The Small Arms Thread, Part 8: 2018; ICSR to be replaced by US Army with interim 15mm Revolver Cannon.

[roguetechie]

No Hugo schmeiser was actually Stalin's illegitimate child.

[Hisname]

On 26.02.2018 at 8:24 PM, LoooSeR said:

Lazarev in Tula museum

 

 

 

Good afternoon, many thanks for the photos. The first photo shows a curved barrel 7.62 RPK light machine gun.

And on the second photo, a very rare experimental underwater machine gun with a belt feed.

Do you have any more pictures like that? I mean the experimental Soviet or Russian weapons.

Thanks!

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

6 hours ago, Hisname said:

 

 

Do you have any more pictures like that? 

He asked, to Loooser. 

 

You must be new here.

[Akula_941]

Singapore's visor device to work with BCI (brain-computer interface) drone

[Ramlaen]

While spelunking Facebook, some subsonic .338

Quote

AEWE 2017 conducted a live fire assessment of Stealth Engineering Group (SEG) Subsonic Ammunition to inform the Precision Munition Capability Development Document in ARCIC staffing. The Maneuver Battle Lab (MBL) partnered with the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) to assess dispersion, point of impact shift from other sniper ammunition,decibel level, and velocity at the USAMU test range. SEG subsonic ammunition is designed to be used in conjunction with a suppressor to provide a nearly silent short range engagement capability for snipers. Additionally SEG has designed projectiles to expand at the reduced velocities inherent in subsonic ammunition. SEG produces subsonic ammunition in a variety of calibers.

U.S. Army Photos by Angie DePuydt

 

[LoooSeR]

On 01.03.2018 at 12:59 PM, Hisname said:

 

 

Good afternoon, many thanks for the photos. The first photo shows a curved barrel 7.62 RPK light machine gun.

And on the second photo, a very rare experimental underwater machine gun with a belt feed.

Do you have any more pictures like that? I mean the experimental Soviet or Russian weapons.

Thanks!

If you want something - ask, will try to find.

 

PU-21, belt and mag-fed Soviet LMG in 5.45

[LoooSeR]

Quote

NORINCO QX4

 

 

Spoiler

 

[LoooSeR]

AEK 906 RHINO revolved

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[LoooSeR]

Several days ago there was a SSO day (27 Febr)

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

 

[A_Mysterious_Stranger]

Don't think this was posted yet.   Not sure how much I believe since Task and Purpose seems to be the SOLE source and they seem to be mixing up details of ARs and SAWs, but still it's been showing up on alot of places: 

 

https://taskandpurpose.com/army-next-generation-squad-weapon/

 

Quote

 

The Army claims its new assault rifle will unleash a hailstorm of specially-designed shells with as much chamber pressure as a battle tank to tear through even the most advanced body armor — and if all goes according to plan, the soldiers will get them to play with sooner than they thought.

 

The service plans on fielding a Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) — the first version in the Army’s Next-Generation Weapons System that chambers a round between 6.5mm and 6.8mm —  as a potential replacement for its 80,000 M249 SAWs starting in fiscal 2022 rather than the original target date of fiscal 2025, Col. Geoffrey A. Norman, force development division chief at Army HQ, told Task & Purpose, with two per nine-man infantry squad.

 

While the service still hasn’t set official requirements for the system, the NGSAR will weigh less, shoot farther, and pack more punch than the service’s existing infantry weapons, Norman told Task & Purpose. And more importantly, the platform will incorporate a chamber pressure superior to the current system in soldiers’ arsenals to ensure that the rounds can still blast through enhanced enemy body armor at up to 600 meters.

 

The goal, as Norman put it, is to equip infantry soldiers with an automatic rifle “that fires a small bullet at the pressure equivalent to what a tank would fire.”

 

“The chamber pressure for the standard assault rifle is around 45 KSI [kilopound per square inch], but we’re looking for between 60 and 80 KSI … the chamber pressure when an M1 Abrams tank fires is on that order,” Norman told Task & Purpose. “We’re looking to reach out around 600 meters and have lethal effects even if the target is protected by body armor.”
 

