French Rifles for Ukraine
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- čas přidán 6. 11. 2023
- On 6 November the French arms manufacturer Verney-Carron announced the signing of a framework contract worth 36 million Euros with Ukrspecexport, a Ukrainian state-owned arms trading company, for a substantial number of small arms including carbines, precision rifles and 40mm grenade launchers.
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Ian has been summoned
🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷
Oui oui
“Anybody want a mug for $50‽”
The incantation is complete! Praise be to Ian!!😂
on his ever-quest for 32 French Longue
Ukrainian Officer: *Opens shipping container* WTF is this?
Ian McCollum: *clutches a crate full of the French Rifles* It's mine, you understand? Mine! All mine! Get back in there! Down, down, down! Go, go, go! Mine, mine, mine! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!
Hahahaha yes Ian is a rabid Francophile hahaha
70s years later, the Stoner rifle just keeps going strong. Stronger than ever. 🤠
Not really even the m16 that wad given to ukraine units fighting in addivkka was switched out for old kalashnikovs
@@magnusthered4973 Plenty of units still using them wtf are you talking about.
@user-zn1pi9ue3e not really alot are being switched out Canadian c7s are more findable
@@magnusthered4973 Top Russian court bans LGBT movement as 'extremist' as 5 years in a row Russia has had the most homosexual people per capita in the world.
It has gotten so bad on the frontlines that men don't fight but instead have sexual intercourse and have to be disciplined
@TheKakan1337 if that's true Imagine how bad the US is
Fun tidbit:
Verney-Carron is a subsidiary of the Cybergun Group.
Cybergun is an airsoft gun company.
Cybergun isnt technically an airsoft manufacturer but an airsoft licensee. They dont actually make airsoft guns, but hold the rights to sell airsoft guns under their brand using the name of real guns with correct markings. The guns themselves are made by Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers like VFC and WE.
@@enriqueavellan190 Guess saying it's a company is more accurate than a manufacturer. It's funny cos some cybergun products are just... HORRIBLE. (Looking at you Kalashnikov AK47 made of pot metal)
It's a reductive statement. Verney-Carron was bought by Cybergun in 2022, but the company is much older than that, dating back over 200 years. It was founded in 1820. It was taken over because it was in financial difficulty, firearms don't sell well in France, even the army didn't buy French assault rifles, which doesn't help...
@@DecalageChope Exactly, in the US where firearms are sold freely and make up the bulk of a firearms company's portfolio, companies like Kriss USA and SIG have set up their own airsoft subsidiaries to sell replicas on the side. In Europe where guns are restricted to the public its becoming the opposite, airsoft companies like Cybergun and Umarex are instead buying up real firearms companies like Verney Carron and Carl Walther because they are instead making the bulk of their income from selling or licensing replicas.
that 40mm looks really cool, really compact too
Supposedly those low velocity grenade launchers need very little barrel length, but that does look incredibly short.
@@theevenstevenchannel8220 yeah i know that, m32a1 has an 8 inch barrel and lmt makes an m320 with 7 inch barrel so i doubt its much of a concern
Perfect for Marines. A pirate gun goes a long way.
As a Retired US Soldier, it always makes me happy knowing so many others trust the AR platform. It may not be the most powerful rifle, but you'll definitely hit what you fire at and that's what matters.
Is it possible to tune AR platform to perform in extreme cold temperatures like -40 Celcius? Is it possible to make AR platform with little bit heavier barrel so it would be able to withstand cointinuous firing in lets say trench warfare. Is it possible to make AR platform durable. Like making lower and upper from steel instead of aluminium? Just curious from lad from Finland
@@OlafRooster Both Canada and Norway did that, for them the performance in severe cold was crucial. Canada optimised for cold temperatures C8 & C7 rifles (M16 and M4 variants) and Norway the HK416N.
Yes, marksman versions of AR15 have heavy barrels, and so does HK416. M27 is supposed to act as automatic rifle, but they basically kept the standard profile of HK416 barrel which tbh is already pretty heavy. You could go heavier and heavier as much as you want but at this point you basically need an LMG and not AR.
AR is already durable. Why would you want steel receivers? Making receiver steel would change nothing but add unnecessary weight, I never heard of any problems with receivers on ARs, ever.
@@czwarty7878 Thanks for your answer. You see I was in military service and back then our Standard issue rifle was rk62 which basicly is milled receiver AK variant. Its domestically made but last one of those rifled rolled from factory line in 1997 so military is in process of purchasing new rifles which are AR pattern rifles. They allready choose AR10 as basis for new marksmanship rifle.
