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The Taiwan T91 assault rifle was introduced in 2002. It is the newest member of the T65K2/T86-line of weapons, strongly influenced by the AR-18 and M16. Like its predecessors, the T91 is a gas operated short-stroke firearm. Over 140,000 T91s were purchased by the ROC Army and Military Police by 2010 © James Tung
higher rate of fire 600 to 900rpm instead of 450 to 650rpm. The new rifle will be introduced in 2011. During the Singapore Air Show it also presented a new model of the SAR21 LWC, developed for the Indian tender with a new hand guard with fixed hand grip as well as cocking handle relocated from the top to the side of the weapon. ST Kinetics has also developed the CPW (Compact Personal Weapon) submachine gun, a multi-caliber family of weapons starting with the 9x19 mm cartridge. Most probably this is another Singaporean design prepared for Indian requirements. The CPW is truly lightweight, weighing only 1.5 kg and is a compact weapon with low recoil, using a delayed blow back operation. The submachine gun’s has magazine is partially translucent and located in the pistol grip for easy round check. The weapon is fully adapted to the left- and right handed users with every selector as well as cocking handle is doubled. The CPW also has a sturdy built-in retractable buttstock, providing a good support during aimed fire. When retracted it is compact enough to be holstered without obstructing.
South Korea
The newest weapon from South Korea is the K11, basically a combined 5.56 mm assault rifle with overbarrel 20 mm grenade launcher, utilising programmable high explosive airburst grenades and fire control system (ballistic computer with laser rangefinder). The bolt-action grenade launcher is created in bullpup design and fed from a six round, translucent magazine. The assault rifle is just a variant of the wellknown Daewoo K2 service rifle of ROKA (Republic of Korea Army). The K11 was developed from 2000 and in 2008 was officially adopted by the South Korean armed forces and will be introduced to the Army
China’s first line units use the Type 95/QBZ-95 rifle, shown here with blank fire attachment on the barrel. The bullpup design was introduced to the PLA in the mid-1990s and first publically shown during the Hong Kong take over in 1997. Barrel length is 463mm, overall length 745mm and weight 3.25Kg © China-Defence
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ASIAN MILITARY REVIEW
in 2009. Two K11s will be assigned to each infantry squad as a supplement not as replacement to the K2 assault rifle with 40mm underbarrel K201 grenade launcher. When this happens, South Korea will be the first nation to use an airburst weapon as standard issue. The overall length of the K11 is 860 mm, weighs 6.1 kg empty and will be produced by Daewoo. The idea of such weapon comes directly from abandoned American XM29 OICW programme, but where the Americans failed, South Korea took a risk. The K11 is simpler than the XM29, because the grenade launcher is not semiautomatic but bolt-action. It means the whole system is far lighter and also cheaper, but the likelihood of firing a second round in exactly in the same place under the same conditions is reduced because hand reload is inherently slower and far less precise. Korea took a risk based on the belief that their fire control system can very accurately place the 20mm round in a lethal radius. If they succeed there will be a lot of followers. If not, their solution minimises the risk to the K11 grenadier, because the second part of the weapon is a standard assault rifle, with which the soldier can save the day and correct the situation if the 20mm grenade fails.
Other countries
Indonesia bought 10,000 Belgian FN FNC rifles in 1982 and two years later signed an agreement to licence produce this weapon with PT Pindad. The locally manufactured weapon is called the SS1 and has several variants: the V1 with folded buttstock, V2 carbine, V3 with fixed buttstock, V4 sniper