Russian Assault Rifles/Carbines/Machine Guns Thread: #1

Regarding wanting replacements for the Picatinny rails, will be interesting if they can devise a system that allows attachment of western equipment designed to attach to rails that overcomes the problems of what to do when areas of it are not being used... perhaps make the rails detachable? ...but then they would get lost or stolen or sold.
Perhaps padded covers for when they are not in use?
But they will likely get lost or stolen or sold too.

The advantage of the top rail is the ability to have multiple scopes fitted so you can have your normal scope at the rear with a night scope in front of it for use at night without having to rezero, and perhaps a magnifying scope in front of that for longer range use, and if you take all those off fold up iron sights in an emergency.
The issue of comfort will be the front side and front bottom rails, with the bottom rail being used for lights or lasers or front pistol grips or bipods or combined pistolgrip bipods... these would all get in the way of the standard under barrel grenade launcher.
Torches and lasers and other bits and bobs can be mounted on the sides of the front of the rifle too, though your average soldier probably wants a decent, light scope and the option of a front grip/bipod, perhaps with a torch and laser built into it or a 40mm grenade launcher. Being able to also mount night optics and long range magnifying optics on the top rail would be a bonus but the side rails will probably not get used much except to hold torches and lasers when the underbarrel grenade launcher is fitted.

For most soldiers a low powered scope and a grenade launcher will be all they need... and for that a top rail might be all they need.

Perhaps a new rail design that has multiple attachment points built in to the rifle so for instance the side rails might have 6 recessed attachment points along the side of the rifle so that when the rails are removed the side of the rifle is just like the standard AK-74M stock and the same with the lower rail.
The 6 attachment points makes the rails rigid and secure when fitted, but the recessed attachment points don't get in the way when the rail is not fitted and it is like a rifle with no rails when the rails are removed. Both the side rails and the bottom rail would be removable with the top rail fixed in position.

The rails can be fixed to the rifle when the attachments are issued, so when a bottom mount pistol grip is issued it comes with the bottom rail. The rail wrench can be part of the rifles cleaning kit.
If a 40mm grenade launcher is issued then you wont get a rail as it will not be rail mounted. Side mounted equipent will come with both side rails of course to allow a choice of side to mount it on.

Anyway... I would expect they might issue "hotter" 5.45mm ammo with the new rifle, but I doubt they will go for a completely new calibre.

The new modular weapon might even include a marksman rifle to replace the SVDS.

Russia suspends purchase of legendary Kalashnikov

­Russia’s defense ministry is refusing to purchase any more Kalashnikov guns, named after Soviet gun designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. There were no purchases in 2011, nor are there any scheduled for 2012 or 2013. The source in the ministry explained they do not want to order a gun which lays jammed in warehouses. But the fact is being concealed from the designer who is 91 years old.

Not good.

Why do they not want to order a gun that rarely jams just because they have lots of them in warehouses... or are they saying they already have too many?

If they have too many already they can send me a box... I will look after them...

My guess is that the Russian Army will wait for the development of the AK replacement rifle and the AK-200 will be a Izhmash export item only.

Makes you wonder why they bother really if they are going to demand interim designs like the Su-35, AK-200, T-90AM, et al, and then when push comes to shove they say they will save their money for PAK FA, new modular rifle, and Armata, and buy Su-30MKs and AK-74Ms and upgrade T-72s...

Very frustrating.

Considering they bought a few hundred An-94s and put them into service I would expect they could afford to buy a few thousand AK-200s even just to take them for a spin and find out what new ideas work what which ones don't to give the designers an idea about new features for the new weapons.

I would expect better communication between company and military... after all if I made demands for a new product and I had input into what it needed to do, then when development was finished I would need a really good reason not to buy it because "I want to wait for the totally new weapon" simply is a cop out.

If they just want a new weapon then they should not have distracted the company into wasting time and money developing the AK-200 because I am sure they will have much better things to spend their money on.

If they want to send any AK-200s to me I am sure I would be able to make very good arguments to the Russian Army as to why they need these too.

Just a box of 10 rifles will do with maybe 20 magazines (the new 60 round ones) and of course about 20 cases of ammo... for a thorough test...

I share the frustration however in the big picture a new modular design incorporating an improved recoil system , new 'hot' 5.45mm ammo , sights and ergonomics will be a better option in the long term both for the Russian Army and for Export.

The AK design has come to the end of its potentail and thats reflected in export sales. They need a world class design with some 'extra' or 'new' feature that works and beats competition in tests and trails.

