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

In what sence it is inferior to AK-12?

It adds complication to improve accuracy in burst fire and full auto fire.

Now if balanced mechanism is all that necessary then instead of the AK12 based on the AK-74M you could base it on the AK-107 with its balanced mechanism.

The balanced mechanism however makes the weapon more complicated, likely more expensive... likely less reliable as there are extra parts and extra points of failure, and would require extra training in use and maintainence.

It is not that AEK is bad... it is an unknown...

Asf wrote:

What do you mean? A shovel throwing?   It's a show mostly like a VDV ninjas, who breaks bricks and bottles with their heads.

Pokazukha? But isn't it just waste of time especially for limited service person?

Asf wrote:You really think this is a true excercises? I know how those films are made: TV men come and tell you: "Do something interesting, we need action!" Once I was supposed to wave hands over a nice-looking blueprint as if I was showing something to my colleagues just like it's a typical design engineer work day. It seemed stupid too.

Haha. It seems like true exercise when soldier praises it for how close to real life situation it was I really HOPE it's not real exercises as for at least 5 months I was doing similar nonsense we called training. Sometimes after morning marsh brosok. Sometimes I was wearing gasmask too. I ended up ripping a hole in a gasmask as in summer You can't breathe with it. Sometimes our officers did everything to make it harder for us. For what reason hell knows. There were no cameras but pokazukha was there.   I really seen some officers in my army who had no clue what they are doing, but they were decorated soldiers from service in Soviet-Afghanistan war and they had all finished military academies.

Why so much western complains about soviet and russian soldiers running and shooting at the same time? If it was a real combat, those naval infantrymen would been stopped by a single MG in the building lacking long range fire support, but still if you need to cross a field of fire it's better to shoot in return hoping for a lucky shot or for small supression than just run into jaws of hell. It has a psychological effect mostly, but still

I'm not westerner. I can barely write English..
Ask professional Russian military shooters who win prizes in the world what they think
Spraying bullets while running is not only amateurish, but also dangerous for Yourself.
They need to load every third round as tracer and see what they would actually hit by running. Cheek welding is a must even for suppressive fire. Even with a front grip the barrel will be all over the place. You have more chance shooting Your leg or a comrade if You run. I would rather run in zigzags than bother firing randomly when I want to keep full mag when I'm close. The distance here is absurd anyways. And grouping too. If I would be on deference I would rather lob punch of limonkas than shoot. It would hit those guys hard like bombing of Berlin.

It's a line formation, a bit tight imho. Nobody seems to covering nothing (they just run in pairs - one running, one sitting) as it seems like a couple of out of daily duty soldiers who was ordered to run in front of a camera.
BTW, I've heard a lot of runt about the line formation being too rubbish in a modern combat, but in a given situation with an MG on a higher ground, an open field and no support (not even MG) there in nothing better.

There is nothing wrong with line formation as it is. You definitely want to line up in an ambush or hitting the flanks. Maximised volume of fire. But it's not good for moving or manoeuvring. Especially not in European terrain. There plenty of formations from squad to platoon levels. It's not always attack and most of the time You will not have luxury of forming a line. All formations can be tragically misused. It's more important how to even proceed to attack stage than to attack. Changing from one formation to another is hard task as well. Especially hard to do from line formation. All this subject make me yawn as it's most boring thing I've ever done. For conscripts it was rocket science and we used flags.. DLYA OSOBINA TUPIH.

use their AKs as Bolt action rifles.

Without this baby weapon doesn't cycle so he reloads the bolt. It does cycle on some weapons, but blank firing adaptor is a must for safety and for service life

[quote="Asf"]

When it comes to training US troops are probably the best trained in the world. 

