SW Model 76 submachine gun by Smith & Wesson

The Smith & Wesson company is most famous for its long line of world-class revolvers, which was complemented by semi-automatic pistols since early 1950's. It is less known fact that this company was also engaged in development of other small arms, including long guns and selective-fired weapons, for police and military use. The story of Smith & Wesson submachine gun began in around 1966, when US Navy failed to obtain a batch of Swedish Carl Gustaf M/45 submachine guns for clandestine operations in South-East Asia.The peaceful Sweden blocked the sales of war materiel to USA, and US Navy went for domestic source of 9mm submachine guns. Seeing the need of US Navy, S&W decided to jump to the bandwagon and produce a gun for Navy, and done so in1967, producing a clone of Swedish M/45 submachine gun.

 Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun, left side; shoulder stock opened.

However, by this time Navy dropped its requirement, and only several thousands of new submachine gun, designated as S&W Model 76, were manufactured for police and civilian sales until 1974 (before 1986, law-abiding citizens of US were able to legally purchase newly made selective-fired and full automatic weapons under NFA-34 legislation). At about the same time, Smith & Wesson company was researching the possibility of use of caseless ammunition with electronic ignition. For this purpose, in 1968 S&W engineers developed a prototype submachine gun based on Model 76, but with alterations necessary to fire electrically-primed caseless ammunition of 9mm caliber. The experimental gun looked much like the prototype, but it had a rectangular battery housing below the receiver, in front of trigger guard, which contained two 12-volt batteries. The gun fired quite well, but ammunition was a source of serious problems, as its caseless design provided no protection from elements or rough handling.

Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun, right side; shoulder stock folded.

Later on, a very close copy of S&W M76 was made in both selective-fire and semi-automatic only versions by small US company MK Arms. This version was designated as MK-760.

Smith & Wesson Model 76 submachine gun is blowback operated,selective-fired weapon which fires from open bolt. The receiver is made from steel tube, with the pistol grip, and magazine housing welded to its bottom. The trigger housing with ambidextrous safety / fire mode selector switch can be removed from below the receiver during full dis-assembly. The feed is from double-stack magazines, inserted from below, ejection is to the right. Versions of Model 76 were made with or without perforated barrel jacket. The sights consisted of fixed blade front and fixed aperture rear, both mounted on receive rand protected by side "ears". The shoulder stock was made from steel wire and folded forward and to the left to save length.

Caliber	9x19mm Luger / Parabellum
Weight	3,2 kg empty
Length (stock closed/open)	496 / 775 mm
Barrel length	204 mm
Rate of fire	720 rounds per minute
Magazine capacity	36 rounds
Effective range	150-200 meters

Kris (or Keris): an asymmetrical dagger

The kris or keris is an asymmetrical dagger indigenous to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei. It is known as kalis in the southern Philippines. The kris is famous for its distinctive wavy blade, but many have straight blades as well. Both a weapon and spiritual object, kris are often considered to have an essence or presence, with some blades possessing good luck and others possessing bad.

In 2005, UNESCO gave the title Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity to the kris of Indonesia. In return, UNESCO urged Indonesia to preserve their heritage.

Kris from Yogyakarta - Dapur Carubuk.

The origin of the word kris derived from the old Javanese term ngiris which means to stab, wedge or sliver. "Kris" is the more frequently-used spelling in the West, but "keris" is more popular in the dagger's native lands, as exemplified by the late Bambang Harsrinuksmo's popular book entitled Ensiklopedi Keris (Keris Encyclopedia). Two notable exceptions are the Philippines, where it is usually called kalis or kris, and Thailand where it is always spelled and pronounced as kris. Other spellings used by European colonists include "cryse", "crise", "criss", "kriss" and "creese".

Barong dance performance with kris-wielding dancers and Rangda in Bali.

