At the end of 2010, the so-called "Government Hour" took place in the State Duma, during which Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov spoke to the deputies. The head of the Ministry of Defense spoke behind closed doors about the progress of the military reform being carried out in the country, about the solution of personnel and social issues in the armed forces. Among other things, the meeting discussed the fate of domestic small arms. In particular, the Minister of Defense said that such legendary weapons as Kalashnikov assault rifles and the Dragunov sniper rifle (SVD) are morally obsolete. Therefore, in the near future, Russia will buy not only helicopter carriers and UAVs, but also small arms - sniper and assault rifles.
The minister quite creatively discussed with the deputies the program of state purchases of weapons. For these purposes, a colossal amount of money will be allocated from the budget - about 20 trillion. rub. Already now, the main directions have been identified, along which massive purchases of equipment will be made. Thus, a serious upgrade of air defense systems is expected and the purchase of modern communications equipment, including individual ones, to provide them with military personnel of units of constant combat readiness.
But the main event of the speech, of course, was the alleged "resignation" of the legendary Kalashnikov assault rifles, which, in the opinion of a large number of military experts, are the best assault rifle in terms of their aggregate qualities in the whole world.
As one of the deputies later told the media: “Foreign models of small arms are many times superior to ours in terms of their performance characteristics. Kalashnikov remained in the last century. All of them, including the assault rifles of the new 100 series, are not capable of aimed fire in bursts. In combat conditions, professionals are forced to fire single shots. In addition, foreign weapons are easier to handle, lighter, and often cheaper than their domestic counterparts. This is the kind of information the deputy gave for himself after listening to Anatoly Serdyukov.
From this statement, we can conclude that not the deputy himself, nor the one to whose words he refers, to put it mildly, are not competent enough in this matter.
If we talk about aimed fire in bursts, then it was specially taught to soldiers in the Soviet Army, and it was from the very same AK. If by the words of the minister we mean a high spread of bullets in this type of shooting, then this is one of the main problems of all assault rifles in the world.
So, for example, combat manuals for an infantryman of NATO countries indicate that it is ineffective to fire from assault weapons at distances exceeding 50 m. That is why, at serious distances, the shooter is instructed to conduct rapid fire with single shots.
Yes, and most sniper rifles are designed for single-fire, while no one considers them obsolete on this basis.
AK-103 assault rifle
Peter Kokalis, one of the leading American experts in the field of weapons, after he got acquainted with the AK 100 series assault rifles, said that this weapon is not inferior in accuracy of fire to the M-16 assault rifle, surpassing it in all other technical characteristics (we were talking about machine guns according to the standard NATO cartridge 223 Rem).
But the accuracy of the fire is not all. The reliability of the weapon, ease of maintenance, its maintainability, as well as the manufacturability of production are very important; it is for this series of indicators that Kalashnikov assault rifles are unmatched. What is the use of a rifle that provides excellent accuracy at the range, but can fail in combat conditions. This is exactly what happened with modern British rifles, which began to go out of service en masse, finding themselves not only in dusty Afghanistan and Iraq, but even in Kosovo.
There are cases when British and American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq used Egyptian, Chinese or Iraqi AKs, which are much less reliable than those produced in Russia. If we talk about mercenaries or PMC soldiers, then they all use the Kalashnikov assault rifle. It is noteworthy that even the new Georgian army, whose soldiers are so fond of posing with the M-4, preferred the AK for the conduct of hostilities, with which the soldiers of the Georgian army invaded Tskhinvali, while the American M-4 carbines remained in warehouses and in the weapons rooms.
Indeed, the scheme of the domestic Kalashnikov assault rifle has already turned 50 years old, but it is worth taking into account the fact that during all this time no significant revolutions in the development of small arms have occurred, and, therefore, all talk about the obsolescence of the assault rifle is groundless.
In addition, a pertinent question arises. What is the outdated Kalashnikov assault rifle in relation to? Blasters and lasers from science fiction books? Or from programs to develop a "rifle of the future", which cost French and American taxpayers a tidy sum? At the same time, these programs reached a dead end, which the military experts of these countries had to admit. Even the statement about the cheapness of foreign weapons in comparison with Russian ones seems at least strange. So the receiver alone for the M-16 A-3 (which is not the most expensive rifle in the world) is more expensive than the entire AK-103.
If we talk about the "outdated" SVD, then it was originally created as a weapon of an army sniper (one might even say - a senior shooter), which acts directly in the combat formations of infantry formations. And it is in this role that the rifle is especially good - it is light, reliable, self-loading and quite accurate. Perhaps a high-precision rifle that would allow us to hit a terrorist in the head from a distance of half a kilometer, we really do not have enough. Just take into account that our industry is capable of developing such a weapon, there would be a corresponding order.
But now they are not talking about creating new models of domestic weapons, but about purchasing them abroad. For what? Even if we are going to switch to NATO standards, it is still more logical, more profitable, and most importantly cheaper to switch to the production of our own weapons for the ammunition of this block.
FAMAS G2 assault rifle
Evil tongues point out that the reason for such rather strange preferences of the Russian Ministry of Defense is the generous "kickbacks" of Western gunsmiths to their customers. Or is it the fault of the beliefs of our Western politicians, who were formed under the influence of the "Dream Factory", that everything foreign is "cooler"? Or maybe the reason for everything is not advertised volitional decisions that are made in the global political kitchen, one way or another they hit the domestic producer. The domestic military-industrial complex, which the Ministry of Defense is preparing to deliver a serious blow in the back, may never recover from it.
What can replace the AK? According to rumors from the Ministry of Defense, this weapon may be the French assault rifle FAMAS, there is information that a pilot batch of samples has already been purchased.
At the same time, military experts believe that this rifle does not possess any unique qualities. The dispersion when firing at a distance of 200 meters in series of ten single shots is 400 mm for the FAMAS, while for the AK-47 it should not exceed 300 mm. In addition, French rifles overheat too quickly, and when hundreds of cartridges are fired, there is a danger of spontaneous combustion. After the complete shooting of 3-5 magazines, there are delays in firing due to the accumulation of carbon deposits. Sometimes two cartridges are fed at the same time, which also causes delays in firing. There have been cases of spontaneous disconnection of the magazine during firing.
There is a popular anecdote in the French army: “Question: FAMAS is a weapon or a device for a bayonet? The answer is that you can remove the bayonet from it and use the rifle like a hammer. 10 rifles to hammer in one nail."
It is noteworthy that the units of the French special forces are armed with German G-36 rifles. At the same time, even in spite of the generous kickbacks, France was able to sell its rifle only to such countries as Gabon, Djibouti and Senegal, can it really be that Russia can find itself in this warm company.
The question arises, if Anatoly Serdyukov defends the interests of Western producers to the detriment of domestic and to the detriment of the country's security, who is he for the entire Russian people?
