Combat experience shows that most of the special forces' combat missions are carried out on land, but sometimes it is necessary to fire under water. The world's first and only dual-medium universal machine, equally effective under water and on land.
Rostec reports that from 2018 new types of small arms will be supplied to the RF Armed Forces, Rosgvardia troops and other power structures of the country. First of all, we are talking about equipping troops with new assault rifles - ADS (two-medium special assault rifle). From the statement of the director of the TsKIB sporting and hunting weapons Alexei Sorokin:
There are already contracts, orders from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the FSB of the Russian Federation, the National Guard and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Serial production will already be organized from next year.
It is noted that in the same 2018, the delivery of ADF to the troops will be organized.
Alexey Sorokin:
ADS allows you to fire on land and under water. In order to shoot in a different environment, you need a minimal set of manipulations.
It is known that the A-91M was taken as the basis for the ADS. In this case, the ADS is created as a replacement for the APS (special submarine machine). The ADS layout is presented in bullpup format. When changing the firing mode ("water" and "air"), the shooter does not need to change the ammunition, it is enough to simply switch from one firing mode to another. It was about this simple manipulation that Aleksey Sorokin said.
For shooting on land, a complete set with an underbarrel grenade launcher is provided.
"The creation of a universal submarine-surface assault rifle is tantamount to the creation of a transparent tank," said one of the American specialists involved in the development of such a weapon. It is difficult to say how far the US designers have advanced, but the Russian ADS (two-medium special assault rifle) has already been created and even declassified, which makes it possible to offer it for export. The sample was designed and prepared for production by a branch of the Tula Instrument-Making Design Bureau (KBP) - TsKIB SOO, which is part of the holding of NPO High-Precision Complexes OJSC.
From harpoon to bullet
When scuba gear entered wide circulation in the 1950s and the first units of combat swimmers appeared, the question of special underwater weapons immediately arose. First, it was about protection from sharks, and then about military weapons to fight the same swimmers of the enemy. Therefore, the first generation of underwater weapons was a harpoon gun for spearfishing with a rubber fight, spring, pneumatic. One of the James Bond films shows a fight between two squads of combat swimmers, cheerfully harpooning each other. In fact, the effectiveness of such guns was extremely low. First of all, the speed of the harpoon, range, rate of fire and destructive power were low. It was possible to fight off a shark with such a weapon, but from a trained enemy with the same harpoon gun it was extremely difficult.
Therefore, in many countries, the development of multiply-charged firearms immediately began. The density of the underwater environment, increasing with each meter of depth, dictated its own conditions. Nobody thought about the automatic equipment working under water. The development of the combat swimmer's weapon repeated the long path of the ground one. When almost all the armies of the world were already using automation, the 19th century came under water - the first revolvers appeared. In them, as befits the first revolvers, the charging chambers, in fact, were muzzle-loading barrels. The drum-block of 3-6 short barrels allowed for high-speed shooting. Only such a unit could often be recharged only in the factory.
In the USSR, the problem was approached in a complex manner. It is clear that a special cartridge is needed for shooting under water, and we started with it. For stabilization, the bullet was made long, like a dart (needle). The length of the ATP cartridge therefore reached 120 mm. In the mid-1970s, on the basis of a standard cartridge 5, 45x39 mm with the same bullet, but slightly blunt. When moving in water, a cavitation cavity (air bubble) was created, which sharply reduces the resistance of the water.
The Soviet army adopted special underwater weapons in 1975. These were the SPP underwater pistol and the APS special underwater submachine gun (APS-5). A four-shot and, accordingly, a four-barreled special pistol retained its lethal force at a distance of 17 m. Foreign counterparts barely exceeded 10 m. APS could hit a target at all at a distance of 25 m. However, the water in the seas and rivers is not so transparent as to use underwater weapons not of the maximum range … Effectively, this weapon can usually be used no further than 10–12.
Although the APS was highly praised by foreign combat swimmers, it also had its drawbacks. The most significant is a gas bubble filled with smoke, and therefore opaque, appearing after the shot. The swimmer did not see the result of the shooting. The same bubbles, especially with a small immersion, bursting on the surface, betrayed the fighter.
