Good Debate by Indian Army personal on why they opted for AK-203 , GarryB do watch
A few obvious errors... no firearm is 100% reliable and never jams... any rifle can jam in some circumstance... often because of damage to magazines or poor ammo.
Also it has a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute, which means it fires about 10 rounds a second but with a 30 round drum it will fire for three seconds and then stop and while you replace the empty mag with a full mag it will not fire any rounds. Even with 95 round capacity drums you wont be able to fire 600 rounds in a minute as every 10 seconds you will be reloading and you will need to reload at least 5 times.
But they are dead right about reliability... it is not just a cheap parlour trick... having soldiers that are confident with their primary weapon is critical...
From what I can tell these weapons seem to be replacing AKs and INSAS, while the SiG Sauer 5.56mm rifles will also replace some of the INSAS rifles in the roles where they are fighting in open country where the smaller calibre is much easier to use at extended ranges though they would critically need optics to be of any use most of the time.
The AKs will be cheaper.
They are selecting the 7.62x39mm specifically for its knock down power and it is not from advertising or some comment on wiki... they are basing their choice on experience in combat with both INSAS and the AK and have decided the AK has better performance.
The AK-203 will take that all a step forward as it is made better with better materials and will improve accuracy and ability to add optics and other equipment like torches and lasers and front grips or bipods.
Note if they wanted the 5.56mm calibre they have the new AKs in 5.56mm too... and indeed if they wanted 7.62 x 51mm then they have the new AKs in that calibre too, but they are clearly choosing 7.62x39mm.
They have experience in all three calibres.
did he men drop or accuracy? Drop is fairly easy to calculate:
He is basically talking about bullet drop or trajectory where you have to accurately estimate range to the target and either change your sight setting or aim off to compensate.
For instance if I had the iron sight on my AK set at 300m and a target appeared at 450m then if I aimed for the normal centre of chest position my bullets will be hitting in the groin or upper thigh area.
Of course a target 450m away is a tiny target so the tiniest flinch could shift the point of aim way off target anyway, but I would think a target 450m away would be so small I would probably recognise it is further than 300m away and aim for the top of the targets head... which would be easier to aim for.
They could modify the ammo if they want and go for improved propellent and slightly lighter bullets... at 100grain projectiles leaving the muzzle at 950m/s the trajectory will be flatter and the bullet will get to the target quicker, but shooting a targets at 400m is something you might play around at on a shooting range, but in real combat you will have real trouble getting two or three hits out of 10-15 shots most of the time unless you know the precise range to the target, have decent optical sights and are aware of any crosswinds...
looks like Russians improved 5,45mm ammo as cost effective solutio but this column below (1/3/2019) seem to outdtedinfo. Look t tble below:
Maybe the criticism was planned to sell new ammo to an Army that was not immediately interested in buying...
Looks like AK-103 7.62x39 is quite accurate up to 300 m , Read the review
That is a common misconception... most military assault rifles in most calibres are accurate enough to about 300m.
Shooting at greater distances means you ammo has to be good, the shooter has to be good, they have to be using decent optics, they need to allow for environmental conditions like wind and not just where the shooter is or the target is, but all the way between.
People who bollock on about 5.56mm rifles being accurate to 800m are a case in point... sure... on a still day, with no one shooting back at you, with carefully selected ammo, and a tuned gun, and modern powerful optical sights at a known distance from a nice comfortable shooting mount... you are not hungry or tired or scared, you might get a few rounds on paper... what is that even supposed to mean to the guy in the field who gets handed mass produced ammo from the lowest bidder to fire with his 2-3 MOA rifle...
If you look at the video for the AK-103 the wind had more effect at 300m and further but part of the problems these idiots are having is that their targets are at yard distances and the iron sights on the rifle they are using is in metres... note when he allowed for the crosswind and set his iron sights for 300m, he hit the 350 yard target...
Of course it becomes easier with optics but then it is easier to adjust an iron sight than most optical sights for range.
The real point is that you need to know your rifle and its ammo, and you need to be able to estimate the actual range to the target... if you do both of those then the 7.62x39mm is just as accurate as any other round...
Keeping in mind these were torso targets so a miss could still have resulted in a hit to the arm, leg, gut, groin, or head... Hollywood loves to show the hero getting shot in the leg or knee or whatever and then spend the next minutes of the movie dragging themselves around and killing the enemy like lemmings, but for most humans that is not going to happen.
Last edited by GarryB on Fri Mar 22, 2019 3:09 am; edited 1 time in total