Reliable lead-spewing half-inch guns: Duel of M2HB machine guns vs. NSV (2)

The Americans developed their first “half-inch” machine gun in the 1920s and 1930s. However, the demand for a similar weapon also appeared in the USSR, where in 1929 the 12.7mm entered service DK machine gun constructor Vasiliy Alexeyevich Degtyarev. It was a promising design, but the low capacity of the drum magazine was a problem, so the engineer Georgy Semyonovich Shpagin added belt supply system. The result was the famous DŠK machine gun, which began to be delivered in 1938, was the standard weapon of its category in the Red Army during the Second World War, and in the modernized version of the DŠKM is still occasionally found on battlefields. In the early 1960s, however, the Soviet army specified requirements for its successor, which was to be characterized primarily by lower weight.

Introduction: Reliable lead-spewing half-inch guns: Duel of M2HB machine guns vs. NSV (1)

Compensation for DŠK

So CKIB SOO started the project (Central Design and Research Office of Sporting and Hunting Weapons)where the weapon under the working name A cliff developed by designers GI Nikitin, JM Sokolov and VI Volkov. The prototype of the machine gun was presented to the army in 1969, and the new weapon, according to the surnames of the designers and the caliber, received an official name composed of the initial letters of the surnames of its designers: NSV-12.7 (however, the numerical data is usually omitted). Sometimes there is also the departmental index 6P11, or even the work name Uťos. Serial production was originally supposed to take place at Degtyaryev’s factory in the city of Kovrov, but later the decision was made to build a completely new plant in the city of Uralsk.

This business named Metalist began deliveries in 1972. Similar to many contemporary machine gun designs, the NSV is powered by powder gases taken from the barrel. Gases drive a piston connected to the bolt carrier, but unlike the Kalashnikov principle, the bolt does not have a rotary drive, but a horizontal one. Therefore, the bolt is locked due to movement to the left. The machine gun is most often installed on a 6T7 tripod, and the whole assembly is then referred to as NSVS (stand soldier – on a pedestal)but there is also a 6U6 tripod with a seat and a higher elevation, which is usually used for air defense.

In the arsenal of the ACR

Like the American “fifty”, the NSV also boasts high accuracy, which is why a scope can also be installed on it and used as a heavy sniper rifle. Based on the NSV, it was subsequently developed i NSVT machine gun (tankovoj), characterized by an electric trigger with the possibility of direct or remote control. As the name suggests, it is mainly used in the armament of tanks and other combat vehicles, where it is usually mounted on towers or in various shooting ranges. Sometimes NSV can also be encountered on helicopters, and a turret was also created Uťos-M with a pair of machine guns mounted on light naval vessels.

The successful Soviet machine gun also found its way into the armies of dozens of other countries, and its users include the Army of the Czech Republic, as it can be found, among other things, on T-72M4 CZ tanks or Kajman and Cowboy vehicles, or Land Rover Defender cars for special and airborne units. Several countries have started license production of this weapon, and as a curiosity, Poland produces the WKM-B machine gun, which is essentially a derivative of the NSV for western ammunition.

However, the army of the Russian Federation itself already considers the NSV to be obsolete, and therefore, since the turn of the century, it has been introducing a new 12.7mm machine gun Kord. It is visually similar to the NSV, but features a new muzzle brake with a distinctive square shape, and its internal mechanism has changed considerably, as the bolt now moves vertically. Addition the weight of the weapon decreased and the service life of the barrel increased, as the last mentioned parameter is among the relatively serious shortcomings of the NSV. If around 100 shots are fired from it in one continuous dose, its service life is over, although of course the NSV also allows for a quick exchange of the barrel. In any case, Russia itself has not produced NSV machine guns for some time, and the new Kord model is increasingly being seen. However, there can be no doubt that the NSV will remain in the army of the Russian Federation and the armies of other countries for a long time.