Full version with all the shooting footage is available for all Patrons:
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
It is also available to subscribers on Pepperbox and Floatplane:
https://www.pepperbox.tv/video/12941
https://www.floatplane.com/post/cvS8e83PUH
The AK-12 went through an extensive development program that attempted to substantially change the AK design, but failed. In 2015 the early design plans were scrapped, and the project reverted to simply making some changes to the AK-100 series. This resulted in the AK-12 being adopted as the new Russian standard infantry rifle in December 2017. The rifle in today’s video is that original adopted pattern. It uses a collapsing and side-folding stock, a substantially redesigned railed top cover with a rear-mounted RPK-style aperture sight, a combined gas and front sight block, a permanently affixed gas tube, and a trigger mechanism with safe, semi, 2-round burst, and full auto settings.
This AK-12 was captured by Ukrainian forces with the Magpul magazine you see in the video. The folks who gave me access to film it remain anonymous, and I very much appreciate their help!
AK-12 improved 2019 model:
Very nice… I’ve been hoping Ian would get his hands on one of these.
I think that this exists just goes to prove out my theory about the NGSW program: Nobody in combat going up against body armor feels the need for that miniature anti-tank rifle. If they did, the Russian Federation would be at the forefront of handing out bigger ‘n better, to deal with the Ukrainians wearing Western body armor.
For right now, the individual weapon is just fine with the “legacy” intermediate calibers. And, actually, much better than that overpowered monstrosity the US Army decided to field as “M-14/7.62 NATO Redux”.
I agree, although it’s come to my attention that the AK-12 had lots of service issues, such as poorly made accessory rail that wouldn’t allow optics to hold zero, safety levers that could be twisted past the supposed stopping points, and the “burst fire mode” that would slam-fire uncontrollably because idiots in the system put in counterfeit (or just poorly made) parts, thinking that the mere SHOW of overwhelming force (in fiction terms, the Tarkin Doctrine) would scare Ukraine into surrendering at the drop of a hat. I could be wrong.
Kirk:
In comparison, the M14 and 7.62 NATO were rational. At least they did not have a chamber pressure of 80,000 psi.
Only by comparison…
The idiocy of NGSW will become apparent once it sees actual combat, and the deficiencies come out. Followed shortly thereafter by the quiet reintroduction of the M4…
It’ll be quite like the way the M4 became the standard, in the first damn place. It was originally meant to be a weapon for the afterthoughts, the combat support troops. As soon as the Infantry saw it, tried it out, and discovered its virtues…? It was “Hey, we’re taking these…” and none of the damn things ever got fielded to the units they were slated for.
Which just goes to show how badly they got the M16A2 as a design, and how poorly it answered the needs of the combat infantryman.
NGSW will go the same way. They can’t get the fancy sights into full production or issue, nor can they get the actual justification for the whole atrocity going, namely the high-pressure ammo. My guess is that there’s going to be a sudden contact with reality, and they’re going to forget the whole thing as quickly as they can.
The real issue they should have addressed, namely piss-poor MG doctrine and training? Hasn’t been touched. They’re still issuing the M122/192 tripods, and didn’t even bother to acquire the things they needed to adapt the M250 to them in the first place. The entire idea was that they’d somehow manage to be able to reach out beyond the usual bipod-fire limits of 800m, which is utterly ludicrous. The real limitation isn’t the cartridge, it’s the firing platform/doctrine issue.
MG qualification still reflects a Korean War-era concept of defensive fires from fixed prepared fighting positions. No dynamic movement, no hasty positions with tripods, no use of the T&E coordinated with leadership-driven fire control using things like binoculars with mil reticles.
Total waste of money, time, and effort.
I am tempted top agree.
by design the cleaning rod sits in the pistol grip, disassembed in 5 pieces
Claiming that we need to follow what the Russkies see as adequate in Ukraine fails to study the history of Russian weapons development. They have been all over the place, running down rabbit holes with AFVs and Aircraft as their military industrial complex, run by strange versions of Marxists and organized crime, spends other people’s money. Nothing wrong with a 6MM caliber other than people hate change.
There’s nothing “right” with it, either.
The idjits who came up with NGSW fundamentally mis-diagnosed the issues behind the supposed “overmatch” problem encountered in Afghanistan. It wasn’t that the individual weapons were not working, it was that the machinegun doctrine they’d thought adequate… Wasn’t.
You go traipsing through the Hindu Kush and take random MG fire from some Afghan type, shooting at you. The idea that the appropriate response is to hunker down and return fire with individual weapons and your bipod-mounted (because you leave your tripods back in the FOB…) MG teams is clearly delusional. It does not work that way; you cannot effectively answer those fires with those weapons.
Giving everyone a high-power 6.8mm cartridge for the individual weapon and a new MG still fired off the bipod? WTF? How is that going to help matters?
