Russian Sniper Rifles

When UAVs were introduced... someone had to take on the risk.
And it paid off...

No it didn't. There were dozens of UAV designs in the Soviet Union and later in Russia and apart from a few Reis models from Tupolev, and Pchelka models from Yakovlev the vast majority got lots of looks and smiles, but no money for development or production from the military.

It was only after 8 8 8 and the Georgians use of UAVs that the Russian military realised their potential and actually took them seriously.

You need to be innovative to stay ahead of competition, and innovation without taking risks is impossible.
You can minimize the risks, but there will be still some risk of unsuccessfull project.

And you can p!$$ away all the funds allocated to you on risky programs that might succeed or might not, but at the end of the day you need to apply risk assessment to every risk to determine whether it is worth proceeding or not.

Large anti-material rifle like M107 can be operated by a single person with ammunition of several shots.

Single shot weapons are useless against helos unless they are landed, hovering or landing or taking off. It is no accident that air defence cannon fire much more powerful ammo at much higher rates of automatic fire.

A single shot rifle might get a hit within 1km or less if you are lucky and in no way could ever replace proper MANPADs in the air defence role.

Anti Material heavy calibre rifles are not generally used as anti helo weapons except in desperation.

They are far more commonly used against ground targets, for which they are much more useful.

Igla launcher is more accurate towards moving air targets, but how many igla missiles would single soldier be able to carry? 1 or 2?

There are only two occasions when a soldier will operate alone, and that is when his name is John Rambo and he is the main character in a movie, and when he is the main character in a computer game in a first person shootemup.

If the job is to defeat a radar station or disable a scud missile then a team of men will be sent to do the job.

Simply anti material rifles do have their place you don't need a crew to operate them, although american doctrine is that allmost allways you are acompanied by a spotter.

A US sniper with an M21 or M24 will operate with a spotter, why would a sniper with a Barret operate alone?

The only soldier that ever does an operation on their own is a suicide bomber.

Young Russians don't want to work in manufacturing. They want to work in nice and clean offices.

Modern factories are clean modern environments with robotic machine tools and automation.
A shortage will drive up wages which will create more interest from unemployed office workers...

So what Russians are missing are people willing to work as workers. And this is where in my opinion they should look into countries of old Soviet Union, where many people are living deep below poverty and they would be more than willing to have atleast workers job with constant income and some social guarantees of a decent life.

As jobs are created in manufacturing people without jobs will start looking at alternatives... there is no need to dig for poor people from neighbouring republics or further afield. It is perfectly normal for there to be a lack of skilled labour after a period of 20 years where nothing was actually built most people with skills for building became taxi drivers and got all sorts of other jobs to pay the bills and feed the family.
They adapted away from manufacturing and now that there are jobs being created again some will adapt back to manufacturing.
School leavers will soon realise that the majority of available jobs are in manufacturing and those in schools giving advice on what courses to take will also likely realise that manufacturing is a growth area for jobs. The towns and cities based around factories will come alive again...

Also interesting...sort of a larger caliber VSS

There was a fairly long discussion about that a while back here...

I was not talking about Russians - i was talking about Americans when they undertook the risks of new innovative approaches like UAVs were, and it paid off...

Well the Russians took the same risks and their military weren't interested so it really didn't pay off for them.

The Russian companies that bothered to persevere and keep spending money in the hope that the Russian military would change its mind also got screwed a second time because after doing lots of extra expensive work 8 8 8 happened and all of a sudden the Russian military wanted UAVs NOW and because none of the Russian companies had the funding to take any of their prototypes beyond the prototype stage the military bought Israeli drones.

All of a sudden dozens of Russian companies were working on drones and their use of new imported technology means that all that work the Russian companies that took the risks before 8 8 8 was pretty much wasted because any new company can pop up with a design using foreign cameras and datalinks and engines and get the attention of the military... all they need to do is negotiate domestic production of the parts and they could just as easily get contracts with much less risk.

I think thats given...
But if a helo is stationary on the ground and you have two choices, one M107 and a Manpads like Stinger - which one do you think its more efficient?

If you see a helo stationary on the ground then a PKM would do. Stinger would be of no use against a target on the ground BTW.

