I've shot this puppy. Nice piece! I come from South Africa, and did some work in the '80's with Armscor (the predecessor to Denel), so I had contacts there who invited me to come over and play during my last visit, early last year.
This gun was developed partly for long-range sniping (the 14.5mm Russian round was chosen in preference to the Browning .50 or the Russian equivalent in 12.7mm, because its ballistic coefficient over longer ranges is superior) and partly for ordnance disposal and soft-target assault activities. For the latter, the 20mm. round is much superior to the Browning .50 or the 14.5mm. Russian round, because it can be made in a genuinely high-explosive and/or incendiary configuration, causing much more damage to a target like a truck or aircraft than the solid round in the machine-gun caliber.
The recoil really isn't bad... I actually found it less than a Barrett .50 semi-auto rifle (I fired the Barrett some months after the NTW, so my memory may be playing tricks on me, but I seem to recall less kick with the latter). Very accurate, too.