Read the first one.

Now, if only the brass hats will pull their heads out and implement the recommendations. Fat chance.

I do not understand this at all:

Comments from returning non-commissioned officers and officers reveal that about fifty percent of engagements occur past 300 meters. The enemy tactics are to engage United States forces from high ground with medium and heavy weapons, often including mortars, knowing that we are restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet. Current equipment, training, and doctrine are optimized for engagements under 300 meters and on level terrain.
I guess they never use AK47s?

We have a professional army fighting a guerilla foe and we can't do it? The enemy is engaging us with medium and heavy weapons and we can't fight back? How many helicopters and planes does the Taliban have. None at last count. Why are we:

restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet.

This is typical army thinking ie. we need another weapon. Sorry folks, I disagree. Even if we justified another weapon (and training) how long would it take to deploy?

Added later:
"the Belgian SS109 round had better armor penetration due to a steel penetrator encased in its bullet. It was capable of penetrating 3.5 millimeters of steel at 640 yards and a U. S. steel helmet at 1300 yards." yet:
"the M855 cartridge is most effective to a distance of 200 meters after which its effectiveness is limited unless hitting a vital area of the target" And:
"The mission in Somalia further confirmed the ineffectiveness of the cartridge on targets that were malnourished and not protected by body armor."
Damn, those Somalis were supermen!
Added even later. Obviously it is easy to throw rocks at someone else's work. The author is clearly trying to "step back" and analyze objectively what is going on, I am just not sure that the short term answer is another weapon. We provide our infantryman with more firepower than any country on earth and it is still not enough?

Just MHO, Peter.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
I do not understand this at all:..... We provide our infantryman with more firepower than any country on earth and it is still not enough?

Just MHO, Peter.

I think the first article brought out an excellent point and you are touching on it here as well.
The M16/5.56mm combination is a marginally capable tool. Capable, yes. But only marginally so.
For the average US serviceman, this is not an issue because he has never fired his rifle in anger.
For the average US infantryman, the issue is vastly more important but the "marginal capability" of the M16/5.56 is still augmented (greatly) by extensive precision supporting arms capability he has at his disposal.

I think the point of the article is to examine rifle employment as if those supporting arms where not there to add to the "margin". If you look at the US ground engagements of the past 60 years, I think you see most US lives were lost when supporting arms where limited or non-existant in the battle. It is in those engagements where effective rifle fire is paramount to saving US lives, if not winning the war.

I agree that a new rifle will probably not change the outcome in AFG and did not change the outcome of IRQ, but "better" tools will always help. As it stands, there are only a few of those 5000 US casualties in OEF/OIF that might have been saved by a better rifle. However, it would be useful to remember that we have committed a very large slice of our (post cold war sized) operational forces to winning wars against foes that have not and can not field armor en masse, any significant air forces, or navies larger than an odd skiff or two. To them, combined arms means using an AK AND an RPG.

Yes, we are winning in OEF with a marginal rifle against marginal enemies who have sub marginal supporting small arms and no true combined arms capability at all. But, what happens when we go up against an enemy that has actually mastered the use of toilet paper, much less a carrier battle group or an armored division?
Dead Marines on Guadalcanal armed with 1903A3's would tell us if they could: In war, you can trade dollars for lives and lives for time but it is not a 1:1:1 ratio. Showing up unprepared may cost you more of all three than you have to spend.

Chet, I very much appreciate your thoughtful post! It is my impression that the competence of the US Army (small arms capability) has increased significantly since the incorporation of the AR 15 style rifle. It is also my impression that this has been attributed in large part to the lack of recoil, and this is with a professional all volunteer army, not a conscripted army. Why do we think that we can maintain this same improved competence with a more powerful rifle, which presumably means that the "overburdened" soldier will be able to carry less ammunition. I can't remember the details but I read somewhere that the WW2 soldier carried 200 rounds of (30.06) ammo while the Vietnam soldier carried 600 rounds (of 223), or something like that.
Could it be that the US soldier is overly dependent on the "supporting arms" ie. he expects them to always be available and is "lost" without them?
It is interesting that many folks have touted the effectiveness of the 7.62 AK round because of it's short range effectiveness.
I would appreciate your comments on the above, Peter.