Thats the military doctrine i was talking about... the fact that they operate in two does not have enything to do with the operationa of such rifle as m107. One man is able to operate it, its just the "two are more than one" way of thinking. If you know it...

An M16 is a weapon that needs only one soldier to operate... that doesn't mean you would ever send out a single soldier on a mission.

The simple fact is that the guy carrying the barret or in a Russian context OSV-96 wont also be carrying an assault rifle. They might have a SMG like Kashtan or Kedr, or they might just have a pistol like a Stechkin for self defence... very simply their personal protection against an enemy with assault rifles would be pathetic... hense they don't operate alone and have a spotter... not just as the name implies to spot targets, but also for close in defence. The spotter will have an assault rifle... they might have a scope on that assault rifle, but it will be an assault rifle nonetheless.

Work as part of a unit, or independently...


That is interesting.

I would expect that initially they will be armed with really accurate rifles like SV-98s, but that eventually they will get some sort of semi auto rifle like the SVD but possibly in 338 calibre.

With this number of Snipers then it makes sense to mass produce dedicated sniper grade ammo, which will be very good for developers of accurate rifles in Russian calibres.

The new modular small arms that includes a rifle to replace the AK will likely also include a rifle to replace the SVD as well...

I agree with TheArmenian, this looks like the VSSK, which is rather interesting.

It will certainly be useful against enemy forces wearing body armour, but who will be using this?

Let me put it this way... in the Russian Army of the past there were two types of "snipers".
One was someone who seemed to show good skills in shooting and was given a little extra shooting training and swapped their AK-74 for an SVD. They were given a rifle and ammo that was useful out to about 600m or so and they would operate with their platoon most of the time as extended range accurate fire power. In other words the SVD, RPK and PK could engage targets beyond assault rifle range of about 200-300m.
The other sniper in the Russian military worked for the GRU or army intel and would operate in small groups on the battlefield... they were pretty much UCAVs but stuck on the ground. Their job most of the time was finding targets and enemy forces on the battlefield and then reporting that info back to HQ with the occasional shot when priority targets were found.
They were armed with SVDs and would generally engage targets at about 600-800m at most.

The new structure seems to add dedicated sniper platoons to infantry regiments, which means you can split those sniper platoons into groups of sniper teams and send them out to recon or blocking or other missions. They would likely benefit most with a long range gun, and considering what rifles are known I suspect their standard rifle will focus more on accuracy than rate of fire and will therefore be something like the SV-98 in 338 Lapua Mag calibre which will enable target engagement out to 1,500m.

In each standard infantry platoon there will still be a "designated marksman" equipped with a semi automatic rifle like the SVD or its future replacement.

Now a heavy brigade, medium brigade, and light brigade have different roles and will be used in different situations. I would think forces fighting well equipped enemy will need this new rifle to defeat body armour equipped forces. The VSSK at about 6.5kgs is not actually heavier than many sniper rifles in 7.62 x 51mm calibre, so it could be used as a designated marksman rifle.

In a sniper platoon on a quiet mission the snipers armed with VSSKs and the spotters armed with AS suppressed assault rifles would be a very quiet combination.
The AS rifles could perhaps be fitted with the BS-1 suppressed grenade launcher:

http://world.guns.ru/grenade/rus/bs-1-tishina-e.html

to complete the tool set...

Of course a question I have is are these new sniper platoons to replace GRU units that would operate independently of local units, or in addition to GRU units?

I agree, the VSSK was developed for the FSB rather than the military and was for use against criminals using heavy body armour.

I think it is this purpose designed rifle and ammo for use against enemy forces wearing heavy body armour up to 600m would make it ideal for an infantry rifle to replace the SVD as their role is to target enemy forces out to 600m which might include targets with body armour.

They could probably make the suppressor removable to lighten the weapon in combat as in a normal conflict no one is going to hear the bang of a rifle from 600m and with a subsonic bullet the anti personnel effect would warrant its use.

The rifle itself at 6.5kgs is actually comparable to 30 calibre sniper rifles like the SV-98 and would be lighter than a bolt action 338LM rifle (which would weigh in the region of 8-9kgs) or a high velocity 50 cal rifle in the 10-12kg range.

Keep in mind that in a standard motor rifle or tank unit there are soldiers already equipped with VSS and AS 9mm suppressed rifles with a recon role.

