What is a PDW? [The 4 types of Personal Defense Weapons]

This video is brought to you by Slate Black Industries. For grips and accessories, visit slateblackindustries.com. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the range. Today we're out here and I'm wearing my combat vehicle crewman or combat mechanic coveralls, US Army issued. Why? Because we're going to talk about a weapon class that is fairly poorly understood. A weapon class that was designed for a defensive role for those who are expected to either not engage in frontline combat or designed for those who need to do other things with their hands. If you're recovering a vehicle, you're trying to stretch a winch cable, it would be very advantageous to have a weapon like a PDW that could cover the distance between a pistol and a rifle. So let's get into that. The personal defense weapon, compact, defensive in nature, and yet one of the most misunderstood classes of firearms. Today we talk about what makes a PDW and the four major types of PDW based on their design attributes. Unlike most other firearms that are defined by its physical design attributes and the type of munitions used, the PDW's core idea is defined by its design intent or intended role. And it's this intent based definition as a defensive weapon that makes it quite confusing when it's not describing a physical or design attribute. For example, the rifle is generally a long arm operated with two hands that shoots a high powered cartridge where its barrel imparts a spin on the projectile. Or the submachine gun would be an automatic firearm that discharges multiple sub caliber or pistol caliber cartridges per trigger pull. In contrast, the PDW was designed to arm special or mechanized troops, police officers, executive protection agents, or end users whose primary functions are not frontline fighting like the infantry. In short, the PDW trades off a firearm's performance, whether it's cartridge ballistics, ergonomic controls, and sighting systems, for a compact, wearable, or concealable weapon that bridges the gap between a short pistol range and a medium rifle's range. Think of a combat medic who is busy tending to patients. Or an EOD bomb technician who's trying to defuse an IED. Or a combat mechanic who is attempting to recover a vehicle in a war zone. These military roles require the soldier's hands to be freed up for non-combat tasks in locations that expose them to sudden attacks within 200 meters. Or perhaps an executive protection detail covering an open air public engagement requiring a low-profile firearm that can cover up to 200 meters. Or a police officer who requires a bagged compact weapon on patrol during a time frame of an increased anti-terrorism posture. So by definition, the PDW is a weapon that prioritizes for a compact, lightweight, concealable, or wearable firearm that bridges the gap between a pistol that lacks the firepower or a traditional long arm that is unable to be holstered, easily stowed, carried, or operated with a single hand. More importantly, PDWs are generally made from weapons across four different subclasses. Firearms that were designed from the ground up as a PDW, a modified or a stocked pistol, a miniaturized submachine gun, or a miniaturized rifle. So we propose the four PDW types based on their design attributes rather than their applications directly. Let's dive into it. The Type 1, ground up designs PDWs are the purest form of a PDW since they were conceived from scratch with the goals of a personal defense weapon in mind, rather than altered from a base firearm design. And many of these also use a proprietary cartridge to help achieve those certain design goals. One of the major drawbacks of this class is often the specialized munitions used to accomplish the PDW requirements. However, this can be offset with widespread governmental adoption. The FN P90 and the H&K MP7 are the classic modern takes on the Type 1 PDW, where their initial designs clearly favor a compact carry, lightweight, armor-piercing for their era, and an increased range when compared to the standard 9mm NATO pistol, but both have their drawbacks of ammunition availability. Not that you can't get it, but you must logistically plan for the 5.7x28 FN and 4.6mm H&K ammunition if you or an entity decides to use it. A historical Type 1 PDW option would have been the M1 Carbine. If you can keep an open mind and think of this in terms of relative size and weight, the M1 Carbine was a ground up design with a unique cartridge where it bridged the between the M1911 pistol and the M1 Garand rifle. One interesting Type 1 PDW would be the Russian PP2000. It feeds the 9x19 cartridge to solve a munition logistics problem, but the Russians developed an enclosed sub-caliber 63 grain steel penetrator 7N21 and 7N31 variant of the 9mm cartridge. They were able to achieve a Class 1 PDW that could use standardized or specialized 9mm cartridges to take advantage of current munitions manufacturing capacity and the availability of the non-armor-piercing standard cartridges. It must be noted that regular 9mm weapons may have issues firing the 63 grain Russian steel armor-piercing 9mm cartridges. However, with a 9mm base, the PP2000 lacks the range that the 5.7 and the 4.6mm Western PDWs possess. The Type 2 Stocked Machine Pistol or Pistol PDW Perhaps the oldest class of PDWs are the Stocked Machined Pistols, Autoloading Pistols, and Pistol Conversion PDWs. Remember that when the first Type 2 PDWs were conceived, submachine guns and autoloading rifles did not exist yet. For us, the VZ61 is an example that we have in our library. Historically, the Artillery