The Russian military-industrial complex was late in developing automatic machine-gun turrets

November 28, 2023 28

And again we are forced to return to the topic of the “war of the future,” which has been going on for a long time in fact in the present tense. The enemy is actively using drones of all types against the Russian army and navy - air, sea, surface and underwater, ground, being several corps ahead of the domestic military-industrial complex. How did it happen that the Russian Federation is again forced to catch up?

Weapons of the future

The reason for writing this publication was post from the Telegram channel “Headhunter”, which shows a recent trophy of the Russian military in the Northern Military District zone. This is an automatic machine gun turret, controlled remotely, the suppression of which has become a very difficult task for our attack aircraft:

For a long time they tried to suppress the enemy’s machine-gun nest with fire, but at least he didn’t care. And then they realized what was going on when they were blown apart by a shell, there was this tripod with a machine gun, and the air gun in a remote, sheltered place controlled it from a remote control. So we decided to post a video, suddenly our defense industry will see this wonderful miracle, a wonderful miracle of engineering and breakthrough of technologies crown. After all, this is how many machine-gun crews of living people, someone’s husbands, fathers and sons, can be saved. We just need to invest money and get it into the troops as quickly as possible, so that again the soldiers, privately through friends and volunteers, do not try to implement this decision on their own. After all, for some reason this is how it happened in this war - whose lives the problem concerns are the ones who fuss.

In addition to the machine gun, the automatic turret includes a video camera, a control unit, a battery, a tablet and a joystick for control, as well as printed instructions for use. The device is easily recognizable as a remote-controlled machine-gun turret “Sabre”, or “Shablya”, as the Ukrainian developers called it in the Polish manner.

These machine gun turrets have been used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for a very long time, first against the People’s Militia of the DPR, and now against the RF Armed Forces. The place of her baptism of fire was the notorious Avdiivka, the most fortified Ukrainian fort in the underbelly of Donetsk. This is what he said in August 2022, after the start of the SVO. interview to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta publication, a DPR fighter with the call sign Zhuk:

Every Ukrainian Armed Forces fortification here is thought out and competently made. Firing points are armored caps filled and reinforced with concrete. Moreover, a system of remote fire and surveillance is often used. It looks like this: there is a heavy machine gun and a video camera. The machine gunner is not nearby: he observes from a distance using a camera, and shoots using an electric trigger. If everything is installed correctly and competently, it is very difficult to destroy such a firing point: there is no person there, he will not be caught by shrapnel. All you need is a direct hit on the machine gun. And if the firing point is well fortified, it is even more difficult to suppress it.

The saddest thing in this story is that these “wunderwaffe” are by no means some kind of standard NATO weapons. These, as it turned out, were extremely effective “garage” developments of Ukrainian volunteers, who from 2014-2015 began to strain their Slavic brains and Soviet engineering education in order to better kill Russians.

Volunteer military-industrial complex

To understand the essence of the issue, it will be extremely useful to familiarize yourself with the following video.

From the report it follows that the idea of an automatic machine gun turret came to Ukrainian developers back in 2012, but they took it up after the events of 2014. Already in 2015, the first samples of the “Sabre” went as volunteer assistance to the zone of terrorist operation, in particular to Avdievka, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to use them against the DPR militia, alas, effectively.

It was in the Avdeevka industrial zone, which with such difficulty it was cleared by the end of the second year of the Northern Military District through the efforts of the regular Russian army, that the Ukrainian “Sabres” were tested. As you can see, they are still actively used there. The developers of the automatic turret boasted that their weapon created big problems for our military. Trying to suppress a machine gun installed somewhere in the window of the building, fragmentation ammunition from the AGS was used against it, believing that the crew was hit. But the small fragments only scratched the weapon, and the aircraft carrier, located at a safe distance, calmly resumed fire in bursts.