What I am trying to say is that if platoon based marksmen have a requirement to hit point targets out to 600m and might face an enemy with body armour then issuing the VSSK makes more sense than issuing an SVDS.

For Sniper platoon snipers a mix of a bolt action and a semi automatic rifle makes sense, with SV-98 in 338LM calibre and initially SVDSs, but later a 338LM calibre semi automatic replacement to allow both to engage targets to 1,500m or so.

For GRU snipers they will need a mix of weapons from short range (SV-99), medium range (SVD, VSSK), long range (SV-98 and SV-98_338 and the new SVD replacement in 338), and extended long range and anti material (OSV-96 and KSVK).

I doubt VSSK will find widespread use because:
- It is probably too expensive.

The SVD is not cheap and the SV-98 is actually quite expensive so I don't see a problem in that regard.
The VSSK is designed for use at up to 600m so it doesn't need to be a super accurate highly tuned precision machine... it can be fairly similar to the SVD.

- It uses specialized (very expensive) ammunition in an odd caliber 12.7x54

All sniper ammo is more expensive than standard ammo, but producing it in large numbers reduces that expense.
9 x 39mm ammo was an odd calibre till the VSS and AS became relatively widely deployed to use it.

- The much more affordable and lighter ASV Val, Vintoretz and VSK in 9x 39 already do a good job in piercing body armour at ranges up to 300m+

Th job requirement is to penetrate heavy body armour at 200-300m, which the 9 x 39mm is not able to do.

- Anything beyond that range doesn't really require a silencer on the battlefield (as you mentioned).

The VSSK revealed so far has a silencer built in because of its role with FSB and police forces.
In the Army role they might simply use a standard barrel without a suppressor resulting in a slightly higher muzzle velocity and better performance.

Obviously it is speculation on my part, but you agree the rifle they seem to be talking about sounds like a VSSK. What it might turn out to be is an Army version, perhaps with a semi automatic mechanism instead of a manual straight pull system and perhaps a 10 round mag instead of a 5 round mag, with a slightly longer barrel and no suppressor for higher velocity shooting with the same ammo.

The Russians have never been backwards in coming up with new specialised ammo for specific roles...

The propellent makers have said they have been told to improve the performance of small arms by 2.5-3 times by 2020, now increased muzzle velocities, more consistent burning powder that is cleaner and improves accuracy, more efficient bullet shapes that are effective to longer ranges (effective meaning accurate and lethal).

We know there is a new rifle to be tested... no doubt there will be competition... and the last competition Kalashnikov lost.

There is also a from scratch weapon system design that might even use a different calibre, perhaps has optics as standard, including night vision or range finding and ballistics computers etc etc.

Their goals are for 21st C forces for use against 21st C forces, in which case a VSSK would make sense over an SVD, especially with higher velocity ammo options and longer barrels where being quiet is not so important.
It would certainly be easier to tote around than a 12.7 x 108mm rifle.

For targets up to 600m they would be fine, while for the sniper platoon a 338 SV-98 would allow target engagement out to 1,500m or so, with a new semi auto design in 338 for targets out to 1,000-1,200m or so but with a much quicker follow up shot capacity.
When the enemy is known to not wear heavy body armour then the SVD would be fine out to 600m as is, as it is lighter than the other weapons mentioned... and it is in stores.

That sounds like my kind of party.

Anyone here going?

It would certainly be a good place to reveal the AK-200 as long as the Government gives its permission.

Last year there was talk of tests this year, but new talk of tests next year suggest a redesign.

I wonder if the ADS will be entered for the competition too, and I wonder what the makers of the Abakan will put forward.

The military have basically said that they want a Kalashnikov upgraded as far as it can be, with plans for a from scratch weapon being worked on.
They have also said they already have plenty of Kalashnikovs in storage.

One report said they don't need any more AKs, while a later report said they didn't need anymore AK-74s but that an improved model could be useful with existing rifles sold, upgraded, given to other government departments etc etc.

So the state of the play is that in the mid 1990s they had a competition for a replacement for the AK and the AN-94 won, but it has turned out to be too complex and perhaps expensive to mass produce that they are now looking for an upgrade of the AK to iron out most of its main problems in a way that doesn't require a complete redesign and is not too expensive or complex to mass produce... it doesn't need to be a super gun, but it needs to be an improvement.

Things like easier to use and easier to attach bits to it are amusing...

As a left hander I find the AK to be perfectly ergonomic, and with rifles that are designed for right handed people most left handers are "trained" to shoot right handed... well if that is the case why not train everyone to shoot left handed with the AKs if that is no big deal as it will mean the selector and cocking handle are in a convenient place for the off hand to manipulate them.

In fact I can cock the AK easily without removing my trigger finger or my head from the line of sight. The location of the cocking handle on the AR means you must move your head no matter which hand you use.

Russia’s Special Forces get 30 Austrian sniper rifles
18:27 09/12/2011
MOSCOW, December 9 (RIA Novosti)

Russia considers buying high-tech infantry kit for its special forces

More than 30 Austrian-manufactured sniper rifles have been adopted for service with Russia’s Airborne Forces special task units, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexander Kucherenko said on Friday.

These are the first foreign made rifles to be officially used by this branch of service.

The rifles have been delivered under a 2010 contract and more will be delivered later, Kucherenko said, declining to disclose the rifle’s full official designation.

Judging by the specifications he provided, the rifle in question could be the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG-69, 7.62mm with a 10-round magazine and an effective range of more than 2,000 meters.

A number of Russian servicemen have taken a special training course in handling the new rifle, he said.

We have been told that the Russian military will buy foreign weapons in small batches for special forces use, so this is not a huge surprise. A purchase of 30+ rifles is only a small batch really so it might just be a stopgap purchase will the price of Russian equivalents drops to a reasonable level.

Would be interested to know how Steyr managed to get a 2km range with a 30 cal rifle however, or is that simply marketing.

The main problem for the Russian arms/optics/ammo industry is that their primary customer is military, paramilitary and police and so far they haven't really been interested in long range roles. Western companies focus on a civilian market where there has long been a niche group of people interested in very long range shooting, with a fairly long tradition/experience/history.

Russian optics makers are mastering uncooled 3rd gen Thermal imager rifle sights, with building in GLONASS and laser range finders, and high magnifications, the requirement to go long is still fairly new, but I am sure the Russian makers will meet the needs of their military... it certainly helps that their military are happy to look at new calibres like the 338 LM.

Of course a few other questions pop into ones head with such a news report... it says 7.62mm calibre... can we assume that is a special modified batch in 7.62 x 54mm or is it 7.62 x 51mm?

Neither would be effective to 2,000m of course.

Also there is a question about the logic of buying a sniper rifle designed in 1969 that is actually designed to be used out to about 600m, which is actually a similar distance to which the SVD is effective. Is it really worth the purchase of bolt action rifles potentially in a different foreign calibre to perhaps halve the group sizes but not really extend range?

Certainly the SV-98 should be very competitive in performance if not in price and it does come in 7.62 x 54mm calibre.

With a purchase of only 30 or so rifles, this could simply be a test batch to get the forces used to operating bolt action rifles again.

I suspect the media have the model wrong and they are actually buying TPG-1 rifles from Austria which come in several calibres, so though they don't list 7.62 x 54mm as an available calibre, they might make the required parts for a large enough order... or enough money. Being modular, the shooter can swap out parts and change calibre easily, so it would just require changes in barrel, bolt, and ammo feed/magazine.

Well I found another series of photos that I have found to be rather interesting... these come from MP.net, where a lot of my photos come from... they post a lot of cool photos but don't actually seem to discuss them very much...

Anyway:













So what is so special. Well they clearly haven't developed a proper mount yet for the SVD... the scope is clearly design to go right on the top of the receiver on a rail as being developed for the AK-200, which is interesting. The position of the scope on the SVD would make accuracy pretty hit and miss so to speak though it is not clear at what range that group was shot. Standard assault rifle range would be 100m, but a more common range for testing the SVD would be 300m, but the main point is that this is a thermal scope so this is the performance you would expect in total darkness, so it actually looks pretty good to me.
The most interesting thing for me is the last photo which clearly shows that the actual thermal sensor is not a 1st or 2nd gen tube, but a third gen uncooled chip based system that I suspect is probably QWIP based. This means that once the design is perfected and finalised it can be mass produced like camcorder optics and if produced in large numbers will become relatively cheap. As you can see from the size of it you could put two at the front of a helmet and one pointing to the rear with a heads up display showing a full night vision view of the world in front of (in stereo) and behind (in mono.. but mainly for warning rather than regular viewing) with other information displayed in the soldiers field of view like navigation info.

Should improve unit security at night and make night operations much more viable.

As Russian tanks and IFVs and helos get thermal sights it becomes more and more likely that night fighting training will become useful.

In terms of small arms (considering the topic of this thread) this means perhaps new propellent powders that burn faster and cleaner and generate less muzzle flash with higher muzzle velocities and better accuracy/consistency.

I rather suspect that the average soldier will get image intensification monoculars that can be hand held, helmet mounted as NVGs, and mounted on their rifle as a night vision scope, but for units like Spetsnaz and Navy Spetsnaz, plus the VDV and Naval Infantry will likely get thermal rifle scopes with built in laser range finders and GLONASS sensors and ballistics computers to generate aimpoints so that the soldier just puts the target inside the square and presses the button to laser range it and then after a few seconds a glowing plus will appear that the soldier can then place on the chest or head of the target for a high probability kill, or at the push of a button the location of what was lased will be entered into the battle management system... so a recon soldier spots an enemy tank and lases a tree in front of it so as to not warn it it is being lased. The location of the tree can then be shifted to the real position of the actual tank... labelled as a tank and then passed onto the local network so any friendly vehicles will now see an enemy tank in the appropriate location, though it might require a second set of eyes like a UAV to confirm it is an enemy vehicle before you open fire...

Anybody who speaks Russian identify some of the abbreviations at the bottom of the photo through the scope.

From the actual scopes specs I suspect this is the view via a laptop with the scope connected via a PC connection.

Nice... just annoyed that I can only vote for one post per day...

On that spec board for the MTs-558 it says it is available in 300 Lapua Magnum, 338 Lapua Magnum, and 12.7 x 55mm calibre.

The 338 LM is optimised for shooting at range of 1.2-1.5km. I rather suspect the 12.7 x 55mm is optimised for up to 600m range shooting against targets wearing body armour for sneaky missions. (ie quiet).

Obviously the power of the 338 LM means targets at up to 600m or more can be engaged in body armour too, but it just will be a bit noisier.

A new sniper regiment with sniper teams armed with this, or the SV-338, or a 12.7 x 108mm calibre weapon like OSV-96, or ASVK for the sniper and something like the AK-12 in 6 x 49mm as their spotter would be a formidably armed team.

That is a very substantial cocking handle on it though...

The VS-8 looks cool too...

Thanks for posting.

Back on topic, where they said they adjusted the rifling to improve accuracy I rather suspect they will likely have increased the twist rate to allow for longer heavier projectiles.

Since the first 5.45mm round the projectiles have been fairly long as they are largely steel cored which means they are larger than a similar round with a lead core... and because they can't make them wider, they make them longer.

A bonus from that is that longer rounds tend to be a better aerodynamic shape and travel more efficiently through the air.
The First 5.56mm bullets in comparison were relatively short and stubby.

Over time the standard 5.45mm round has gotten slightly heavier, which means longer, and longer thinner projectiles need higher spin rates to stabilise them. Very long very thin projectiles like APFSDS rounds need to be spun so fast to stabilise them properly that they usually don't bother trying to spin them... they use small fins to stabilise them instead.

To give you an idea the old 5.45mm bullets were spun at a rate of over 3,600 revolutions per second which sounds incredibly fast, but they were also leaving the barrel at about 900m/s so 3,600 revolutions spread over almost 1km is not that big a deal.

I would expect the latest rifling change will be a slight increase in twist rate of the barrels to allow longer rounds to be properly stabilised.

When bullets go through the sound barrier they often lose a bit of stability and their accuracy is a bit flakey... it is the reason rounds like 338LM are so popular as many 30 cal rifle bullets have that transonic phase in the 800-1,000m range, whereas the 338LM shifts that phase to 1,200m or further.

BTW I think I read somewhere that the SVDS, which is the SVD with the folding stock and shorter muzzle brake, had its rifling adjusted to optimise it for the Armour piercing ammo to enable better accuracy against armoured targets at longer ranges.