The AN94 was a great step forward but its far to complicated to issue as a standard service rifle and no one has brought it.

I guess however we will see the Ak-200 and its going to be interesting however I think its the last throw of the dice for Izhmash with the 'kalash' .In addition the brand of Kalashnikov has issues in world markets - time to move on - the AKM in 1959 was without doubt the best weapon in its class time know to design some thing that is again the best.

Just my simple view of course !

This is said to be a "200 series" AK. I don't have any more info on it.

Russia suspends purchase of legendary Kalashnikov

­Russia’s defense ministry is refusing to purchase any more Kalashnikov guns, named after Soviet gun designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. There were no purchases in 2011, nor are there any scheduled for 2012 or 2013. The source in the ministry explained they do not want to order a gun which lays jammed in warehouses. But the fact is being concealed from the designer who is 91 years old.

The rest of this article says they're looking for an upgraded AK with built in (or add on attachments) for optical/collimator sights....it's possible that the pic above is the new model

Even just a balanced recoil system as offered in the AK-107 and AK-108 would raise the AK well above all the competition... competition which basically consists of AK knockoffs and AR knockoffs.

In fact look at the latest model rifles and they are AR rifles covered in rails and often with the gas system having a piston added to improve reliability and cleaning...

The only decent new rifle I have seen recently is the ADS.

Western forces prefer the single shot discipline, but AK users tend to favour burst fire to increase hit probability, which makes a balanced recoil system even more attractive.

All the publicly presented plans have been for step one: To make complete upgrades of existing weapons and systems to deal with as many of their faults as possible and get them into service as soon as possible to replace the old obsolete stuff, step two: start development from scratch of replacement weapons and equipment that is generationally better than existing stuff and is of a world standard in performance. Step three: get that new stuff into production and service with a goal of 70% new stuff by 2020.

If they are not going to spend a cent on step one where does the money come from for step two and step three? The orders of products from step one were supposed to pay for assembling a decent workforce and tooling up factories for production for step one products to be made on state of the art tooling so that the step two stuff will be made by workers who know how to use that tooling.

If they are not going to buy it then why are they keeping it secret?

Surely if it is for export then they will need to advertise it.

There is nothing wrong with the brand Kalashnikov in 90% of the non-western world.
In the west it is seen as a terrorists gun, but that is BS... there are plenty of terrorists carrying G3s and FN FALs and M16s.

I remember an American TV program that was discussing the worlds best weapons and the AK came in at number two, and number one is the human body... which I thought was ridiculous.

Give me 1 hour and I can pretty much train anyone how to strip and fire an AK... less if they know anything about shooting a gun.
How much karate or kungfoo or "self defence" can you teach someone in 1 hour and if we picked two fat lazy average westerners and trained them each for an hour... which one do you think would win a fight if one has to use his body and the other gets an AK?

Even if he just used it as a club the guy with the AK is going to win.

BTW

I share the frustration however in the big picture a new modular design incorporating an improved recoil system , new 'hot' 5.45mm ammo , sights and ergonomics will be a better option in the long term both for the Russian Army and for Export.

From modular design I would expect this new modular weapon to be a family of weapons from SMG right up through short barrel assault rifle, assault rifle, light machine gun to general purpose machine gun and perhaps semi auto sniper rifle/DMR.

I could of course be very wrong on this, but building from scratch they might even replace the old 7.62 x 54mm ammo with a new 6 x 49mm round.

They of course have plenty of different rounds in service including the 9 x 18mm, 9 x 19mm, 9 x 21mm, 5.45 x 18mm, 5.45 x 39mm, 7.62 x 39mm, 9 x 39mm, 7.62 x 54mm, they are now introducing the 8.6 x 70mm, and of course the 12.7 x 108mm and 14.5 x 115mm, plus the 23 x 152mm and the 30 x 165mm, with the potential for either a new 45mm or 57mm calibre too.

Of course the 5.45 x 18mm will be on the way out, as will the 7.62 x 39mm one presumes, and I guess the introduction of 9 x 19mm will spell the eventual end of the 9 x 18mm, but apart from the talk about the 6 x 49mm to be used in sniper rifles and machine guns there has been little talk of replacing other calibres... the 8.6 x 70mm round is in addition to other ammo for sniper rifles. (there are other rounds that are more exotic and limited use so I didn't really include them).

This is said to be a "200 series" AK. I don't have any more info on it.

Nah, that is just an AK-74M with a pistol grip on the front and a sight mounted over the front grip area.

Just looking at that image with the wall poster of a colimator sight I suspect it is a standard AK-74M being used to advertise the sight and with a pistol grip as most rifles with such sights normally have such forward pistol grips...

