In the mid-1950s, the Soviet high command accepted a compromise that would shape frontline infantry small arms for decades: prioritizing platform commonality over dedicated squad-level suppressive fire capability. That decision, formalized with the 1959 adoption of an AK-derived automatic rifle, ...
In the years after World War II, the Soviet military asked a simple question: how could an infantry squad bring a higher volume of automatic fire without surrendering mobility? A lesson they learned from the Eastern Front, where volume of fire was king. The answer, in part, was the RPD; this ligh...
The AKS-74UB is one of the rarer Kalashnikov variants, a suppressed short carbine designed for missions requiring minimal noise and visual signature. Derived from the AKS-74U developed by Mikhail T. Kalashnikov in the 1970s, the AKS-74UB was created by a team of engineers at the Research Institut...