Episode 3. Five Ages of the Russian Machinegun

[Music] [Music] though the magpie is very similar in appearance to an auto cannon believe me it's a classic machine gun and we're going to prove it our magpie features 28 barrels we built it specifically for combat approved and today for the first time in several centuries we'll test the weapon at a 21st century firing ground this spot will also bear witness to the toughest survival tests which the pigeon egg the main machine gun of today's russian military is subjected [Music] [Music] five ages of the russian machine gun both combat approved and fiesta tv viewers will have an exclusive chance to see how they used to manufacture ammunition for the machine gun of yvonne the terrible how they forged barrels and built gun mounts when constructing our magpie we're going to stick to technologies dating back to the 16th century meanwhile to test the 21st century machine gun we'll come up with a versatile target fire it bulletproof glass a light vehicle and we'll even try to penetrate a brick wall [Music] and finally viewers of today's episode and those who watch the fiesta channel will have the chance to see a brand's new machine gun manufactured at the dictionary plant before airing this episode any information on it was kept highly under a lid [Music] foreign about its prominent ancestors and about the people who handle them [Music] as well as the specialists who by virtue of being granted access to classified information supervise the most crucial and classified military projects in the country day in and day out [Music] combat approved [Music] this monster task has been assigned to design engineer vladimir luzov a professional marksman and a sniper here at the plant dimitri starosten we have prepared a thermal imager to measure the barrel getting hotter usually it takes about 10 seconds to file a hundred cartridges we'll fire now as if we were in real combat that is in bursts followed by a second pause then another one it took a total of 18 seconds to fire a standard belt then we reload then the second belt and finally the third the whole process took us one minute and 16 seconds there was no obvious glow in the dark the barrel made it through it did heat up although not to the point of the metal turning red specialist here explained that it performed pretty well for 300 cartridges fired in a row this unique barrel allows the pitching machine gun to stand out from its previous generations of stablemates foreign he's personally responsible for the quality of the pitching eggs heading out to the troops next is a number of complex operations drilling grinding and polishing the plant is packing scores of modern equipment but what really captures the attention of a layman here are these small crescents you can see them at almost every workstation in the assembly shop this ancient technology which is still viable in the 21st century provides for a simple and straightforward operation a manufactured part is put to the flame it turns black and then is returned to its original place say to the vault they then move the part several times to imitate the reloading cycle and then they check if 70 of the cinder is still on the part then everything is aligned and won't get stuck during firing as a matter of fact the barrel and bolt are checked not only by the quality section of the plant but by military supervisors as well well the military supervisor checks the quality of all elements in the future machine gun but for the barrel and the bolt he has a special marking stamp [Music] um all machine gun parts are numbered so it's impossible to mix them up it wouldn't happen even if we disassembled and deliberately mixed the parts from several [ __ ] niggs [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] here we have it our pizzanig is ready let's check it nowadays nobody would bat an eyelid at a single barrel machine gun but 500 years ago they used to manufacture machine guns like this multi-barreled the design dates back to the 16th century under the reign of yvonne the terrible when it was named the magpies the magpie we came across in the museum featured 105 barrels when you look at this piece it makes you wonder what it actually is a historian explains that the magpie cannot be called a cannon by any means as it has multiple barrels and only one ignition core to fire them all nor does it have anything in common with multi-launch rocket systems [Music] in fact witnessing a real magpie in action it is a great rarity in museums however there are drawings and pictures illustrating various types of this unique and strange multi-barrel weapon that have made it to our day here is an ancient cossack machine gun featuring seven barrels the magpie has a drum which is set in motion by a lever and this one was a prototype designed by leonardo da vinci [Music] we decided to build one following the advice of the moscow strelsi a fifth order reenactors club they're experts both in the period of yvonne the terrible and in pyrotechnics there are even some amongst them who fire cannons during place at the bolshoi [Music] theater as we've already learned from specialists at the dick yadav plant the manufacturer of a machine gun starts with the production of its barrel the magpie here is no exception our future weapon from the past will sport 28 barrels we're going to manufacture them in the way our ancestors did that is using a hammer and anvil while knocking out barrels the blacksmith explains that it is of the utmost importance not to get them overheated otherwise the future barrel could disintegrate or blow up during firing and shower the shooter with shards the next phase is to make a vore they used to drill it in the past so the craftsmen here have adopted pretty much the same technology [Music] while making the barrels the re-enactors would keep them outdoors thus by the time they were ready to assemble the weapons many of them had developed rust [Applause] [Music] they're going to weld them together few people know that