.fi .de and .su weapons design philosophies

>>31023541
*yet rugged enough that when it stops working,

>>31023541
60's is not "around ww2" if you're thinking of the Rk-62
Assuming 60's was the premise;
>Finland
Take revolutionary design at the time, improve it. It just works.
>Germany
Fall for the battle rifle meme and never upgrade
>Soviets
Create revolutionary design, have most useful infantry rifle for some decades until rest of the world catches up. Eventually fall behind in small arms development.

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>>31023944
>Eventually fall behind in small arms development.

There's a perfectly good reason for falling behind since SU was starting crumble economically, something that Russia is still wrestling with, and do you even know who much it would cost to replace those old rifles with newer models when you include the army reserves? USA is economically the strongest nation on earth but still even it struggles to replace rifles beyond active military personnel.

Finland is stuck with same problem as Russia when it comes to replacing aging small arms. If it were just the active personnel FDF would have no problems to switch to a modern rifle but since they have to consider about the armament of the whole reserve as well they have been reluctant to switch away from 7.62 RKs..

62s are currently being "modernized" but even with these upgrades it's still a far fetch from a modern rifle.

To RK 62s defense I would like to remind you that it was one of the if not the best rifle around during the 60s and early 70s and that is why Israelis used it as the basis for Galil.

>>31023944
>60's is not "around ww2" if you're thinking of the Rk-62
I know, I don't care, I needed to put a picture and didn't have a good one of WWII shit so I chose this, suck it up and shut the fuck up you fucking retard who can't even wrap his head around the concept that when text says WWII, the topic then *IS* WWII regardless of what's in teh picture.

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>>31024058
Back in WWII Finnish weapon design was pretty much what it is today. Copy Russian and German designs and improve on them.

>>31024076
L-35 wasn't a copy
L-39 wasn't a copy
LS-26 wasn't a copy

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>>31023944
I guarantee you that not all Finnish designs are good, for example the Kvkk 62 light machine gun, pic related, jam o matic and weighs almost 19lbs. It is being replaced by the PKM, I just wonder why it took them so long to do that.

One thing that I also find retarded is the wide variety of rounds used, 7.62x39 for assault rifles and kvkk, 7.62x54r for PKM, 7.62x53r for sniper rifles, 7.62x51mm NATO for leo MGs, 12.7mm russki for HMGs and 0.50 BMG for heavy snipers, what a shitshow

>>31024058

somebody's mummy didn't make them their tendies this morning!

>>31023541
>slavaboo

>>31024103
actually it's even more complicated than that:

5.56x45mm NATO: SCAR-L and G-36C
7.62x39mm: various assault rifles and KVKK 62
7.62x51mm NATO: MG-3 and Minigun
7.62x53mmR: Tkiv 85
7.62x54mmR: SVD and PKM/PKT
.338" Lapua magnum: TRG-42
.50" BMG: M2HB and Barrets
12.7x108mm: NSV

luckily at least pistols all use 9x19mm Para

>>31024118
I should be pretty alarmed if she had, considering she's dead and all...

>>31024103
Its a mess, yes. We should really just unify it to three rounds, 7,62×39 for ARs, 7,62×53 for MGs and such and either .50BMG or 12,7Russ depending which there are more of in use.
Same problem was in WW2
For pistols and SMGs there were .32 ACP, 9mm Short, 7,63 Mauser, 7,62 Tokarev, 7,62 Nugget, 9mm Para in use.

For rifles and MGs: 7,62×53, 7,62×54R (luckily interchangeable with former), .303 britbong round used in some planes and Lewis guns, .50BMG.
Plus handful of rounds that were not in such a high scale use like 7,35Carcano, 7,92 Mauser, 12,7mm Breda italo round, 13mm German MG131 round used in Me Bf 109G-6 plane machine guns

It's hilarious when you mention Finland in the OP and the thread immediately turns into a finnthread.

>>31024168

do you have a picture of her? relevant to WWII I mean, not the 1960s.

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>>31024205
We Finns can't explain it but we have a sort of a inbuilt radar for detecting internet discussions about Finland.

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>>31024205
thanks to the compulsory military service and one of the highest guns:population ratios in the world, a good ~3/4 of all Finns have at least some experience with funs and military equipment in general.

Not to mention the old tradition of:
>Finland's mentioned
>gather @ city market to party

>>31024103
Wait that thing is in service?
It's a literal ork gun.

>>31024205
>>31024257
>>31024269
the pic of rajansiirtorauta 62 doesn't hurt either

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>>31024296
Yup. One of the older adopted LMGs, and shittiest ones at that.

that's what you get for basing your guns on old Czech tech.

>>31024181
>7.63 Mauser
Innterchangeable with 7.62 Tokarev firearms, despite 7.63 Mauser firearms not being interchangeable with 7.62 Tokarev

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OP here, since this thread has effectively become Finn general, might as well carry on as such.

