Small Arms Thread

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 31 Dec 2017 14:45

An interesting gun captured a while back. Suppressed AKM with 60 round magazine and grenade launcher. Too many action movies seen by this wannabe rambo

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 01 Jan 2018 07:53

^^Amazed at the number of air rifles captured and kept on display there...

Khalsa · Post by **Khalsa** » 05 Jan 2018 16:20

Thakur_B wrote:

In the grand tradition of if there is a good weapon out there, we got to have it, Steyr Aug in service with CRPF

The one weapon i was damn sure was not present in India.
Okay now I have seen it all in SAS context.

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 05 Jan 2018 18:39

Khalsa wrote:
Thakur_B wrote:

In the grand tradition of if there is a good weapon out there, we got to have it, Steyr Aug in service with CRPF

The one weapon i was damn sure was not present in India.
Okay now I have seen it all in SAS context.

Been available in India with Para SF since early 80s. Will try to find the picture once I reach home.

Edit: Here you go-

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 05 Jan 2018 21:09

A screenshot from a small film on SFF that leaked out few years back (it was already old at that point), SFF guys rocking the whole array of Fn firearms:

Fn2000, Fn SCAR 16 (L), Fn P90 and Fn 5-7 pistol.

rkhanna · Post by **rkhanna** » 05 Jan 2018 22:51

Yes that's 4 Vikas / SG.

PS that's NSGs kill house they are training at

Khalsa · Post by **Khalsa** » 06 Jan 2018 00:52

Thakur_B wrote:
Khalsa wrote: The one weapon i was damn sure was not present in India.
Okay now I have seen it all in SAS context.

Been available in India with Para SF since early 80s. Will try to find the picture once I reach home.

Edit: Here you go-

Thank you saar

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 06 Jan 2018 01:04

Steyr was trialed in India, not acquired IIRC. It was part of the process that led to creation of INSAS.

Whatever happened to MCIWS - or building our own rifles? Steyr looks fancy but is not that great in actual combat.

BTW, old report from 2000

CRACK Australian commandos bound for East Timor will get US rifles because the Australian-made Steyr is not good enough.

More than $32 million worth of new equipment, including hundreds of M4 assault rifles, will go to the 4th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment.

The Government spent $200 million equipping the army with the Steyr in the 1990s.

But the Steyr has been criticised because of excessive accidental discharges in East Timor.

The battalion asked for the M4 -- a rugged, cut-down version of the US M16 rifle -- because the Steyr is considered not up to the standard required for commando operations.

The 4th Battalion, recently redesignated a commando unit to work with the SAS, will deploy to peacekeeping duties in East Timor after providing security for the Olympic Games.

A Defence Department spokesman confirmed the unit would go to Timor with the M4.

"The M4 is particularly suited to special forces operation as it can be fitted with numerous attachments, such as a grenade launcher and laser sights," he said.

But the request is an embarrassment for the army, which intended the Steyr to be all things for all soldiers. The M4 request is also a blow to the Government-owned Australian Defence Industries, which produces the rifle under licence from Austria.

While ADI has widely touted the rifle to regional armies, soldiers have criticised it. Its unwieldy gas-ejection system has been known to scorch the fingers of the unwary.

More disturbingly, the rifle has a push-button safety catch and no trigger guard, which increases the danger of the weapon going off accidentally.

There were more than 65 instances of accidental discharges in East Timor. In one case, a senior officer narrowly missed an enlisted man when his weapon went off. Another episode involved an SAS member. All Australian soldiers were retrained in handling the Steyr after a soldier was shot dead in Somalia. Lance-Corporal Shannon McAliney is believed to have died while his comrade was cleaning a rifle (sic).

In Afghanistan many years later

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11278332

Hated army assault rifles unlikely to be sold

Army bosses say it's "unlikely" that 9,000 assault rifles, hated by Kiwi soldiers for being under-powered and unreliable, will be sold to other militaries when phased out over the next few years.

The Austrian-made Steyr 5.56mm rifle was bought by the Defence Force in 1987.

But squaddies fighting in hot-spots like Afghanistan had complained that it was prone to stoppages and lacked an effective range.

A 2011 Ministry of Defence study found the rifles were not powerful enough to "identify accurately adversaries" and was "ineffective at ranges greater than 200m".

Cabinet agreed in 2008 that better weapons were needed.

That news prompted serving and former soldiers at the time to vent online.

"It is a highly overrated assault rifle and if given the choice, I would rather throw stones at the enemy than carry that stoppage prone piece of crap," one ex-soldier wrote on The Firearm Blog.

Another serving New Zealand Army member agreed: "The accuracy on my issued rifle was terrible ... I'd have been lucky to hit the side of a barn."

On Tuesday Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman confirmed the Government has granted approval for replacement guns.

"It is important NZDF personnel are well equipped and have effective modern rifles suited to today's operational environment," says Dr Coleman.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 06 Jan 2018 01:06

Not a single rifle has faced the crucible of combat in real ops 24/7 like IA faces and come out glowing.

Aug Steyr, Colt M4, HK G36 (most famous) - all got slagged for Afghan ops.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 06 Jan 2018 01:19

Another thing when climbing up hill, Tavor has to be slung, bull-pup and all that. It cannot be carried in one hand like regular rifles with weight balanced. In short, bull-pups do have trade offs & IMHO, SF moving to "traditional" M-4 may have that as a reason.

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 06 Jan 2018 09:54

Karan M wrote:Steyr was trialed in India, not acquired IIRC. It was part of the process that led to creation of INSAS.

Whatever happened to MCIWS - or building our own rifles? Steyr looks fancy but is not that great in actual combat.

BTW, old report from 2000

I think every firearm ever made would be in Indian inventory. These kind of disparaging stories can be found about almost every service rifle out there, except maybe the AKM, because the legend of AKM reaches the average soldier before the rifle itself. Anyhow, the Steyr's Kiwi's carried into Afghanistan were already two decades old. When time came to change the rifles, Australians opted for Thales F90, an upgraded design of steyr wherein the quick barrel change option was removed as years of rifle assembly and disassembly made the seating loose affecting the accuracy. Rails were also added on the gun, but the New Zealand forces found the cost to be prohibitive. They opted for M-16/M-4 pattern gun from Lewis Machine Tools, who are known to make good quality AR pattern guns, and much more cheaper than buying HK 416/417.

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 06 Jan 2018 18:49

Turn the volume down if not a fan of colourful language. High number of stoppages, but the rifle is being pushed to extremes with continuous firing on full auto, mag dump after mag dump.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 06 Jan 2018 21:53

Man those magazines are being handed out like a pani puri vendor handing out his stuff..

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 06 Jan 2018 22:03

Thakur_B wrote:I think every firearm ever made would be in Indian inventory. These kind of disparaging stories can be found about almost every service rifle out there, except maybe the AKM, because the legend of AKM reaches the average soldier before the rifle itself. Anyhow, the Steyr's Kiwi's carried into Afghanistan were already two decades old. When time came to change the rifles, Australians opted for Thales F90, an upgraded design of steyr wherein the quick barrel change option was removed as years of rifle assembly and disassembly made the seating loose affecting the accuracy. Rails were also added on the gun, but the New Zealand forces found the cost to be prohibitive. They opted for M-16/M-4 pattern gun from Lewis Machine Tools, who are known to make good quality AR pattern guns, and much more cheaper than buying HK 416/417.

My point is many of these fancy western guns seem to fail when in dusty, or really lousy environments, which is where most of the fighting happens anyhow. I found H&Ks response to G36 failing to be very revealing. They said "we met the tests and so we can take legal action against German MOD if you keep accusing us". The insider pics then showed the polymer inside the rifle design could actually melt and affect zero'ing. So technically correct answer & of course, doesnt affect the soldiers issue at all, and hence the same way defense procurement guys also get conned.

The disparaging stories need to be taken seriously, because these are the very same stories that mean the end of INSAS which we are to replace with yet another import, and what if we discover a decade into service, the darn fancy gun has so many issues too. SA-80 issues turned out to be true, Steyr from above has issues, the H&K G36 failed, the M4 even had reliability problems. Tavor seems to be ok so far, but like I noted above, the rifle needs to be slung when climbing and the bullpup design has ergonomic compromises.

IMHO, the only answer is to keep doing what the Israelis did & keep plugging away at our own answers. The geniuses at firearms blogs will mock it, the rest of the world will keep pushing for imports, but there is a good chance we might actually come up with our own robust design that works for us across all climes.

ARDE is right now steadily learning to work within the wider pvt sector and not forced to restrict itself to OFB etc. With access to Bharat Forge & its enthu crowd, the optics guys at Tata SED, the designers at NID etc - who knows what they could come up with. We should also license the INSAS to Bharat Forge or any other designer and ask them to keep tinkering. They might actually come up with a proper variant that is more reliable than many fancier units out there and with which we can properly equip many of our CPMFs with.