 

 

60-80 ksi vs 45 ksi sounds like quite an improvement but can be deceptive without knowing other variables like the chamber volume, and even some rough guesses suggest something that would be excessive for even a full power round, much less intermediate ones.    Sounds kinda hype-y to me.

 

 

That wasn't all either:

 

 

Quote

 

The service is certainly working overtime to get the muscular system turning militants into pink mist downrange. Gordon told Task & Purpose that the NGSW systems currently undergoing testing and evaluation by the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team at Fort Benning, Georgia will initially head downrange with the 7.62mm XM11158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round while the service hacks away at a specialized round built to achieve the proper balance between range and lethality.

 

 

That sounds odd.  Are they suggesting we're going to be getting yet another new round? 

 

 

Quote

“The challenge of the 5.56mm is that it doesn’t have enough mass [to defeat enemy body armor],” Norman said, referring to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley’s April 2017 testimony before lawmakers on the Army’s growing ammo problem downrange. “But the challenge with 7.62mm ammo is that it has too much mass and not enough propellant. The right solution is somewhere between the two, where you have enough mass to penetrate but you’re still moving fast enough.”

 

 

Which sounds like they're doing an oversized SCHV, a small bullet with a shit-ton of powder behind it for higher velocity.  Except that also means more powder adding to the recoil among other drawbacks, I think?  Maybe that's another reason for the tank analogy, given that KE rounds I believe tend to rely on a large propellant load comparable in mass to the projectile itself. 

 

 

Quote

But the real heart of the NGSW program is the fire control system, developed independently from the receiver and chamber. While the Army has spent years evaluating off-the-shelf options for soldiers’ next assault rifle — see the Interim Combat Service Rifle program aborted in November due to weight concerns rather than budget jousting — Norman characterized the proprietary fire-control system as a miniaturized version of the systems utilized by ground vehicles and aviation platforms.

“We’re exploring several options to ensure that what the gun aims at, it actually hits,”Norman told Task & Purpose. “The system will adjust and potentially only fire when the muzzle will line up with its target. It will take into account atmospheric conditions, even automatically center the weapon using an internal system. We’re looking to get these capabilities ready as soon as possible.”

 

 

So... smart targeting?  This sounds quite heavy, and I'd worry about reliability.   And proprietary?  Do you really want 'proprietary' designs for widespread military use? 

 

So, yeah.   I'm not sure I'd buy this without some independent verification and a huge grain of salt, but it's out there. 

 

 

[Collimatrix]

I think @Sturgeon will chime in on this program, as I'm sure he knows more of the details.  But basically this is in line with the series of extremely ambitious US small arms projects that don't really go anywhere.

Chamber pressure is an interesting topic, and one that is under-studied in small arms.  Tanks do run much higher chamber pressures in their guns, it's true.  I think some APFSDS rounds are north of 100KPSI, which is roughly double what a typical assault rifle round burns at.  But just scaling that technology down has some issues.

The first is that if you try to run those pressures with a conventional cased round the casing will weld itself to the chamber and stick.  Ammunition for the 120mm NATO and 125mm Russian guns is semi-caseless.  That works fine for a gun that's loaded manually, or even one that's serviced by an autoloader.  But is semi-caseless ammo tough enough to survive the breech of an autoloading weapon?  Try just cycling some rounds through an AR-15, they get gouged to hell just being run through the action.

 

Throat wear is another issue.  Tank guns aren't expected to shoot very often, so it's OK that those tubes only last a few hundred rounds.  They have magical fire control systems, so they hit what they are aiming at most of the time.  The interplay between chamber pressure and throat wear is very complex, but getting the propellant gas that hot is likely to cause some acceleration of throat wear.

Finally, running a gun at that pressure requires more care in the production and maintenance of everything.  Tank guns get babied and cooed over, infantry rifles do not.  Tank ammo is made extremely carefully and precisely, infantry rifle ammo is not.  Tank gun barrels are made entirely from electroslag refined steel, which is considered a strategic material.  In rifles only the bolts are.

