Firearms secret projects

Voltzz said:
Translated from this German article:
In the competition for the 20-million-mark development contract for the G 11 awarded by the German armed forces, they (H&K) succeeded in overtaking two strong competitors: The traditional Mauser company had proposed a weapon with three barrels, all three of which were to fire simultaneously. The Diehl Group from Röthenbach, on the other hand, sought success with a rifle in which the projectiles and propellant charges were to be fed from separate magazines.
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Does anyone have any information on the Diehl and IWKA Mauser designs?

Interestingly in 2014 Diehl was still working on the separate feeding of projectile and propellant and presented a 12.7mm MG called PMW 12,7 (Präzisionsmaschinenwaffe 12,7mm) based on this concept. (Source)
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There's a few photos floating around of the Mauser G11, but it doesn't seem to be the tri-barrel version. Looks more like an AA12 than anything else. Apparently used a 10-round helical mag fed from stripper clips like an M1941 Johnson?

aevnqyflhmx61.jpg

I've also seen that same picture labelled as a "Diehl Project 401", which was patented in 1973 and used a "conventional" caseless 5.56 round fed from a 120-round helical magazine. Other than what I believe is the relevant patent (DE2401543) and a single picture there's next to nothing for info on the "Project 401". Though digging through the patents, they do have several for separate-charge small arms ammunition. Project 401 is the top in that photo, the lower one of course being the innards of an H&K G11.

Project401.jpg
I don't know why you'd ever want separate propellant feeding, though. Twice as many possible points of failure, even artillery is moving to cased munitions instead of bagged charges. Hell, the only place I've heard of that concept is the (Aliens) Colonial Marines Technical Manual, where a Marine artillery piece uses a highly-improbable binary hypergolic liquid propellant sprayed into the chamber.
 
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I was under the impression that the tri-barrel verrsion was IWK's entry (patent drawings below), while what Ravinoff posted was the Mauser one, with the top photo being from the 1988 book Modern Small Arms by Ian V. Hogg.

As for why you'd want separate feeding for the propellant case and projectile, the answer can be found in Anthony G. Williams' Autocannon book:
The 30 mm Separate-Loading Ammunition High Performance Automatic Cannon (SLAMMO-HYPAC) was developed in the late 1970s by Pulsepower Systems of San Carlos, California. They submitted an unsolicited proposal to make a 25 mm revolver gun in which the cartridge and the projectile were loaded separately(...) A comparison with the GAU-8/A and the AMCAWS-30 was made. While all three are similar in their muzzle energy, the SLAmmo provides reductions in ammunition weight of 7% and 16% compared with the AMCAWS-30 and GAU-8/A respectively, and reductions in volume of 22% and 38%.
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While the savings would be much lower than the 30 mm SLAMMO due to scaling, it should still take considerably less volume than standard rifle ammunition of the same caliber.
 

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Perdikofas said:
I was under the impression that the tri-barrel verrsion was IWK's entry (patent drawings below), while what Ravinoff posted was the Mauser one, with the top photo being from the 1988 book Modern Small Arms by Ian V. Hogg.
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Until 1979 Mauser was part of IWKA. From 1979 until 1995 Mauser was part of Diehl. But afaik the competition was already decided in H&Ks favor before 1979. So Mauser and IWKA should have always formed one unit in the program. I dont think IWKA had any small-arms division beside Mauser.
For example the application for US version of the patent your images are from,was filed by IWKA while for the German version this was done by Mauser
 
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Hi,

Ravinoff said:
I don't know why you'd ever want separate propellant feeding, though. Twice as many possible points of failure, even artillery is moving to cased munitions instead of bagged charges.
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In the case of the experimental Diehl system, I could imagine that they were able to develop two-part ammunition of a lighter weight than possible with single-part ammunition, as the latter needs to be held together by a reasonably sturdy case to withstand rough handling in field conditions without having the projectile come off the case.

By assembling the projectile and the propellant only in the chamber of the gun, you can get away with a much less sturdy and accordingly lighter two-part "round".

