PLA Small arms

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
M2 ball was the AP of the 30.06 rounds it was steel alloy tip it a almost microscopic amount of Tungsten. The lead in the round was kinda like the sabots of a APFDS, it’s just to maintain the muzzle energy of the round imparted as it runs the length of the barrel. On impact it was shedded. Level IV armor must defeat the M2 round by US qualification.

The question on penetration of a intermediate caliber round vs a rifle caliber round against body armor is a mixed deal.
You have to have velocity but also the hardness. Put another way if you fling a 1 pound ball of mud at a window vs an equivalent solid rock. Mud goes splash, Rock goes smash.
I know that’s Hulk logic. Yet the the point is lead is soft on impact it transfers all its energy in a manor that doesn’t allow it to penetrate. The energy is spread over a larger surface area. The rock is hard it’s structure means that the glass cannot absorb the energy because it is concentrated at a central point and the mass acts to carry it through.
The same thing happens with a tank sabot round or a AP round vs armor. The armor is designed to try and capture and dissipate the impact energy by either being higher hardness or by capture via deformation.
Lead cores are the traditional form of ammunition it’s designed to expand on impact which works for body armor. A mallet if you will.
Hardened cores focus that energy into a single point and have been designed to maintain momentum. A pick ax.
The reason why 7.62x51mm, 6.8x51mm, 7.62x54mm and the like are having a resurgence is mass.

M855 and the like were designed to defeat light barriers like drywall and plywood not body armor. Steel cored intermediate caliber rounds vs very modern armor types is no contest. Armor wins.
To get through modern armor you need higher hardness cores like Tungsten carbide cores. However just a tip of that material is still not enough to make it through modern armor. So like has happened with tank guns even if you have a super high density cores round it doesn’t guarantee that the sub caliber penetrator can carry all the way through to the creamy center.
For that we need enough mass to carry the energy and momentum so as to allow the round to penetrate at as far as possible.
Intermediate small caliber rounds like the 5.56, 5.45, 5.8 just don’t carry enough energy to maintain AP potential at infantry ranges they were designed with low mass high velocity low volume. 7.62x39, 6.8x43 are trying to be more submachine gun round a higher mass lower velocity but higher impact round.
The reason larger rounds come in as they have a larger projectile generate higher pressures the larger diameter means you can fit a larger heavier longer sub caliber penetrator of modern high density alloy in the core allowing deeper penetration. This again parallels Tank guns. In the 50s-60s The US, Soviets, English had tanks with 120mm guns but the shells they fired and how they fired them means that despite the similarities of size, those older guns don’t hold a candle to their descendants. The old ones focused on HE the new ones on HV.
When the first modern tank guns appeared with smooth bores they focused on APFDS, as armor improved the rods had to get longer.
 

ohan_qwe

Junior Member
The QJZ89 HMG is due for a replacement.
Why, do it have any problems? US still uses M2 from 1933. QJZ89 is 17.5kg vs 38kg fir M2. I wonder why US haven't replaced M2 with something lighter yet? It's almost like running around with a M1919 while others use FN MAG.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
The type 89 buys weight savings at the cost of rate of fire. This is the same thing that has happened with the various attempts at replacing the US M2. I could detail case by case (M85, XM312, XM806) yet end game is M2 was never an Infantry weapon it was a HEAVY mounted MG from day one (which was pre 1933. 33 was when the more or less finished production iterations began) to today and frankly that means it’s perfectly fine for use with a few mods here and there. I mean mounted on a tank or Humvee is pretty good mobility. for a weapon meant to bring in heavy bullets against barriers and structures or infantry it’s rate of fire is a nice thing to have.
The Russians and Chinese though and the US have however flirted with doctrines of a more mobile infantry HMG.
Thing is though to set them up would take just as long as an M2. The want of a weapon with the reach of M2 but mobility of a M240 lead to the .338NM MG.
 

MwRYum

Major
Why, do it have any problems? US still uses M2 from 1933. QJZ89 is 17.5kg vs 38kg fir M2. I wonder why US haven't replaced M2 with something lighter yet? It's almost like running around with a M1919 while others use FN MAG.
Ma Deuce is a very enduring design because for its original role (mounted HMG) it performs so well that it could even stand-in as sniper rifle, so unless things like phase shift protection and whatever physics-bending stuff become reality, just give Ma Deuce some mounting points for optics and perhaps newer .50cal munitions, it's still rockin' for a few more decades if not longer.

