The product of the Tula Instrument Design Bureau, a member of the High-Precision Complexes holding, will become the star of the DEFEXPO India 2014 exhibition
The Russian holding NPO High-Precision Complexes OJSC successfully produces not only high-tech weapons systems, but also unique small arms. At the 8th International Exhibition of Land and Naval Armaments, which will be held within the framework of Defexpo India 2014 from 6 to 9 February this year in New Delhi, the holding will present a unique two-medium assault rifle ADS capable of hitting targets both under water and on land …
In February of this year, one of the leading production associations of the Russian military-industrial complex, the holding company NPO High-Precision Complexes, turns five years old. Over the years, VK products have earned high marks both from the Russian military and law enforcement agencies, and abroad. The Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile cannon system protects not only the S-300 and S-400 air defense systems of the Russian Armed Forces, but also strategically important objects in almost ten countries of the world. Anti-tank guided complexes "Kornet" have become the stars of arms exhibitions all over the world. During the second Lebanese war, Hezbollah operators successfully hit Israel's Merkava tanks, which are considered one of the most protected.
Last year, another product of NPK Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering, a member of the NPO High-Precision Complexes holding, the Iskander operational-tactical missile system, caused a political crisis in Europe after the German media announced that the Russian Armed Forces placed several launchers of these OTRKs in Kaliningrad.
Held every two years under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry, Defexpo India is one of the most significant overseas exhibition sites for the military industry. Subject - weapons and military equipment for ground forces and naval forces, communication systems, electronic warfare, air defense, etc. Dual-purpose products are also presented. Leading military manufacturers from Russia, USA, France, Great Britain - about 32 countries in total - take part in the exhibition.
Defexpo India is one of the priorities for Russian enterprises of the military-industrial complex. Russian-Indian cooperation in the military-technical field has been going on for over four decades and forms the basis of the strategic partnership between Russia and India. Representatives of nearly 40 Russian defense industry enterprises will come to New Delhi this year. Thus, there is nothing surprising in the fact that it was this representative international exhibition of weapons that became the platform for the presentation of the unique two-medium assault rifle ADS.
Reasons for the absence of world analogues
ADS, that is, a special two-medium assault rifle, while the only one in the world capable of hitting targets both under water and on land.
“In the West, a fighter uses special weapons under water, such as the German P-11 pistol by Heckler und Koch, and on land, conventional standard small arms,” says Maxim Popenker, editor-in-chief of the World Guns Internet project.
Conventional submachine guns and pistols are ineffective under water, since the bullet will pass only two to three meters, and the ammunition of special weapons of type 5, 66-mm MPS cartridge from an APS submachine gun or an SPP-1 pistol is unstable in the air - it will be very difficult to hit the target. But for a fighter operating underwater with scuba diving, or a diver, when every gram of equipment counts, it is inconvenient to carry two machine guns at once - a special and a regular one, and even ammunition for them.
“The APS is my unit's standard weapon,” says a former Soviet / Russian Navy intelligence officer and diving instructor, speaking on condition of anonymity. - It is very comfortable underwater. Good grouping, accuracy and firing range. But this is only under water. It is of no use on land. According to our anonymous interlocutor, his former subordinates went to the depths either with an APS submachine gun or an SPP-1 pistol, and a regular small arms were in a special sealed bag.
“If a soldier has a machine gun or a sniper rifle,” explains the former intelligence officer, “then the second weapon was given an SPP-1 pistol, and ordinary submachine gunners - APS. During the exercises, we landed on the territory of a mock enemy and buried wetsuits, scuba gear, etc. We did the same with underwater weapons. In theory, we had to drag it with us, because these are very expensive "toys". Who needs extra weight? Fortunately, these are exercises and then we dug out the APS and SPP. But in a real war, we would do that too. The situation when you climb to storm a ship or a ship of the "enemy" is even worse - the APS dangles, interferes. Where to put it? Do not throw it away …"
Also, our interlocutor noted that back in the late 80s, the Main Intelligence Directorate, which was subordinate to the naval special forces, formulated a requirement for the developers of small arms to create a complex of weapons that could be used both on land and under water with minimal replacement of parts. “It was believed,” he says, “that we needed a two-medium pistol and a submachine gun. Pistols would act as a second weapon for snipers and machine gunners. But later the two-medium pistol was abandoned. On land, we used only special pistols with a silencer, and even then rarely. And the underwater SPP-1 is frankly weak in comparison with the APS. We didn't like him. All the same, the anti-sabotage units of the potential enemy had no analogues of the APS. And now no. Even if not the entire unit is armed with dual-medium weapons, we could always fight back."
