AK-12 as a mirror of the status quo
For a long time I wanted to speak out and be smart, and pour out bile, express concern about "where this world is heading." I come from a family of hereditary gunsmiths. Great-grandfather was invited to the Kovrov machine-gun plant, now "OAO Plant named after V.A. Degtyarev" - "ZiD", General Fedorov among six specialists (Degtyarev, Matyashin, Chekhlov, Doronin Pyotr Nikolaevich - an engineer from Sormovo and I don’t know the others) in 1916, and almost all relatives later worked at this enterprise.
I started my career as a gunsmith in 1983 as a design engineer at the Special Design Bureau of the Kovrov Mechanical Plant (KMZ). KMZ is a former branch of ZiD, which has become an independent enterprise. In this team then worked: A. A. Zaitsev - head of the Special Design Bureau (who at one time helped M. T. Kalashnikov in creating an assault rifle, A. S. Konstantinov (yes, the same one), G. S. Garanin - one of the closest associates V. A. Degtyareva.
At that time, work was in full swing on creating an automaton with balanced automation, the theme "Abakan", the variant that was being tested, was developed and conducted by B. A. Garev and V. V. Spiridonov, who subsequently managed to bring this work to a victorious end - the adoption into service with the 6P38 assault rifle. Frankly speaking, I don’t know who even proposed the “balance” scheme (there were too many options and versions), which they decided to consider true, I just don’t know.
More unpredictable science than story, I just do not know. But the first mock-up sample - a "shooter" to test the performance of the idea itself was developed by S. I. Koksharov. In parallel, the Design Bureau of V. S. Raschetnov, in which I worked, was engaged in work on the topic "Gashette" (6-mm machine gun AEK-974 ... 991), and Konstantinov worked on the creation of a 6-mm sniper - the theme "Carabiner".
I remember the working atmosphere of that time. I remember how, as a young specialist who had just joined the team and barely settled in the workplace, they immediately explained to me that an institute diploma is only an admission to training in a profession, and that even the knowledge that more experienced colleagues will give me is just a step, facilitating self-learning and protecting to some extent from the urge to “step on the same rake”, because no training can replace one’s own experience, and there are a lot of rakes that a person’s foot has not yet set foot on and will be enough for the whole a life.
They taught conscientiously - they prepared a colleague with whom it would be possible to work together and not be ashamed to leave instead of themselves as their student and successor. By the way, no matter how incredible it sounds now, but the mentors boasted to each other about the success of their wards. I don’t remember a case where at least one of my questions in my specialty was ignored, but no one built a know-it-all out of himself, this was considered a sign of amateurism.
From time to time I hear "I know everything about the SPV, what is there to know?" Weapon it's impossible not to "know" if you're even just interested in them. The vast majority of well-designed samples are so simple and logical in structure that even a monkey pulled off a branch by the tail will know it within the limits necessary for use after an hour of practice. After all, anyone will understand the kinematics of the work of three pieces of iron. But the devil is in the details, and being able to design weapons is by no means the same as "knowing" them. There are a lot of designers, and there are significantly fewer samples adopted for service.
I remember how Konstantinov (I was attached to him to draw drawings of his "Carabiner"), examining the bolt carrier of the SVD, racked his and my head to the heap:
- Listen, what do you think, why did he (Dragunov) make the guides from below of different sizes? .. But who knows (after pumping several versions). I'll do the same, since I don't understand. And that's not enough.
Technical councils met regularly to solve certain technical problems. In addition to the permanent members of the technical council - experienced designers, they were persistently invited to "promising youth", which contributed to the cohesion of the team and helped in professional growth. At the same time, the opinions of all those present who had it were listened to, and the permanent members of the technical council were obliged to express themselves without fail. No one was afraid to freeze, all manifestations of arrogance, mockery and other obscenity were immediately suppressed by the bossy roar of expression of displeasure, with the obligatory analysis of the error.
