Submachine gun: yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Today our story will focus on the samples of this weapon that appeared in the late 80s - early 90s of the last century. During this time, the world changed a lot, and weapons also became involved in a complex process of change.
Why do you need a submachine gun?
In the sixties and seventies of the last century, and in some countries a little later, that is, in the eighties, as the NATO bloc actively switched to intermediate 5, 56-mm cartridges and weapons corresponding to them, army "universal" PPs of the previous generation practically everywhere they were removed from service. Well, and their production, if where and was preserved, it was only in the countries of the "third world" and then mainly because of their cheapness. In NATO countries, the main type of weapon has become an automatic rifle for low-impulse intermediate ammunition, and why this is so understandable. For example, it was supposed to arm radar personnel with submachine guns. But in the depths of its territory, why equip it with anything at all? And if the enemy lands a landing, then, if he were armed with M16 rifles, what kind of resistance could people with submachine guns in their hands offer him? Nevertheless, they worked on new submachine guns, and in the late 80s - early 90s of the last century, they began to appear and brought with them a lot of new things.
Look at the photographs of the same airplane pilots: and what they are missing, and the pilot's cockpit of the same attack aircraft or helicopter is so cramped that the same submachine gun is simply impossible to attach to it. During the Afghan war, they tried to arm the AKS74U pilots, to include it in the NAZ … So what? There were four cases of ejection of SU7B and MiG-21 pilots over enemy territory, and none of the pilots was able to use it.
And the size of AKS74U is approximately equal to any PP, except perhaps "Micro-Uzi". But only it is much better both in effective range and in penetration power. The barrel of the AKS74U only overheats from the fourth magazine when firing at a fast pace, but how long will the same pilot lead it? And it's not for nothing that the tank also provides for stowage for the machine gun and for hand grenades. After all, tankers will have to deal with an enemy armed with not submachine guns in case of defeat of their combat vehicle. Hence the need, again, for a fire adequate in strength and accuracy on their part.
The main anti-terror weapon
However, at the same time, namely the sixties - seventies of the XX century, a new round in the development of submachine guns as a type of weapon began in the West. True, this is now at a fundamentally new level. Now it has again become precisely a police weapon, as they said about it back in the 30s, but not for the entire police, but for the special forces, and various special services. It turned out that the ordinary police cannot effectively fight international terrorism and organized crime, and they needed an adequate response and adequate weapons. After all, none of the same terrorists will run around the city with an M16 rifle, but will choose something more compact and less noticeable. This means that with the same weapons, but of better quality, one should act against them. And the German Heckler & Koch MP5 became a typical example of weapons for counter-terrorism operations. And, yes, it really looks more like an assault rifle (after all, it was created on the basis of the G3 rifle), and in terms of dimensions and weight, it is closest to the MP40 or PPS, that is, samples of weapons of the previous era that have passed the test of time.
But closer does not mean exactly. The designs of new PCBs are much more complicated and perfect. Semi-free breeches began to be used, or even exhaust gases for the operation of automation, firing "from a closed breech" when using trigger USMs - all this increased the quality of the new generation of PPs in all their characteristics by an order of magnitude.
But in the regular army, PPs were used very limitedly at that time, first of all, as a traditional one, and one might even say: as a “psychological” and “status” weapon to arm artillery soldiers, tankmen, signalmen, missilemen and staff officers. That is, all those for whom fire contact with the enemy under normal conditions is theoretically possible, but the practical risk of which is minimized.
New time - new songs
It is interesting that in our USSR in the 70s of the twentieth century, apparently under the impression of the success of "Mini-Uzi" and "Ingram", announced a competition for the development of a 9-mm submachine gun for sabotage purposes, in which such well-known designers as N. M. Afanasyev from Tula and E. F. Dragunov from Izhevsk. But our 9mm round was too weak. He gave an aiming range of only 50-70 meters, which could not be considered satisfactory. Therefore, work in this direction was then stopped. But on the other hand, under the motto "Modern", they tried to create a new 5, 45-mm small-sized machine gun, in order to again equip artillerymen, crews of armored vehicles and soldiers of auxiliary units with this weapon. The winner was the AKS74U Kalashnikov assault rifle, familiar to both the military and industry.
