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SCHV PDWs
( note: the specifications are in the data table ! )
When the NATO issued a requirement for a “Personal Defence Weapon” (PDW; the most famous requirement was to defeat the later known as ‘CRISAT’ body armor composed of 1.6mm titanium and 20 layers Kevlar at a given distance), the PDW was invented and a new category of weapons emerged. To call them submachineguns would be inaccurate, even if a MP5 is what the reader has in mind when he reads “submachinegun”. They simply do not fire typical pistol ammunition as submachineguns do. Very few of them could be considered as compact carbines if the term “PDW” didn’t exist. And “machine pistol” does only describe very few of them either.
I do also include weapons in this category that did not really compete for the honor of having defined the NATO’s standard PDW cartridge (which didn’t happen so far anyway).
So I formed this file with SCHV (small calibre, high velocity) weapons that are no pistols.
.224 BOZ PDW
This is a HK MP-5/10 modified to fire the .224 BOZ cartridge instead of the 10mm Auto cartridge (the .224 BOZ is necked down to 5.56mm from 10mm Auto). The MP5 should externally only differ at the exposed part of the barrel and in the flash hider, so I used a MP5/10 picture to illustrate this weapon. I believe it’s a good idea to use a proven submachinegun that has a good reputation - the risk of the undertaking is thus almost limited to the costs of cartridge development and weapon adaption.
www.civil-defence.org/products/ballistics/boz224/boz224.html
Brügger & Thomet presented on the Milipol 2003 in Paris a prototype of the TMP-46, a TMP in calibre 4.6 x 30mm and very comparable to the German HK MP7 A1. The project seems to have been abandoned due to mechanical problems.
Carl Gustaf Stads PDW project of unknown name
The link below mentions a swedish 5.56x33mm project based on a necked-down Saco 7x33mm cartridge and a modified 9mm kulsprutepistol M/45 (Carl Gustaf M/45 submachinegun) of the 60’s. I have absoluely no idea how to check the content of truth or how to search for further information, so I list this together with the above symbol photo of an unmodified submachinegun (original 9x19mm calibre). This is pobably one of the earliest cartridges intended as SCHV PDW cartridge.
http://www.amkat.se/eframe3.html
The Colt MARS was a reasonable experiment to mate the AR-15 pattern with a cartridge that was optimized for a 10” barrel. PDWs can hardly have much longer barrels (12” in a bullpup maybe) and the normal 5.56 x 45mm cartridges do produce a lot of noise and muzzle blast when fired with such short barrels. The necessary silencer eliminates the compactness. The MARS had its own special 5.56 x 30 mm cartridge and a bullet weight like the M193. The result were outer appearance and muzzle energy that fit better to the compact carbines than the PDWs here. An AP bullet could probably outperform any other PDW’s AP bullet in this category concerning penetration and wounding effect behind soft body armour. I believe this weapon had only one weakness - it should have used reduced-power 5.56 x 45 mm NATO cartridges and retained the ability to use standard cartridges (with 2-position gas regulator, practical only in semi-auto). Different magazines, incompatibility with all other ammunitions - for what? But the rest (muscle memory, existing tools, indistinctive shape, matched propellant) is simply good.
www.collectorgrade.com: “NEW BLACK RIFLE II - The M16 Into the 21st Century” by Christopher R. Bartocci
www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/mars.html
Colt SCAMP
More info is in this section.
Company Czech Weapons PDW 17 Libra
This is a quite heavy PDW by weight - despite only 4.38 x 30 mm as calibre, it weighs 2,700 g. That’s a kg more than I would expect given calibre, barrel length and so on. Its fire selector has the unusual combination of 2-shot and 3-shot positions.
