Military Guns and Ammunition
Hosted by gatnerd
This is intended for people interested in the subject of military guns and their ammunition, with emphasis on automatic weapons.
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anti material rifle not dead General Military Discussion
From: Red7272
29/9/21
I think there are more practical alternatives. M30 firing cannister also works.
From: gatnerd
29/9/21
Red7272 said:M30 firing cannister also works.
Wow, is there a canister load? Do you have the specs? I always wondered how a .50 BMG canister load would have performed.
Obviously a proper vehicle mounted Autocannon is far superior.
The advantage of these single shot guns is they are much more mobile and easier to hide from air attack and surveillance.
Essentially they share a similar basis to MANPADS - undeniably a proper missile defense AA platform is wayyyy better then a few guys with Stingers. But a few guys with Stingers can pop up pretty much anywhere, and are extremely difficult to find and pre-emptively destroy from the air. And the Stingers can be tossed into the back of any truck and kept handy as needed, or deployed to remote areas with ease.
Same to with these Elephant Guns. They're cheap, easily transportable, can be easily hidden and deployed in urban or remote areas, and allow a pretty high level of destruction for a man portable system at a fraction of the cost of guided missiles.
I imagine if the Taliban or Iraqi insurgents had them in quantity, they would have been as serious concern for US forces. Likewise, a number of them showing up in Syria would be a concern to Russian or Turkish forces (depending on which local actor received them.)
They're not a war winner by any means, but they could be a serious nuisance and psychologically unsettling weapon, thats cheap, durable, and makes use of widely available AA ammunition.
From: gatnerd
29/9/21
stancrist said:The spring returns the optic to the proper shooting position after recoil. A clever way to deal with the considerable rearward movement of the gun upon firing.
I wonder how well such a system could hold zero?
From: gatnerd
29/9/21
Heres another of the same class, a DIY 23mm made in Ukraine:
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/05/29/separatist-anti-material-rifle/
This video (scroll around) shows its capabilities against old armor and more importantly, smashing through brick walls.
From: stancrist
30/9/21
gatnerd said:I wonder how well such a system could hold zero?
I'm wondering the same thing.
From: stancrist
30/9/21
gatnerd said:I always wondered how a .50 BMG canister load would have performed.
Rather poorly, I would think.
After all, we're talking about a maximum pellet size of probably #4 Buck -- possibly #3 Buck, at best -- and only a dozen or so pellets in the load.
The shot load would be comparable to that of a 32-gauge shotgun shell.
The .24-caliber, 20-grain pellets would lose velocity very quickly, severely limiting effective range. And rifling spin would reduce pattern density.
From: gatnerd
30/9/21
Another Ukrainian AMR, the Snipex T-Rex and Alligator. Both are 25kg, 14.5mm rifles that are 2m long. That puts the weight at 1/2 the 49kg of the KPV/KPVT 14.5mm HMG. These are both allegedly being adopted by the Ukrainian military, although in what quantity is anyones guess.
They combine a muzzle break, short recoiling barrel, some sort of recoil buffer in the stock, and their high weight, in order to be tolerable.
https://www.overtdefense.com/2021/03/18/ukraine-adopts-snipex-t-rex-alligator-anti-materiel-rifles/
Both look to be actual professional grade rifles as opposed to the more DIY versions we've seen in 14.5/20/23mm before from others.
Some video of this bad boy firing. I now have an irrational desire for a 14.5mm rifle...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQB26F9eoFw
- Edited 30 September 2021 4:35 by gatnerd
From: Red7272
30/9/21
gatnerd said:Wow, is there a canister load? Do you have the specs? I always wondered how a .50 BMG canister load would have performed.
One of the really tedious things about this forum is the need for americans to argue in bad faith. The M30 is a howitzer and it was used to defend Afghan bases with cannister, so either you were ignorant and too lazy to look it up or did know and decided that you would ignore the thread history to be a disingenuous Stan-like shitstain.
gatnerd said:Obviously a proper vehicle mounted Autocannon is far superior.
Of course, but you have the Serbian contraption fulfilling the role so I proposed a couple more conventional alternatives.
From: gatnerd
30/9/21
And here are the DIY 12.7 + 14.5mm AMR's used by the Kurds against ISIS - apparently to great effect. So there seems to be some use for these types of AMR's on the modern battlefield, at least in these sort of irregular conflicts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eZ4MwgViQI
Thanks to correspondent Ed Nash (he gave me permission to use his name after I had recorded the video), I have a number of really interesting photos and video clips of YPG (Kurdish) locally-produced anti-materiel rifles. Specifically, the Zagros 12.7mm rifle and the Ser Portative 14.5mm rifle. Both are made on a small serial production scale by the YPG using barrels from DShK and KPV machine guns. Tubular receivers and bolts are fitted to them, making effective single-shot rifles. These photos are from the fall of 2015 and the summer of 2016.
I am told that both types of gun were reliable and effective, and used substantially in combat against ISIS/Daesh, with their necessity decreasing after the YPG began receiving more air support from United States forces. These were not sniping rifles so much as anti-material rifle, used against walls, light armored vehicles (including VBIEDs), and other sorts of cover.