AK-74M
The need to create a particular model of combat small arms should be determined by the end user acting as the customer. It is he who, based on the experience and the forecast of the nature of future hostilities, develops the tactical and technical requirements for the desired type of weapon. Further - R&D, competition, determination of a promising model, military tests, elimination of deficiencies and revision, setting the sample into service. This is the only way to ensure the further development of military small arms.
But the power structures of the Russian Federation, as an end user, since the beginning of the 90s, without having their own intelligible concept of development, took a position, the essence of which looks something like this: “since everything that exists is hopelessly outdated, you do something new, and we will choose what we like (rather than choose - we will buy abroad) ….
This position is based on statements in the media, the subjective opinion of individual instructors of elite special forces, relying on "foreign experience", athletes of foreign, almost combat sports and designed for foreign models of small arms, the opinions of "experts on small arms" and more.
In this regard, weapons enterprises of state and other forms of ownership, in an attempt to obtain orders, have created and hastily try to create various models of small arms, incl. and "masterpieces of the latest computer technology." Having no orders for their products and often mistakenly assigning their model the desired place in the system of small arms of the power structures of the Russian Federation, enterprises began to independently promote them to the "market", based on their own capabilities and concepts of morality.
As an example, we can consider the marketing actions, which are more typical for Western markets, for the promotion of Glock, Strike (aka Strizh) pistols and other models into the power structures of the Russian Federation.
In this case, the proposed product is declared the most "pistol" pistol, which will henceforth replace all pistols already in service. And this despite the fact that the law enforcement agencies are already using the Yarygin pistol, which is in no way inferior to the proposed ones in terms of various indicators, and significantly surpasses them in operational strength and reliability.
So, almost all delays when firing from this pistol are due to the unacceptably low quality of the domestic 9x19 Luger and 7H21 cartridges produced. Returning to the issue of already in service and newly proposed models of small arms and ammunition for them, the following should be noted.
The Yarygin pistol is already produced today in versions PYa 6P35 with a steel frame (from a forged blank), PYa 6P35-02 with a lightweight (plastic) frame and an integrated picattini rail, PYa 6P35-03 chambered for 9x21 cartridge with very soft recoil with such a powerful ammunition, as well as PYa under a service traumatic cartridge (150 J). And this allows the user to choose exactly the one that is most appropriate for performing a particular task.
Regarding the Makarov pistol, designed to ensure public and personal safety, we can only note that in the next 50 years it will be indispensable in its class. It should be noted that for more than a year now, the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant (Izhmeh) has been demonstrating a PM with a PMM frame at all exhibitions for the use of a 12-round magazine. At the same time, there is a frame with a push-button fixation of the magazine, which allows the use of a 30-round magazine, which increases its versatility and significantly expands the scope of application.
Stechkin automatic pistol 9 mm
Of particular note is the Stechkin automatic pistol (APS), which enjoys steady popularity in special forces. For 60 years of use, this pistol not only did not exhaust its capabilities, but did not actually reveal them, since until now there was no method of teaching how to fire from it in automatic mode with one and two hands, which in modern fleeting combat gives it the advantages of an assault pistol …
To replace the hidden carry pistol PSM at Izhmeh, a pistol "Bars", which is slightly inferior to it in size, but significantly surpasses it in terms of the stopping effect of ammunition, chambered for 9x18PM with magazines for 6 and 8 rounds, has been created at Izhmekh. But for some reason, in the promoted pursuit of illusory innovations, the truly innovative approach of the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, which created 5 (!) New models in rather difficult conditions of existence, is fundamentally not noticed by state structures.
The 9x18PM cartridge deserves a high assessment, which in 50-70% of cases shows the best stopping effect in comparison with the 9x19 and 9x21 cartridges. This is achieved by the fact that all the kinetic energy of the 9x18PM cartridge bullet is transferred to the target, and the bullets of other cartridges pass through the target tissue and transfer only a part to it. It is also important that the range of 9x18PM cartridges includes cartridges of increased power, with a low-ricochet bullet, PBM cartridges for hitting targets in individual body armor, as well as high-stopping cartridges with a lightweight bullet for anti-terror units.
A serviceman with an AK-12 Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Attention should also be paid to the story of the AK-12 assault rifle, which has been declared the most "automatic" assault rifle of our time and the "replacement" of all assault rifles available in the power structures of the Russian Federation. Although the most likely reason for this decision is that the special forces of the power structures of Russia, in comparison with the linear ones, perform a wider range of tasks and their weapons, most likely, should be able to accommodate additional equipment.