Which one of these guys do you think is more experienced?

>>31024054
i mean it's not really far off from a modern rifle, the caliber is ofc inferior to 5.56 but the rifle itself is fine when compared to other rifles that are more modern.

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>>31024103
>>31024165
>>31024181
Why even use 7.62x53R if you're just going to use x54R anyway?

>>31024181
>7,62×39 for ARs
nigga wtf
>7,62×53 for MGs
why not just 7.62×51mm?

>>31025341
>the caliber is ofc inferior to 5.56
in what way is 5.56x45 superior enough to 7.62x39 to actually matter? When two sides are exchanging fire from a distance of half a kilometer, one using 7.62x39 while the other uses 5.56x45? Which ever side is slower to call in indirect fire (or "unfair fire" as we Finn FOs sometimes call it) loses regradless of what caliber their rifles are, and in shorter distances the difference between the calibers is even less important.

what the fuck is this retarded thread anyway? seems like something a 12 yr old would find entertaining.

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>>31025341
>the caliber is ofc inferior to 5.56

>>31025351
>Why even use 7.62x53R if you're just going to use x54R anyway?
we already had a decent 53r cartridge and Russki refused to sell us decent sniping 54r for SVD, so it was either spend time and money to developed a decent 54r cartridge, or use an existing one that we still had plenty stockpiled for use in M39s/other Finn Mosins

>>31025396
5.56 weighs 11.8g per round and has a flatter trajectory

7.62x39 weighs 16.3g per round

if a new rifle is considered it absolutely has to be in 5.56 that is a given

a good option to update the rk rifles might be to convert them over to 5.56, a new barrel, bolt head, and a magazine well would be required but it might be a feasible choise, though i'm not sure if finland has the facilities to convert the rifles and if just buying new ones would be cheaper.

>>31025393
>7,62×39 for ARs
Finland can't afford ammunition replacement just like the US and NATO can't afford to change 5.56x45 over a small advantage. Not to mention 7.62x39 is still available from the Russians despite their main shift to 5.45x39. Also why not? RRA can send their LAR47 AR lowers and reciever that are compatible with most Kalashnikov type magazines and have the sealed system and ease of parts exchange of an AR. Not to mention it might reduce the prices of their lowers and rifles back home.
>7,62×53 for MGs
>why not just 7.62×51mm?
Interchangeability with 7.62x54mmR. Ran out of x53mmR? No worries, use captured, looted, or even smuggled ammunition from your neighbor which is plentiful.

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>>31025408
it is, there is no doubt, only thing that might be better with the 7.62x39 is that it might perform better after passing through bushes or something like that which i admit there are a lot of in Finnish forests.

>>31025435
people say x54R is great for belt-fed machine guns, but I take it it's shit as a rifle round?

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>>31025483

>>31025490
it's rimmed so it's a shit rifle round, it can't be used in machine guns that push the round through the link because of the rim, there has to be a system that pulls the round out of the link first, this makes the machine gun more complicated, heavier, and more prone to failure

America: take reliable design, add more springs, add even more springs, don't forget small parts for dat dere planned obsolescence, wouldn't want something to last forever and kill business! sell the design for profit, sell the design for profit again, adopt it from the lowest bidder, keep it for 70 years because we don't wanna waste Israel's precious tax dollars on a new one.

Israel: use America's money to design something, use America money to manufacture it, use America's money to feed it, use America's money to shill America for more money. By the end of the process the rifle is so heavy due to being lined with American gold it can kill an Arab just by being dropped on his toe.

Belgium, Switzerland: hire space aliens to make the best goddamn rifles in this corner of the galaxy.

Everyone else pretty much just copies Euros, Ruskies, and Americans.

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>>31025502
odd, the first time i saved it from google it didn't load correctly or something

>>31025522
huh, I didn't think the rim would affect accuracy so much

>>31025526
>take reliable design

Woops typo.

>>31025537
it doesn't affect accuracy but it has the potential to create a number of malfunctions that have to be accounted for. i meant that it's shit in semi auto rifles, but a rimless cartridge will still be better even for bolt actions.

>>31025526
what american gun are you referring to?

>>31025583
All of them I'd assume

>>31025301
Service time spent-wise, the American. RK-wise, the Finn.

That Finn may have had maybe 8 to 10 months of national service at that point.

>>31026121
i can't think of even one that his description matches.

>>31025526
>apocryphal grunt stories: the post

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>>31025301
>Which one of these guys do you think is more experienced?
Kinda depends what do you mean with "experienced".

In the interviews, those American troops mentioned being very impressed, even surprised of the skills and discipline of these Finnish conscripts in the exercise.
During those past arctic training co-op exercises, it became very clear that Finns had the upper hand.

