PLA Small arms

MwRYum

Major
It actually says PAP in Chinese, which is what they really meant. Not that crazy for PAP tbh.
Indeed, several years back there was a takedown situation where there was a gunman holed up in a hut, with assault rifle if I remember correctly. The PAP didn't risk their man in the assault (they were inadequately equipped back in the pre-2008 days, it was due to the Beijing Olympics that they started to aggressively modernise their personnel gears), but called in a wheeled APC - the type with 23mm autocannon (!).

Right, that was in the day when several PLA formations converted to PAP units, brought everything except MBTs along.

I vaguely remembered they got the gunman dead, exactly how I don't remember though. But the point is, if you want to talk about overkill, PAP isn't that a stranger with such a thing.
 

MwRYum

Major
Some of these weapon systems looks like they've been designed by Orks....
Luk wut u did, hummie, u 'ust kan't let diz old Mek zit bak 'n relax? Wot in Gok'z name dat u got problem wit dakka?

GIT ME ‘ORE DAKKA!!!!!!!!! WAAAGGH!!!!!

(got slapped with a 'uge hamma, back to Low Gothic speak)

Right...ok, seriously....if you ask me, what came out of China 10 years ago actually looks more akin to Orks' design; in the past 3 years however, is finally getting more akin to the Imperium - ok, no more WH40K referencing - Western bloc designs.
 

enroger

Junior Member
Registered Member
Luk wut u did, hummie, u 'ust kan't let diz old Mek zit bak 'n relax? Wot in Gok'z name dat u got problem wit dakka?

GIT ME ‘ORE DAKKA!!!!!!!!! WAAAGGH!!!!!

(got slapped with a 'uge hamma, back to Low Gothic speak)

Right...ok, seriously....if you ask me, what came out of China 10 years ago actually looks more akin to Orks' design; in the past 3 years however, is finally getting more akin to the Imperium - ok, no more WH40K referencing - Western bloc designs.

I'd say it's a bit of a mixed case, there are some designers that go for more elegant designs like J-20.... and then there are some that put two gatling guns plus an auto cannon on a tiny turret and scream "WAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!"
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
The original idea with the Gatling AFAIK was that because the metal alloys of the time did not allow for high sustained rates of fire, due to heating and warping of the barrel, or even the risk of ammo self-ignitions, they simply added multiple barrels to allow each barrel to cool down. A lot of the Gatling guns used in the Civil War were hand-cranked,
No, the original idea of the gatling was as the weapons designers of the time had yet to realize they would design a self loading system self actuating firearm that could load more than a revolver's cylinder.
The entirely self contained cartridge was brand new. The first gas operated rifle wouldn't emerge until 1883 that was the same year as the Maxim machine gun.
Rifles and carbine therefore were manually operated. By either old school muzzle loading, breach loaded by trap door, breach loaded by lever action (see Henry rifle or Spencer rifle) or attempts at a revolver action. Weapons meant to Volley fire were either complicated to man and operate often firing all at once.
The gatling gun found a work around by manually cycling a series of breach loading And firing actions via hand crank. This allowed the weapon to fire at a higher rate of fire than any of the above options.
Richard Gatling the original creator hoped it would reduce the size of armies and therefore reduce the numbers of casualties by giving a small crew the firepower of a huge force. It worked to a degree the system was not perfect and armies at the time had funny ideas about rationing ammo.
It was later that forearms designers realized they could siphon the forces of recoil and exhaust gasses into a method auto load the weapon creating the first machine guns the aforementioned Maxim being the first and among the most popular. It basically rendered the Gatling obsolete.
A lot of the Gatling guns used in the Civil War were hand-cranked, but later models then and today typically are electrically powered.
All gatling guns were hand cranked it wasn't until 1893 that gatling fitted the first model.with an electric motor. Then a brand new thing. However Gatling went bankrupt. Maxim won the day. His weapon was lighter less complicated and easier to field.
From that point through both world wars no one seriously fielded gatling guns until 1959.
That was when the USAF General Electric company Project Vulcan lead to the M61 Vulcan Cannon. The gun is however not driven by electricity but rather hydraulics. Firing is by electricity.
The main driver was again not hear but rate of fire. M61 was and is the default gun for an American made fighter. It's a 20mm and the basis of The Naval Phalanx Close in weapons system. The reason for it was that the U.S. DOD wanted a gun system that was high rate of fire with good range to take on enemy fighters.
It was the M134 in 63 that lead to the return to electric drive for such. The Minigun basically a scailed down M61 firing 7.62x51mm.
 

