A Note on Terms: 'SKS,' 'AK-47,' and 'the Chinese army'

[postman]

Accpeted shorthand in China for 56 submachine gun is 56chong(56冲），SKS is 56ban(56半）. BTW the term assault rifle（突击步枪） was not used in offical military speech in China, assault rifles like type81, QBZ95, QBZ191 are called automatic rilfe(自动步枪）， QBZ means Qiang, bu, zidong (枪，步，自）

[thanhdang]

Vietnamese here, in the PAVN what anglophones call assault rifles are also called sub-machine guns, along with pistol caliber guns, or to be pedantic in terms of word-by-word translation, it's "súng tiểu liên"-"small automatic gun". It's the same logic, it's shoulder fired, has automatic fire as an option or automatic only, smaller cartridges than "full-powered" rounds like 7.62x54, 7.62x63, 7.62x51, has no bipod and the likes. So a PPSh and an AK are both "sub-machine guns" in Vietnamese, the adoption for the phrase "assault rifle" is also like the Chinese, very recent and holds nearly no ground in literature. As much as I like to point out cases where Sino-Vietnamese applies and some gun categories are the same in both languages, I don't speak Chinese so I can't draw a conclusion wether the PAVN took from the PLA and call all these guns sub-machine guns. I do speak Russian, and I find out they often also call assault rifles and sub-machine guns with just one word. From PPSh's of the Great Patriotic War or AK's, M16's and whatever, they call each one of them "Avtomat", the word means many things like "machine", "circuit breaker", and in this case-an "autogun". Again, same logic, shoulder fired, smaller rounds than those full powered rifle cartidges, bla bla bla... Maybe the PAVN took from the Red Army, maybe from the PLA, who knows.

Funny thing is the Russian equivalent of the european way of calling a sub-machine gun "machine pistol" also exists, it's "pistolyet-pulyemyot". "Pistolyet" is a loan word obviously, "pulyemyot" literally is "bullet chucker", it means a machine gun. All that being said, the weirdest thing is the short form of the phrase-"PP"-is the very "PP" in "PPsh", "PPS" etc... but almost everytime without fail they are refered to as "Avtomat". A Red Army assault troops in the Great Patriotic War is an "Avtomatchik", so is a modern Russian rifleman.

[Halofan]

Please post more videos! Your Chinese is impressive too!

[ArsenicApplejuice]

I’m currently learning mandarin.

I love Military history. I think this channel is perfect for me. It will send me down language and history reading rabbit holes.

Thank you!

[gunmonkey]

Growing in Thailand; Both M16 and AK were referred to as" Handheld Machine Gun". Thailand gone from Mauser to M1 rifle and Carbine to M16 and AK. I was born in '70 and grew up there until mid '80. BTW, Thailand did produced HK 33. I couldn't recall if there were a word or phrase equivalent to rifle.

[donovanchau]

I just realized now that my grandma has always been saying “machine gun” and not “assault rifle”. That said, I have no idea what the middle character is. She’d always say “Gei guan coeng” (Cantonese) and I don’t know how to translate that to Mandarin or English.

[Nietzsche]

Fascinating! Thanks for the info, comrade!

[novaskies]

Very impressive Mandarin and knowledge of historic Chinese militaria. Loving your channel and lecture. Hope you will continue providing insight into China's military. Absolutely fascinating topic.

[jermasus]

Your Chinese is really good, also funny enough my grandma still refers to modern assault rifles as Chongfengqiang. Really bizarre to hear for younger generations.

[kevinlau]

I’m an undergraduate history student. Do you have a bibliography of sources? I would love to take a look at it.

