While under international embargo and at war in the late 1970s, South Africa needed a new 7.62mm GPMG. The answer was Vektor’s SS77, a design which would replace the FN MAG in South African service in the 1980s. The gun had really substantial problems for many years, and took a lot of work to revise and improve until it was finally fit for service. However, that work did result in a really excellent gun. With the US adoption of the FN Minimi as a Squad Automatic Weapon, interest developed in a 5.56mm version of the SS77.
Named the Mini-SS, this was initially envisioned as a conversion of the SS77, but that never actually came to pass. Instead, the Mini-SS was built from the ground up as a 5.56mm SAW, with a number of changes to reduce its weight (like a simple fixed polymer stock, fixed gas port, and the removal of tripod attachment points). Coming into service in the early 1990s, the Mini-SS has developed an excellent reputation.
Mechanically, both of the Vektor designs are unusual for the use of an asymmetric side-tilting bolt (like the ZH-29 and only a few other production guns). It is a very simply gun to disassemble, and has a lot of quite clever design features.
awesome, I’ve been wanting to see this gun on here for awhile. thanks Ian.
As for the mass-production side-tilters, look no further than Goryunov SG-43 MMG and NSV-12,7 HMG (by Nikitin-Sokolov-Volkov). C’mon – whoever has seen (much less laid his hands on) a ZH-29? The Afrikaners had lots of skirmishes with Angolan Commies, who had SG-43s and SGMs – that’s where probably that side-tilt was taken from.
They might have seen a few NSV as well. Although I guess that DShK(M) were most common 12,7* 108 mm machine guns at the time.
The major thing driving the US SAW project was the enthusiastic reception the Mark 23 Mod 0 light machine gun by the SEALS. They really had no interest in its transformability, but liked its light weight and general handiness as a LMG. As for Big Marine Corps and Big Army, The Marines trialed the Stoner 63 system (Rifle, Auto Rife, Carbine, Light and Medium Machine guns) in Lima Company/1st Marines in Vietnam and that trial ended its interest in the gun itself while “In 1970, the U.S. Army designated the light machine gun configuration XM207 and issued it to select Army Special Forces units for evaluation. However, due to its complexity and high maintenance requirements (especially when compared to the new M16), the design was rejected, and the project was dropped in 1971.” So the consenus was the LMG concept was liked, but the Stoner 63, not so much
“General Purpose Light Machine Gun”. Ian, it is either a GPMG (which ca function as both a LMG and MMG) or a LMG. BTW, most GPMG’s ended up in the MMG role, being replaced in the LMG role by true LMG’s. That suggests that the German “Einheits” project which resulted in the MG34 and MG42 was a wrong turn, that was followed by an awful lot of people post-WW2.
“(…)most GPMG’s ended up in the MMG role, being replaced in the LMG role by true LMG’s.(…)”
Can you provide some examples?
Is there any way of getting a spreadsheet file posted on here?
If Ian would be OK with it, I’ve got something worked up with the various categories of machine guns on it, and what I see as the necessary type characteristics of each one. I’m just trying to figure out how to get it up on here for commentary…
Just to try to establish some baseline jargon for our discussions. I’d also be interested in hearing the perspectives from various other nations, because what I’ve got is almost all US-centric, with some lip service to Commonwealth and NATO standards…
I think the nomenclature is schizophrenic and confusing, badly in need of a rationalization.
AR, LMG, MMG, HMG, GPMG… What are the key and essential differences between them that need to be defined by these terms? Every nation and even some of the different services within each of those nations does it a little differently.
The characteristics unique to each class ought to be what we go by. Begin with caliber, include feed system, then the other characteristics that influence how you are able to use the guns. Those would mostly relate to sustainability of fire and fire control, along with crewing characteristics.