The M16 is an easy rifle to shoot and low recoil does make teaching good marksmanship easier. But, it would be incorrect to say that a soldier can only shoot a minimal recoil rifle well. It is absolutely untrue that US soldiers are overly dependent on supporting arms or that they are "lost" without them. In fact, the opposite is true: current US infantry has obtained victory in a wide range of missions in diverse environments with or without supporting arms.

There are two primary reasons that we continue to see complaints about the M16 series:
1. As mentioned above, the rifle itself is marginally capable. Hacking the barrel to 14" arguably produced a much handier carbine for MOUT but did nothing to increase accuracy or on target performance.

2. Rifle training hasn't changed much since the M16 was adopted. The US Army and the Marines are not spending a proportionately greater amount of time and money training rifleman in the art of the rifle than they are radio repairmen. Everybody gets the same basic rifle instruction and often not much more. Both have good Schools of Infantry but neither spends enough time teaching the Rifleman all there is to know about his rifle. Memorize max range? Sure. Max ordinate? Notsomuch. Terminal ballistics? Not likely. In the past few years, when commanders have had more discretion to spends funds on training, much of the best rifle training has been found OFF BASE and IN the private sector. To me, that is unacceptable and indicates how far behind the curve the military really is where riflemanship is concerned.

The rate of rifle innovation and training doctrine improvement has also slowed greatly. Compare the ~45 year periods of 1861 to 1906 versus 1965 to 2010. In the former, we transitioned from single shot cap and ball muskets with rudimentary sights to bolt action magazine rifles firing brass cased spitzer point catridges capable of minute man accuracy at 500+ yards. Not only was every single weapons system of 1860 obsolete by 1906 but there were two or three generations of rifles between them that had also been made obsolete. What about the most recent half century? Same basic rifle. Same basic cartridge. This is unacceptable considering the advances in chemistry, computer aided design, and metallurgy. How can this even be possible that the rate of military, shoulder fired small arms development has dropped to virtually zero?


Two reasons:

1. The United States has destroyed our domestic small arms industry, through legislative and administrative demonization of the product. Were John Moses Browning alive today, he would have been publicly thrashed in the media and most likely be serving a lengthy sentence in federal prison. There is virtually no economic incentive to innovate small arms and an exhorbitant amount of risk if an entrepeneur fails to adhere to some miniscule administrative rule. It is simply not worth the effort.

2. The US MI complex and the lobbying industry that feeds it has done more harm than good. The ONLY reason it hasn't cost us our nation is because no one has attempted to invade us since they took over. Just in small arms "development", billions has been wasted on lackluster projects like SPIW, OICW, and others. What have we gained from them? Nothing. Boondoggles. Same politicians. Same lobbyists. Same retired generals. Year after year. I won't even start on nonsense like LCS, our deplorable ASW, air refueling, and heavy airlift capabilities, and why we currently field 8 patterns of camouflage.

What's the answer to a better rifle? Well, we need to fix the above two items first. Then, hopefully, we will see young engineers re-enter fields such as caseless ammunition, recoil reduction, and long range accuracy for mass produced weapons and ammunition.


Is the AK a good assault rifle? It is and will continue to be until we field something that makes it obsolete. The M16 hasn't been able to do that in almost 50 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Chet, I very much appreciate your thoughtful post! It is my impression that the competence of the US Army (small arms capability) has increased significantly since the incorporation of the AR 15 style rifle. It is also my impression that this has been attributed in large part to the lack of recoil, and this is with a professional all volunteer army, not a conscripted army. Why do we think that we can maintain this same improved competence with a more powerful rifle, which presumably means that the "overburdened" soldier will be able to carry less ammunition. I can't remember the details but I read somewhere that the WW2 soldier carried 200 rounds of (30.06) ammo while the Vietnam soldier carried 600 rounds (of 223), or something like that.
Could it be that the US soldier is overly dependent on the "supporting arms" ie. he expects them to always be available and is "lost" without them?
It is interesting that many folks have touted the effectiveness of the 7.62 AK round because of it's short range effectiveness.
I would appreciate your comments on the above, Peter.