After the collapse of the USSR, they were able to return to the creation of a two-medium weapon only in the late 90s - early 2000s, when the Instrument-Making Design Bureau and the Central Design Research Bureau of Sports and Hunting Weapons in 2003, within the framework of development work, began work on a two-medium special assault rifle. …
The developers came to the conclusion that the two-medium product can be achieved by simply replacing the cartridges, when on land the machine gun shoots with ordinary cartridges, and under water - with special ones. The shooter only needs to quickly change the magazine with one type of cartridges to another. Moreover, the experience of using the APS submachine gun in anti-sabotage units and special-purpose units of the USSR / Russian Navy has shown that there are no large-scale battles under water and a swimmer can easily get by with one store of special ammunition.
On the way to creation
The designers of the Tula Instrument Design Bureau, starting to design a two-medium machine gun, immediately realized that 5, 66-mm underwater cartridges should be abandoned.
According to Maxim Popenker, back in 2005, this design bureau developed a special underwater cartridge PSP in the dimensions of a conventional cartridge of 5, 45x39 millimeters and using its own sleeve. The new cartridge contains a solid carbide bullet weighing 16 grams with an initial velocity of about 330 meters per second. According to the expert, it can be classified as armor-piercing.
“In water, the stabilization of the bullet and the decrease in resistance are due to the cavitation cavity created by the flat platform in the bow during movement. The effective firing range of the PSP cartridge under water is about 25 meters at a depth of five meters and up to 18 meters at a depth of 20 meters. When firing underwater, the PSP cartridge surpasses the 5, 66-mm MPS and MPST cartridges from the APS assault rifle in terms of combat effectiveness. Due to its size, 5.45 PSP cartridges can be used from standard magazines from AK-74 assault rifles,”Popenker says.
It was decided to create a new underwater assault rifle on the basis of the A-91M automatic grenade launcher system proposed for arming the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, which earned positive reviews from the special forces during the tests. The reason for this choice is simple: the A-91M is designed according to the "bullpup" scheme, when the trigger is brought forward and is located in front of the magazine and the firing mechanism.
“The underwater APS, even in spite of the folding stock, was not always convenient for the swimmer when exiting the carrier or when moving the weapon under water,” the editor-in-chief of the World Guns Internet project believes. According to him, the bullpup scheme was chosen for reasons of compactness and minimization of the size of the machine. The dimensions of the ADS turned out to be quite small compared to the APS, but the machine has good ballistics due to the sufficient length of the barrel.
“With a bullpup ADS, it is convenient to get out of the water and leave the carriers,” says Popenker. "The main thing is that there is no need to fiddle with a folding stock, like on the APS."
The work on the new submarine machine, which lasted two years, was completed in 2007. ADS was immediately created as a rifle-grenade launcher with an installed GP-25 underbarrel grenade launcher. Considering the high aggressiveness of salty sea water and the desire not to increase the weight of the two-medium machine, the designers have minimized the use of specially treated anti-corrosion metal, replacing it with plastic. This solution not only protected the machine gun, but also made it easy enough to operate both on land and under water. The gas outlet was also revised, which received two modes of operation - "water / land". The shooter selects the mode depending on the environment in which he operates.
The main problem of bullpup small arms is their use by left-handers (the cartridge case flies straight into the shooter's face). We have to modify the "barrel" so that the sleeve is thrown out in a direction that is safe for the left-hander. In ADS, spent cartridges are reflected forward when the automatic box is closed, which reduces gas pollution on the shooter's face, eliminates the possibility of injury by the cartridge when working in a group, and also (unlike lateral reflection) ensures the adaptation of the weapon for left-handers and right-handers without a submachine gun bulkhead.
In the course of work, a new two-medium machine gun was equipped with mounts for optical, collimator and holographic sights, tactical flashlights, laser designators, as well as PBS (silent firing devices), that is, silencers.
The adjustment of the machine to the customer's requirements took almost six years. Affected by the uniqueness of both the work itself and the tasks assigned to the designers. The Tula Instrument Design Bureau and the High-Precision Complexes holding passed this test with flying colors, and at the end of 2012 - beginning of 2013, a new two-medium special assault rifle entered trial operation in terms of both special purposes and anti-sabotage combat of the Navy.
According to Dmitry Konoplev, Managing Director of the Instrument-Making Design Bureau, and Alexander Denisov, General Director of NPO High-Precision Complexes, during the military operation, the ADS earned only positive reviews from the personnel. On August 13 last year, by a decree of the government of the Russian Federation, a special two-medium assault rifle was adopted by the Russian army.
The first open presentation of ADS took place during the Maritime Salon, which took place last year in St. Petersburg. Then the two-medium machine gun aroused keen interest among specialists and foreign military personnel. The uniqueness of both the ADS machine itself and the technical solutions used in it is obvious. The Russian Navy received a rifle complex with a special high-performance underwater cartridge.
Challenges and export potential
“In 1950-1960, the Soviet Navy began to create its own special formations to carry out sabotage against the ships and objects of a potential enemy. Such formations in Russian military terminology are called naval reconnaissance points (MRP). In terms of its status and number of personnel, the MCI can be equated with a special purpose detachment. Now the Russian Navy has five such units,”says Dmitry Boltenkov, a military historian and author of books on the history of the USSR / Russian Navy.
