Small is beautiful: Russian paras show off short-barreled variant of the AK-12

Short-barreled firearms may have originally been designed for soldiers on horseback, but they've found a place on the modern battlefield too - with Russia's AK-12K being one recent example.

Since the start of the 20th century, there has been an increasing need for shorter rifles with the likes of vehicle crews, paratroops and special forces, where size - or rather a lack of - matters.

A video recently released by the Russian defence ministry shows paras using one of the country's most advanced short-barreled rifles - the AK-12K.  

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The K variant - based on the standard AK-12 - has a number of notable features, as pointed out by Jonathan Ferguson from the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds.

He explained how it offers a number of quality-of-life enhancements, such as the ability to fit a suppressor directly over the flash eliminator without the need to take it off.

Another is the ability to select the type of fire - semi-auto or automatic - using a new ambidextrous selector switch.

And while the AK family was never designed to take an optic, later versions based on the classic AK-47 have overcome the limitations imposed by the sheet metal top cover by using modern rail systems to help maintain zero - at least to an extent.

The concept of a short-barrel rifle is to provide a weapon that can deliver more firepower than a submachine gun.

But this comes as the cost of more recoil, so good fire discipline - short, controlled bursts - with a weapon like the AK-12K is essential.