For the most part, though, the training and equipment of both countries are fairly similar these days. Only the form of the service really differs.

>>31023944
>it just works
Todd pls

>>31024101

Which were all developed by Aimo Lahti. Finnish military small arms development by year 1944 was pretty much one man show and he was that man. It has been stipulated that of the reasons why Finnish World War 2 small arms tend to be heavy is that while Lahti was very good in inventing firearms, he lacked formal training for the job. Nowadays people who develop firearms typically have pretty good grasp of engineering side of things. Since Lahti lacked ability to make calculations for structural durability his designs tended to have a large safety margin - and in case of L-35 pistol contained structural failure, which later haunted the design. Another reason probably being that at that point Finnish industry was still quite inexperienced in manufacturing of small arms (whole industry basically did not exist before 1918) and its manufacturing techniques were not necessarily the latest possible.

Besides developing his own weapon designs Lahti also improved some Russian/Soviet small arms, such as:
- (Slightly) improved sights for Mosin-Nagant m/1891 (his first design).
- Improved Maxim-machinegun designs.
- Fixed version of DS-39 machinegun, that actually even worked somewhat well.

After World War 2 the Soviets forced Lahti to early retirement, with Finnish government giving him pension benefits of Army general.

There were also some other Finnish players in the game, but not on Lahti's level. "Harry" Mansner designed excellent rifle sights used in rifles m/28-30 and m/39. Arvo Saloranta was Lahti's partner for developing Lahti-Saloranta m/26 light machinegun and his own pistol prototype that predated Lahti's first L-35 prototype was clearly a major influence, but did his main work developing landmines, artillery shells etc. instead of small arms.

>>31027221
I know, where do you think I got the joke about wrapping iron around two holes until the thing weights more than foreign counterparts?

>>31025435

Might be worth noting that using old Finnish standard issue 7.62 x 53R is forbidden - 203-grain FMJ and sensitive primers would cause problems if used in PKM or SVD.

Soviets and Russian alike prefer(red) selling weapons system and supplies for them. So to buy ammo for SVD, you also need to have SVD rifles bought from them - but all SVD rifles in Finnish inventory are ex East German origin.

Several batches of PKM were bought from Soviet Union & Russia and we get ammo for those. Hence we are now shooting machinegun-ammo with Dragunovs.

>>31025456

For god sake - for the millionth time - converting existing Finnish assault rifles to 5.56-mm would be absolutely idiotic idea. It would be:
1. Extremely expensive (replace barrel, bolt and modify numerous others and replace mags).
2. Would offer very little improvement.

Basically it would result FDF being equipped with rifle which has many of the benefits of existing design ruined, while practically nothing would be gained. Hence it is an autistic pipe dream that is never ever going to happen.

The actual difference in normal ammo load for infantry soldier would be substantially less than the difference of standard issue water canteen being full or empty.

>>31025522

It is not shit as rifle round, but it is more complicated to get working, since it demands mags that designed specifically for it and loading the mags requires knowing the correct technique. The real problems appear if you want to make large capacity box mags, 10 round mags are not that difficult, but building a working box mag with capacity of 20 rounds or more would be difficult. Finnish Lahti-Saloranta m/26 has 20-round box mag, but the spring is heavy as hell, loading the mag to full capacity requires special tool and yet the mag is not terribly reliable.

>>31027355
>now shooting machinegun-ammo with Dragunovs.
This is also the reason why so many conscripts dislike the SVD and think it's inaccurate.

I let a friend of mine, who used SVD during his conscription and hated it, to shoot my SVD with ammo actually suited for the rifle. The guy changed his opinion on the rifle a few mags in when he started connecting with 0,5l soda bottles 330 yards away.

>>31027255

Yeah I got that - but IMHO that was putting it in very simplistic terms, so I wanted to add more detail. Simplistic terms and generalizations come with a very large likelihood of being misunderstood.

>>31023541
I would say that more accurate description would be:
1. Finland: Use what you have and try to develop equipment in most cost-effective way possible - largely by improving older small arm designs. Sometimes attempts to improve or modify existing equipment went so far, that it became just ridiculous. Also tried to manufacture everything before the war locally - even if did not necessarily make any sense from financial viewpoint or was quite unrealistic concerning industrial capability.

2. Germany: Most capable for developing new stuff both on concept level (StG) and manufacturing technology (use of stamped parts). Still relied on old technology in certain parts (Mauser 98k, while others were issuing semi-auto rifles) - likely at least partly for traditions sake. Often attempted to make best weapon possible instead of going with good enough, even if would have made more sense.

3. Soviet Union: Large number of development teams, some of which were politically favored. Gradual development instead of large improvements, hence for example solutions used in machineguns developed little by little. Relied making cost-effective weapons, that looked rough and were not that high quality, but got the job done and could be easily manufactured in massive numbers.