Vivek Kumar · Post by **Vivek Kumar** » 07 Jan 2018 05:19

INSAS LMG in action at LOC.

https://www.facebook.com/punjabiyatzind ... 448754615/

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 07 Jan 2018 05:38

After 3.5 mags, stoppage. How does that compare to other LMGs?
Also cleared stoppage, continued with other mags.
That was some intense shooting.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 07 Jan 2018 05:49

The INSAS LMG has 30 round mags, so if the video shows the start of firing, that was a stoppage after around 90-100 rounds. He took a break to clear it. In the middle of combat, thats a huge issue. Suggests an issue with the mags as well? Two didn't fit.
INSAS improved had 2 stoppages after 24,000 rounds. Again, were the mags fired constantly? Don't know.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/ar ... ments.html

Prithwiraj · Post by **Prithwiraj** » 07 Jan 2018 05:50

Firing from other side has not stopped. Not sure how many gunners were shooting

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 07 Jan 2018 05:59

Karan ji, that 24000 or 2000 or whatever figure is floated around for MRBF or MRBS are under intermittent firing conditions. With the kind of firing that is being done in the video, the barrel and internals would be red smoking hot, the gun did ok.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 07 Jan 2018 06:21

Thakur - but a stoppage after the first 90 rounds itself? That sound's pretty odd. Unless the video was taken after several mags had already been cycled through the gun. In which case, fair point.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 Jan 2018 07:57

Karan M wrote:Thakur - but a stoppage after the first 90 rounds itself? That sound's pretty odd. Unless the video was taken after several mags had already been cycled through the gun. In which case, fair point.

First 90 rounds of the video. There is no information that those were the first 30 rounds fired

Also the firing heard from elsewhere cannot be assumed to be "firing from the other side"

We also don't know if our men had specific instructions to lay down enough fire to empty X magazines into shitistan

The urgency with which the soldier was shooting suggests that he was really keeping up as high a rate of fire as possible to assist Pakis in keeping their heads down. If I was in the general area of where his bullets were landing I would not second guess the shooter and think - "Ah he has emptied his magazine - I can now stand up and stretch"

Akshay Kapoor · Post by **Akshay Kapoor** » 07 Jan 2018 08:35

Just watched the video. There is definitely an issue Shiv Sir.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 07 Jan 2018 08:59

The senario is a fit case for development of 100 round drum magazine.

sarabpal.s · Post by **sarabpal.s** » 07 Jan 2018 09:08

This LMG as per firing pattern extensively used almost daily bases so wear and tear is possible, same goes for Magazine, we jump to conclusions based on little clip, that is it too much. You can find plenty of video of western gun jamming during fight..

But one thing is sure belt feed is required .

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 07 Jan 2018 09:33

^Agree. Felt all the way that this was an ideal situation for belt fed.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 Jan 2018 10:24

Akshay Kapoor wrote:Just watched the video. There is definitely an issue Shiv Sir.

Was it a shell that he was unable to eject? He kept pulling the cocking lever back. Was this an ammunition issue? Or dirt/powder residue in the weapon from continuous usage?

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 07 Jan 2018 12:20

Here is video of how many rounds it took before an AK seized up or had a meldown

That dude has done similar videos on other rifles like AR-15. AK holds up pretty good. I think on the AR-15 one can see the barrel go red hot after firing around 10 mags or so!

Bharadwaj · Post by **Bharadwaj** » 07 Jan 2018 13:24

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/army ... 23178.html

"It has now been decided that more than two lakh rifles would be procured from foreign vendors while the rest would be acquired from Indian manufacturers who would build the gun based on DRDO designs," a source said.

Akshay Kapoor · Post by **Akshay Kapoor** » 07 Jan 2018 13:50

shiv wrote:
Akshay Kapoor wrote:Just watched the video. There is definitely an issue Shiv Sir.
Was it a shell that he was unable to eject? He kept pulling the cocking lever back. Was this an ammunition issue? Or dirt/powder residue in the weapon from continuous usage?

LMG is supposed to be able to give high volume of supressive fire - look at the tactics thread for the fire and move section tactics. So its doing its daily bread and butter delivering a high volume of fire. INSAS LMG is designed for a very high rate of fire. If it jams due to spent shell you should be able to clear it by cocking it once max twice. This video shows more than the 'normal' expected jamming. Problems are generally more in the magazine but here it seems to be something with the weapon as well. Can't really say more without armourer looking at it.

Anyway I don't think in this case they were giving covering fire to an assault and were firing from defences so the stoppage is not a huge issue. In the open and in assault this can be and is dangerous.

Re, box feed and belt feed - if something goes wrong in a belt feed weapon it will take a much longer time rectify and also to reload than in a mag/box fed. Mag fed you cock it a couple of times and remove mag and reinsert..usually resolves the issue. A belt fed weapon would of course be quite useful in when firing from defenses i.e in the situation shown. But it needs to be really reliable. So a 100 round box fed would indeed be a good idea.

But vis a vis belt fed unless you can assure the solider of excellent reliability I would take my chances with box fed - at least there is some chance that the jam will resolve in 3-5 secs. In belt fed you better have cover fire while you are sorting the weapon out.

