it's an interesting gun, and teh fact that the Soviet Army was looking at using it says a lot for it's reliability and ease of use, but other than the political problems of it being a Russian design, it's just too far away from standard western gun designs to really be taken seriously
ie the 2 round burst feature is at odds with western 3 round burst designs, and the recoiling barrel is just too out there to drop on an army still lamenting the replacement of the M1, also the barrel's a little short for my tastes, being about half way between the M4 and M16 in length, it might be fine for teh 5.45mm round, as i have heard less on it's performance issues etc, but i would advise any army to pick a bullpup gun for their next upgrade, then after that a caseless bullpup, one step at a time, i just feel, for all it's innovations and qualities, the AN-94 is a sidestep, not a real progression in firearms technology, sure, you can be
different, but why do that when you can be
better?
my little bullpup essay is on
this thread below my essay on Guerrilla Warfare, also in that thread are pictures of the SA80 with it's new grenade launcher and the carbine version of it, set for tank crews and prehaps some second line troops, needless to say i feel they are, and have been for some decades, the future of infantry guns, blah blah read what i wrote there so i don't infect this thread EVEN MORE etc
that site has a breakdown diagram and stat listing of the
OICW and i note the barrel length is only 10" but quite how they have done this and still managed to make it shoot straight i don't know, unless theyv'e mad eth rifling of the barrel so tight that it imparts the right amount of spin on the bullet at the expence of the barrel wearing out very rapidly, which i expect is the case. a few more inches of barrel would give it a few more years of life, but a few hundred dollars for a new barrel is nothing compaired to the list price of that monster
back on bullpups for a second, again using that site as a convienent source, check the
Type 86s as proof that i dont' love *all* bullpups, that thing is just
horrible, it looks and feels like a cheap toy (i've handled some but nothing more, it's like some crappy prop a school drama society would use, i wanted nothing to do with it) and the best thing i've heard about it is
"only the Chinese could make an AK47 that jams"
ugh, basicly