Would this have been a better rifle than the AK post WW2?
>>64311819Why would it be?
>>64311819You should ask the Chinese, who made the rifle in your image.They really REALLY wanted an SKS a full auto SKS with high capacity mags despite having perfectly good AK tooling churning out scores of the things, but ended up having to incorporate a lot of AK into the type 63 to get it to "work" and it was still unsatisfactory.Only later with the type 81 did they achieve whatever it was they were going for enough to fully begin phasing out the SKS.Why? Who knows. These are the same people who produced a perfectly good PKM clone and just to mostly ignore it, satisfied with the cope GPMG they made on their own until they later decided the entire idea of infantry GPMGs was bullshit and phased it out.Recently they've reevaluated this idea and they might be adopting a new GPMG in 7.62 NATO.tl;dr:???????
>>64311819No, I have a soft spot for the sks but in no way is it better than an AK. It only survived antiquity because of backwards PLA philosophy being stuck in guerilla mode and reserving the ak in niche smg role. The PLA only realized how retarded they were when they were getting their shit pushed in by the vietnamese
>>64311885In fairness most of what went wrong with the 63 was down to manufacturing and not getting Russia to help set up production. I genuinely think had the idea been done by Russia or a satellite like East Germany it would've been a cromulent rifle. Certainly outdated in terms of ergonomics and for the doctrine it was designed for but more than functional in a firefight
>>64311901Sure, though I wouldn't doubt there's some design flaws given how quickly they canned the whole thing which is pretty unchinese of them.But the point stands, what did they mean by this? What is this endeavour meant to achieve that isn't covered perfectly well by the AK that later the type 81 apparently did well enough (though not well enough to replace their AKs)Was it just a burning, passionate need for short stroke gas pistons?
>>64311885>Why? Who knows.I don't know but what's interesting about the Chinese adopting the SKS is that the Yugoslavs also did. I have one of those and enjoy the comically large embedded bayonet and grenade launching system. Like China, the Yugoslavs were a non-aligned socialist country that expected their most likely threat (starting at different dates) to be the Soviet Union. I have some sympathy for that sort of thing but also because Yugoslavia was relatively freer as these things go and I think it's a shame what happened to it:https://youtu.be/4QVMWCAmMwABut this defense strategy would involve being invaded by the Soviets and heading into the hills? The traditional Chinese communist "People's War" philosophy can also be summed up as rice + rifles (I think that's how Zhou Enlai described it). The SKS is an ugly but high-powered piece of hardware, give a bunch of those and a bunch of RPG-7s to people and have them blow up Russian convoys, keeps it shrimple? Guerrilla mode like >>64311887 said.
>>64311885>>64311901>>64311938The prototype of the type 63 was decent, but by the time of production, 1969, the cultural revolution was in full swing and they killed off most of the pla's top arms designers. From then on, manufacturing was a clusterfuck and factories cut so many corners to try to reach quotas that the final product wasn't even close to what it started as. It is a big "what if" gun though. To answer your question to why they went through all this, instead of just adopting the ak, it goes back to what I said about pla doctrine. They didnt think of the AK as a rifle, but as an smg reserved for officers or specialized units. They were obsessed with the perceived marksmanship that the sks had and saw it as a more suitable weapon for guerilla warfare when, inevitably, either the soviets or americans invaded. They saw the type 63 as the next step in sks evolution
>>64311819no because the whole top part opens up which is covered on the AK and it also uses 2 pistons instead of just 1 so slightly less reliable I'd think. Full auto is the biggest game changer of course, and detachable mags, but I'm assuming thats an sks-D based on the mag release in your pic and not a normal SKS
>>64312000>>64312002Yes, yes. I know where their love of the SKS was born from and from their perspective it makes a lot of sense. And yes, Yugoslavia had the same idea.But Yugoslavia never went on a mysterious vision quest to turn the SKS into something that would seem to essentially violate the very principles that made them love the SKS as much as they did. In the end, what does the type 81 even do that's all that different from the AK?Is this all because Stalin told them the AK was "basically an SMG" or something back in 1956 and they took his word as gospel?
>>64312121Partially that but also due to a mixture of dunking on the Indians so hard they fell for the "every soldier a marksman" meme and having such a horrifically shit supply structure automatic weapons were genuinely off the cards for some units. But mostly it was just PLA command being retarded
>>64311887>The PLA only realized how retarded they were when they were getting their shit pushed in by the vietnameseHow did they not learn anything from the US-Vietnam war?Surely they had some advisors in Vietnam, supplying both AKs and SKSs to the Vietcong.
>>64311885Type 56 on Youtube has a really good video on the Type 63. Typical Chinese corner cutting happened, which is interesting because it didn't happen with the Mosin (carbine), SKS, or IIRC even their AK in China. Maybe even the Type 81? Hard to say as we don't really have those in the US. Massive fucking shame we never got parts kits of Type 63s outside of, like, a stupidly small amount I'm not totally sure how they came in. "SKS(ish) but it takes AK mags" is just about a dream rifle of mine except I'd like some scope mount and a threaded barrel. Yes there are people out there with mags, parts, and an EXCEEDINGLY RARE few rebuilds but they're so rare they may as well not exist.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6RqP1Wb2IQ
>>64311819yes the sks should have been retrofitted to use ak mags when the ak47 hit the street
>>64311819No. The Chinese might have thought that, but they were wrong to think it.>>64311885This.