The way I would break this down would be as follows:
Automatic Rifle (AR): Basically, a one-man operation with delusions of firepower grandeur. Typically, these weapons have been modified versions of the basic individual weapon or purpose-built not-quite-LMG affairs. Generally, magazine-fed and chambered in the individual weapon round. Magazines often interchange with the basic individual weapon, but are occasionally found with dedicated bigger magazines that can occasionally interface with the individual weapon as well. The BAR (duh…), the Soviet RPK series, the L86, and the Ultimax all fill this role. Things they are not capable of doing: Crew operation, really sustained fires, and the sort of fire control you can only achieve off of a tripod. If you’ve got an AR-roled MG, that can do any of those three? Your designer and doctrine-writers have a bit of schizophrenia going on, and likely lack really good understanding of the uses of a machine gun within the squad.
Light Machine Gun (LMG): Here’s where you get into some really nebulous territory with the language as she is spoken… The LMG category ought to be typified by a bunch of things that differentiate it from the AR-type weapons: For one thing, and this is the key thing in general, it ought to be capable of being crew-served. Bottom-fed jumped-up individual weapons like the BAR, the FALO types, and things like the L-86 need not apply for membership in this category. It can be magazine-fed, like the BREN, and it can be “convertible” for some given value between magazine and belt.
LMG-classed weapons should have the capability for somewhat more sustained fires than the AR-roled models, although they should have the ability to be operated by one lone gunner, if need be. Things like quick-change barrels and the capacity to be fitted on a tripod with a true T&E mechanism are generally present, if only for occasional use.
MMG-class weapons are somewhat heavier and generally only capable of operation with a full crew. Browning .30 caliber weapons that require tripods fit this category; once upon a time, it meant that the weapon was a belt-fed MG without a water cooling system.
HMG-class weapons are either a historical curiosity, or come in .50 caliber. The break-point between them and the MMG category used to be the water-cooled feature, but that’s something that has been completely abandoned by designers since the 1950s. The water-cooled “thing” was what made a heavy a heavy; you had to be able to provide really abundant and really sustained fires with one, vice the more limited amount you’d get from an air-cooled version of the same gun. Think of the Browning .30 caliber weapons, here–M1917 was a heavy, the M1919 was a Medium.
GPMG-class weapons are those that are meant to “do it all” when it comes to roles and definitions. If you can’t conceivably take your squad support weapon from effectively operating in the Automatic Rifle role to providing full supporting fires as an MMG- or HMG-role weapon. You must be able to crew-serve these; they must be able to mount on a tripod, and the feed/barrel systems must be capable of providing long-term sustained fire. If you are missing any of these features, what you have is a gun designed by someone or some organization who was likely more than a little schizoid about what they wanted.
I’d submit to you that the Vektor Mini-SS demonstrates more than a little schizophrenia, in its standard model. It is AR-role capable, yet at the same time, they did not see fit to include the capability of mounting it on a tripod while they did go to the trouble and added weight of making the barrel changeable.
If I were someone doing the chosing, I’d leave the Mini-SS in the armory, and take its big brother, the SS-77, whenever I needed a machine gun. Why go to the trouble of taking the Mini-SS when it realistically adds little punch and induces the carry of a third or fourth caliber/ammo format to the squad? If you can’t put the thing on a tripod, why the hell bother with a changeable barrel and belt feed? And, if you’re going to lug all that weight with you, why not take the SS-77 and a tripod with you?
Limited use-cases are out there, like for long-range penetrations by elements like the SEAL teams and operations like those conducted by MACV-SOG, but I’ll put it to you that your basic infantry outfit doing normal infantry things does not need a Mini-SS; they need an SS-77, a lot of ammo, and a tripod.
I wish you could do a table or a flowchart on this comment system, because I’d lay out exactly what I’m talking about with all these characteristics. It’s a lot clearer when you can see it laid out graphically.
I would not call the Mini-SS a true LMG. It’s more of an LMG that’s been “downgraded” to suit the AR-role class of weapons. The versions fitted with the capability of being tripod-mounted are honest LMG-class weapons, however.