But as soon as in our country in the eighties and nineties of the last century, the "winds of change" blew, as interest in PP awakened in full and new samples began to appear like mushrooms after rain. First of all, they turned out to be in demand as a "police" and, of course, a counter-terrorist weapon. They took out old drawings from the archives and quickly brought a number of designs back to the seventies to serial production: a whole "tree nursery" "Kashtan" (see VO February 3, 2015), "Cypress" and "Kedr" (see VO October 2, 2013.). And many more designs for special forces and police were created from scratch: PP-19 "Bizon", "Gepard", OTs-22, SR-2, PP-90, PP-90M1, PP-2000 and many others. And today we can see them in the hands of the traffic police, and collectors, and … in one word, "ours was found." Now I would also like to create something equal to Kalashnikov to enter the world PP market, but so far this has not been achieved.
Here you need to turn to theory again and find out what, in fact, the customers of new submachine guns want from their creators, and again what trends are followed today by both. Rather, they began to follow after such an epoch-making event as 1991 and the collapse of the USSR. And it so happened that the proliferation of body armor even then greatly reduced the combat value of submachine guns, which fired standard pistol cartridges with their specific bullet shape and low effect on obstacles. And this led to the fact that the very idea of a submachine gun as a small arms for conventional pistol cartridges had to be revised. To solve new problems, special, let's say - "submachine gun", and very specific ammunition, were also required. The easiest way was to create small-caliber low-impulse cartridges.
Which is better: one big bullet or many small ones?
In addition, it turned out that with a rate of fire of about 20 shots per second, the number of hits in the same place on the target multiplies the armor penetration of such small-caliber bullets, since the armor of the plates of bulletproof vests simply does not have time to restore its microcrystalline structure after many successive hits, and is destroyed. So, for example, submachine guns such as the "American-180" and its improved analogue, the Yugoslavian "Gorenzhe" MGV-176 (caliber 5, 6-mm or.22LR), immediately became profitable. There was also a new concept called PDW (English Personal defense weapon - "Personal self-defense weapon"), the essence of which was to create new cartridges and already for them - new types of PP. So, in fact, the fourth generation submachine guns appeared.
New ammunition began to represent a cross between pistol and intermediate cartridges for machine guns, but nevertheless closer to the first, primarily in terms of power and recoil energy. But the use of small-caliber sharp-nosed bullets in them at ranges of up to 150-200 m in terms of impact on the target made it possible to achieve results comparable to intermediate results. First of all, due to the high initial velocity and flatness of the bullet trajectory, it was possible to significantly increase their penetrating effect. You can even say that in this way another fundamentally new type of small arms was born.
However, in the NATO countries, design work within the framework of the CRISAT (Collaborative Research Into Small Arms Technology) project began in 1990, and their goal was extremely important and significant: to find a replacement for the legendary pistol cartridge 9 × 19 mm "Parabellum". At the same time, it was required to create two new models under the new cartridge at once: a pistol weighing up to 1 kg and a submachine gun within the framework of the PDW concept with a mass of up to 3 kg. The pistol bullet was supposed to pierce a titanium plate with a thickness of 1, 6 mm or 20 layers of Kevlar fabric, and hit the enemy behind these obstacles at a distance of up to 50 m. The submachine gun was supposed to do the same thing, but at a distance of up to 150 m.
