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

[Ramlaen]

 

'less than 24 pounds unloaded'

[Alex C.]

Ode to the G3 rifle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Belesarius]

41 minutes ago, Alex C. said:

Ode to the G3 rifle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MC-51 or get out.

 

 

 

[Alex C.]

30 minutes ago, Belesarius said:

MC-51 or get out.

 

 

 

 

Get out of here with that bullshit

 

 

[Belesarius]

11 minutes ago, Alex C. said:

 

Get out of here with that bullshit

 

 

I wanna see video of it firing. 'Dat muzzle blast.

Unburned powder anyone?

[Alex C.]

32 minutes ago, Belesarius said:

I wanna see video of it firing. 'Dat muzzle blast.

Unburned powder anyone?

Not that exact one but pretty close:

 

 

[Sturgeon]

7 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

 

'less than 24 pounds unloaded'

 

You notice they never talk about ammo weight...

[LoooSeR]

Czech V-AR

[Vicious_CB]

On 5/21/2019 at 2:11 PM, Sturgeon said:

 

You notice they never talk about ammo weight...

 

And how they keep showing it being fired from a bipod like its a GPMG replacement or something.

 

Probably the only thing that makes sense in a dismounted MG to increase range.

 

 

[LoooSeR]

PKPs, Syria

[LoooSeR]

   New photos of Tokar-2 from here. With 5.45 mag:

 

Spoiler

 

[LoooSeR]

   Lebedev's pistol

 

Spoiler

 

[Alex C.]

3 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

   Lebedev's pistol

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Hey loooser,

 

Can you find some SVD-S photos? Or really any SVD photos but I’m interested in seeing the folding stock version in actual use.

[LoooSeR]

8 hours ago, Alex C. said:

Hey loooser,

 

Can you find some SVD-S photos? Or really any SVD photos but I’m interested in seeing the folding stock version in actual use.

   Well, there are Karden's photos.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

   Some random ones.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Ramlaen]

http://soldiersystems.net/2019/06/06/us-army-to-procure-new-variable-scopes-for-m4-carbines/

http://soldiersystems.net/2019/06/05/ussocom-small-arms-update-2019/

http://soldiersystems.net/2019/06/05/usmc-small-arms-update-2019/

http://soldiersystems.net/2019/06/05/marsoc-to-conduct-combat-evaluation-of-sig-lightweight-machine-gun-in-338-norma-mag/

http://soldiersystems.net/2019/06/04/us-air-force-small-arms-update-2019/

http://soldiersystems.net/2019/06/05/textron-systems-lightweight-small-arms-technology-demonstrator-in-6-8mm/

 

[LoooSeR]

 

Judging by mag curve this is 6P68.

[LoooSeR]

   Few random pics of ADS (ex A-91).

 

Spoiler

 

   5.56 versions exist of A-91, BTW.

 

[LoooSeR]

   Russians and Capitalists guns

Quote

   Soldiers of the 45th Guards of VDV of the Russian Federation and the Green Berets of the US Army from the 10th Special Forces Group during a joint anti-terrorism exercises.

Fort Carson, Colorado, USA

May 2012

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Sturgeon]

Someone elsewhere asked me to compare the Chauchat with the Breda 30, which gave me an excuse to go off about automatic rifle genealogy!

 

The more complex answer is that the M.30 and the Chauchat are two different weapons. The Chauchat is really an individual weapon, like a BAR. It is what I like to call an "automatic rifle", and within that category I'd include the weapons traditionally called "assault rifles". So think of the Chauchat as a really primitive assault rifle that eats standard gun food. And because of the circumstances at the time, it's fundamentally a support weapon, and not a mainline rifle. That's just the nature of the beast. But in 1916, the concept here wasn't really differentiated, I think a lot of people get confused on that. I've seen a lot of dickering for example about the Fedorov Avtomat, saying it is or is not an assault rifle. People arguing yes (like myself) will point out its muzzle energy was within a few joules of the later StG-44 "Ur-assault rifle", and that it meets all the criteria we know now. People arguing no say "hey the Russians only ever issued it as a squad automatic weapon". That's also true. The problem for me is, the light machine gun and the assault rifle were not really differentiated yet in the late teens and early twenties. They were kind of the same thing. For example, only a few light machine guns at the time had tripod mounts. The Chauchat didn't. The BAR didn't. The Lewis and Madsen did get tripod mounts eventually, but in both cases they were effectively afterthoughts. See the images below:


In both cases, the tripod has an adapter that clamps to the barrel shroud. There is no integral tripod pivot point, as in, say, a Vickers:
 

 

That point near the front of the receiver with the big hole in it? That's a tripod mount. None of the early LMGs, which I'd argue are all basically early automatic rifles (proto-assault rifles), have that as an integral feature. Now fast forward, look at an M249 (which for a long time was not even designated as a light machine gun, warranting only the euphemistic "squad automatic weapon"):


 

Integral tripod mount. From day 1. 

