Russians adapted YakB-12.7 aircraft machine guns for their mobile air defense teams

A Russian mobile air defense fire team has adapted a YakB-12.7 four-barreled aircraft machine gun to counter drones.

The AFV Recognition user published a video of the equipment in his X.

According to the video, the machine gun is mounted on the chassis of a wheeled vehicle, which is additionally protected by a jammer system.

The machine gun was firing in small bursts, but even so, the car chassis could not fully compensate for the machine gun’s recoil and swayed violently.

Russian YakB 12.7mm rotary machine gun fitted to a technical, likely for anti-drone purposes, it also has a thermal sight and a holographic sight.

The YakB has an extremely high fire rate of 4000/5000rpm and is one of the few gas-operated Gatling guns, most guns like this are… pic.twitter.com/hzl2JxeC1T

— AFV Recognition (@AFVRec_) November 24, 2024

In addition, the firing of small bursts may be due to the Russians’ failure to implement a cooling system for the machine gun, which is cooled by an incoming air stream when used on board a helicopter.

The video also does not clarify whether the Russians left the side gas exhaust motor to spin the barrels or replaced it with an electric motor.

It is worth noting that Belarusian engineers have already practiced a similar modernization of the GShG 7.62mm aircraft machine gun, which received the 9-A-622BM index.

This modernization, in addition to significantly reducing the mechanism’s weight and heating rate, makes it possible to control the rate of fire by reducing or increasing the speed of the electric motor.

The Russians installed an open collimator sight and a thermal imaging camera on the modernized YakB-12.7, the image of which is displayed on a special monitor mounted on the machine gun.

Since March, the Russian Aerospace and Air Defense Forces have been creating mobile teams to combat Ukrainian drones as part of several Russian combined arms forces.

YakB-12.7

The YakB-12.7 is a four-barreled Soviet aviation 12.7x108mm machine gun powered by a gas-operated cam motor.

The machine gun is mounted on Mi-24 attack helicopters and special GUV-8700 gun pods.

The weight of the machine gun is 45 kilograms in the standard version and 60 kilograms in the YakBYU version. The length of the machine gun is 1345 millimeters, and the length of the barrels is 1005 millimeters.

The machine gun has two firing modes – fast with 4500 rounds per minute and slow with 4000 rounds.