Russians don't test their armor according to National Institute of Justice standards…
They use the GOST system, which is entirely different. It classifies common threats according to momentum and sectional density, then pits them against armor to find as close to possible the "breaking point" of the armor.
In rough example these are the classes: 1 - 9mm parabellum 2 - 7.62x25, 5.45x18, 12 gauge (18.5mm) armor piercing slug 3 - AK-74 with 7N6 4 - AK-74 with 7N10 5 - SVD with ball 6 - SVD with 7N14 All of these are at point blank range.
The highest (7N14 out of SVD) penetrates 5mm (1/4 inch) of hardened carbon steel plate at 300m, which is 160m/s (~550fps) slower than the point blank range test for the body armor.
That performance is roughly equivalent to 30.06 armor piercing black tip out of a 22 inch barrel.
No idea what this specific set of armor is rated for, but it's titanium so you can bet it will be tough.
Bentley James
Here is the 7N14, and the rough equivalence of their levels.
….. Real combat is not like a movie, the vast majority of shots fired by professional soldiers miss.
Concealment is okay but once you start firing it goes out the window, that's if you are not spotted before then.
Often there is no cover, or the cover is not bullet proof, or you need to move to cover or you need to advance or you need to actually expose yourself to shoot, or you get flanked etc.
Aiden Lewis
That's a problem for the assaulting party, and has been well developed around WWII with the assault phase of combat. All our weapons and tactics are based on it.
Evan Wilson
It's more of a problem for them yes but the defenders still have to expose themselves to shoot, could still get flanked and might need to move troops around in the open to adapt to the situation.
Sebastian Wright
Rating is Gost 6a. 3 shots of 7BZ3 (armor piercing incendiary) at 5.10m the average penetration between the three of them not exceeding 17mm in penetration.
To give you an idea pic related is a Gost level 5 plate at 25m fired at with pretty much everything (223 rem commercial, 3 type of 7.62x39, 2 type of 7.62x54R ball and 7n14. Yes level 5 is already tough enough to take multiple armor piercing SVD sniper rounds, but the back plate deformation at 5,10m is over 17mm so they consider it's not enough. NIJ acceptable backplate deformation is around 44mm). That level 5 plate is a simple technical steel which despite being quite thin (it's a side plate on the pic but it's the same width for front/back) still weights 4.5kg.
Lightest Russian APC = BTR with a 14.5 under turret gun. Average NATO APC = something with a pintle 7.62 GPMG (worst case scenario SAW gunner pretending to be useful). Most people thinks a 14.5 machine-gun is just a Russian "a bit bigger .50cal" when in fact it's more powerful than most 20mm.
An US squad (and largely all NATO squads tend to follow the pattern) is a squad leader (with a M4), a medic (with a M4), and two four-man fire teams, each fire team has a SAW and two M4 rifles, one M16 with an M203. That's 6 M4 carbines, 2 M16 rifles with M203 grenade launchers and 2 SAW LMG.
A Russian (BTR) combat element of a squad is also ten men strong (12 with gunner and driver of the BTR), 1 Squad Leader with an AK-74, 1 RPG gunner (+ AKs-74u), 1 assistant RPG with an AK-74, 1 SVD gunner (+ AKs-74u), then two fireteam of 1 grenadier with an AK-74 + GP-25 1 PKM gunner, 1 assistant PKM with an AK-74
That's 6 AK-74 rifles with 2 gp-25 grenade launchers, 2 AKs-74u carbines, 1 SVD Sharpshooter rifle, 2 PKM GPMG, 1 RPG launcher with an assortment of rockets.
Both have additional disposable launchers (66mm for US, 72.5mm for Russians) per vehicles. They used to have RPKs instead of PKMs back in soviet times (which closed the gap quite a bit) but today it's an extremely rare sight in operation.
Sebastian Lewis
Possibly, even then those fuckers will require tons of maintenance. I can see them being used in urban combat.
Jordan Scott
Do you mean real point-blank range, which is hundreds of yards. Or do you mean "really close".