Luger was issued to German rear echelon troops in World War I to carry, but had a holster that functioned as a stock to increase its stability, and later was fed from a 32-round snail drum. Another famous Type 2 Machine Pistol PDW would be the Automatic Schnellfeuer C96 Mauser Broomhandle. And in more modern times, the Soviet Stechkin and the Beretta M93R are equally famous examples. In the current era, the B&T USW or a Glock with a Flux Adapter can be considered as a Type 2 PDW. These are holsterable weapons that provide better control than a pistol with a stock, and thus bridges the gap between a pistol and a rifle for the user to have a greater defensive range and capacity. Typically, the Type 2 Stocked Pistol PDWs are very wearable and very concealable, as they are based on a pistol design, but they are most lacking when compared to the two-handed weapon ergonomics and range. The Type 3 Micro Submachine Gun PDWs These are miniaturized PDWs from a full-size submachine gun or a submachine gun concept that still uses a pistol caliber. In this class, you have the typical MP5K PDW, the MPXK, the Uzi Micro, and the APC9s. Logistically, the Type 3 PDW makes a lot of sense for sub-100m urban and executive protection operations. Their typical small sizes make them easily stowed and concealed. Since they are based on full-size submachine guns, training could also be easily translated. While submachine gun-based weapons are typically much more controllable than the Class 2 Stocked Pistols, due to the usage of pistol and munitions, both Type 2 and Type 3 typically lack in relative armor penetration or range. The Type 4 Micro Rifle PDW This class has had some of the most development in the past years, especially surrounding the .300 Blackout Cartridge. The Type 4 bridges a gap between a submachine gun, pistol, and a rifle, but still has defensive or concealment priorities. Some notable variants would be the Honey Badger By Q, the Micro Galil in Galil Ace, the AKS-74U, the MCX Rattler. From the perspective of ammunition logistics, most of these make sense. The Soviets especially made the AKS-74U as a PDW solution for users to draw ammunition and magazines from the existing supply networks. However, a massive downside to Type 4 PDWs would be the increased sound, muzzle flash, and massive concussion that a full-power cartridge creates while leaving a short barrel. This is especially pronounced when one fires one of these indoors, or from an armored vehicle, or an aircraft fuselage. All of these being primary deployment locations for a PDW. An increased flash signature also puts the user in jeopardy if light discipline is an issue for an escape and evade situation that many downed pilots would face. Selecting subsonic munitions to combat increased recoil, flash, and concussion then means a potentially decreased reliability of the system that was designed for full-powered cartridges or a decreased ballistic performance. You can also mitigate the flash and concussion with a rifle suppressor, but then it's no longer compact and lightweight as per the PDW concept. For the 300 Blackouts specifically, it has the flexibility to operate with subsonic and supersonic munitions, but it also runs the risk of contaminating your 5.56 ammunition source and potentially turning a regular 5.56 NATO weapon into a mini grenade. Lastly, the downside to the Type 4 rifle-based PDWs is also size. They are usually much larger and require a more specialized storing system or a bulkier package to sling over an end user. Now, not all PDWs neatly fit into these classifications. We estimate that this applies to a clear majority of the PDWs out there, and the rest are a bit of a mix. For instance, the VZ-61. Academically, it's widely considered as a machine pistol, which squarely places it as a Class 2 PDW, but technically it's a Class 1 ground-up design, and really, it functions more like a submachine gun, despite it not being miniaturized from anything. Then there's the Crisp Vector. This was not designed as a PDW, but through operating it, it honestly had traits to excel as a PDW more than a submachine gun. But then it's a ground-up design, and yet it performs like a Type 3 PDW, or a submachine gun-based PDW. We should note here that in our Crisp Vector video, we attempted to classify PDWs in a different manner, but have since developed this much better Type 1 through Type 4 system, but we still maintain that the Crisp Vector is a fantastic vehicle-based PDW. Then we have the M1 Carbine, that actually fits squarely into a Type 1 PDW design, but is constantly argued over since its size and weight resemble a modern AR-15 Carbine. If we were to look at the role, the M1 Carbine is literally the WWII version of the P90, which if NATO had indeed adopted the P90, we would predict that the 5.7 ammunition would be far more available than what we see now, much like the 30 Carbine ammunition. PDWs can be used in offensive roles. The Artillery Luger, with a 32 round snail drum, was quickly pressed into the frontline use by German Sturmtruppen to clear trenches, and the MP7 and the P90 are somewhat commonly used for current CQB operations by select agencies. So there you have it, defining what makes a firearm a PDW, and then the 4 major types of PDWs, and their strengths and weaknesses. With the release of this video, it means we are also working on overviews with many PDWs, to include the colloquial Bag Gun or Truck Gun concepts, which run in line with the PDW class of weapons. What weapons do you think are PDWs? What weapons are tricky to classify as PDWs? And with that, stay tuned, and we'll see you on the range.