Automatic (weapon)

Fedorov assault rifle

The term "machine gun" was first applied to the rifle created by V. G. Fedorov in 1913-1916, and this name was suggested by N. M. Filatov in the 1920s - the designer initially called his weapon "submachine gun" , and it was adopted for service as the "2.5-line Fedorov rifle . "

Due to the inconvenience of using a standard Russian rifle cartridge of the 1889 model ( 7.62 × 54 mm R ) in hand-held automatic weapons with its relatively high power and a developed protruding edge with a sleeve that made it difficult to supply a large-capacity magazine for use in these weapons originally developed a slightly reduced and lightweight rifle cartridge of caliber 6.5 mm with no protruding overhang sleeve. However, due to the outbreak of hostilities, its production was not started, and serial copies of Fedorov’s weapons were made under the Japanese characteristics of 6.5 × 50 mm Arisaka cartridge from the Arisaka Type 38 rifle ^[4] .

In 1916, Fedorov's assault rifles were armed with a special company that was given to the 189th Izmail Infantry Regiment , which was the very first in the history of the war to use this type of weapon in battle. In the 1920s, these machines were for some time in service with the Red Army, and they were also occasionally used during the Winter War with Finland due to the lack of more modern automatic weapons.

Before, during, and for some time after the Great Patriotic War, machine guns were used in the USSR as submachine guns, until they were completely replaced in the Soviet Army with AK- based weapons, which was even reflected in military instructions on small arms cases, where both names are both “submachine gun” and “automatic machine”. This was quite rational, since the army submachine guns of those years, such as the PPSh , in terms of their mass-dimensional characteristics and roles in battle, were indeed more or less similar to the machine-guns that replaced them with intermediate cartridges, although they were significantly inferior to them in combat qualities.

GOST 28653-90 “Small arms. Terms and Definitions"

• Rifle - rifled small arms, structurally designed to hold and control when shooting with two hands with the emphasis of the butt in the shoulder
• Carabiner - lightweight rifle with a shortened barrel
• Automatic - automatic carbine
• Submachine gun - automatic machine, the design of which provides for firing pistol cartridges

The term "machine" is used mainly in Russia and the countries of the former USSR, is present in Russian and a number of other Slavic languages, for example, Bulgarian.

In the rest of the world, terms that are similar to the tactical and technical characteristics of the weapon use the terms corresponding to the Russian words “(automatic) rifle” and “(automatic) carbine”. In particular, in the US military documentation, the M16 is called a rifle, and the most appropriate M4 to Soviet automatic rifles is called a carbine ^[5] . Even in most of the former countries of the Socialist Commonwealth, the term “machine gun” has not taken root. For example, in Poland, a Kalashnikov assault rifle was adopted as a karabinek , that is, simply a “carbine” (literally, “a carbine”, but at the same time a regular, “long” rifle is called a “carbine” in Poland).

It should be noted that in Western countries the most common are not automatic carbines, but “full-sized” automatic rifles made under the same intermediate cartridges, such as the aforementioned M16, they differ in significantly longer barrel length and, often, focus on a well-aimed single rather than automatic fire. It is incorrect to call these samples the term “machine gun”, however, a large degree of similarity of the device, tactical and technical characteristics, and the role of machine guns and automatic rifles in combat allows us to consider them to some extent jointly. "Full-size" automatic rifles are not produced in the USSR and Russia, however, abroad, based on the Soviet Kalashnikov system, a number of samples of this class were created, for example, Chinese Type 63 and Type 81 rifles.

In addition, the term "assault rifle" is used semi-officially in many countries, which is a literal translation of the word German. Sturmgewehr , the name of the first mass model of such weapons is StG-44 . As a result of the double translation, the phrase “assault rifle” has become well-known in Russian-language literature, mainly in relation to systems of hand-fired small arms of foreign origin. It should be noted that in many languages ​​this term refers more to near-arms slang than to official terminology. In non-weapon literature and everyday life, automatic rifles (which, of course, are incorrect), automatic rifles, and even other types of high-speed long-barreled hand guns can mean this.