this technology existed as far back in the days as yvonne the terrible of course it wasn't electrical appliances that they used back then but the same blacksmith hammers and a special mineral borax the craftsman here are confident that even without welding the design is very sound [Music] [Music] plant we are told about the evolution of the machine gun into what it has become today [Music] foreign therefore it isn't the magpie which is considered one of the first automatic machine guns but the maxim or maxim the maximum machine gun after the name of its inventor american hiram stevens maxim but the first russian machine gun to be built from scratch was the dictionary of machine gun it was also named after its inventor the outstanding designer vasily dictiarev you may have noticed as well that his name was commemorated not only on the machine gun but in that of russia's largest armory in kavrov in the vladimir region it is here that the pigeon egg is manufactured [Music] the weapons have already been developed not only are their technical characteristics and performance classified but their appearance as well that being said at the end of today's episode we'll be taking the wrapper off one of them and to unveil a couple of its secrets meanwhile we're going to test the strength of its predecessors for combat approved especially we have taken this whole museum collection to a test range [Music] to shoot this episode we opted for unique equipment this included a high-speed camera which can capture 400 000 frames per second it'll help us see and understand how bullets from weapons of different ages behave in the air a specialist in machine guns alexandre smirnov pours water into the maxim it is essential to have water in its barrel to fire it safely so that it doesn't get overheated [Music] the original american maxime was converted into the russian maxim because of the caliber it had already been in the inventory of our military for half a century over that time it was retrofitted to receive russian ammunition of a different caliber and most importantly it was the russian staff captain sakalov who retrofitted the machine gun with wheels a mount and a shield which come together to shape the maxim into a weapon recognized all over the world remarkable as it is the story of the dictionary of machine gun is even more so it turns out that the weapon is russia's response to european sanctions as soon as the ussr came into being capitalist european states ceased the delivery of ammunition to russia at that time most of the machine guns that were had in our inventory were foreign meaning that russian cartridges didn't fit into their chambers under the circumstances the decision was taken to develop a domestic machine gun that would chamber russian cartridges but it didn't work out well at first with the gornov machine gun after some manipulations with the side in the bolt we finally curved [Music] yes yes stalin himself found the gordon machine gun to be the best in 1943 for starters it is 1.5 times lighter than the maxim it doesn't need water cooling either it's even good for shooting down aircraft the next machine gun we tested was the kalashnikov and it fared pretty well and finally the hero of today's episode the pitch and egg [Music] foreign [Music] galaxy meanwhile the reenactors are continuing to assemble the magpie they have to use screws solid ones to tie up the wooden stock of the machine gun otherwise the weapon will be blown to pieces with its very first shots for the sake of integrity the craftsmen are making everything according to the technology used in the past [Music] [Music] also craftsmen manufactured bullets for the magpie by hand actually the production of such ancient ammunition is an art itself usually bullets were cast from lead so they could fit into the boar but during marches they didn't have the luxury of having the right equipment around thus before attack soldiers were issued with lead blanks and then with hammers and anvils they were turned into lethal ammunition such as this [Music] then they put it close to the muzzle if they see that the diameter is still too large that the bullet does not fit the bore they switch to yet another ancient technology they chisel whatever extra material they have to make it fit it looks like gem cutting smoothed out ammunition will fly more accurately and farther but a faceted bullet the reenactor explains can go off its trajectory and miss the target altogether oleg what's your prediction [Music] after a 2.8 ounce lead bullet is a very serious bullet even by today's standards the pigeon egg fires 0.7 ounce bullets i wonder what it will be able to penetrate all right let's move on to our next experiment and check out their armor piercing capacity another point of interest is whether the bulletproof glass which we have installed on the driver's door will withstand the hit of a bullet look at this the axe cannot put a dent in it but if we used it on conventional glass the axe would travel through it as if it were thin air we've entrusted the job of firing at the vehicle to a specialist the first thing tested by us was bulletproof glass like stuff usually installed on light vip armored vehicles but it's succumbed to the onslaught of the pigeon egg fire the bullets not only tore it to shreds but continued into the cabin of the vehicle [Music] engineers at the plant direct our attention to the fact that all this damage was done by tracer bullets compared to their conventional counterparts their penetrators are smaller [Music] the design engineer is confident that if we fired from a pistol the results would not have been the same and the glass would have done its job coming next is an armor vest boasting the fifth class of protection as well as a vehicle the vehicle sinks under relentless fire from the pitch and egg but the vest holds on at least a dozen bullets hit the target to find out what exactly happened to bullets we decided to x-ray the vest [Music] here one can see that one bullet penetrated