“most” means mostly the FN-MAG and the MG3, that are over 11kg weight. For the armies that consider the job of the squad MG to be carried around by a single MG-gunner along with the ammos, that’s too much.
In Soviet, and post-Soviet, use, instead, the GPMG (the PKM, 9kg) killed the LMG (the RPD). The RPD had been replaced by the RPK, that’s more an heavy AR, it’s still manufacured, but it has not the importance the PKM has. The Poles IE adapted the PKM to 7.62 NATO (UKM 2000), but didn’t adopt a SAW in 5.56.
One of the problems I see with the SS Mini is that, at 8.26kg, it weights too much for a SAW in 5.56. It’s possible to do much better than that.
Like I said, I think the people who laid out the design requirements for the Mini-SS were a little schizoid in their thinking. You lay out a bunch of the reasons it can be categorized as “neither fish nor fowl”, as well as the observational facts about what everyone else is doing with a dual-caliber solution down in their squads.
I think the “desire path” indicated by what everyone is actually doing, as opposed to what they say they’re doing is that you’re going to have what is effectively a GPMG in the squads, and to hell with the AR/LMG role. If you need the firepower of a machine gun, then you need the heavier punch of the 7.62 ammo to go with it, and having that, you obviate the need for the NGSW “Heavy Individual Weapon” across the rest of your squad, which can apparently do quite well with the 5.56/7.62X39 cartridge, from the appearances of things in Ukraine.
I don’t think you really need or want the Mini-SS class of weapons, unless you’re on some deep recon sneak-and-peek. The rest of your forces need the sort of fires you only get by moving up to things like the MAG-58, PKM, and SS-77.
And, given the idiocy of adding belted 5.56mm to the squad, what I would do as someone arming the US Army? I’d find a lighter 7.62 MG to hand out, and do away with the M249 entirely. Give the rest of the guys a heavier M4 that can do better at sustained fire, like the guys in SF get with the M4A1 or the Marine M27, and have a pair of 7.62 guns that can truly “do it all” in two of your three fire teams.
I’d also go to the Marine “Big Squad” concept, with at least three maneuver elements in each squad, plus a tiny little comms/UAV/fire control section around the squad leader. Yeah, you’d need to spread them across two carriers, but whose fault is that? The idiots that decided to downsize the squads ‘cos that was all they could fit in as an afterthought to their vaunted “Infantry Fighting Vehicle” notions need to be removed from the gene pool. You can’t call it an “Infantry Fighting Vehicle” if the damn things can hardly carry any actual, y’know… Infantry. They’d have done a lot better if they’d have simply gone with a stretched and upgraded M113 and an actual Infantry Fire Support Vehicle that you could fully armor and have carry a reasonable ammo load. Trying to cram all that they did into the Bradley has always struck me as the same thing as trying to design a friggin’ multi-tool you could use as a pocket knife -and- be able to overhaul a V8 engine with it… Ya can’t do it.
I like your idea of a having a truly deadly fire support vehicle to shepherd armored personal carriers. Why does the military constantly get sucked into the “one platform doing all roles” fallacy? I know that the siren call of easier and cheaper procurement and maintenance always seems to win out. But I have never seen a weapons system, based on this concept, that did the job and was cheaper and more effective than a small number of carefully selected specialty platforms.
The thing is, the IFV is basically as schizoid as you can get.
The missions they’re trying to do with it require mutually contradictory features. On the one hand, you need it to be as low profile and survivable as possible, because it’s an armored combat vehicle. Yet… You try to cram a medium support weapon, an infantry squad, an anti-tank system, plus all the ammo? Into the same vehicle?
It’s insanity cubed.
Let’s look at the missions, too: One mission is to protect and carry infantry across the battlefield to where we need them. This mission is in near-direct opposition to the heavy weapons the IFV carries, because those weapons are rarely needed where you want to drop the infantry, and they really should be contributing to the fight far away from where the infantry need to debark.