At the same time, the Kalashnikov assault rifle will remain the main small arms for combat units of the power structures of the Russian Federation in the next 50 years. Moreover, if the accusations of relatively low accuracy of AK when firing in a single fire mode are considered absolutely unfounded, and about the accuracy of automatic fire, one is guided by the competent opinion of the GRAU veteran, professor of the Academy of Military Sciences, retired colonel A. A. Lovi, then arguments about the obsolescence of this machine appear incompetent and contrived.
The situation with high-capacity stores for Kalashnikov assault rifles also deserves closer attention. Everyone knows that with decreasing distances in modern rapid combat, high-capacity magazines play a decisive role. The fact that speaks for itself, for some reason forgotten by many, is very eloquent in this regard.
Since 1943, more than 190 appeals have been received from the Eastern Front of German troops to the Wehrmacht command, the essence of which is as follows: “The PPSh-41 surpasses the MP-38 (40) in store capacity, therefore, Wehrmacht units are defeated in close-range battles in trenches and in settlements, we ask you to provide the active army with automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines."
On the same Izhmash back in 2002, the designer Yu. A.and its employees, as part of the development work, developed and launched into production 50 and 60 charging magazines for the AK-74, as well as a new horizontal magazine of increased capacity of the drum type chambered for 7, 62x39. These stores, when using certain methods of training in firing, dramatically increases the combat effectiveness of both a single soldier (employee) and the unit as a whole.
Isn't this innovation? But for more than 10 years no one has been interested in these stores, and many representatives of law enforcement agencies have only heard of them. However, in contrast to them, those who directly perform service and combat tasks and are in the line of fire by any means, up to their own money, seek to get high-capacity magazines, which are not officially adopted for service.
AK-12 and M-16A3.
As a result of the AK, it should be noted that a number of experts in terms of the totality of characteristics, this machine is considered the most adapted to the conditions of modern combat operations, which has no analogue in the world now, and will not be for a long time. Therefore, if we eliminate some personnel errors at Izhmash and accept a long-term concept for the development of small arms in Russia, questions about a promising machine gun will disappear by themselves.
Airframe ORSIS T-5000. Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta
The Orsis T-5000 sniper rifle was once declared a "tactical sniper rifle" (as if there were "operational" and "strategic" ones) capable of replacing all sniper rifles in service with the Russian security forces. In this case, it would be quite enough to announce the creation of a domestic high-precision rifle, which can occupy its own niche in the system of small arms.
In our opinion, in the next 50 years, the SVD rifle has been and will remain the most widespread and demanded sniper system, based on the 3-level classification of snipers proposed by us: Level 1 - long-range snipers (part of the GRU, SSO, FSO snipers), Level 2 - anti-terror snipers with SVD and SV-98 rifles; and level 3 - snipers of special forces and reconnaissance groups (combined arms units of the Ministry of Defense, OMON and SOBR Ministry of Internal Affairs) with SVD and SV-98 rifles.
It should be noted that the surprising fact that today the "rules of the game" are somehow determined by anti-terror snipers (2nd level), who are more than 80 times less than 3rd level snipers, whose work specifics are noticeably different from the actions of the first. As a result of such a redistribution of "roles", imported rifles with manual reloading and powerful optics, ballistic calculators, meteorological stations and other specific expensive equipment began to be purchased unreasonably today for use in mountain-wooded areas with firing distances of 50-150 m.
And this despite the fact that the technology of manufacturing the barrel of an SVD rifle by electrochemical method followed by chromium plating (sniper barrel !!!), developed at Izhmash, still amazes all foreign competitors.
The SVD was originally created as a purely army rifle chambered for a standard cartridge with not the best ballistic characteristics, taking into account the requirements of the military doctrine, providing for the incapacitation or defeat of the enemy, and not absolute (100%) elimination. Therefore, in the army shooting course there are no targets such as "terrorist with a hostage" and the like.
At the same time, the experience of sniper movement during the Second World War was taken into account, when, in conditions of combat in open areas and in a populated area, 98% of targets were hit from a distance of up to 350 meters. That is why today, as well as during the war, when the combat regulations determine the closest ones as the primary and most dangerous targets, the main qualities of a sniper rifle are its reliability and rate of fire. For the same reasons, in the army firing course (KS-SO-86) there were no exercises involving firing at ranges of more than 450 m (and since 2010 - 800 m).
