, crouching in a tunnel with an SKS carbine. A few years after the SKS was brought into service in 1949, it was rendered obsolete for the Soviet military by the new AK-47, which was adopted in increasing numbers by Soviet front-line units throughout the 1950s. The RPD's role was the designated squad automatic weapon, laying down suppressive fire in support of infantry armed with semi-automatic carbines. The CIA observed that the AK-47 was being introduced at the same time to replace the PPSh-41 submachine gun. Thereafter, while the SKS was retained for various auxiliary duties, it ceased to have any real military significance in the Soviet Union. In the
Sino-Indian War of 1962, the semi-automatic carbine gave the PLA a distinct advantage over the Indian infantry, then armed with bolt-action
Lee–Enfield rifles. During the early 1960s, China developed the
Type 63 assault rifle to replace the Type 56, but it failed to meet the PLA's standards and was withdrawn from service after a short period. In 1978, the typical PLA infantry battalion was still armed with 360 Type 56 carbines and 221
Type 56 assault rifles. PLA forces armed primarily with Type 56 carbines fought Soviet troops armed primarily with
AKM rifles during the
Sino-Soviet border conflict. During the
Sino-Vietnamese War, PLA infantry armed primarily with Type 56 carbines engaged Vietnamese infantry armed with the same weapon and its Soviet equivalent. However, later that year the Polish general staff belatedly rejected the SKS as a standard service rifle, choosing to retain the AK-47 for that role instead. During its own evaluation of the weapon, the IDF described the SKS as "first rate in several respects" but noted the difficulty of loading the fixed magazine quickly with stripper clips, especially during night fighting operations when visibility was poor. However, deliveries of the carbines were interrupted by a
political crisis in Indonesia during the mid 1960s, and only 25,000 actually reached the army. Beginning in the 1960s, vast quantities of SKS carbines from military reserve stocks were donated by the Soviet Union and China to left-wing guerrilla movements around the world. The weapon type was encountered so frequently by the
United States Armed Forces in Vietnam that captured examples were used by
opposing force (OPFOR) units during training exercises designed to simulate battlefield conditions there as early as 1969. Captured SKS carbines were also prized as
war trophies among individual US military personnel, and a number were brought back to the United States by returning veterans over the course of the Vietnam conflict. The SKS found particular favour in southern Africa, where it was used by a number of insurgent armies fighting to overthrow colonial rule in
Angola,
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and
South West Africa (Namibia). After Angolan independence, the Soviet Union delivered up to 5,000 SKS carbines to support the
People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during that country's lengthy
civil war. The MPLA's primary opponent, the
National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), commonly used Type 56 carbines supplied by China. The SKS was also used in large quantities by
uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the
African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. Between 1963 and 1990, the Soviet Union shipped 3,362 SKS carbines to MK through the guerrillas' external sanctuaries in Angola and Tanzania. SKS carbines captured from MK by the South African security forces were used to arm militias of the
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) during its internal power struggle with the ANC in the 1980s and 1990s. East Germany and the Soviet Union both armed various factions of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with SKS carbines from the 1950s through the 1970s; these were used against the IDF and in various internecine clashes during the
Lebanese Civil War. The Soviet carbines were initially shipped to PLO training camps in Egypt, where the Egyptian Army provided instructors to train PLO fighters in their use. Both Type 56 and Soviet SKS carbines were used by Simba forces during the
Simba Rebellion in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. The rebels appreciated the carbine for its relatively compact size, light cartridge, and chrome-lined bore (which made it resistant to rust and corrosion in the tropical climate) over the much bulkier Western battle rifles used by Congolese security forces. Captured PAIG carbines were stored and later re-issued by Portugal to its local colonial units, primarily for garrison duties. China also supplied the
Afghan mujahidin with Type 56 carbines during the early years of the
Soviet–Afghan War. During the
Dhofar Rebellion, SKS carbines were smuggled into
Oman by sea, most likely by the Soviet Union, to arm
Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO) insurgents there. The
Eritrean Liberation Front used large numbers of SKS carbines during the
Eritrean War of Independence. The
Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) used the SKS during its
insurgency until the early 1980s, when it ceased militant operations. Cuban and Grenadian military forces used the SKS during the
1983 US invasion of Grenada. The US Army captured 4,074 SKS carbines during the invasion, mostly from arms depots. By the early 1980s, the SKS had been almost entirely superseded in worldwide military service by the AK-47 and its derivatives. The increasing proliferation of cheap AK-pattern rifles in most asymmetric conflicts also ended the popularity of the SKS as a standard guerrilla arm.
War of Dagestan, and the
war in Donbas. Militant factions in the Balkans frequently used smuggled SKS and Type 56 carbines alongside the Yugoslavian M59/66 derivative during the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2016, the SKS remained in the reserve stockpiles of over 50 national armies, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet bloc. ==Variants==