Akkarin

New Member
Registered Member
Since the USs NGSW is heating up: are there any rumors about polymer cased telescoped or caseless ammunition in china ?
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Since the USs NGSW is heating up: are there any rumors about polymer cased telescoped or caseless ammunition in china ?
Well there was that 40mm Cannon that they have been showing off on there armored vehicles.

In the case of NGSW there are five things that have to be considered.
  • polymer cased Teliscoped and caseless are not backward compatible.
If you choose that route you cannot use conventional weapons. You cannot take a CTA 5.56 round and fire it from a M4 carbine. You need a new rifle for that new type of cartridge. there are other factors that lead to NGSW than new ammo tech.Although Cases Teliscoped and Caseless have the press. Those are infact carry overs from LSAT and other programs. Caseless infact seems to have been dropped.Cased Teliscoped is being pushed... no wait let me rephrase that. Polymer cased semi Teliscoped ammo is being pushed for it by Textron land systems. But at this point that type of round is not the only possible outcome.
  • The big driver is Armor Penetration.
Let me show you a video here.
The Ammo they are shooting is the NATO standard M855 aka SS109. When this ammo was introduced by the Belgian army it's was meant to AP a Russian body armor used in the late cold war era. This consisted of equivilant to a 1.6mm Titanium plate with 20 layers of Kevlar. And an "Improved" version the M855A1. The problem in the video speaks for itself. The modern Russian Body armor stands up to it that is Level IV equipment. The PRC also has this armor level as does the US and NATO and more and more the lesser state armies and beyond that going forward it will proliferate.
What does that mean? It means that rounds like the 5.56x45mm have to be farther modified to match and that modification? Tungsten carbide cores and very high pressure ammo.
That's not a good recipe. Prototype XM855A1 ammo was operating at proof cartridge specs with out AP cores. In the Individual carbine and improved carbine trials very very nice brand new 5.56x45mm rifles were fed this new ammo the XM855A1 and breaking bolts, this was why that was canceled and the production batches was reduced to make it more suited to longevity of the weapon.
A proof cartridge is a ammo type you use to certify that the weapon' s manufacturing was done properly and there were no microfractures or poor tolerance in the steel. To do that they fire a excessively hot loaded ammo at the very edge of pressure limits and then inspect it. It's only done to certify the weapon and fired after building or rebuilding once. They were talking about that hot a load in magazine after magazine. On top of that the AP cores are harder materials than the chamber's and feed ramps of most rifles. So it could damage the rifle if not feeding properly and all of which well being more expensive.
For the ammo and rifles.
Not a practical response.
This by the way is not unique to the U.S. 5.56x45mm the Russians and PRC will eventually have to deal with level IV body armor. That means again hot loads and hard cores or moving up to a new cartridge.
Ironically the 7.62x51mm is not a bad move to start with. (Meaning India and Pakistan might not have made a bad choice to stick with that caliber)
But the trade offs of the ammo leave something to be desired. And again you would need a harder core. In fact all of these still need a Tungsten carbide cores to AP. Larger ammo is generally better suited to generating better pressure curves. IE the rifle doesn't destroy itself.Since no matter what happened it looked like a new rifle and ammo would be part of the response to proliferation of level 4 Armor the U.S. Army created the Next Generation Squad weapons centered around a new round, 6.8 General Purpose(Absolutely no relationship to 6.8SPC)Now.
  • That said weight is a big deal.
6.8 GP however is a pressure and bullet head type with no dictates on cartridge case. Leaving it to the bidders to offer a ammo with the same head and pressures but open ended on what they case it with as long as it is at minimum 20%lighter than a Brass cased version. From the Birth of the Self contained cartridge the first form and the US military form has been Brass cased. The Russians and a few others transitioned from Brass which is expensive to steel which is cheap and a little lighter. Some weapons don't like steel classes ammo. The PRC used steel cased lacquer coated until they moved to Copper coated Steel cased. Alluminum cases have been trailed and generally always failed. Caseless has long been a dream but never a reality it's just not practical.When the NGSW came about asking for lightweight bullets.
  1. on the list was of course LSAT derived Casted Teliscoped ammo. This offers excellent weight reduction and has been in the works for a while. 40% weight reduction vs brass ammo.
  2. conventional ammo in a polymer metallic composite ammo. Which is backward compatible with a conventional rifle. IE you can take a 7.62x51mm battle rifle like say the FN SCAR H and rechamber it for 6.8GP and fire this ammo. 30% weight reduction
  3. aluminum-plated nickel cartridges. Again backwards comparable. 20% weight reduction
  4. Sig showed this year three piece metal ammo 20% ammo reduction. Totally backwards compatible. SiG's NGSW prototype is infact a rebuilt 7.62x51mm rifle prototype.
But this is just the ammo, any NGSW cannot weight more than the existing system. You cannot issue a new rifle that weighs more than M4A1. You cannot issue a new LMG that weights the same as M249.