the armor the rest ended up squashed on the armor of course had it been on a human being it would have been very serious the guy would have ended up in the hospital at best but the hit of each bullet never mind whether it penetrated the armor or not equals the hit of a huge hammer as for the vehicle it is beyond repair after the experiment look at this the entrance and exit holes made by the bullets are not the same in size here we have neat entrance holes and really rugged points on the other side exit points the next thing we're going to check is the door we continued firing several seconds and we've turned the entrance door into a colander actually the bullets have not only penetrated the door but the roof of the vehicle as well and then its gas cylinder that explosion was really something our versatile target has completed its mission and is now in ruins [Music] but the next day came and we decided to make the task more complex we simply wondered if the pitching egg would be able to penetrate a brick wall we put it to the test but to no avail all right let's give the job to another russian machine gun boasting a different caliber [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign foreign just 50 cartridges were needed to reduce a brick wall to the ground impressive [Music] nouveau foreign over the time it took us to manufacture the magpie the kavrov plant produced several batches of pets and eggs but in the past people were never in a hurry no matter whether they faced war or not even to mounting the magpie on wheels proved to be a tricky job when assembled the magpie weighs at least 220 pounds no less the head of the team of reenactors oleg khaletkin checks everything yet another time explaining that ancient as it is the machine gun still has sights [Music] now the only thing left for us to do is deliver the magpie to the firing ground [Music] back in the day transporting such a weapon to where it was needed was also a challenge and could take as long as a month besides the piece needed to be treated with great care its wooden wheels could break the powder could get wet and the wooden mount could crack this is no longer the case with modern machine guns the pigeon a can survive even the most difficult and extreme conditions you'll see now for yourself [Music] [Music] that the pitching egg can survive everything even fire and water snow definitely won't do it much harm but as they say better safe than sorry yes [Music] a shot another one and it finds the target immediately hitting the bullseye or more precisely a gas cylinder and finally coming next is an event of historical magnitude and this is no exaggeration as we're going to fire from the most ancient machine gun on earth you'll never have witnessed anything like this before [Music] but even just loading the ancient machine gun is a challenge to say the least it takes two guys to do the job one puts the powder inside the barrel and into the channel while the other tamp sits [Music] i'll have to repeat the procedure 28 times the whole procedure from round one to round 28 takes at least half an hour nobody has the wildest guess as to how the weapon will behave even the craftsman here don't have the slightest idea of what could happen in several minutes [Music] [Music] a big bang followed by smoke and then in its wake fireworks were fired to commemorate the moment officers gunsmiths our film crew all those who gathered on the shooting ground have witnessed an incredible event live fire from a gun used in the time of yvonne the terrible let's have a look at this again [Music] the results impressed even those who built the ancient machine guns the ammunition penetrated a tin plate a thick wooden board and a metal bracket going on beyond the target now i guess nobody will continue to call the magpie a cannon let's run the moment it fired again but now we will have it in slow motion the magpie unleashed 28 shots in less than two seconds i'll tell you one thing when it fires it rumbles so hard that it leaves you dazzled for several days but it doesn't really matter when you're witnessing history unfold before your eyes even though the shooting ground here has seen every russian machine gun design combat proven a newfangled nobody here has ever seen a machine gun from the past be resurrected a russian machine gun from the past [Music] we promise not to disclose the spot where we captured the russian machine gun in action the only thing we'll tell you is that it is one of the secret storage sites of the [ __ ] out of blent and here comes the moment we have been craving for for so long the new pitching egg is evidently lighter than its predecessor it features a shorter barrel and its bipod comes with springs shock absorbers like those you find in vehicles and that's pretty much all an outsider is allowed to find out about the new pitching egg so far even the number of manufactured pieces is kept under lock and key today we've taken you through the evolution of the russian machine gun you're lucky to be among the first to witness the first live shot fired from the most ancient machine gun the magpie and the most advanced the pitching egg but that's not to say that progress will now stagnate time will pass and this classified state-of-the-art machine gun will also find its place in a museum next to the magpie it would be great if the reason behind this was not the emergence of a new more advanced and powerful weapon but a lack of necessity to have any weapons around it all but we can only indulge ourselves in dreaming of such a day and this is why we are forced to soldier on and equip ourselves with more weapons [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: COMBAT APPROVED

Views: 69,280

Keywords: Russian military power, Russian military, military, Combat Approved, Zvezda tv, army, russian army, weapon, russian weapon, russian machine gun, pecheneg, pecheneg gun, degtyaryov plant

Id: 3P9hRj47vvk

Length: 37min 14sec (2234 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021