Military technology has made great progress. The PLA's future new gun family is on display at the air show? Both appearance and connotation

In this Zhuhai Air Show, in the weapons hall which mainly displays ground equipment, the Ordnance Equipment Group very generously brought out all the firearms of the People's Liberation Army's new gun family for exhibition, and visitors could pick them up and try them out directly, which made the author, who missed the air show due to the epidemic, very envious. Now he can only watch it "online" through various videos and pictures released by netizens.

Most of the firearms on display

The first is the QBZ-191 assault rifle and the QBZ-192 short assault rifle - this time it can be confirmed that the short assault rifle is called 192

First of all, the first reaction of all the viewers who have tried the 191/192 is that the gun is not heavy, is light, feels good, and the female reporter can pick it up easily.

Both 191 and 192 use a follow-up bolt handle on the right side of the gun body, so some experienced operators will pull the bolt from below in a manner similar to the AK, which is a very typical AK quick bolt pulling method.

There are even related meme pictures on the Internet: How to identify Russian spies with AR rifles

The bolt handle is follow-up, which means that when you shoot, the bolt handle will move back and forth. Some people think that this will cause the risk of hand injury, but in fact, the bolt handle of the 191/192 design is designed to be located at a relatively high position, so as long as the grip is correct, this will not happen. The advantage of the follow-up bolt handle is that it is simple and reliable. When you encounter a bullet ejection failure, you can simply and roughly kick the bolt handle to eliminate the problem.

The picture shows a tactical shooting instructor on the Internet demonstrating how to troubleshoot an AK rifle by kicking the bolt handle with his foot.

The bulge at the rear of the ejection window is used to control the direction of ejection, allowing the shell to pop out diagonally forward, thereby ensuring that the shell will not "hit the face" when changing hands.

The magazine is the AK style with the front-mounted and rear-locked magazine. On the one hand, it is the long-standing operating habit of the PLA. On the other hand, it is simple and reliable, and the connection is also very strong. It will be mentioned later that you can even hang a belt box.

There is also a small protrusion on the side of the magazine catch for easy operation. This is also available on some overseas tactical AK series rifles. It is a very user-friendly design.

The safety/rate of fire selector is bilaterally linked, and the empty-chamber unlocking mechanism is on the left. However, it is estimated that in actual use many officers and soldiers are still accustomed to pulling the bolt handle directly from the bottom to unlock it. It is very fast after becoming proficient. A tactical instructor has demonstrated it on the Internet. After changing the magazine, he can just pull it up directly.

On the left side of the gun, you can see the speed selector and the empty-bore release button.

The mechanical sights can be folded, and there is a whole Picatinny rail on the top. There are two empty positions on the left and right sides. If needed, two rails can be screwed on according to the accessories. There was an aluminum alloy four-sided full rail scheme for 191/192 during the prototype stage, but one unit thought it was too heavy and the other felt it was uncomfortable, so it was changed to the current one.

The original design is similar to the QBU-191 sniper rifle, or the 191 sniper rifle retains the original design. As a heavy barrel automatic rifle, the sniper model also has full-automatic shooting capabilities, which can basically be compared to the M27 IAR. This is my favorite model in the 191 gun family. After all, heavy rifles can shoot far and accurately. The US and Russian special forces directly use heavy rifles as rifles and light machine guns.

Note that the safety/speed selector is 0-1-2, 2nd gear is fully automatic

The buttstock design is similar to that of an AR rifle, with the recoil spring in the buttstock, so the buttstock is retractable but not foldable. However, it can better reduce recoil and make the gun better controlled during shooting.

The new squad machine gun and general-purpose machine gun are the guns I pay more attention to. They look similar, so it is difficult to distinguish them. I mainly look at the buttstock. The buttstock of the new 5.8 squad machine gun is telescopic and foldable (folds to the left), and the buttstock is triangular. The new general-purpose machine gun can only be telescopic, is square, and has a cheek pad that can be adjusted in height.

The first reaction of all the visitors who have tried it is that it is light. As machine guns, both guns are not heavy. The empty weight of the new 5.8 squad machine is less than 5 kg, and the weight of the ammunition supply is comparable to that of the 95 squad (the empty weight is actually a little heavier than the 95 squad machine gun, but its plastic ammunition belt box is much lighter than the 95 squad's steel drum). With the same base number of bullets, it is lighter than the 95 squad and its accuracy is comparable to that of the 95 squad (the 95 squad machine gun is very accurate, otherwise the People's Liberation Army would not have used the '95-1Plus' modified from the 95-1 squad machine gun when participating in foreign competitions). The empty weight of the new 7.62 general machine is less than 8 kg.

In comparison, the empty weight of the m249, a similar American gun, is about 7.5 kg, and the empty weight of the m240 is over 10 kg. Even the American soldiers themselves complain about its weight.

This macho man definitely wouldn't be able to lift an American machine gun if it were in this pose. Note the magazine interface under the squad machine gun on the right.

In addition, this time it was confirmed that the new general-purpose machine gun uses 7.62X51mm NATO medium-caliber bullets. The deputy chief designer said that the 7.62X54R flange bullet is not compact enough and the structure is too old, which makes the matching automatic mechanism very complicated.

At the same time, the 30-round magazine of the rifle can be inserted under the squad machine gun in case of emergency.

The same front hanging and rear card, this is also the place to hang the ammunition chain box, the advantage of front hanging and rear card is here

Both machine guns can be replaced with a barrel by pulling the bolt handle to the rear and turning the handle upwards. Taking into account the needs of airborne troops, all parts protruding from the gun body can be folded to prevent hooking.

The submachine guns are all CS/LS7, but they have different stock structures, from far to near, they are folding stock, telescopic folding stock, telescopic stock and no stock. Currently, the People's Liberation Army and the Armed Police Force use telescopic stock models, while the public security has all kinds of them.

Three sniper rifles, from close to long range: 7.62 caliber (203 high-precision sniper), 8.6 caliber (202 high-precision sniper) and 12.7 caliber (201 large-caliber sniper rifle)

Overall, the three sniper rifles use the same solution, such as the adjustment of the handguard and the buttstock, and the appearance is very similar. As for the muzzle brake, it is a good idea to look at it separately. Compared with the previous 12.7mm (the 10-type anti-material rifle is not a sniper rifle strictly speaking, and the new 12.7 sniper rifle is a replacement for it) and 7.62mm sniper rifles (that is, the "260,000" CS/LR4/4A, "formally a temporary worker"), the three new snipers have greatly improved in performance and ergonomics. The shooter's comfort should be very good, and the appearance is more beautiful and looks good.

It's a pity that I don't have the chance to go and play with it myself, so I can only wait for the next air show...