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I was wondering just when a previous soviet-era country would adopt the platform as it makes a lot of sense. One of the key advantages of the Ukrainian military going this route as mentioned in the article below is the fact they can utilize their large stockpiles of 7.62x39 ammo and as they need to phase out of the soviet round they can change over with dropping a new upper receiver in 5.56 and are ready to go. Or for a less costly more permanent route change the barrel and BCG and achieve the same utilizing previous parts.

The Ukrainian military has received the first of its new US-made WAC-47 rifles, a derivative of the American-designed M16 rifle that chambers the Soviet-era 7.62x39mm cartridge. Ukraine is primarily looking to get the guns as part of a push to modernize its forces and to make it easier for its troops to work together with foreign units, especially members of the NATO alliance, but in doing so they're also sending a clear political message to Russia.

In a New Year’s statement on Jan. 3, 2018, Ukraine’s central state arms company, UkrOboronProm, or UOP, announced it had delivered the initial batch of WAC-47s to unspecified units by way of American firm Aeroscraft. Ukrainian officials first revealed plans to purchase the rifles in January 2017 and the country expects to eventually issue the guns across both its active and reserve military units and to personnel in other state security services. It would be an important upgrade for these organizations, which use dated variants of the legendary Kalashnikov AKM pattern as their primary service rifles at present.

“The first batch of WAC-47 … will go into trial operation in the combat units of Ukrainian army,” UOP said in an earlier press release about the project in October 2017. “Gathering feedback from Ukrainian soldiers will enhance necessary changes before mass production starts.”

UOP said it delivered these trial guns in a carbine configuration, known specifically as the M4-WAC-47. These weapons appeared to have 16-inch long barrels, though, unlike the 14.5-inch barrels on standard U.S. military M4s. The trade-off is always that a weapon with a shorter barrel might be handier, particularly for troops who have to get in and out of aircraft and other vehicles or otherwise operate in confined spaces, but it will also be less accurate, especially at longer ranges.

The guns do appear to share the same basic operating mechanism as their American cousins, though. This so-called “direct impingement” system siphons propellant gas from the barrel as the gun fires to directly cycle the action. Both the AKMs and some newer derivatives of the M16 pattern use a physical piston, which helps keep particulate matter from building up on critical components and causing the weapon to jam.

As such, the new M4-WAC-47s weapons will require more cleaning and routine maintenance than Ukrainian troops are likely used to with the notably simpler AKM-pattern guns. This will almost certainly require changes in training regimens and standard operating procedures to make sure Ukrainian troops take care of the new guns properly. A lack of understanding about the M16's cleaning and maintenance requirements, coupled with inaccurate sales pitches, poor quality control, and a change in the formulation of the gunpowder inside the cartridges, turned into an infamous scandal when U.S. troops in Vietnam first began to receive significant quantities of the rifles in the 1960s.

The M4-WAC-47s also have the same style of controls, such as the charging handle, fire selector, and magazine release, as M16 pattern firearms. Photos of the prototype rifles show them with handguards featuring both U.S. military standard accessory rails and additional attachment points using American manufacturer Magpul’s M-LOK system. The rifles also had pistol grips and retractable buttstocks from Magpul.

Older AKM-based designs have notably limited space for installing similar systems so a user can rapidly attach grenade launchers, optics, laser aiming devices, flashlights, and other accessories. As such, the M4-WAC-47 could quickly offer Ukrainian troops additional capabilities with a minimum of effort, but only as long as the government in Kiev also purchases sufficient numbers of those ancillary systems.

The most significant feature, though, is that the M4-WAC-47 uses the aforementioned 7.62x39mm cartridge. Most military M16 pattern weapons typically chamber the smaller 5.56x45mm round.

That’s not to say this type of caliber conversion – which can be as simple as adding a new barrel, bolt and carrier assembly, and magazine – is new. The ubiquity of the Soviet-developed cartridge, its heavier bullet, and the popularity of the M16 pattern design have long made the idea of such a combination attractive, particularly to civilian shooters.

In the early 2000s, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) also expressed an interest in the idea. The underlying concept was that American special operators might end up conducting extended missions in areas with limited support where it might be easier to source 7.62x39mm ammunition. It would also improve their ability to work closely with local forces armed with AKMs or other similar guns chambered in that round, something American special operators had done extensively in the opening phases of the war in Afghanistan. Since the Vietnam War, special operations forces, advisers, and even regular troops have often just carried AK type rifles they had captured or otherwise acquired for a variety of reasons, too.