According to him, after the disaster with the battleship "Novorossiysk", the command of the Soviet Navy to protect its ships, nuclear submarines and infrastructure facilities created special forces to combat submarine sabotage forces and assets. In terms of status and number of personnel, such a detachment can be equated to a company. Now there are 12 PDSS detachments in the Russian Navy. Formations similar to them are also in the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
“Today there is an active rearmament of the naval special-purpose units and PDSS, - emphasizes Boltenkov. - Purchase of new anti-sabotage boats "Grachonok", floating craft for delivery, evacuation and fire support of saboteurs on the shore. There are new scuba gear, hydro and diving suits, communications equipment, night vision devices, etc."
As the world experience of using reconnaissance and sabotage units and subunits, such as American SEAL (well-known "seals"), British SBS (special boat service), French naval commandos of the "Hubert" command, shows, the peculiarity of their use is their multifunctionality. Fighting swimmers have ceased to be only "anti-ship weapons", like the legendary Italian saboteurs of the "black prince" Valerio Borghese during the Second World War. Now subdivisions of naval special forces not only carry out sabotage under water in enemy ports, protect their waters from enemy saboteurs, but also act as ordinary reconnaissance saboteurs. If you look at the map of Afghanistan, you will not find any ports or large bodies of water, but at least 200-300 American "seals" and their British colleagues from the special boat service of the Royal Marine Corps operate in the ISAF on a permanent basis.
The seas are also restless. In recent years, piracy in Somali waters and parts of the South China Sea has become an international problem. Fighting swimmers were involved several times to free the captured ships and their crews. An example is the seizure of the US container ship Maersk Alabama in April 2009, when Captain Richard Phillips was freed as a result of the US SEAL operation from DEVGRU. True, the liberation was done without an assault, and the pirates were destroyed by sniper fire. A participant in the operation to free Captain Phillips, Mark Owen, in his memoirs "No Easy Day", claims that the DEVGRU command considered one of the options for a night assault by scuba divers of the rescue boat, where they were holding the hostage. Another American military general, Karl Steiner, who commanded the Joint Special Operations Command of the US Armed Forces (JSOC) in the 1980s and 1990s, describing in his memoir Shadow Warriors preparations for the release of the Akila Laura passenger liner captured by Palestinian militants "In October 1985, claims that two options were considered for an attack - an assault from helicopters and an imperceptible penetration of combat swimmers on a ship.
So there are enough tasks at sea for ADS. But the newest two-medium machine will find its application on land.
“My management is familiar with ADS. They shot from it, took it apart. The weapon is complex, for professionals. Not for ordinary conscripts. But for us on land, a two-medium assault rifle will be very useful,”admits an officer of the intelligence directorate of the headquarters of the military district. According to him, several dozen machine guns are needed for special-purpose brigades subordinate to the district command. “There are enough rivers, lakes and other bodies of water on the mainland,” said our interlocutor. - Very often it is more effective to lead a group to the object of attack or reconnaissance not by parachute or helicopter, but along the water surface. It is not for nothing that diving training has now returned to the brigades. The Americans in Iraq deployed entire flotillas of river forces, which not only patrolled rivers and lakes, but also conducted surprise raids.
Each "saber" squadron of the legendary SAS (Special Aviation Service) regiment of the British Armed Forces, considered one of the most professional special forces units in the world, has a platoon of floating craft operating on rivers and lakes, as well as coastal waters by boats, canoes and scuba diving … There are the same units in the 13th Dragoon Regiment of the French Army, which is also engaged in deep reconnaissance, and the American "green berets" are undergoing combat diving courses for operations in confined waters and rivers.
The ADF will also be useful for the servicemen of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia guarding important state facilities.
“We are practically the same anti-sabotage units as military sailors. We only work mostly in reservoirs and artificial reservoirs. When patrolling, sometimes it becomes necessary to get out of the water to check technical objects and structures,”explains the former diver of the internal troops.
According to the interlocutor of the publication, his former colleagues are not only fighting unauthorized access to the protected area, but, if necessary, are ready to repulse terrorists and trained saboteurs of a potential enemy.
“Modern terrorists are armed and equipped no worse than the elite special forces. They can get hold of advanced scuba gear and even underwater weapons. With ADF, servicemen will not run the risk of being killed when they inspect all sorts of plums, valves, etc. on land,”notes the officer of the Interior Troops.
We can safely say that ADF will be in demand on the international arms market. The special two-medium assault rifle will find its buyer, taking its rightful place in the list of weapons of the world's elite special forces. Moreover, it has no competitors on the modern weapons market, and all special underwater weapons are very expensive. Not every state can afford to equip a soldier with conventional and underwater assault rifles.
Undoubtedly, the product line of the High-Precision Complexes holding has been replenished with a unique product that is in demand by the domestic military and has a great export potential. It remains to wish the management and employees of OAO NPO High-Precision Complexes on their anniversary not to stop there and continue to produce competitive products.
