The dawn of the rising sun of American weapons thought over the jungle of Vietnam was overshadowed by a large number of its own losses due to rifle failures. No matter what they say now about the gunpowder of the wrong system, about the non-chrome-plated chamber, the lack of training of soldiers in the rules of caring for a new rifle, all this is childish babble and a universal shame.
“… 72 people left in our platoon and returned 19. Believe it or not, but do you know what killed most of us? Our own rifle. Before we left, we were all with this new M16. Virtually every dead person was found with his rifle, next to him, where he tried to fix it."
E. Murphy Fights on the hills.
“Nine Marines were killed in action today, six of them in the rice paddies right in front of the enemy's fortifications. Their bodies were found clutching an M16 in a semi-disassembled state, with casings jammed in the chambers. There were traces of gunpowder in the bullet holes on the heads."
Company commander "N", 3 BMP / 5 PMP. Operation Swift September 4-15, 1967, Vietnam.
In the form in which the M16 came to Vietnam, in the USSR it would not have been allowed even for competitive trials. Even now it will not pass any competitive or usual acceptance tests. Neither she, nor any of her German, Belgian, Israeli and other forks HK-416, FN SCAR, TAR-21, etc.
With my obligation to interpret in mind, I define this term. The concept of a fork (English fork - fork, fork, fork) is widely used in programming, when a program with extended or other functionality is created on the basis of the prototype code base. From an evolutionary point of view, creating a fork is a completely understandable technique that is used in the animal kingdom, and in programming, and in mechanical engineering. This allows you to increase the diversity of species, creating competition and, naturally, choosing the best option, promotes progress. Forking isn't always good. At some point, the number of possible branches laid down by nature is exhausted, and an attempt to create another fork leads to a waste of development efforts. The skill of the developer lies in the fact that he understands in time that all possible options have been squeezed out of a specific base, and a change in the basis is required to reach a new level, and he not only understands this, but also finds a solution, thereby laying a new round of evolution. Such a stage - a change of evolutions in systems theory is called a revolution.
By the time the AK appeared, the evolution of automatic weapons, using the method of locking by a skewed bolt, reached its peak and ended in the Simonov carbine. Dementyev, Rukavishnikov, Bulkin and Kalashnikov perfectly understood the need to change the basic basis of weapon automation. And they did not just understand, they offered their solutions based on the method of locking by turning the shutter. The point was not that no one had guessed to use this method before. There were prototypes, the same Mondragon or Garand, but before Kalashnikov they did not receive that very decisive one and a half-fold increase in overall efficiency in front of other methods of locking the shutter, which the law of the celestial spheres dictates to us. Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, having added the function of starting the sleeve and eliminating jamming of the shutter when the bolt carrier moves, with a margin overlapped the threshold that separates the two evolutionary turns.
All AR-forks such as HK-416, FN SCAR, TAR-21, Steyr AUG use a piston system, reducing the likelihood of failures due to contamination with combustion products, but at the same time retaining the plunger extraction scheme of the liner. On all gates, the ejector sticks out erectly in the rim of the stops; transmission of the unlocking torque through a finger (pin) prone to loss; a round striker in section with perpendicular protrusions, capable of reducing the prickle of the primer when contaminated; large contact areas of the shutter with the bolt carrier and its same tight fit into the casing from the end. Structural differences, both external in the form of a bullpup and internal in the shape of the bolt carrier, are of no interest from a systemic point of view, since they do not contribute a significant share to the complex coefficient of increasing reliability. Obvious "progress" is, of course, the absence of the Sturmgewer curtain on some models, which once again confirms its blind copying by Stoner with the Stg-44.
It is very difficult to find the perfect technical solution. Any idea will have its advantages and disadvantages. As an example, see what a simple replacement of a gas line with a piston gives. In the first case, the gas pressure inside the bolt carrier acts strictly in the axial direction. In the case of a piston system, the piston strikes the stump of the frame, which is 0.78 inches above the center of mass of the bolt carrier and above the cylindrical guide surface. The result is an overturning moment, which, in the places marked with vertical green arrows, will create increased pressure and friction of the solid steel bolt carrier against the soft aluminum body of the box. Figure taken from An Evaluation of Gas Systems for the AR15 / M16 Platform by Ryan E. LeBlanc, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Hartford, Connecticut May, 2012.