Plus, you have the effect on casualties: Take a vehicle carrying a bunch of extraneous infantrymen into an armor-on-armor fight, and what happens when the lightly-armored-by-necessity vehicle you’re carrying them in gets hit? They die without ever contributing anything “infantry-like” to the fight at all. They’re just meatsacks waiting for graves registration to chunk them out of the vehicle they burnt to death inside of.
The different roles and requirements for those roles all being combined into one vehicle? Insanity. I think that anyone who adopted the IFV back in the day was smoking crack, and the people who continue on with it are equally drug-addled.
The things you need a vehicle carrying infantry to do are not the things you need a vehicle with a light autocannon and AT missile system on to be doing. Plus, the fact that you’re trying to combine it all onto one platform? That’s a sizing issue, as well: If you’re big enough to carry infantry, you’re too big to armor heavily, which means your survivability for the weapons system you’re hauling around evaporates, and on top of that, you’re carrying infantry around in what becomes a priority target for the enemy… Which is nuts.
Amazingly well designed “Single side flapper lock”…
Hatts off…
With the US Army’s new rifle going away from the 5.56 cartridge, how will this effect the view of LMGs, SAWs, etc.?
Given that the people with these “views” are usually complete dunces when it comes to machinegun operations, likely not by much.
I don’t think the NGSW program is going to succeed, long-term. I give it another five-ten years, and it’ll wind up abandoned as “too expensive” and utterly stupid, because everything you do with an NGSW can be done by the current weapon suite. The program did not actually address the root problems of the issue it was supposedly addressing, and between the excessive weight and cost of the new individual weapons, I’m thinking they’ll do another one of the usual “desire path” not-procurements, and stick with the M4.
What effect that has on thinking about the squad and platoon support weapon classes? No telling. I will submit to you, however, that the new caliber makes no sense whatsoever in terms of fixing the small arms problems they identified in Afghanistan, and that the observational effect from Ukraine is likely going to result in an effective retention of the current suite. The reality is that NGSW is answering (very expensively) a set of questions that weren’t really being asked by anyone.
The barrel wear on the full-house versions of the cartridge will be what kills the deal, I think. Not to mention, I don’t believe there has ever been a really successful iteration of the idea of having a lower-powered version of a cartridge for training use and a heavier “war-load” version for actual combat. It strikes me that training the soldiers on a lighter version and then handing out the heavier one for combat is a recipe for failure-at-the-transition, likely much worse than the one between double- and single-action on your typical “Wonder Nine” handgun from the 1980s.
In short, I don’t think the NGSW is really even a consideration in the medium term; it’s going to be one of the first things cut when the economy crashes and the budget goes away. Not to mention, I’ll lay you long odds that the increased weight and recoil will prove to be major problems with the force that they’ll be able to recruit, which is going to well weighted towards the useless mouths of the gender-fluid and effete. The guys who could conceivably make good use of the NGSW simply won’t be signing up in sufficient numbers unless there are major changes to the system. They’re going to have to stick to the M4 and the rest of the current suite simply because the people they’ll be able to accession won’t be capable of effectively handling the NGSW weapons on full auto.
I think the answer to the range vs. rate of fire conundrum is to beef up the idea of the “designated marksman”. Have more of these well trained specialists in a company, with the “big hammer” rifle. For the rest of the riflemen, have a rifle and ammunition that will allow a greater number of rounds to be carried into the field and sent down range.
I have two problems with that concept, one of which is that it adds yet another ammo supply line to the squad, and the second of which is that unless you’re insane, the sort of target you are going to have your “Heavy Rifle DRM” guys firing at is the sort of target you need to be addressing with 7.62mm MG in the first place.
The idea that combat is some kind of mano-y-mano game wherein you’re going to have each target downrange addressed by one each riflemen is an utter fallacy: If you’re seeing one guy making a target of himself, then there are almost certainly more of his friends around him that you’re not observing. Which means that even if your uber-marksman nails that one guy with one shot, you’ve just effectively let the rest of the guys you didn’t see around him get away with existing. If you dump a full burst or two on that one guy, you get him and anyone else around him that is concealed from your observation, which means that you’re killing several for the price of one, rather than trying to do it with one shot/one kill.