Look, it has no relation to my post. There are many "jarheads" (let's just call them fanboys) in the Russian army and among "chairborne" military experts who think themselves rangers, marines or something and are eager to buy fancy gear because of fashion. I don't even think they see the difference between a US marine and a national guardsman on a picture, they most likely refer to a "soldier of the US army". Dunno, it's like a cargo cult of some sort. I've read an article not a long time ago which stated the syrian army has no chances to win the war because their soldiers aren't equipped with knee guards. I'm not kidding. It was a true unadequate thing, but people want to copy the US army in some strange way. You know, US soldiers wear knee guards and ballistic googles, we need them too! There is no way to fight without them! Like a bunch of our economists who can copy only the most stupid western ideas not understanding what is really important and what isn't.
It's their business actually, but there are plenty of companies who want to make profit on lobbying "absolute neccesary modern gear" to the Army. It's better to save the budget's money for really helpful things like a IR sights. Really good sight give you advantage, a custom folding stock for your basic rifle gives you a comfort maybe or slight increase of accuracy in a firing range, makes you look like a badass high-end commando, but not a true advantage. 

Reminds me of this.

I can be called one of those gear freaks.
Not extreme, but it started when I tried goretex shoes. Before them I enjoyed standard issued ones. Most people were ok with them, but with my luck I got wonky ones. They were already worn to such level that some metal stuff was inside. I wearer them for 3 months. And first it was just red rash, then skin peeling and then were there was no skin it was just meat on the sock. I managed to swap shoes, but it didn't help. It didn't heal and I literally filled my shoe with blood and pus every time I walked. No one gave a damn.
Then I contacted my family and they bought shoes from sports and activity store. And they got me Boro Plus, Spasatel and Vishiven creams from farmacy and good socks. Helped me in a month.
But my next purchases were less and less practical:D
I didn't have money to spend on most expensive stuff, but I really loved to buy and try new stuff, like pouches webbing, night vision, binoculars, helmets and etc. I got hold on them, tried and sold on. I got plenty of things from Russia too. Gear fanatics, hunters and airsofters is what keeps industry going. I didn't want to look like SF, but I loved gear.

I wasn't speaking literally. Modern soldiers require more spendings than a century ago thanks to consumer society progress. You wouldn't want to fight and risk his life far from home if you won't have all those small joys he had at home?
Drugs aren't supplied officially to an army, so soldiers can't blame their command for a drug shortage.

There is plenty of time in army to enjoy those small joys. When I was serving professionally I had apartment in military village and service was like work. Unfortunately I had to spend money on consumer goods. Never been on deployment, but ascetics is something that everyone should learn.

first it was just red rash, then skin peeling and then were there was no skin it was just meat on the sock

Reminds me of my military practice. Our training unit got heavy "casualties" due to new shoes, I'm was ok as my boots weren't new. Was it some kind of an allergy?

It didn't heal and I literally filled my shoe with blood and pus every time I walked. No one gave a damn. 

And what's about a medical service? I wonder how did you walk at all whose days

There is plenty of time in army to enjoy those small joys

That's why soldiers were always busy in the Soviet Army. Work, education, training, sport, more work.

Pokazukha? 

Yep, "pokazukha" is a military tradition since invention of parades.

But isn't it just waste of time especially for limited service person?

Every service is somehow limited... An hour or two from daily schedule was used for "not planned sport exercises", don't think it's that crippling to the unit's readiness.

Sometimes after morning marsh brosok. Sometimes I was wearing gasmask too. 

Don't you believe in anaerobic exercises?   

I ended up ripping a hole in a gasmask as in summer

Barbarian! Why didn't you use a matchbox like everyone do?! And what would you do in case of a real chemical attack?!   

I really seen some officers in my army who had no clue what they are doing, but they were decorated soldiers from service in Soviet-Afghanistan war and they had all finished military academies. 

Sitting in a HQ during a small war as far from the real action as possible is a good way to make your career progress faster without actual risk. Where did you serve?

Spraying bullets while running is not only amateurish, but also dangerous for Yourself. 

There are things to fear beyong that then you run into a MG firing sector

There plenty of formations from squad to platoon levels.

