PAPOP, French cyberpunk or legendary failure?

[ukron]

Here's one of my favorite French army projects, something with a bit of punch and some futuristic combat, except that here again the future is hard to predict.

The all-too-familiar Félin program (surely the nightmare of a whole generation of engineers and top brass), launched with the end of the Cold War, aims to create the French infantryman of the 21st century, equipped with electronics that transform the infantryman into a veritable weapons system.

On the other hand, the FAMAS has shown its limitations, and should be replaced without abandoning the Bullpup formula (which reduces the size of the weapon without affecting the size of the barrel, and therefore performance), and with this in mind, the PAPOP was born (Objective: put into service in 2010, for a range of 600m firing 5.56 NATO), except that the complexity of this assault rifle is obvious: the projectiles can be guided by a camera installed directly under the barrel, a battery-powered camera which feeds an LCD screen (folding) managed by an on-board computer, which can also detonate 35mm grenades (fusing for an explosion above the adversary, striking on impact).
Involving a direct link with the infantryman via a helmet interface, this weapon had all the potential (as did its American competitor XM29) to feature in a game like Cyberpunk 2077!

However, the DGA decided that equipping a soldier already loaded with 10 kilos of FÉLIN equipment with a rifle weighing 7Kg was not very realistic, and the PAPOP (PolyArme POlyProjectiles) was quickly forgotten in favor of the FAMAS Félin.

(video of a test under realistic conditions, please note that the flamethrower option has not been included in this section for obvious reasons that I don't have to explain).

[lordroel]

Jan 22, 2024 19:40:42 GMT ukron said:

Here's one of my favorite French army projects, something with a bit of punch and some futuristic combat, except that here again the future is hard to predict.

The all-too-familiar Félin program (surely the nightmare of a whole generation of engineers and top brass), launched with the end of the Cold War, aims to create the French infantryman of the 21st century, equipped with electronics that transform the infantryman into a veritable weapons system.

On the other hand, the FAMAS has shown its limitations, and should be replaced without abandoning the Bullpup formula (which reduces the size of the weapon without affecting the size of the barrel, and therefore performance), and with this in mind, the PAPOP was born (Objective: put into service in 2010, for a range of 600m firing 5.56 NATO), except that the complexity of this assault rifle is obvious: the projectiles can be guided by a camera installed directly under the barrel, a battery-powered camera which feeds an LCD screen (folding) managed by an on-board computer, which can also detonate 35mm grenades (fusing for an explosion above the adversary, striking on impact).
Involving a direct link with the infantryman via a helmet interface, this weapon had all the potential (as did its American competitor XM29) to feature in a game like Cyberpunk 2077!

However, the DGA decided that equipping a soldier already loaded with 10 kilos of FÉLIN equipment with a rifle weighing 7Kg was not very realistic, and the PAPOP (PolyArme POlyProjectiles) was quickly forgotten in favor of the FAMAS Félin.

(video of a test under realistic conditions, please note that the flamethrower option has not been included in this section for obvious reasons that I don't have to explain).

At least the PAPOP did not have the red button.