Thanks for watching, here's the accompanying article for the video - armourersbench.com/2023/07/09/ukraines-improvised-anti-drone-minigun/

Ukrainian improvised weapons are like the weapons I imagine in my head when I let my intrusive thoughts take control.

It's more like a Volley gun imo, since the thing doesn't rotate unlike more traditional minigun or gatling gun.

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” -Dr. Ian Malcolm Seriously, while intriguing it doesn’t appear that this is all that effective in the AA role but it would suck to run up against that on foot.

Considering how plentiful the ak platform is over there right now, I won't be surprised to see other modified versions get made.

Seems wildly inefficient given the severe felt recoil only allowing for short 1-3 round bursts, the limited capacity before reload, and the significant reload time. That being said it's one of the most unique weapons i've ever seen, a true frankenstein gun.

As it's several separate guns fire linked, the proper term is "gun battery". Reminds me more than anything else of the fictional hurricane bolter from Warhammer 40k, but the closet real thing I can think of is the that halftrack mounted quad .50 from WWII.

Takes me back to the time a guy made a crank operated gatling gun made from multiple ak's , it worked quite well

Theres a really strong sense of dads army about these. I suppose that hardly surprising given the similar circumstances

I think a 12 GA with buck shot might end up working better than wasting 6-8 7.62 per pull.

As others have said more like a volley gun. Loving these innovations. I can't wait for someone to put a book out years later with all of them.

I think they need to twist the compensators around a bit or something. It looks like a complete handful and probably really ineffective as is.

Great idea, but the mounting needs to be changed so the recoil doesn't cause that twisting motion. Minigun mounts should provide some good ideas for what to do.

Given that they are mostly used against targets tracking horizontally and the hardest thing to judge is range/altitude I would say that the orientation of the weapons is wrong. You want them stacked vertically to create a wall of fire for the drone to run into.

I think they should focus on the mount and sights, rather than rate of fire. Decades ago I got to use an experimental AA mount for trucks. It was similar to the WW1 Scarff ring and mounted a GPMG(FN MAG). It had an optical sight with lead lines for various speeds. It did well against the model aircraft target system (MATS) which is comparable to today's drones in size and speed.

Would work good with a tuned up sight along with a shoulder brace like on WW2 naval anti-air guns, bet you could control recoil a lot nicer with more of your body wait on the weapon system. Using cheap Turkish shotguns might be an interesting trial. Lets also run some tests on which shotgun shell is most effective.

That collection of rifles for a larger beaten zone is ingenious. For better lead estimation, it might be better if the first 3 rounds in every magazine were tracers. Knowing his sight lead when he fired the first burst, and observing the downrange proximity to the target, the gunner could correct his lead for subsequent bursts without continuously giving away his position. Seeing multiple battle rifles used for anti-aircraft operations, reminded me that, in prior years, riflemen had been given a theoretical means of fighting aircraft, if caught in the open. The ones aligned with the path all fired at similar angles, thus different lead points, so that the aircraft would get hit by chance flight into several bullets. Lateral squads took fixed leads in hopes that at one instant, the pilot would pass through a narrow wall of fire. It was theoretical, but it beat doing nothing, and it used random probability to compensate for lack of lead and ranging experience. It gave new meaning to the Marine novelty drill command, "To-the-winds, march!" which allowed a platoon to disperse cruciform, in seconds.

As ridiculous as it looks, it might actually be developed into a somewhat practical system if they happen to have a large excess of old AKs laying around and a shortage of suitable machine guns. Looks to me though like the mount needs more work to make the recoil more manageable. I didn't expect to see this contraption actually fire! I must admit, it looks awfully fun.

Really creative, they really know how to make use of everything they have

This is like the Turrets from Gears of war 3, just rifles slapped on a platform.

Shotguns, my brothers! Shotguns! Loaded with bird shot! Pack a few of those together with a calibrated offset--meaning the gun barrels angled to disperse the pellets in a wide swath at a specified range, and you will have a low level drone killer on your hands!

The odds of hitting that small of a target (drone) is highly unlikely. Just a waste of ammo.

The pivot point needs to be in line with recoil. It is significantly below causing the rig to flip up so every salvo after the first is wasted. With that fixed I can see this contraption working.

honestly surprised they didn't add some kind of brass deflector system

Is the radial arrangement really necessary? If you had two or three rifles on a side by side mount, such that they were clamped in there upside down, It would possibly be easier to collimate the rifles as far as the convergence point is concerned. The mount could be made like a USN .50 cal mount with a recoiling trolley. It might be as efficient as the six rifle rig, but with less weight of fire - which would be compensated for by being able to be more flexible logistically, less recoil, and a more predictable beaten zone.

