NSV 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun

The NSV is a 12.7 mm caliber heavy machine gun of Soviet origin, named after the designers, G. I. Nikitin, Y. S. Sokolov and V. I. Volkov. It was designed to replace the DShK machine gun and was adopted by the Soviet Army in 1971. It is slowly being phased out of Russian service in favor of the Kord machine gun and is no longer being manufactured in Russia; the manufacturing license for the NSV ended up in Kazakhstan after the break-up of the Soviet Union. The NSV has been manufactured in Bulgaria, India, Poland and Yugoslavia under license. The NSV weighs 25 kg, has a rate of fire of 13 rounds per second, and an effective range of 1,500 meters. A fully-loaded ammunition belt with 50 rounds weighs 11 kg. The NSV is used on the T-72 tank, while the NSVT variant is used on the T-64 and T-80 tanks.