SOCOM subsequently crafted a requirement for a weapon that its personnel could easily convert from one caliber to another, known as the Special Operations Forces Combat Rifle, or SCR. One of the firms who submitted designs was Knight's Armament Company, which crafted an M4 carbine derivative known as the SR-47, which not only used the larger cartridge, but would accept standard AKM magazines.

In the end, SOCOM decided that the ability to use locally sourced or captured ammunition wasn’t important enough to warrant the cost and effort of buying and issuing dedicated weapons or even conversion kits. The follow-on program, known as the Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle, or SCAR, dropped the 7.62x39mm requirement. Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal ultimately won that competition with a design entirely separate from the M16 pattern.

Other manufacturers continued to experiment with and produce M16s chambered in the cartridge, though. At present, there are more than a half a dozen different types commercially available in the United States either as complete rifles or conversion kits.

One of the more recent of these is Colt’s Model CK901, an M4 derivative it reportedly developed specifically at the request of the government of Yemen before it collapsed in 2014. The “CK” in this instance stands for “Colt Kalashnikov,” a reference to the AK-series, as the gun not only uses the same round, but also the same magazines, as with the SR-47.

UOP said it was this relative modularity that led it to choose the M16 pattern in the first place. The company’s past statements suggest it is also considering building a host of different versions with various barrel lengths, including a 10.5-inch super-compact type and a 24-inch marksman variant, and in additional calibers.

The plan is to eventually drop 7.62x39mm entirely and adopt the NATO standard 5.56x45mm. Though Ukraine isn’t part of the alliance, it regularly trains with other countries that are and has deployed troops in support of the bloc’s missions, such as its operation in Afghanistan. In 2009, Ukrainian authorities also agreed to form a combined brigade with Lithuanian and Polish troops, both NATO members, ostensibly to cross train for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.

According to UOP, having M16 pattern weapons will ease in the overall transition to NATO-standard ammunition, weapons, and other equipment. As stocks of 7.62x39mm ammunition run out and troops send their guns in for routine armorer- or depot-level maintenance, technicians would swap out the appropriate parts and return them in a 5.56mm configuration. The Ukrainian military could use the same procedure to retire the smaller Soviet-developed 5.45x39mm cartridge, which it also uses to a lesser degree.

But for Ukraine, the WAC-47’s potential multi-caliber nature is inherently political, as well. UOP makes it clear that the new guns are as much about modernizing their military as they are about cutting away the last links to the old Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.

Ukraine and Russia have been embroiled in a serious conflict since 2014, when the Kremlin seized the Crimea region and began actively supporting separatistsseeking to break away from the government in Kiev. This all followed a popular political uprising that ousted Ukraine’s previous Pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Though the two countries are not openly at war, by all accounts Russian troops have been actively engaged in fighting with Ukrainian troops on Ukrainian soil as part of a complex, hybrid war.

“For our country and the Ukrainian army, M16 production in Ukraine is a real step towards Euro-Atlantic structures,” UOP said in the October 2017 statement. “Every country that has teared [sic] itself away from Russia’s orbit, went or is going through this difficult stage, [is] taking many years and demanding great effort.”

Underscoring these statements is UOP’s partnership with Aeroscraft, a division of Worldwide Aeros Corporation. The firm’s main business is lighter-than-air craft, such as blimps and tethered aerostats.

Igor Pasternak, who grew up in Soviet Kazakhstan, first founded Aeros Limited in Soviet Ukraine in 1986, becoming one of the Soviet Union’s first private engineering firms to appear under Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika reforms, according to his company's website. Pasternak subsequently immigrated to the United States in 1993 and has steadily become an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his policies, especially with regards to Ukraine.

In 2016, Worldwide Aeroscraft signed a separate deal with the Ukrainian border guard to supply unspecified surveillance equipment. At the time, Pasternak said this contract was part of the U.S. government’s larger program to provide non-lethal military aid to Ukraine.

