SKS 45 The SKS (Samozariadni Karabin sistemy Simonova, 1945; in French:Carabine semi-automatique system Simonov 1945) or SKS 45, is a Soviet semi-automatic carbine designed in 1945 by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov (en), adopted in 1949 by the Red Army alongside the AK-47 assault rifle. With the massi