Not that I know anything about guns, it's just what I can think of as a potenitally vaguely plausible explanation :)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 
IMG_2716.jpeg
Does anyone know what these rifles are? I could only id the Spitalsky.
These are exhibits at Vienna’s war museum, wish to see more better photos.
 
Japanese soldier holding a captured Chinese Bergmann
 

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WWI U.S. expeditionary forces, but armed with Krags
 

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World B4 said:
https://imgur.com/a/nJ4OOGZ
View: https://imgur.com/a/nJ4OOGZ


Tula State Arms Museum's write-up about the Schwarzlose smg. It doesn't appear to say when the gun or it's sibling were captured, which is what I wanted to find out
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Very likely looted from Germany or Austria after the Second World War.

What isn't widely known is that the MP Schwarzlose was intended to be a joint project between Germany and Austria-Hungary. Production was to be undertaken at both Schwarzlose and Steyr, for the benefit of both armies. 100 trial guns were ordered in both 9x19mm Parabellum and 9x23mm Steyr, but several months into development, less than 10 guns had actually been assembled (of a total of 100 ordered). So the project collapsed and the Germans and Austrians instead adopted separate submachine guns (the MP 18,I and the Sturmpistole M.18, respectively).
http://firearms.96.lt/pages/schwarzlose
 
OkHat said:
View attachment 702008
Does anyone know what these rifles are? I could only id the Spitalsky.
These are exhibits at Vienna’s war museum, wish to see more better photos.
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I went poking through the Vienna War Museum's collection pages and I'm relatively sure that's a showcase of various Schulhof rifle patents/variants, which I'm having an absolute devil of a time tracking down more information on. This FirearmBlog post has some info (well, a little bit).
 
Danuvia 39M folding stock variant
 

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Just found this image here
Apparently in 1993 the configuration of the G36 was still not fixed and a Bullpup version was considered.
 

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Abraham Gubler said:
“Why does the US military use so many 40mm grenade launchers? Because they don’t have a 70mm grenade launcher.” *

The USN’s riverine and coastal force in the VietNam War required a range of lightweight suppressive fire weapons. 81mm breech loading mortars were re-rolled from the coast guard and new 40mm grenade launchers, the Mk 18 and Mk 19 were developed and fielded. By the late 60s operational experience had indicated even more high explosive firepower was needed. The Naval Ordnance Station Louisville lead by Col. George Chinn (author of the famous Machinegun series of books) developed a new 70mm automatic grenade launcher (AGL) concept based on scaling up the high and low pressure 40mm grenade. This new weapon could be used for suppressive fire and with a proposed dual purpose, penetrating round for anti-bunker fires.

The new grenade launcher was similar in concept to the Mk 19 and weighed in at 110 lbs (50 kg) and could fire at 350 rpm from belts or clips. The grenade fired had a muzzle velocity of 1,100 fps (335 ms) to an effective range of 4,000 yards (3.6 km). Colt also provided a design for a 70mm AGL that could use either cased or caseless 70mm grenades. The cancallation of the next generation riverine warfare boats and massive scalling down of the USN’s littoral warfare force saw development of this weapon ended.

Source: "The Machinegun: Volume V" by Col. George Chinn, USMC (Ret)

* Paraphrase of the common joke about .50 calibre and .100 calibre machineguns.
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CROW or Counter-Recoil Operation Weapon 1691981553153.png
As conceived by the designers, for the correct distribution of forces and impulses acting on the weapon during firing, it was necessary to use automatic equipment with a moving bolt and barrel. Sequential movement of these parts in different directions was to "stretch" the recoil impulse over time and thereby reduce the impact on both the firing results and the arrow.
 
jsport said:
CROW or Counter-Recoil Operation WeaponView attachment 705946
As conceived by the designers, for the correct distribution of forces and impulses acting on the weapon during firing, it was necessary to use automatic equipment with a moving bolt and barrel. Sequential movement of these parts in different directions was to "stretch" the recoil impulse over time and thereby reduce the impact on both the firing results and the arrow.
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Man, it's really too bad that development of that wasn't pursued.