I remember an incident at the very beginning of my career. They brought for repair a 16-gauge self-loading 1900-gauge according to Walter's patent of about XNUMX, a shaggy year of release, of a very unusual design - a short barrel stroke, a folding underbarrel tubular magazine, lever (crank-and-rod) locking and a bunch of interesting design details. It was not possible to solve the problem right off the bat, and Garanin, being not the most free designer from the main work, instructed me to figure out how this system works and why this and that detail is needed, which at first glance only interfere.
And there the shutter opened when the crank protrusion interacted with a spring-loaded wedge in the receiver wall when the barrel moved forward, and this was with a short barrel stroke. Typically, such an algorithm of operation is characteristic of systems with a long stroke of the barrel, which, probably, misled senior colleagues. What to do, stereotypes are a by-product of experience, and it is not always possible to remember this in time. Garanin listened to me, immediately brought me to the office of the head of the Special Design Bureau and asked me to repeat the report. After that, I was entrusted with independent work on the development of one of the options for a machine gun on the topic "Trigger".
Was in SKB, etc. a museum where all shooters were kept: foreign, old, ancient, modern, experimental - especially for the study of designers. And then came the restructuring. The topics were closed, there was talk of conversion, the head of the SKB was replaced. After some time, the new leader gathered the team and said that the team could now expel unnecessary workers from themselves and divide their salaries among themselves - he lied, by the way, subtly hinting at the same time, at working pensioners.
The team, and the majority are always draftsmen, "also a designer" and other staff - mostly ladies, quickly got their bearings "and at the general meeting of the team, by open vote" quickly formed a new composition of the Design Bureau, in which there was no place for A. A. Zaitsev, A. S. Konstantinov, G. S. Garanin, V. V. Degtyarev, V. S. Vladimirov. I did not understand then where these people pulling their hands up suddenly came from. OK. I just realized late that in the new paradigm, the concept of “colleague”, I don’t even say “our partner”, means, first of all, “competitor”, and this is putting it mildly.
What followed was a long history of survival. The nine-year epic of "Kashtan" AEK-919 (919K) (lead designer P. A. Sedov, unfortunately, left us very early), which turned out to be of little demand, was completed under another head of the SKB -A. P. Isakov, an excellent leader and a good person, under whom some traditions of the SKB were partially revived. The submachine gun seemed to be a very simple product, which, as it seemed, could be easily and quickly designed on the basis of the Steyer MPi-69 and mastered by production - yeah, now, that's why it was decided to develop it on its own.
Under Isakov, it was revived (with the participation of the director of the RNIITM by the head of the department of "Mechanical Engineering" of the KFVPI M. A. Tarasov) and the project of an automatic machine with balanced automation, developed on the basis of the Abakan project, was basically implemented, however, the machine acquired its final form already at ZiD , where SKB KMZ was transferred after the conversion of KMZ in 2006. There, finally, the 40-year epic of the development and promotion of "balance" ended. In 1999, I was transferred to the SPKB - a special design bureau "ZiDa".
This team, headed for 17 years by A. Ya. Kurzenkov, during the period of his leadership developed and put into production two samples of loose barrels (actually large-caliber self-loading rifles) for training firing from tank guns, a 12,7-mm Kord machine gun, a 12,7-mm sniper rifle by V.I. within the scope of the conversion.
I want to note that this was done in very difficult conditions. Those who worked in the 90s will understand me. That is, the unit worked quite effectively, but in 2004, as a result of a structural reform, the design departments of the enterprise were merged. Moreover, in fact, the SPKB was merged into the OGK - the department of the chief designer. Attempts of this kind have been made before, including on the ZiDe - always unsuccessful.
Sooner or later they returned to the previous structural scheme. For many managers, the difference between the designers of OGK, whose main task is to support serial production, SPKB and SKB - the development and launch of new products, is not entirely clear. And there is always a temptation to combine, cut down and achieve savings with the same efficiency due to more flexible personnel maneuvers. In fact, the staff (from management to the last executor) of the design department of new developments and the support department differ radically. Not only the specifics of knowledge and work experience, but also mentally.