Kris history is generally traced through the study of carvings and bas-relief panels found in Southeast Asia. It is widely believed by archaeologists that the earliest kris prototype can be traced to Dong Son in Vietnam circa 300 BC. From there, the design would have been brought into present-day Malaysia by Cham migrants who made their way into the Malay Peninsula twenty centuries ago. Another theory is that the kris was based on daggers from India. Frey (2003) concludes from Raffles' (1817) study of the Candi Sukuh that the kris recognized today came into existence around 1361 AD in the kingdom of Majapahit. There exist claims of earlier forms predating the Majapahit kris but none are verifiable. In the past, the majority of kris had straight blades but this became less frequent over time. Some of the most famous renderings of a kris appear on the Borobudur temple (825 CE) and Prambanan temple (850CE). Tome Pires, in early 16th century, describe the importance of Kris to the Javanese:

"... every man in Java, whether he is rich or poor, must have a kris in his house .. and no man between the ages of 12 and 80 may go out of doors without a kris in his belt. They carry them at the back, as daggers used to be in Portugal..."

Kris were worn on a daily basis, especially when travelling because it might be needed for self-defense. Heirloom blades were handed down through successive generations and worn during special events such as weddings. Men usually wore only one kris but the famous admiral Hang Tuah is said in the Hikayat Hang Tuah to have armed himself with one short and one long kris. As women were also permitted to learn silat, they sometimes also wore kris, though of a smaller size than a man's.

Kris were often broken in battle and required repairs. Yearly cleanings, required as part of the spirituality and mythology surrounding the weapon, often left ancient blades worn and thin. The repair materials depended on location and it is quite usual to find a weapon with fittings from several areas. For example, a kris may have a blade from Java, a hilt from Bali and a sheath from Madura.

In many parts of Indonesia, the kris was the choice weapon for execution. The executioner's kris had a long, straight, slender blade. The condemned knelt before the executioner, who placed a wad of cotton or similar material on the subject's shoulder or clavicle area. The blade was thrust through the padding, piercing the subclavian artery and the heart. Upon withdrawal, the cotton wiped the blade clean. Death came within seconds.

Various ways on wearing kris in Javanese culture.

The kris usually has a curved pistol-grip hilt that aids in stabbing strikes. It allows the palm of the holding hand to add pressure to the blade while stabbing. A kris only offers minimal protection for the hand by the broad blade at the hilt. In rare cases, the blade may be forged so its axis lies at an angle to the hilt's axis. The intention is to get the blade automatically turning to slip past the ribs but this works poorly and makes the weapon less durable.

In battle, a fighter carried three kris: his own, one from his father-in-law, and one as a family heirloom. The extra two served as parrying daggers but if none were available, the sheath would serve the same purpose.

The making of a kris was the specialised duty of metalworkers called empu or pandai besi. In Bali this occupation was preserved by the Pande clan to this day, members of whom also made jewellery. Kris-makers did more than forge the weapon, they carried out the old rituals which could infuse the blade with mystical powers. For this reason, kris are considered almost alive because they may be vessels of spirits, either good or evil. Legends tell of kris that could move of their own volition and killed individuals at will. Some kris are rumored to stand upright when their real names are called by their masters. It was said that some kris helped prevent fires, death, agricultural failure, and many other problems. Likewise, they could also bring fortune, such as bountiful harvests. Many of these beliefs, however, were erroneously derived from the possession of different kris by different people. For example, there is a type of kris in Java that was called Beras Wutah, which was believed to grant its possessor an easy life without famine. In reality, this kris was mainly assigned to government officers that were paid, in whole or in part with foodstuff such as rice.

There are several ways of testing whether a kris is lucky or not. A series of cuts on a leaf, based on blade width and other factors, could determine if a blade was good or bad. Also, if the owner slept with the blade under their pillow, the spirit of the kris would communicate with the owner via dream. If the owner had a bad dream, the blade was unlucky and had to be discarded, whereas if the owner had a good dream the dagger would bring good fortune. However, just because a blade was bad for one person didn't mean it would be bad for another. Harmony between the weapon and its owner was critical.