Cyberspec wrote:This is said to be a "200 series" AK. I don't have any more info on it.

Pure BS. That photos is not even from Russia.It is an Azerbaijan copy of the Ak-74

TheArmenian wrote:

Cyberspec wrote:This is said to be a "200 series" AK. I don't have any more info on it.

Pure BS. That photos is not even from Russia.It is an Azerbaijan copy of the Ak-74

The pic was originally posted on the VIF board with only the caption "series 200" AK, but no mention of Azerbaijan (although it's quite possible)....do you have anything more on it?

I found a more complete article and it explains that the Russian military will not buy any more Kalashnikovs because for their 1 million man armed force they have 10 million Kalashnikov rifles in storage.

Now what does this mean for the future?

They also have 20,000 tanks in storage, or had them until recently and their plans were to get rid of the obsolete models and upgrade those that were worth upgrading in an attempt to reduce the number of tank calibres... ie get rid of the 100mm rifled tank guns fitted to T-54s and T-55s and to also get rid of 115mm smoothbore guns in the form of T-62 tanks.

In up armoured form such older vehicles were popular because the extra crewman made maintainence and overnight security easier, and for anti guerilla operations with extra armour the targets didn't know the difference between 100mm shells and 115mm shells from 125mm shells.

They could use up old ammo from stocks rather than expensive new rounds.

Disposing of the old stuff will however save a lot of money on storage of both vehicles and ammo and some of the ammo was getting old.

Sales of material to existing users could offset the cost of getting rid of most of the material.

What am I blabbering on about?

Well to meet the goal of 70% new stuff the military will need lots of new stuff.

The real question is do these 10 million Kalashnikov rifles include only brand new AK-74M rifles built after 1990s and in good condition, or does it include millions of AKMs withdrawn from service when the AK-74 was introduced and simply stored in case they were needed?

If it is the former case I can understand keeping the rifles and not buying the AK-200.

If it is the latter case however it makes more sense to dispose of most of the AKMs (which I still see lots of special forces using with suppressors BTW) and buy some AK-200s.

Rifles generally get a pretty hard life in military service and while having 10 for every soldier sounds like a lot, in times of war when reservists get called up you need something to arm them with.

I am willing to give my shipping address if those 10 million rifles in storage are just too much of a burden...

I think they want an AK with more modern sights that would enable an average infantryman to fire relatively accurately at a distance of about 500m (opposed to 2-300m with the older sights).

In fact, most rifle engagements in war are roughly at a distance of 50-150m....but it's always good to have the extra reach

Actually I think the best way to improve the sights is to keep the existing sights, which are ideal for close range use because they don't block the shooters vision like western peep sights do, and add a scope with a magnification of about 3-6, which would greatly improve longer range shooting performance.

Many westerners are suggesting they adopt western style peep sights, but I think the cost in revision of training alone doesn't warrant the minor difference in performance.

From the wording of this article:

http://rt.com/news/rifle-ak-74-assault-defense-457/

It seems the rifle the Russian military is no longer buying is the AK-74... which is really no surprise.

They stopped buying T-90s too, but that was because they knew the T-90AM was almost ready and why spend money on T-90As when you could wait a little and get T-90AMs.

As per the above article the new AK-200 is almost ready to be shown to the public...

GarryB wrote:IThe real question is do these 10 million Kalashnikov rifles include only brand new AK-74M rifles built after 1990s and in good condition, or does it include millions of AKMs withdrawn from service when the AK-74 was introduced and simply stored in case they were needed?

No, the real question is why change weapon at all!
The AK-74M is one of the absolutely best weapons in the world, and theres is no big innovations nor any coming soon that would render it absolete. So why change?
The AK could simply be modified by sights and recoil mechanisms and still be the world best.
The bullpup weapons are crap, no step forward, and caseless ammo didnt work as planned. No change is really needed, unless you can improve the whole concept, and as of now, nothing new has really happened since the -40 and -50`s.

New Book on Ak-47

THE AK-47 Kalashnikov-series assault rifles : GORDON L. ROTTMAN

The AK-74 is a good rifle, but they have committed themselves to updating everything within their military, and there are a few things they have clearly identified that they can change... two 30 round mags taped together has become a new 60 round mag is just one example.

The ability to piggy back multiple optics seems interesting too, while the introduction of a standard optical sight would also make shooting easier.