For a designer working to support products in production, each new product is a headache and an additional burden. For a developer - the meaning of his life. There is even a certain professional ... well, no, not antipathy, but I don’t know what to call it. A certain alienation - a misunderstanding or something. Well, God bless him. As a result of the merger of the design departments, a design and development center, PKC, was obtained. The former main customer of the enterprise was put at the head. After the completion of this event, the superstructure - the number of leadership and apparatus, according to my estimates, doubled, but the number of designers was slightly reduced.
I want to draw attention to the role of the manager in the design department, and, probably, in any other structural division of the enterprise. A team of the same employees can behave and work in completely different ways. With a normal, decent person (who is decent, and not just looks like him), normal working and human relations are formed and dominated in the team. There is a normal working process.
A competent leader is able to evaluate technical solutions and knows the capabilities of his subordinates. There are no universal workers. Someone better than others pushes ideas, someone pumps them, someone “drags”, someone finishes, works with production or with a customer. No, of course, any design engineer should be able to do this, but someone does this or that part of the work better than others. A normal manager takes all this into account when forming working groups and slicing tasks, that is, when organizing a workflow.
At a minimum, he must have experience in his specialty, know the strengths and weaknesses of his subordinates, and be able to manage the process. However, quite often, and especially lately, when there is a change of leadership in a team, favoritism, rat-keeping and other pathologies suddenly become the norm of behavior. Sometimes even people who are well-deserved and respected for business qualities or past merits suddenly turn (or show their true essence?) into non-handshake freaks, and instead of work that they safely bring down, they begin to grab, bite, squeeze et cetera. In general, "we were born to make a fairy tale an obituary."
Well, as, in fact, and always, the time has passed. When I left the enterprise, the chief designer with quiet pride uttered a phrase that was not entirely clear to me: “Look at what is happening.” On the machine, without having time to think from surprise (well, that is, I blurted out), I asked: “What, in fact, is happening? What was adopted under Kurzenkov (in service), then it is produced.
Although it was impossible to say that nothing happened at all. Yet some people who had never worked as designers suddenly became major inventors. There was even a rather high-profile and protracted scandal with the much-usual chief financier of the enterprise about this. There were other oddities of the same order. What else happened? Nerekhta flashed by, the pilot production of the PKC practically died, and things in the 1st production became very bad. This is for 18 years.
Why am I telling this? It's just that, as far as I've heard from colleagues from other enterprises in our industry, to one degree or another, something similar, I mean intellectual and material losses, happened almost everywhere. Though probably not nearly so.
And now, forced to contemplate from the outside the action taking place in the current paradigm, I managed to talk on a very original and fresh topic about ... AK-12. It’s just that I somehow participated in the work on AEK-971, was aware of comparative tests with the first, still Zlobinsky, sample, I had seen enough pictures and videos on the net, and it seems to me that I have something to say. Where to begin?
But I’m watching a video, and there are guys in a fashionable outfit (no, I won’t dig into the outfit, and in general I’m tired of scoffing - both cheerful anger and some stiffness of thought are gone), demonstrating the machine gun, twitching the shutter with their left hand with some kind of subtly verified and obviously trained by years of hard work movement, holding the machine gun by the fire control handle with the right. This is what athletes do. But the AK-12 is a combined arms weapon. And the difference in the shooting and special training of a motorized rifleman, a special forces soldier and an athlete cannot be leveled, either for economic or for any other reasons. That is, in fact, they all need their own weapons.
In general, remembering the 90s and 2000s, when we, the designers, were trying to understand what kind of weapons would be in demand by the army, and create at least some groundwork for the post-apocalypse (read - trying to do our job), I understand what a mistake we did. Then in the army there was not much to talk to, and the special forces were constantly involved and, as they say now, are in trend. And we talked mainly with special forces soldiers, and the mistake was that at that time we not only took into account their wishes and experience, which is certainly correct, but also automatically extended them to the main users of combined arms weapons. Not only are special forces soldiers individual, like specialists, and they are allowed to be individuals, but they have a completely different level of training, and the training itself, like weapons and equipment, is tailored for other, special tasks.
