Remember when Ukraine developed a powerful tactical machine gun kit?

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2024, the subsequent fighting revealed that modern war had changed forever. New weapons like drones have come to dominate the battlefield. However, one century-old weapon system remains as important as ever: the machine gun.

Machine guns have continued to be a potent asset on the battlefield and in 2023 Ukrainian engineers developed a new type of tactical system that was designed to help their armed forces get the most out of the machine guns they were deploying against Russian forces.

The new tactical machine gun complex that was developed allowed troops to lay down vast amounts of firepower in a volume unheard of on modern battlefields.

Ukrainian military authorities began testing their tactical machine gun complex in September 2023, and the country's Ministry of Defense pointed out it would face off against Russian soldiers in real-world combat to see if the new system could add to Ukraine's capabilities.

The machine gun system was designated the RBPP-500 tactical complex according to a press release from Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, and the systems looked quite intimidating from the images that were released. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ministry_of_defense_ua

Perched on the back of a soldier is the RBPP-500's belt-feed ammunition backpack which has a five hundred-round capacity for 7.62×54 millimeter calibre rounds and is intended to be used with a PKM machine gun. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ministry_of_defense_ua

This new tactical complex weapons system can also be used with 7.62×51 millimeter caliber rounds for MG-42 machine guns according to the press release published by Ukraine's Ministry of Defence. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ministry_of_defense_ua

The tactical machine gun system has been given the codename Khyzhak, which means 'predator' in English, and it was designed for the continuous supply of machine gun belts to assist troops on the frontlines. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ministry_of_defense_ua

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense noted that several tests of the Khyzhak RBPP-500 tactical complex machine gun system showed the weapon's reliability and effectiveness.

The Khyzhak took just forty-five days to make it from design to adoption. This was all because of the defense ministry’s accelerator program, which works to provision weapons for Ukrainian troops quickly. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ministry_of_defense_ua

Belt-fed machine guns have been a staple of combat ever since the First World War, and their use was seen as a turning point in modern war, which allowed for far more mass destruction on the battlefield. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Zorro2212 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Doughboy Foundation wrote the “invention of the quick-firing, belt-fed water-cooled machine gun allowed combatants to lay down deadly, sustained barrages and cover huge swaths of land with a single weapon.”

“Machine guns provided a defensive edge to entrenched troops and became incredibly effective weapons at close quarters,” the foundation added, which is the role Kyiv’s new weapon was meant to play on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been mostly marked by a bitter stalemate all along the front in the country’s east. Russian defensive minefields and extensive trench networks have proved difficult obstacles to overcome. 

This may be why Ukraine’s defense ministry focused on developing new types of weapons systems to help break the deadlock, which included not only the RBPP-500 Khyzhak but also another engineered belt-feed system for Kyiv’s American-made M240 machine guns.  

Photo Credit: Telegram @ministry_of_defense_ua

In March 2023, Militarnyi reported on the delivery of the Murena belt-feed system to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 

Photo Credit: Instagram @murena_in_ua

Much like the RBPP-500 Khyzhak, the Murena system was designed to provide a continuous feed of cartridges to the M240 and modified PKM machine guns. 

“For us, the need of Ukrainian soldiers to optimize the ways of transferring and quickly using increased ammunition to the machine gun became obvious,” the manufacturers of the Murena explained according to Militarnyi.

The Murena was designed to carry 650 rounds of ammunition, something the manufacturer of the system said was a big increase over systems developed by other countries. The Murena system weighs about sixty-two pounds once it's filled with ammo, and that includes its gun.

“We have developed a bracket for connecting the “sleeve,” which is attached to the standard elements intended for connecting the ammunition box to the PK machine guns, Pecheneg, and their modifications,” the manufacturers added.