Because some kris are considered sacred and believed to possess magical powers, specific rites needed to be completed to avoid calling down evil fates which is the reason warriors often made offerings to their kris at a shrine. There is also the belief that pointing a kris at someone means they will die soon, so silat practitioners precede their demonstrations by touching the points of the blades to the ground so as to neutralise this effect.

One of the most famous legends from Java describes a legendary bladesmith called Mpu Gandring and his impatient customer, Ken Arok. The customer ordered a powerful kris to kill the chieftain of Tumapel, Tunggul Ametung. Ken Arok eventually stabbed the old bladesmith to death because he kept delaying the scheduled completion of the kris. Dying, the bladesmith prophesied that the unfinished or incomplete kris would kill seven men, including Ken Arok. The prophecy finally came true, with four men enlisted as the kris' first death roll, including Mpu Gandring himself, Tunggul Ametung, Kebo Ijo to whom Ken Arok lent the weapon, and finally Ken Arok himself. The unfinished kris then disappeared.

Another version of the tale describes that the kris passed to Ken Arok's stepson Anusapati which in turn killed his stepfather after recognized that his genuine father was killed by Ken Arok with the same kris. The bloody revenge continued on and on until the reign of Kertanegara, the last king of Singhasari kingdom.

Another Javanese folk story tells of Arya Penangsang, who was killed by his own kris. The scene happened at the end of a battle to re-unite the collapsed kingdom of Demak-Bintara, fought between Jaka Tingkir of Pajang and Penangsang, of Majapahit royalty. The story tells that he fought the battle with Hadiwijaya's adopted son, who would become the first ruler of the Mataram dynasty, Danang Sutawijaya. Penangsang inadvertently stabbed himself when he sheathed his kris, gutting his own belly. He soon fell down, bathing in his own blood, which was flowing from the wound. While he was dying, he encircled his scattered intestines on his kris. The tradition of putting a jasmine chain around the kris' hilt might have come from this tale.

The Keris Taming Sari (translation: Flower Shield Kris) (Taming Sari's kris) is one of the most well-known kris in Malay literature, said to be so skilfully crafted that anyone wielding it was unbeatable. In some versions of the legend, the weapon would grant its user physical invulnerability. Tun Sri Lanang's book, the Sejarah Melayu, tells that it was first used by the champion of Majapahit, a pendekar named Taming Sari. He was defeated in a duel to the death by the Melakan admiral Hang Tuah, after which the king of Majapahit presented the weapon to the victor.

After being framed by a jealous official, Hang Tuah was ordered to be executed, but he managed to escape and go into hiding with the help of a minister who knew the truth. Hang Tuah's kris and title of Laksamana (admiral) were passed on to his comrade Hang Jebat. Furious that his best friend was unfairly put to death, Hang Jebat rebelled against the royalty and took over the palace. The desperate ruler of Melaka pardoned the minister so long as Hang Tuah could win him back the throne. Having trained under the same master since childhood the two friends were nearly equals but of the two, Tuah was the superior fighter. However, even after a long battle in the palace, neither could best the other because the Kris Taming Sari evened the odds. Only after taking his weapon back did Hang Tuah manage to stab Jebat, who died soon after.

Siege Tower (or Belfry): a siege engine to protect attackers while approaching a fortification.

A siege tower (or in the Middle Ages a belfry) is a specialized siege engine, constructed to protect assailants and ladders while approaching the defensive walls of a fortification. The tower was often rectangular with four wheels with its height roughly equal to that of the wall or sometimes higher to allow archers to stand on top of the tower and shoot into the fortification. Because the towers were wooden and thus flammable, they had to have some non-flammable covering of iron or fresh animal skins. The siege tower was mainly made from wood but sometimes had metal parts.

