Why is the Kalashnikov assault rifle worse than the American M16 rifle? Comparison of characteristics of AK and M16!!! Comparison of AK and M16
In the 1960s, the AR-15 Armalite rifle chambered for 5.56 x 45 mm came into service in the United States. by Remington. After testing in Vietnam, Eugene Sooner refined it and in 1967 it was put into service under the designation M 16 A1. By using a small-caliber cartridge, we reduce recoil, weight, and dimensions of the weapon. The accuracy and accuracy of combat increases. The wearable ammunition load is increasing. The USSR responded to the M16 10 years later by creating the AK-74 chambered for 5.45 x 39 mm.
Let's compare these models more closely.
The AK-74 and M16 automatics work due to the removal of powder gases through a hole in the barrel. On an AK, the gases press on the gas piston of the bolt frame, with the bolt. Simplicity, large gaps between parts and a large mass of the bolt frame ensure shooting in mud and with lubricant thickened in the cold. Moving the heavy frame leads to the sight being knocked down when firing in bursts.
In the M16, gases press directly onto the bolt through a narrow tube. Light weight of the bolt assembly - less weight of the weapon, less recoil, better stability; small stroke of the bolt of low mass allows you to accurately place 2-3 bullets, because the weapon does not have time to change its position. Small clearances of parts - extremely unfavorable effects of dirt when shooting in real, field conditions, delays in shooting. Compare the energy of 5.45 x 39 mm AK cartridges. And 7.62 x 39 mm. With M16 5.56 x45 mm cartridges. (see reference book) The excellent muzzle energy of the American cartridge is created not only by excellent gunpowder, but also by the small removal of powder gases for automation.
Classic AK layout:
The buttstock is offset for ease of aiming. Therefore, a moment of force arises between the shooter’s shoulder and the axis of the barrel during the shot. The lower the fulcrum is from the shooting line, the greater the upward movement of the barrel.
When firing bursts from an AKM at a tall figure at 300 m, the first bullet hits the “stomach”, the second - “the shoulder”, the third - the “milk”.
The M 16 (same as the Mpi 43) has a “progressive layout” with a “straight” butt. Therefore, there is no “bulging” of the barrel. Dispersion when firing at 300 m for the M16 is 15 cm horizontally and 22 cm vertically.
Sights with this arrangement must be raised high above the barrel, which is inconvenient when shooting sideways; it unmasks the shooter in the prone position and increases his silhouette.
The penetration and lethal properties of the bullet in the AK-74 and M16 are implemented in different ways.
In the M16 barrel bore, the rifling pitch is 305 mm, the bullet has a small “twist” in flight, flight is on the verge of stability - all this causes the bullet to somersault when it hits the target, causing wounds “incompatible with life.” But this same “under-twisting” leads to ricochets even when hitting reeds or tree branches, and sharply reduces the penetrating effect.
The AK-74 has a rifling pitch in the barrel of 200 mm, but the bullet had a shifted center of mass. When it hit the target, the cavity between the bullet casing and the lead was crushed, allowing the bullet to penetrate the target, while the bullet changed direction already inside the target. Although this scheme also causes a lot of ricochets, but less than the M16.
With the advent of bulletproof vests for soldiers, the penetrating effect of the bullet came to the fore. The new cartridge SS 109 (Belgium) was adopted, the M16 A3 barrel rifling pitch became 178 mm, the penetrating force increased by 2 times (!) A burst of 3 shots pierces a 20 cm standard reinforced concrete target.
The AK-74 adopted a similar 7H10 bullet.
The AK has an open sector-type sight. Good visibility day and night, convenient to shoot at moving targets. Disadvantage - small sighting line, low shooting accuracy over long distances.
The M16 has a diopter sight. Easy to aim, large aiming line - high shooting accuracy. But the limited field of view does not make it possible to confidently hit moving targets or fire to kill at dusk, especially at night.
The AK-74 muzzle compensator reduces recoil and increases combat accuracy. The M16 compensator is also an effective flash suppressor (as is important when shooting with an infrared sight at night). The compensator body has side slots and allows a shot to break the barbed wire on the barriers. In addition, the compensator is a “guide” for throwing rifle grenades using live and blank cartridges.
M16 A2, M16 A3 has a limiter for firing in fixed bursts of 3 rounds, which increases the accuracy of the hit.
