Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces of the southern Zaporizhzhia region showed an interesting squad whose task is fire support of other units. They shuttle around launching quick strikes, "bringing nightmare" to the russian forces, as they say.
This unit has an interesting vehicle at their disposal: a pickup car with a large-caliber NSV "Utyos" machine gun mounted on it. The gun was designed in 1972 in the Soviet Union, now it is replaced with the 12.7mm Kord Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) in russia.
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Its 12.7x108 mm caliber allows it to fire on up to 2 kilometers. The effective range is 1.5 though. The closest NATO match is probably the 12.7x99 Browning M2 machine gun with an effective range of 1.8 km.
But these 1.5 km of range is enough to make a difference on the battlefield. The gunner says, russians "have nothing to reach us with, they don’t have such caliber as we have".
The 60mm mortar used by the artillery squad technically has over 2 km of range, but the effective, "working" one, from the gunner’s experience, is about 1.5 km, so they need to get as close as possible which requires for fire cover. And the heavy machine gun perfectly matches this distance.
Thus, the purpose of the NSV "Utyos" on a mission is to provide this cover. Having fired a barrage of bombs and the full round of 50 12.7mm bullets, the group hurriedly leaves the firing position. This short attack disorientates the enemy, "brings a nightmare".
"When they come back to their senses, we will be home already," the driver with a call sign "Mishania" said. "While one sees [us], reports to his commander, the commander makes a decision, while they take aim and fire back – we are gone at that point".
There is also one more interesting point about the mortar squad. The very same soldiers earlier appeared on media with the photos of the 60mm mortar bombs they use. Those were produced in Japan, according to the Ukraine Weapons Tracker community. We can also see the same shells on the video above.
As Defense Express previously reported, this NSV machine gun is not the only one used in an unusual way. We have also seen Ukrainian-made Corsar ATGMs mounted on a buggy and a rocket launcher from a russian helicopter turned into an MLRS. Also, we have seen mobile Stugna-P anti-tank squads on quad bikes.
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