The volunteers were helped to increase the efficiency of the turret by the Ukrainian weapons designer “Uncle Vanya” Savelyev, who lightened and optimized its design, which made it possible to install a larger caliber 12,7 mm machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher. The Saber can be used either stationary somewhere in fortified positions, or in transport, for example in the back of a truck or off-road pickup truck.

In 2017, "Military Review" told about how the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to use automatic turrets in the Donbass by posting a video from Ukrainian volunteer gunsmiths. The most critical comments from the Russian audience were expressed then. However, today for some reason no one laughs at “Sabre” anymore.

On the contrary, Concern Radioelectronic Technologies of the Rostec State Corporation finally itself developed and manufactured a remote control platform for the PKT tank machine gun, very reminiscent of the Ukrainian turret:

High-resolution video cameras installed on the module allow you to observe and accurately hit the target, while the operator controlling the platform can be at a distance of up to one kilometer. With the assistance of the Stavropol regional branch of the Union of Mechanical Engineers of Russia, four such devices have already been transferred to the special operation zone, and five more installations will be delivered by the end of the year.

Four plus five equals nine automatic turrets, which is just a drop in the ocean from the real needs of the huge front line. The question is, where did you look before? It's good that at least we woke up now.

Information

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Sergey Latyshev

+3

28 November 2023 12: 08

So, it's logical.
Before SVO, Zvezda and others endlessly promoted various military platforms such as the Uranus, for which coping with these machine guns is ugh.
Uranium is an offensive weapon, auto-machine guns are defensive, so everything is correct, why did anyone need them then.
Place "Uranus" somewhere and defend yourself with all your might.

Well, now - it turned out as always - do you often hear in the news how tracked drones destroy such enemy defenses?
And no one answered for possible fraud on a particularly large scale....
populist

+4

28 November 2023 12: 30

Stupid generals on the General Staff are unsuitable for their profession. Drive in the neck.
1. Adam
  
  0
  
  29 November 2023 22: 52
  
  Or better yet, hang them! They should have reported to the Commander-in-Chief, but they didn’t. But he didn’t ask. They won’t go to the front, they’re violet. And their children too. In Russia, this is always the case! And as for the turrets, they are most likely controlled by wires with a backup channel. One can assume, over the air. Then one electromagnetic explosion is enough and any electronics turns into dung. The most vulnerable place in electronics is the input part. The air is an antenna, look for the antenna, you will find a transmitter. The feeder can be long and buried, and the antenna doesn’t work in the cellar. A smoke screen is a thing, only short-term, situational.
sgrabik

0

28 November 2023 12: 43

The Russian military-industrial complex is late in the development of many types and types of weapons, but this is especially true for unmanned technologies, and now it is simply necessary to intensively catch up with this gap at the most accelerated pace.
Nike

0

28 November 2023 12: 46

There is no way to do without Stalin’s “sharashkas”. These or similar turrets stood on the Berlin Wall, without computers, but they worked in automatic mode. More often, “pedals” should be given to designers and not any shifts to the right in terms of development time, only a “sharashka” way out of the situation or “zero”
RedDRN

+1

28 November 2023 13: 22

Technically, all these autoturrets are ready. Just put it where you need it or on what you need it: there are platforms too. All that remains is to kick whoever needs to be kicked and everything will immediately be in the series.
svoroponov