The convenient design of the safety allows you to “cock” the M16 with your right thumb while holding the pistol grip.
Anyone who has ever removed the safety of an AK in the cold with bare hands (after all, it is difficult to do this with gloves) will immediately feel the difference. Not to mention the telltale click of the safety catch on an AK at 100 m. Imagine that you are in an ambush in front of an approaching enemy, trying to remove the safety from the AK.
New AK series 100 have been developed. They can also “work” with NATO 5.56 mm cartridges. The reliability of firing has been increased, 15 thousand shots - the barrel is completely worn out and the mechanism is fully operational. Structurally, no changes have been made to the mechanism.
What are the results of this competition?
Victory in battle is determined not by the type of weapon, but by the soldier’s training and the coordination of actions in the unit.
The serious advantages of the M16 when firing at a distance of 300 m can be negated by climate, time of day, and dirt on the battlefield. And vice versa: the unpretentiousness and reliability of the AK in battle do not provide real advantages to an incompetent soldier.
The cost/efficiency ratio of both models is approximately the same. That is why these models are so popular (and this state of affairs will remain for a long time).
And these are the practical results:
News 2003
During the Iraq War, American and British commanders attributed many losses to the failure of the M16 at the most inopportune moment. In response, rifle manufacturers advise taking more careful care of their “barrels”, protecting them from dust, moisture, dirt, and not dropping them...
The advice is, of course, sound. Nevertheless, the tank battalion located near the city of Bakuba was armed with captured AK-47s. They were issued to soldiers upon signature and only after passing the test for assembling and disassembling the Kalash.
Half of the Iraqi assault rifles (8 million in total) are Chinese or Arab-made, and the other half were produced in the USSR in the 60s. What attracted the fighters of the superpower to the old (1947 model) machine gun? Of course, its legendary reliability.
Americans have loved the AK-47 since the Vietnam War. Then they threw away their service rifles and acquired a “Viet Cong carbine.”
How is our Kalash better than the US "vintorez"
“Kalash” can be buried in the sand, drowned in a swamp, and then just slightly shaken off - and good luck. Such tricks do not work with the M16 - the shutter quickly jams and the return spring freezes. Secondly, the caliber of 7.62 mm is steeper than that of the “American” - 5.56 mm. It will not be possible to hide behind a dune from a heavy Kalashov bullet. Thirdly, the Kalash is more ergonomic. It is no coincidence that it was the tankers who began to take it: it is much more convenient to juggle the AKS bolt in the cramped conditions of the tank.
News from 04/15/2008
NATO forces the Afghan army to change AK-47 to M-16: soldiers laugh at the “plastic” rifle
In Afghanistan, the rearmament of military personnel has begun: AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles are being confiscated from personnel, and they are replacing them with the American M-16 automatic rifle. The London Times newspaper reports this.
The publication writes that the Afghan military is reluctant to part with Kalashnikovs and looks at rifles with suspicion. The fact is that the M-16 did not perform well in Afghanistan: due to the ingress of sand, its bolt often jams. Moreover, the rifle cannot, unlike the AK-47, fire in long bursts - its burst consists of only three shots. This is done in order to save ammunition.
The M-16, however, weighs less than the AK-47. But, according to the publication, Afghan soldiers “laugh” at the M-16, calling it “plastic.” The NATO command, for its part, insists on rearming the Afghan army.
Despite this process, even NATO officers serving in Afghanistan recognize the extraordinary smooth operation of the Kalashnikovs. An AK-47 can be buried in the sand, retrieved 100 years later, and the machine gun will work from the first shot, said Major Robert Armstrong of the British Royal Irish Regiment.
Over the past quarter century, more has probably been written about the Kalashnikov assault rifle and its creator, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, than about any other world gunsmith of the 20th century. Moreover, not only in Russia. The foreign press has long believed that a Soviet designer with that name does not exist, and “Kalashnikov” is a kind of collective pseudonym for a group of gunsmiths who have developed and continue to work on the world’s most popular small arms.
