this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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The vision of the PDW was a primary weapon for troops not normally expected to be on the frontlines. Essentially a submachinegun form factor and weight with a cartridge capable of penetrating soft body armor.
Importantly the big magazine and full auto were with the PDW concept from the beginning, so that rear line troops faced with a defense situation could hose down bad guys until help showed up.
There are a lot of obvious deficiencies in the bottom gun such as a lack of any kind of sights aside from a tube, which is even simpler than the wartime M3 Greasegun sights. The idea of a gun designed for full auto but held out and away from the body like a pistol strikes me as the kind of thing not intended for final production.
The top picture looks closer to some kind of concept for a finished design. It looks like an iteration of the bottom design, keeping the below-the-grip bore and big magazine but in a gun beginning to resemble something practical. If you look back and forth between the designs, the top design is an extension of the first that has features that would have been dead obvious to add from the beginning.
I will research and see if I can find links because I am almost certain that read that the bottom design had the “sight” literally drilled with a power drill, but I’d like to source that before declaring it.
PDWs are not intended for "rear line troops". You find them on the front as well. Everyone who can will be using a standard assault/battle rifle, just for standardization and supply reasons. That includes "rear live" troops such as medical, logistics and MP.
Instead, PDWs are given to everyone working in an environment where a regular assault weapon would be too bulky or heavy to use. Clambering in, out and around small hatches in armored vehicles with large rifles is annoying at best and deadly at worst, when things get stuck.
This means vehicle crews such as APCs, IFVs, tanks, but also air assets such as helicopters and sometimes planes ( most ejection seats have a compartment with either PDW so a pilot can defend himself even after having to bail) are prime candidates for PDW. The requirement of a PDW can be filled by various weapons, so it could be an SMG, a carbine version of an existing assault rifle (facilitates maintenance and supplies, because it's mostly the same parts as everyone else uses) and even pistols. Another quality of PDWs is that they are not expected to be used in regular combat, but only in extraordinary circumstances. Hence accuracy at long range is not a priority, but ease of use and reliability even in messy circumstances ( dirt, heat, getting knocked around) is what matters in an emergency. This is where dedicated PDWs such as the p90 have the advantage over carbine derivatives. Carbines are as complex and sensitive as regular rifles, unlike the much more rugged and simplified closed specialized PDWs.
ASA counter example, units fighting in urban/indoor operations most often opt for carbines and only bring PDWs as an exception. Sometimes PDWs also are used by soldiers that have to carry very bulky equipment in support of an operation, where again they are not expected to be in the main firefight.
Even truck crews (logistics) usually use regular infantry assault rifles, because a truck has a big enough cabin.
I think we understand the intended role the same. When I wrote rear line it was too hasty but meant to include troops like AFV crew. PDW are for people who aren’t meant to be using their personal weapons as part of their main role.
Yes to all of this. I believe I said the same thing regarding them being a used defensively.
Other weapons can be used in the role, but when the category of “PDW” as weapons were being explicitly conceptualized in the 1980s at the request of NATOas a new kind of category, they were being given more armor penetrating but pistol sized rounds like 5.7mm or 4.6mm, making them submachinegun-like but more armor penetrating.
Obviously a rifle carbine can be used defensively, and that’s what ended up happening for a lot of militaries, which is part of why the dedicated PDW designs using PDW calibers, as conceived of for PDWs originally in the 80s, never took off in the way they were intended. You don’t really see any military issuing PDW of this description to all of its non-offensive or rear troops as standard practice.
Here is a NATO testing report on PDW calibers, as support that the term “PDW” was conceived to mean something specific and unique from either assault rifles or SMGs.
Here’s a link that’s got HK literature calling their MP7 a PDW. as an example of weapons of this type being explicitly called such by the manufacturer.