Russia stops buying Kalashnikov

The Russian army has said it will stop buying the country's famous Kalashnikov assault rifles until its designers come up with a genuinely new model.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8794099/Russia-stops-buying-Kalashnikov.html

I'm heartbroken

I was initially upset too, but now that I have read the full article I suspect it is simply a case of not buying the old model now that the new model is almost ready for production and service.

It is the same situation as when they said they were not going to buy any more BTR-80s... because BTR-82 production started and they were buying those instead.

Also note it is said that there are 10 million Kalashnikovs in stock, it is very unlikely that is AK-74Ms... and would likely include AK-47s, AKMs, AK-74s, AK-74Ms, RPKs, RPK-74s, AKS-74Us, and PKs and PKMs of all types. Most coaxial weapons in Russian vehicles are PKTs.

GarryB wrote:I was initially upset too, but now that I have read the full article I suspect it is simply a case of not buying the old model now that the new model is almost ready for production and service.

It is the same situation as when they said they were not going to buy any more BTR-80s... because BTR-82 production started and they were buying those instead.

Also note it is said that there are 10 million Kalashnikovs in stock, it is very unlikely that is AK-74Ms... and would likely include AK-47s, AKMs, AK-74s, AK-74Ms, RPKs, RPK-74s, AKS-74Us, and PKs and PKMs of all types. Most coaxial weapons in Russian vehicles are PKTs.

Also having read the full article I agree - stopped buying AK-74 not a 'new' rifle. That being said a full purchase of a new system may not happen until 2014 . Again news articles on the subject state we we see something form Izhmash before the end of the year - I guess this is AK-200 and not a 'new' modular system ? .

Yes, I remember someone mentioning that to develop a new sniper rifle from scratch to replace the SVD would take 1 or 2 years, if the AK-200 hasn't got a balanced recoil mechanism then I really wonder what is taking so long.

Considering the existing design there wouldn't be too much work in adding a slot in the left hand side of the top cover and have cocking handle placed on the left side of the bolt carrier instead of the right side where it normally is and swap the current selector to the other side as well.

The addition of a bar push through safety behind the trigger under where your thumb rests that is accessible from both sides to lock the trigger would enable the standard bar to be set to full auto or semi auto with a safety still applied so you could remove rounds from the chamber and magazine without having to take the safety off.

It would also mean that the rifle could be set to full auto or single shot but be safe and with the push through of the bar it is immediately ready to fire with no noise and without removing either hand from the weapon.

I don't regard the iron sights as a problem, so I would leave them as they are, though a full length top rail with a standard scope of something like 2.5 magnification would be ideal... giving a wide field of view and easier to hold steady than higher magnification scopes.

Balanced recoil mechanism and 60 round mag that would be it for me...

I would expect batches of a few hundred rifles would be bought for special forces to test and evaluate and if it is deemed a significant enough improvement over the AK-74M they might buy more... I would expect it is special forces that would benefit most from the new rifle and its rail system allowing them to easily add and remove bits as required for each mission.

Cyberspec wrote:

TheArmenian wrote:

Cyberspec wrote:This is said to be a "200 series" AK. I don't have any more info on it.

Pure BS. That photos is not even from Russia.It is an Azerbaijan copy of the Ak-74

The pic was originally posted on the VIF board with only the caption "series 200" AK, but no mention of Azerbaijan (although it's quite possible)....do you have anything more on it?

The Azeris call it the "Khazri". It is basically an AK-74M with different grip, handle etc.

I like Kovrov's AEK-971 with balanced recoil. The successor of the AK-74 should be something in that line. In a nutshell:

1. Many similarities with the AK-74 make it an easier switch for the current soldiers and reservists.
2. Some commmon parts with the AK-74 make the transition less costly in design, parts, machinery and tooling.
3. Similarities with the AK-74 will be a less risky approach that will eliminate most hiccups upon introduction.

Anything fancier (and higher tech) will be more expensive, more problematic while providing marginal - insignificant inpovements in accuracy, range etc.

milky_candy_sugar wrote:Russia stops buying Kalashnikov

The Russian army has said it will stop buying the country's famous Kalashnikov assault rifles until its designers come up with a genuinely new model.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8794099/Russia-stops-buying-Kalashnikov.html

I'm heartbroken

We have enough supply to last several years. It is time to move on to new models as AK-74 does not meet modern analogues.

Vladimir79 wrote:
We have enough supply to last several years. It is time to move on to new models as AK-74 does not meet modern analogues.

Which modern analogues is much better, and why?

We have Modernized G3`s with Red dot sights. Because of the Ammo, 7.62x51, they are still competitive, and is preferred by many over the more prone to failure AK-5, 5.56.