But at the same time, in the era of market relations, which have reigned in Russia for more than two decades, the famous designer never became a “market” person. At one time, especially after meeting with Eugene Stoner(creator of the second most popular automatic weapon in the world - the M16 rifle), journalists constantly asked Mikhail Kalashnikov whether he regretted that, unlike Stoner, he did not receive royalties (percentage payments) from the sale of the weapons he invented. “Stoner was a friendly person and a wonderful designer. Really rich. And he came up with a good weapon. But I didn't feel jealous. He lived in America, and I lived in Russia. To each his own. Yes, Eugene became rich, receiving a percentage of royalties from each new rifle, but he did not receive a single government award. And as a twice Hero of Socialist Labor during my lifetime, I was given a bronze bust in my homeland. And a museum named after me was built in Izhevsk. Of course, if I were paid five kopecks for each sample of my machine gun, I would probably build it myself. But I lived in a time when we all worked for the state,” the creator of the AK philosophically answered such a question in an interview at the turn of the century.
The new economic relations that have developed in Russia and new opportunities for obtaining funds have not changed Mikhail Timofeevich. He did not become a “merchant”, but remained a GUNSMAN with a capital letter, and a patriot of his country. Therefore, when the question arose of what to name the new arms concern, which should become one of the world leaders in the arms industry, Mikhail Kalashnikov without hesitation gave it his name free of charge.
“We all supported my father in this decision,” said Mikhail Timofeevich’s son on behalf of the family – Victor Kalashnikov.
By and large, the entire history of the development and production of small arms in the world over the past 60 years is the story of the confrontation between the Kalashnikov assault rifle and the American M16 (AR15) automatic rifle by Eugene Stoner. Modifications of these two types of weapons have become the most popular on our planet. The founder of the AK series, the AK-47, was adopted by the Soviet Union in 1949. The first batch of 1 thousand AR15 rifles was sold by Colt, which by that time had bought the rights to produce these rifles from Fairchild Corporation, and where Stoner had already gone to work, to the American Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) in the early summer of 1962.
The technical characteristics of the M16A1 were better than both the AK-47 and the AKM (developed in 1959). So, for example, the range of a direct shot at the chest figure of an American rifle was 1.2 times greater than that of a Soviet machine gun, and it was 1.5 times greater in accuracy of fire, while having 1.5 times less recoil impulse . At the same time, with equal weight of equipment, an American Marine could take 1.7 times more ammunition than his opponent with an AKM.
However, when it came to the direct use of both types of these weapons in combat conditions - in the jungles of South Vietnam in the 70s of the last century, all the technical “perfections” of the M16 disappeared, and the amazing reliability of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s product came to the fore. “I confess that I personally would prefer your weapon in battle. I had the opportunity to fight in Vietnam, commanding a unit there. And I really wanted to have an assault rifle of your design as a personal weapon. One circumstance stopped it - it had a different rate and sound of fire than the M16. And if I had fired from it, my soldiers would have opened fire on me, believing that the enemy was next to me,” the general cited the opinion Coffield, a meeting with whom took place in the early 90s of the last century at one of the bases of the US Marine Corps, Mikhail Kalashnikov in his book “From someone else’s threshold to the Spassky Gate”.
“In 1965, the scope of the Vietnam War expanded. American troops poured into the jungle and problems began with the M16. The rifle jammed with alarming regularity and as a result young soldiers died,” the American Discovery channel confirms these words, placing the “incredibly tenacious and hardy” AK-47 in first place in the ranking of the ten best small arms of the 20th century (American M16 rifle TV crews put it in second place). “If I needed to train an American soldier in combat conditions to disassemble, clean and maintain a Kalashnikov assault rifle, I would do it in four hours. For the M16 rifle it would take me a week. Like this..." he says Dr William Atwater from the US Army Arms and Ammunition Museum.
Over the past 50 years, such “competitions” between modifications of the AK and M16 have occurred regularly. And wherever it came to using weapons in real, combat conditions, Kalashnikov showed an undeniable advantage. That is why, obviously, more than 70 million units of Kalashnikov assault rifles have been produced in the world over the past 60 years, and four times less M16s. The word “Kalash” (ka-lash-ni-kov, kalash) entered the world’s languages without translation, along with the concepts vodka, Kremlin, sputnik, tsar. And in the Pashto and Farsi languages, the word “automatic” is generally pronounced as “Kalash”. The popularity of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s product is such that Mozambique has included the image of the AK in its state emblem and flag since 1975, Zimbabwe in its coat of arms since 1980, and Burkina Faso used it in its coat of arms in 1984-1997. One of Mozambique's banknotes also contains the image of an AK. And in 2004, Playboy magazine named the AK-47 one of the 50 products that changed the world, along with the Apple Macintosh computer, the birth control pill and the Sony Betamax VCR.