In December 2017, President Donald Trump’s administration approved a commercial license for the sale of Barrett M107A1 .50 caliber sniper rifles to Ukraine, which seemed to indicate a departure from the policies of President Barack Obama. It's not clear if this was necessarily the case, though. That month there was a separate report that Texas-based AirTronic USA had quietly secured similar approval for the delivery of a number of its Precision Shoulder-fired Rocket Launchers, or PSRL, an upgraded version of the Soviet RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, to Ukraine in 2016.

If Aeroscraft has actually produced any version of WAC-47 in the United States it would have needed a similar waiver to actually deliver them to Ukrainian troops. Though Trump has often called for better relations with Russia, there is no indication he would’ve necessarily been inclined to block this particular sale or any future ones.

The administration has gone back and forth in its tone toward the Kremlin, sometimes criticizing its involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, its potential support for insurgents in Afghanistan, its intransigence over North Korea, and its aggressive foreign policy. In December 2017, there were reports that Trump was considering a larger lethal arms package for Ukrainian forces that would notably include Javelin anti-tank missiles to help counter Russian armored units in the country.

If nothing else, the guns will be an important upgrade over the older AKM types. One can see the M4-WAC-47s as a larger metaphor for shifting American policies toward the conflict in Ukraine and the Ukrainian government’s own desire to develop even closer ties to the United States and Western Europe.

Contact the author: [email protected]

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...ic-of-the-countrys-morphing-strategic-reality


Ukraines%20AR-47.jpg

Ukraines%20AR47%20with%20m203%2037mm.jpg
Ukraines AR47 with m203 attached
 
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So I've had my AR47 (16" carbine gas) for several years now and have had really great reliability and really appreciate the 7.62x39 round in the AR platform. I know there were teething pains 20 years or so ago with early subscribers getting it up and running (and I thank them for that work), but I have had no hickups in getting mine up and running reliably. I assembled mine from parts and took care in researching key components and took what others have found before me and applied it to my build and had no problems.

I've said in other threads about the AR47 but will list again the things that one should pay attention to in an AR47 build:
  • Barrel gas port size for carbine length gas systems should fall between .088" - .093"
  • Buffer Weight (depending on gas port length) H or H2 (I prefer the logic of the H2 for better dwell time to unlock)
  • Enhanced firing pin (pin protrusion is extended for harder russian primers)
  • Quality Bolt - Carpenter 158 or 9310, MPI'd (I'm currently running an AIM Surplus 9310 MPI'd bolt and have a LMT bolt (AreMet) for backup)
  • Good Chromed or Melonited Barrel (verify correct gas port size and feed ramp adjustment)
  • Quality magazines (C-Products or ASC)
  • Feed ramps in barrel extension widened for the tapered case of the 7.62x39
  • May have to have a heavier hammer spring (I haven't needed one with all the above checked off, and have used a mil-spec hammer and spring as well as my current trigger group the LaRue MBT, both with no problems)
It is my current favorite AR to shoot, I enjoy the recoil impulse one gets and the hard hit against steel one can hear. I have about 1,000 trouble free rounds both suppressed and unsuppressed with about 10 different types of steel ammo (FMJ, SP, HP, etc) through mine without a hitch. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things but the fact that the Ukrainian military feels it can provide it's troops with a reliable weapon speaks for itself.
 
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Or you can go 300BLK.

That doesn’t make sense and/or cents in this case on multiple fronts.

1. Ukraine has piles of 7.62x39 they can shoot up, this was in their thought process.
2. If they continue to produce and use the 7.62x39 they are already tooled up and have the appropriate materials to produce ammo, don’t have to stock a new brass and bullets.
3. 7.62x39 hits harder than 300 BLK At engagement ranges.
4. It is a known to the Ukrainians how the 7.62x39 performs.
5. They still have other platforms that utilize the 7.62x39, that can still be used in going this route.
6. They heavily utilize steel cases, and the tapered case of the 7.62x39 lends itself to reliable extraction and chambering.
7. Avoid the probability of mixing friendly nations 5.56 mags with a 300 BLK rifle in any potential battles. This is especially true after they start phasing out of 7.62x39 and into 5.56 like the article suggests.
 
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Wonder how much more our gov't is paying for these over the price of just throwing a 7.62x39 upper on a regular AR lower?
 
