Ukrainian anti-aircraft machine guns of rifle caliber
After the offensive in aviation During the “Jet Era,” anti-aircraft machine gun mounts (ZPU) largely lost their importance as a means of air defense.
In the 21st century, rifle-caliber machine guns capable of firing at air targets remained on armored vehicles, and they were mainly intended for self-defense against infantry armed with anti-tank weapons at shooting ranges.
With the start of a special military operation, the importance and scale of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles has sharply increased. Medium and light class UAVs are very actively used for reconnaissance, surveillance and artillery fire adjustment. They began to play a huge role in the destruction of mobile and stationary targets on the line of combat contact and in the rear. drones-kamikazes, as well as unmanned remote-controlled bombers.
Using an anti-aircraft missile that is 5 or even 7 times more expensive against a disposable attack UAV costing 10–100 thousand dollars is not very economically profitable, and in connection with this, the military began to search for cheaper and no less effective ways to combat drone threat. One of these weapons was the relatively inexpensive and flexible anti-aircraft machine guns.
Until February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian armed forces had a limited number of specialized anti-aircraft machine gun installations capable of firing rifle-caliber ammunition. Their accelerated creation began after the start of the use of the RF Armed Forces drones such as "Geranium" and "Lancet". At the same time, ZPUs chambered for the 7,62 mm cartridge are in most cases mounted on off-road vehicles. Firing positions, as a rule, are located at a considerable distance from the line of combat contact, beyond the reach of artillery and mortar fire.
Anti-aircraft machine gun mounts based on Kalashnikov machine guns
As a Soviet legacy, Ukraine received single Kalashnikov machine guns chambered for 7,62x54 mm R. This is a well-proven weapon used by infantry and mounted on armored vehicles.
Motorized rifle units mainly used PKM machine guns with bipods, produced in the 1980s.
In 2014, Ukrainian warehouses had a significant number of PKB machine guns (for mounting on armored personnel carriers that do not have a turret) and PKS (PK machine gun on an infantry machine).
The PKB was used on armored vehicles that had an open-top design without a rotating turret (BTR-40, BTR-152, BRDM-1, BTR-50), as well as on early versions of the BTR-60 - BTR-60P and BTR-60PA.
On armored vehicles, the PKB was mounted on a swivel device that provided horizontal and vertical aiming, which also had a cartridge box holder with a capacity of 200/250 rounds, a spring shock absorber that softened the recoil of the frame connecting the machine gun to the installation, and a cartridge case catcher that prevented clogging of the internal space of the armored personnel carrier with spent cartridges. The PKB had a non-removable bipod and butt, like a regular PC, which made it possible, if necessary, to use it outside a combat vehicle.
The swivel machine gun mount made it possible to fire at air targets without any modification and to easily install armored personnel carrier machine guns on any suitable chassis. However, after the outbreak of hostilities in 2014 in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, the bulk of the PCBs taken from warehouses ended up in the trenches and were not mounted on the equipment.
The easel PKS had the ability to conduct anti-aircraft fire, for which there is a special rod on the machine.
However, in the Soviet Army in the 1980s there were relatively few such machine guns, and not all officers of motorized rifle units saw PKS heavy machine guns in the troops.
Much more widespread than PKS is tank PKT machine gun, created on the basis of the 7,62 mm Kalashnikov machine gun. The PKT has a heavier and longer barrel (tank machine gun sights are designed for the ballistics of the SGMT machine gun for unification purposes) and is equipped with an electric trigger mechanism. If there is no electricity in the on-board network, in the back of the PKT receiver, above the electric trigger block, there is a mechanical trigger made in the form of a vertical trigger held by a spring-loaded fuse.
The Kalashnikov tank machine gun, adopted for service in 1962, was installed in the turrets of tanks and other armored fighting vehicles.
Even before the start of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict, it was clear that the number of PKT machine guns in storage was many times greater than the number of armored vehicles available in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Some of the Ukrainian PKTs taken from storage to replenish the “machine gun hunger” were installed on machines in long-term firing points. The active use of Kalashnikov tank machine guns in infantry units was hampered by excessive weight and a large amount of alterations.
The PKT, converted on a makeshift basis into an infantry version, was inferior to the PKM in terms of weight and dimensions, ease of carrying in combat, safety and accuracy of aimed fire. The only advantage of the converted PKT over the PKM was the ability to conduct more intense and prolonged fire thanks to the weighted barrel.
At the end of 2022, a large number of photographs appeared on the Internet indicating the mass creation of twin anti-aircraft guns using PKT, which, to ensure high mobility, are usually placed on various vehicles.
The weight and size characteristics of the paired Ukrainian ZPU, created using the PKT, are unknown. Taking into account all the parts: two machine guns, an anti-aircraft collimator sight, boxes with tapes, a frame for the machine welded from a rectangular steel profile and a telescopic height-adjustable stand, the weight of the installation should be at least 50 kg.
The photograph of the paired ZPU shows that due to the one-way feed of the tape from the right, the cartridge box located in the middle of the installation partially covers the collimator sight. The anti-aircraft gun is equipped with guidance handles and a general release.
The total rate of fire of the coaxial installation is 1 rounds/min. Each barrel can withstand 400 continuous shots before overheating without replacement. The effective firing range against drones is approximately 300 meters.
The most effective when firing at air targets are cartridges with armor-piercing incendiary tracer and armor-piercing incendiary bullets.