Dunno. Even wehrmach's panzergrenadier-style "fire team" squad organisation dosen't really shine then it comes to assault a building through an open terrain, I think

Without this baby weapon doesn't cycle so he reloads the bolt. It does cycle on some weapons, but blank firing adaptor is a must for safety and for service life

That's another clue showing this "training" isn't a regular thing in the unit.

Nah, not allergy, but it was worn boot. It had bits pointing inwards. It was only fault I didn't change when I could, but I thought it will ok.
The biggest casualties we had were cold and bladder infections in winter and sunstroke, skin allergies from swampy places in summer. Since in my first unit You could only get pass if You are basically dieing or paying bribe, then we got such situations like whole squad being out of action because of fever as sick guy was with us and he wasn't put into quarantine.

Medical service was limited and well they just gave me those antiseptic creams. They had no means to properly threat anything less than a gunshot.. And it's not enough to be sent away to city hospital. I'm not saying it's serious, but boots sucked. Not only for me.

Everything changes to the better when our army became contract based and it got reduced almost 3 times. No fancy equipment, but even tone of officers changed. Conditions became more normal.
Still we had same idiots in charge, but there was more training, more shooting, less doing nothing and enough free time to have personal life.
But best experience was saving in volunteer forces. People there were very motivated, they had proper jobs and military was more like a hobby. Part time warriors had 25 days of training in a year, but if someone wanted they could stick around and do courses.
Still after all that shooting for more than 4 years of service I was just an amateur shooter. I felt embarrassed in civilian shooting range.

So all in all I can agree that it's not equipment that makes better soldier. Sure he has to have all what is necessary, good boots and good uniform are not only practical, but boost morale too, like we seen in Crimea where soldiers were proud of new equipment and uniforms.
Conditions and training is even more important. It doesn't have to be over the top too, but it has to be close to civilian standard. There should be respect towards the soldier even amongst officers even if they are conscripted. If You don't feed Your army, You will feed other countries one. When conscript comes back home and tells his friends about how good was his service then words will spread. Russia has to make army popular and more appealing to to days iPhone generation.

Next thing is training. It has to be very tight scheduled. Especially if it's a conscript. There is no time for him to waste time and show off. Laser tag shootouts, various firelight situations and all that has to be drilled in their heads until it becomes instincts. I know that Russian special forces are very good in those disciplines, but I see that their training is universal.
Tactical shooting is being used in VDV training these days. I've seen video when Russian technologies shooting team was training soldiers to use rifles and handguns. It was proper timed range with obstacles and CQB and medium to long distance targets. Too bad I can't find that video.

sepheronx wrote:Rumor still stands that AEK 971M won the competition for Ratnik. Will more than likely become main assault rifle of Russian armed forces.

I am looking forward to the pics.

But it's still just a rumor and has not been confirmed, both rifles passed their state trials and Kalashnikov has a balanced recoil rifle called the 'AK-107' so it's a moot-point to choose the AEK for just the balanced recoil system alone. Here's a .gif displaying the AK-107 balanced recoil system:




Here's what I believe to be the modernized AK-12 version of the AK-107 displayed at 4:50 of the video:





...Not to be confused with AEK-973:

(collimator sight is attached in a wrong way, no recoil compensator, sling is attached to the cleaning rod)

So do we really need an AK-12 if there are such Ak mods with fancy stocks and stuff

PS: Do someone have problems with my pics again?

A new pic of the improved AEK-971:



 Beautiful design

Looks good! Is this the 971S or 973S?

Mike E wrote:Looks good! Is this the 971S or 973S?

AEK-971 you can see it on the calibre that is engraved on the side. (5.45x39mm)

Thanks!    - I must be blind or something...

I get what you mean by "inspired" but it just looks "tacticool" more than anything...

I have served for 4 years with HK G36 and the magazine, well i hate it, the grip is ok but compared with G3 grip or the AK-74M grip i find it better and the buttstock, let me put it this way 1 year and you need a new one. I've worked in ordanance and the average time in just a recruiting base for G-36 was 4 years and after that it had to be send back to HK to exchange it for a new one. To good that AEK and AK are not entirely made of plastic like G-36.

