Vasily Degtyaryov
Russian and Soviet weapons designer (1880-1949)
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 of Hero of Socialist Labour in 1940.
Biography
He was a factory worker at the Tula Arms Plant. He became married in 1905. Starting in 1918, Vasily Degtyaryov headed the first Soviet firearms design bureau at Kovrov Arms Factory.
In 1927, the Red Army was equipped with his 7.62 mm light machine gun DP-27. This design led to the development of the DT tank machine gun (1927) and two aircraft machine guns: DA and DA-2 (1928).
In 1940 he became a Doctor of Technical Sciences, and Hero of Socialist Labour (he received the second such award in its history just two weeks after Joseph Stalin). He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1941.
During the Axis invasion of the USSR in summer 1941 he created the PTRD-41 14.5mm anti-tank rifle.
The public source identifies “Vasily Degtyaryov” as russian and Soviet weapons designer (1880-1949). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Vasily, Degtyaryov and Russian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q551661. VIAF identifies the subject as 302635918. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1880, 1949, 1940 and 1905.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vasily Degtyaryov” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.