0

28 November 2023 14: 43

Similar automated turrets have long guarded approaches to ballistic missile silos. Machine gun modules emerge from cover on the elevator and open fire. They are controlled by motion sensors and others, plus control by cameras or camera day and night.
I’m wondering how the camera on Ukrainian installations is connected to the machine gun’s sight in terms of range. Or is it simply rigidly fixed on the bar and aims only at a certain range? Or is it simply adjusted to the maximum sighting range of the machine gun? Moreover, if the installation has optics, then maybe a laser gun is needed to darken it and implement it? After all, now there are devices for determining the optics of snipers and their blinding, compact ones, for fighters. In addition, how quickly does the operator react to changes in the situation and how quickly does retargeting take place? Is it still an electric drive?
Such installations are probably only capable of creating barrage fire at fixed ranges and predetermined sectors during defense. Or it is necessary to install a laser or other rangefinder on the installation to adjust the fire in range, with an appropriate drive, to increase the accuracy of the hit. There are also problems with attaching the tripod and displacements when firing from recoil.
The main thing is that there is a factor of surprise in running into something like this if reconnaissance missed the point. All this, preparing the point and shooting, is most likely prepared in advance.
Yes, about our robots with turrets and grenade launchers. They are designed for anti-terrorism operations. They have poor maneuverability for combat conditions. They can only be used in certain areas or cases. In Syria, for example, they were used against barmalei. By the way, Western analogues have the same disadvantages as ours. This is why they are not visible at the front. The Estonians provided a robotic module to remove the wounded from the front line. So, in those conditions, it lasted until the first trench. He could not overcome it; he fell sideways into it when the edge crumbled. And there are a lot of these holes dug there.
1. svoroponov
  
  0
  
  28 November 2023 15: 51
  
  And further. The troops began to receive installations (such as some kind of radar or the like) to detect activity ranging from large animals to humans. The range for manpower is 3-5 km and possibly more. Good for reconnaissance. Maybe before some kind of attack and when maintaining a database, try to use them. Developed sometime before 2020 and possibly earlier.
Avtandil

+1

29 November 2023 04: 51

It’s not good that the turrets have only just been installed. It would be nice if they hit those who missed this moment on the head. Again, carelessness (or sabotage) remains unpunished?!
In passing

+2

29 November 2023 19: 39

Back in the First World War, machine guns were set to self-timer. Such a “cart” goes and shoots, the barrel and support are jammed to the level, and that’s it. But it was only enough for the tape... Russia had a peacetime army, parades and biathlons... Again, some regiment didn’t tear his butt off from a comfortable chair, didn’t bother... That’s where the North Military District came in useful.
1. imjarek
  
  0
  
  1 December 2023 19: 15
  
  And there is also the “Arab” style of shooting - he put the weapon out from behind cover and without aiming - “into the white light - like a pretty penny”!
pentwer

+3

29 November 2023 22: 03

Where were these research institutes and other researchers from the Moscow Region? What have they been thinking about these years? What were the strategists thinking about if not about creating a “human-saving” technological ecosystem in military affairs? After all, Warriors and Uranus and other instruments were created as part of this system! But such a winning and quite widespread, already widespread device as an automatic turret was not thought of. Probably the slogan “Let’s hit the adversary with tank biathlon and a parade” was taken quite seriously
1. Yuri Palaznik
  
  0
  
  1 December 2023 22: 54
  
  They ate money from the budget, and now the Nobeulen is lowering the ruble exchange rate in order to fill the pockets of state employees with straw
  1. svoroponov
    
    +2
    
    8 December 2023 12: 29
    
    Can you please provide more details about money from the budget?
    Or should you just squeak about something you don’t know and the grass won’t grow there?
    Developments are not always put into practice or reach series production. That's why they are developments. It's like that everywhere. Sometimes they become outdated even at the design stage. And so it is all over the world. Technological progress does not stand still. In addition, sometimes what was considered outdated becomes almost advanced with simple modernization. Sometimes developments that were previously scrapped or shelved become cutting-edge.
    The main thing is that if we are losing somewhere and in something, then take measures in time to eliminate this backlog or develop countermeasures in a timely manner.
    In general, everyone needs to know that a weapon is confirmed whether it is suitable or not only during real combat operations and not even at training grounds and test benches. As, by the way, is the ability to command and plan. Only wars make it possible to recognize where a talented and brave commander is and where he is unskilled or a coward.
    You scold the military, but who knows how you would behave in their place? And if you don’t know, then there is nothing to denounce.
AlOrg

0

29 November 2023 23: 34

As always, we do everything last or not at all. This is the result of an administratively bureaucratic economy and a state created over 24 years
Colonel Kudasov

