Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[HyeFighter2]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[burjuin]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Military base storage and repair of weapons, equipment

[Hakob]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

I see why burjuin placed this video. It is true that AK is number one in world ( reliability, simplicity, toughness), and even the western experts agree. But there is one point it always was behind, <accuracy>.
If you have big army and lot of AK s, you've got a winner. But if you have small numbers, you need something more accurate. Even though my earlier post was about sniper rifles, but some points apply here too. If you go back starting from vietnam war and on, AK has always had smaller kill ratio to anything western. You have seen the numbers in recent wars. For one Nato solder the enemy pays with 10 or more. I am not singing praise here of Nato. But for our small and dear army I cannot stop thinking about this. One shortfall of AK is that both iron sights look rather to be front sights. The rear one is mounted on front of the receiver and the distance between them is very short, affecting accuracy. And in '73 war Israelis noticed this and while seeing at how their M16s stopped working in sand and Arabs kept firing their AK s with no problem, they decided to have their own AK s. So they came up with Galil. They changed the location of rear sight and brought it back to rear of receiver cover making it more accurate. And in subsequent engagements their kill ratio was very favorable against arabs (of corse solder training had lot to do with it). But you know that receiver cover on AK is loose. So that makes the rear sight to be loose too.
Right now in USA some manufacturers offer rear sights attaching hard to AK receivers and bringing more accuracy by increasing the distance between rear and front sights.
Remember, when soviets saw the benefits of smaller diameter rounds they went even further and while Nato's was 5.57MM they came up with 5.45MM bullets with same weight as 5.57MM, thus, first time getting higher bullet ballistic coefficient that wests. That is why sometimes, 5.45 x39 is called devil's round, because it flies flatter and retains more energy to make real damage in up to 300 meter ranges.
I have fired an AK with modified rear sight and also have installed my own red dot in place of original rear sight (removing rear sight and using the base to install it) and noticed that they obtained the same accuracy as M16s.
So here is my whole point. We should not invent any new assault weapons or even try it (like so many small governments do, to get a little more confidence) but our government should modernize and accurise all our AK 74s. We have plenty of specialists to come up with reliable rear sights to increase the accuracy of our main weapon.
Better yet, since we already make optical equipment for observation or range finding, our government should establish production of holographic dot sights and install them on every AK74. With this combination I could go against any weapon in any terrain.
One point… Training is the most important factor. A solder has to shoot, shoot and shoot, to be at his best. It is a matter of very importance that you know where your first shot and the next and next will go after barrel heating up and in given environmental conditions and retain that in your muscle memory to automatically place your bullet where you need to in the chaos of a firefight.
So here is my second point. We should not produce bullets only in case our routes of buying them get cut, like I heard in an interview that the guy said while facing opposite to camera. We should produce them enough, so we can supply our army to break away from old soviet doctrine and train our soldiers with the highest current standards in world. That means shooting "A LOT".
We have the copper for bullets and cases(the main deficit in world bullet productions). We have the chemical facilities to make our own endless supply of powder and primer. We have the facilities for manufacturing them.
In late '70s, when I was working in Neitron plant, we were manufacturing electronic capacitor cases. And we had all the tooling sitting there to convert to bullet making any minute. We had excellent engineers (they are not lost yet).
Our defense dept. should establish multiple shooting facilities around country, practically near every "sborny punkt" and military base. We cannot dream to be like Switzerland and give a weapon to every male adult at the age of 18 (can you imagine the massacres taking place in apero communities? LOL), but we can establish procedures that every male and female between the ages of 18 to 50 will go thru shooting practice 2 to 4 times a year, besides scheduled recalls, under strict supervision of experts.
Now, will anybody dare to step on our soil if they know that bullets are going to find them on every corner in our fatherland?
One more… When soviets started using still cases, it was tough that they are cheaper to make then brass cases. Currently it would be beneficial for us to convert to brass cases. Here is why…
Like I said, we have the copper to make our own brass cases and brass is reloadable. You can reload them as many as 10 times before throwing away or remelting them. And that is in the core of Nato training strategy. While still case is cheaper than brass, it is discarded after shooting. Brass case becomes more cheaper because you use it multiple times. So all the components are recycled in Nato shooting facilities by companies like Lake City Ammo.
There is computerized machinery that checks cases for reloadability, reforms, and throws them back to cycle. Bullets are recycled too (led and copper separated and remelted).
We can buy those machines and they would be one of the best military investments.
While azeris are buying more tanks, and I am not saying they are not important, we can make hundreds or thousands of our solders marksmen with a price of a tank. Lets see who will kill more when shooting starts in mountains…