avia-tech.net/topics.php?aTopicId=1&pk_aId=18
www.bellum.nu/armoury/SPDW17Libra.html
web.archive.org/web/20050312103744/www.libra-as.com/1013-strelecka-revue-17-libra.html (in czech, I believe)
Fabrique Nationale Herstal P90 - both at once the classic (because first published) PDW and a weapon that was certainly designed also with commando troops in mind. This is the best-documented PDW and seemingly has won the NATO competition (or whatever that was) but its cartridge proclaimed as new NATO standard. Just like the later FN F2000 modular assault rifle, it has a characteristic grip styling that so far only FN does use. Its weight otherwise can only be considered as a disappointment; it weighs as much as compact carbines in 5.56x45 mm NATO. The bullet -competition won or not- is extremely light and very much under critique because few consider light, fast bullets as highly lethal. They are lethal of course - if they hit the right places. But almost any bullet is lethal ‘at the right places’. Therefore it’s really interesting what happens if the less critical areas of a human body are hit. But that’s a topic for the wound ballistics chapter. Interesting -and almost necessary due to the bullpup design- is that this weapon does depend on other than iron sights. The sight radius would probably be too small to exploit the range potential of the bullet with iron sights. Another interesting detail is that this weapon is not only often photographed with a silencer - there’s even a dedicated subsonic 5.7x28 mm cartridge in FN’s program! It’s beyond my understanding why a subsonic 5.7 mm bullet would make sense. It couldn’t be much more lethal than a pocket pistol’s bullet, and this weapon is really too big for such abysmal performance! A good .45ACP pistol with silencer is a better weapon for ’silent’ fighting. Another interesting feature is the magazine, and how it stores the cartridges - they need to be turned by 90° before they can be fed into the chamber! The cartridge position means that the overall length of the cartridge is a significant variable for the weapon’s width - much longer cartridges would not be tolerable in such a system and FN’s the later FN F2000 assault rifle is probably for this reason a bullpup (of the ‘conventional type’ in comparison to the P90 - with normal vertical magazine. Anyway, this is an interesting weapon and again an expression of FN’s will and ability to innovate. Many people seem to love this weapon and it was sold more than 10,000 times. Click on the video link below - it’s pretty good.
By the way - the cartridge is in use with two weapons of Rhinelandarms that cannot be rated as PDW at all - the G5 and the AR 57 - click here on the left side on “Rifles” to get more info on this.
remtek.com/arms/fn/p90/index.htm
www.fnhusa.com/contents/tw_p90.htm
www.gunsworld.com/belg/fnp90_us.html
www.defensereview.com/article441.html
www.waffenhq.de/infanterie/p90.html (in German)
users.belgacom.net/jm.armes/FNP90/P90_menu.htm (in French)
www.mcwl.quantico.usmc.mil/factsheet.cfm (unreliable link)
www.defensereview.com/water/ (5,2 MB video; p90.wmv)
Giat developed a family of small arms based on a 5.7 x 25 mm cartridge in the late 80’s before this project was cancelled in favor of the FN P90 (which was in a later development stage). The project “Armes de Défense Rapprochée” (ADR) was to connsist of a semi-automatic pistol, a self-defense weapon (this one) and a small assault rifle. GIAT claimed four times the effective range and one third of the recoil impulse in comparison to 9 x 19 mm for their 5.7 x 25 mm cartidge. The prototype shown is apparently only one of several concepts even for the PDW variant. Weight was less than 2 kg, overall dimension smaller than 300 x 120 x 30 mm. The magazine was in the rear grip. Most interesting was the possibility to use it in a shoulder stance with the fore grip and trigger and as a classic submachinegun in confined spaces with the use of the rear trigger and the fore grip only as a grip. Seems as if it had a grip safety at the rear grip and probably a magazine release catch, too. It can also be guesssed that it used closed bolt operation because otherwise the emphasized range potential of the cartridge could hardly be exploited for lack of accuracy. At the bottom of the photo is a 5.7 x 25 mm cartridge (left) next to a classic 9 x 19 mm cartridge.
source: Jane’s Infantry Weapons 1989-90
HK project in 1989 in 5.7 x 22 mm GIAT (exact name unknown to me)
More info is in this section.
HK MP7 A1 / also unofficially called “HK PDW”
This is the other really well documented PDW - a late comer with an even smaller calibre than the P90. HK is together with FN, Glock, KBP and Steyr-Mannlicher one of the most innovatie gun manufacturers in my opinion. HK obviously has convinced the Bundeswehr to buy three members of its new family of small arms (MP7, G36, MG4 - but AFAIK not UMP) - and the MP7 will be introduced into the Bundeswehr in two versions that differ only in their rail-mounted accessoires.The IdZ (= Infanterist der Zukunft, infantryman of the future) variant with Hensoldt “RSA” red dot sight and iron backup sights for normal soldiers, combat and non-combat troops alike. The KSK (= Kommando Spezialkräfte, “commando special forces”, German commando battalion) variant will have a larger (and very likely superior) EOTech reflex sight, a Rotex silencer by Brügger & Thomet and will be issued to the KSK. These differences have little technical meaning because the differences concern only the extras that are attached on rails. The calibre of the MP7 is very small - 4.6mm is sometimes not referred to as small, but as micro calibre...