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 07 Jan 2018 22:24

Thakur_B wrote:

BEL Passive Night Sights for AKM and INSAS.

These NVD scopes, can they separate the eye piece from the lens with a fiber optic guide cable for easier placement on the eye? the '+' mark keeps showing aimed based on the gun barrel

Couple of reasons, the Jawan isn’t lying in a relatively fixed position like a sniper and has to constantly shift position without losing peripheral vision, a panoramic lens maybe is better or just NVD binoculars
The armored van has a small gun barrel opening and a bullet proof glass window to look out from, how is he going to use the NVD scope when they have night patrols

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 09 Jan 2018 07:05

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018 ... -overhaul/

After replacing M249 (Fn Minimi) in LMG/SAW role, M27 (Hk416) is expected to replace all M4 carbines in USMC. HK is winning government contracts left right and centre the world over, first France, and now USMC is expected to follow suite. Currently they are rushing forward to finish the HK433 family on time, probably because IA's and German Army's requirement is coming up.

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 09 Jan 2018 07:13

vasu raya wrote:
Thakur_B wrote:

BEL Passive Night Sights for AKM and INSAS.
These NVD scopes, can they separate the eye piece from the lens with a fiber optic guide cable for easier placement on the eye? the '+' mark keeps showing aimed based on the gun barrel

Couple of reasons, the Jawan isn’t lying in a relatively fixed position like a sniper and has to constantly shift position without losing peripheral vision, a panoramic lens maybe is better or just NVD binoculars
The armored van has a small gun barrel opening and a bullet proof glass window to look out from, how is he going to use the NVD scope when they have night patrols

I don't know what you are saying is feasible in a cost effective manner or not, but something even crazier has been experimented.

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 09 Jan 2018 07:36

^^^
The first picture is more like it, probably in the prototype stage, if its the monocular eye piece only thats dragged out with a optic cable then it may not be an expensive mod, the panoramic lense though might be adding to the cost more.

On the commercial side, Microsoft is making VR sets that actually have an overlay without obstructing the naked eye view and they aren't cheap

Manish_P · Post by **Manish_P** » 09 Jan 2018 08:15

Akshay Kapoor wrote:
Re, box feed and belt feed - if something goes wrong in a belt feed weapon it will take a much longer time rectify and also to reload than in a mag/box fed. Mag fed you cock it a couple of times and remove mag and reinsert..usually resolves the issue. A belt fed weapon would of course be quite useful in when firing from defenses i.e in the situation shown. But it needs to be really reliable. So a 100 round box fed would indeed be a good idea.

But vis a vis belt fed unless you can assure the solider of excellent reliability I would take my chances with box fed - at least there is some chance that the jam will resolve in 3-5 secs. In belt fed you better have cover fire while you are sorting the weapon out.

Perhaps a dual feed type system will give good flexibility

Something like this

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 09 Jan 2018 08:30

Manish_P wrote: Perhaps a dual feed type system will give good flexibility

Something like this

Why take the crazy products directed towards american mall ninjas ? Negev 7 and FN Minimi both accept 30 round STANAG managines and specially designed higher capacity magazines and are purpose built LMGs. IA had made a good choice in Negev 7 but fate wouldn't have it.

^^ Jump to the 14 minute mark to see magazine fed negev.

Manish_P · Post by **Manish_P** » 09 Jan 2018 10:45

Why take the crazy products directed towards american mall ninjas ?

Agreed. I was referring to the concept, not the particular weapon/manufacturer.

Does the Negev/Minimi allow for quick change of different length barrels (to switch roles from Carbine to Squad Support). How does it compare on the weight front.

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 10 Jan 2018 07:27

Both minimi and negev have quick barrel changes. Minimi has multiple barrel length option in 5.56 but only one in 7.62, Negev has short and long barrel option in 7.62. However western LMG designs are yet to match the classic PKM in weight without sacrificing the barrel length. Such was the genius of soviet small arms design bureau. PKP Pecheneg (evolution of PKM) is also heavier than the original

Manish_P · Post by **Manish_P** » 10 Jan 2018 08:14

Hence the conundrum for the IA due to their varied needs. 5.56 modularity or 7.62 modularity, where both not available together. With the weight parameter to be factored in.

ks_sachin · Post by **ks_sachin** » 10 Jan 2018 08:43

Also belt fed vs magazine.......

abhik · Post by **abhik** » 13 Jan 2018 15:10

Thakur_B wrote:...
Why take the crazy products directed towards american mall ninjas ? Negev 7 and FN Minimi both accept 30 round STANAG managines and specially designed higher capacity magazines and are purpose built LMGs. IA had made a good choice in Negev 7 but fate wouldn't have it.
...

I don't think the 7.62x51 version has the magazine feed, it's only belt fed.