And now, when I hear talk that the Kalashnikov is outdated, that the time of “brilliant simplicity” in weapons is gone, and the modern soldier requires only “sophisticated” rifles and machine guns, in which there is no need to even pull the trigger - everything will be done by automation, I remember this story and the words of an American writer and weapons historian Richard Venola. “If I had to go to some unknown planet and I had to choose the only weapon, I would take the AK-47 with me. When Western civilization declines, I want to have an AK-47,” he once said.
The Kalashnikov assault rifle is constantly being improved. The next generation of Kalash is now being tested - the AK-12, which, of course, is much technically and structurally more advanced than their “great-grandfather” AK-47. However, the AK-12 is based on the same amazing reliability, which has captivated, in the good sense of the word, millions of people around the world. And while this great simplicity and reliability will be preserved in the products of Russian gunsmiths, the work of the creator of the most legendary machine gun in the world, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, will live on.
The Kalashnikov assault rifle, according to most experts, is more convenient, simple and reliable to use than the M16. But the American assault rifle has a number of advantages over the AK, which are often overlooked.
The history of the confrontation between Kalash and M series rifles stretches back to the early sixties. The two legends of small arms have repeatedly clashed on the battlefield and have been tested by experts, but there is no clear answer to the question “which is better?” it was never given. The thing is that the AK-47 and M16 have fundamentally different functions. The AK is designed for fighters who do not have much experience in handling firearms; the M16 was originally intended for professionals.
When comparing two types of small arms, preference was most often given to the Soviet machine gun. The advantages of AK are recognized not only by domestic, but also by foreign experts. A blogger and weapons expert from the United States with the nickname cokeman conducted a detailed analysis of two samples on his YouTube channel, in which he revealed a lot of advantages of the AK. In his opinion, even a person unfamiliar with weapons will be able to master the Kalashnikov very quickly, but this will not work with the M16, since the rifle requires a large number of settings and adjustments.
Soviet gunsmiths first became acquainted with the M16 at the end of 1967, when captured examples began to arrive in the USSR. Experts immediately identified a number of shortcomings of the M16, the main one of which was the low operational durability of the weapon: it could fail its owner at the most crucial moment. Domestic experts also came to the conclusion that the M16, unlike the AK-47, is not very suitable for hand-to-hand combat. Nevertheless, the USSR also appreciated the advantages of American weapons: the effectiveness of their firepower, high destructive power and good ergonomics.
The M16 assault rifle, developed by Eugene Stoner, had a lot of shortcomings and had one important advantage compared to the Kalashnikov - the length of the barrel. In the M16A4 model it reached 510 mm, which provided the rifle with increased accuracy at long distances and allowed it to fire in long bursts. Stoner, already familiar with the AK-47, consciously decided to create a smaller caliber weapon (5.56mm for the M16 versus 7.62mm for the AK) to improve shooting accuracy. It is noteworthy that the updated Kalashnikov of the 1974 model followed the path of the American rifle and received a reduced caliber of 5.45 mm.
The lighter M16 bullet also has a higher muzzle velocity than the massive AK projectile (900 m/s versus 715 m/s). According to experts, the resulting unsatisfactory ballistics leads to the fact that the AK bullet wastes a significant part of the kinetic energy at a distance, so it makes no sense to shoot from a Kalashnikov at long distances (over 600 m). It is important that the M16 has a diopter sight, and the AK has an open sight. This contributes to the accuracy of shooting from an American rifle over long distances, but it will be easier to shoot at moving targets from a Kalashnikov.
Due to the smaller caliber, the M16 has better performance in terms of accuracy of fire. According to gunsmiths, even in comparison with the AK-74, the American rifle is about 25% more effective in this regard. In addition, the ergonomics of the domestic machine gun, in particular, the downward displacement of the butt relative to the firing axis, hinders the accuracy of fire on the AK. In other words, this arrangement of the butt allows the shooter to aim better, but subsequent bullets will be much more difficult to send to the same target due to the rising barrel. Well-known firearms expert Maxim Popenker not only finds a large number of advantages in the M16, but debunks myths about those qualities that are usually attributed to the AK as advantages over the American model.