www.soldat-und-technik.de/8-2003/heer.htm (in German)
www.deutschesheer.de/redaktionen/heer/internet/contentbase2.nsf/currentbaselink/n25udacv479rwiede (in German)
www.waffenhq.de/infanterie/pdw.html (in German)
www.securityarms.com/20010315/galleryfiles/1700/1726.htm
users.belgacom.net/jm.armes/HKMP7/MP7.htm (in French)
www.mcwl.quantico.usmc.mil/factsheet.cfm (unreliable link)
www.defensereview.com/video/file1.mpg (17 MB video)
www.army-technology.com/projects/idz/idz6.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_MP7
www.army-technology.com/contractors/ammunition/ruag/press6.html
Knight’s Armament Company KAC 6 x 35 mm PDW
KAC also tries to succeed with a custom PDW calibre. The kinetic energy (1052 J) and bullet weight (about 3.85 grams, unconfirmed) are very well in the range of completely normal ‘too short carbines’ which have the advantage that they use the “muscle memory” of almost identical standard assault rifles and also standard cartridges. The only possible advantage visible so far on the side of the KAC product seem to be the nice weight of about 2 kg and the slightly larger wounding potential of the slightly larger bullet calibre (6 instead of 5.56 or 5.45 mm).
www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=878
hwww.sofmag.com/news/permalink1/2006/11/7/2318133612237.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_Armament_Company_PDW
This AR-15-based PDW seems to be in development for a 7,82S x 24 mm cartridge with a normal commercial but saboted 55 or 62 grains 5.56 mm bullet. The sabot arrangements promises a high muzzle velocity in comparison to compact carbines, but that does also depend on the -so far unknown to me- propellant weight. Sabots and silencers don’t like each other, so this might finally be a PDW that won’t have a silencer on half of its photos. Sidenote: A 7.62x51 mm sabot cartridge with 5.56 mm projectile does already exist - for sniper rifles.
www.leitner-wise.com/products/82s.htm
Congratulations Magpul, you got the first gun with 5.56x45mm calibre in this section. It’s still a project and not ready for production, but seems to combine about 4 lbs weight & size roughly comparable to the P90 with the standard NATO assault rifle cartridges. There’s still the problem of a rather short barrel, but the bullet should be no slower than the P90’s while being considerably heavier at quite the same diameter. Sounds like enough potential. Furthermore, they claim that the PDR could be adapted to some other calibres up to 6.8SPC and 6.5 Grendel. We’ll see how good actual production are in a couple of years, I guess.
/www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1011
www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1012
www.combatreform2.com/PDRSpecs.pdf (don’t care about the domain)
Saab’s small-calibre, high-velocity machine pistol was revealed in 2000. It fires a 6.5 x 25mm cartridge (bullet diameter 4mm) that has quite the same dimensions as a normal 9 x 19mm Para cartridge. A barrel change is all that’s necessary to train with this weapon and 9 x 19 mm ammunition. This means that even if it would fail as a PDW, they have still a machine pistol in their program. Together with the Leitner-Wise weapon, these are the only PDW with a sabot cartridge. (It should be noted that the French are developing a 9 x 19 mm cartridge with a saboted projectile, too. But that’s much slower and its bullet is more than three times as heavy.) Selective fire by trigger choice, a collapsible buttstock, upper rails for sights and (some kind of) fore grip are nice features. A silencer can be fitted to the 9 mm barrel and this shows an almost unique advantage of this weapon over the other SCHV PDWs here; it can double as a useful “silenced” weapon during night or close quarters combat, for example (the Leitner-Wise LW15S CAW concept does also allow this). Otherwise, it’s generous to list this in the SCHV chapter because the 4mm bullet is not “small” but rather “micro” in calibre. It might prove to be a disappointment concerning wound ballistics, reducing this weapon to an ordinary 9x19mm machine pistol for all practical purposes except if the SABOT is not of the discarding type - a possibility that I couldn’t confirm yet.
www.securityarms.com/20010315/galleryfiles/2000/2018.htm
www.geocities.com/personaldefenceweapons/cbj-ms.jpg (A photo of a somehow related Saab gun.)
Van Bruaene Rik PDW 7.92 VBR-B / VBR PDW Sidearm
More info is in this section. The calibre is quite large, but otherwise the gun would fit nicely into this category.
www.personaldefenceweapons.com
contact me by e-mail for additions, corrections, questions!