For a long time, nowhere, except in the Soviet Union, submarine machines were not developed. In the United States, in general, such projects were not accepted for consideration at one time, along with a perpetual motion machine and a transparent tank. The exception was China, which adopted a clone of the Russian APS called QBS-06 in service with combat swimmers in 2006. Only the caliber was slightly increased to the base PLA cartridge 5, 8x42 mm, which received a steel needle bullet, but with a pointed nose.
The underwater guns had one more drawback - the inability to use them in the air. Without the decelerating density of water, shock loads in the automation increased sharply in air. The resource of the APS-5 is only 180 shots on land, after which the destruction of the bolt carrier begins. And the cartridges have to be used underwater. Therefore, combat swimmers have to have two submachine guns - underwater and AKS74U.
On the right track
World and Russian combat experience shows that at least 80–90% of the combat missions of naval special forces are carried out on land. Therefore, an automaton is required that can operate equally reliably in two environments. In our case, this is a weapon-cartridge complex, in which the cartridge is the main element. Its dimensions should be the same, regardless of the change in the external environment. Or the machine gun must be able to shoot two types of cartridges.
The experimental automatic machine ASM-DT "Sea Lion" was created at the Tula Design Technological Institute of Mechanical Engineering on the basis of the APS. It provided for the possibility of feeding both with cartridges with a needle-shaped bullet and standard ammunition for a Kalashnikov assault rifle of caliber 5, 45x39 mm. Unlike the smooth barrel of the APS, this one had rifling. But the underwater bullets were sub-caliber, reduced in diameter so that they could pass through the barrel without cutting into the rifling. Different magazines were used for different cartridges. The assault rifle was not adopted for service.
At OJSC KBP, a new generation underwater submachine gun began to be developed in the early 1990s. The result was the A-91 automatic grenade launcher. Export version 5, 56A-91 - chambered for NATO. And further modernization of the A-91M, characterized by the installation of a 40 mm grenade launcher instead of 30 mm.
The complex consists of a 7, 62 mm machine gun and a 40 mm grenade launcher. Compiled according to the bullpup scheme. Balanced in mass due to the grenade launcher. Shot casings are thrown out through a special channel forward and outward near the pistol grip. The closed receiver prevents dirt from entering.
In 2005, KBP created the PSP cartridge based on the 5, 45x39 mm cartridge case for the AK-74. A steel bullet weighing 16 g and a length of 53 mm was placed in the sleeve. Deeply recessed into the sleeve, it did not go beyond the dimensions of the automatic cartridge. The rather large length and flat nose due to the formation of a cavitation cavity ensured firing accuracy under water. A training cartridge PSP-U with a bronze bullet weighing 8 g was also created.
The A-91M complex became the basis for a two-medium special ADS automatic machine developed in the branch of KBP, the Central Design and Research Bureau of Sports and Hunting Weapons (TsKIB SOO) of the High-Precision Complexes holding. The development was completed in 2007.
The ADS assault rifle with a caliber of 5, 45 mm solved the problem of the underwater-surface use of the assault rifle. And it was intended to replace the APS machine gun in service as a combat weapon for special units of the Russian Navy. The new machine gun is designed to defeat manpower and suppress enemy fire weapons:
- on land - by firing from a 5, 45x39 mm machine gun with all types of standard cartridges and from an under-barrel grenade launcher with 40-mm standard shots VOG-25 and VOG-25P;
- under water - by firing 5, 45x39 mm cartridges with special underwater PSP.
The ADS assault rifle with a built-in underbarrel grenade launcher is made according to the bullpup scheme, which provides a shorter assault rifle length compared to traditional schemes (with the same barrel length), increased maneuverability, better balancing and excludes the operations of unfolding and folding the butt. The use of impact-resistant plastics, special materials and coatings provides increased corrosion resistance and reduced weight of the weapon.
A gas regulator has been introduced into the design of the gas outlet device, which ensures the switching of gas modes "water-air".
Currently, the ADS machine gun is undergoing experimental military operation in the units of the naval special forces in the Northern, Black Sea and Pacific fleets of Russia. The machine, due to its versatility, compactness, has received positive reviews from the parts where it is used.