I can't argue too much with the above except to point out that the Military Industrial complex is as American as apple pie and dates back to Eisenhower who pointed this out to us. The M16 is certainly an American invention. Having said that, American buying power exerts a huge influence on other countries, witness the acceptance of the 5.56 as the NATO arm. Prior to that, the 308 was the standard as I recollect. Yes we could certainly adopt another caliber perhaps a 6mm (or even the 6.5(!)), but the underlying problems of training still remain. Americans like equipment (F22?) and don't like spending money on ammunition for practice!
Peter.

I would like to make a couple of comments on Maj Ehrhart's paper. Would like to see the reference that the WWII infantry squad had a m1903A4 rifle assigned, same statement of Korean war squad had a M1c assigned. One interview with a G3 mentor that " the average engagement range was 500m. That means 50% were less and 50% were at a greater range. The bad guys armed with AK's do not have a weapon that is effective at ranges at and beyon 500m. He fails to define supporting arms, is he talking FA fire support, CAS or organic mortar/ MK19 fires? His statements on wound effects are weak, makes no mention of cavitation and assumes that all hits by 6.8, 7mm or 7.62 rounds are fight stoppers.

Didn't the squad in Saving Private Ryan have a guy with a scoped rifle?
Peter.

Hollywood does not equate to Army policy.

"Hollywood does not equate to Army policy."
It doesn't?!!! Damn! Now you tell me.
Peter

During the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Russians found the AK to be woefully inadequate. The muj sat up in the rocks and picked them off like sitting ducks with Pakistani-maniufactured Enfields at 600 yards.

The 6.5/6.8 has a higher leathality factor than the 5.56, but the MI is, as usual, resistant to change and we will not see a new weapon introduced for the forseable future.

The rifleman does not have the proper tool for the job, particularly a 14" barreled carbine in a desert/mountain environemnt.

So we send them out to die with crap. It is certainly not the first time. We fought Korea with WW II weapons.

I trained on the M 1`when I was 17. I was an experienced shooter long before I joined up, but only with a .22. If a 150 pound 17 year old can handle the recoil of a 30-06 and still shoot expert, what has changed? The training sucks.

I think the 6.5/6.8 rounds that are coming out now are good examples of what we should have selected in 1963, not the 5.56. It's a shame we didn't see that then. However, if we do a full change out now, it will cost billions and we will only get an incremental return on improvement and likely ruin our chances of getting a complete new rifle system in the next 20 year (which is what we need, IMHO.)

Then again, at least we aren't sending them out there with 16lb .45 SMG's and 5 round bolt guns which is exactly what we did in 1941.

quote:

Damn, those Somalis were supermen!

No, they were emaciated, oftentimes not thick enough around the middle for the 5.56 round to swap ends and fragement prior to exit. I spent a lot of time in that shithole, and I know.

My son just graduated boot in SD and he was very surprised and a little dismayed a how the quals were handled. He has shot in youth competitions since he was 12 (YHEC etc) I don't want to say too much but by the first of the second week of shooting the other recruits came to him for help. His only comment was "Dad we have tougher shoots at our local "punkin pullin" shoots at home". The head PMI ask him if he would be interested in trying out for the shooting team......something tells me that will be a little tougher on him.

I believe we have the finest Marines in the world, but it is time to get an updated rifle in their hands. My son will be going through the Recon indoc soon.... I want to know he has the best training and the best equipment in the world. At this point in time I do not feel our Marines have the best equipment.

Back to the 300 - 600 m engagements, EVERY member must be able to and comfortable with that shot. The 5.56 mm is not the platform to do that. It will take a 6.5- 7mm to make that a normal shot for every member of a squad, and much more range time.

Back to my Marine, he was quickly made a fire team leader of 10 recruits that had never fired a rifle....All of his fire team shot expert....no Pizza Boxes! Yes Ol' Dad is a little proud of his 250 score. But I would feel alot better at night knowing that 250 was just average instead of something that happens rarely.