Werewolf wrote:I have served for 4 years with HK G36 and the magazine, well i hate it, the grip is ok but compared with G3 grip or the AK-74M grip i find it better and the buttstock, let me put it this way 1 year and you need a new one. I've worked in ordanance and the average time in just a recruiting base for G-36 was 4 years and after that it had to be send back to HK to exchange it for a new one. To good that AEK and AK are not entirely made of plastic like G-36.

Yes, I've also heard for years now that the G-36 also has problems with heat build up and accuracy degradation, would you mind speaking and clarifying about that?

BTW you briefly spoke in the past about your experience in the German military (Bundeswehr), it would be nice if you or someone else in the general chat forum would create a thread about interesting military experiences. We could hear interesting stories about the German military from you, Russian military stories from Vladimir, and Dutch military stories from Airbornewolf.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Werewolf wrote:I have served for 4 years with HK G36 and the magazine, well i hate it, the grip is ok but compared with G3 grip or the AK-74M grip i find it better and the buttstock, let me put it this way 1 year and you need a new one. I've worked in ordanance and the average time in just a recruiting base for G-36 was 4 years and after that it had to be send back to HK to exchange it for a new one. To good that AEK and AK are not entirely made of plastic like G-36.

Yes, I've also heard for years now that the G-36 also has problems with heat build up and accuracy degradation, would you mind speaking and clarifying about that?

BTW you briefly spoke in the past about your experience in the German military (Bundeswehr), it would be nice if you or someone else in the general chat forum would create a thread about interesting military experiences. We could hear interesting stories about the German military from you, Russian military stories from Vladimir, and Dutch military stories from Airbornewolf.

I don't want to pressure you Werewolf, but I'd like to see that as well.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Werewolf wrote:I have served for 4 years with HK G36 and the magazine, well i hate it, the grip is ok but compared with G3 grip or the AK-74M grip i find it better and the buttstock, let me put it this way 1 year and you need a new one. I've worked in ordanance and the average time in just a recruiting base for G-36 was 4 years and after that it had to be send back to HK to exchange it for a new one. To good that AEK and AK are not entirely made of plastic like G-36.

Yes, I've also heard for years now that the G-36 also has problems with heat build up and accuracy degradation, would you mind speaking and clarifying about that?

BTW you briefly spoke in the past about your experience in the German military (Bundeswehr), it would be nice if you or someone else in the general chat forum would create a thread about interesting military experiences. We could hear interesting stories about the German military from you, Russian military stories from Vladimir, and Dutch military stories from Airbornewolf.

The thing with the heat build up is a real problem. I've shot several weapons, G36,AK47,M16,SIG 550, MG3 but without doubt the G36 has some serious problems with heat build up i noticed it during shooting exercises on military shooting range where every shooter had 15 rounds for exercises to shoot and about 2 minutes cool time for weapon in between and i was 5th in line meaning the weapon has shot 4x15 rounds =60 rounds untill i was on turn. You could barely hold the weapon on the handguard without using gloves it was pretty hot. After roughly one hour 2 G-36s were switched for 2 fresh rifles and had to cool down for one hour untill they had to be switched again. After a while it was again my turn to shoot same exercise and this time the supervision which teaches/supervise so you don't do something stupid, give the order to use gloves or otherwise you would get burned from the air cooling holes at the bottom of the handguard, just because the heat was radiating from the barrel due those air cooling holes. Had not experienced such heat build up even with MG3 after 300 rounds.

Regarding the acuracy degradation that is also kind an issue. The weapon is hell of accurate when it is zeroed but after few hours on shooting range after heat build up, the weapon losses some of its accuracy. Not much but enough to notice it. The real problem about the accuracy degradation is that the entire weapon is nothing but plastic except the barrel,gun lock and gas operating realoding mechanism the rest is pure plastic. Dropping he gun even a few centimeters or when not paying enough attention and striking it even barely against any object and the accuracy is reduced significant.