War ain’t what they portray on the big screen. You don’t want to have your individual riflemen trying to deal with guys out much past 400m, because that’s the range where you run into that “see one, kill many” philosophy becoming de rigeuer if you want to actually, y’know… Win.
Frankly, there ain’t much play for a DRM in real peer-conflict combat. Anything you’d be firing one at? You really ought to be engaging with big MG and light mortar. You’ll have way more effect, and kill way more of the enemy.
Mind you with optics, say if the Russians finally saw fit to adopt them in numbers… Might be more up to 400m shooting from both sides, than now. As oppose a country that, did not have and was not planning/couldn’t… Adopt optics.
I Think in regards the Brit L86 “lmgs” it was, the calibre really… I mean in 7.62x52mm even with 20rnd bren type 7.62 nato mags, that would have worked…
Actually, er… Well I mean, it would have worked better than a Bren maybe in that you could see more and maybe aim it better, and thus the (lmg) capable rounds, would hit more than out of a bren but with more ooomph than in 5.56 out an L86 and thus; given support to everyone else firing 5.56mm.
@PDB,
Yeah, I hear you. But, I still think that any target out past 400m or so that you’re able to distinguish? You ought to be firing at it with a real MG, on the speculation that there’re more than just the one guy you’re spotting where that burst is going to be hitting.
The role small arms should be playing, out past 400m, is not “individual target”, but “area target”, because you have to assume that where you’ve spotted one out there, there are more around him. This is why it’s a waste of time to play games with the DRM; you plaster that bit of terrain with MG fire in bursts, and then you drop mortar rounds on it, just to make sure.
You don’t win wars by individual attrition; you win wars by killing the enemy in job lots, and you only do that by taking a few flyers on those long-range targets you do manage to acquire.
Although, with drones…? Maybe things have changed, somewhat. I still suspect that the root problem is still going to be synthesizing and disseminating all that targeting information throughout the squad. Once you’ve accomplished that, I believe that a fully-enabled fire team or squad is going to be exponentially more lethal and hard to deal with than one that’s a bunch of disconnected individuals trying to eke their way forward through fires.
I think war is undergoing another one of those shifts in technology, as we speak. This war in Ukraine is more like the Russo-Japanese war than anything else; you can see the various innovations going on at their very beginnings. For the Russo-Japanese war, it was barbed wire, trenches, and machineguns. In Ukraine, it’s drones and network-centric fires that are the Really Big Deals ™.
I honestly don’t know how to assess what’s going on, right now. Going forward, we need to keep open minds. I believe that there are things that will remain truisms, and that there are things that are going to become obsolete overnight. I just don’t know which of those are which…
From what you are saying, I am thinking of the question “Is there really a role for a designated marksman? If so what should it be?”
Is he supposed to be a short range sniper who takes out targets a bit further out than the effective range of the standard combat rifle or just the guy who is so good that he can hit a target, within the normal range of the standard combat rifle, that nobody else can seem to hit?
bart said:
“Is he supposed to be a short range sniper who takes out targets a bit further out than the effective range of the standard combat rifle or just the guy who is so good that he can hit a target, within the normal range of the standard combat rifle, that nobody else can seem to hit?”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say “Mmmmmm… Kinda both, really…”
The deal here is that what I’m talking about when I say you should be shooting at someone you spot out past 400m with a full-bore MG is geared towards actual, ya know… War. Not the half-ass halfway house of this weirdly ROE-restricted thing we’ve been doing in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
There, you absolutely have to have the ability to reach out and touch onesies and twosies with a DRM. But… In full-bore, full-time combat against peer-level enemies? You’re wasting your damn time with a DRM, unless you are also operating under ammo-sparse logistics considerations that would likely imply you’re losing, anyway.