The first thing Popenker questions is the greater reliability of the AK compared to the M16. According to him, the roots of this belief are in the first batches of American automatic rifles, which used cartridges that were not originally intended for the M16 design. The second reason the M16 jammed was due to improper care of the weapon. Once these problems were resolved, the reliability of the M16 increased dramatically and today is practically equal to the domestic AK.
The next erroneous statement, according to Popenker, is the inconvenience of servicing and maintaining the M16. The expert writes that with incomplete disassembly, the M16 is no more complicated than the Kalashnikov, and in some ways even more practical, since it can be disassembled into fewer parts.
Popenker is also confused by the persistent opinion that the M16 is unsuitable for hand-to-hand combat. The specialist explains that all versions of the American assault rifle are equipped with a bayonet-knife mounted under the barrel, and given that on average the M16 is noticeably lighter than an AK, it will be more convenient in hand-to-hand combat.
The weight of the M series rifles is often cited as their main advantage over the AK. Even the new model, the M4 carbine, weighs 600 g less than the modernized Kalashnikov of 2012. This allows NATO soldiers to carry more interchangeable horns, which affects the duration of the battle. The M4 is also shorter than the AK-12. Soldiers who have tried both types of weapons note that in the limited space of dense urban areas, the American carbine is more convenient than the Russian machine gun. Experience also shows that M4 magazines are not as prone to damage as AK-12 magazines.
Experts in the field of small arms point out a number of other qualities in which the AK is inferior to the M series rifles. For example, when removing your finger from the trigger of a Kalashnikov, it is extremely difficult to prevent the release of several “extra” cartridges. And if you switch the machine gun to single-shot mode, it will lose its fundamental advantages.
A shooting instructor, US Air Force officer Dan Shany, recalls that when he first picked up an AK-47, it seemed to him like something from a “primitive savage” weapon - it was so simple in design. But when a 7.62mm Kalashnikov bullet pierced the brickwork, he changed his mind about the machine gun. Sheni nevertheless lists the main disadvantages of the AK in comparison with the M16, which he was able to discover: difficulties in attaching the magazine, lack of a slide stop, not very convenient sight, short butt. However, one can adapt to anything, the American concluded.
Anyone who has ever held the famous Kalash in their hands remembers that “handling”, pleasant heaviness that fills your hands with power. We can say that the Kalashnikov assault rifle is the embodiment of the Russian military spirit of the late 40s of the 20th century.
Lately, it has become common practice to criticize this product in our press for being a former ideological “clothing,” especially in comparison with the weapons of the “professionals” of the American army.
Let's try to figure it out.
The need to create weapons chambered for a cartridge intermediate between pistol and rifle became very acute during World War II. The insufficient destructive power of submachine guns of that time beyond 200 m and the need for guaranteed destruction of targets at a distance of 200 to 600 forced the creation of automatic weapons chambered for a lighter cartridge than the classic rifle cartridge. This reduced the weight and dimensions of the weapon and increased the amount of portable ammunition.
German gunsmiths were the first to create such an assault rifle. In 1943 they began to produce it in series, in 1944 they modernized it and put it into service under the designation Mpi 43.
When comparing AK and Mpi 43, one cannot be guided by the principle of “who stole from whom.”
There are only 3 principles of operation of automatic small arms, their schematic implementations are 6, and there are also 6 locking schemes. 6 x 6 = 36? Or will we consider other design features? The trigger mechanism of the Mpi 43 is absolutely identical to the Czech rifle ZHvz 29. The AK-47 also has a lot in common here.
Let's compare at least the weight of Mpi 43 - 6 kg. (with cartridges), and the weight of the AK-47 is 4.82 kg. (with cartridges in a steel magazine).
And the K-47 is simpler, unpretentious, and effective. Therefore, Mpi 43 can be called a forerunner, but not a predecessor, of the AK-47.
A K - 47 - AKM - AK - 74... This is a monopoly, this is a dogma. But dogma once met the requirements of topicality. But life moves forward. We must answer this challenge.
In the 1960s, the AR-15 Armalite rifle chambered for 5.56 x 45 mm came into service in the United States. by Remington. After testing in Vietnam, Eugene Sooner refined it and in 1967 it was put into service under the designation M 16 A1.
