It would seem it’s developing in the US military. The AN-94 is certainly neat, but also just as certainly unproven. I’m rather skeptical that a mechanism as complex as the AN-94 can be made as reliable as a traditional weapon.
9 thoughts on “AN-94 Envy”
Comments are closed.
Maybe its just me, but a duplex round seems a lot simpler and cheaper…
Maybe I’m thinking of something else, but I think our duplex round testing didn’t go so well (like most everything around the SPIW program).
But hey, this is Big Army, always looking for hardware solutions to software issues.
What’s so great about “hyper-burst”? If you want to hit something at long range (assuming your rifle is fairly accurate which is a big one when talking about a Russian carbine), you aim carefully and take a single shot. If you can’t shoot accurately, hyper-burst just lets a soldier miss twice in the time it takes a Libyan rebel to miss once.
It would seem to me that, if your goal is to pierce armor, then you just use special armor-piercing rounds, and a higher caliber gun.
Or, perhaps, just a higher-caliber gun would do–it’s my understanding that typical hunting rounds can be just as effective at piercing armor as smaller rounds specifically designed to do so…
“Or, perhaps, just a higher-caliber gun would do–it’s my understanding that typical hunting rounds can be just as effective at piercing armor as smaller rounds specifically designed to do so…”
Your understanding is pretty flawed. Soft body armor sure, but the military is concerned with near-parity nations toting around SAPI-style plates. You aren’t going to penetrate those with any 7.62 hunting round. You’ll have a hard time with single rounds of steel core AP.
“What’s so great about “hyper-burstâ€?”
The idea is to put two rounds on a ceramic armor plate. The first round compromises the plate integrity so the second can get through. Not that I think it will actually work in practice.
“Your understanding is pretty flawed.” It wouldn’t be the first time :-). I think my understanding is based on armor that police would typically wear–and discussions about so-called “cop-killer” bullets.
Sorry if I was a bit blunt. Going to a bigger bullet works with soft armor like cops wear because you can surpass it’s protection level. It doesn’t work with military stuff because you can’t. An ESAPI plate will stop all common bullets. You end up needing .50 cal rifles or the latest AP technology.
I think a much better option would be a rifle that shot 3-5 rounds in either a triangle or diamond with a center round.
This way, if the aimed shot misses. One of the other rounds set to hit 2″-4″ inches apart will likely impact.
LOL
“Sorry if I was a bit blunt.”
Don’t worry about it. If my understanding is flawed, it’s flawed, and it needs to be corrected!