 

(Just by the way, here's an experimental BAR tripod from 1944, it's pretty cool and probably also a horrible idea).

 

Now, during the interwar period, things change. Let's look at the Bren, perhaps the archetypal interwar light machine gun:

 

Bingo. Tripod mount. This is one of the major changes that occurs during the interwar period. Weapons that previously only provided for prone or shoulder fire, like the Chauchat, were either adapted for or replaced by weapons that provided for tripod use. This was a stage in the development of the modern General Purpose Machine Gun. It produced a magazine-fed weapon that could be used like an automatic rifle, or in rare cases just like a Vickers or Maxim gun. I would say it is with the addition of integral tripod mounts that the larger collection of automatic rifles (which, as of 1918, I would say is basically a singularity of assault rifles, squad support weapons, and light machine guns all in one) began to diversify into several distinct categories, including modern light machine guns, general purpose machine guns, and assault rifles. This process happened from about 1930-1950. If I were to use an analogy to zoological evolutionary cladistics, I would identify the stem group "Automatic Rifles" (or maybe "Weapons"), and divergent from that "Light Machine Guns", "General Purpose Machine Guns", "Assault Rifles", and a number of other dead-end ("extinct") groups like "Support Submachine Guns". 

Now that I'm done with the rundown of the history of the concept, where does the Breda 30 fit? Well it's super weird, not just mechanically but in terms of its lineage. Originally, the design was the Breda 5C, which was a medium machine gun, complete with tripod mount, spade grips, the whole shebang. It was intended to compete with things like the Vickers, directly. 

 

 

The Breda 30 is basically the 5C with the spade grips removed and a pistol grip and stock added (which was an option on the 5C, as seen above). The Breda 30 even retains the tripod mount of the 5C:



(That flat dovetail looking thing under the feed housing is the tripod mount).

 

So the Breda 30 is really one of these interwar light machine guns like the Bren. Which means it's not exactly the same kind of gun as a Chauchat. You can't strap a Chauchat to a truck. You can strap a Breda 30 to a truck. You can't very easily reload a Breda 30 by yourself. You can reload a Chauchat by yourself without issue. The differences are admittedly subtle and nestled within details, but they're there. So comparing the two directly is difficult!

[LoooSeR]

   Heh, a handgun in 7.62x39 (single shot)

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Pascal]

10 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

But in 1916, the concept here wasn't really differentiated, I think a lot of people get confused on that. I've seen a lot of dickering for example about the Fedorov Avtomat, saying it is or is not an assault rifle. People arguing yes (like myself) will point out its muzzle energy was within a few joules of the later StG-44 "Ur-assault rifle", and that it meets all the criteria we know now.

 

Wasn't that just because they switched to more available ammo and then it became within a few joules to the later StG-44? As in originally being designed with a cartridge which had a higher muzzle energy.

[Sturgeon]

6 hours ago, Pascal said:

 

Wasn't that just because they switched to more available ammo and then it became within a few joules to the later StG-44? As in originally being designed with a cartridge which had a higher muzzle energy.

 

There were versions in 7.62x54R and 6.5x57 Fedorov, so yes it was designed for "full" calibers initially. Hard to argue that by today's standards, though, the Avtomat is not an assault rifle.

[LoooSeR]

https://www.kalashnikov.ru/ak-do-ak/

AK-46 N1

 

 

AK-46 N2

 

AK-46 N3

[LoooSeR]

https://www.kalashnikov.ru/v-preddverii-yubileya/

Dement'ev's Avtomat. Variant 1.

 

V2

 

   Bulkin's avtomat number 1

 

Version 2

 

Korobov's

 

   Rukavishnikov's avtomat, number 1

 

Number 2

[Hisname]

On 6/16/2019 at 8:53 AM, Sturgeon said:



 

 



 




 

 

 

Very interesting machine gun tripod.  You do not know what designation (name) had this machine-gun tripod. I would like to know more about him and search for more photos.

Thank you very much)