Interesting.

The first bit shows the soldier with what must be the current soldier suite of gear, but the rifle shown is the AK-107... they are clearly not ready to show the AK-200 yet.

Not that the AK-107 would be a bad rifle, with its balanced recoil mechanism it would actually be a very good military rifle.

The second bit seems to show the Barnaul-T kit for air defence units.

Wonder how much it has improved... the clip on indicator for the missile seems to have been replaced by an optical display which is good, though it is hard to tell if the system has gotten smaller or not.

FSB and Police began using '200 series' this summer by the way. As for the military, there's still no even a contract between Izhmash and MoD concerning new rifles, although there's certain ammount of them being tested in the army.

I remember in an article posted here that the goal was to increase small arms performance by 2.5-3 times.
It wasn't specific but suggested this would be in terms of accuracy and muzzle velocity using new powder propellent to increase muzzle velocity and accuracy through more consistent burning.

New Ammo was to be issued in sealed plastic bags and in clips rather than cardboard boxes to improve storage life and to make loading the weapons magazines much quicker.

Seeing as how this is a pictures thread here are some very old rifles that were too radical for the Russian military... imagine these rifles in Russian service instead of the AK-74...





This is a real rifle, made of Bakelite... which is what they used before plastic was invented, it has a vertically moving block so it didn't need a big long receiver and there was a tube above the barrel where the empty cases were ejected so it could be used left or right handed without adjustment.

They had a model in 7.62 x39mm and .220 russian, or 5.6 x 39mm (which was a 7.62 x 39mm case necked down to a 5.6mm calibre projectile).

FSB and Police began using '200 series' this summer by the way.

Why aren't we seeing lots of photos of it then...

A bit of conflicting info then...

The AK-200 has been called the AK-12 (not to be confused with the 12.7 x 55mm calibre ASh-12 which is the rifle equivalent of the VSSK), and they were putting the first prototype together last December for testing about now... one assumes that this Russian Summer the FSB and police might get some rifles to test... but they will likely also be testing the ADS and also likely other rifles from different companies.

This is however a multimedia thread so here is a photo of my favourite goat gun:

HQ S-400

Incredible beauty

I hope they will keep this paint pattern. This year 10 more of these are coming.

Indian Su-30MKI

Crocodile at its post - impressive view

Probably one of the most hated things among western airforces