Alexey Sudayev

Alexey Ivanovich Sudayev (Алексе́й Ива́нович Суда́ев; 23 August 1912 – 17 August 1946) was a Soviet firearm designer.

Biography
He was born on 23 August 1912 in the city of Alatyr.

His father Ivan Nilovich Sudayev, a telegraph mechanic for the postal and telegraphic district in Kazan, died in 1924, leaving his mother dependent on 12-year-old Alexei and his two sisters.

In 1929 Sudayev graduated from a vocational school and began working as a locksmith. After graduating in 1932 from the Gorky Construction Technical School (Department of Industrial Transport), he worked in "Soyuztransstroi" as a site technician in the village of Rudnichnoye of Satka District in the Ural Region (now the Chelyabinsk Region). During this period (1933-1934) appeared his first inventions "Automatic firing from a machine gun through the action of infrared rays" and "Gasometer".

In the autumn of 1934 Sudayev served in the Red Army, in the railway troops, where he showed great interest in weapons.

Immediately after the army he entered the Gorky Industrial Institute where he studied from 1936-1938. During his studies he showed considerable creative abilities.

Communist since 1940.

At this time, the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy created a school of gunsmiths, which recruits students from various universities, which had a tendency to invent and design. In 1941 Lieutenant Sudayev defended his diploma project (7.62 mm machine gun) with honors in German language. Engineer-Major.

Awards

 * USSR State Prize (1946)
 * Order of Lenin
 * Order of the Patriotic War 1st class
 * Order of the Red Star
 * Medal "For the Defence of Leningrad"
 * Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"

Inventions

 * anti-aircraft machine gun mount (1941)
 * PPS submachine gun
 * AS-44 assault rifle