Cheshire - congrats. Sounds like you raised a fine young man. Tell him he has my best wishes for indoc.

jetdrvr - True, but I think also a lot of shots called as hits were in fact misses in Mog. A 90 lb fella wearing baggy clothes in MOUT conditions can be a tough target.
(I was in Mog in 95, mostly near MIG alley during the pullout. Maybe we crossed paths?)

Let us remember that the 55 grain bullet out of a 20" barrel had good knockdown ability but when you increase bullet weight and then cut down the barrel you end up with a plinker

JetDrvr suggests, correctly, that we fought in Korea with WWII small arms. What is left out, both grammatically and by implication, is that those WWII small arms were 30.06 Garands, the finest MBR ever fielded by any army, anywhere.

FAL's and H&K 91's are marvelous. They are not Garands.

Of course, none of this will matter unless and until our military decides to provide marksmanship training. This is not rocket surgery. Jeff Cooper did it; Gunsite still does it; Thunder Ranch does it; so do others. I do not believe that any of those organizations have budgets measured in the hundreds of billions.

quote:

Originally posted by mauser93:
30.06 Garands, the finest MBR ever fielded by any army, anywhere.

FAL's and H&K 91's are marvelous. They are not Garands.

Ever try to top off a half empty Garand with a live round in the chamber?

quote:

Two reasons:

1. The United States has destroyed our domestic small arms industry, through legislative and administrative demonization of the product. Were John Moses Browning alive today, he would have been publicly thrashed in the media and most likely be serving a lengthy sentence in federal prison. There is virtually no economic incentive to innovate small arms and an exhorbitant amount of risk if an entrepeneur fails to adhere to some miniscule administrative rule. It is simply not worth the effort.

2. The US MI complex and the lobbying industry that feeds it has done more harm than good. The ONLY reason it hasn't cost us our nation is because no one has attempted to invade us since they took over. Just in small arms "development", billions has been wasted on lackluster projects like SPIW, OICW, and others. What have we gained from them? Nothing. Boondoggles. Same politicians. Same lobbyists. Same retired generals. Year after year. I won't even start on nonsense like LCS, our deplorable ASW, air refueling, and heavy airlift capabilities, and why we currently field 8 patterns of camouflage.

What's the answer to a better rifle? Well, we need to fix the above two items first. Then, hopefully, we will see young engineers re-enter fields such as caseless ammunition, recoil reduction, and long range accuracy for mass produced weapons and ammunition.

That's a mouth full and damn sure the truth!



.

Chet, actually I have... But I was not being shot at...

I like the Garand and on some of my trips to Kalifornia I have carried a Tanker as a "Road Gun", so I am legal when I arrive and spend time there.

I like to shoot Garands, and have done some amount of "training" with them, just as I would an AR 15, M1 A, H&K, etc.

My technique is to hold the replacement 8 round clip with my lsst 3 fingers, pressing it into the lower palm of my hand.
Then wioth my right hand trigger finger, I draw back the op rod and press the clip ejection button with my thumb. This will eject the clip and what ever rounds are still in the rifle, and lock back the bolt.

Then reload in the normal way...

When to do this is kinda like when to "top off" a revolver, ie it must be safe to do so.

In talking to WII veterans that used the Garand, they liked to operate in at least pairs, and try not to both run the M1 dry at the same time...


And for the record I do prefer at least a 20 round box magazine, where legal, of course.

With plenty of spares.

N E 450 No2 - Maybe I should have said "top off while keeping a live round in the chamber?"

AFAIK - there is no way to top off a Garand without cycling the action and emptying the chamber. For the amount of time it takes to conduct that reload, a Garand is "down".

One of the things that buries the M1 in history is that inability to top off a hot weapon(nowadays they call it a tactical reload) while keeping it in your shoulder and pointed down range and with the sights in view. I am not a little man and I can't strong arm an M1 offhand while reloading with my weakside.

It was a great tool in it's day.....