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Post by Horsie on Dec 31, 2018 2:18:08 GMT
Ian brought up something interesting about how the first impression of the M16 in Vietnam still has people calling it flawed and unreliable even so many years later.
Of course you always hear people at ranges, on forums, etc. talking about how (in the 1960s, in it's original configuration) the M16 was unreliable, but I've seen articles in firearms magazines, paid articles on websites, some even written by guys with time in the military, who think that the US fucked up bad when they adopted the M16.
I can understand the reliability issues, sort of, because those were largely down to poor maintenance (because no one thought to issue cleaning kits with the new rifles) and loading 7.62x51mm propellant into the 5.56mm cartridges to save a buck, causing excessive fouling and violent extraction.
The ones that I don't get are the guys who think that the US didn't fuck up by adopting the wrong assault rifle, but that they fucked up by adopting an assault rifle at all. There's this notion some people have that US troops would be bettered served by a .308 battle rifle, because .308 is far more lethal than 5.56mm, and while everyone else is issuing rifles with an effective range of 500-600yds, a US soldier with a .308 could accurately engage targets out to 800yds (which is putting way too much faith in the marksmanship of the average soldier).
Full auto? Either it's a myth that it's difficult to control a full-auto battle rifle, or semi-auto is all anyone needs. Clearly there's no such thing as too much rifle for the job.
It's like if guys were complaining that repeating rifles and carbines were a bad idea 50 years after WW1 proved them wrong.
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Post by Canuovea on Dec 31, 2018 7:22:21 GMT
Hah!
That kind of talk is for game forums, not reality.
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Post by Horsie on Dec 31, 2018 8:19:10 GMT
The best battle rifle to issue to every man in the modern US Army? The M14. The US should never have replaced it, it was perfect. Just take a design that was revolutionary in the 1930s and update it with a better gas system and detachable mags, just try to avoid engaging the enemy inside of a building. All small arms development since 1959 was a waste of time and money.
I understand that they're issuing M14s to troops in the US Army right now, but that's to fill specialist roles, much like and LMG fills a specialist role. If you're going to argue that because it's used to do things the M16 and M4 aren't suited to that it should replace those rifles as the standard-issue infantry rifle, then I could argue that because a belt-fed machine does some things better than an M4 or M16 that every soldier should be issued an M249.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Dec 31, 2018 9:19:07 GMT
The 5.56 nato is a logical conclusion to the realities of modern warfare. 7.62 nato is significantly more powerful, has greater wound and penetration potential, and is probably better in almost any regard. Except one. It weighs twice as much as 5.56.
If your enemy stood out in an open field waving their arms around to get shot than the 7.62 would be perfect. You just shoot the bad guys and go home. When you look at the statistics of warfare something over 99% of shots miss their target (like, wayyy over 99%). The vast majority of shots fired are suppression fire. A miss with a .50 BMG or a miss with a bb gun both have exactly the same amount of lethality. Zero. Since most of your shots are going to miss anyway it makes sense to carry more ammo of a type that should have sufficient wound potential on the off chance it does hit. Plus you can engage the enemy longer and more effectively if you don't have to leave to get more ammo.
The marksmanship fallacy in regards to warfare is what spurs these debates. The idea that you will actually make hurried shots in a situation where your target is shooting back at you while moving behind cover that is obscured by smoke and dust when the lighting conditions are abysmal is kinda silly, but folks will make that argument anyway. I mean, you might get lucky, but the chances of getting lucky are much better the more you can shoot. Having more ammunition improves those odds.
The US military stresses efficient fire as opposed to accurate fire. I mean, if you hit your target that great, but for the most part you won't. Efficient fire means your squad is laying down enough fire from enough different angles that the enemy cannot (or is unwilling to) engage you in return. This either forces a surrender, retreat, or allows your soldiers to flank and finish the job with explosives or point blank automatic fire.
