Infantry Heavy Machineguns

7/26/2019 Infantry Heavy Machineguns

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Amost powerful heavy machinegun, devel-

oped as far back as in World War II butwidely spread much later, was the Soviet

14.5-mm Vladimirov machinegun. It was cham-

bered for the 14.5x114 round that had previous-

ly been used by PTRD and PTRS antitank rifles.

The HMG was used to derive a number of

various mounts. It used to fit Soviet postwarheavy tanks as a coaxial and anti-aircraft HMG.

Single-, twin- and quad-barrelled ZPU-1, ZPU-2

and ZPU-4 antiaircraft machineguns were

developed, too. The HMG was also emplaced

on river boats and APCs, e.g. the BTR-50,

INFANTRY HEAVY MACHINEGUNSINFANTRY HEAVY MACHINEGUNS

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Despite the expediency and effec-

tiveness of employing heavy

machineguns having been proven

repeatedly by many a war, their

development and production have

been mastered by only several

countries. The reason is not the

ability (or lack of it) of the industry

of even the developed countries to

develop and make rather sophisti-cated weaponry, but the realisa-

tion of the weaponry's role in pre-

sent-day wars and armed conflicts

as well.

,

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3, 2007 .)

(continued fromin Army and Navy Review,Issue 3, 2007)

Victor Korablin,Professor,

Academy of Mil itary Sciences


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(Russian acronym for immediate action, incen-

diary), BS (Russian acronym for sintered metal

alloy core) has penetrating capability twice

as that of the B-32 bullet).At the same time, the armies of the United

States, its allies and a number of other coun-

tries in the postwar period remained equipped

with the Browning M2 HB with virtually no

changes despite all the drawbacks of the com-plicated design of the weapon, the need tohave it carefully and precisely regulated, and

necessity to maintain it regularly. In addition,

replacement of the quickly overheating barrel

required a lot of time, which considerably

decreased the weapon's effective rate of fire.

In addition to the United States, the productionof the Browning was launched by other coun-

tries as well. The development of a new HMG

was postponed because of high costs, despite

the expediency of the matter.

In the postwar period and up to the 1970s,

only two heavy machineguns were further

developed considerably throughout the worldin accordance with belonging to NATO or the

Warsaw Pact Organisation). They were the

Soviet DShKM and the US M2 HB.

In spite of all the advantages of the DShKM,

the Soviet Union considered it necessary todevelop a new heavy machinegun with lower

weight, which was to make it convenient for

infantry units to operate. The efforts to develop

the new weapon began in 1969. The new HMG

was developed by Tula-based designers G.I.

Nikitin, Y.I. Sokolov and V.I. Volkov.In 1972, the machinegun passed all the tests

and entered inventory, dubbed 'the 12.7-mm

NSV Utyos heavy machinegun (NSV stood forNikitin-Sokolov-Volkov). The weapon's body

weighed only 25 kg. The infantry version, the

NSVS (S stood for 'stankovy' - Russian for'mounted'), was set on the 6T7 tripod mount

designed by L.V. Stepanov and K.A. Baryshev.

The mount allowed the machinegun to fire only

on ground targets, but it was six times lighter

than the versatile mount. As a result, the total

weight of the HMG on the mount decreased to43 kg. In addition to the tripod-mounted

machinegun, there was a tank version desig-

nated as NSVT (T stood for 'tankovy' Russian

for 'tank-mounted') fitted on the tank antiair-

craft mounting. The 6U6 versatile antiaircraft

machinegun was developed for the AirborneForce. The 6U10 and 6U11 mounts were

designed for emplacing machineguns in pillbox

embrasures. The Utyos-M naval turreted

machinegun was developed to fit river vessels.

The 12.7-mm NSV is a gas-operated weapon.

The locking of the barrel is wedge-type with ahorizontally sliding bolt. The feeding is from a

metallic belt. The HMG has a dual feed. The fir-

ing mechanism is hammerless and uses the bolt

carrier's energy. The trigger mechanism with

the rear sear allows automatic fire only. Fire

control is performed through manual firing incase with the 12.7-mm NSVS or by means of the

electric trigger in case with the 12.7-mm NSVT.

The machinegun has a quick-detachable barrel.

The machinegun set includes the SPP-1

(SPP-1M) day telescopic sight. If necessary,

12,7- - -

A 12.7-mm DShKMmachinegun made byan Iranian arms factory

12,7- M2 HB ,

The 12.7-mm M2 HB is not bada weapon but lacks the reliability of its Russian rivals


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The new HMG has a different locking sys-

tem: the elevator with locking lugs was used

instead of the NSV-12.7's wedge-type lock. It

increased the machinegun's reliability duringintensive fire.

Due to introducing a new muzzle brake and

improving the gas-operation automatic parts,

the rec oil ene rgy dec reased and the

weapon's stability increased, which facilitat-ed the accuracy.

The barrel's new design allowed very

accurate intensive fire without its extra cool-

ing. In addition, the HMG featured a stable

rate of fire and accuracy throughout its use-

ful operating life.

Changing the barrel manufacture technologyand using new structural materials enabled the

barrel's service life to grow up to 10,000 shots

fired. Such durability of the barrel is commen-

surable with the service life of all the parts of

the machinegun, which enabled the HMG to do

without a replacement barrel.

The HMG's design provides high operatingreliability within the environment temperature

from -500C to +500C, in conditions of high dust

content, after submergence, without cleaning

and oiling it for a long time, ice-covered and

under other difficult operational conditions.The simplicity of the design makes the

HMG's maintenance easy and enables the

crew to provide minor discrepancy repair

required during tactical employment, using

spares parts and tools.