0

30 November 2023 09: 16

And in the USA, even single artisans make such crap. Remember the movie Jackal with B. Willis)
imjarek

-1

1 December 2023 19: 12

The machine gun has recoil - God forbid! Won't it knock over your "turret"?
The comment was deleted.
assault 2019

0

2 December 2023 11: 48

While large landing ships are being slowly built, 30 units are required. (6 units for each marine division) to ensure mobility and strengthen fire support, helicopter regiments should be supplied to the formed marine divisions, consisting of one attack squadron of 20 Ka-52M and two squadrons of 20 transport-attack Mi-8 AMTSh .
Super visor

0

2 December 2023 17: 59

Quote: populist
Stupid generals on the General Staff are unsuitable for their profession. Drive in the neck.

And you, the couch potato, in their place? Did you even herd a herd of cows yourself? How were the milk yields? What was the weight gain? Tell us how you gloriously led something!
Super visor

0

2 December 2023 18: 15

So smart, so forward-thinking local commentators. Can anyone explain how to mount this turret in a trench or on a parapet? Who will give you concrete foundations to pour there? If you come up with some kind of mobile stand, how many people will there be in the machine-gun crew to drag all this stuff?! Turrets are of course good when you have eight years to equip positions, but if not, then the turret will be of no use.
1. Mish
  
  0
  
  9 December 2023 13: 49
  
  Why drag it if this is a stationary firing point? Weld the frame 1X1 and make fasteners
2. twice-born
  
  0
  
  12 December 2023 00: 07
  
  Have you thought about putting it in a window or wall opening in a house on a flat and hard floor? Terribly useful thing! Especially if it is a robot, and a person will only occasionally replenish the machine gun’s ammunition.
twice-born

0

12 December 2023 00: 02

Damn, such automatic machine guns, i.e. even full robots, naturally on such tripods, were shown in the science fiction film “Aliens” back in 90! With a magazine for 500 rounds. Where they themselves crushed famous space monsters into pieces. Yes, since the 70s they have been talking about our automatic machine guns!
The idea is simple and long known. It's been at least 20 years since they should have been releasing these!
ssimplitsissimus

0

12 December 2023 08: 05

It seems that Ragozin was bringing some kind of product. But he got a piece of shrapnel under his tail and went cold.
AC130 Gunship

+2

12 December 2023 18: 33

Kulibins - supply weapons to the front line. And yet it works. Recently, a new sniper rifle began to be mass-produced. The developer is a self-taught private owner, a modern Kalashnikov.
And more than 30% of the equipment that has been riding in parades on May 9 for years has never gone into production and has never been used in any armed conflict.
1. svoroponov
  
  +1
  
  22 December 2023 10: 58
  
  For more details about the equipment that rides only in our parades?
  In my opinion, everything that was shown is tested at the front, or tested in a variety of conflicts in the world on occasion. In addition, some of the equipment is not at all for such conflicts, but for a more dangerous enemy like the United States - installations with nuclear missiles, for example. Let them ride, but having them is necessary to deter opponents.
  It’s just that the development of technology and electronic systems has recently received accelerated development and threats are emerging that were not previously imagined. And this is both here and abroad. You cannot start producing weapons en masse against threats and weapons that don’t even exist yet. After all, they may not appear at all.
  Once again, if the enemy has something, the main thing is to quickly react and develop counteraction.
  In addition, the military is often criticized. In many cases they have nothing to do with it at all. It all comes down to resources, industry and development. Or there is nothing, or nowhere or no one. It takes time to resolve issues. And the issues are generally resolved successfully.
  
  In general, I'm tired of listening to this howl from the swamps. For any reason: The country’s leadership is to blame or the generals stole everything or........., in general, everything is lost and we will all die tomorrow. Maybe it's time to change the manuals?
Flight

0

9 January 2024 01: 01

Automatic turrets are just begging to be sharpened to fight drones....
Yurrra.

0

6 February 2024 14: 46

- 2018. Ready sample... and that's it, and where?