Auto-Rifles at TL7+?

[Todg]

Personbally, I'm a fan of the 6.8SPC but the lickelyhood of adoption is pretty much nil, for several reason - conversion costs, retooling and inertia. Add to that the fact that small arms have rather negligeable effects in battle. Most casualties are produced by bombs and artillery, follwed by support weapons.

This does change slightly in low intensity operations.

We already know where military thinking is heading - the OICW project is a natural progression based on the hoary old Hitchman study, replaceing burst fire with airbursting munitions.

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Last year I posted an FBI report debunking the hoary old myth of 'stopping power' in pistols. You'd have thought I was proposing mandatory infanticide from the responses that post garnered.

Bill, I promise not to initiate a moral panic if you were to re-post that report(or its conclusion) here.

 

[Border Reiver]

Was it this one Bill?

One Shot Drops- Surviving the Myth[url]

 

[Anthony]

I suspect it was "Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness", which is cited in that publication. It's available lots of places on the WWW; one source is http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
Was it this one Bill?

One Shot Drops- Surviving the Myth

That's a pretty interesting article.

So is the one Anthony has posted (which is a PDF of the one Bill mentioned earlier).

 

[Todg]

Originally posted by epicenter00:
I shied away from using the term "stopping power" because of that, Bill. Because somebody would have this burning need to bring up the old .45 ACP is better than 9mm Parabellum/Luger arguement from day one.(1)

There's not much argument about which is more effective when you are talking about military ball ammunition. It's for this very reason that the army is now looking at replacing the 9mm sidearm with a larger caliber.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/jcp.htm

Note the number of pistols - 645,000. That would pretty much replace every pistol in service with a .45.

but I'm on the side of the 9mm against the .45 ACP so I've read a number of studies on the whole concept of "stopping power." As far as I can tell "stopping power" is a concept with nebulous thresholds - similar to "felt recoil" of weapons. It varies from person to person or target to target.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Corejob:
There's not much argument about which is more effective when you are talking about military ball ammunition. It's for this very reason that the army is now looking at replacing the 9mm sidearm with a larger caliber.

I note this very interesting sentence:

Operational suitability and effectiveness of the JCP is based on the ability of the JCP system to meet all stated threshold and objective requirements as well as Operators' (subjective and objective) determination of operational suitability and effectiveness

Specifically note the term 'subjective'. This implies that at least one cause for the change is the belief of the potential user that it is more suitable (this is not specifically an argument one way or another about 9mm vs .45 -- just noting that the change could be caused by factors other than actual combat effectiveness).

 

[Pickles]

From the Joint Combat Pistol article:
The solicitation will require, free of charge to the government, delivery of 24 each product samples along with a concise written proposal all due on the closing date stated in the solicitation.

Boy, I wish I could stipulate that kind of solicitation ...

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Bromgrev, can't you go to jail for solicitation?

 

[Pickles]

Even better! I get fireams manufacturers to solicit me with free guns, they go to jail, and I buy up their stock cheap when they sell it off to pay for legal fees! Damn, the government always gets the best deals ...

 

[Uncle Bob]

See what happens when you miss three days?

LSW- treat as Assault Rifle, +0.5 kg, +1 to hit at long range and beyond

British L86A2 is very good, but after OIF they added a Minimi LMG to every fire team for more volume of fire.

US Army's XM8 included an autorifle version to replace the M249 LMG. Thank God its now a dead project.

BAR- treat as Autorifle, 8 Kg, +1 to hit at long range and beyond, -1 at short & close

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Bromgrev:
I promise not to initiate a moral panic if you were to re-post that report(or its conclusion) here.

Bromgrev,

Looks like Border Reiver and Antony beat me to it!

Enjoy reading both reports.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Bromgrev:
Even better! I get fireams manufacturers to solicit me with free guns, they go to jail, and I buy up their stock cheap when they sell it off to pay for legal fees! Damn, the government always gets the best deals ...

Ummmm, Bromgrev, that wasn't the kind of solicitation I was thinking of....

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Looks like Border Reiver and Antony beat me to it!

Enjoy reading both reports.

Interesting reading indeed. Of course, throw combat armour into the mix, and the whole can of worms opens up again.

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Ummmm, Bromgrev, that wasn't the kind of solicitation I was thinking of....

Bah. Solicitation's solicitation in any solicitor's book.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Oh, 9mm vs 45 ACP. The FBI has determined that the 9mm is more likely to glance off heavy bone than the .45.

A slender reed, but it gives us dinosaurs hope.

 

[Todg]

As I noted previously, it is well to remember that the military is pretty much restricted to ball ammunition. 9mm gets it parity with the .45 thanks to modern expanding ammunition. If you can only use ball ammo, the .45 wins hands down.

 

[parmasson]

Hmmm I wonder if a 9mm slug propelled by a .45 ACP charge would be better? Kinda like a mini rifle bullet.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Not that much better. More like the .357 Sig than a rifle
A 9mm has 5-6 gr of powder. A .45ACP 6-7.5 gr. Even an intermediate caliber rife, like the 5.56x45 has 25 gr of powder.

 

[Todg]

Uncle Bob is dead on. The original LBB gave pistols 3D-3 dam versus the rifle's 3D. That changes in the 1980 version, where all damage DMs got removed, making the damage from a rifle the same as that as a pistol.

The KE of a rifle is way beyond that of a handgun. Consider that the relatively mild .30-30 cartridge has more energy at 100 yards than the .44magnum has at the muzzle.

Even in Traveller, the typical rifle has something like 3x the energy of a handgun.