Anthony G. Williams, author of a number of books on the history of military technology, defines an assault rifle as “an adopted rifle capable of guided fire with bursts of hands and having an effective firing range of at least 300 meters,” and it definitely excludes from this class submachine guns and weapons under "full-sized" rifle cartridges, including 7.62 × 51 mm NATO ^[6] . In Russian-language terminology, this interpretation of this term quite clearly corresponds to the term “second-generation automatic rifle”, which includes both automatic rifles like the same M16 and automatic carbines / rifles like AK and M4.

The term assault rifle itself was probably first used by Isaac Lewis . In 1918, he created an automatic rifle to replace the BAR M1918 and classified it as an “assault phase rifle” (assault rifle for testing) during testing ^[7] .

The experience of the First World War showed the great importance of the rate of fire of weapons and high density of fire. By this time, automatic machine-gun fire had already convincingly shown its effectiveness, especially in the “trench” positional warfare. However, the machine guns that fired from a carriage or machine tool were very heavy (the famous Maxim machine gun weighed about 20 kg without a machine, water and cartridges, and more than 65 kg in combat readiness with a machine), and were serviced by a crew of several people. Ideal for defending fortifications, they were completely unsuitable for offensive operations.

In the war and interwar years, the designers' attempts to increase the firepower of the advancing infantry by creating a lighter, hand-fired and portable by one person automatic weapons led to the appearance of several fundamentally new types of it: light machine guns , automatic rifles and submachine guns. All of them to some extent satisfactorily performed this task, but applied completely different approaches to its implementation.

At the beginning of World War II, the infantry of most countries was armed mainly with non-automatic magazine rifles or shortened carbines using rifle cartridges, and submachine guns using pistol ammunition. In addition, in many countries, a number of self-loading and automatic rifles were in service. None of these weapons individually could provide the necessary firepower of the infantry, since:

• Magazine non-automatic rifles and carbines had a long, even redundant aiming range for the majority of real combat missions, but at the same time very low rate of fire ^[8] , which made non-automatic rifles less useful in close combat with infantry armed with submachine guns, which arrows rifles could counter only a bayonet counterattack.

• Submachine guns had a very high rate of fire, and in close range combat they created a fairly high density of fire, but due to the use of relatively low-power ammunition designed for short-barreled weapons, the effective firing range from most models did not exceed 200 meters, which was often not enough to solve many combat missions, requiring, inter alia, conducting dense fire at medium distances.

• Self-loading and automatic rifles, created on the basis of rifle-machine gun cartridges of existing samples, had a number of fatal flaws, such as:
  • strong recoil when firing,
  • a very significant mass of weapons and ammunition,
  • complexity and low manufacturability,
  • the high cost of both weapons and ammunition.

The effectiveness of automatic fire from those rare samples that had such an opportunity was extremely small due to the low accuracy and small stock of cartridges worn by the shooter, and therefore it was used only as a last resort.

• Light machine guns, unlike easel machine guns, were relatively light and compact, could be serviced and carried by one fighter (though, often, to give them better combat qualities, they were given the second calculation number), and fire from them could be fired even if necessary. However, the main method of firing from a light machine gun is “from the bipod”, that is, from the folding emphasis. This, on the one hand, provided considerable freedom of maneuver for the defenders — the machine gunner could easily change his position, but on the other hand, he limited the pace of attack: he had to attack with “rifts,” “dashes” from one intermediate position to the next, from which the attackers mainly fired. , which was a significant drawback - the speed of the offensive is often one of the decisive factors for its success.

Also, the availability of mass weapons samples using completely different ammunition, significantly complicated the supply of the army.

Thus, the need has ripened for the creation of a weapon capable of occupying an empty niche between submachine guns and automatic rifles, preserving, as far as possible, the good ballistics and the striking ability of the bullet, which determine the long firing range, and the possibility of effective fire bursts typical of the former, thanks to the relatively small returns and large store capacity.

To do this, it was first required to develop an intermediate in power between the pistol and rifle cartridge.

Such an idea arose a long time ago. For example, even before the Second World War and in its first years, a number of submachine guns were created, made under the most powerful of pistol cartridges, and due to this, their characteristics clearly went beyond the "average level" of their class (PPSh (7.62 × 25 mm), the Kirali submachine gun (9 × 25 mm) and a number of other serial samples).

