OTs-14 Groza

Work on the OTs-14-4A project began in December 1992. The weapon's chief designers were Valery Telesh, responsible for the GP-25 and GP-30 under-barrel grenade launchers, and Yuri Lebedev. The team set out to design an integrated system that would incorporate all the best features of a close combat arm into a single weapon using the AKS-74U as a starting platform. Prototypes were ready for testing in less than a year and the weapon was ready for production by early 1994. It was first presented to the public at the MILIPOL Moscow trade show in April 1994 and adopted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) shortly thereafter. The success of the OTs-14-4A in the hands of MVD personnel brought it to the attention of the Ministry of Defence (MO), who also had a requirement for such a weapon. After a period of testing, the weapon was adopted for spetsnaz forces and some airborne and specialist front-line combat units such as combat engineers. The weapon was originally intended to have used any one of four cartridges: 5. 45x39mm, 5. 56x45mm, 7. 62x39mm or 9x39mm. That idea was dropped and the assault rifle was originally chambered in 9x39mm to meet the MVD's requirement for a close combat weapon for deployment in Chechnya.