On January 18, 1974, a new Kalashnikov assault rifle, the AK-74, and the PKK-74 light machine gun created on its basis were adopted by the army of the Soviet Union. The new weapon was designed for a low-pulse cartridge of 5.45×39 mm.
"This achieved parity in the field of small arms with the US armed forces, which during the Vietnam War began switching to M16A1 rifles of 5.56 mm caliber," the press service of the Kalashnikov concern reports.
The rearmament of the USSR was prompted by the comprehension of the combat experience of the Vietnam War. It turned out that the American M16 automatic rifle and the XM177 carbine were lighter and more accurate than the Soviet Kalashnikov. The advantage in firepower of the "green Berets" was given by a 5.56 mm cartridge. But the Kalashnikov assault rifle was distinguished by fantastic reliability and the ability to fire even in the absence of proper maintenance.
The Soviet Union decided to restore shooting parity, and in 1966 the development of a new 5.45 mm cartridge began. Reducing the caliber led to a reduction in the mass of the cartridge by more than 1.5 times. The initial velocity of the bullet increased significantly, the range of a direct shot increased by about 100 meters. As a result of these and a number of other factors, accuracy when firing bursts improved. And the design of the elongated bullet provided a combination of a stable flat trajectory with a lethal effect no worse than that of a 1943 bullet.
Simultaneously with the work on new ammunition, work on new small arms began in the Design Bureau of the weapons factories. Of the ten samples submitted for competitive testing, Alexander Konstantinov's SA-006 and AK-74 submachine guns reached the military tests.
At the field tests, it turned out that thanks to the reduced cartridge, both samples surpass their predecessor in accuracy of fire. The smaller recoil and greater flatness of the 5.45 mm small-caliber cartridge increased the number of successfully hit targets by at least a third with the same consumption of cartridges compared to 7.62 mm caliber weapons.
Due to the fact that Kalashnikov assault rifles were already mastered in production, the military preferred the AK-74. The first combat test for the new weapon was the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, where the 5.45 mm caliber showed all its advantages.
"At the same time, most of the NATO bloc was still armed with automatic rifles chambered for 7.62×51 mm, over which the AK-74 had a noticeable advantage in size, the effectiveness of automatic fire and the weight of the wearable ammunition," the concern summed up.
Nikolay Grishchenko