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Post by Horsie on Jan 2, 2019 7:07:41 GMT
This notion that the US military made a stupid error when they adopted 5.56mm and they're just too stubborn to fix their mistake ignores the fact that almost no one issues a battle rifle as their standard infantry weapon any more, and the ones that still do just don't have the money, or (at least in the case of Iran, who still use the G3) sanctions make it difficult to replace what they have.
Even if the US government really was wrong when they replaced 7.62mm NATO, there's no reason why the Soviets and Chinese would use 7.62x39mm, and then replace it in favour of the smaller, lighter 5.45x39mm and 5.8x42mm respectively, it's not like America's enemies would handicap themselves just to play fair.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 5, 2019 1:35:13 GMT
Maybe it's a conspiracy? If nobody else adopted a small caliber assault rifle than the US would look stupid because they did, then everyone would wonder why these other countries don't just invade and take over. If you adopt your own small caliber than it looks like they got the right idea and you have a respectable enemy.
Considering the logistics of invading the US it's just easier to adopt a small caliber carbine.
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Post by Horsie on Jan 5, 2019 3:21:42 GMT
I've seen plenty of conspiracies about it online, and I've heard a few in person too.
I read one that said Colt, knowing their rifle didn't work and their cartridge couldn't kill, bribed ordnance officials to get it through trials in the US, and then bribed infantry officers in Vietnam to get it through troop trials by making outrageous claims. An example provided was that while guys would often fire the better part of a magazine into a charging Vietcong before he'd die, officers would write reports claiming a single round of 5.56mm would blow them apart. By the time the US government realized they'd been duped they'd already purchased and issued too many rifles, so they covered the whole thing up to avoid the embarrassment.
There's been other rifles put forward as a replacement over the last 50-odd years, the US government has put feelers out for replacement rifles many times, but I guess they're just too invested in hiding that mistake they made in 1964.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 5, 2019 9:05:47 GMT
Sure, but most replacement potentials also had small calibers. There was interest in the caseless G11 rifle for a while and that was tiny.
The thing about all those conspiracy theories involving the military, even the ones outside of 5.56 nato, is the military rarely comes right out and says "we did x because of y". They're tight lipped about everything. So some yahoo can spout off about inferior this and conspiracy that and the military doesn't come out and say "this dumb fuck doesn't know shit". A lot of that has to do with so much stuff is classified and nobody wants to go out and accidentally say something they weren't supposed to. So folks who don't know how much they don't know can say all sorts of crap that has no basis in truth, and for some reason a lot of it gets repeated enough that people take it as truth.
The 5.56 can't kill.
When the truth is that there was consideration that 5.56 ball would be classified similarly to hollow points (therefore banned by the Hague Convention) due to the horrific wound cavitation that it's capable of. There was some concern about that at the time of adoption, but the US eventually said "Fuck it. We didn't sign the Hague Convention".
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 5, 2019 18:42:37 GMT
So Mossberg has gotten into the concealed carry market with a somewhat generic looking single stack.
Though it does have an interesting feature in that you can remove the striker prior to taking it down. First impression based on looks alone it looks ergonomically solid but the trigger seems weird. Also has a stout looking extractor in a market where extractors tend to be on the flimsy side.
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Post by Horsie on Jan 5, 2019 23:00:28 GMT
The G11 wasn't even 5mm, the cartridge it used was less than half the weight of an M855 cartridge. The burst fire mode is crazy, though it looks like you're getting hit with the recoil energy from all 3 rounds when the action finally hits the end of travel.
It looks like a bad movie prop. Ian did a video recently on it, it's an interesting design, but I don't think I'd want to be issued one. The working bits look like the inside of an old clock, beyond wiping the chamber out with a little brush it doesn't look like a soldier could realistically service the weapon in the field, even in an emergency.
I looked up some slow motion videos of M855 passing through ballistic gel,I knew it was supposed to fragment and yaw, but I didn't realize it was capable of creating a wound channel like that.