Used since the 9th century BC in the ancient Near East, 305 BC in Europe and also in antiquity in the Far East, siege towers were of unwieldy dimensions and, like trebuchets, were therefore mostly constructed on site of the siege. Taking considerable time to construct, siege towers were mainly built if the defense of the opposing fortification could not be overcome by ladder assault ("escalade"), by mining or by breaking walls or gates.

19th century French drawing of a medieval belfry.

The siege tower sometimes housed pikemen, swordsmen, or crossbowmen who shot quarrels at the defenders. Because of the size of the tower it would often be the first target of large stone catapults but it had its own projectiles with which to retaliate.

Siege towers were used to get troops over an enemy wall. When a siege tower was near a wall, it would drop a gangplank between it and the wall. Troops could then rush onto the walls and into the castle or city.

The oldest known siege towers were used by the armies of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 9th century BC, under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 884 BC-859 BC). Reliefs from his reign, and subsequent reigns, depict siege towers in use with a number of other siegeworks, including ramps and battering rams. One of the oldest references to the mobile siege tower in ancient China was ironically a written dialogue primarily discussing naval warfare. In the Chinese Yuejueshu (Lost Records of the State of Yue) compiled by the later Han Dynasty author Yuan Kang in the year 52 AD, it was recorded that Wu Zixu (526 BC-484 BC) was discussing different ship types to King Helü of Wu (r. 514 BC-496 BC) while explaining military preparedness. Before labeling the types of warships used, Zixu said:

"Nowadays in training naval forces we use the tactics of land forces for the best effect. Thus great wing ships correspond to the army's heavy chariots, little wing ships to light chariots, stomach strikers to battering rams, castle ships to mobile assault towers, and bridge ships to light cavalry."

Medieval English siege tower.

Centuries after they were employed in Assyria, the use of the siege tower spread throughout the Mediterranean. The biggest siege towers of antiquity, such as the Helepolis (meaning "The Taker of Cities") of the siege of Rhodes in 305 BC, could be as high as 135 feet and as wide as 67.5 feet. Such large engines would require a rack and pinion to be moved effectively. It was manned by 200 soldiers and was divided into nine stories; the different levels housed various types of catapults and ballistae. Subsequent siege towers down through the centuries often had similar engines.

But this huge tower was defeated by the defenders by flooding the ground in front of the wall, creating a moat that caused the tower to get bogged in the mud. The siege of Rhodes illustrates the important point that the larger siege towers needed level ground. Many castles and hill-top towns and forts were virtually invulnerable to siege tower attack simply due to topography. Smaller siege towers might be used on top of siege-mounds, made of earth, rubble and timber mounds in order to overrun a defensive wall. The remains of such a siege-ramp at Masada, for example, has survived almost 2,000 years and can still be seen today.

The remains of the Roman siege-ramp at Masada.

On the other hand, almost all the largest cities were on large rivers, or the coast, and so did have part of their circuit wall vulnerable to these towers. Furthermore, the tower for such a target might be prefabricated elsewhere and brought dismantled to the target city by water. In some rare circumstances, such towers were mounted on ships to assault the coastal wall of a city: at the siege of Cyzicus during the Third Mithridatic War, for example, towers were used in conjunction with more conventional siege weapons.

With collapse of the Roman Empire in the West into independent states, and the Eastern Roman Empire on the defensive, the use of siege towers reached its height during the medieval period. Siege towers were used when the Avars laid siege unsuccessfully to Constantinople in 626, as the Chronicon Paschale recounts:

"And in the section from the Polyandrion Gate as far as the Gate of St Romanus he prepared to station twelve lofty siege towers, which were advanced almost as far as the outworks, and he covered them with hides."

Assyrian attack on a town with archers and a wheeled battering ram.

At this siege the attackers also made use of "sows" - mobile armoured shelters which were used throughout the medieval period, and allowed workers to fill in moats with protection from the defenders (thus levelling the ground for the siege towers to be moved to the walls). However, the construction of a sloping talus at the base of a castle wall (as was common in Crusader fortification) could have reduced the effectiveness of this tactic to an extent.