Anyway my point is and was is that often times you can get into situation where you dont have belt feeder around (never enough of those) and you need to use your service rifle as something that sort of an fits to that role. It would be nice if I could change barrel easily after I shoot it till it bends. Or even better to have one lad in 10 to carry something that is a rifle but can be put into roles of LMG without destroying that rifle in process.
Also while those belt feeders (mainly PKM) are good ones there is no western manufacturer for those and for obvious reasons buying more from russia is out of question since we are in nato.
Good beltfeeder should shoot full power rifle round like .308 or similar but be light anough to carry. I would also appreciate if there would be reusable belts available to suplement those disintegrating ones.
When it comes to belt feeders optic mounting is good thing but I feel more comfortable if I have good solid irons to back those up even better if irons have sights for 2000m for harrassing fire.
how about rifle grenades? can AR use those?
@@OlafRooster well for these situations where you need belt-fed but don't have one (even though every squad should have SAW or LMG) you have medium barrels like in M16A2/A4 or M4A1, they're already being adjusted to allow longer shooting. These rifles already have thickened barrel, default was of M16A1 which was much lighter. Guns like AKs actually have lighter barrels than current M4 profile. Nonetheless, yeah, HK416 has both heavier barrel and insides adjusted to allow providing prolonged fire.
As for PKM there are still options: Poland produces basically same PKM rechambered to 7.62x51 NATO, Zastava has M84, and from what I know Ukraine produces PKMs still. The problem is that PKM is optimized for rimmed round, the soviet 7.62x54R, which is not used in NATO. It's interesting as non-rimmed rounds provide higher reliability of weapon, but PKM is so optimized towards rimmed ammo that modifications for NATO round actually lower it's reliability. So both Polish UKM-2000 and various other conversions are slightly inferior to original PKM in that regard. However they're still very good guns.
On rifle grenades, yes - French were heavy on that matter and their HK416F was specifically ordered to have ability of firing rifle grenades. I don't know if Norway uses them, overally rather most countries resigned on that. So probably it is not a problem to make them possible to launch rifle grenades, but not many are interested in that. But I also am of opinion that rifle grenades are good thing to have, they are much bigger than standard 40mm grenades and allow for way more versatility. I have a feeling they will have a big comeback at some point
@@czwarty7878 Thank you lots of that info. When I was in service we used mismatch of nato and soviet and local production systems and as far as I know we still do. Belt feeders should be 2 per squad and rifle grenades offer longer range and higher volume of fire when needed. underbarrel launcher systems are good but only if you have enough of them to give you that edge.
My thing in service was big fucking lol.
that lol is basicly mosin nagant with scope and new barrel and new stock. They call it TAK 85. It was and still is in service jsut because there are so many of those around. Biggest problem with newer better systems is that there are not enough of these around. Second biggest problem is relative lack of shooting range time with these. You get to shoot only once in ever 2nd week. Learning to shoot takes lots of time on range.
love these videos on what small arms and ammo are being used! thanks for the videos
Glad you're finding them interesting Cory! Thanks for watching.
Honestly I had no idea that France actually had any companies capable of making modern small arms other than PGM, especially given that France went to H&K for its newest military service rifle, and bought said rifle in somewhat anemic quantities.
They went to H&K because the size of the french companies are too small...Ridiculous, no?
@@hisvin At least they didn't go to H&M.
Anemic quantities ? The HK416F has been deployed in a record timeframe. Procurement times surpassed everything we expected.
@@zebracherub generally you want to have more rifles than troops in an army, in order to account to equipment losses and expansion of the military. The french military ordered 110000 rifles for a military of 250000 personnel.
@@MaxwellAerialPhotography You said it yourself, "generally", the French don't do things "generally", they don't equip rear echelon with top of the line equipment, not because they're cheap but because the French army is already spread incredibly thin around the world (a fact that a lot of French president lately seems to have forgotten yet they still are asking for more and more results.) so only purely fighting troops in opex/critical locations in France (airports, nuclear reactors, etc...) will have those.
I would also like to point out that the H&K416 or any other kind of rifles that isn't mass produced locally is a transition/stopgap rifle, which explain the sub 200k number, there's still huge debates in the FDOD about the caliber and barrel length of the French next generation rifle (and Germany keep pulling in and out of the program... but that's what Germans do) there's multiple path ahead but it will mostly depends on who's going to be the next big actor in the East, if it's China a high powered/long barrel will probably be selected, if the West is going back to 20+ years of asymmetrical warfare it will probably be a general purpose bullpup again.
