Real or fake, the body armour held up pretty well, and when you consider that a lot of real-world impacts will occur at significantly longer ranges, involving bullets in the ballpark of 5.56mm, all but out of sufficient penetrating power by the time they reach the vest. It seems adequate.
Added to that that these plates he tested are covered in layers of Kevlar, but also the load carrying equipment would have four 30 shot AK magazines across them too which would also need to be penetrated... neither of which would stop a bullet of course, but would certainly effect its trauma impact on the soldier and would at the very least reduce the penetration into the material in the vest.
They have heated layers in their standard kit so extra layers to reduce the effect of trauma would be implied too.
Not to mention the new materials revealed above that they are continuously working on... I don't think any soldier expects to go to war wearing a suit that will keep them safe from everything the enemy could possibly direct their way.
But, the most irksome comment is about the selector switch. The whole design philosophy of the standard Ak selector switch is that you can't (or it's difficult to) switch it from the safe position to full-auto without first passing single-shot mode. Whether that's for safety reasons, or because they want conscripts to using single-shot in the event that they don't know what they're doing, is anyone's guess; Probably both; but the fact remains. It's intentional, as far as I know.
If you follow the history of Kalashnikov there were enormous numbers if different prototypes that had all sorts of combinations of different features including with the selector switch and cocking handle on the left side and actually easier to reach and use than on most western rifles 20 years before most of these advanced western rifles even existed...
Surprised he didn't complain it was too noisy.
I think the idea was that in a high stress situation of getting shot at most people would lose much of their fine motor skills and would fumble with the basics.
The whole idea of training is muscle memory and unconsciously doing it one way so when you panic that is the way you do it.
The thing is that firing single shot is a western thing... normally in a panic or urgent situation a short burst of fire is more effective against sudden or fleeting targets... so firing a burst is a useful thing when a threat appears up close with no warning... as shown by the ballistic vest being hit multiple times and short range burst of fire is a great way to deal with a short range target and with the AK-74s 5.45mm calibre the bullet spread at short range should result in it hammering through even rather heavy body armour.
Firing single shot makes sense for targets at medium to longer ranges where second and subsequent shots would be wasted in burst fire.
The whole purpose of two round burst is to increase the chances of getting a hit on a fast moving indistinct target. A stationary target should allow two hits, which should improve effect on target... the bullets wont be close enough to matter in penetrating body armour by putting two rounds through the same hole, but unless the target is at extreme range one bullet should hit near the point of aim and the second shot should be about head height... which should make it a very effective follow up shot in a burst.
Part of Ak-74M kit is actually a side mounted scope/optic.
Yeah, something they rarely give credit for. Like on the RPG-7 and the SVD rifle the side mounts for scopes the Soviets used were very clever and allowed the scope to be carried in a case and mounted and dismounted with the flip of a lever with no variation of zero no matter how many times you put it on or took it off.
The new rail mounts means a much wider range of scopes and lights and lasers etc can be mounted and dismounted, and scopes can be mounted to be used together.
It also has the added advantage that Russians scope and device makers can make their scopes compatible with western weapons too which expands their market.
Their mounting for 40mm underbarrel grenade launchers was Amazing and is still amazing... with the US M203 you essentially have to dismantle the front of the M16 rifle to mount it. The Soviet model can be clipped on like a bayonette and swapped between rifles easily and without fuss. Being muzzle loaded it is also faster and easier to use and much simpler in design. The airburst grenade designs are vastly more effective than standard western 40mm grenades... cuts and frag injuries to the head and chest are always more lethal that similar injuries to the legs which western impact grenades achieve normally.
The real irony is that even in the 1980s the Soviet recon forces within an armoured force would be using AS and VSS rifles with excellent armour penetration with 9x39mm ammo with full suppression.
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