NSV 12,7mm HMG

From The D Archives

Jääkäriprikaatin yksiköillä olevia ilmantorjuntakonekiväärejä, jotka ovat ajoneuvoihin asennettuja ja käytettävissä myös maajalustalta, käytetään prikaatin joukkojen omakohtaiseen ilmatorjuntaan. Tilanteen salliessa voidaan aseita käyttää myös suora-ammuntaan joukkojen tulitukiosastoissa.

12,7 mm:n ilmantorjuntakonekivääri (NSV-12,7) on tehokas sarjatuliase, joka on suunniteltu käytettäväksi ilmamaalien tuhoamiseen, sekä vihollisen kevyesti panssaroituja ajoneuvoja, tuliasemia ja elävää voimaa vastaan.

Specifications

Caliber: 12,7x109 mm
Weight: 25 kg gun body, 41 kg on tripod 6T7 with 50 rounds of ammo
Length: 1560 mm (1900 mm on 6T7 tripod)
Length of barrel: 1346 mm
Feeding: belt 50 rounds
Rate of fire: 700-800 rounds/min

Personal notes

Disassembling and assembling one of these is a rather shitty operation. Especially when the instructors are giving you a time limit in which one has to succeed in both operations.

I shot these things twice. The first time everything went well, but the second time due to early spring being rather dry, many of us managed to cause wildfires while firing this thing into a designated "target bush". Naturally the powerful tracer ammunition travelled way faster to just stop on the bushes, and continued all the way to a large brush of trees and even beyond. Not that anyone of us really gave a shit about the wildfires with the instructors yelling at us 24/7, but when they ordered us to go and try to extinquish the flames that they had themselves caused through us by ordering the test-shootouts of those machineguns, it kinda started to feel like we were covering for their mistakes. And you know, we sure fucking were covering for their mistakes too - since I heard that you're not supposed to be firing a 12,7mm in that shooting range at all. Instead all firings with this thing were supposed to be located at the Rovajärvi shooting range in Lapland. Why we fired these things so close to population centers - I don't know. But it sure was a pain in the ass to fight the fires afterwards.

Additional (personal) notes

Before we actually fired these things on that infamous range, we had to train with them by using a simulator. The simulator was manufactured in Sweden, and consisted of all sorts of wires, displays and gadgets you'd have to rig into an actual NSV HMG. Once you were done, though, everything looked very cool and firing that gun in the simulated game was kinda like playing some simpler version of an arcade game. You got to go against aircraft (hard!), helicopters (easy enough!) or BMP IFV's (pretty easy!) on that thing.

I remember this one training session we had with it, when this cocky son-of-a-bitch senior lieutenant came to "instruct us" on how to shoot with it. He yelled at each and everyone of us when we started the simulated firefight, and tried to "instruct" us with the best of his shitty abilities by constantly trying to give us better aiming advice. "Fuck, DON'T SHOOT THERE! CAN'T YOU SEE HE IS COMING STRAIGHT AT YOU! WAIT! DON'T FUCKING SHOOT NOW!" he kept yelling, and each and everyone of us were distracted by his constant whining. So, then came my turn to shoot - and they put up a scenario involving shooting down a pair of attack helicopters on the simulator, and I started scanning the skyline with the gun slowly - eventually I found my targets, although the lieutenant kept yelling at me like it was nobody's business. I let the choppers come straight at me and start shooting, when I finally unloaded on them and dropped both. Damn that guy was pissed! I totally disregarded his shitty advice, 'cause he was probably waiting for me to fuck it up, anyway. I saw many others using the same tactic of just aiming and shooting the choppers at their own regard instead of listening to the lieutenant.

So, like, Mr. Senior Lieutenant, Sir - if you're reading this little rant (which I doubt, since you can't probably even use the internet), please by all means go eat a dick and fucking die.