Interesting historical tidbits about
secret Soviet battle stations in space and other such things:
Well, guess what--Salyut 3 had a machine gun. The station had a 23 mm
rapid-fire cannon mounted on the outside, along the long axis of the station
"for defence against US space-based inspectors/interceptors". Combat
engagements would have been leisurely by Star Wars or fighter jet standards,
since the only way to aim the cannon was to point the entire station at the
target, using its attitude gyros.
The survival kit in the Soyuz spacecraft which ferries cosmonauts to and
from the Mir space station is said to contain, among other things, a pistol
and ammunition. This is not so much to put down the occasional space mutiny,
but as a precaution in case of an off-course landing in a region with
dangerous wildlife. In March 1965, due to failure of the prime retro-rocket
system, the crew of Voskhod 2 landed in a remote region in the Ural Mountains
and rescue crews could not reach them until the next day. They were forced to
retreat to their re-entry capsule to escape wolves in the forest where they
landed.