Today, various "experts on small arms" in their subjective assessments, the factor determining the suitability of a sniper rifle for solving army tasks is called its accuracy. As a result, in recent years there has been a kind of "chase" for the shares of MOA based on the opinions of long-range high-precision shooting athletes (benchrest, came to Russia from the United States), who have no experience of active and long-term hostilities, who do not tolerate objection.
Experts know that the accuracy and effectiveness of fire are interrelated only at ranges that do not exceed the range of a direct shot. When shooting at long distances, "amazing" accuracy can play a cruel joke, when not a single bullet will hit the target in case of omission or inaccurate determination of the initial data for shooting (range to the target, wind speed and direction, temperature, pressure, derivation correction), which is quite likely in a difficult battle environment.
And carrying a whole heap of special devices for solving these tasks in combat conditions for each sniper with him is hardly justified from any point of view, incl. and economic. So for an army rifle, the accuracy of fire should be optimal, ensuring the implementation of real, and not contrived for the sake of something (or someone) combat missions.
But, even starting from the accuracy, it should be noted that our snipers with the SV-98 rifle have repeatedly won first or won prizes at international competitions without unnecessary pomp, and another Izhmash rifle in caliber 338 Lapua is also not inferior to foreign counterparts. However, this fact does not arouse interest, because it is not cool, and AW is cool.
SV-98
TTX SV-98
The following fact is very interesting. In the late 80s - early 90s, the US security forces were left without a semi-automatic sniper rifle, since the M-16 did not fit this role for various reasons. Then, using a Remington-700 hunting rifle with a camouflage stock, Harris bipod and Knightforts optics, they started talking about the concept of one accurate shot.
While we, "taking a bite" on this, for 20 years fiercely argued about the MTs-116 and SV-98 rifles, choosing the best one, they did not stop development and as a result, they recently adopted a 20-round AR-10T semi-automatic rifle chambered for 308 From now on, all the key countries of the NATO bloc are armed with their own self-loading sniper rifles. We continue to argue !!!
PKP "PECHENEG"
The situation with the PKP "Pecheneg" light machine gun, also designated as the most "machine-gun" machine gun, is not entirely clear. Today this machine gun, which, despite the oddness in its name, was and remains a Kalashnikov machine gun, was announced by TsNIITOCHMASH as a fundamentally new machine gun. As a result of replacing the barrel, the resource of which is less than the resource of two barrels for the PKM machine gun, increasing the mass by 1.5 kg, transferring the bipod to the muzzle (when shooting prone, the shooting sector sharply decreased), it really acquired a new, but not better, quality.
Therefore, the question arises again without an answer, why "Pecheneg", with such indicators, completely replaces the PKM machine gun, which has earned high praise from servicemen and employees performing operational-combat missions in mountainous and wooded areas and at a distance from the places of deployment.
Small-sized automatic machine 9A-91
Particular attention should be paid to the small arms developed and produced by TsNIITOCHMASH - AS Val, VSS Vintorez and the 9A-91 assault rifle. In addition to the surprising ergonomics of these samples, especially the latter, there is completely no interchangeability of units and parts with the main weapon already in service - the Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Moreover, in 1964 M. T. Kalashnikov received the Lenin Prize for the creation of a unified set of small arms as part of a light machine gun, completely unified with an assault rifle already in service. In other words, the AS Val, VSS Vintorez and the 9A-91 assault rifle clearly do not meet the requirement for maximum unification of new weapons with existing ones. Or has this requirement been canceled today?
Then it is not clear why the long-existing special assault rifle AK-9 cal. 9x39 Izhmash, which in all characteristics is not inferior to the above-mentioned samples of special weapons, surpasses them in reliability, and when the PBS is removed, it is difficult to distinguish from the AK-104 until now is little known? Most likely, this is due to the closer location of the city of Klimovsk to Moscow, in comparison with Izhevsk.
In connection with the above, another question arises about light machine guns. Do our law enforcement agencies, which are forced to conduct hostilities in mountainous and wooded areas, do not need light automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines and a long barrel, thick in relation to a standard machine gun?
