9x39 Soviet; an advantage on the modern battlefield?

S

speculator

Inactive
Greetings firearm experts; I have a question maybe some of you may be able to expound on.
As much as I can tell, the Russian Army adopted the 9x39 cartrige for many of the same reasons Americans developed the .300 Whisper: to have a weapon more powerful than the standard submachinegun which could still be effectively silenced.
Now it seems even silenced "sniper" rifles are being used, such as the one described here:

http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/russian_arms/vss.htm

Can a 211 gr. 9mm bullet at subsonic velocites really be considered a replacement for a assault rifle cartridge such as the 7.62x39 or 5.56? Even with a steel core, doesn't it still fall within the power range of projectiles easily stopped by a level III, not to mention IV, armor plate? Will suppressed fire only somewhat more powerful than current submachineguns be valuable on the modern battlefield? Is the US Army implementing similar technology?

Thanks you in advance.
 
It's NOT a replacement for the 5.45x39. It's a niche round, filling the role where a conventional rifle isn't suitable for any of a number of reasons, and where a submachine gun doesn't have the range or power that is necessary.
 
Its for the same mission profiles our teams would use the .300 Wisper. It isnt intended to replace anything.
If they want to replace anything It might be the 9mm Grom cartridge which is a 9X30MM.

If you download NATO 3.5 you can play with these... okay - its not realistic or anything - but being civilians we will never get a chance to play with the real thing anyways. :(
 
Couple years ago...

one of the gun rags ran an article about the wildcat 35x39 round.

They rebarreled a Ruger mini 14 with a 35 caliber barrel and then necked up the 7.62x39 round to 35 caliber.... which is functionally the same as 9mm.

Their pronouncement was it was more or less the same as 35 Remington... a standard old "woods cartridge". The basic load was a 200 grain bullet at 2000 f/s.
Even if it didn't penetrate body armor, that would be a real snot slapper.
Range is limited, though. It's a 150 yard deer gun, or 300 yards on unarmored people. About the same as the 7.62x39.

My not so humble analysis is it's an oddity. Interesting from a technical stanpoint, but why bother?
 
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