By using a small-caliber cartridge, we reduce the recoil, weight, and dimensions of the weapon. The accuracy and accuracy of combat increases. The wearable ammunition load is increasing.
The USSR responded to the M16 10 years later with the creation of the AK-74 chambered for 5.45 x 39 mm.
Let's compare these models more closely.
New AK series 100 have been developed. They can also “work” with NATO 5.56 mm cartridges. The reliability of firing has been increased, 15 thousand shots - the barrel is completely worn out and the mechanism is fully operational. Structurally, no changes have been made to the mechanism.
What are the results of this competition?
What determines the outcome in battle is not the type of weapon, but the soldier’s training and the coherence of actions in the unit.
The significant advantages of the M16 when firing at a distance of 300 m can be negated by climate, time of day, and dirt on the battlefield. And vice versa: the unpretentiousness and reliability of the AK in battle do not provide real advantages to an incompetent soldier.
The cost/efficiency ratio of both models is approximately the same. That is why these models are so popular (and this state of affairs will remain for a long time).
Recently I ( Mikhail Belov, author of the article - noteed.)was having a rather intense discussion with my pen pal Dan Shany, a shooting instructor from San Jose, California. In the past, Dan was an officer in the US Airborne Forces and participated in the operation against Iraq in 1991.
So, we discussed the topic of a promising assault rifle for the US Army, or rather, Dan explained to me what the majority of American military personnel think about this topic. Whatever decision is made at the Pentagon, the most important thing is how the innovation will be perceived by the bulk of soldiers and officers. In his last letter on this subject, Dan made his view of AK And M-16A2 and a vision for the future of American infantry weapons. I present most of this letter here, in my own translation.
M-16, advantages and disadvantages
Finally, a weapon worthy of a man has appeared, the seasoned Airbonne sergeants said, literally driving one bullet into another at 300 yards.
The weapon could really be called “good”: thanks to the heavy barrel, it was finally possible to shoot in bursts for quite a long time, which was previously unrealistic, the recoil was perceived to be almost half weaker than the old version - due to just a slightly wider butt plate and greater mass.
The sight acquired normal adjustment screws, now any recruit could shoot the weapon. Accuracy was usually about 2-3.5 inches at 100 yards, but individual barrels would knock out 1-12 at the same distance. Shooting at 300-400 yards could now cause delusions of grandeur in an experienced shooter - it became so easy to blow targets to shreds... This was also facilitated by a more durable and capacious nylon magazine with 30 rounds of ammunition. The bayonet included in the A2 kit looked cool, but it was already noticeably less useful than the long one of the previous modification. A sight with two holes was probably also useless: even with a large one, shooting at dusk seemed like a bad joke, as did marking 800 yards. A trigger with a three-shot cut-off cannot be called correct either: at Fort Bragg, every recruit was able to cut off three shots on the second day of shooting.
But single shooting became much less convenient due to the cut-off detail; the descent became uneven, more difficult and with a failure at the end. Therefore, now many rifles in the Army do not have such a device. At 800 yards, you can only hit a target the size of an elephant, although the energy of the bullet is still quite sufficient. But the bullet’s anti-barrier effect, previously equal to approximately zero, has noticeably improved.
True, then we already had the opportunity to shoot with AKs, mainly the Soviet-made AK-47, for a change.
This weapon seemed to everyone to be something like the sling and bow of primitive savages, it was so simply designed and finished, but at 300 yards the 7.62 bullets completely pierced the brickwork, and could easily kill the fighter hiding behind it. This could not fail to impress, but at the time it did not seriously make anyone think.
Were at M-16A2 and other shortcomings that immediately began to irritate me. The weapon was still not heavy, but its dimensions clearly made themselves felt. It was the dimensions of the rifles that made the ceilings of the M113 and M2A2 so high, and the rifles M4 was not enough for a long time. Meanwhile, the experience of the first clashes in the Gulf showed that actual firing range during fire contacts does not exceed 300 yards. This negated the concept of the “long infantry rifle,” which had occupied the minds of our father-commanders since World War II, and was partly reinforced by the experience of fighting in the mountainous regions of Vietnam.
