More than two hundred years ago, a simple Russian generalissimo, in his work "Science to Win", expressed a simple and capacious idea: "Shoot rarely, but accurately." Much later, one genius American general rediscovered this idea by counting the number of cartridges fired and the number of enemies defeated. The ratio he got was something like a wagon of cartridges per one defeated. Americans are very fond of rediscovering the truth, wrapping them in colorful candy wrappers and supplying them with a red lid. It happened this time too. A wagon of cartridges to nowhere will not leave indifferent any enterprising American. The concept of single aimed fire emerged. Automatic shooting was declared morally obsolete and harmful. Of course, methodologies and methodology teachers with fixed pricing have appeared. The brightest minds generally suggested abandoning manual automatic weapons and returning to SKS or M1 Garand.
The Kalashnikov assault rifle is the pinnacle in the evolution of the development of automatic small arms for an intermediate cartridge. This is another systemic reason why AK still has no competitors. I wanted to finish the story of the farce in the same way as in the case of calculating the complex coefficient, which determines the obsolescence of technology. Show graphs, calculations. However, it is impossible to outline the basics of general systems theory in a couple of paragraphs, as it happened with a complex coefficient. I'll leave it for later, but for now I will limit myself to thoughts on the analysis of comments to the article.
Surprisingly, no one objected to the thesis that not a single foreign sample fits the AK level with a coefficient higher than 0.9. Even the pimply writer of fairy tales about hedgehogs is silent like a fish on ice. The next battle of AK vs M16 did not happen. So the question of which weapon is currently the best and most unsurpassed can be closed.
But what about the balanced automatics, "Abakan"? What can we expect in the future and, finally, what kind of machine do we need? And what happened in general with this "Ratnik" competition? I warn you, you shouldn't expect me to provide a detailed cardin-style technical specification. Although, of course, there are thoughts, who do not have them. And who does not have them, I think, in general, the sky smokes in vain.
Let's go back to the beginning. At the end of World War II, the Americans ignored the achievements of German military thought in the field of small arms. Sturmgewer and his patron did not inspire them, and after a short interrogation, Hugo Schmeisser was sent to the zone of Soviet control. It took the Korean War for the Americans to attend to the problems of small arms for their own army. In general, it is characteristic of them - after each major military campaign to conduct major research and each time to find major shortcomings in their own weapons. So, in Vietnam, it turned out that the barrels and chambers need to be chrome-plated. In Iraq, the dust reduces the operating time of weapons failure to indecent values, and in Afghanistan there is simply not enough power of a regular cartridge. In Korea, the theater of military operations differed sharply from the continental European one. Reduced the distance of small arms and American troops suffered heavy damage from the UNAIMING automatic fire of the Russian Shpagin and Sudaev assault rifles.
The Americans carried out several different research works on the effectiveness of small arms, the culmination of which was the SALVO program, which led to the emergence of a new low-pulse cartridge and weapons for it. These works gave rise to many research works in the field of multi-bullet and arrow bullet cartridges. The Germans began to actively work with a gun carriage scheme using a caseless cartridge.
In one of the conclusions of these studies, to compensate for errors in aiming, salvo firing was proposed. Such a volley could be performed either with a short burst or with a multi-bullet cartridge from any position with an accuracy of 50% hits in a 23x23cm square by 100 meters.
For the "Abakan" competition, our specialists have developed more pragmatic requirements, taking into account the type of doubles shooting:
12x12 cm for prone shooting from a support;
20x20 cm lying from the arm;
45x45 cm standing with hands.
Obviously, both the Americans and ours came to approximately the same conclusion regarding the requirements, the fulfillment of which should lead to the adoption of a new model.
Not a single assault rifle, including the V. Kalashnikov assault rifle with balanced automatics similar to the AEK, could meet these parameters, with the exception of the Nikonov assault rifle. Yes, and he corresponded to TTT only in one indicator - standing with his hand. Are these requirements achievable or not at all? The question remains open. In the end, the transition to a low-pulse cartridge was due to the fact that there was no other way out to improve the accuracy of automatic fire within the framework of other technical characteristics of the weapon.
In conclusion, more about Picatinny. First, two quotes from German snipers during World War II:
Ollerberg Josef, "German Sniper on the Eastern Front 1942-1945":
My opponent remained in his position and waited for a new target. It was a fatal mistake for which he had to pay with his life. I carefully placed my rolled up cape-tent in front of the logs to rest on it, and carefully stuck the barrel of my rifle through the slot. I was unable to use my telescopic sight because the slit was too narrow. But the Russian was only ninety meters away from me, and it was possible to aim in the usual way, using the front sight and the aiming bar.
Gunter Bauer, "Death through a telescopic sight":
With thoughts of home, it was not easy for me to return to duty. Nevertheless, the oath obliged me, and in a few days I was already at our military base in the Sudetenland. There I got my carbine back. It took me very little time to attach the new scope to it. I set it high enough to be able to fire if necessary without using optics..
And one quote from Yu. Ponomarev. "The Birth of a Legend". Kalashnikov, 1/2016:
The Konstantinov rifle met the TTT requirements for accuracy, reliability, resource (except for the drummer), safety and a number of other characteristics. The main disadvantage of this rifle was recognized that it was impossible to use a mechanical one with an installed optical sight.
And now we look here:
Where did that go?
