Starvin Larry

VSS Sniper Rifle

Russian Commandos Carry Suppressed Rifles That Can Shoot Through Body Armor

The AS Val and VSS are fearsome weapons

In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union’s Central Institute for Precision Machine Building — TsNIITochMash — developed the AS Val suppressed assault rifle and the derivative VSS sniper rifle specifically to outfit Russian special forces and intelligence agencies.

They’re both powerful weapons.

With more and more NATO troops wearing body armor, Russian special forces teams wanted a silent weapon that was also capable of penetrating armor — and could lay down enough fire for fast, violent raids targeting NATO command-and-control centers.

The resulting Val, with its integral suppressor, spurred the development of a whole family of suppressed weapons, including the VSS. The Soviets also designed two new nine-by-39-millimeter armor-piercing rounds — the SP-6 for suppressed assault rifles and the more-accurate SP-5 for suppressed sniperrifles such as the VSS.

The VSS shares approximately three-quarters…