Developers of experimental weapons are often even closer to the creation of ammunition, by modern standards, corresponding to intermediate munitions, and weapons for them. Designs such as the 1918 Ribeirol French automatic rifle under the cartridge 8 × 35 mm, Swiss cartridges 7.65 × 35 mm (1921) and 7.65 × 37 mm (1923) undertaken in the late 1920s can be noted here. attempts already made by Vladimir Fedorov to introduce into the Red Army a lightweight rifle cartridge of caliber 6.5 mm with a sleeve length of about 40 mm, a Danish Weibel assault rifle (in other sources - Danrif) for a 7 × 44 mm cartridge developed in the early 1930s, and other ^[6] .

In 1939, V. G. Fedorov, in his monograph “The Evolution of Small Arms”, pointed to the “enormous future” of the submachine gun as “a powerful, relatively light and at the same time simple in its construction weapon”, however, “subject to some of its improvements. " Fedorov also wrote about “the convergence of two types, namely, an assault rifle and a submachine gun” (meaning a “submachine gun” as a weapon of the type of its automatic rifle) based on the creation of a cartridge “with a reduced range for rifles and increased for submachine guns,” that is - according to the modern terminology of the intermediate ^[9] .

Sometimes the American self-loading carbine M1 Carbine , designed in 1941 for a powerful pistol cartridge .30 Carbine (7.62 × 33 mm) , as well as its automatic version M2 Carbine, although the cartridge used by it is substantially “not reached "intermediate in terms of power, and most importantly - in terms of ballistic bullets completely remained in the" pistol "framework. In fact, this weapon was intended to arm the “second line” military personnel who were not directly involved in the hostilities - drivers, armored crews, rear services workers, and so on, and not as the main infantry small arms. The choice of the form factor of the light carbine was due to the fact that to teach a fighter to shoot accurately from him can be much easier and faster than from a pistol. It is more correct to consider this weapon as the predecessor of the modern subclass of PDW - “personal weapon of self-defense”, and not of a general arms machine / automatic carbine ^[6] .

Targeted work on the creation of ammunition intermediate in power between rifle-machine-gun and pistol, and weapons for them, was begun in Germany in the mid-1930s. Also, according to statements in some literary sources, in 1939 such work was begun in the USSR, but was not completed due to the outbreak of hostilities in 1941.

German research in this area resulted in the creation of a number of samples of intermediate cartridges, of which one was adopted by the Wehrmacht - 7.92 mm Kurz, or 7.92 × 33 mm.

Weapon models such as the “ StG-44 assault rifles” were created under it (prototypes of these weapons also bore such designations as the “submachine gun” - Maschinenpistole MP43 and MP44, or “automatic carbine” - Maschinenkarabiner, MKb42) and StG 45 (M) , as well as a self-loading carbine Volkssturmgewehr 1-5 (in domestic sources - “Volkssturm”).

In the USSR in 1943, an intermediate cartridge of the 1943 model was adopted (at the design stage of 7.62 × 41 mm ^[10] , subsequently - 7.62 × 39 mm). When it was created, the designers were tasked with a caliber of 7.62 mm to provide the residual kinetic energy of the bullet at a distance of 1000 m of the order of 196 J, with a barrel length of the weapon of the order of 500-520 mm and a cartridge weight of 15-17 grams.

Initially, it was planned to create an armament complex for it, generally repeating the available at that time according to the nomenclature of samples, but using a single cartridge to simplify the supply of troops - namely, a submachine gun, self-loading and non-automatic magazine carbines and light machine guns. However, later, probably under the influence of the German concept of an “assault rifle”, it was decided to replace all these samples with one — an automatic carbine, which was later officially called the short and well-known term “automatic” by the troops.