DRM definitely has a place. It just isn’t substituting for a machinegun under real heavy combat conditions. There, your problem is going to remain being defined by the need to lay waste to everything surrounding a target you’ve managed to spot. On speculation that said target had friends with him.
Are actually arguing for every commander to be aware of the situation on the ground and adjust armaments accordingly, rather than not waste their time thinking and hide behind “but the Army Manual told me to do it that way” when they fully screw up? This also means that the procurement and logistic systems will have to be well run. The former needs to be able to buy what is truly needed, not what some powerful Congressman pushes through because the factory is in his district. The latter would need to be able to adjust the supply chain quickly to meet new needs.
Seems you will be swimming up stream on that one.
Drones may see off “etiquette” and somewhat (Temporal notions! Of air… Sup, superiority… with the looks of it.) Somewhat depressing. Anyway; what will be, will be. Thank you for the reply. I am sure you know your subject matter, and appreciate your thoughts on it as a consequence. I have read you reply, and re-read it and like your other comments they are worth re-re-reading… Especially sober. “Not just because I can’t see straight” Thinking about it, and taking into consideration what you just said. What if we are fighting “Zulu” amounts of the fuckers, and they are doing to us; what you outline we do to them, what gives? Maybe we could shoot each of the fuckers better, and that would “give” mg42’s etc aside… He he. I see what you mean, goodnight though for now. I will read this thread again mainly, due your contribution. But not entirely clearly. I watched half the authors vid you tube, and have completely forgot what “triggered” me to comment; think it was 5.56mm & LMG… Maybe he mentioned modular! Arrgh, ha. Out.
@Bart,
It’s been my observation that there’s rather less impact on the stupidity from “Congressman wanting jobs in his district” than we usually stereotype.
Most of the problem is actually within the military; they went with the NGSW approach to solving the small arms issues they perceived because that’s the way their mindset works: Buy a new shiny toy to solve the problem. That came out of the military, and while the civilian side certainly influences it, the fact that the Army brass can’t identify their epically half-ass MG training and doctrine as the problem is really why they perform the stupidities they do.
I’ve sat there and tried to explain, on numerous occasions just why the M122/192 tripods were entirely inadequate and unsuited to needs. The brass just sat there and couldn’t quite wrap their heads around it. I mean, they’re tripods, right? And, that’s all you need, yes? All tripods are just alike, aren’t they…? Aren’t they?
They don’t know why the M122/192 is a sad joke of a tripod; because of that, they never request the design and purchase of new ones. The fact that the M192 was what they came up with as a “replacement” for the M122 is indicative of the fact that they utterly fail to grasp what a tripod should be doing on the dynamic battlefield, as opposed to when you have it sitting stationary in a fighting position. Why they bothered with converting the design over to titanium, I’ll never understand… It’s not like weight is an issue when you’re in a fixed defensive position, now is it? They could have left the M122 alone, entirely, and gotten the same performance. But, they had to go all light-weight, and for no real purpose.
The problem is with the nimrods out in the military, not the nimrods in Congress. I’m sorry, but the raw fact is, they’re just lousy soldiers. Few of them are what I’d term “Professional Soldiers”; mostly, they’re uniformed bureaucrats who’d do better running the DMV than troops. I can only think of a couple of guys I knew, all in either Rangers or SF, who were actually subject-matter experts as machinegunners. And, even they had their areas of weakness–Few of them could really do maintenance at all well.
If it were up to me, I’d have looked at the problem set that NGSW was supposedly addressing, and I’d have solved it by improving MG and light mortar training and equipment, not by designing a whole new weapons suite. The day may be coming when that’s necessary, but it ain’t here yet. There’s still plenty of potential to be wrung out of the current set of toys.
@Pdb
In most of the possible battlefields, you can’t see a soldier standing in full daylight at 300m, because there’s something in between (trees, bushes, hedge, embankment, wall, fence…).