Or you can go 300BLK.
And why on earth would this make even the tiniest amount of sense, considering the familiarity with and vast stockpiles of 7.62x39 ammo? When was the last time you saw .300 BI ammo in steel cases for pennies a pop? How many other units would they share a common ammo with if they chose the .300? Other than POSSIBLY better reliability/feeding, what would possess them to go that route? Its flies in the face of the various reasons they went this direction.
 
The explanation sound logical but I wonder how much politics were in the decision. They obviously can’t buy from Russia anymore, and if you were watching the news this spring we know they have been trying to buy favor with the US. Our president happens to like countries who spend money here.
 
I have no combat experience and I'm not trained by a military, but I was out in the hills the other day noting different ranges. I was more concerned with game hunting than anything else. Since I wasn't firing, I set up my 4x4 as a target and some life-size cardboard targets around it. I went out to 400 yards and I was surprised at how close the targets were. In this terrain, and in many others, I cannot imagine waiting to close the range that much before engaging an opposing force.

Probably, a small force would have a couple of MRAPs with .50's and a Mk 19 or their equivalents, and even if they were on foot at least a SAW such as an M249, but I'm wondering if the next war will really continue to support the intermediate-cartridge paradigm.

I read a recent survey of US forces indicates a high-level of anticipation of a war with Russia or China. I think Ukraine would certainly have to be prepared for a war with Russia. Is the 7.62x39 still relevant in that context?

I understand the Germans innovated the 7.92 Kurz by cutting their full-size battle rifle cartridge down to allow for a shorter action and less recoil when firing fully-automatic using the Sturmgewehr. The Russians essentially copied the concept of a fully-automatic, gas-operated assault rifle firing an intermediate cartridge, but built the Kalashnikov action based on obviously different principles that some might say were more akin to the M1 Garand. In an M16 case study, one author noted, "The principle of this weapon — the reduction of muzzle impulse to get useful automatic fire within actual ranges of combat — was probably the most important advance in small arms since the invention of smokeless powder."

My question is, 80 years later, are the actual ranges of combat still the same? Certainly, there are sometimes in counter-insurgency when belligerents engage at intermediate cartridge range, but is that the most common engagement scenario? What about a less asymmetric engagement with large-state actors? NATO vs Russia, UN vs China? How much of a role can the intermediate cartridge be expected to play in wars like that? And how much would an intermediate cartridge more likely be used to control unarmored civilian populations in a totalitarian police-state?
 
I am also not a soldier so I could be talking out of my behind but of all the books I’ve read about America’s wars since WW2 you never read about infantry being tasked with taking wide open spaces because that is suicide. We have armor and air power for that, infantry is for where those can’t go, mountains, jungles, forrest’s, cities, ect. Much of the earths terrain has no line of sight visibility past 100 yards or so.

One thing I have read about is stories from Afghanistan of our soldiers being harassed by the taliban in the mountains where they know to stay about 600 yards away where the m4 has little effect. Perhaps we need to rethink the one rifle fits all philosophy. Reminds me of all the pictures you see from WW2 of GI’s in house to house fighting with a garand over their shoulder and an mp40 in hand. Does a m4/ak74 really replace both or are there certain combat environments where they need a full size rifle with a few in the company having intermediate rifles?
 
The rapid fire intermediate cartridge will be far superior to any of the old time long range cartridges in a major engagement.

Infantry tactics no longer exist in a vacuum. On a major battlefield, support of armor by motorized/airmobile infantry and air/artillery will be paramount.

Clear back in WW2, the Russians realized that infantry was most effective when used in conjunction with armor.

The PPSH 41 SMG was issued in massive quantities since the reds did not yet have an assault rifle. And it was very effective.
 
I think something like the CMMG Mutant is a better AR-AK hybrid. AR ergos, beefed up bolt for the extra thrust, and uses the AK mag arguably the most reliable magazine ever made.

I've had a 7.62x39 AR for a long time and those fit the AR magwell 7.62c39 mags have always been the weak link.
 
The rapid fire intermediate cartridge will be far superior to any of the old time long range cartridges in a major engagement.

To be clear, nobody is talking about going back to early long-range cartridges like .30-06, 8mm Mauser, or 7.62x54. On the contrary, if anything I'm talking about how closely linked the 7.62x39 is to those cartridges. It's is really just one-step removed, and my point was that after 80 further years of development, that's not enough for a "major engagement" -- but it is enough if state control of "enemy combatants" is the purpose.

