PPSh-41

The PPSh-41 is a submachine gun featured in all World War II-based Call of Duty games that feature a Soviet campaign, as it was the main submachine gun of the Soviet Union. The weapon is also featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops, during the mission Project Nova.

Singleplayer
The PPSh-41 is a submachine gun featured in the Soviet campaign. It has a very high magazine capacity, decent stopping power, and only medium recoil. It takes just two bullets to kill one enemy in singleplayer, but its fairly high rate of fire when fired automatically makes it more effective against grouped targets, rather than individual ones. In addition, its ammunition can get to be scarce, so it may be a good idea to swap it out for the more available MP40. In United Offensive, it is much less effective, as it takes four shots to kill one enemy, twice as many as before.

Multiplayer
The PPSh-41 is used by the Soviet team during multiplayer. Because the Soviets do not have a "support gun" capable of sustained medium-ranged fire, the PPSh's 71 round drum is used to give them an advantage in close ranged combat. In the first game, where there is no damage dropoff, the gun can be used competently at medium close ranges, killing in two to four shots. In UO, however, where the spread has been increased and damage falloff is present, it takes three to seven shots to kill. The recoil is the greatest of the submachine guns, consisting of a slight upward pull and random horizontal shaking, but it is more manageable than it looks.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour
In Call of Duty: Finest Hour the PPSh is an effective weapon with a high recoil and low damage. It is difficult to see while using this weapon, as a burst of flame come out on all sides with each shot, making burst fire impossible to aim. It is still an effective SMG due to it's huge magazine capacity and high rate of fire, but ammo will be quickly eaten up. It can first be used in the level "The Flag must Fall."

Singleplayer
In singleplayer, the PPSh-41 is a common Soviet weapon. It can still do massive damage at close range, but its now higher recoil and lack of damage at maximum range makes it ineffective for anything outside close range. Its ammunition can still get fairly scarce when compared to other submachine guns. It is also not possible to swap between automatic and semi-automatic firing modes in this installment.

Multiplayer
In multiplayer, this weapon is still only effective at close range. It retains the high recoil from singleplayer, but is now capable of killing three to five rounds at any range. The recoil pattern is more predictable in this installment, a slight upward push rather than random shaking, making it easier to control. It has a very high magazine capacity, and provided that every bullet hits, and no bullet is wasted, one user can kill fourteen enemies at range, or twenty-three in close quarters with one magazine.

Singleplayer
The PPSh-41 appears in the Soviet Campaign of Call of Duty: World at War. In the earlier levels, very few can be found, although the player can pick up ammo from fallen comrades. Later on in the campaign it becomes much more common, as Soviet soldiers start using the PPSh-41 instead of the Mosin Nagant, so ammo is much easier to find. This makes the PPSh-41 an excellent weapon during the later stages of the campaign. Because the PPSh-41 has such low recoil, it has surprisingly good accuracy when hip firing, in close quarters this can be the difference between life and death as ADS takes precious seconds that could be used to fire up to 7 bullets at an enemy. This is Reznov's weapon of choice in Call of Duty: World at War, being that he lost part of his index finger. In the Wii version, the PPSh-41 has a faster firing rate.Though the PPSH has a fast firing rate and low recoil it still burns much ammo at a time if not used wisely.

Multiplayer
The PPSh-41 is unlocked at Level 53 on the Multiplayer mode. This weapon has the highest rate of fire out of all the weapons in Call of Duty: World at War by a considerable margin (only the MG42 or FG42 come close; they fire about as fast as it with Double Tap). However, the PPSh-41 has extremely low damage, being the only gun that can take 3 direct hits to kill in Hardcore (all other guns are either 1 or 2). It is also the only gun incapable of getting a one shot kill in close range in Hardcore, unless Stopping Power is used or it is a headshot, although the fire rate makes this a very minimal worry. The PPSh-41 features a muzzle brake system which makes prolonged firing less accurate because of expelled gas obscuring one's vision. The gas expelling from the barrel of the gun is why a suppressor would be impossible to utilize. The PPSh-41 is said to be the P90 of Call of Duty: World at War, because of its high rate of fire and large magazine. However, the Round Drum attachment for the PPSh-41 is needed to compensate for the high rate of fire and to simulate the P90's large magazine capacity. Also, the PPSh-41 fires much faster than the P90 and is much weaker per bullet.

The PPSh-41 has equal viewkick values in all four directions, meaning that its recoil will usually be extremely low. The Aperture Sight raises the reticule away from the gun, which helps to prevent gas from obscuring the user's vision. The Bandolier perk is highly recommended because the rate of fire will exhaust ammunition quickly, even with the Round Drum attachment, and because the PPSh only starts with two magazines, unlike other SMGs which start with three.

When using the Round Drum, it is important to avoid completely using an entire magazine, as this greatly increases the reload time. This can, however, be remedied by Reload Canceling right after the magazine is fully inserted. A common tactic with this gun is to combine the Round Drum with Bandolier, Stopping Power/Double Tap and Steady Aim and then firing from the hip, as it will then be even more devastating at close range. However, Double Tap is not recommended as the rate of fire on the PPSh-41 is already extremely high. Increasing it anymore would waste more ammo. Stopping Power is slightly more useful, but generally only causes a gun to kill in one less bullet. Due to the high rate of fire, one can fire off the extra shot without much hindrance time wise or accidentally fire it at a target after the target has been killed. Other secondary perks like Sleight Of Hand or Juggernaut may be more useful in core modes because it will take significantly more bullets for the player to kill an enemy than for them to kill him, even when using Stopping Power, unless they also have the PPSh-41. Sleight of Hand will decrease the time one is vulnerable during reloads, even if one empties the magazine. Juggernaut will cancel out Stopping Power, which most players will use, and increase the chances of one's survival.