[Hovo]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

Zinuj (24.11.2012)

[HyeFighter2]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

Very nice video but be carefull 18+

[Haykakan]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

The bullests you use seem to have a big impact on accuracy. I have a .44 Marlin i use for hunting. It used to have a very hard kick when i fired it but now i use a different bullet and i get much less kick.

[burjuin]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

Armenia-produced mirrors on largest ever built Cherenkov telescope

November 26, 2012 | 00:05

By Anahit Sargsyan

YEREVAN.- The largest ever built Cherenkov telescope has 875 hexagonal mirror facets each of them having a stamp with “Armenia” inscription on it.

The largest H.E.S.S. II telescope with an area of 600 square meters started operation in Namibia in September 2012. Together with other four 12-meter telescopes already in operation since 2004, the observatory will continue studying cosmic sources. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) observatory is operated by the collaboration of scientists from 12 different countries, including Yerevan Physics Institute.


General view of H.E.S.S.II telescope

Official inauguration of the first H.E.S.S. II telescope was held on September 28, 2012. The mirror facets for a telescope as tall as 20-storey building were produced by Galaktika CJSC (Garni) which is a part of physics and astrophysics department at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

The company has been cooperating with Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics since 2002, Galaktika CJSC Director Ara Mirzoyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am. Armenia won the tender and was selected as a producer of mirrors for the world’s largest H.E.S.S II telescope.


Opening ceremony in the reflection

Since Cherenkov telescopes are installed without a dome, the requirements for mirrors are very strict. The product was to be adopted by Germany and metrology should be carried out in Germany as well. Therefore, Galaktika has developed a device to measure the mirror reflectance which has no analogue in the post-Soviet area.


General view of Cherenkov observatory in Namibia

It was rather difficult to find skilled manual workers but they worked hard to deliver the orders in time. They managed to meet the requirements and deliver 900 mirrors within specified schedule.

“During the opening ceremony in Namibia it was noted German side is proud of the team working for the project. It is a great honor and we are really proud,” Mirzoyan said.


Mirror reflectance measuring device designed by Galaktika CJSC

The scientists faced certain difficulties in the course of their work but the most important is to achieve result.
“We were honored to hear high praise by Werner Hofmann, the Director of Max Planck Institute,” Mirzoyan added.
The first images from H.E.S.S.II were received on July 26 before the official opening. At the moment the data is being studied and the project is declared successful.


Mirror polishing

Ara Mirzoyan said each member state paid about 1 million euro for participation in H.E.S.S. collaboration.

“Under the decision of the Armenian government, Yerevan Physics Institute produced 200 additional mirrors for Germany as a contribution to the project. In addition to the Institute, the National Academy of Sciences is also a full member of H.E.S.S. collaboration,” the scientist explained.


Each mirror has a serial number and ‘Armenia’ stamp

Mirzoyan and his team plans to continue their efforts and participate in the next tender invited for a larger project called The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) which is estimated at 200 million euro. The goal of the project is to build two observatories with 100 small telescopes.


Each mirror was packed in a separate container for safe transportation

“While producing mirrors for H.E.S.S. project, we increased our production capacity. We hope to win the next tender as well. We produced 900 mirrors in nearly two years. To date, nobody in the world has such a production rate,” he added.