...of all the books I’ve read about America’s wars since WW2 you never read about infantry being tasked with taking wide open spaces because that is suicide. We have armor and air power for that, infantry is for where those can’t go, mountains, jungles, forrest’s, cities, ect. Much of the earths terrain has no line of sight visibility past 100 yards or so.

Suppose we say that we (as mankind) don't fight that way anymore. Apparently, there was a development that took place from sometime in the late nineteenth century when the effective range of rifles was extended, to the time when every soldier was equipped with fully automatic fire. This development took place over a period of 60 or so years. Since then, another 80 years have passed. Whether it's the mountains, jungles, forests, cities etc., can we really say that the intermediate cartridge will support how the next war will be fought?
 
"POSSIBLY better reliability/feeding"

I realize that I'm a much smaller country than the Ukraine, and the replies posted above a mainly true, but for me, the quote above was the kicker. But hey, other nations are free to disagree with me. ;)
 
To be clear, nobody is talking about going back to early long-range cartridges like .30-06, 8mm Mauser, or 7.62x54. On the contrary, if anything I'm talking about how closely linked the 7.62x39 is to those cartridges. It's is really just one-step removed, and my point was that after 80 further years of development, that's not enough for a "major engagement" -- but it is enough if state control of "enemy combatants" is the purpose.



Suppose we say that we (as mankind) don't fight that way anymore. Apparently, there was a development that took place from sometime in the late nineteenth century when the effective range of rifles was extended, to the time when every soldier was equipped with fully automatic fire. This development took place over a period of 60 or so years. Since then, another 80 years have passed. Whether it's the mountains, jungles, forests, cities etc., can we really say that the intermediate cartridge will support how the next war will be fought?

I think an intermediate cartridge will continue to be the answer but we have come up with better intermediate cartridges than the 223 and 7.62x39. I know the US is working on transitioning to something new which I think is overdue.
 
I have to wonder if their large stock of ammunition that will be used in those new rifles can take advantage of an AR pattern rifle's potential accuracy. If not they would likely be better off with some new derivative of a Kalashnikov. Like another poster questioned, it's possible they are doing this just to spend some money here and move further in our orbit.

All that being said, it is a plus for the American military and civilian small arms industry.
 
I have to wonder if their large stock of ammunition that will be used in those new rifles can take advantage of an AR pattern rifle's potential accuracy. If not they would likely be better off with some new derivative of a Kalashnikov. Like another poster questioned, it's possible they are doing this just to spend some money here and move further in our orbit.

All that being said, it is a plus for the American military and civilian small arms industry.

I can’t speak for their ammo but my 7.62x39 AR shoots moa with steel case wolf, which is better than what we issue our own military. There is definitely nothing inaccurate about the 7.62x39 itself.
 
I can’t speak for their ammo but my 7.62x39 AR shoots moa with steel case wolf, which is better than what we issue our own military. There is definitely nothing inaccurate about the 7.62x39 itself.
Would you happen to know what kind of chamber you have.....CIP or SAAMI? I'd imagine anyone in their right mind would chamber x39 with CIP....except Ruger.:( SAAMI brass ammo works just fine in a CIP chamber but the other way around with steel CIP ammo in a SAAMI chamber can be problematic.
 
Would you happen to know what kind of chamber you have.....CIP or SAAMI? I'd imagine anyone in their right mind would chamber x39 with CIP....except Ruger.:( SAAMI brass ammo works just fine in a CIP chamber but the other way around with steel CIP ammo in a SAAMI chamber can be problematic.

I have no idea. What is the difference? This is what the ad for it says

“Special chamber design copied from Russian AK-47 chambering.”
 
It will look strange to turn on the news and see Vasily and Arkady carrying ARs.:D

Why? Several former Soviet nations have gone with the M16 platform ... Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia ... and Estonia got a bunch of ex USGI M-16s.

Ukraine's "mashup" WAC-47 is the only one, though, that is a variant using the 7.62x39 cartridge. I'd love too hear more about why they went with an AR variant in 7.62 caliber, rather than a AK variant (hint Beryl) in 5.56 caliber. Makes sense if the Ukrainians were sitting on a lot of 7.62 magazines and ammo.

Makes less sense for eventual logistics interoperability with Poland, U.S. and/or NATO.
 
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