Siege towers also became more elaborate during the medieval period; at the Siege of Kenilworth Castle in 1266, for example, 200 archers and 11 catapults operated from a single tower. Even then, the siege lasted almost a year, making it the longest siege in English history. They were not invulnerable either, as during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman siege towers were sprayed by the defenders with Greek fire.

Siege towers became vulnerable and obsolete with the development of large cannon. They had only ever existed to get assaulting troops over high walls and large cannon also made high walls obsolete as fortification took a new direction. However, later constructions known as battery-towers took on a similar role in the gunpowder age; like siege-towers, these were built out of wood on site for mounting siege artillery. One of these was built by the Russian military engineer Ivan Vyrodkov during the siege of Kazan in 1552 (as part of the Russo-Kazan Wars), and could hold ten large-calibre cannon and 50 lighter cannons. Likely, it was a development of the gulyay-gorod idea (that is a mobile fortification assembled on wagons or sleds from prefabricated wall-sized shields with holes for cannons). Later battery towers were often used by the Ukrainian Cossacks.

Submachine gun made in America: Ruger MP9

The Ruger MP9 submachine gun was designed as a compact weapon for law enforcement forces. It is based on basic design of the Uziel Gal (author of the UZI SMG), further improved by the Ruger company.The MP9 was released in 1995 for police and military sales in the USA.

Ruger MP9 submachine gun with folded buttstock.

Basically, MP9 may be called "improved UZI". Main improvements over the Uzi include following: the blowback operated action is redesigned to be fired from the closed bolt, to increase accuracy; the lower receiver with integral pistol grip is made from Zytel polymer, while the upper receiver is made from stainless steel; the buttstock is redesigned, and is of folding / telescoped design. MP9 submachine gun features three positions safety / fire mode selector with "safe", "semi-auto" and "full-auto" positions, as well as a separate firing pin block to increase safety. The quickly detachable barrel is loaded with spring to cushion the impact of the bolt on closure. The cocking handle is located at the top of the receiver.

Ruger MP9 submachine gun with buttstock in combat position.

Caliber: 9x19mm Luger/Para
Weight: 3 kg empty
Length (stock closed/open): 376 / 556 mm
Barrel length: 173 mm
Rate of fire: 550-650 rounds per minute
Magazine capacity: 32 rounds
Effective range: 50-100 meters

ATTENTION: This blog has been slapped with a DMCA. Since I'm just a normal guy with a real job that maintain this blog in my spare time as a decent way to "scrap-booked" all the interesting weapon systems created, I will have to abide by the request. I will start to make a number of my earlier posts unavailable to the public. Hopefully, I will be able to share some of the stuff later on.



Sincerely, The Blogger

Battering Ram: a siege engine designed to break open fortifications

A battering ram is a siege engine originating in ancient times and designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates. It was used, too, in ancient Roman mines and quarries to attack hard rocks.

In its simplest form, a battering ram is just a large, heavy log carried by several people and propelled with force against an obstacle; the ram would be sufficient to damage the target if the log were massive enough and/or it were moved quickly enough (that is, if it had enough momentum).

Later rams encased the log in an arrow-proof, fire-resistant canopy mounted on wheels. Inside the canopy, the log was swung from suspensory chains or ropes to maximize its impact power.

Replica battering ram at Baba Vida, Vidin, Bulgaria.

Rams proved effective weapons of war because old fashioned wall-building materials such as stone and brick were weak in tension, and therefore prone to cracking when impacted with sufficient force. With repeated blows, the cracks would grow steadily until a hole was created. Eventually, a breach would appear in the fabric of the wall—enabling armed attackers to force their way through the gap and engage the inhabitants of the citadel.