You want to answer that sort of MG fire, you have to be able to deliver tight beaten zones consistently and in a controlled manner at max range. Then, you can use those beaten zones to slaughter the enemy gunners, or at least, keep their heads down. You’re not going to do that with diffuse individual weapon fire and bipod-mounted MG fire, which is only going to be effective out to about 800m.
NGSW was completely delusional in diagnosing the problem, and the “solution” they came up with isn’t going to do squat for actually doing anything at all effective to fix it.
You want to fix the “Overmatch” issue? You need better training on the MG, better doctrine, better equipment. Improved tripods; rangefinders; observation gear; internal comms gear for better coordination. That will actually address the problem; a new cartridge, a heavier weapon, and the same sort of inadequate MG firing platform solution isn’t doing it. Ever.
These idjits have fundamentally mistaken what an individual weapon is, what it is for, and what it does. You need a light, handy tool for the close-in fight, the ammo needs to be light and small enough to carry in large quantities, and you don’t need the .276 Pedersen Redux to do it.
Maybe the 5.56mm NATO is the ideal individual weapon cartridge, maybe it isn’t. Whatever the case, it’s a better individual weapon cartridge than that POS NGSW abortion ever will be, and we’re going to be finding that out the hard way the first time we go into combat with it. I will lay long odds that the NGSW will rapidly be returned to organizational arms rooms, and the M4 will make a hasty return to being the basic infantry individual weapon.
Having had a bit more time to consider arguments in this matter, I’d like to submit the following:
The issue with NGSW isn’t necessarily with the caliber. It’s more the approach, which led to the caliber.
The idea was “We’re not able to reach out and hit the enemy firing at us…”, and they then came up with the fantasy delusion that the primary causative factor there was the cartridge.
The reality is that the cartridge wasn’t ever the issue. The actual issue is that any weapon fired by the average individual rifleman is inherently incapable of really effectively answering that sort of “overmatch(ing)” fire from the enemy.
And, for a myriad of reasons not at all related to the caliber. One, the average rifleman in combat only has so much “inherent accuracy” to apply, and that ends out at about 400m on a really good day. The reasons for this are that a.) it’s really, really hard to spot targets effectively past that point, b.) the rifleman and his weapon are inherently not as capable of the sort of necessary accuracy and lethality they’d need, even if they spotted the target, and c.) the nature of the target itself. You’re basically trying to engage what should be an area target (because you can’t actually pinpoint precisely where that enemy MG position is…) with a point-target weapon.
This is not a winning proposition, and the idiotic idea that handing out mo’ bettah cartridges (and, less of them…) is going to fix the issue is delusional and insane on a scale I can’t even begin to articulate.
I honestly don’t know if the proposition that the drone has fundamentally changed things is operable or not. I do know that the way combat has actually worked since WWI does not trend towards things like NGSW working in actual combat. The individual weapon is purely a local security tool, effective out to about 300-400m. Period. If you’re optimizing it for anything past that, you are really wasting your time, and fundamentally do not understand how modern combat actually works. If you have a target past that range band, you absolutely have to be engaging it with an area weapon, because if you’re not? You’re leaving enemy casualties on the table, the ones you’re not observing. The whole point to using an area weapon in these cases is to hit the enemy forces you’re not able to observe, and if you don’t? Well, congratulations: You’ve just run an excellent little training session for the enemy, teaching them that to be observed like Abdullah is a death sentence.
You should not be in the business of running training seminars for the enemy. You should be in the business of killing them, and all their friends along with them.
That is, if you want to win.
The whole of the NGSW program is based on a totally delusional idea of what an individual weapon is for, and what it is capable of, fired off the individual rifleman’s shoulder in actual combat. You very rarely ever get an opportunity to apply the sort of personal attention to a target in combat that you get on a known-distance range, and the idea that you will? Often enough to make a lick of difference in a tactical/operational sense? Insane. The lowest common denominator of actual combat would be “individual rifleman targets are typically no more than 300m out”, and that’s been true since WWI. That being the case, the bias in design ought to be towards “Light, handy, and capable of carrying tons of ammunition”, which sure as hell isn’t the NGSW.
What NGSW represents is a total failure to understand the role and mission of the individual weapon, something that has been an operable fact of tactical life since WWI. No matter what conflict or period you’re talking, the default position should have always been something along the lines of the AK-47, the M16, or the StG44. Period. You may want to fantasize about the “precision rifleman”, but the raw fact is, the median for that role is “300m max”, and anything past that is a waste of time for a point-target weapon.
You want to fix the “overmatch” issue? The way to do it is more and better MG teams, with better equipment, along with mortars. Ain’t nothing else going to do it, that is affordable and infantry-portable.
This is another sign that the US military fundamentally does not understand how to fight at this level. When the leadership goes out, sees what is going on, and then decides that something like NGSW is the appropriate response to the tactical situation? That’s incredibly telling, and what it’s telling us is that the majority of the US Army’s doctrinal thinkers do not have clue one about basic infantry combat.
The whole thing is insane. I could make out the outlines of the problem back before I retired, but I really had no damn idea how bad it was.