Due to the depletion of resources and the reduction in the number of Soviet-made Kalashnikov machine guns in the army, in 2010 the design bureau of the Kiev Mayak plant created a single KM-7,62 machine gun, which is actually a Ukrainian version of the PKM and differs in minor details.
The first batch of 140 KM-7,62 units was delivered to the customer in 2015. Since the Ukrainian industry could not produce the required volume of barrels, some of the machine guns manufactured in 2016 (known as KM-7,62T) were equipped with PKT tank barrels taken from warehouses. As of February 2022, about 1 KM-500 machine guns were manufactured.
Using the KM-7,62, a universal turret suitable for firing at air targets was created. It was intended to arm light armored vehicles with such installations, but in reality everything was limited to the production of one-piece samples.
Anti-aircraft machine gun mounts based on Maxim heavy machine guns
After the collapse of the USSR, several thousand Maxim mod. machine guns remained in Ukrainian warehouses. 1910/30. Reactivation of machine guns manufactured during the Second World War and actively used until the early 1950s began in 2014.
The use of old heavy machine guns in modern combat is only possible in stationary positions. A machine gun mounted on a machine with a shield and casing filled with water weighs more than 67 kg, which makes it absolutely impossible for it to be effectively used by infantry units in maneuverable combat operations.
There are photographs of Maxims mounted in the back of pickup trucks on makeshift machines and on tripods that allow anti-aircraft fire to be fired from the ground.
In 2022, an attempt was made to convert the easel “Maxim” into a “manual” one. At the same time, the body of the machine gun was deprived of the casing into which the coolant was poured, equipped with a pistol grip, a metal butt, and the trigger mechanism was changed. The movable barrel was placed in a protective casing with a bipod, protecting the shooter from burns, and a flame arrester appeared in the muzzle. A box with a 100-round belt is attached to the bottom. The sample demonstrated in April 2022 had an optical sight.
In fact, Ukrainian gunsmiths repeated the work done by Soviet designer F.V. Tokarev in the early 1920s. Taking into account the fact that the “converted” machine gun weighs about 16 kg, and the ease of handling leaves much to be desired, such a measure is strictly necessary.
At least one air-cooled machine gun was adapted for anti-aircraft fire by mounting it on a pickup truck. However, this topic did not receive further development.
Last year, mass production of twin mobile anti-aircraft guns began, which use the original liquid-cooled machine guns.
In terms of its characteristics, this Ukrainian ZPU is almost completely similar to the Soviet coaxial anti-aircraft machine gun mount, created in the design bureau of the Tula Arms Plant in 1930.
It is worth recognizing that as a means of combating low-flying, low-speed air targets, this use of old machine guns is almost optimal.
Since the body of the Maxim machine gun with coolant weighs significantly more than the PKT, the mass of such a twin is probably no less than 80 kg. Due to their significant mass, which makes it difficult to carry the ZPU, they are mounted on various vehicles and are in service with air defense units of territorial defense.
At the same time, the machine gun mod. 1910/30, before the water boils in the casing, it is capable of firing more intensely and firing 500 bullets in a short time. The rate of fire of the coaxial installation is 1 rounds/min. Aiming is carried out using a ring sight. A crew of three can be equipped with a compact anti-aircraft searchlight and a thermal imager designed to detect drones, with a piston internal combustion engine.
In addition to the twin Maxim anti-aircraft guns, there are photographs of triple and quadruple Ukrainian anti-aircraft guns on the Internet.
The fire density of such installations is significantly higher than that of sparks. However, for an increase in the rate of fire you have to pay for an increase in weight and dimensions, as well as ease of operation and maintenance.
Apparently, few triple and quadruple ZPUs have been made, and they are used to a limited extent.
Western anti-aircraft machine guns chambered for 7,62×51 mm
Over the past two years, Western countries have supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with several thousand machine guns chambered for 7,62x51 mm: American M240, Belgian FN MAG, German Rheinmetall MG 3 and Heckler & Koch MG 5, Italian Beretta MG 42/59, Polish UKM-2000, French AAN F1, Czechoslovakian UK vz. 59 and Swedish Ksp 58B.
It is unknown whether imported machine guns were used in specialized anti-aircraft installations. Taking into account the high rate of fire, the German Rheinmetall MG 3 and the Italian Beretta MG 42/59, which have a rate of fire of up to 1 rounds per minute, are best suited for this.
For German and Italian machine guns, Ukrainian garage craftsmen have launched the production of universal machines from which they can fire at aerial targets. The weight of the machine with a machine gun is about 25 kg.
French AAN F1 machine gun on a VAB armored personnel carrier
Also, rifle-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns mounted on Western equipment are probably used to fire at drones.
Especially to counter Geranium-type kamikaze drones attacking targets deep in the Ukrainian rear, at the end of 2022, the United States provided several dozen M134 Minigun rapid-firing aircraft machine guns.
This is a six-barreled rapid-firing machine gun with a rotating block of barrels, built according to the Gatling scheme, using an electric drive with a power of 1,5 kW. The electric drive is powered from a DC source with a voltage of 24–28 Volts.
The rate of fire is controlled by a rheostat and varies from 3 to 000 rounds/min. The belt is fed to the machine gun through a special metal flexible sleeve from a box with a capacity of 6 rounds and weighs 000 kg.
Machine gun weight – 27 kg. Machine weight – 17 kg. The effective firing range is a little over 500 m. In the Ukrainian Armed Forces, M134 Minigun machine guns are mounted on vehicles with a carrying capacity of 1,5 tons.
To be continued ...
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