That...sure is a thing that was made. What an interesting idea, ha. I wounder how effective it is.

This is the kind of improvised weapon you get to craft in games like dead rising XD. Jokes aside,it does looks creative and dangeriously fun but i don't know if it'll be effective let alone safe in general.

Heads up, this is the 2nd time I had to resub you. Great work!

Imagine reloading that

I saw videos of this new weapon a long time ago (a few months). I am amazed that only now it has been discussed.

Recoil way too much to handle for the mount. Effective rate of fire is probably no better than for a single rifle on automatic with a better controlled recoil.

Better to build a Gatling gun with a mortar. But wow that home-made one looks impressive.

It really needs to be beefed up. Install a search light & targeting laser. Some sort of anti air sight or optical sight. At the very least, we should get them some 95 round, South Korean, 5.45 drums.

I wonder where those bullets are gonna land. A lot of them could end up in fields but some are bound to do some damage to something other than a drone.

It's cute but far too slow and by the time a target is tracked it's empty. Good for the A team))

Reminds me of several Luger pistols arranged together as makeshift anti-aircraft armaments on early combat aircraft.

They could really do with swapping the 74s with a saiga 12 gauge shotguns especially for antidrone, but this has the added benefit of anti personal at distance

Seems strange that 2 or 3 maxims on a mount wouldnt be better.

Shotguns would be a good substitution I think. Nice 28 inch barrels and full chokes, loaded up with goose/turkey shot.

I remember they did this years ago on Sons of Guns, but they did it with Saiga shotguns.

I remember video of some guy in US he made same thing like this just with M4s lol

It isn't improvised. One of the Warsaw Pact nations developed it in the 1970's.

Not only he couldn't hit one bullet, the weight destroys your arm. What were they thinking!! xD

I seem to remember see a video a while back from WW2 where somebody fitted a load of sub machine guns (PPSH??) on the underside of a plane, pointing directly downward to use for strafing...apparently it wasn't a success.

Now that's cool! Never underestimate the ingenuity of a people under threat.

The recoil is not under control which might not be needed if they're happy with short volley bursts. The shot pattern might be quite effective.

the triggering time must be in that way that it could reduce the kickback, so those triggering ''fingers'' must be put at different distances

This looks like it taken from concept art from Fury Road. Totally see the Bullet Farmer mounting this on a War Rig.

Been saying this but ill say ot again. For drones why not make some sort of modernized punt gun???

When someone has just watched the mcgyver box set on DVD 😁

I wonder if changing the balance point of the guns might help with the recoil.

It's fantastic if it really works, although using drum magazines or modified belt magazines would probably be better, or using long high-cap mags.

A group of shotguns might have been more useful, all loaded with birdshot which can cover a whole area for anti drone ops.

All we need now is one remotely controlled one mounted on an armored pickup and then it would be like mad max or crossout.

before seeiing him shoot with tracers i was skeptical but it does look like a good pattern sort of shotgun but for long range

It could use some shoulder hoops, like an amusement park ride. I've seen this in WW2 films.

Is gonna be completely useless, as pretty much all small arms groundfire is against drones, but it probably feels really nice.

It's hard to tell, but it looked like the improvised weapon didn't shoot down any drones in testing. Still a neat idea, and given the glut of AK's in Ukraine, it makes sense to put them to work in an improvised manner, it just needs a better method to assist in targeting drones. Also I think spreading out the guns more using a wider hex centerpiece might increase hit probability.

I think that drones could be downed with some kind of over sized shotgun . Something like the old "Punt guns"

The pivot should be 2' further towards the muzzles. It's geometry.

i think it would be much more smart and effective if they did this with semi auto shotguns with birdshot or full auto if they can get them

Anyone remember Sons of Guns? They made a gatling gun that used like 6 saiga 12 ak shotguns. It rotated and fired 1 gun at a time.

2:16 Imagine turning the corner of your a trench and you see this thing pointed at you

As interesting as this seems, it is a sign of a deeper problem within the Ukraine forces. First of all, why do they even need to make something like that when the Western allies are supplying them weapons? If that is what they are resorting to to try to shoot down the drones, something isn't going right for them in their fight against the Russians. Either they aren't being supplied with the right weapons, or they can't keep up their fight against the drones with what they have currently.

You need something more like a huge shotgun to hit them.

The turret with the reload is akin to reloading a musket with each shot, but that right there is a Gears of War Multi-turret spin-off. Well done!

Very very cool. Necessity is amazing.

Why don't they just use light machine guns like PKM?

After the ZSU-23-2 mounted on MT-LB and T-55 chassis, it's the respond of Ukr Army.

It’s kinda like bird shot but each “shot” is 5.45 😂 It’s some Mad Max shit, so I love it.

I expect this type of homemade weapon from an insurgency, somewhere like Afghanistan, but not in the Ukraine after receiving so much money and an arsenal of modern weaponry from countries such as the USA and Canada etc...

I cant lie ...i want one.

If the elevating hinge were placed inline with the center axis of the gun mount, there would be vitally no muzzle-flip and the weapon would be far more controllable. If that sentence didn't make sense to you, just copy the Browning M2 machine gun AA mount and there shouldn't be any problem with recoil.

needs a shoulder stock for stability and target re engagement rate.

Nice! Maybe not the most effective thing ever, but it's always good to feel like you're "shooting back." Wonder what a 3.5" 10ga with full choke and forcing cone would do, especially with something like a flite control wad. Almost certainly not long range enough for anything except the smaller drones.

a weapon to surpass metal gear

What’s the advantage of a hexagonal mount vs a linear mount? Ie, why not have all the guns on their backs with the mags sticking straight up? A wider mount would also allow a pair of should rests instead of a single one. Two points of contact make a much more stable base. Speaking of, the tripod should be either staked down or weighed down with sandbags. Maybe consider using a mortar baseplate with the gun support rigidly attached to it. Also I would consider fitting a flat piece of metal under the muzzles to counter muzzle climb.

Do it with a bunch of drum mags lol also add a lip to the barrels all facing down to counter vertical recpil

Brilliant ! Absolutely brilliant ! Slava Ukraine ! 🇺🇦💪🇺🇦💪🇺🇦

You go to war with what you have

Makes me think of the "redneck obliterater" from forgotten weapons.

Dear God, no wonder they're always out of ammo.

This is potentially useful for improvised AA but if you wanna get something really devastating against ground troops, put 2-3 guns on each side and mount them horizontally and you got yourself a dual/quad/hexa turret shooting lots of accurate lead down range

Probably fairly effective against low-flying drones and helicopters as well as ground targets. No one should expect this intermediate-caliber contraption to perform like full-powered rifle-caliber or cannon-caliber equivalents. Assuming the Ukrainians know the limits of the 5.45mm round, they can put it to good use. PeriscopeFilms recently uploaded a Soviet training video in the 1960s claiming that AKs (albeit in 7.62x39mm, unlike the 5.45mm in this video) can defeat jet fighters and fire up to 3000m, which is obviously ridiculous in retrospect, but not outside Soviet thinking at the time.

Reminds me of quad machine gun mounts from WW2

If one were to put Veprs and Saigas in this one, would it be the slavic metal storm?

I love it, could use a recoil damping mechanism but I'm sure that's something that could be worked out later if it is a functional weapons system. It also tells me something else it also tells me that there is old-world links to the redneck gene.

If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid. And if something like this can get enough rounds up in the area of the drone to get some hits, it is worthwhile to pursue. Especially if it requires nothing more than some rifles and some scrap metal.

Very creative, i wonder if they can implement something to reduce recoil.

given the recoil of the mount is signifficant I'd add upon the existing design with springs arround the swivel and pitch of the gun, a pseudo satbilizer if you will, either way this type of battlefield innovation is very interesting to see

There seems to be no limit to the inventiveness of the Ukrainian craftsmen. I was thinking the XM214 Microgun in 5.56 x 45 would be ideal for dealing with these small drones, too bad they never entered wide service. Has the USA provided any M134s to the AFU?

Stop trolling. This is a waste of time. Lets just send like 5000 MG3's to Ukraine with 5 million rounds with frozen Russian Bilionair money. Russians dont like those machineguns. They go BRRRRTTT.

This is like some post apocalyptic mad max style creativity.

I really wish they'd have done a nigh fire with tracers. I can't begin to imagine with any certainty where all those rounds are going out at 300 yards or so. And if they actually plan to field this thing they should consider larger magazines. Perhaps some of those crazy 100 round drum magazines.

As usual, I have great respect for the ingenuity of the Ukrainians. However, we really need to just go ahead and get some miniguns to them for drone killing work.

To be honest, that is mostly likely not a Molotov cocktail, its just a firebottle.

feel like lining 3 in a row is going to be better, since you can at least shoot where you're aiming. This is like, hitting anything but the target lol

You figure with the 600 billion or whatever in weapons and aid this kinda thing wouldn't be necessary 😅

The "CIWS" variant as a last line of defense could be semi-automatic shotguns firing buckshot in a similar configuration 😅 That should produce a nice cloud of lead to shred small fast drones...

now, i want to see all of that equipped with drum mags.