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TP-82 Cosmonaut survival pistol
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- torgian 7y agoDamn, Russians don’t do things halfway
- goatinaboat 7y agoOn a similar note The Man In Black on Westworld favours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeMat_Revolver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeMat_Revolver
- ubermonkey 7y agoIt was an interesting choice, and they didn't mess it up -- as I recall, some LeMat peculiarities play into the plot at one point, so the propmaster knew what they were doing. Because I'm a nerd who grew up shooting, I've taken several runs at a "guns for writers" primer, because it's hard to get right if you don't know anything about firearms. The best rule is to avoid specifics here if you can, because naming a brand (e.g.) can back you into a corner if you don't know anything about the brand. (Case in point, I read a book a year or so ago that included a character cocking a SIG Sauer, which isn't possible.) Point being, choosing a LeMat is a risky option for the writer because it's so unusual, so I was really happy to see they did so knowing what it was. We wouldn't really have LOST anything if they'd just given the MiB a bog-standard 1851 Colt or Single Action Army, but the LeMat adds a little depth/spice/eccentricity. It's a nice choice.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- varjag 7y agoWorth noting it took two decades from Leonov's complaint to introduction of this handgun.
- grenoire 7y agoSoviet bureaucracy at its finest.
- dwd 7y agoI thought the advanced team quickly building a log cabin to sleep in was very Russian. I knew a guy years ago who kind-of described it as a right of passage that you would take a trip out into the woods and build your own cabin/dacha. A Finnish friend sent me his pictures of building his, including the obligatory sauna.
- grenoire 7y agoIt might be that Russians cooperate very well (I do definitely agree on that), but as the organisation grows bigger, it is definitely very Russian to not be able to do anything.
- nephrite 7y agoIt's not a Russian trait, it's a common bureaucratic trait, and Soviet Union was bureaucratized over any sane limits.
- avmich 7y agoOne of signatures of Henry Spencer ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Spencer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Spencer ) looks like this: -- Americans proved to be more bureaucratic | Henry Spencer than I ever thought. --Valery Ryumin, RKK Energia | henry@zoo.toronto.edu https://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/hydrogen.html https://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/hydrogen.html
- 7y ago
- sajithdilshan 7y agoOnly in Siberia
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago200m effective range seems a wee bit optimistic to me considering that barrel length.
- lm28469 7y agoThe russian version of the article gives it a 50% accuracy a 100m, so yeah, good luck with 200m.
- nilsjuenemann 7y agoWhy is this on HN? It's again another $random Wikipedia article.
- playpause 7y agoGuidelines - what to submit: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- renjimen 7y agoBecause the poster thought it might be interesting to those who frequent the site? Considering its position on the front page at time of writing I would say he thought correctly.
- segfaultbuserr 7y agoHow long have you being here? Random Wikipedia article makes its way to the home page from time to time. Every day, ~5 Wikipedia articles is submitted to Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org), some have generated a lot of interesting discussions in the past.
- digikazi 7y agoOne of the reasons I visit HN so much is precisely because of these "off topic" articles. Very often they're either interesting, thought provoking or just plain odd/unusual. That's a great thing! I have a wide range of interests so anything that tickles my curiosity is cool. Often, I find the comments far more illuminating and interesting than the original article itself. Long may these random articles continue!
- ineedasername 7y agoThings that become popular on HN are pretty much legitimate & on-topic by definition. The guidelines say "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" is on-topic.[0] Off topic are "politics, or crime, or sports" but even those can have exceptions. Posting a "why is this here?" comment is a sure fire way to be downvoted and [dead], after which practically no one will see your complaint anyway. Don't like a story? Flag it. It's the only effective way of lodging your opinion on these things. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nickgrosvenor 7y agoThis is is exactly the type of thing I come to this site for. Showing me fringe info I don’t even know I’m interested in knowing about.
- jxramos 7y agoThe article had a link to an AK-74, and I thought is that a typo for an AK-47? Apparently Russia moved on to the next generation in 1974 and the rest of the world remained with AK-47s?
- monomyth 7y agoRemained with the name. AK-74 5.45mm cartridge AKM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKM) - 7.62mm
- ARandomerDude 7y agoIt's all about the cost. During WW2 and Korea, militaries generally favored larger, heavier bullets. The thinking was power is good. Over time, people realized that carrying weight is bad, and volume of fire is usually better than the power of a single cartridge – so the US moved to the M-16 (M4, AR-15) and the Soviets to the AK-74. The sticking point is you have to have the money for BOTH: 1. Mass caliber conversion (rifle replacement, new ammo, new tooling...), AND 2. Purchase of additional, larger caliber weapons to replace the capability you lost when switching most of your forces from the intermediate cartridge to the newer, smaller bullet. So, poorer countries tended to stick with the AK-47, and wealthier Soviet-bloc countries went to the AK-74...but there aren't too many wealthy communist countries, so the AK-47 remained the standard.
