Pistols and guns of the era of change and ammunition for them
Today our story will be about the samples of this weaponsappeared at the end of 80-x - the beginning of 90-ies of the last century. At this time, the world has changed dramatically, and the weapon also turned out to be included in the complex process of change.
Why do you still need a submachine gun?
In the sixties and seventies of the last century, and in some countries a little later, that is, in the eighties, as the NATO bloc actively switched to intermediate 5,56-mm cartridges and corresponding weapons, the army’s “universal” PPs of the previous generation almost everywhere removed from service. Well, if their production was maintained where, it was only in the countries of the “third world” and that was mainly due to their cheapness. In NATO countries, the main type of weapon has become an automatic rifle for low-pulse intermediate ammunition, and why this is so clear. For example, it was supposed to arm radar personnel with submachine guns. But in the depths of its territory, why do we need to arm it with something? And if the enemy lands a landing, then, be he armed with M16 rifles, what resistance would people be able to offer him with machine pistols in their hands? Nevertheless, they worked on new submachine guns, and at the end of the 80s - the beginning of the 90s of the last century, they began to appear and brought a lot of new things with them.
Look at the photographs of the same aircraft pilots: and what is missing from them, and the pilot in the cockpit of the same attack aircraft or helicopter so closely that the same submachine gun is simply impossible to attach to it. During the years of the Afghan war, they tried to arm the pilots of AKS74, to include him in the NAZ ... And so what? There were four cases of pilots ejection of SU7B and MiG-21 over the territory of the enemy, and at the same time none of the pilots could not use it.
And in terms of size, the AKS74U is approximately equal to any PP, except perhaps for Micro-Uzi. But only it is much better both in effective range and in penetrative power. The barrel of the AKS74U is overheated only from the fourth store when shooting at a fast pace, but how long will the same pilot lead it? And not without reason in tank styling is also provided for both the machine and hand grenades. After all, tankers will have to deal with an enemy who is not armed with submachine guns in the event of the defeat of their combat vehicle. Hence the need, again, for adequate fire in terms of strength and accuracy on their part.
The main weapon of anti-terror!
However, at the same time, namely the sixties - seventies of the XX century, a new round in the development of submachine guns as a type of weapon began in the West. True, now it's at a fundamentally new level. Now it has again become precisely a police weapon, as it was said about it back in the 30s, but not for the entire police, but for special forces, and various special services. It turned out that the ordinary police cannot effectively fight international terrorism and organized crime, and they needed an adequate response and adequate weapons. After all, none of the same terrorists will run around the city with an M16 rifle, but will choose something more compact and less noticeable. This means that with the same weapons, but of better quality, one should act against them. And the German Heckler & Koch MP5 became a typical example of weapons for counterterrorism operations. And, yes, it really looks more like an assault rifle (after all, it was created on the basis of the G3 rifle), and in terms of size and weight, it is closest to the MP40 or PPS, that is, samples of weapons of the previous era that have passed the test of time.
But “closer” does not mean “exactly”. The design of new software is much more complicated and perfect. They began to use semi-free valves, or even the removal of gases for the operation of automation, shooting “from the closed gate” when using trigger USM - all this improved the quality of the new generation of PP on all their characteristics.
But in the regular army, PP was used at that time very limitedly, primarily as traditional, and even can be said: as a “psychological” and “status” weapon for arming the soldiers-artillerymen, tankmen, communications men, rocket engineers and staff officers. That is, all those for whom fire contact with the enemy in regular conditions, although theoretically possible, but whose practical risk is reduced to the very minimum.
New time - new songs!
