Comments by "geodkyt" (@geodkyt) on "Combloc SAW: Chinese RPD at the Range" video.

Very important point you make about the heat capacity of the barrel versus the basic load of ammo. The same thing holds true with the PKP (Pecheneg) with the forced air cooling - the gun is basically designed to take the heat generated by a basic load of ammo in fairly typical combat rates of fire without damage. Fire more than that (or faster than that, like Battle of Wanat belt dumps), and you'll skrag the barrel by the time you run out of ammo. Which will cause the armorer tasked with rebarrelling it to curse your name. But from the POV of the infantryman with a burned out barrel, well, you're out of ammo anyway so it's not like the gun would be any more useful if the barrel was still good. And from the POV of Big Army, those situations don't come up that often, and you're probably burning fewer barrels than a lighter quick change barrel that can be burned out with a single basic load fired at the "book" sustained rate without changing the barrel (because the squad left that extra weight at home).
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Yes, it is fairly common in machineguns to overgas them for reliability. The Soviets also tended to overgas stuff in general to improve reliability- a properly fitted AK, for example, is intentionally overgassed for that very reason. Sure, it results in increased wear. "Build heavier, Comrade! Private Ivan is strong like bull!" It's not a bad design philosophy, and it neatly avoids the trap of "build it lighter and rely on privates to NOT turn the gas system too high to get faster ROF when the gun is clean which beats the gun to death" or "build it fixed to function for maximum service life at the cost of sluggish operation in extreme conditions."
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@kalicom2937 Considered an acceptable outcome- high ROF + high dispersion = larger (if slightly sparser) beaten zone. The primary point of the squad automatic is to *suppress*, so riflemen (or another squad or team) can flank. Admittedly, there is the opposite view (typified by the USMC adoption of the IAR), but the Soviets followed the majority viewpoint that says reduced accuracy in a squad LMG is an acceptable tradeoff for volume of fire and reliability.
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@kalicom2937 Depends if you accept the argument that such high reliability offsets the weight penalty (or a reduced service life that is still longer than the projected combat service life, based on Russian/Soviet experiences in two World Wars) and any theoretical reduction in suppressive capability from having a larger beaten zone.
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@kalicom2937 You're missing the point that not every military rates different requirements in the same order of importance. And you seem to be thinking that by describing the Soviet thinking from the 1940s and 1950s, I'm advocating it, rather than explaining their thought process and design choices.
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@kalicom2937 Again, explaining why the RUSSIANS (not ME) believed the tradeoffs they made were worth it is NOT the same as "advocating" their design choice. It's no different than explaining why Europeans tended to mandate heel mag catches on their service pistols, even if you don't agree with the decision... and my position is simply that the Russians made a design tradeoff that they felt best suited their needs and situation. Personally, I think the entire idea of an "automatic rifle" as the squad support LMG is stupid - regardless of whether it's an RPK or IAR. And while the AK is a perfectly serviceable rifle, I think the M16/M4 series is far better, as are the better AR18 derivatives. But I understand why the Soviets and Russians chose to prioritize the way they did, even if I disagree with their trade study results.
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@kalicom2937 You literally chopped off the first part of that sentence in order to deliberately quote me out of context to claim that statement meant 180 degrees from what I actually wrote. The actual statement (with the key part you deceptively left out of your quote bolded) began, "And you seem to be thinking that by describing the Soviet thinking from the 1940s and 1950s, I'm advocating it, rather than explaining their thought..." This conversation is *over*, bevause you are being deliberately deceptive.
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@kalicom2937 You literally left out the first half of the sentence, which reversed the entire meaning. That was not realistically a misunderstanding or misinterpretation on your part, nor poor writing on mine. That was an attempt to pretend to "win" an argument by selective editing to create a false statement you could pretend to refute.
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