[Grasyl]

First of all great channel and awesome topic, It's just great to have a channel focusing on such a underrated weapon. But there was a small error in one video, I don't know exactly in which one, because I watched all in one go. The Russian term used for the AK was not Submachinegun but "Автомат/Avtomat" meaning "Automatron". This term surfaced in 1921, when revolutionary Russians used it to describe the Federov Avtomat a select fire rifle in 6.5x50mm Arisaka. The weapon was previously know as ружье-пулемёт (Ruzhye-Pulemyot) eng. Shotgun-Machinegun in the time of the Tzar, yes the term was technically incorrect. Submachinegun would be Пистолет-пулемёт (Pistolet-Pulemyot) eng. Pistole-Machinegun.
The term Автомат/Avtomat is very very brought and was used for every weapon between Pistolet-Pulemyot (SMG) and just Pulemyot (MG). Basically anything that fires a round over 7, 62x25mm and with a magazine capacity under 40 was an Avtomat. Even SMGs with slightly more power, like the Korovin Avtomat in .351 Winchester SL was an Avtomat and some LMGs like the Bulkin AB-44 were also labeled as Avtomats.

[ArK]

"Let's get started with the fun stuff." *Awkward silence* "O-" *Video ends*

🤣

[nipsirc]

Why can’t my college offer interesting and informative classes like this? I have taken essentially the same management class 3 times lord give me strength

[iraeis]

冲锋枪 (chong feng qiang) shouldn't be understood to literally mean sub-machine gun, only including all non-crewed automatic weapon, I think. A transliteration back into English would be something like "charging-vanguard gun" which, if anything, sounds closer to "assault" than "sub-machine". It would give a much more accurate idea to just say that the Chinese had one umbrella term for all automatic weapons with a round lesser than that of a full powered rifle.

There's probably a interesting story in the etymology of the term and the abundance of ChongFengQiangs in China at various stages

[yiqunfan]

The word 冲锋 is more refer to charging. So when talking about it it’s more refer to a weapon that can be use when pushing forward with constant fire power. Moving and shooting, but mostly pistol round at that moment.
The LMG is more like a stationary weapon where you might not want to move and shoot in full auto.
Ak47? Move and shoot and it’s full auto, then it’s a charge/assault gun.
One more thing is 机关枪 where 机关 refer to machine， mechanism and it’s an unofficial term in some old novel to represent auto weapon as well. But it’s safe to said it atleast represent smg.
The modern military concept of rifle is QZB. Qing light weapon 轻兵器， Zidong auto 自动， Buqiang rifle 步枪. However the smg is separate but still called as a “charging” gun. But that’s more of a legacy of history.

[malik]

Well depending on when you look at what prototype even the all famous 'Sturmgewehr' was not called an assault rifle and instead at first even classed as a 'heavy machinepistol', then a 'Machinecarbine' and only later on for propaganda reasons they named it 'Sturmgewehr' because it sounds nice and intimidating in german
And dont get me started on the terminology of the word 'mine' in a military context at any point in german history.
So what I try to say, dont worry, the people who care about such things usually try to sound smart by pointing it out because they dont really know anything else about the topic and the people who are learning will soon find the pendantic differences themselves and will understand why you shortened or used a certain name instead of another, factual correct but pendantic, name

[muleteam]

Most of your viewers understand this and it works for my tism 🍻

[ChaohsiangChen]

Hi Professor, do you have a channel talking about Mou Zongsan and historical state-religion relation more in line with Alan Watt? Anything about Buddhist-Taoist relation?

[ontheline]

oh, didn't know that Chinese army also have a telnyashka wear))

[ShimomuraTakezoWong]

Your statements in quoting the definitions of the SMG & assault rifle by the PRC military terminology will not auger well with 95% of the World's small arms experts/soldiers/military colleges, schools. The SMG was a western invention+definition best example Nazi Germany's MP-38/40 besides the British Sten gun, U.S.S.R's PpSh, U.S.A. Thompson/tommy gun which are all precedent to the PRC SKS, AK-47 in the World of military small arms. SMG are for CQB below 200 metres mostly and uses a semi-auto pistol caliber while assault rifle uses a rifle caliber/battle rifle with better range which is above 200+ > 400+ metres as the SMGs & assault rifles have different roles with overlapping capabilities to range+accuracy in war. Therefore if the PRC/PLA chooses to use their own definitions/terminology to describe their catergorisation of small arms shows that the translation of mandarin does not qualify for World small arms definitions which PRC has no say in the matter globally. Technically it's just bloody stupid after all the SKS, AK-47 are U.S.S.R innovations not the chinaman's just illogical 👎 dumb !