H&K was selected simply because François Hollande, the president at the time received a huge deal thanks to Angela Merkel to have those rifles instead of a locally produced rifle (Verney Carron just waited the contract to be signed to open two factories in France and on in Portugal) and the Croatian VHS2 that was well enjoyed by troops during the test (I was part of this test) but less by the administration that don't consider Croatia to be a firm enough ally to be entrusted with such a critical task.
I hope this shed some light about this mess.
The Ukraine conflict has become the test bed for a lot of guns
Definitely. These have never been used by any military or law enforcement agency as far as I know. But as long as the quality is there the designs are based on tried and tested systems.
Not too surprising, there hasn't been a lot of peer-to-peer fighting lately so I imagine armies and companies like to see how their stuff actually stands in those conditions. Same reason a bunch of nations sent arms to Spain in the civil war, to test developments made since WWI, and I'm sure it's been going on even longer
and optics, I have seen so many holosuns in clips.
This went against the HK416 in trails for the French military and lost so they chose a German made rifle over a French made rifle... cant be that good.
@@MrDakkyz I wouldn't ever go assuming that an HK416 has won any military trials due to being "better" than an alternative - HK has a lot more than just "we hope you like our gun!" going for them when they enter trials...
I have a Verney Carron shotgun, great guns.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen FAMAS in Ukraine, especially since we see that Ukraine is doing a contract like this. You’d think as famas get replaced by Hk416 France would moth ball/send over the famas.
A quick Wikipedia search also shows that for some reason France has a small amount of Ak’s & M16a2
this is a contract between verney carron and ukraine, not the french army. We already gave a lot of famas to friendly nation like Suriname, we also keep a lot for war stocks, a lot of them are still actively being used in every branches of the french army, and lastly ukraine already have it's share of small arms but is in dire need of bigger weapons (i need more boulettes), thats why we are sending a lot of things but no famas, would have been cool to see, but it most likely wont happen :(
I have seen a famas with ukrainian engineers. CZcams being the greatest website ever, I can't share the photo or even a link. I'm sure the number sent is incredibly small regardless.
@@FirelixGaming i understood that this is a contract for Ukraine. Which is a bit confusing, why make Ukraine new rifles when they can make them for the French, then the French just give Ukraine famas. Maybe it’s because a lot of the famas f1 have compatibility issues. Like the magazine issue, becausedon’t most famas use their own non Stanag magazine, also don’t the french use steel case ammo & and different twist rate in the barrel.
I think Ukraine is looking into the future when eventually the Ukrainian Army will settle on one pattern of rifle to simplify what must currently be an incredibly complex logistics chain.
@@Chiller11 ya for sure, it’ll be interesting to see what they go for. I assume that they’d switch over to 5.56 & 7.62 nato. But maybe they had/will still have enough domestic arms production of soviet cartridges. There’s so many options, like going with the polish Grot or Czech Bren 2 in order to help these nations build up their defense industries. Or maybe they just go with having a huge mix of small arms with specific units being standardized.
How mcny small arms have been shipped there?
Interesting of all the manufacturers of AR15 patterned rifles/carbines Ukraine would select a French company. Would be fascinating to know the details of the deal I think.
Considering part (i think its 50%) of the Funding is coming from France im sure thats why a French company is suppling these. Besides, In the grand scheme of things its a relatively small number of arms anyways.... They are getting small arms from other countries as well (both new and surplus)
Right! The only thing I'd buy from France is wine, cheese and chocolate.
@@corey8420 why?
@@Elzimbabwe. 1 I don't like France at all..2 what else do they make that's worth buying?
@@corey8420 Civilian aircraft, jet fighters, naval craft of all sizes including expeditionary, armored vehicles big and small, artillery, world class ECM and bloody good sniper rifles. But we also make all the luxury goods you can throw money at, including the handbag your mum wants. High speed trains, cars, trucks, infrastructure etc. And don't get me started on food and drink.
What does your country produce? Inflation?
MSBS Grot video - scheduled for fall 2026...
Something's afoot. Maybe spares and extra tooling, but that contract price is steep.
Estimating 1500 dollars per M16 type rifles, 3000 dollars for a top of the line AR 308 precision rifle, and 1300 dollars for a precision made single shot grenade launcher, without spare parts, factory price - it'd run you 22 million dollars. Bring your own logistics.
The quoted price here is 38 million dollars. I'm sure that's all inclusive, logistics and spares. But Holy shit batman, somebody call up NABU.
If there's no more documentation breaking down the costs this deal is a bloody rip off. Zbroyar makes top of the line rifles of the same type and model, AR15s and AR308s. They have the technical data package to license out production to any shop with a CNC machine.