Mirzoyan expressed great appreciation to the team members, the people whose work gives an opportunity to see “Armenia” inscription on 875 mirrors.


You can see ‘Armenia’ inscription 875 times on H.E.S.S.II

http://news.am/eng/news/129795.html

[Vahram]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

Wow look at those panels! That is great, German's are not short of craftsmanship. For them to pass this to Armenians speaks volumes. I'm so happy to see this, and a world leader in prodcution rate. Thank you for this Burjuin, just another one of your long line of good posts.

[Eddo211]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

The bullests you use seem to have a big impact on accuracy.

True... however most of the accuracy comes from the rifle and the shooter. What you want in a good ammo is consistency, feed, accuracy, shelf life. For example the 7.62x39 used in AK-47 is not that powerful of a round and has a trajectory of a rainbow after about 300 meters. Also all it will do is put a clean hole in flesh. The idea with AK is to get a hit, anywhere, to put the target out of action, but most probably it will not kill what it hits. There are some well made 7.62x39 FMJs brass cased that the projectile starts to wobble after 200 meters causing much more trauma and damage in flesh according to ballistic studies and gelatin tests, however they are not loadable for some reason.

I happen to agree with what Hakob suggests on his last post and his concerns are valid however I have seen AR-15s in action and they are not that much more accurate than the AK (compared to a good shooting well manufactured AK which are hard to find) when it comes to assault rifles. They do fire a bigger NATO round at higher fps and range which is more devastating when incontact with human body.
It seems our military is more focused on special forces (we seem to have top training there) than a large sniper team or advanced accuracy shooting training for all soldiers down to conscripts.
Making our own ammo would be an advantage and something I would think Armenia/Artsakh should already be doing.

I have a .44 Marlin i use for hunting.

That is one rifle I am missing... especially in that handgun caliber matching my Model 29.

It used to have a very hard kick when i fired it but now i use a different bullet and i get much less kick.

You must be shooting 44 specials instead of the Magnum....those have a lower recoil and are accurate. It won't put down a big deer or a bear though.

[Hakob]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan

True... however most of the accuracy comes from the rifle and the shooter. What you want in a good ammo is consistency, feed, accuracy, shelf life. For example the 7.62x39 used in AK-47 is not that powerful of a round and has a trajectory of a rainbow after about 300 meters. Also all it will do is put a clean hole in flesh. The idea with AK is to get a hit, anywhere, to put the target out of action, but most probably it will not kill what it hits. There are some well made 7.62x39 FMJs brass cased that the projectile starts to wobble after 200 meters causing much more trauma and damage in flesh according to ballistic studies and gelatin tests, however they are not loadable for some reason.

I happen to agree with what Hakob suggests on his last post and his concerns are valid however I have seen AR-15s in action and they are not that much more accurate than the AK (compared to a good shooting well manufactured AK which are hard to find) when it comes to assault rifles. They do fire a bigger NATO round at higher fps and range which is more devastating when incontact with human body.
It seems our military is more focused on special forces (we seem to have top training there) than a large sniper team or advanced accuracy shooting training for all soldiers down to conscripts.
Making our own ammo would be an advantage and something I would think Armenia/Artsakh should already be doing.



That is one rifle I am missing... especially in that handgun caliber matching my Model 29.



You must be shooting 44 specials instead of the Magnum....those have a lower recoil and are accurate. It won't put down a big deer or a bear though.

The brass 7.62 x39 cartridges I have seen have mostly Berdan primers (which are not easily available here) and that is why they are not reloaded. Otherwise I don't see any reason why they cannot be reloaded. Our country, however can have option of using Berdan or Boxer primeers, since the whole idea is to manufacture it.
And, seriosely, The sights on AK s need upgrades... As a shooter of both AR s and AK s I see diffrences a lot.