Nazi Zombies
The PPSh-41 is first available in Verrückt and appears in all later maps. It is the only SMG which cannot be bought off the wall and is also the only SMG that appears with its drum magazine in Nazi Zombies. It is quite effective against Zombies and Hellhounds alike, even at higher levels. The only problem is the high ammo consumption; the PPSh can run dry after only a single round if not used wisely. Because of it's very high ROF and mediocre damage per round, it is the perfect weapon for scoring lots of points. It is not advised to use this weapon with Double Tap, as the gun already has the highest rate of fire in the game. This will burn up the ammo quickly, so the player may find himself with no ammo for it in the middle of a round.

If upgraded via the Pack-a-Punch Machine in Der Riese the gun is entitled "The Reaper" and has a magazine size of 115 which seems to rival that of a machine gun. This may be a reference to Element 115. It has a vast increase in damage, doing more damage than the MG42 and M1919 Browning even if both are upgraded. But it still burns through ammo very quickly, unless the player has a back-up weapon they can use. It also features a decrease of recoil.

Call of Duty: World at War (Nintendo DS)
The PPSh-41 appears in Call of Duty: World at War (Nintendo DS) as one of the five SMG's available in game. The DS version has a much lower rate of fire and higher damage compared to the PPSh-41 on the console versions. It has high recoil, slightly more than the Thompson.

The high capacity of the magazine allow this weapon to be used in a LMG fashion style of play, just without the inconvenient of being slowed down.

Singleplayer
In single player, the PPSh-41 is a starting weapon in all missions in the Soviet Campaign, with the exception of vehicle levels. It has a large ammunition capacity (71 rounds, like the console versions), low rate of fire, and high damage per bullet. Overall it is an excellent weapon with only one flaw, high recoil, which would be fixed by burst firing or using it like a semi-auto gun, since it is capable of killing an enemy in 2-3 shots at any range.

Multiplayer
In multiplayer, the PPSh-41 is one of the most common weapons on multiplayer for the Allied faction. Just like in single player, the PPSh-41 has a high damage per bullet, a manageable rate of fire, and a large 71 round drum magazine. But the recoil is just as high as in single player, so it is recommended to burst fire or use it like it was semi-automatic at medium to long ranges. However, since the recoil only pushes the gun upwards, the recoil can be countered by aiming downwards when going full auto.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
The PPSh appears in the mission Project Nova, being used by Viktor Reznov, Dimitri Petrenko and other Soviet soldiers. It's graphics have faced a small update to the Black Ops engine. However, the gun still uses the same animations and sounds as it did in Call of Duty: World at War. This is the only time in the game the PPSh-41 is seen, and it's not featured in multiplayer.

It has a 35 rounds stick magazine, similar to the version first unlocked in World at War's multiplayer. This is accurate however; towards the end of the war, the Soviets, realizing the drum magazines probability to jam, replaced it with the stick magazine.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (Nintendo DS)
The PPSh-41 appears in the DS version of the game. It has a 71 round magazine +284 spare rounds like in World at War (DS). The PPSh-41 has a high rate of fire, arguably good iron sights, and low recoil. However, the muzzle flash obstructs the sights even though it can be seen through, and it has low damage. The PPSh-41 can be fitted with a silencer. The silencer partially obstructs the iron sights, however.

Video
Video:PPsh-41 Montage

PPSh-41 gameplay in World at War

Trivia

 * In Call of Duty: World at War, the player holds the PPSh-41 by the section behind the magazine, but in the earlier installments, they hold it by the magazine.
 * In the singleplayer campaign of Call of Duty: World at War, every PPSh-41 has a drum magazine.
 * In the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare level "One Shot, One Kill", a large statue is seen carrying a PPSh-41. The same statue can be seen in the multiplayer map Bloc where it is Gold. This statue can also be seen in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer level Wasteland.
 * Although in Call of Duty: United Offensive it is only seen with a drum magazine, when the main menu is loaded with the Soviet Theme, a PPSh-41 with a standard banana magazine is shown.
 * Because the rate of fire is so fast, using Double Tap will make the gun ineffective because some of the bullets don't read on the enemies body.
 * It is Nikolai Belinski's favorite weapon, as he uses it in the trailers for the last two Nazi Zombie maps. This is probably because the PPSh-41 is a Russian weapon.
 * The PPSh-41 has a different rate of fire in all the Call of Duty games it has been featured in.
 * In singleplayer and Nazi Zombies, the PPSh-41 has a faster reload time than it does in multiplayer. This was presumably done for balance reasons.
 * The PPSh-41 has the fastest fire rate of any portable gun in the Call of Duty series, even surpassing the G18 from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
 * In Call of Duty: World at War, if the PPSh-41 has Double Tap, aiming down the sight while firing causes the fire sound rate to increase to such an extent that the sound glitches and sounds almost like a minigun, possibly due to less of the gun being shown and more memory being available. Hipfiring will not cause the sound to glitch.