AK Rifle Qualification

[khopdog]

Does anyone have any reliable info on how the russians or any AK equiped country for that matter qualifies it's soldiers with the AK? Is it similar to the US armed forces with popup targets out to 300 meters and if so what are their standards. I'm just curious.

[Edmund Rowe]

Found an old article
"Firearms Training in the USSR: Soviet Marksmanship from Cradle to Coffin" by David Isby in the Aug '82 issue of SOF.

Summary of military rifle training:

1) lecture of basics of nomenclature, safety, zeroing, etc.
2) hands-on training in assembly/disassembly
3) hands-on training in shooting positions, trigger squeeze, range estimation.
4) lots of dry-firing and oral testing
5) live fire at man-sized targets at 200 meters.
6) live fire at smaller targets at longer known distances, then moving targets
7) Combat range practice: pop up targets, moving, stationary, and disappearing targets at unknown ranges. All targets are engaged on FULL AUTO.
8) specialized training such as shooting from firing ports in armored personnel carriers.

In theory, each Red grunt in a motor-rifle unit has 23 hours of weapons training a month and a 55 hour exercise every 6 months.

All combat foot soldiers qualify on the basic rifle.

The Russians apparently put a lot more emphasis on marksmanship to some extent by '67 because by then there was marksmanship training for civlians as young as age 8 in military sponsored "Young Pioneer" training. Further training in an auxiliary military arm (DOSAAF) for teenagers had hands on rifle training on military issue rifles, as well as hand grenades, mortars, machine guns, etc.

OK, in THEORY the training sounds great. In practice the quality of training varied greatly across the USSR. Also note the purpose of most rifle fire was to suppress enemy positions while the armored assault rolled over the defenses.

Precise single shots are not stressed except for Dragunov equipped snipers. Rifle fire was not expected to be effective past 200 meters, past which support weapons were expected to suppress the enemy.

Note the Russian system is influenced strongly by the Asian military way of thinking, which stresses the mass of soldiers much more than the individuals.

Also note that this article was written very early in the Afghanistan war. The Russians may have adopted changes from lessons learned there. According to the same author's book, Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army, their marksmanship and weapons were woefully inadequate to cope with Afghans engaging at long range with Lee-Enfield rifles. As a counter, some Russian motor-rifle units equipped whole squads with Dragunov sniper rifles.

Hope that helped.

Edmund

[Bryant]

I read an article in Time magazine or People maybe about Russian orphans. The Russians know orphanages only breed future mafia people and criminals. They refer to these orphans as "young wolves", some of the Russian military officers decided to take some of their personal pay and take in these orphans. They select only the hardest of cases and traine them on their own time. The kids sleep in barracks, wear military uniforms and traine or watch military videos all day long. They all are issued brand new AK's and the smaller of the children are issued Krinkov's. The kid's gaine a purpose and discipline along with an education and military training. Most of these children are better shots than some of the regular soldiers. They are free to leave any time they want after the age of fourteen, unless they decide to have a military carreer. It is good I guess knowing how many thousands of orphans become criminals in that country but most of all the kids gaine parental type figures. Some of the pictures showed the soldiers reading to the littlest ones before bed and others playing games with the soldiers as well. I guess the real gaine for the Russian military is getting soldiers who have been in training since the age of four, however the whole thing reminded me of that movie "Soldier" with those kids being trained like that, if you ever have seen the movie you will know what I'm talking about. In the movie they execute one little kid simply because he could not run as fast as the other kid's.

[khopdog]

Thanks, other countries have alot different ways of qualifing their soldiers with weapons. I had the honor of qualifing with the German machinegun with the German luffwaffle a couple of years ago and it was very bizzare to say the least. You fired at a large piece of paper (bigger than posterboard) at 25 yards with different terrain and targets drawn on it (ie troops in the open, in cover with different size circles around them) you had to put a certain number of rounds inside the circles. Noboby understood how it was scored but I'll tell you what that german machinegun kicks alot worse than a M60. They awarded qualification like the olympics with bronze, silver, and gold. I got a bronze with the machinegun but a gold with Luger (that was a sweet and easy pistol to shoot and the first time I had ever fired a handgun) The US Army even let me wear my german qualification on my uniform while i was in the service.

[This message has been edited by khopdog (edited July 22, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by khopdog (edited July 22, 1999).]