There are likely others two. 6 bidders were awarded all with there own weapons and ammo types.
  • It's not just the rifle it's the LMG and more.
The Ammo has the press and that's the heart of it. But the U.S. Army is in this for more than just the rifle. They intend eventually to try and replace their LMG, GPMG, Carbines and rifles.
The M4A1 is an improved M4 It's self a shortened M16A2 a modified M16A1 this is the longest service rifle in American history, the LMG the M249 was trailed in the late 1970s it's heavier than it should be the DOD has a love hate relationship with it. They love what it does but not its weight and with level IV armor they hate the weight even more. The USMC dropped the SAW from their squads for the M27 not because it couldn't suppress but because they were more worried about room clearing and accurate fire.
The M240 replaced the M60 both weapons are over 60 years old. M240 was pressed as an infantry weapon because of issues with M60. But both are pigs. Heavy heavy weapons. We know that these can be made lighter today it's just a question of the right package.

  • More than the bang is the Aim. Sighting is part of it.
Everyone is so up about the ammo that few consider that repeatedly it has been said that these weapons will be more that just a new rifle and ammo it's going to include a new optical sights. The statements even make it sound like smart sights. The first military red dot optics date back to the late 60s, magnified optics have been around since the 1800s but really became more than a curio by the late 50s they didn't make it big until the 1970s they came to European vogue by the late 1980s. They really became popular in the late 90s and fell into the standard by 00s. We are starting to see the next big thing. Smart scopes, but they are expensive and not quite mil spec yet. But it is part of it, as I can't see any other way to reliably get 800m hits even with the new ammo.

To summarize if you are looking for the PLA NGSW equivalent it has to cover this huge gulf of needs.
It needs more than CT or CTLS infact impact this can be totally forgot, it needs AP, it needs to be across the rifle squad, it needs to improve the range of fire.
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
You can try to do something like what the Russians did with the AN-94. i.e. have a two round burst mode with a high probability of shooting the same spot with both rounds.
That should increase ammo penetration of armor. The AN-94 was not that reliable in practice but the Russians had other designs which should be more reliable and cheaper like the AEK-971 which has better accuracy in multi-round shooting than the AK-74 pattern rifles.

I also think that we will see (finally) most weapons move to some sort of intermediate round. Whether that is the 7.62x39mm or some other intermediate round is still unknown. The Japanese used the 6.5x50mm Arisaka round for almost 50 years for example. Back then the average Japanese infantryman was smaller so a rifle with lower recoil and lower weight than what was used in the West was introduced. It was a pretty effective round back then. Some complained of lack of effectiveness at a distance but I think the combat record it has speaks volumes. It worked well against other rounds in service back then.

With regards to steel cased rounds, the Germans used those in WW2 with the StG44 rifle. That would be the 7.92x33mm Kurz round.
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The Germans used steel because it was cheaper. Also the Germans had a lack of copper as a strategic material in late WW2. Copper was being used, among other things, for electrical systems (wires, etc). Steel increased barrel corrosion but it's not like the Germans thought the weapons would need to last that long in real combat to begin with at that stage of the war.

