SVT-40

The Samozaryadnaya Vintovka Tokareva, Obrazets 1940 goda (Tokarev Self-loading Rifle, Model of 1940, Russian: Самозарядная винтовка Токарева, образец 1940 года) is a Soviet semi-automatic battle rifle, which saw widespread service in World War II.

History
The design of the gun traces back to the early 1930s when Fedor Tokarev gave up his attempts to design a recoil-operated self-loading rifle, and concentrated on the gas operating principle. Stalin had a great interest in semi-automatic infantry rifles, and in 1935 a design competition was held, which was won by the rifle designed by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov. By the time of the German invasion of Russia, the SVT-40 was used by the Red Army, but the Russians lost many of the rifles during the war. The SVT-40 was relatively expensive to manufacture, and troops with poor training had difficulty maintaining the rifle. The Germans observed use of this semi-automatic rifle and some German troops even captured and used them themselves. The Germans later based their Gewehr 43 design on it. The rifle fell out of use before the war's end because of its complexity to manufacture although it was used in Vietnam in small numbers by the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong.

Call of Duty United Offensive
The SVT-40 semiauto rifle appears in United Offense and holds 10 rounds inside a detachable box magazine. It has good accuracy and can kill with two to three shots to the torso or from one shot to the head. However, it has harsh recoil that makes it difficult to focus on your target after firing. It's ironsights are cramped and hard to aim with, making it difficult to get precision shots. It can be used in close quarters, but the recoil might make it difficult to continuously fire on a target.

Strangely, the SVT-40 reloads faster from an empty magazine than reloading it while there are still rounds in it.

Call of Duty 2
The Call of Duty 2 SVT-40 has managed to fix everything that was wrong with the UO one. It has much more manageable recoil, making it much easier to get a bead on a target after firing. The ironsights are much more open, giving the firer some breathing room while he's trying to find a target and make accurate shots, and it has the accuracy and damage (two to three chestshots or one headshot for a kill of it's UO counterpart. Those changes make the CoD2 SVT-40 a very worthy rifle, right up with the Garand.

Call of Duty: World at War
This is the rifle everyone starts out with in multiplayer and it is a good starting early weapon. The SVT's iron sights are quite similar to the Heckler and Koch weapons found in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The Aperture Sight for the weapon appears to increases recoil as the Aperture Sight will bounce back and then snap right back into place but this is merely a visual effect and does not effect the accuracy unless the player empties the entire magazine by shooting all of the bullets at a fast pace.

The weapon is available in the later stages of the Soviet Red Army Campaign missions. Mainly "Heart of the Reich" and "Downfall" contain this weapon. It is used by some Soviet troops (the weapon replaces the Mosin-Nagant in "Heart of the Reich" but in "Downfall" the Mosin-Nagant is still present) while other Soviet troops will use the PPSh-41 extensively.