There are some other problems especially as a private working in ordonance you are often forced to clean all the weapons after those arrogant officer candidates bring back rifles and their officers are giving some shitty excuses not to let the recruites clean their own weapons. And in my life time i've cleaned over ten thousand G36s and i can tell you the inners of the reciever are so tight constructed and there are gun lock leading edges made of plastic and after a while they getting pretty sharp for plastic and if you don't pay enough attention you litterly can cut into your finger. Really crappy to clean, but from what i heared about SiG 550 there are at least two times bitchier to clean.

Overall not a bad weapon but majority of people who served with it and with G3 would favor it any day, me included.

It has two optics build in it, actually pretty neat, but the Reflex visior which was actually invented to fasten the target acquisition, but on G36 the red dot sight is so small it terminates the entire idea of fast acquisition. But except for the small visior it works pretty fine. The magazines i also dislike the overall strentgh of the plastic is ok, but the little magazine to magazine attachment function is so weak that it breaks quite often and have to send magazines back just because this little plastic made catch.
Usually in lot of militaries they teach to use weapon as a tool to step on to help comerades to climp a wall or obstacles, it is ok for a 60kg women with 10kg equipment it does not break so often, but for average man with 80-85kg +10-20kg the folding buttstock and folding lock mechanism breaks immidiatley. So not the best quality.

I don't know what it is about the AEK rifle... perhaps it just looks too H&K... too plastic.

The very large images on the previous page clearly show not very good wielding/alignment/finish on the buttstock... look at the second photo...


It clearly has an adjustable length stock that one presumes fully retracts, but also equally clearly it has the fixed cocking handle of the AK, rear mounted peep iron sight and rails for mounting stuff, but otherwise it is just the same old same old... nothing revolutionary at all.

The balanced recoil mechanism would be useful in burst fire but for real accuracy I would suggest single shot would be the chosen method of fire anyway.

If the balanced recoil mechanism is the only thing in question then the AK12 could be based on the AK-107 instead of the AK-74M and you get the best of both worlds...

They simply cant add balance recoil mechanish midway to AK-12 design they will have to change the design.

Here is what Khathi told me at mp.net about AEK-971 advantage over AK-12 
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/printthread.php?t=197506&pp=40&page=201

The main one is that AEK manages to keep the high-energy action of the AK family (which is largely responsible for its legendary reliability) while doing away the infamous AK kick due to its balanced action. This alone improves the rifle's accuracy almost twofold. AK-12, which doesn't have the balanced action, was, reportedly, approaching the accuracy task by reducing the moving parts energy, which indeed improved accuracy, but greatly reduced the dirt resistance — note that it's only the rumor. Then there are scores of ergonomics and usability improvements — basically, take everything what was hyped about AK-12, and add it to ZiD's design, but it's quite obviously more systematic and thought through, compared to the AK-12's rather haphazard appearance. And their new plastic lower finally features the more or less functional magwell — which AK-12 still lacks.

I think its easy for AEK-971S to get AK-12 like feature but for AK-12 to get other way round would mean redesign

I think so, too.

The AEK-971/973 is a great design, they just should scrap the entire low quality H&K style nonsense and adopt the AK12 ergonomics, would not cost much actually would be even cheaper to have AK12 ergonomics on AEK971/973 instead of this fimsy HK crap that would be horrible to maintain.

It would be great if they can keep both in for the army , and it would have good export market for AK-12 and AEK-971S.

Both are good design in their own right.

That is the most probable future, that russia buys both giving soldiers chance to gather experience with other weapons but also keeping long traditional and reliable weapon and company a life.

Both weapons are worth and would be great to see both in action and service.

Austin wrote:It would be great if they can keep both in for the army , and it would have good export market for AK-12 and AEK-971S.

Both are good design in their own right.

This is what I've been saying, if they both passed state tests  then why not just induct both in to service? It's not like they're inducting new littoral ships where logistics is a major factor, their just rifles so let the soldier ultimately decide.