Personally, I think that a “long” rifle with a .20 barrel should have become a “special” weapon for mountain rifle units, and the main army units: with a long .14 12 barrel and a folding butt, as on the M4 modification. A common argument in favor of a long barrel is that it makes the weapon more suitable for bayonet fighting. It’s strange for me to hear this, because... there is no more bayonet fighting.
Yes, we teach soldiers to poke a scarecrow with a bayonet, but we must somehow develop elementary aggressiveness in the “asphalt boys”!
If I had given the order to my guys in Kuwait to go to a bayonet point against the Iraqi guards, I would have been immediately tied up and taken to a medical unit. And for “working” with a dummy and an occasional short-lived fight, a short barrel is quite enough.
Another noticeable feature is the overall fragility of the structure. Not only from hitting the ground when falling (which is also not uncommon), but also from accidental impacts on the body of armored vehicles, on the handrails of ladders, on the rifles of other soldiers, cracks appeared on the receiver. Most often, this was treated only by changing the receiver. This meant not only the loss of the faithful 200 dollars to the state, but a week in the workshop, and a new shooting. And this happens often, much more often than it should happen with normal military weapons. At first, there was another bug with the swivels turning out when running, when the weapon was subjected to increased overloads. This stopped with the introduction of new swivels.
A lot has been said about the reliability of the AR-15 in general and military rifles in particular. All I can say is that my M-16A2 has never let me down in a difficult situation. But! In general, the reliability of weapons is relatively low.
In experienced hands, the M-16 will never plunge into the mud, even if the shooter ends up in it up to the top, it will never drink water and will always be lubricated. But an inexperienced fighter will always find a way to complete disrepair. There were a lot of examples in the Persian Gulf... When sand got into the mechanism of the M-16A2, it did not always stop firing, but very soon it could be completely out of action due to breakdown. One great way to avoid this is to never disassemble the rifle except indoors. But since this often had to be done directly in HAMVEE or in, dust got in in the required quantity. Hence the conclusion - the rifle is of little use for a long autonomous campaign... Another “trifle”: when water gets into the barrel of the M-16, it is not always shaken out in one motion due to its small diameter, long length and the peculiar type of rifling.
The result is a trunk M-16 fails after several (two or three) shots and requires replacement. It's interesting that AK-74, with exactly the same caliber, is completely devoid of this drawback...
In echoes there is often an opinion that the M-16A2 is a weapon of professionals for whom accuracy is more important than the ability to withstand pollution. This is, to put it mildly, not true. The war consists entirely of episodes that fall very little under the regulations, which civilians call extreme. During a fight, a professional must become one with the weapon, it must be 100% reliable, and you cannot convince more than one professional that the main thing in war is to keep an eye on the condition of the rifle.
Rather, the M-16 can be called a good sports rifle, which, with some convention, can be used as an army rifle.
All these thoughts, combined with the respectable price of a military rifle, make the military think about the future of this type of weapon.
Alternative to M-16 - AK-47
From time immemorial, the alternative to the M-16 was the AK.
The AK is by no means an ordinary weapon; it is probably the most reliable example of a mass-produced infantry weapon since the Mauser-98.
AK was actively tested in the US Army, and even used by individual special forces of the Navy during some local conflicts. Modern production costs almost a 10th of the cost of the M-16A3. But, despite a lot of positive qualities that are not worth listing, the AK has a number of features that limit the versatility of its use.
Thus, an all-steel structure improves the strength of the weapon, increases service life and maintainability, but deprives the weapon of the necessary mass reserve to increase firepower. If the M-16 after modernization, i.e. lengthening the butt and making the barrel heavier began to weigh only 300 grams more, then similar improvements on the AK increase its weight to unacceptable for a military weapon - more than 4 kg, as can be seen in the example of Saiga M3 carbines and RPK machine guns.
The removable receiver cover eliminates the possibility of attaching an optical sight to the Weaver rail attached to it, and placing the diopter sight in the traditional place. This requires a more rigid receiver, like on the Galil rifle, which immediately affects weight and manufacturability.
I am sure that the Soviet Union created Kalashnikov assault rifles with a light-alloy receiver, but they, of course, could not pass the tough tests that you Russians so love to put on your weapons...
