#Pecheneg

This post was written, and photos provided, by our good friend Lionel.

What happens when you take the two concepts of a traditional, full-power rifle and machine gun round, and a small-caliber, high-velocity round, and smash them together? You get one of the most extreme military small arms calibers ever developed, and one of the last small arms projects from the twilight of the Soviet Union.

The Russian Army will be upgrading its automatic infantry support weapons soon. The legacy 7.65x54mmR PKM belt-fed general purpose machine gun will be supplanted in the dismounted role by the PKP “Pecheneg” automatic rifle designed at the end of the 20th Century, reports ArmyRecognition.com:

Russia’s next-generation infantry modernization program is in full swing, and while here at TFB we’ve covered two of the rifles, the AEK-571/A545 and AK-12, competing for orders as part of the program, but the program as a whole is more extensive than just a new infantry weapon. The project, called Ratnik (a Russian word equivalent to “warrior”) is a total modernization of infantry equipment, introducing over 40 new items, including camouflage, comms gear, sights, body armor, navigation equipment, designators, and, of course, small arms. A three-year order for Ratnik equipment was placed in October of last year, and is expected to consist of deliveries of 50,000 units per year.

Photographer Konstantin Lazarev is a reliable source for photos of the latest and greatest small arms to come out of Russia. His latest batch of photos shows several different Pecheneg and PK machine guns, configured with night vision and holographic optics. Some of the photos are below: