Somehow it looks like childish fun with bells and whistles, even Americans do not go for this at home, they will do it for the natives …
Vladimir 5. March 7, 2019
Weapons and firms. We continue our acquaintance with small arms from different companies, based on the design of the samples of which is the design of the AR-15 rifle. Moreover, somewhere these rifles are produced "one to one", making changes only to structural materials, somewhere in some way they change the design, however, not very much, and some manufacturers based on it make their designs, which are then taken on the weapons are the same Americans.
For example, the FN SCAR automatic rifle from the Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal (National Factory in Erstal), known for its weapons in Europe for 130 years. Gerstal produces a whole line of AR-15 rifles, like many other weapons, and here - bam! - and the SCAR rifle came from it, and Voennoye Obozreniye wrote about it back in 2011 (FN SCAR Assault Rifle, October 31, 2011). Then on "VO" there was a material that it was being adopted by the Portuguese army ("The Portuguese army switches to the Belgian FN SCAR rifles", March 7, 2019), and it was in the comments to this material that the statement appeared, given here as epigraph. “Even the Americans do not go for this at home…” But they do, it turns out! And she was chosen back in 2008! By the way, here is what they write about it themselves: “The FN SCAR was chosen in 2004 for the Special Forces (SOF) in three modifications: SCAR-L Mk 16, SCAR-H Mk 17 and Mk 13 grenade launcher module. The rifle was chosen after five weeks of field trials at the end of 2008, these rifles in select variants began exhibiting in April 2009. On May 4, 2010, in a press release on the official FN America website, it was announced that on April 14, 2010, a Memorandum of Understanding for the acquisition of SCAR was adopted, taking the SCAR program to the next level. As for the performance characteristics of the new rifles, there is nothing particularly surprising here. Everything is traditional and quite: the Mk 16 has a caliber of 5.56 mm and a rate of fire of 625 rounds per minute, and the Mk 17 has a caliber of 7.62 mm and has a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute. Weight about 3.6 kg without cartridges.
At the end of October 2010, full-scale production of the Mk 20 sniper variant was also approved, which began in mid-May 2011.
On June 25, 2010, the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) announced that it was canceling the purchase of the Mk 16 rifles, citing limited funds and the lack of a sufficient performance difference over other 5, 56 mm rifles to justify the purchase. The rest of the funds will be spent on the sniper version of the SCAR-H Mk 17 and Mk 20. By this time, SOCOM had already purchased 850 Mk 16 and 750 Mk 17. SOCOM forced its fighters to surrender their Mk 16, but … he could shoot 5, 56-mm cartridges, which the modular rifle system makes it easy to do.
“FN America (the US subsidiary of the firm) believes that the problem is not whether the SCAR, and in particular the Mk 16 variant, is the best weapon system available today. She has already proven this, recently passing all stages of field tests. The question is whether the requirement to replace 5.56mm outweighs the numerous other requirements that are relevant in a tight budget. This is a question that can only be solved by the customer. FN America's statement to some extent contradicted the official decision of SOCOM, and it did not overturn it. It was decided to purchase a 7.62mm Mk 17 rifle, a 40mm Mk 13 grenade launcher and 7, a 62mm version of the Mk 20 sniper rifle.
In order to keep the SCAR as a small caliber weapon, it was decided to purchase conversion kits for the Mk 17 for firing 5, 56 × 45 mm rounds. Initially, one rifle was required, which could be adapted to fire cartridges of several calibers, including 5, 56 mm, 7, 62 × 51 mm and 7, 62 × 39 mm. The conversion kit for 5.56mm cartridges was completed at the end of 2010, and orders for it began in mid-2011.
Also on December 9, 2011, the US Navy Submarine Warfare Unit. W. Crane issued a message about the acquisition of rifles Mk 16 (SCAR-L), Mk 17 (SCAR-H), Mk 20 (SSR) and Mk 13 (40-mm grenade launcher) from FN for five years to arm their own personnel, which in this structure of the US Army there are 3,300 people. The Navy's Special Operations Forces also purchase their firearms through SOCOM and have purchased more MK 16 rifles than any other unit.
As for the Mk 17 model, it is currently widely used by the US SOF forces in Afghanistan, where such positive qualities as its relatively low weight and accuracy of fire, as well as good stopping ability of bullets fired from it, were noted.
FN SCAR is also available for purchase by civilians in most US states. Some exceptions are the states of New York, Hawaii, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey, which have stricter rules for semi-automatic rifles. There are also a number of states where you can legally purchase and own this rifle, but there are limits on the number of rounds in the store. To purchase a firearm, the buyer must be at least 18 years old (21 in some states) and must not have any federal offenses."
However, two people at once dealt with this rifle at the VO: the host of the "Men's Toys" program, Sergei Badyuk, and his invited expert Vladimir Titov, who discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the FN SCAR rifle in the video "FN SCAR for US Special Operations Forces" 15.09.2019, that is, quite recently. So it is thankless to predict anything in our time, or you need to have very good sources of information. By the way, judging by the video, Sergei Badyuk most of all will not like in this rifle … "flimsy butt". Neither you to stun a man in hand-to-hand combat, nor to crack nuts … And this rifle also does not open glass bottles with beer, and does not cut sausage to it for a snack. Well, there are still some screws that can be unscrewed from prolonged use. And it seems that these are all the shortcomings that the two of them found there together. Well, plus another subjective perception: NK416 is better …
Well, now let's get a little acquainted with the history of this well-known very Belgian arms company and with those weapons that it produced and produces, including a line of samples that originate from the same "endless" American AR-15.
The history of the company began in 1889, when an enterprise was created in the small town of Erstal near Liege for the production of modern military small arms, which was reflected in its name: "Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre" - that is, literally translated: "National factory military weapons ". By this, she immediately distanced herself from older enterprises, which most often started with the production of hunting and civilian weapons, and only then, over time, switched to military products. Here, military orders were placed at the forefront and the first of them was very large at that time: it was necessary to produce 150 thousand Mauser rifles of the 1889 model, which were to enter service with the Belgian army. The company successfully completed this task, received capital, and then, since 1898, began to successfully cooperate with John Moses Browning, who created many wonderful models of small arms for this company.
During World War II, Belgium was occupied by Germany shortly after it began. Naturally, such a powerful enterprise with first-class equipment and experienced workers turned out to be very useful for the Wehrmacht. Fabrique Nationale therefore immediately received many new orders and began to work for the German authorities. Only pistols from 1940 to 1944, this enterprise produced for the Wehrmacht in the amount of 363,200 copies. First of all, these were the FN Browning pistols of the 1922 model (an improved version of the Browning pistol of the 1910 model) and the famous Browning Highpower. By the way, during the period from 1940 to 1945, the German Walther plant in Thuringia produced only 84,000 pistols such as the Walther PP pistols and another 26,000 Walther PPK pistols. So the military complicity of Nazism on the part of the company was obvious and very effective for both sides.
And since the beginning of the 20th century, FN has produced not only weapons, but also motors, motorcycles and cars. The first motorcycle was produced here back in 1902, then new models were thrown onto the market almost every year, and so on until the very beginning of the war. Moreover, the production of motorcycles continued in the post-war period and went on until 1965, and trucks were produced at all until 1970.
So FN for Belgium was a truly unique enterprise that provided the country with motorcycles, and cars, and … weapons. But large orders of weapons from NATO put an end to the peaceful products of this enterprise. And these orders were so large that the company began to expand and today has a large branch in the United States, where the American M16 rifles themselves are produced for the needs of the American government, and … the Belgian M240 machine guns, as well as pistols and a number of other models of small arms.