Ukraine is mostly flat. Other than desert, it should be the ideal ground for long-range marksmanship. Yet there are aerial footages of Ukrainians and Russians fighting each-other without evidently seeing each-others at 30m, on what looked like flat terrain without trees, only because, on the ground, the terrain was not completely flat.
Even the fights between armored vehicles we have seen are almost always at very short range. Less than 200m, because, farther, the vehicles can’t see each-other.
Where infantry has 200m of clear ground in front of them, there is almost always a MG placed to guard it.
@Bart
Sorry, the comment above was for Bart.
You know, the term “useless eaters” has an ugly history behind it.
I’m trying to work out what this was a reply to, and I’m just not seeing it…?
Could you please clarify?
Thanks, Ian. It is great to see the inwards of this gun.
Maybe in future folk could try it out prior, Vlad and Co on a computer game, before actually getting folk to do it, ideally not at all… Given they would say; Biden, that sucks… Ppppchewmbam! no head, and Vlad would go ssschismssh’kblam! Kindergarten vapourised 500 points. I see this is a bit thick really; perhaps humans should try and do it a bit less.
Meh, no, ok… He he.
Hmmm… Although would you hit better with a 7.62 L86 than a 5.56mm one? Recoil etc. Perhaps not on folk; per se… But on I don’t know, tufts of tough grass, walls etc, so the 5.56mm majority duck more allowing you as a 5.56mm chap to pop one in head etc when they re-emerge… From cover, cover they maybe did not feel forced into by 5.56mm, but did by the 7. Bren Ping, rocks and whatnot.
Due to them shitting it more say like with a mg42 perhaps, not sure.
Jesus’s birthday in 2 wks or so, happy birthday Jesus “2nd birthday in Easter” but normal, actual; approximate Birthday.
2022…
If the Russians etc do ever adopt optics I totally suggest we adopt the L86 in 5.56mm as a normal semi auto rifle as we definately hit more of them, just more accurate bipod/weight etc… Pop, pop 400m easy be like “you know while they are still learning which way to look through their new scopes, as a consript in a frozen trench 2 days after joining.”
Ok actual example 7.62 brit Sniper rifle Thumbhole forgot “that one” vs L86, on a range day; the L86 shot better overall, 5.56mm… Far better than a L85. But as I say I think as support weapon it sucked, due to having the same mag capacity as a rifle “Ok maybe a bit better in full auto” but! Lacked the ooomph, of 7.62mmm Thus to me the way to go was not belt fed 5.56mm’s but box fed full auto 7.62’s.
What is support without ooomph! Him over there could stand up full auto and supress on full auto with 5.56mm aload of “Germans” for a V.C if it was that usefull. And he didn’t and fair play.
Oh I don’t know, are we not confusing… Ok well lets nickname (Russia & China) as ze ww2 Germans “Forget Nazis, just think trained troops” zo zey now have opticals (The rotters) and theres 10.4 billion of them on the steppe; lets m4 them like an Iraqi at 200m.
L86 be like pop, pop, take zat Atilla Gengis amalgamated bad anti lgbtq person.
I have been drinking… Your right. Zip it, zip! Meh, pppshaw tut.
“(…)box fed full auto 7.62’s.(…)”
If you need such weapon then use OTs-03AS https://modernfirearms.net/en/sniper-rifles/standart-caliber-rifles/russia-standart-caliber-rifles/svusvu-as-eng/
This might have been a winner if the Soviets had adopted the 6mm LMG round they were testing.
“(…)7. Bren Ping(…)”
What is this?
7.62x51mm Bren as oppose a belt fed 5.56mm… Jurys out; clearly belt fed 5.56mm got picked. But… That is not to say that was the best idea.
For all anyone knows the deal to sort out the best idea; may have involved 5 star hotels some prostitutes and a whole pig but modelled out of bacon grill… Like a giant salty kebab.
Meh.