel band, beyond which a sheet metal handguard extended forward. On the SVT40 it was of wrap-around type as opposed to the metal and wood forward guard of the SVT38. Air circulation holes were drilled into the guard, and four rectangular slots appeared through the wooden continuation. Two variations in muzzle brake design existed: the first had six slim baffles, replaced in later production by a unit having only two large baffles. Selected specimens of the SVT40 were equipped with telescopic sights and issued to snipers.
At the conclusion of WWII, the Chinese and North Korean Communists inherited large quantities of Japanese weapons from the Soviets, who had taken them in Manchuria/Korea.
North Korea began its assault on the South well armed by the USSR. The Chinese, however, were basically a querilla army, with a wide variety of weapons and near impossible logistics requirements. These Japanese weapons, supplemented substantially by Soviet weapons like the PPSh M-1941 7.62mm submachine gun (burp gun), and semi-automatic rifles like the Tokarev SVT40 shown here, were among the more commonly used weapons by the CCF during the first several months of the war.