 

Running the pressures into the stratosphere has a lot of mathematically attractive benefits, but the real-world challenges are considerable.

[Xlucine]

33 minutes ago, A_Mysterious_Stranger said:

Don't think this was posted yet.   Not sure how much I believe since Task and Purpose seems to be the SOLE source and they seem to be mixing up details of ARs and SAWs, but still it's been showing up on alot of places: 

 

https://taskandpurpose.com/army-next-generation-squad-weapon/

 

 

60-80 ksi vs 45 ksi sounds like quite an improvement but can be deceptive without knowing other variables like the chamber volume, and even some rough guesses suggest something that would be excessive for even a full power round, much less intermediate ones.    Sounds kinda hype-y to me.

 

 

That wasn't all either:

 

 

 

 

That sounds odd.  Are they suggesting we're going to be getting yet another new round? 

 

 

 

 

Which sounds like they're doing an oversized SCHV, a small bullet with a shit-ton of powder behind it for higher velocity.  Except that also means more powder adding to the recoil among other drawbacks, I think?  Maybe that's another reason for the tank analogy, given that KE rounds I believe tend to rely on a large propellant load comparable in mass to the projectile itself. 

 

 

 

 

So... smart targeting?  This sounds quite heavy, and I'd worry about reliability.   And proprietary?  Do you really want 'proprietary' designs for widespread military use? 

 

So, yeah.   I'm not sure I'd buy this without some independent verification and a huge grain of salt, but it's out there. 

 

 

 

 

Upping the chamber pressure is possible without increasing ammunition weight much, if you can stop it welding the brass to the chamber/bursting the barrel. Getting a faster burning powder (or just putting loaded ammo into a tumbler and letting the powder beat itself to dust) will release more energy before the bullet has started moving appreciably, and so should improve efficiency giving more performance.

 

Adding weight and cost to the rifle is guaranteed, of course, so the total weight of the system will be more than the M4 (but hopefully less than a 60's tech gerpercer with the same sectional KE downrange)

[Sturgeon]

2 hours ago, A_Mysterious_Stranger said:

60-80 ksi vs 45 ksi sounds like quite an improvement but can be deceptive without knowing other variables like the chamber volume, and even some rough guesses suggest something that would be excessive for even a full power round, much less intermediate ones.    Sounds kinda hype-y to me.

 

Keep in mind those are operating pressures not maximum average pressure (MAP). So the MAP for the new rounds will probably be 80-90KPSI.

 

Chamber pressure doesn't really depend on the internal volume of the case, it's a measure of force per area (the internal surface area of the case). And there are a bunch of different chamber pressure measurements.

What they are doing is exploiting two facts about CT ammunition, which is that there is no portion of the case that is unsupported and that the case is no longer subject to the plasticity of brass (which is in the 75,000 PSI+ chamber pressure range). Basically, if you run really high pressures with a brass case, depending on how that case is hardened, the brass will become plastic and braze itself to the bolt face. Bad. If your polymer case is sufficiently strong, then you avoid this both by using a different material and by having a round that is completely supported in the chamber.

And of course, if you can get away with it, more chamber pressure is better. Now, I think there are still a bunch of technical hurdles that you'd have to overcome to make this concept work, so I'm not really sure how successful it will be. And I've not heard terribly good things about how the program is being run.

 

2 hours ago, A_Mysterious_Stranger said:

That sounds odd.  Are they suggesting we're going to be getting yet another new round? 

 

Yes. The new round is some 6.5-6.8mm ultra high velocity thing.

 

2 hours ago, A_Mysterious_Stranger said:

Which sounds like they're doing an oversized SCHV, a small bullet with a shit-ton of powder behind it for higher velocity.  Except that also means more powder adding to the recoil among other drawbacks, I think?  Maybe that's another reason for the tank analogy, given that KE rounds I believe tend to rely on a large propellant load comparable in mass to the projectile itself. 

 

I've heard various things, from 110 to 140gr 6.8mm EPRs, but in general it's supposed to have a very high muzzle velocity. The round is the brainchild of Dr. James Newill, and I believe Mark Minisi is working under him. Newill... Has a certain reputation for fantasy among some of my sources.