The constructor tells
For the first time, the ADS machine gun was shown at the naval show in 2013 in St. Petersburg. In the fall of the same year, it was demonstrated at the Russia Arms EXPO 2013 exhibition in Nizhny Tagil. Here at the stand of KBP OJSC, where the ADS machine was placed in an aquarium with water for clarity, Konstantin Remizov, an engineer of the KBP OJSC branch - TsKIB SOO, told the NVO correspondent about the unique machine:
- We have created the world's first two-medium machine gun, which allows you to fire both under water and in the air. Under water, fire is fired using a special ammunition that we have developed. Unlike its predecessor at that time - a machine gun that fired under water - APS, where arrows and stabilization in water were used, was largely due to the length of the arrow, in our cartridge stabilization occurs due to the design of the bullet. At the moment of exiting the bore, an air bubble forms around the bullet, and this stabilization is achieved. At the same time, we reduced the dimensions of the cartridge, and it fits into a standard magazine of a Kalashnikov assault rifle of caliber 5, 45. At the same time, the assault rifle has become universal - it is used both under water and on land. When entering land, a combat swimmer simply changes the magazine to another one of the same, but with cartridges of 5, 45x39 mm, the fire translator sets from the "water" position to the "air" position. After that, he is ready to carry out the task directly on land. At the same time, the aiming range of 500-600 m is usual for firing from a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
- When going on land, do you need to remove the remaining water from the vending machine?
- No, the water is simply drained, including from the store, it joins, they switched the fire translator - you can fire. Maximum combat readiness is ensured by external fuses of the machine gun, an integrated grenade launcher and an automatic fuse - one for the grenade launcher and one for the trigger of the machine. Shooting from the under-barrel grenade launcher is carried out with standard ammunition VOG-25 and VOG-25P with a caliber of 40 mm. A sighting device for a grenade launcher is provided, which is installed directly on the machine. When working on land, depending on the task being performed, a low-noise firing device, an optical or collimator sight can be installed. But this is an earlier version, now we have a Picatinny rail installed on the top handle. At the request of the customer, the bar can be installed both from the bottom to the fore-end and from the side for mounting tactical flashlights and laser designators.
Many bullpup assault rifles are lame in that the center of gravity is shifted back, which affects negatively when shooting. In our sample, due to the integrated grenade launcher, the center of gravity is brought directly to the handle axis, which makes the assault rifle very obedient and comfortable to hold. The grenade launcher is integral.
Shooting from both the right and left shoulders is very convenient due to the fact that the spent cartridge case is ejected forward, this allows you to work in a group, without dousing your partners with cartridge cases, to work from a shelter. In this case, there is no gas pollution in the face of the shooter.
- It can be seen that the muzzle brake has a somewhat unusual appearance. Is he special?
- The design of the muzzle brake was developed for the possibility of firing under water and when firing in the air. This is know-how.
- Sea water is a rather corrosive liquid. Does salt settle or corrode the coating?
- The machine is treated with a special coating that prevents corrosion and can be used in a rather aggressive environment of sea water. Moreover, like any weapon, it also requires care, maintenance after the operation. That is, it is necessary to disassemble, lubricate.
- Does the lubricant not wash out?
- Strong leaching as such does not occur, because the design of the machine is closed. That is, a combat swimmer, having worked in the water, goes to land, again, I repeat, changes the store, changes the translator of fire to "air" and is ready to perform the task. Water is poured inside, but not in such volumes. Even on land, the closed design allows you to protect the weapon from external factors - dirt, dust. There are no windows here. The liner is ejected forward.
The shutter of the machine can be adjusted both for the right hand and for the left. Automation - gas outlet. It can also fire bursts underwater. Several samples are already in trial operation. Fighting swimmers test it both under water and on land, they shoot both single and bursts. In August last year, the machine gun was already put into service. For the first time at the marine salon, we showed it at the stand, and now we decided to place it in an aquarium so that people can see that it is an underwater machine created for these conditions.
It only remains to add: the world's first and only two-medium universal machine gun, equally effective under water and on land, another breakthrough novelty of JSC NPO High-Precision Complexes is a weapon of a combat swimmer of the XXI century.