The problem with caseless has always been spontaneous detonation in a hot barrel, plus how to keep a proper seal. Typically this leads to a more complex seal mechanism in the gun which kinda negates the weight advantages it has. AFAIK no one has solved that issue yet. That's why the US Army went with the polymer cased telescoped rounds in the LSAT.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
You can try to do something like what the Russians did with the AN-94. i.e. have a two round burst mode with a high probability of shooting the same spot with both rounds.
The problem with Hyperburst is it's highly highly complex.
The two weapons they tried it were the AN94 and G11 both were impractical.
AEK & AK12 both returned to conventional rates of fire.
The problem is the Hyperburst system is much for a general Service rifle. Any maintenance has to be done by a trained armorer
When you take apart a rifle like say an M4 you usually get to about a dozen parts most of which are handguard, receiver a couple springs. An
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is three to four dozen. Same for
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That's why they weren't fielded or procured beyond prototype batches. To expensive to build to difficult to maintain and in the end the results just didn't reap the promise.
I also think that we will see (finally) most weapons move to some sort of intermediate round. Whether that is the 7.62x39mm or some other intermediate round is still unknown.
5.56x45mm, 5.45x39mm and 5.8x42mm ARE intermediate rifle cartridges. 7.62x39mm is as well the problem for going BACK to that is Level IV armor already beats that (7.62x39mm).
Same for 7.92Kurz. Basically you are still having to up the pressures harden the cores.

The Russian response at least in concept seems to be on their RATNIK 3 mockup. (Looks kinda like what Tom Cruise was wearing in the puss poor Hollywood adaptation of All you need is Kill the movie so bay they renamed it twice. Edge or Tommarow and then Live Die Repeat. ) any way it has had a pistol and rifle dummy 3D printed for it. The makers have employed the very modern method of designing for looks and then filling in the operating bits latter. Ironically this is how the Isreali IWI Tavor and HK XM8 were also designed. Both proved only partially successful. XM8 being canceled by the U.S. but sold to Malaysia and Tavor being adopted then replaced by a massively improved version.
Any way that does show a unlisted 7.62mm ammo type but what exactly is the type?? No idea again it's designed for looks not practical considerations.KINETICA-Codesigner-of-Russian-UDAV-Pistol-and-Ratnik-3-Rifle-2-1-390x215.jpg
The problem with caseless has always been spontaneous detonation in a hot barrel, plus how to keep a proper seal. Typically this leads to a more complex seal mechanism in the gun which kinda negates the weight advantages it has. AFAIK no one has solved that issue yet. That's why the US Army went with the polymer cased telescoped rounds in the LSAT.
Actually HK did have that problem solved. They used a new propellent type. But the issues of cost of manufacturing of a rifle with 450 parts, and fielding that chemically unique ammo proved to be infeasible especially when the lead customer West Germany suddenly had reunification with East Germany, and now the West had to drag the East up to modern standards and an excess of East German Soviet arms.
And the other potential buyer of G11 the US military didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze and felt that it didn't give them the 100% improvement in hit probably over M16A2 the ACR program was looking for.

They did however solve the cook off issues. But the complexity was a killer. When LSAT started Textron Texting and the Army actually looked back at the G11 ammo. It worked but was highly toxic. Textron developed there own in there caseless.

A few other issues though kicked in. G11 feed from closed boxes. LSAT was a belt fed machine gun.
This is a problem.
Remember that originally all ammo was caseless that left the propellent powder exposed to the environment. The case was developed to protect that propellent. It keeps it safe and secure out of the elements.
Caseless returns to exposure. Optimally if you move to Caseless the ammo box is the magazine to limit exposure. Because anything in the environment is exposed to the propellent. Water, chemicals, cleaning agents and that could have a chemical reaction with the propellent.

You can't do that with a belt fed.
Farther more the propellent block can be damaged leaving excess propellent that could jam the weapon or ignite.

Now they got the Belt fed caseless to work pretty well but it was deemed more reliable to stick with Cased Teliscoped.
That was when the program shifted from LSAT to CTAS.
 

Dfangsaur

Junior Member
Registered Member
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Interesting to note that on type88 marksman rifle, the bipod attachment location has been moved to under the hand guard instead of being directly attached to the barrel (which is incredibly stupid). Not sure if this is a recent development.
 
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