 

2 hours ago, A_Mysterious_Stranger said:

So... smart targeting?  This sounds quite heavy, and I'd worry about reliability.   And proprietary?  Do you really want 'proprietary' designs for widespread military use? 

 

So, yeah.   I'm not sure I'd buy this without some independent verification and a huge grain of salt, but it's out there. 

 

That's exactly what they are doing. What kicked this off was the CT Carbine with an experimental ARDEC smart optic bolted to it. That optic is nowhere near ready for prime time, but you can't stop stupid.

[Khand-e]

 

Saw this and legit wanted it, but I don't really know much about the reputation of the manufacturer or how well they do in the art of RPK-foo (But RPKs are fucking radical man.)

 

Armory USA, some company out of Houston.

[Sturgeon]

Armory USA was an importer, they were the first importers of Bulgarian AKs in the US IIRC. That M72 kind of looks like it was a pre import. Probably a great gun.

[Khand-e]

4 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

Armory USA was an importer, they were the first importers of Bulgarian AKs in the US IIRC. That M72 kind of looks like it was a pre import. Probably a great gun.

 

Asking price was $1,200, but the Gun Library clerk said he'd do $1,100.

 

Fuck, I should go back.

[LoooSeR]

KM-AK kit on AK-74s

 

Spoiler

 

[Hisname]

19 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

If you want something - ask, will try to find.

I would like to see something that can not be found in Google))

PU-21 LMG ("Poplin" project) and AEK 906 9х18mm (AEK 906-01 9x19mm) very interesting, but long-known models of weapons.

The photos you submitted earlier (curved barrel  RPK and experimental underwater machine gun) are much more interesting.

The photos of PU-1, PU-2 provided by Belezarius, and a photo of the experimental cartridges for the anti-tank rifle PEC provided by Khand-e, also attracted my attention.

[Khand-e]

14 minutes ago, Hisname said:

I would like to see something that can not be found in Google))

PU-21 LMG ("Poplin" project) and AEK 906 9х18mm (AEK 906-01 9x19mm) very interesting, but long-known models of weapons.

The photos you submitted earlier (curved barrel  RPK and experimental underwater machine gun) are much more interesting.

The photos of PU-1, PU-2 provided by Belezarius, and a photo of the experimental cartridges for the anti-tank rifle PEC provided by Khand-e, also attracted my attention.

 

I have another photo of the Cartridge, but you have to promise not to share it since Akula had to pay the owner money for the rights to it and the rest of the documents it came in.

[Khand-e]

21 minutes ago, Khand-e said:

 

I have another photo of the Cartridge, but you have to promise not to share it since Akula had to pay the owner money for the rights to it and the rest of the documents it came in.

 

[Hisname]

3 minutes ago, Khand-e said:

I have another photo of the Cartridge, but you have to promise not to share it since Akula had to pay the owner money for the rights to it and the rest of the documents it came in.

I promise that I will not share this photo with anyone.

But this  photo I saw in 2013 ......

Here is the link:  

http://tankarchives.blogspot.ru/2013/10/experimental-soviet-anti-tank-weapons.html

 

[Khand-e]

1 minute ago, Hisname said:

I promise that I will not share this photo with anyone.

But this  photo I saw in 2013 ......

Here is the link:  

http://tankarchives.blogspot.ru/2013/10/experimental-soviet-anti-tank-weapons.html

 

 

 

Oh, funnily enough that's EnsignExpendable's website, he's posting in here right now.

 

 

[LoooSeR]

QTS-11

 

[Khand-e]

@Sturgeon You have a good eye by the way, I went back today after reading up on them and it is infact a pre import model, apparently the guy who owned it sold it because he was near bankruptcy and unfortunately just had to sell a lot of shit according to the story.

 

Even before he told me it was rated at 90% condition, I would've easily believed him as I looked it over beforehand and It's in beautiful shape.

 

TLDR: I now have an RPK clone I guess, kind of wish it was an RPK-74M clone but hey, what can you do?