But it's basically a 70mm infantry gun at that point. It just happens to weigh 110lbs like an HMG.
 
modified SVT with fixed magazine and Mosin bayonet
 

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It seems like a decent percentage of information on these experimental arms comes from magazines rather than books. Which publications do you guys get this stuff from? I only know of the Small Arms Review.
 
Whopper said:
It seems like a decent percentage of information on these experimental arms comes from magazines rather than books. Which publications do you guys get this stuff from? I only know of the Small Arms Review.
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Another popular source is the www.forgottenweapons.com website run by Ian McColum (sp?). Ian has been shifting websites recently after www.YouTube.com has restricted “weapons” pod-casts.
 
riggerrob said:
Small Arms Review is one of Ian’s sources.
Ian also visits museums and factories and private collectors. Even more, Ian interviews military veterans and weapons designers.
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And gets places even other researchers would struggle to access, like the reference collection of the French Gendarmerie.
 
DWG said:
And gets places even other researchers would struggle to access, like the reference collection of the French Gendarmerie.
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And before the Ukraine stupidity kicked off, was working on getting into the Russian museums with Max Popernikov(sp?)
 
Whopper said:
It seems like a decent percentage of information on these experimental arms comes from magazines rather than books. Which publications do you guys get this stuff from? I only know of the Small Arms Review.
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Books tend to cover a broader overview of a subject and therefore have to condense information to key points of interest, namely guns that have seen widespread military use, rather than niche stuff like prototypes. Having said that, there are some excellent books that cover experimental and prototype arms in detail, though they are very specialized and not the sort of thing you can pick up at your average bookstore.

Magazines are generally better suited to exploring prototypes in-depth because the writer can dedicate a whole, self-contained article to something that would not warrant very much detail in a book. Often an author will compile all their major research into a book and then set aside some of the superfluous stuff that they find interesting to magazines like Small Arms Review, Deutsches Waffen-Journal, SAM Wapenmagazine, and, more recently, the excellent journal Armax (run by the same people as Headstamp Publishing).
 
Sudayev Avtomat (AS-44) models.
 

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Scott Kenny said:
Hrm... seems a waste with only ~5 rounds in the magazine. In addition to being a nightmare to control if it's in 7.62x54R.

The Federov Avtomat is a much better design, using the 6.5x52SR Arisaka round for lower recoil and higher capacity.
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Well, owing to the shape of Russian 3-line cartridge, it was not until the early 30s that Soviet engineers designed a reliable magazine with a capacity of more than 5 rounds.
The switch to 6.5mm Arisaka for Fedorov automatic rifle(actually self-loading, not full-auto) was not a concern of reducing recoil.
On the contrary, Fedorov designed his own 6.5mm cartridges (for example, a 6.5x60.5mm Fedorov cartridge was found in St.Petersburg in 2011) in order to achieve better trajectory. His automatic rifles were first chambered in both 3-line cartidge and 6.5mm Fedorov.
After Russia entered WWI, Russian military bought hundreds of thousands of Japanese Arisaka rifles (including Type 30 rifle/carbine, Type 38 rifle/carbine) and 6.5mm Arisaka cartridges due to the lack of weapons and ammunitions, and Fedorov was among the Russian envoys that went to Japan to negotiate the affairs of weapon purchasing.
Russia at that time set up production lines for 6.5mm Arisaka cartridge, but was unable and unwilling to manufacture Fedorov's 6.5mm cartridges, though they were considered suitable for adoption by the GAU committee.
Considering ammo supplies and future use, those 6.5mm caliber Fedorov automatic rifles were converted to fire the 6.5mm Arisaka cartridge.
In late 1915 and early 1916, Fedorov went to the western front and saw the use of "machine rifle" among French infantry. They were equipped with Chauchat machine rifles that could provide automatic firepower, and they were infantry's own weapons instead of machine gun corps' equipment.
Fedorov noticed that a "machine gun-rifle" was in need by the Russian infantry, so he shortened his automatic (semi-auto) rifle, added a fire switch to allow full-auto firing, and added a 15-round detachable magazine. This was the real Fedorov Avtomat 1916.
 
Korobov.
 

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