- cco 7y agoWait until you hear about the AK-94!
- mkl 7y agoI can't find out if it was ever actually used. Does anyone know?
- AaronNewcomer 7y agoHere is a couple threads of discussion on the ammo: https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/space-shotgun-ammo/23669 https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/space-shotgun-ammo/2... https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/russian-tp-82-survival-gun-and-ammunition/2596 https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/russian-tp-82-surviv...
- ch_123 7y ago> In 2007,[2] the media reported that the remaining ammunition for the TP-82 had become unusable and that a regular semi-automatic pistol would be used on future missions. Assuming the gun fires 28 gauge shotgun shells and standard AK74 ammunition, I can't see why the original ammunition failing would be a problem. Is there something I am missing here?
- aij 7y agoGood luck using a regular semi-automatic pistol as a machete!
- masklinn 7y agoGuessing they need ammo which has been cleared for spaceflight, as you want the ammo go up, potentially stay there for extensive amounts of time, come back down, and still be in working order.
- cm2187 7y agoAnd I guess also not go off if it is heated or shaked too much on its way to space!
- dEnigma 7y agoSince it's stored very close to the astronauts that shouldn't be a problem. Or rather you'd have a different set of problems if your astronaut compartment was hot and shaky enough to let ammunition go off.
- billh 7y agoEven if it does go off, as long as the rounds are not chambered it's really not that big of a deal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c
- akiselev 7y agoYou don't want gunpowder burning in an oxygen rich environment, regardless of how the bullets are stored.
- al2o3cr 7y agoMoon's haunted.
- ineedasername 7y agoNot haunted, the man in the moon simply dug further down into the cheese layer beneath the lunar regolith when we got there and started poking things with flags.
- cat199 7y agoThis should clearly be removed as hate speech per SF 190841
- mywittyname 7y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol That's straight out of Scifi.
- varjag 7y agoWhat it looked like: http://www.geraldika.org/images/06_2007/010_04.jpg http://www.geraldika.org/images/06_2007/010_04.jpg
- the_af 7y agoSeems like a movie prop. What evidence is there that this thing was a real prototype?
- varjag 7y agoIt's an exhibit in Russia's Strategic Missile Forces Academy museum.
- the_af 7y agoOk, that's evidence enough! Still looks like a prop though :P
- varjag 7y agoDid you know that Princess Leia's blaster was not a prop but an actual Soviet handgun? http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Original_Trilogy#DDC_Defender_and_SC_X-30_Blaster_Pistols_.28Vostok_Margolin_.22LR_target_pistol.29 http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Original_Trilogy#DD...
- the_af 7y agoCool! Did not know that.
- 7y ago
- alexhutcheson 7y agoI can’t be the only one who was disappointed to find out that these weren’t designed for Cold War space combat with American astronauts.
- me_me_me 7y agoSee Also: Soviet laser pistol
- the_af 7y agoThe talk section of Wikipedia speculates it might be a hoax. There seems to be a single reference to that pistol (and every other reference points back to that one). My bet is that the laser pistol never existed.
- me_me_me 7y agohttps://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/2/1312/sovietlaserpistolah9.jpg https://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/2/1312/sovietlaserpi... Do click links in the articles. Now whether it worked or not is up to the debate (most likely not).
- the_af 7y agoThe link doesn't work for me. Another commenter mentioned that the laser pistol is shown in a Russian military museum, which is evidence enough for me. Still looks goofy, though.
- cbnotfromthere 7y ago"the laser pistol is shown in a Russian military museum, which is evidence enough for me" You mean the same museum showing that USSR was never an ally of Nazi Germany?
- chrisseaton 7y agoIt does say 'survival' in the title. It never claimed they were combat pistols.
- ineedasername 7y agoAnd if you ran out of ammo, it would make a pretty decent club to beat, well, anything with.
- ajscanlan 7y agoIt even has a machete in the stock.
- trehalose 7y agoThree barrels: two shotgun and one rifle? Wow. That's a lot of firepower for one pistol. I don't know anything about gun construction, but I'm amazed such a small gun holds together being so hole-y. I'm surprised I've never seen these in an FPS. Seems like a unique and versatile sidearm.
- 40four 7y agoI though the same thing! This would be a really cool un-lockable sidearm in Battlefield or Call of Duty!
- coolspot 7y agoHere is Mark Shuttleworth training using one: https://miro.medium.com/max/3300/1*81CK-yP7BzV8pJHDa9QtLw.jpeg https://miro.medium.com/max/3300/1*81CK-yP7BzV8pJHDa9QtLw.jp... Source: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/soviet-cosmonauts-carried-a-shotgun-into-space-a9e7852c6da5 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/soviet-cosmonauts-carried-a...
- patthebunny 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol