New ARW Weapons.

[mutter nutter (again)]

I was reading through a new issue of D&I magazine when on the news page there was this

"The Irish Defence Forces have purchased a small number of P-90's 5.7mm and five-seven 5.7mm handguns from fabrique National of Belgium, the weapon's, incresingly favored by special operation's and counter terrorist unit's, are beleaved to be destined for the Army Ranger Wing, Ireland's sof unit, for use in the ct/hr role":-patriot:

this and the g-36 nice:D :-patriot:

[mutter nutter (again)]

Just some pic's of the goodies:D

[mutter nutter (again)]

The five-seven

[Goldie fish]

The ARW like to procure small quantities of weapons from time to time to allow interoperability,and also for pure familiarisation. There is a school of thought that a special forces soldier should be capable of picking up any weapon and using it effectively.
I remember seeing here recently also that they had recieved a number of the new H&K carbines

[mutter nutter (again)]

That was me with the G-36k

[andy]

That is some seriously cool hardware that they have got :D

[Steve]

THe P-90 may look cool, but word on the vine is that they're nothing special. The only elite unit i've heard that use them regularly is Stargate 1 team. :P

[Muzzle]

The Army evualuated the P90 as a replacement for the Gustav (basicly as an NCO's weapon) but decided against it purly becuase the Styer had fully automatic fire as well as semi and there fore no need for another fully automatic weapon. Pitty....

P90 and the Five-Seven are liked by SF and CT units because it will piss through a kevlar bullet proof jacket jacket and both have large magazine capacity (50 for P90 and 20 for Five-Seven). Both weapons were used when the Peruvian embassy siege was ended by force because the terrorists had be observed with body armour.

Got my hands on both weapons a while back (not to fire unfortunitly) and both are very nice. People who like pistols may be uncomfotable with the five-seven as the pistol grip is very large to accomidate large magazine, you wouldn't want to have small hands. There is no hammer but you can see that from the pic. I found it hard to change the safty which was probably because of the size of the pistol grip.

The P90 is very nice. Very cofortable to hold, well balanced at the grip. Its designed to be compleatly ambidextrous, which basicly means that the casings are ejected down (where the little material thing is hanging in the picture), there is a cocking handle on both sides (in the pic just back from where the muzzle would be munus the silencer) and the change leaver/selector switch is just below the triger. From memmory there are 3 positions (left to right: safe, single, auto) but could be wrong on that one.

With the normal housing (not whats shown above) there is an optical sight (looks to be 1.5x or 1x) built in. There was a small switch under one of your triger hand fingers which elumanted the sights. The sight its self had an intresting floating retical that seemed to be on target even if your eye wast dead on the sight (hard to describe, but it seemd to move when you shifted position). Didnt notice iron sights but im sure they were there.

Mag was easy enough to take on and off, when pulling back on the cocking handle and looking in to the breech from abouve you have a clean line of sight straight through the weapon (looks odd, like a gaping hole in the center of it). Its very compact, ideal for CQB and vechicals.

Alot of people complain that the P90 mags lose rounds very easily but I think that was fixed in a later revsion. An Cosantóir had a good review of the Five-Seven a few years back.

[Steve]

No doubt the P90 is an extremely well engineered gun, but it isn't really needed IMO.
It's just a good that's been made, hopefully to become the answer to a question that nobody has yet asked.

It's 5.7 round doesnt really offer much over any 5.56mm firing rifle, or the 9mm Luger of the H&K MP5 family. Maybe throw them at a few AFV crews, since that is why it was designed, but i'd be suprised if the ARW took them onboard for anything other than familiarisation purposes like previously said by Goldie Fish.

[mutter nutter (again)]

Originally posted by Steve
THe P-90 may look cool, but word on the vine is that they're nothing special. The only elite unit I've heard that use them regularly is Stargate 1 team. :P

No, GIGN,epign, Dutch commando's, Dutch SBS, Danish frogmankorpst, Belgian's, Spanish, GOE and UOE, comsubin, US secret service, Pakistani SSG, Aussie SASR, and a few more


Video of the p-90 penetration capability
http://defensereview.com/1_31_2004/P90.mov

[Steve]

Actually, there's several papers out there that have found the 5.7mm to be a substandard round.....

--Dahlstrom D, Powley K, and Gordon C: �Wound Profile of the FN Cartridge (SS 190) Fired from the FN P90 Submachine Gun". Wound Ballistic Review. 4(3):21-26; Spring 2000.

--Fackler M: "Errors & Omissions", Wound Ballistic Review. 1(1):46; Winter 1991.

--Fackler M: "More on the Bizarre Fabrique National P-90", Wound Ballistic Review. 3(1):44-45; 1997.

--FBI Academy Firearms Training Unit. FBI Handgun Ammunition Tests 1989-1995. Quantico, U.S. Department of Justice--Federal Bureau of Investigation.

--Hayes C: �Personal Defense Weapons�Answer in Search of a Question�, Wound Ballistic Review. 5(1):30-36; Spring 2001.

--Roberts G: �Preliminary Evaluation of the Terminal Performance of the 5.7 x 28 mm 23 Grain FMJ Bullet Fired by the New FN P-90 , Using 10% Ordnance Gelatin as a Tissue Simulant�, AFTE Journal. 30(2):326-329, Spring 1998.

--Roberts G: �Terminal Performance of the 5.7 x 28 mm 31 Grain SS-190 FMJ Bullet Fired by the FN P-90 in 10% Ordnance Gelatin.�, AFTE Journal. In Press.

[Steve]

Interesting read.

The problem with the 5.7mm is it's poor wounding capability. When a bullet hits a soft medium i.e. tissue it yaws. The 5.7 yaws extremely early, but the temporary cavity (TC) it creates is less than that of many pistol bullets and most tissues can handle the TC of most pistol bullets, so what does that say for the 5.7mm? I do agree with you though, that because the P90 is so little recoil it allows alot of rounds to be put into the target, so the cumulative damage is quite good! I actually quite like the P90 itself, but the SS190 just doesn't do it for me.

Now the marine's are ganging up on me, well comeand have ago

Give me your grid and i'll be there quicker than you can say Grid to Mag, Add ...Mag to Grid, Get Rid!! :D

[Joshua]

All highly amusing I'm sure.

Topic ARW Weapons.
Discuss

Regards etc

[Muzzle]

Originally posted by Steve
THe P-90 may look cool, but word on the vine is that they're nothing special. The only elite unit i've heard that use them regularly is Stargate 1 team. :P

Greek SF training for the Olympics

[Rooster]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Steve
THe P-90 may look cool, but word on the vine is that they're nothing special. The only elite unit I've heard that use them regularly is Stargate 1 team. :P
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, GIGN,epign, Dutch commando's, Dutch SBS, Danish frogmankorpst, Belgian's, Spanish, GOE and UOE, comsubin, US secret service, Pakistani SSG, Aussie SASR, and a few more


I think I can remember the Japenese embassy in Peru being stormed a few years ago by SF carrying P90's, about five years ago maybe I'll see if I can find some pics after my rack time.