In the AK bolt carrier, the axes of application of forces on the frame through the piston and the bolt also do not coincide. But look at how the design is optimally solved. The leading lug of the bolt is located as close as possible to the center of mass of the frame, so there is no loss in the transfer of energy to the opening and closing. Almost the entire volume of the frame is taken out above the receiver, freeing up space in it for the firing mechanism and fixing the store.
Bullets
The Americans, after they sent Schmeisser to Izhevsk, openly flapped their ears on the progress in the development of small arms, begun by the Germans and brilliantly picked up in the Soviet Union. The glory of the winners of the Second World War with the help of carpet bombing, which they instilled in themselves, dulled the scent of the shooting nation itself for the development of weapon automation. The decision on the AR-15 took place under time pressure, after the Korean War and the birth of the AK-47. After the appearance of the 7, 92x33 Kurz, the Soviet Union calmly studied all the advantages and disadvantages of this cartridge, conducted its own fundamental, I'm not afraid of this word, research and produced a masterpiece of cartridge thought 7, 62x39.
Based on naked voluntarism, just like Khrushchev, who sowed corn across the country, the Americans took a small-caliber hunting cartridge as a basis. This cartridge, initially deprived of opportunities for serious modernization; weapons for it, built on a risky and unjustified automation scheme, led the Western weapons thought to a dead end. It is foolish to think that there are no bright minds in the West who understand all this perfectly. Here is an excerpt from a German magazine in 1981:
Unlike the cartridge used in the West, the Soviet cartridge has all the properties necessary for firing automatic weapons. The steel sleeve has a precisely calculated annular flange for gripping it with an extractor, as well as a conical shape. This ensures the perfect function of the steel sleeve …
The American 5, 56 mm M193 cartridge and the M16 rifle have both advantages and disadvantages … The main disadvantage is that instead of creating a special cartridge for automatic weapons, a modified hunting cartridge with an almost cylindrical sleeve and a small flange was used. During extraction, the cylindrical sleeve fits snugly against the chamber walls, therefore, even with the smallest contamination, strong friction occurs and, together with a small rim, this leads to delays.
As you can see, the main problem with the AR-15 was clearly identified 35 years ago and not by us. And this problem is called "patron". It would seem like a bullet. Steel core, lead and cladding, and the combination of these three elements is still patent pending. Add a cartridge case and gunpowder, achieve acceptance into service and a state award and world fame is assured. The twenty-first century is in the yard!
The ideal strategy in the race is to be half a step behind the leader, assess his physical and technical condition, analyze his methods of overcoming obstacles, plan your actions taking into account his mistakes and bypass him at the finish spurt and, as a result, be the first.
As in the case of the German patron, our designers carefully studied the American low-pulse and did better. Focusing on the penetration and lethality of the American model at a distance of effective fire, a cartridge of less power was created, which made it possible to improve the accuracy of the machine when firing in bursts. This was achieved due to the elongated shape of the bullet with improved aerodynamics - its radius came to life more than the American one. The Americans will no longer be able to improve their cartridge by changing the aerodynamics, the length of the sleeve will not allow. You can only increase the length of the bullet, as was done in the M855, by drowning it inside the sleeve, but the Soviet cartridge, it seems, has not yet exhausted all the possibilities for its modernization, although since the appearance of the 7N6 its penetration has increased by more than eight times - an indicator for the development of technical systems close to the threshold of genius, which in turn is at the level of the order, that is, equal to ten.
The picture shows the bullets M855, M193 and 7H6.
In principle, there is no bullet without a "shift in the center of gravity". This term was invented by the Americans for our cartridge from a great mind, when they found a cavity in the area of the nose and a steel core in its bullet. The cavity is a purely technological feature, no one specially laid it there. The very "displacement" of the center of gravity relative to what? With respect to the center of aerodynamic drag. The distance between these centers is the arm of the lever that overturns the bullet in flight. The longer it is, the greater this leverage. So our designers did not plan any deliberate "displacement". To prevent the bullet from overturning in flight, it is twisted with grooves in the barrel. The steeper the grooves, the higher the gyroscopic roll-over resistance.