Submachine guns for "small cartridges"
Interestingly, this year was also marked by the appearance in Belgium of the first weapon-cartridge complex, which consisted of a new 5, 7 × 28 mm ammunition, an FN Five-Seven pistol and an FN FN P90 submachine gun in the PDW concept. Herstal. Recall that thanks to its original cartridge, which looks more like a submachine gun than a pistol one, it was possible to squeeze as many as 50 such ammunition into its store. His sleeve is bottle-shaped, and rather long, which also made it possible to place a powerful powder charge in it, the ignition of which makes his pointed bullet weighing 1.8 g leave the barrel at a speed of 823 m / s and an energy of 610 J. Reduce recoil compared to traditional 9x19mm cartridges.
However, it is worth noting that, with all the positive aspects, the P90 did not become widespread as an army self-defense weapon, but again ended up in the arsenals of the police special forces. That is, the original idea of PDW was corrected by life, and there is nothing surprising in this, it happens all the time. They even wanted to accept the Belgian 5, 7-mm cartridge as a standard for NATO, but then a competitor from Germany appeared - the 4, 6 × 30 mm cartridge created in the late 1990s. It was made by the same Heckler & Hawk company, and they fired an MP7 submachine gun under it (see VO October 9, 2010) and an HK P46 pistol. Its data are as follows: the energy is 460 J (since the caliber is smaller), the mass of the bullet is 1.7 g, and the initial velocity is also less - 736 m / s. But with all this, its penetrating characteristics are quite comparable to the Belgian. Well, in the submachine gun, gas-operated automatic equipment from the G36 rifle was used at all.
On trials 2000-2003. the Belgian 5, 7-mm cartridge proved to be better than the German one. But it was not possible to standardize it for NATO, and each country remained with its own interest.
Meanwhile, a new cartridge with similar parameters was created by Vlastimil Libra (owner of a private arms company) in the Czech Republic. The cartridge is called.17 Libra and has the following dimensions: 4, 38 × 30 mm. The bullet for it is very light and easily develops a speed of about 700 m / s, which allows it to penetrate a standard NATO body armor at a distance of up to 250 meters. It penetrates a 10 mm steel plate at a distance of 10 m and retains a very high stopping effect up to 200 m. The CZW 438 submachine gun was created for the new cartridge.
The Chinese are not lagging behind, who already in the mid-90s created a cartridge 5, 8 × 21 mm, and made for it the Chang Feng submachine guns (see VO February 22, 2017) and Type 05. This cartridge and a fairly heavy bullet (weighs about 3 grams) with a high initial velocity - up to 500 m / s. It is interesting that the magazine of this submachine gun is auger, but unlike our "Bizon" it is located not below, but on top of the receiver!
"Bad examples" are contagious (just kidding!), And in Sweden they also decided to make a similar small-caliber armor-piercing ammunition for a submachine gun and made a cartridge of 6, 5 × 25 mm with a tungsten bullet in a plastic pallet. And in the early 2000s, the CBJ-MS submachine gun was also made for it (see VO March 5, 2013), which has a sub-caliber tungsten bullet in a plastic pallet. This bullet is the fastest. Its initial speed is at the level of the Mosin three-line - 830 m / s, so it is not surprising that at a distance of 50 m it freely penetrates a 7-mm armor plate. Moreover, this ammunition is designed on the basis of a cartridge case from the 9 × 19 "Parabellum" cartridge, slightly elongated and with a muzzle for a caliber of 6, 5 mm. That is, in terms of external dimensions, it is essentially unified with the 9 × 19 cartridge, which is very convenient, since it makes it possible to use it in samples of existing weapons for this cartridge. You only need to replace the barrel, and that's it! You don't even need to change the shutter!
True, there are spots in the sun too. Although it has an impressive range of fire, up to 200-250 m, its bullet has a weak stopping effect. Nevertheless, this is a very interesting example of a submachine gun and it will be curious how its fate will turn out.
And then it happened that in 2008 the NATO leadership made a decision, firstly, to develop separate specifications for "soft" and reinforced with ceramic plates body armor, and secondly, to create a new "assault rifle for everyone." So today all forces are thrown into it, and submachine guns again faded into the background.