I guess they didn't want to try anything too radical with their first pistol, although I thought it was an S&W at a glance. The trigger looks like you'd pulling it down and back, I've handled a couple of pistols like that, it's never comfortable.
What's the advantage of being able to take the striker out like that?
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 6, 2019 0:20:11 GMT
I think the removable striker is intended as a safety feature. You can remove it prior to field stripping for cleaning, in the off chance you left a round in the chamber there's no danger of discharge. Might have to do with how it's taken down, some pistols need the magazine in and the trigger pulled during take down, that might be the case here. Also I think it's a quick way to render the weapon unusable without having to to pull it apart to make it fire again. Possibly for storage concerns.
I remember reading a lot about the G11 in rifle magazines in the late 80s early 90s. There's a lot of innovative ideas in it, but I think the issue was too much innovation at one time. The 3 round burst that occurs during one recoil is a nice idea. Caseless ammo is a nice idea. But I think these things need to be implemented successfully on separate platforms before trying to bring them into one.
I think the issue with cook off on caseless ammo could be solved with revolving cylinders, similar to... well, a revolver. That way you could keep cycling the hot cylinder away from the loaded one to cool off a bit before loading the next round. What's more it would take much longer for each cylinder to reach the cook off level since it's only being used once every so many rounds. Sorta like how Gatling style guns can stay cooler with higher rates of fire.
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Post by Horsie on Jan 6, 2019 1:30:35 GMT
I forgot they have to lawyerproof guns these days. I'm used to my old surplus military weapons where the only person responsible for not shooting themselves or someone else like a total ass was the guy it was issued to.
Though after I made that last post I did think it'd be a good idea for safer storage.
I think you could make them useable, but the trick would be refining caseless ammo and that sort of high rate of fire burst/recoiling action so it wouldn't be too complex for general service or too expensive.
Having a revolver-style cylinder might work, I wrote something up just now saying you'd want it to load and extract from the same position so you wouldn't have to have any extra stuff, before realizing how stupid that was
I suppose you'd still want to have something running off the bolt to drive any unfired cartridges or remaining bits of cartridges out of the chambers before they're loaded again. I can see this being more useable in aircraft, if the ammo weighs less and takes up less room you could carry more of it, and you wouldn't have casings to deal with either.
Saw a video about the original AR10s today, and this photo from the civil war in Yemen came up;
The guy on the right is armed with one of about 2500 Dutch-built AR10 from a 1958 Sudanese contract.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 6, 2019 5:18:34 GMT
The interesting thing about caseless is you can completely re think the firearm. For instance, you don't really need to locate the primer on the rear of the case. It could be on the side or even on the front of the bullet. The chamber doesn't really need to open at the breach to load. With the revolving chambers idea they could actually be loaded from the front of an open chamber.
And yeah, you could incorporate part of the cycling action to somehow clean out the just fired chambers as they rotated around. Possibly even something like a bore brush that punches through on every cycle. Though probably the best way might be to have the cycle force a jet of air through to blast out any debris or unspent rounds that might be left behind. The additional benefit would be you could use it as an air cooling system to move some heat out of the gun.
On a larger scale it could be used for aircrafts or even ships. Like a 20 or 30 mm high rate of fire cannon.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 6, 2019 18:54:06 GMT
On the subject of caseless.
(sorry, he's kinda boring but at least he knows his stuff regarding the firearm)
This raises the interesting fact that you don't really need a primer at all. High compression will detonate it. Though a more consistent and reliable ignition source might be electronic.
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Post by Horsie on Jan 6, 2019 19:22:49 GMT
The problem with using a jet of air to force shit out is figuring out a mechanism to build up enough pressure (and maintain it under continuous fire) that a very short jet of air out of a small hole could clear the chamber, it's also possible that it mightn't clear something that's a little bit stuck. Probably better off with a brush with a stiff spine, or something like a squeegee with a solid rod up the middle to poke out duds.
Something like the Remington EtronX then, they replaced the firing pin with an electrode, and the ammunition used a resistor in place of a primer to ignite the propellent.
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