The new HMG has the same external andlinkage dimensions and weight as the NSV-12.7.

This allowed having it replaced in all in-service

machinegun systems and combat vehicles.Design solutions used by the designers dur-

ing the NSV-12.7's upgrade resulted in a con-

siderable enhancement of the combat charac-teristics of the advanced Russian heavy

machinegun and led to the development of a

virtually new machinegun, in fact.

Ananlysis of the latest combat operations

has revealed the necessity of developing a

common HMG that could be tacticallyemployed on special mounts fitting unarmored

and armored vehicles, helicopters and river

boats. Such a machinegun must be easily

detachable and immediately employed by

infantry as an LMG.

High recoil energy of other Russian and foreign12.7-mm machineguns make the development of

a HMG on a bipod rather complicated. As far as

the new Russian machinegun is concerned, its

small size and low weight, lower recoil energy

and higher stability during firing have made devel-

oping a HMG on a bipod feasible.In 1998, a new MG dubbed the 12.7-mm

KORD entered the inventory. KORD is a Russian

acronym for 'KOvrovskiye Oruzheiniki

Degtyaryovtsy' (Kovrov gun makers

Degtyaryov followers). That way the arms

designers highlight that the Degtyaryov plantremains among the Russian leaders in design-

ing and producing small arms, inheriting and

continuing the work of arms designers

Fyodorov, Degtyaryov, Vladimirov, Simonov,

Goryunov, Shpagin, Voronkov and others.

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The 12.7-mm KORD can fire both from the mount and from the bipod

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FN 0.50 36 1656 880 450550 1500 12,7x99M2 HB/QCBfl

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35,8 1588 860 575-600 1500 12,7x107-12,7 25 1560 820860 700-800 2000 12,710712,7 25 1577 820860 650750 2000 12,7x107

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF HMGs

Country P e r f o r m a n c e sMachinegun Weight, Length, Muzzle Rate of Aimed Round

kg mm velocity, fire, fire usedm/s rd/min. range, m

USA

Browning 38 1,651 930 450600 1,500 12.7x990.50 M2 HBBelgium

FN 0.50 36 1,656 880 450550 1,500 12.7x99M2 HB/QCBUK

Manroy0.50 M2 38.5 1,651 893 450500 1,850 12.7x99

HB QCBRussia

DShKM 35.8 1,588 860 575600 1,500 12.7x107NSV-12,7 25 1,560 820860 700800 2,000 12.710712,7mm 25 1,577 820860 650750 2,000 12.7x107KORD


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At present, the following versions of the

12.7-mm KORD are in production:

The tank version 6P49 (1,625x135x215 mm,

27 kg) is the baseline MG variant. It has anelectric trigger and is designed to fit armored

vehicles to fight low-altitude aircraft, destroy

thin-skinned and unarmored vehicles and

weapon systems and kill bunched-up enemy

manpower.The infantry version - 6P50 (1,580x135x215, 25

kg) - is designed to fit medium mounts and to be

employed for mechanised infantry fire support.

The KORD with the left-side feed 6P51

(1,625x135x215, 27 kg) is designed for use with

the right-side feed machinegun in twin-gun

attachments.The infantry LMG version 6P50-1

(1,980x450x500 mm in the horizontal position,

32 kg) serves as a general-purpose (versatile)

machinegun.

The machinegun attachment version

6P50-2 (1,980x810x450 mm, adjustable height,

52 kg) is designed to fit stationary and mobilemilitary vehicles.

The machinegun attachment version

6P50-3 (1,980x810x1600 mm, adjustable height,

75 kg) has the same purpose as the 6P50-2 has,

additionally has a height-adjustable pedestalfor the shooter to assume different positions.

Considering the fact that the 12.7x99 round is

widespread on the world's ammunition market,

the KORD chambered for the standard 12.7-mm

NATO round has also been developed in

Kovrov. It has a different barrel, chamber andfeeding mechanism. Its performance is similar

to that of the standard KORD.

The KORD with a bipod on a MG mount and apedestal can fit naval ships, boats, railway flat

wagons and pickup and truck bodies.

A machinegun on a bipod is easily detachableand can be used as a hand-held one by infantry

for fire support in operations of all types. The

weapon's design provides it with a wide horizon-

tal field of fire. High accuracy is provided as well.

Its rather low weight (31 kg) and quick reaction

time enable the crew to displace easily and pro-vide fire support to attacking infantry while mov-

ing along with them. The machinegun is fed from

a portable 50-round magazine. The MG has an

open-type iron sight and an attachment for an

optical sight. Fitted with the optical sight and fir-

ing in the single-shot mode, the machinegun canbe used as a large-calibre sniper weapon.

The basic characteristics of up-to-date

12.7-mm machineguns from the world's leading

manufacturers are listed in the table. Analysis

of machineguns' performances shows that the

latest Russian designs are a match for their for-eign counterparts while gaining the lead over

them in some respects. The KORD's high com-

bat characteristics, original design solutions

and high manufacturability highlight its superi-

ority to the previous designs in the class, mak-

ing it internationally competitive.

4 2 0 0 7

ARMY

47

Many foreign experts were delightedto watch the KORD firing

12,7- 616 - fl

The 12.7-mm KORD on the 6U16gun mount and SP pintleis used on boatsand light craft

Documents

Infantry Heavy Machineguns