Yes, more detail needed on costs. I suspect a chunk will be on tooling.
pretty sure most of the price will be covered by france, as an internal investement !
An M16 doesn't cost 1500 bucks in Europe. European production volumes, facilities, labor cost and taxes leave guns being quite a bit more expensive.
@@lucastonoli3256 For European manufacturers most of the time labor cost will be lower than in America. For France and Western Europe it might be comparable to America, however for East European countries the labor cost will be much lower.
@@_________________404 this is a french rifle, I know eastern Europe is cheap, but that's hardly relevant here.
Such a good design that even the Chinese and Russian, to a certain extent, are using the platform
What, no FA MAS G2's? That surprises me even more that the French, are building these AR/M4 type rifles. Considering the issue French rifle is the HK-416. Total NUTZ!
There are some FAMAS in country. Just don't see them very often.
G2 is the outdated model. You mean the feline model?
Ukroboronprom was restructured/renamed to Ukrainian Defense Industry. So it has a new name.
Branding as I understand it.
I didn't even know Label still existed.
I think they're using it as a brand name, good to keep the name alive though.
probably because it's Lebel and not Label.
Hadn’t heard of .260 Remington being chambered in a military rifle that wasn’t someone’s hobby project , that’s interesting.
Only going of info on Lebel's site, not sure why they'd offer it.
@@TheArmourersBench It play balls a bit better than 6.5 Creedmore in a magazine, less binding in cold temperature too, which helps in Eastern Europe.
@@TheArmourersBenchprobably some police unit out there that wanted it.
@@TheArmourersBenchalso .260 Remington is also able to be used in civilian market in France but 5.56 is banded unless you have a class A licence. Where as you need only a class C license for .260 Remington. These laws lead to some weird cartridges being offered.
Caron parmi les meilleurs fusil de chasse au Monde
Is that the same Cybergun group that licenses and distributes Airsoft guns?
The very same.
Verney-Carron was acquired by Cybergun in 2022, but remains a separate subsidiary. We're still talking about a company that's over 200 years old.
No financial support for bild the machinery. Contract soon cancelled.
Yep, yet to be funded.
From what I know the French do not have small arms manufacturers. Why else did they buy German HK416s? Any idea where these things are made and where the parts come from?
They are said to be made in France. Verney-Carron were too small a manufacturer to be considered for the FAMAS replacement programme I believe.
Manurhin and PGM Precision are the two obvious French firearms manufacturers but manufacturing and equipping the military with the 117000 rifles the Army ordered is a task neither could undertake in a reasonable timeline or financially viable manner, even if they just offered to tool up to licence produce something to fulfil national pride. There's a reason FN and H&K have ended up in the position they are in.
They definitely do.
They went for the HK (which I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a somewhat temporary stopgap before adopting a French made assault rifle again) because of the scale of the order and the asked delivery time.
Hk 416 is basically becoming the European standard
@@Pratt_ Correct.
😁
Should have chosen this french made rifle instead of the hk416 for the french army
The company is too small and could not produce in time 110k rifles France procured and all of them have been delivered. Those guns can be very good, but the real problem was production inability in the drawn timeline. Still, big countries matter. The HK 416 is a great rifle, but so is the Croatian VHS2 and it's a great rifle (like the latest Polish Grot and the CZ Bren 2) - but the "brand" of power Germany creates doubts regarding all other competition. I think Croatia could also easily produce the same amount of rifles, but money talks and Germany lobbying defeated any competition. The VHS2 perfomed greatly during the tests and was much liked by "testers". Business as usual
@@Maddog-xc2zvThe VHS-2 would have been a great candidate as well to replace the FAMAS.
@@Tusk-ruk Yes I know, reason why I wrote "The HK 416 is a great rifle, but so is the Croatian VHS2" and "I think Croatia could also easily produce the same amount of rifles, but money talks and Germany lobbying defeated any competition" and other statements on my commentary in defense of a great rile in fact the VHS2 (and many others usually never spoken if their not of US, Belgium, Italy (more regarding handguns, in fact, the beretta 160 is most likely being thought to be retired as it's crap regarding components - even many of their army men say so - and it's strange beretta already is throwing so much propaganda directed tho they "new, with comas as is an AR15 design", Beretta NARP), Germany and Switzerland (although mostly sig is more american than swiss in the end), silencing croatian products almost as much as Polish, Czech and "emerging" (changing from Varsaw Pact/USSR,/Russian light weapons - and not only - to said western standards) countries producing top tier light weapons, just speaking of those but not limited to, sometimes of equality equal or superior to their competition who does not want to lose their "monopoly". CZ for instances is already getting in many older and even founding members of NATO and those forces are very pleased, for instance, with the Bren 2. Cheers.
@@Maddog-xc2zv Oh I meant to express agreement with your insightful comment, which I had read in full. 👍
@@Tusk-ruk I got that. And I appreciate your support regarding the arms lobbying, fisrtly by agreeing the VH2 would have made a not worst substitute (maybe even better than the 416) and also gaving voice to fabulous "unnoticed" arms manufacturers from other countries than not just the common "lobbyists" of everyday. Also for grunts use, it most likely would be much less expensive, leaving some money free for the acquisition of other material the french Armed Forces surely desire and need. A great thumbs up for you.
lol imagine spending that much on ar clones..
Let me guess you have a “just as good” psa?
Meh maybe good for interior ministry work but Ukraine needs massive volumes of service rifles ... hundreds of thousands no different from boots, socks, MREs, helmets, body armor, drones, mortars, mk-19s, atgms, claymore mines, dep cord, secure radio sets and most important a command and control system to make sure all of this equipment upon arriving into Ukraine stays exactly there then goes forward to the soldier in the field. Having such commonality might make Ukraine indeed all of Western and Southern Russia start behaving like something out of the USA Wild West tho now that massive modern Western industrial largesse is starting to ramp up. The most valuable weapons for this fight however remain AT-4 rockets and the like as the range of the prototypical assault rifle still remain on or about 300 yards on or about 300 meters. Unless that suddenly changes to more like 1000 meters if not 2500 hard to imagine competing with Infantry based rocketry. "Bazooka Charlie" could come in real handy if your Ukraine at the moment.
It’s an AR platform rifle dude.
a strange decision, considering that some "elite" units of the Ukrainian army, equipped with Western platforms, decided to return to using AK with a body kit. So it's more like trying to make money
Not really? Ukrainian units make widespread use of both western and soviet pattern rifles.
No they didn't.
la France a du prendre la HK 416 a cause des loi européenne ... sinon ...
Non
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦🔱
French rifle? That's nothing but an American AR-15 copy, why don't they just go to the United States and buy them there lmao. Those rifles are about as French as french fries
France helps Ukraine defend itself financially, and in return Ukraine buys French weapons with this money. I suppose this allows Ukraine to diversify its sources of supply. Otherwise, I don't really understand the point of buying AR-15s from France either. After all, Verney-Carron has an excellent reputation, so it's a good buy.
They’re made in France, making them French rifles.
Wait until you hear about all the American clones of Belgian machine guns.
I mean may shock you but buying a rifle made in France it can be put on a train and arrive in Ukraine next day.
Buy from the USA got spend a few weeks ship it and then put it on a train. Just cuts out logistic overhead. Also France has been much friendly to Ukraine.
French rifles, never fired and only dropped once.
american rifle, can't drop it: it stands by itself your belly
Impressive ignorance 😊
Never been fired and only dropped once. The scent of cheese won't wash off though...
Grow up.
@@skepticalbadger fr*nch detected
@Danewhatever: no they are not tested. they're made and put on a shell. is it ignorance really a bless?
great joke, never heard before
@@igornikitovitchnosorog874 Chad joke. No more brother wars for the ZOG 🤝
I don't like frogs
They probably don't like you.
@@TheArmourersBench Yup, confirmed.
@@TheArmourersBench Can confirm
Pathetic.
This is correct.@@TheArmourersBench
France is not even in the top 10 countries who have provided the most aid to Ukraine. You make France seem like they have something to be proud of.
I'm not making France seem like anything in particular, I'm just outlining a contract they've agreed. Thanks for watching.
@@TheArmourersBench last 15 seconds of video was a list of what Frace has given..but ok
@corey8420 That's examples of confirmed aid. It's a basic summary I'm not getting into quantities and breakdowns of who has provided what. That's for another video.
@@TheArmourersBench I'm not trying to be difficult, your channel is hands down my favorite on CZcams nothing comes close. It simply rubbed me the wrong way and it's probably just me because I don't like France or Germany.
@corey8420 Thank you, I appreciate it. I know what you mean, maybe I should look into doing a video on which countries have supplied the most. Might have some interesting surprises. And like I said, thank you for watching!
French rifles: never fired and only dropped once.
How to show you know nothing of French history.
France has been around for 1,000 years and has seen countless wars. You're a nice guy behind your screen, but you should think about opening a book at some point.
Battle of France 1940 : around 58k dead not counting civilians, and about twice as many wounded. But hey, don't let that stop you from pissing on their tombs tough guy... Command failed to adapt to the blitzkrieg, that's the gist of it, the rank men did not falter in their duty.