Is this true, could you check it? In any case, in addition to a decrease in service strength, their potential accuracy should also decrease, because the AK barrel is rigidly fixed in the receiver. So current Russian designers will have to either look for other ways to increase accuracy, or develop weapons anew.
However, the accuracy of the AK is not at all as bad as the inflated turkeys like to talk about it, who believe that east of Germany in Europe there is nothing but savagery and squalor.
AK-47 was not just accurate enough, but precisely that precision weapons. At 100 yards, most of the AKs I came across with a milled receiver confidently hit 2-2.5-3.5, which is quite enough for a military weapon of such power.
The results could have been better if the AK sight had been more convenient, and even better, if it had had a 1.5x collimator in addition to it. Quite accurate fire from the AK 7.62 can be fired up to 400 yards, at this distance the holes from bullets from the AK-47 are scattered over a 7-inch circle (a clone of the AK-47 made in Bulgaria in the original configuration, without optics). In my opinion, this is not bad at all. An even better weapon is the 5.45 caliber. From it (a self-loading clone of the AK-74 of Bulgarian production with a stamped-welded receiver, TPZ cartridges with a lead core, a plastic butt " ", without optics), I can easily hit targets up to 600 yards, and accurate shooting with optics is possible at 400 yards, while dispersion does not exceed 4-5 inches. We must assume that shooting from an AK-74M with a reinforced receiver will give even better results, not to mention modifications of the .223 caliber.
Other “disadvantages” attributed to the AK even by such experienced specialists as PJ (obviously, we are talking about Kokalis - author’s note): the difficulty of attaching the magazine, the lack of a bolt stop, the supposedly inconvenient sight, safety, short butt - these are not disadvantages, but rather, features.
The magazine may not fit as naturally as the M-16A2 or HK G33 magazine, but it ALWAYS fits, even when a soldier with a weapon in his hands crawled through the mud for 500 meters, and then lay down in a ditch in a rice field, filled, like these fields are supposed to have water...
This is a real example, and if you had to at least once pick out the dirt from the receiving window of an M-16 box in order to push the damned magazine into it, you would understand that it’s probably possible some other way... To connect an AK, you don’t need any effort or skill, it is no more difficult than inserting film into a point-and-shoot camera, and there is nothing to invent here.
There is no need to turn on the AK safety at all if there is even the slightest possibility of instantly opening fire. The weapon does not fire, even if it is placed on a concrete floor; the trigger is quite reliable and will not break off unnecessarily. This is a well-known difficulty for accurate fire - but can also be corrected with a simple skill.
You can shoot accurately from an AK even with such a trigger, and the sight, which is less convenient than a diopter for long-range accurate shots, allows instantly transfer fire at short and medium distances. The diopter in such situations blocks out all the white light, and it can hardly be called comfortable...
The shutter lag is generally not an acquired taste. On M-16A2 it quickly breaks down from a simple shot. In my opinion, no delay is better than one that could warp the first cartridge so much that it has to be knocked out.
The AK stock is indeed short, but when you have to shoot in a thick jacket and equipment, it feels noticeably less, as does the “slenderness” of the fore-end and grip. In the summer, a rubber slip-on butt pad will fix the matter, but didn’t you say that you have winter for 5 months a year, and only take off your jacket for 2?
Other “disadvantages” attributed to the AK even by such experienced specialists as PJ (obviously, we are talking about Kokalis - author’s note): the difficulty of attaching the magazine, the lack of a bolt stop, the supposedly inconvenient sight, safety, short butt - these are not disadvantages, but rather, features.
FNC logically attracted the attention of the military after ten years of operation of the M249 machine gun. Some complaints were made about the weapon, but they concerned mainly the insufficient destructive effect of bullets.223 for a machine gun, identified in Somalia, but not reliability and durability. The FNC's combat accuracy is at the level of the best AK models, but much more stable from sample to sample. Of greatest interest is the Swedish AK-5 rifle and an assault rifle based on it, which have increased reliability and strength of the entire structure, more convenient controls and improved sights.
It is difficult to say how things will go further, but in general the opinion of the majority of the military is that the Army and Navy should have an absolutely reliable weapon weighing no more than the M-16A23 and at a price one and a half to two times cheaper, simpler in design and giving accuracy acceptable for its tactical purpose, as well as having a reserve for modernization. Today there is nothing fantastic in these requirements, which means that sooner or later such weapons will be found.
