It might be a situation where everybody ends up using it like the 9mm parabellum in WWII.
If that were the case, when you run low on ammo and you let the enemy get close, ambush and kill him, you only have to take his ammo instead of his crappy weapon AND ammo so you can keep killing the SOB's.
That's an Infantryman's dream: Let the enemy carry your ammo to the battlefield for you. Of course, after you cluster bomb a pack of them you'll have to pick over the ammo because some of it won't be serviceable any more.
Also, the Russians know better now than to leave a weapon design's Intellectual Property unprotected by patent, etc. They aren't going to help client states build factories to churn out any new weapon they come out with like they did with the AK.
They may well be fighting some of their old client states or former Soviet Republics, like Chechnya, equipped with their old designs.
Also as LRRPF52 said about the grumbling about the 5.45 in Russia, there is grumbling about the 5.56 on our side. It's a great round, it just isn't optimal in the places we are likely to be fighting in the next 20 years. With the compromises of the new projectiles designed to defeat body armor it has lost some of the effectiveness it previously had on soft targets.
RR
If that were the case, when you run low on ammo and you let the enemy get close, ambush and kill him, you only have to take his ammo instead of his crappy weapon AND ammo so you can keep killing the SOB's.
That's an Infantryman's dream: Let the enemy carry your ammo to the battlefield for you. Of course, after you cluster bomb a pack of them you'll have to pick over the ammo because some of it won't be serviceable any more.
Also, the Russians know better now than to leave a weapon design's Intellectual Property unprotected by patent, etc. They aren't going to help client states build factories to churn out any new weapon they come out with like they did with the AK.
They may well be fighting some of their old client states or former Soviet Republics, like Chechnya, equipped with their old designs.
Also as LRRPF52 said about the grumbling about the 5.45 in Russia, there is grumbling about the 5.56 on our side. It's a great round, it just isn't optimal in the places we are likely to be fighting in the next 20 years. With the compromises of the new projectiles designed to defeat body armor it has lost some of the effectiveness it previously had on soft targets.
RR
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