Interestingly, the USSR as well in 70-s of the XX century, apparently under the impression of the success of “Mini-Uzi” and “Ingram”, announced a competition for the development of an 9-mm submachine submachine gun, in which such well-known designers participated N. M. Afanasyev from Tula and E. F. Dragunov from Izhevsk. But our 9-mm cartridge was too weak. He gave an aiming range of just 50-70 meters, which could not be considered satisfactory. Therefore, work in this direction then stopped. But on the other hand, under the motto "Modern", they tried to create a new 5,45-mm small-sized machine gun, in order to arm the gunners, the crews of armored vehicles and the fighters of the auxiliary units with this weapon. The winner was the familiar Kalashnikov assault rifle AKS74U for both the military and industry.
But barely in our country in the eighties and nineties of the last century, the “winds of change” blew out, as interest to the PP arose to the full and new samples began to appear like mushrooms after rain. First of all, they turned out to be in demand as a “policeman” and, of course, counter-terrorism weapons. Old drawings were taken from the archives and quickly brought to production a number of designs of the seventies: the whole “Kashtan” forest nursery (see IN 3 February 2015), Cypress and Kedr (see IN 2 October 2013 g .). And many more constructions for special forces and militia were created from scratch: PP-19 Bison, Gepard, OTs-22, CP-2, PP-90, PP-90М1, PP-2000 and many others. And today we can see them in the hands of the traffic police, and collectors, and ... in one word “ours was found.” Now we would also have to create something equal to Kalashnikov for entering the world market of PP, but so far this has not been achieved.
Here we need to again turn to the theory and find out what the customers of the new submachine guns really want from their creators, and again what trends are followed today by those and others. Rather, they began to follow after such a landmark event as the 1991 year and the collapse of the USSR. And it was so that the spread of body armor already then greatly lowered the combat value of submachine guns that fired standard pistol cartridges with their specific shape with bullets and low action on obstacles. And this led to the fact that the very idea of a submachine gun as a small arms for ordinary pistol cartridges had to be revised. To solve the new tasks, special, say, a “submachine gun,” very specific ammunition, were also required. The easiest way was to create small-caliber low-impulse cartridges.
Which is better: one big bullet or many small ones?
Moreover, it turned out that at a rate of fire around 20 shots per second, the number of hits at the same place on the target greatly increases the armor penetration of such small-caliber bullets, because the armor of bullet-proof vests does not have time to restore its microcrystalline structure after many consecutive hits, and collapses. So, for example, such submachine guns as American-180 and its improved analogue of the Yugoslav Gorezhe MGV-176 (caliber 5,6-mm or .22LR) became immediately advantageous. A new concept appeared, called PDW (English Personal defense weapon - “Personal Self-Defense Weapon”), the essence of which was to create new cartridges and already for them - new types of PP. So, in fact, there were fourth-generation submachine guns.
New ammunition began to be a cross between pistol and intermediate cartridges for machine guns, but nevertheless closer to the first, first of all in such indicators as in power and recoil energy. But the use of sharp-caliber small-caliber bullets at ranges up to 150-200 m in terms of their impact on the target allowed them to achieve comparable results with intermediate ones. First of all, thanks to the high initial speed and flatness of the trajectory of the bullet, it was possible to significantly increase their penetration effect. It can even be said that in this way another fundamentally new type of small arms was born.
However, in the NATO countries, design work under the CRISAT project (Collaborative Research Into Small Arms Technology - “Joint research in the field of small arms technology”) began in the 1990 year, and their goal was extremely important and significant: to find a replacement for the legendary pistol cartridge 9 × 19 mm Parabellum. At the same time, it was required to create under the new cartridge two new samples at once: a pistol weighing up to 1 kg and a submachine gun within the concept of PDW weighing up to 3 kg. The pistol bullet had to pierce the titanium plate 1,6-mm thick or 20 layers of kevlar fabric, and hit the enemy behind these obstacles at a distance of 50 m. The submachine gun had to do the same thing, but at a distance of 150 m.
Submachine guns under the "small cartridges"
Interestingly, this year was marked by the appearance in Belgium of the first “gun-cartridge” complex, which consisted of a new 5,7 × 28 mm caliber ammunition, an FN Five-FN pistol and a FN P90 submachine gun from FN Herstal. Recall that thanks to its original cartridge, more like a machine gun than a pistol, it was possible to squeeze whole 50 of such ammunition into his shop. The sleeve is bottle-shaped, and rather long, which also made it possible to place a powerful powder charge in it, the ignition of which forces its pointed bullet with 1,8 g mass to leave the barrel at a speed of 823 m / s and 610 J. energy. compared to traditional 9 × 19 cartridges mm.
However, it is worth noting that, with all the positive moments, P90 did not become popular as an army weapon of self-defense, but again it fell into the arsenals of special police units. That is, the original idea of PDW has corrected life, and there is nothing surprising in it, it happens all the time. They even wanted to take the Belgian 5,7-mm cartridge as a standard for NATO, but then he had a competitor from Germany - the 1990 × 4,6 mm cartridge created at the end of 30-s. He was still made by the same firm, Heckler and Hawk, and she produced an MP7 submachine gun (see VO 9 in October 2010) under him and an HK P46 pistol. Its data are as follows: energy 460 J (because the caliber is smaller), the mass of the bullet 1,7 g, and also the initial velocity is less - 736 m / s. But with all this, his punching characteristics are quite comparable with the Belgian. Well, in the submachine gun it was completely used vapor-automatic automatics from the G36 rifle.
On tests 2000 — 2003. The Belgian 5,7-mm cartridge proved to be better than the German. But it was not possible to standardize it for NATO, and each country remained with its own interest.
Meanwhile, a new cartridge with similar parameters was created by Vlastimil Libra (owner of a private arms firm) in the Czech Republic. The cartridge is called .17 Libra and has the following dimensions: 4,38 × 30 mm. The bullet to it is very light and easily reaches a speed of about 700 m / s., Which allows it to pierce the standard NATO armor at a distance of 250 meters. 10-mm steel plate it punches at a distance of 10 m, and up to 200 m retains a very high stopping effect. Under the new cartridge was created submachine gun CZW 438.
The Chinese, who in the middle of the 90-ies created the 5,8 × 21 mm cartridge, also made Chang Feng submachine guns (see IN 22 February 2017) and the Type 05, are not far behind. This cartridge has a rather heavy bullet (weighs about 3 grams), which has a high initial speed - up to 500 m / s. Interestingly, the store of this machine gun auger gun, but unlike our "Bison" is not located below, but on top of the receiver!
“Bad examples” are contagious (just kidding!), And in Sweden they also decided to make a similar small-caliber armor-piercing ammunition for a submachine gun and made an 6,5 × 25 mm cartridge with a tungsten bullet in a plastic tray. And under him at the beginning of 2000's, they also made a submachine gun CBJ-MS (see VO 5 in March 2013), which has a sub-caliber tungsten bullet in a plastic tray. This bullet is the fastest. Its initial speed is at the level of Mosinskaya trilinea - 830 m / s, so it is not surprising that at a distance of 50 m it freely penetrates the 7-mm armor sheet. Moreover, this munition was designed on the base of the sleeve from the 9 × 19 “Parabellum” cartridge, slightly elongated and with a 6,5 mm caliper. That is, in terms of external dimensions, it is essentially unified with the 9 × 19 cartridge, which is very convenient, since it makes it possible to use it in samples of existing weapons for this cartridge. It is required to replace only a trunk, and all! Even the shutter does not need to change!
True, there are spots on the sun. Although it has an impressive range, up to 200 — 250 m, its bullet has a weak stopping power. However, this is a very interesting sample of a submachine gun and will be curious how its fate will be.
And then it happened that in the NATO leadership in 2008, it was decided, first, to develop separate specifications for "soft" and reinforced ceramic plates of body armor, and second, to create a new "assault rifle for everyone." So all the forces today are thrown at it, and the submachine guns again went to the background.
To be continued ...
- Vyacheslav Shpakovsky
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