Breaking news
The assault rifle for the Ratnik Russian future soldier system to be selected in the next few months TASS 12903161.
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Defence & Security News - Russia
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| The assault rifle for the Ratnik Russian future soldier system to be selected in the next few months. | |||
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An assault rifle to be part of the Ratnik infantry combat system will be selected based on the outcome of the operational evaluation in a year or a year and a half, TsNIITOCHMASH Director General Dmitry Semizorov has told the Echo Moskvy radio in an interview.
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"Two assault rifles, the AK-12 and the upgraded AEK, have been developed under this program. Both have passed their preliminary official tests and have been in operational evaluation for a year now. Once the opeval is over, the customer will decide whether he will include one of them into his inventory or maybe both," he said.
The AK-12 is a new gneration of assault rifle designed and developped by the Russian Company Kalashnikov. Russia's largest firearms manufacturer, Izhmash unveiled in February 2012 a prototype of its new Kalashnikov AK-12 assault rifle with improved ergonomics and tactical flexibility. The AK-12 assault rifle wa presented for the first time to the public in June 2012 at the the defence exhibition in Moscow, Engineer Technologies 2012. The Russian Company Kovrov Mechanical Plant has developed its new AEK A-545, the successor of the AEK-971 assault rifle which was developed at the Kovrov Mechanical Plant (KMZ) by chief designer Sergey Koksharov in the late 1970s and 1980s. The AEK A-545 (official GRAU designation 6P67), as well as the AK-12, had passed state Ratnik trials. The 5.45×39mm A-545 features iron sights that consist of a rotary rear drum aperture and a hooded front post creating a significantly longer sight line and ambidextrous fire mode selection controls. On the A-545 the Warsaw Pact side-rail bracket is omitted and replaced by a Picatinny Rail on a redesigned receiver top for mounting auxiliary equipment like aiming optics. "As far as the weapons are concerned, they are being used by various units now. Hence, statistics are being accumulated, e.g. whether the weapons are easy to carry, whether they are handy, etc. The Ratnik has not entered service yet, it has been in opeval," TsNIITOCHMASH’s director general added. "The system will be ordered into the inventory in full after we have tackled all issues of the weapons. I mean some of its components have entered service, but the system as a whole will have followed suit in a year, a year and a half, tops, I guess," Semizorov said. Ratnik kits have been supplied to the Special Forces, Airborne Force and some of ordinary army units in the first place. |
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 Kovrov Mechanical Plant AEK A-545 assault rifle |
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