QIZ89's problem is that in the pursuit for lightweight (26.5kg w/ tripod, whereas Ma Deuce hits 27kg just the gun itself), it sacrificed performance in the rate of fire and even the service lifespan. Certainly it's to be seen if the new HMG in development sort that out.
 

ohan_qwe

Junior Member
Are you saying that the low fire rate is a bad thing for an infantry hmg? 12.7mm ammo is quite heavy.

Do we know if the new hmg is for vehicles or infantry?
 

LawLeadsToPeace

Senior Member
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Registered Member
Are you saying that the low fire rate is a bad thing for an infantry hmg? 12.7mm ammo is quite heavy.

Do we know if the new hmg is for vehicles or infantry?
The new extremely light one is being issued to infantry for sure. The marines have already received them several months ago
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Kejora

Junior Member
Registered Member
Is there anything about PLA getting semi polymer ammo like USMC for their ultralight HMG?

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I posted this before
New information about the new 12.7mm HMG
View attachment 62503
According to Google translate:

For the new 12.7mm heavy machine gun, I can only use the four words "frenzy" to be stronger than the 89 type heavy machine gun. How about the domestic new large-caliber heavy machine gun?

Describe, focus on--

1 Weight loss:

(1) The gun body, the gun frame, the receiver, the stock, the floating seat, etc. The parts are mostly titanium alloy.

(2) The carbon fiber composite tripod weighs 6 kg, while the steel tripod of the 89 heavy machine gun weighs 8.5 kg.

(3) The ammunition box and the ammunition chain are made of engineering plastic, and the ammunition with 60 plastic chains is installed. The box weighs 1.2kg, while the steel bullet box of the 89 heavy machine gun weighs 2.1kg.

(4) The newly developed lightweight armor-piercing incendiary bomb uses a new alloy material shell, It may be an aluminum alloy shell, a bullet weighs a little more than 100g, and the 80 type The standard bullet of the machine gun weighs more than 120 grams.

(5) The whole set of a new 12.7mm heavy machine gun (including the frame, tripod, 5 ammunition boxes, 300 rounds and ammunition chain) is less than the 89 type heavy machine gun. It is about 9.5kg lighter.

(6) Conversely, the weight of the gun body is 3kg more than that of the 89 type heavy machine gun, and the weight of the gun body and tripod is 0.5kg more than that of the 89 type heavy machine gun.

2. In terms of accuracy:

(1) The gun body floating structure, the principle of front impact launching, two-stage spring floating Motivation and other technologies have reduced recoil and muzzle displacement by nearly 80%.

(2) Two-way ammunition delivery is adopted, and the projectile body is unchained into the chamber when the gun is recoiled. The impact of the delivery is small and the delivery is stable.
, Push when re-entry

(3) The flexible frame design is still adopted. Compared with the 89 heavy machine gun, the joint part of the frame and the gun body is improved, which is somewhat similar to the foreign trade W85 anti-aircraft machine gun.

(4) In addition to the white light scope and infrared night vision scope, it is also equipped with a new type of ballistic solver, using a 10x optical lens, the distance measurement is up to 2400m, and the weight is not more than 1.5kg.

(5) Ballistic gun experiment, the natural distribution of projectiles at a distance of 200m does not exceed 10cm. Use a bipod to shoot, and R100 at a distance of 200m does not exceed 32cm; use a tripod to shoot, and R100 at a distance of 200m does not exceed 24cm. The 70% projectiles at a distance of 1000m are scattered within a dense boundary of no more than 2.2m, which means a higher hit rate for military vehicle targets at a distance of 1000m.

Finally, I would like to say a word: as long as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is still on the border of our country, It is necessary for the troops to support firearms to reduce weight. Many of our weapons are driven by special needs created by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and are not limited to weight reduction. For example, the development and installation of the 02-type anti-aircraft machine gun is due to the fact that individual air defense missiles kill near boundaries on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
 
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