The AO-46 was a gas-operated 5.45×39mm caliber, compact

carbine A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and lighte ...

/ assault rifle prototype. It features a folding stock and the trigger is located just in front of the magazine, which doubles as a pistol grip. In order to minimize the length of the gun, gas for automatic operation was collected not out of the barrel, but directly from the

flash suppressor A flash suppressor, also known as a flash guard, flash eliminator, flash hider, or flash cone, is a muzzle device attached to the muzzle (firearms), muzzle of a rifle that reduces its visible signature while firing by cooling or dispersing the b ...

in the muzzle. Despite having the latter feature, the combination of a relative powerful cartridge and short barrel produced a flash comparable to that of a

sawed-off shotgun A sawed-off shotgun (also called a sawn-off shotgun, short-barreled shotgun, shorty or a boom stick) is a type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel—typically under —and often a shortened or absent stock. Despite the colloquial term, ...

. The weapon was an unsolicited design by

Peter Andreevich Tkachev Peter Andreevich Tkachev was a Russian weapons engineer for TsNIITochMash. He is known to have worked on and modified various weapons such as the AO-38, AO-46, AO-62 and AO-63 assault rifles as well as developing the Balanced Automatics Recoi ...

working at TsNIITochMash. Although not accepted for service, this design, in combination with report of the US use of the XM-177 in Vietnam led the

GRAU The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated Russian acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the ...

to start the competition known as

Project Modern The AK-74 ( Russian: , tr. ''Avtomat Kalashnikova obraztsa 1974 goda'', lit. 'Kalashnikov assault rifle model 1974) is an assault rifle designed by small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1974. While primarily associated with the Soviet ...

, which led to the adoption of

AKS-74U The AK-74 (Russian: , tr. ''Avtomat Kalashnikova obraztsa 1974 goda'', lit. 'Kalashnikov assault rifle model 1974) is an assault rifle designed by small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1974. While primarily associated with the Soviet ...

for service."Солдат удачи" номер 9 (72) 2000 Д.Ширяев "Кто изобрел автомат Калашникова?" Although the Soviet doctrine did not have an equivalent concept, the AO-46 design corresponds to the Western concept of

personal defense weapon Personal defense weapons (PDWs) are a class of firearms intended for self-defense and security rather than warfare and infantry. Most PDWs fire a small-caliber (less than ), centerfire bottleneck cartridge resembling a scaled-down intermedia ...

(PDW).AO-46
at weaponland.ru. Retrieved 2013-4-7

References

5.45×39mm assault rifles Personal defense weapons Kalashnikov derivatives Assault rifles of the Soviet Union Trial and research firearms of the Soviet Union TsNIITochMash products {{Rifle-stub

See also

References