When the Americans worked with their patron, the task was to increase its kill rate. The smaller caliber inflicted less injury compared to the standard 7, 62 and was originally intended to reliably defeat marmots and foxes. A barbaric solution was proposed - to spin the bullet at the limit of gyroscopic stability. When it enters the body, such a bullet loses its stability due to the higher density of the medium and begins to unfold, tearing tissue more than a through penetration with a classic bullet.
Since the lateral sectional area and the length of the Soviet bullet are larger than the American one, the size of the wound channel, which it makes up, turns out to be larger, and its turn in the body begins earlier. But! An American bullet at high speed, when it hits even a soft body, is fragmented, that is, it is torn to pieces, causing even greater injuries at ranges of up to 200 meters. By its action, this effect falls within the scope of the Hague Convention on the Prohibition of Explosive Bullets. However, for a nation that presents the atomic bombings of Japan to the whole world as an act of humanity and love for life, such a trifle as a violation of the Hague Convention is not even considered. They reason like typical lawyers - "if the bullet is not specifically designed to destroy the bullet inside the body, then there is no demand from us."
“The M16's bullet is unstable in flight,” Chris explained. - Just the slightest obstacle, and it instantly starts to somersault and ricochet anywhere. So don't fool your head. The old Winchester 308 is exactly what the doctor ordered."
(c) Vladimir Serebryakov, Andrey Ulanov."Silver and Lead".
A typical recursion of conjectures: writers out of their ears heard something about somersaults, readers in their comments on the forums begin to repeat this, and these comments are read by other pimply writers about hedgehogs who also write books about how bullets tumble, which other users read about how a small-caliber bullet with a "displaced center of gravity" tumbles in flight and ricochets off branches and grass … their feeds are weapon neophytes on the forums. In case of ricochet, the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, what else can there be in the direction of "anywhere"? The minimum angle of rebound on wood with Soviet bullets 5.45x39 and 7, 62x39 is the same and is ten degrees. At a higher angle, the tree breaks through. Behind the obstacle, the percentage of oval holes that characterize the "tumbling" of bullets is also approximately the same. It has been repeatedly tested and proven at landfills and physical calculations.
Conclusion
In this cycle, I tried to explain with specific technical solutions why the AK scheme is more reliable than AR. In the first article, I put forward the thesis that Stoner was an "irregular" designer, since some of his decisions were not just erroneous, but even illiterate, and in general it seems that he was not very interested in weapon specificity. A frank copying of some units from a stormgiver, multiplied by an adventurous automation scheme with a cylindrical sleeve, and as a result, a weapon misunderstanding turned out, on the reliability of which the life of a soldier depends. Although, in terms of mechanical engineering, AR is made flawlessly, and it could fly beautifully if it were an airplane. But planes flooded with water and smeared with mud do not fly.
Speaking of beauty. AR aesthetics are terrible. A straightened butt, a picatinny sawmill, right angles, a load of small things that scratch not only the eye - the direct influence of Gothic art, pronounced in the architecture of Catholic churches. And what is the opposite of SKS, SVD, AK and PM in their original form, not spoiled by a pop body kit.
I foresee objections to the straightened butt - when the heel of the back of the head is on the same axis with the barrel. This scheme was tested even during the work on the AKM, and it also appeared in it. For some reason, most neophytes believe that this is not the case in modern AK. This arrangement gives a slight improvement in accuracy only when shooting, prone without support, when the heel is precisely placed on the shooter's shoulder. When shooting while standing, and even more so in a real battle, with such an installation of the weapon, you need to press your head a little lower against the butt, so the heel usually sticks out above the shoulder, which means that there is no sense from such a straightened butt.
The comparison of the AK and AR designs is part of the big WE vs THEY confrontation. It is foolish to deny the achievements and contribution of Western design ideas to world technogenesis. But when they try to gloss over an obvious failure in a generally significant area or pass it off as a brilliant achievement, this is already a policy aimed at causing erosion in the enemy's worldview - that part of our technically illiterate society that is already put on the needle of consumerism (from the word consume). To resist this is our task.