PP-90 submachine gun
It is impossible to pass over in silence the question of obvious distortions in the class of submachine guns. Today, in a far from complete list of these weapons, designed "for the task" "Kedr" and "Klin", "Vityaz" and "Veresk" (SR-2 and SR-2M), "PP-90" and "PP-93", "PP-2000" and "Bizon", small-sized machines "Whirlwind" SR-3, SR-3M and 9A91, as well as, more recently, and some imported samples, which, as a rule, are used only for "show-off" …
But it is one thing when the movie shows MP-5 from Heckler & Koch, with whom "their tough guys" are fighting a stoned African-American who took the hostess of the house hostage, and quite another when our special forces, during a counter-terrorist operation, go into the forest or into a building, where Kalashnikov assault rifles and machine guns, RPGs and other real weapons await him.
In general, a concept of small arms should be developed, clearly defining what the state expects. In our opinion, it should provide for a sharp decrease in the number of samples of military small arms, their unification and a decrease in the number of calibers used.
So, for example, the SP-4 cartridge for the NRS-1, PSS, "VUL", the "Grumble" revolver and other samples was originally created for special operations mainly abroad. And suddenly this cartridge began to be widely introduced, despite the fact that the main advantage of the PB (6P9) and APB pistols is precisely the possibility of using standard 9x18 ammunition, which is already widespread and much cheaper than the SP-4 cartridge.
Thus, taking into account the above, today we can state the presence of a serious failure in the issue of providing the power structures of the Russian Federation with combat small arms. This was facilitated, on the one hand, by the refusal of the Ministry of Defense to purchase a number of samples, incl. PM and AK-74, and on the other - the uncertainty about what is necessary to equip the troops.
AK-74 after extended factory modernization. Photo: JSC NPO Izhmash
As a result, a critically dangerous situation with a technological base and qualified labor force has developed for Izhevsk manufacturing plants. To prevent the most gloomy forecast, when any new "miracle weapon" will have nowhere and no one to do, the state concept of the development of military small arms and ammunition must be adopted urgently.
Currently, LLC "Polygon" (Chelyabinsk) has proactively developed a concept for creating a unified system of firearms training in the country, the implementation of which will allow, in addition to solving the main tasks, to load manufacturers of military small arms with state orders and fill the resulting gap.
The proposed concept includes 3 stages of interdepartmental firearms training, each of which involves the use of existing models of small arms and their weight and size models. In addition, this concept provides for the production and purchase of a number of small arms by the state.
Among the priority measures:
- purchases of a pneumatic pistol MP-654 (analogue of PM) and a pneumatic carbine "Juncker" (analogue of AK) - for training pre-conscription youth (10-14 years old);
- purchases of a PM pistol, a SAIGA-22 and SVD-22 carbine (all chambered for a small-caliber cartridge) - for pre-conscription training (14-16 years old);
- purchases of sports samples MR-446S "Viking" and "SAIGA-MK" (cal. 5, 45 and 7, 62), "Tiger" (7, 62x54) - for sports training;
- production of the required number of MMG pistols (order No. 288 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation), PM, PYa and AK assault rifle - for military and civil universities with military departments, training centers, units and divisions, secondary schools, military patriotic and military sports clubs, DOSAAF within the framework of the implementation of the reform of firepower training in the power structures of the Russian Federation and educational programs;
- the phased replacement of the AS "Val" and VSS "Vintorez" assault rifles with the AK-9 assault rifle, the AK-74 assault rifle (cal. 5, 45x39) with the AK-103 assault rifle (cal. 7, 62x39) - for unification of military small arms.
During the preparation of the article for publication, a change in the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation took place. President of the Russian Federation V. V. Putin at a meeting with his new head, General of the Army Shoigu S. K. and the new Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, Colonel-General V. V. Gerasimov. noting that an excessive enthusiasm for innovations in recent years has led to difficult, sometimes catastrophic situations at many enterprises of the military-industrial complex, demanded to pay serious attention to this.
In our opinion, the leading arms enterprises of the domestic defense industry have not yet passed the point of no return. However, the state urgently needs to develop a concept for the development of small arms, taking into account the issues of a unified interdepartmental training for their qualified use.
This is confirmed by the words of the announcer at the exhibition of Russian arms in Nizhny Tagil in 2011, who, during the demonstration firing, said the following: are outdated, but have not yet fully revealed their combat capabilities."