The greater the weight of the ram, the quicker and more serious the damage inflicted on the target wall, although different materials will display varying grades of resistance to the ram's impact. Clearly a wall made from, say, hard granite will offer more resistance compared to one constructed out of soft limestone or mud brick.

The introduction in the later Middle Ages of siege cannons, which harnessed the explosive power of gunpowder to propel weighty stone or iron balls against fortified obstacles, spelled the end of battering rams and other traditional siege weapons. Much smaller, hand-held versions of battering rams are still used today, however, by law enforcement officers and military personnel to bash open locked doors.

An Assyrian battering ram attacking an enemy city.

During Iron Age, in the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean, the battering ram's log was slung from a wheeled frame by ropes or chains so that it could be made more massive and be more easily bashed against its target. Frequently, the ram's point would be reinforced with a metal head or cap while vulnerable parts of the shaft were bound with strengthening metal bands.

Many battering rams possessed curved or slanted wooden roofs and side-screens covered in protective materials, usually fresh wet hides, presumably skinned from animals eaten by the besiegers. These hide canopies stopped the ram from being set on fire. They also safeguarded the operators of the ram against arrow and spear volleys launched from above.

A well-known image of an Assyrian battering ram depicts how sophisticated attacking and defensive practices had become by the 9th century BC. The defenders of a town wall are trying to set the ram alight with torches and have also put a chain under it. The attackers are trying to pull on the chain to free the ram, while the aforementioned wet hides on the canopy provide protection against the flames.

The first confirmed employment of rams in the Occident happened in 427 BC, when the Spartans besieged Plataea. The first use of rams within the actual Mediterranean Basin, featuring in this case the simultaneous employment of siege towers to shelter the rammers from attack, occurred on the island of Sicily in 409 BC, at the Selinus siege.

Defenders manning castles, forts or bastions would sometimes try to foil battering rams by dropping obstacles in front of the ram, such as a large sack of sawdust, just before the ram's head struck a wall or gate, or by using grappling hooks to immobilize the ram's log. Alternatively, the ram could be set ablaze, doused in fire-heated sand, pounded by boulders dropped from battlements or invested by a rapid sally of troops.

Some battering rams were not slung from ropes or chains, but were instead supported by rollers. This allowed the ram to achieve a greater speed before striking its target, making it more destructive. Such a ram, as used by Alexander the Great, is described by the writer Vitruvius.

Alternatives to the battering ram included the drill, the sapper's mouse, the pick and the siege hook. These devices were smaller than a ram and could be used in confined spaces.

Replica battering ram at Château des Baux, France.

Battering rams had an important effect on the evolution of defensive walls, which were constructed ever more ingeniously in a bid to nullify the effects of siege engines. Historical instances of the usage of battering rams in sieges of major cities include:

* The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans,
* The Crusades,
* The fall of Rome,
* The siege of Constantinople.

There is a popular myth in Gloucester that the famous children's rhyme, Humpty Dumpty, is about a battering ram used in the siege of Gloucester in 1643, during the English Civil War. However, the story is almost certainly untrue; during the siege, which lasted only one month, no battering rams were used, although many cannons were. The idea seems to have originated in a spoof history essay by Professor David Daube written for The Oxford Magazine in 1956, which was widely believed despite obvious improbabilities (e.g., planning to cross River Severn by running the ram down a hill at speed, although the river is about 30 m (100 feet) wide at this point).

A capped ram is a battering ram that has an accessory at the head (usually made of iron or steel and sometimes punningly shaped into the head and horns of an ovine ram) to do more damage to a building. It was much more effective at destroying enemy walls and buildings than an uncapped ram but was heavier to carry.