Consider, for example, the algorithm of the AR AK reloading process, taking into account the fact that the average fighter replaces the magazine after all the cartridges in it are used up.
The AR platform is M-16, M-4 and their countless clones. The weapon is held with the right hand by the fire control handle. The butt is clamped under the arm or pressed against the forearm. The weapon is given an elevation angle at which the magazine shaft is approximately at eye level, allowing you to combine control over the reloading process (you never know a branch will hit the magazine shaft window) with observation of the battlefield, at the same time the magazine latch key is pressed with the index finger of the right hand, while the magazine should fall out of the mine. The equipped magazine is attached with the left hand and the shutter delay key is pressed.
The process of loading the weapon is different in that after the magazine is attached, it is necessary to pull back to the stop and release the reloading handle, by the way, it is inconvenient to do this with any hand because of its specific location - close to the shooter's face and, since there is a risk of moving parts not reaching the extreme forward position due to the fact that the reloading handle increases their weight, not weakly adds friction, and even in the extreme forward position overcomes the resistance of the spring of its latch, it is recommended with the thumb of the right hand by pressing the shutter rammer key (as this node is called correctly, I have never been interested), located on the right side of the receiver, make sure that the moving parts have come to the extreme forward position or send them there.
And now the Kalashnikov assault rifle. We, schoolchildren, were still a military instructor-motorized rifleman, a retired major in the lessons of the NVP (initial military training) taught: the machine gun is held by the forearm with the left hand, we change the store with the right. After adjoining the store, we transfer our hand to the cocking handle - it is nearby, and we take it back to the stop, then, sharply releasing the handle and, as it were, continuing the movement of the hand, we transfer it to the fire control handle, simultaneously throwing the machine gun to the shoulder. That is, reloading is carried out with a strong hand (about left-handers in the SA, and at one time in the USSR, they did not know anything, as, indeed, in the USA).
I deliberately omit the manipulation of the fuse in both systems, although manipulating it in AR is still more convenient. As you can see, in both cases there are no far-fetched movements, everything is logical and rational, with reliable control of the weapon while holding it, although I also read Andrei Cruz, and in general I try to be in trend. The differences are primarily due to the approach to using the store and the design of the cocking mechanisms. AR stores in combat conditions were planned to be considered disposable.
AK magazines were never considered such, so they are not thrown away, but replaced and reloaded when the situation allows. They fit more accurately and firmly in the receiver, are more reliable in operation, are stronger (used even in hand-to-hand combat), eliminate errors in attachment and, according to one American tester, despite more complex manipulations, “always attach”. Here are the “more complex manipulations”, as well as the lack of a shutter stop and, as a result, the need to pull the “cock” - the reload handle each time, and make it preferable to replace the magazine with a strong hand.
When testing samples of small arms in difficult operating conditions (“five days”, dust, frost), the force on the cocking handle is necessarily measured, and, you can believe me, keeping within the norm of 16 kg is not a child’s task, because the soldier is not always in good condition. physical form (he can be injured), and the conditions for using weapons are sometimes far from ideal. I once watched a TV program about how the VVs passed the exam for maroon berets. One of the fighters went through everything and at the finish line he couldn’t even cock a machine gun from his foot, and this is a Kalash. For the same reason, we do not use the shutter delay mechanism in our assault rifles, despite all the convenience of using this device, because during tests in the dust chamber, when replacing the magazine, so much dust is filled through the open extraction window that the weapon “flies” from tests.
I am not digging, I am simply emphasizing the purpose of this sample and the conditions of operation and combat use arising from this purpose, which determine its design. But a well-trained experienced fighter does not finish shooting the magazine and changes it as soon as the situation allows, places it in the pouch with the neck up and fills it up at every convenient moment. That's when the store changes with the left hand, the cartridge is in the chamber, and you don’t need to pull the cock.
And now about some misunderstandings in the design of the AK-12 assault rifle. Hm. It turns out long. Then about it in the next article.
- Zavarykin Igor
- AK-12 as a mirror of the status quo
Design features of the AK-12
AK-12. Requirements for a modern machine
AK-12. The layout and features of a modern machine
Information