Is the SKS generally noticeably more accurate than the AK?
>>64313664The Chinese feel that it is, but as far as I know, most AKs are more accurate on average. Also there's AKs with mounts for attaching scopes (or a rail for whatever optic you want these days), while the SKS never had any good way to mount optics ever, and it's notoriously annoying to get one to maintain a zero with an optic.The SKS is an overall decent rifle overall, and actually pretty good one in a civilian context back when they used to be dirt cheap as surplus, but as a frontline infantry rifle it was already very dated when it was new.The main reason the Chinese were so hung up on holding on to the SKS for so long was that they felt they did not have the industrial capacity or economy to back an entire army with an automatic infantry rifle in the way that Russia or other Soviet countries could, and thus they reasoned up this big cope about prioritizing individual marksmanship with the SKS. And it really was cope, the heavier emphasis on marksmanship did help them make a little better use out of the SKS overall, but it still falls really flat in terms of sheer firepower, which is a big part of why the Vietnamese curbstomped them.
>>64312000>The SKS is an ugly but high-powered piece of hardware, give a bunch of those and a bunch of RPG-7s to people and have them blow up Russian convoys, keeps it shrimple?I mean it worked for Vietnam like, three times, why not.
>>64311887>>64312296The idea of it being used for guerilla mode wasn't entirely retarded, it was the PLA, having spent years planning for either guerilla mode or human waves, launching an all out mechanized invasion into Vietnam- and forgetting that they were a country that both also is equipped and trained for guerilla mode, and practiced at guerilla mode, against opponents who were better equipped than themselves or the chinese.Not a failure of the weapon, imo, but of doctrine and planning.
>>64312296they thought the vietcong were retarded monkeys being bailed out by the ussr they sent over the ak-47s and kept the implessive sks at home. they had to learn a very difficult lesson shortly after.>>64311938they literally thought the ak-47 was an inaccurate meme submachinegun that only idiots who waste ammo would use when they first assessed it. its impossible for anyone in the chinese army to be wrong so they stubbornly kept this line of thinking for almost 30 years until they could cobble together a cope rifle that they could pretend was better than the ak-47
>>64312000>I don't know but what's interesting about the Chinese adopting the SKS is that the Yugoslavs also did. Because the SKS is still much better than a Nagant or Mauser, and Stalin malded at Tito and refused them the TDP for the Kalashnikov.Yugoslavia badly wanted their own Kalashnikov, and since Russia wasn't gonna play ball, they acquired samples illicitly from the Polish black market (some stories say stolen from a Russian armory, it's a bit unclear), then smuggled them home and began reverse engineering them.Pic related is a Zastava M64, one of the early Yugoslav Kalashnikovs, still had the machined receiver and all. They had even entertained the idea of a full AR15 style of LRBHO and bolt release button, but opted not to to be able to retain full magazine compatibility with other Warsaw Pact countries. Yugo AK mags having their partial hold-open followers is a relic and compromise related to that.The Yugoslavs very much desired the high firepower of an assault rifle, and they also loved rifle grenades and emphasized them heavily, which is what their takes on the AK gave them.China HAD access to the Kalashnikov, but deliberately sidelined it in favor of sticking with the SKS primarily.>I have one of those and enjoy the comically large embedded bayonet and grenade launching system. I fucking bet. All the best military rifles have a bayonet and a grenade launcher.
>>64311819>pick 1>the other 3 will try to kill you
>>64316094AKM. by far.
>>64316094Vz
>>64316094vz58
>>6431181920 inch barrel is a bit excessive for 7.62x39 but it makes for a better hog spear this way, iirc 5 round magazines are flush fit to the wooden stock.stripper clips are cheaper and slightly less bulky than magazines, but I doubt they keep the ammo in good condition during storage.>>64312002>marksmanshiplonger sight radius, a shame about the dust cover and gas tube cover being too wobbly for scope mounts.
>>64316094Type 63The People's Party can do no wrong
>>64314190And yet to this day it's outlived all of them in general issue Only time will tell if it can fully outlast the type 81 overall.I could see a short version of that new scar clone they're naking replace it among the chinese marines
>>64316094Vz58, but I'd pick it just for style points.
>>64317194That's because the chinks eventually had to accept reality. Also because, despite them not really wanting to use them, they were shitting out AKs by the truckload. It's how they were able to constantly have a warehouse full of AKs to dump onto anyone vaguely aligned with them
>>64316299>5rd magazinesBEHOLD
>>64313664Against a decently made modern AKM? No, not even remotely.Against the Type 56's the Chinese were churning out, potentially, longer sight radius and barrel length might give you negligibly better accuracy, but within the effective range of 7.62x39 (300m to 400m at best) the difference would have been pretty much unnoticeable to the average Chinese grunt using leaf sights.
>>64311887>Vietnam basically coming off like 100 years of war, beating two global super powers in a row and then steamrolling Cambodia in like two weeks>Chinese invade thinking it'll be an easy fight despite having basically no modern combat experience >get their shit pushed inThe fuck were they expecting?
>>64316094Why type 81 so long?