Of the many automatic systems proposed for the competition, the automatic system of M. T. Kalashnikov - AK was adopted. In addition, according to the results of earlier competitions, Degtyarev light machine gun and Simonov self-loading carbine were adopted. The SCS was soon withdrawn from service and has since been used primarily as a ceremonial weapon, and later (1961) the RPD was replaced by the Kalashnikov Machine Gun (RPK) , 80% unified with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Thus, in the USSR in the post-war decades, the machine gun, as well as the light machine gun created on its basis, completely replaced the infantry weapon complex that had developed during the war years with rifle-machine guns, which after that were used exclusively in sniper weapons ( SVD ), as well as infantry weapons support level not lower than the company (such as RP-46 and Kalashnikov machine gun ), and pistol cartridges. A similar situation has developed in most countries of the Socialist Commonwealth, with certain local features.

Outside the socialist camp, this process was delayed due to the adoption by the NATO bloc in the early 1950s under US political pressure of the American cartridge 7.62 × 51 mm (T65), although it was reduced in comparison with the earlier American rifle cartridge .30- 06 (the largest and most powerful in its class), which in its characteristics remained similar to rifle ammunition, similar to the Soviet cartridge for the Mosin rifle. The concept of an “assault rifle” / “assault rifle” under a reduced cartridge in the United States initially had antipathy, preferring powerful and long-range self-loading rifles, sometimes with the possibility of automatic fire as an auxiliary mode (battle rifle), such as the M14 . At the same time, a new cartridge was introduced as the main one even in those countries that at that time had objectively more promising developments - for example, the British intermediate cartridge .280 British or German 7.92 mm Kurz ^[6] .

As a result, the armament of the NATO countries during this period preserved an armament complex similar to that prevailing during the Second World War - self-loading and automatic rifles for machine-gun rifle cartridges, and complementary submachine guns for pistol ammunition.

A similar situation was observed in many countries that were not formally part of the military-political blocs that had formed at that time: many countries accepted NATO cartridges and weapons for them, even without being a part of this military alliance. On the contrary, Finland, which at the end of the war developed its own intermediate cartridges - 9 × 40 mm Lilja and 9 × 35 Lahti - in the post-war years adopted the Soviet 7.62 mm intermediate cartridge and the Valmet assault rifle, created on the basis of the Kalashnikov system.

In the full sense of the word, self-developed intermediate cartridges and weapons for them appeared in service in Western countries only in the 1960s, largely due to the experience of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the American automatic rifle M16 was the first of them, which used the “low-pulse "(Having a reduced recoil momentum ) intermediate cartridge 5.56 × 45 mm . Later, an automatic carbine / submachine gun was created on its basis, adopted for service under the designation M4 .

The process of distributing a new cartridge within the NATO bloc - and, accordingly, the crowding out of old 7.62 mm ammunition - dragged on until the 1980s.

Since the reduced caliber of the American cartridge, together with a number of other design solutions, promised certain benefits in terms of increasing wearable ammunition and general lightening of weapons, in the mid-1970s the USSR also adopted a small-caliber intermediate cartridge - 5.45 × 39 mm , under which A number of automatic machines were created - AK74 and its modifications ( AK100 ), as well as AN-94 Abakan, AEK-971 and others.

For a low-noise weapon, the speed of the bullet of which should not exceed the speed of sound, on the basis of the cartridge 7.62 × 39 mm , a family of cartridges of 9 × 39 mm caliber was created, which includes cartridges SP-5, SP-6 and others. The increased caliber allows the use of heavier bullets and, despite the subsonic speed, to achieve a sufficiently high muzzle energy. It is used by such weapons as sniper (self-loading) Vintorez rifle, Val machine gun and others.

Comparative characteristics of pistol, intermediate and rifle cartridges of normal caliber, as well as low-pulse intermediate reduced caliber are given.

• List of machines

• Bolotin, D.N. Soviet small arms. - M .: Military Publishing, 1986. - 320 p.
• Wind farm. - M .: Military Publishing House, 1984.
• Beetle, A. B. Handbook of Small Arms. - M .: Military Publishing, 1993 .-- 753 p. - ISBN 5-203-01660-7 .
• Henk, Daniel W. Assault Rifles . // Infantry . - May-June 1975. - Vol. 65 - No. 3.

• The Miracle Weapon of the Third Reich
• About assault rifles on YouTube