Submachine gun: TDI Kriss Super V

One of the weapons depicted in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Kriss Super V™ submachine gun is an interesting experimental weapon which is currently (spring 2007) under advanced stages of development. The name Kriss comes from Indonesian sword or large knife with flame-like blade. This weapon is intended to provide operators with improved control over accuracy and bullet dispersion, in both semi-automatic and full automatic modes, while firing hard-hitting .45 ACP ammunition. The overall design also permits the Kriss to be fired single-handedly when required by tactical situations and with adequate accuracy. To achieve those goals, Kriss Super V™ submachine gun employs three basic solutions. First is to place the axis of the recoil force in line with the firing hand, thus minimizing the muzzle climbing. Such system was previously employed in Olympic-class small-bore pistol developed in Russia and was subsequently banned from international ISU competitions because of extremely high accuracy, which made completion "unfair". The second solution is probably more novel, as it uses a laterally moving weight, attached to the breechblock (bolt), to divert recoil forces to the bottom direction. The third solution is actually a part of the second system, and it employs a variable-angle track in the weight (#510 on diagram above), which puts a breechblock at a mechanical disadvantage during earlier stages of recoil, thus slowing down the movement of the bolt while pressure in the barrel is still high. As a result of these measures, Kriss Super V™ submachine gun has significantly less muzzle climb when compared to most modern submachine guns. This results in better accuracy and better grouping of hits on target, providing operators with greater lethality during short-range and short-time encounters.

TDI Kriss Super V™submachine gun, prototype.

According to the manufacturer, the Transformational Defense Industries, Inc. (TDI), a wholly-owned US subsidiary of the Gamma Industries (Switzerland), the Super V™ system also can be used for submachine guns in other calibers (i.e. 9mm Luger and .40SW). TDI is also developing civilian-legal semiautomatic carbines with 16" (405 mm) barrels. To date (April 2007) TDI has manufactured four prototypes of the Kriss Super V™ submachine guns, which displayed very promising results during numerous live-fire tests. The development of selective-fired version of Kriss Super V™ weapon is conducted in cooperation with US Army ARDEC and several undisclosed industry partners.

TDI Kriss Super V™submachine gun, prototype, disassembled into basic components.

Kriss Super V™ submachine gun is delayed blowback operated, selectively fired submachine gun. It fires from closed bolt for enhanced first-shot accuracy. Fire control group is situated above the barrel. Very light bolt is connected to the vertically sliding weight, which is located within a polymer housing in front of the pistol grip. In one of tested configurations additional Enidine hydraulic buffer assembly is employed to further decrease rate of fire by about 200 rpm and to lower weight of the moving parts. Folding cocking handle is located on the left side of the gun, and does not move when gun is fired. Firing controls include ambidextrous fire mode selector switch, located about the middle of the upper receiver / trigger mechanism housing, which provides full auto fire, 2-round bursts and semi-automatic fie, and a separate ambidextrous manual safety switch, which is conveniently located just above the pistol grip. Feed is from 13-round Glock Model 21 magazines, but a larger capacity, 28-round magazine is currently in development. Magazine is inserted into a housing, located in front of the pistol grip. Kriss Super V™ submachine gun is fitted with two Picatinny type rails, one above the receiver and another below the barrel, and two additional rails can be installed on either side of the lower receiver, providing ample mounting space for all necessary accessories, such as laser-aiming modules or tactical flashlights. The upper rail can accept a variety of sighting devices, such as open or red-dot sights; lower rail is usually fitted with vertical foregrip. On latest prototype, the front of the upper receiver / trigger housing above the barrel is hollow and shaped as to accept tactical flashlight. A side-folding polymer buttstock is provided for more accurate shooting.

Diagram from US patent application which depicts the basic Super V™ action of theKriss submachine gun.

Prototype Kriss Super V™submachine gun is being fired.

Caliber	.45 ACP
Weight, empty	2,18 kg prototype 1,8 - 2,0 kg target for production gun
Length (stock folded / opened)	406 /  635 mm
Barrel length	140 mm
Rate offire	800to 1100 rounds per minute
Magazine capacity	13 rounds (28 roundmagazine is being developed)
Effective range	100 meters