US Army rifles going semi-auto now?
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Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
that guy shootng out of the back of the pickup (seen at 0:30 and again at 1:30) has what looks like a G3 or a FN-FAL, both 7.62mm rifles, while everybody else is using M-16/M-4 type weapons, with a LOT of personal modifications
WarriorKnight
SOC-12
When I went into the Army in 1982 it was one course. I finished basic one day & the next we started AIT.
It now depends on what your MOS will be. For infantry and maybe some others, their Basic and AIT are all one long combined course. For tech stuff like what Cody will be doing, they do a general Basic conditioning and weed-out course and learn their basic weapon skills (rifle, SAW, grenades) and then go somewhere else for AIT depending on what they will be getting trained for.
That was my experience as a mech pogue in the late 80's through early 90's, when the A2 was already fairly well-entrenched: We never had any training event where the burst setting was used, and we fired (live and blanks) about 500 rds annually per man.
It would be impossible to "empty the magazine by holding down the trigger," however on a M16A2, or any subsequent M16/M4 version of which I am aware. I would think it is a distortion to say that the military is "going to semiauto." Why spend money to change something that is all but unused anyway?
The basic training version Badger relates is feasible as a safety issue. That said, I have run basic training, and I have heard some of the ideas that trainees get. I have also heard some things instructors say that would make one cringe. For example, in every class I have ever received on the M2HB .50 cal machinegun, I was told that it was "against the Geneva Convention" to use it on troops, so it was only to be used "on their equipment" [pointing conspiratorily towards web gear]. Now this statement is so wrong in so many ways that I won't even start to explain them all, but it was in every class, which must have been a dozen: cadets, officers, junior enlisted, and senior enlisted.
To say that U.S. Army is doing it because it's done in basic is sort of a stretch. At one time, one basic training unit had an exclusion zone around dumpsters to make it more difficult for the trainees to use them as their own little field-expedient love nests. :file_28: I never saw that in a line unit....
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
I think that's a urban legend or, more likely, a standing army/marine corps joke.
suffice to say, I am in the British Army, which uses the .50 cal, and I have worked with several NATO and ISAF armies they use both the ,50 and the Russian 12.7mm (their equivalent weapon), and all those armies, and my own, are happy to use it on infantry.
The origin of this myth appears to be linked with a order issued for tactical or logistical reasons at some point telling troops not to use .50s on infantry. the version I heard was that WW2 Americans were using up all the ammo issued to their AA units (mostly equipped with a quad-mounted .50 cal AA system), and that command wanted them to save the ammo in case the Luftwaffe turned up (unlikely at this point in the war, but possible). Knowing that telling them the "real" reason would just result in the troops ignoring the order ("krauts ain't got no planes!"), they instead made up a lie saying some treaty or other banned it.
here is a link to a USMC site that discusses it and another possible origin of the myth,
http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/killing-myth
It was indeed an urban legend, or military legend. It was passed on as a joke, just like the belt buckle example in the article, but the premise was believed by those who taught it. We of course trained to use our .50's in both anti-personnel and anti-materiel roles. The manuals and doctrine never contained the little insider, and that would not stop anyone from taking a militarily expedient shot (the standard under the Hague conventions), but if you asked any private what the Geneva Convention said about the .50 cal, they would all tell you the same thing, quite in earnest. Indeed, every sergeant I ever talked to about back in the 80's and 90's believed it. Hell, I believed it until I went to law school! I thought there was a rule, an aplicable exception, and this is how the Army justified their doctrine (which clearly taught that the .50 cal was to be used for personnel).
Now we did train our .50 gunners to focus on the BTR's and the 7.62 and SAW ("Minimi" for you Brits) gunners to focus on the dismounts, but that was a fire distribution issue. I personally trained my folks to prioritize thus, but when lacking a better target shoot anything that moved: enough SAW's firing at a BTR could take some heat off the .50's....
Anyway, my basic point was not the law of war, but rather that trainees (even smart trainees, Badger
) are a suspect source for the whole truth about anything. Even their trainers may not have the whole story. I once heard an NCO describe the site-trajectory alignment problem that requires zeroing at a specified distance as involving the projectile traveling in something akin to a sine wave downrange: I was a hardened professional, so did all my weeping on the inside....:file_28:
Pretty much only with fragmentation warheads; KEAP, KE, KEAPER, HE and HEAP are of only limited effect against personnel.
Also, note Article 35 of the 1977 additions to the Geneva Convention protocols... which prohibit weapons which can cause undue injury.
http://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl....t&documentId=0DF4B935977689E8C12563CD0051DAE4
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.
Article 35 -- Basic rules
1. In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited.
2. It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.
3. It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.
Article 35 -- Basic rules
1. In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited.
2. It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.
3. It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.
DU is only mildly radioactive, but a radioactive none-the less, and further, is itself toxic...
http://www.ibilabs.com/URANIUM-MSDS.htm
The combination makes it a probable violation of article 35 section 2 and section 3 of the 1977 protocols to use DU on persons.
Hint: When arguing whether something is or is not a violation, look at primary sources, like the laws or protocols themselves.
Oh good greaf...
Auto is a waste of ammo...take your time and site in a target. A single well placed shot kills. I know this as I was a former Sniper in the US Army.
Semi-Auto is for close in fighting, like within rooms and alleys and streets...
Auto is a waste of ammo...take your time and site in a target. A single well placed shot kills. I know this as I was a former Sniper in the US Army.
Semi-Auto is for close in fighting, like within rooms and alleys and streets...
The key words here are "superfluous" and "unnecessary." Military expedience is a defense to each as international law has ever been applied.
And then how they are construed. In my first federal case, our argument was, "This is what the regulations say that the government must do." We knew it was, though not frivolous, a loser. It was a loser because the government could say, "But the cases construing those regulations say we don't really have to."
There are two decisions for any weapons/munitions analysis under the Hangue conventions and their progeny: 1. the legality of the fielding (or modifying) a weapon or munition, and 2. the legality of the use of the weapon or munition in the field.
Extent DU munitions are intended to be armor-piercing. Because of its density, DU is well-suited for this purpose. The nature of these munitions is that they don't tend to stay in the human body. There is incidental exposure to toxic residue from troops who linger around the bulks of vehicles the burned with DU rounds in them. The radioactivity is an unneeded (and indeed unwanted) by-product of the source of the material, and the source is critical to its utility. How this causes unnecessary suffering is beyond me.
Munitions that have been considered to be intended to cause unnecessary suffering are small arms rounds with fragmenting projectiles, and those with projectiles intended to frustrate medical treatment. There is armor that a DU round can penetrate that an equivalent tungsten round cannot; that's why we use it!
Now once the weapons or munitions are fielded, they can be used as is militarily expedient. Military expedience is not synonymous with as originally intended. Thus, if the easiest way of attacking an enemy was to shoot and RPG at him, a HEAP round designed to penetrate vehicular armor, then I may do that, even though it would be illegal for my country to field a HEAP round for a small arm primarily intended for anti-personnel use.
This then raises the obvious question of when can a legally fielded munition be used in an illegal way. These are often difficult to prove, and would involve when a more practical method of attack was consciously avoided in order to adopt one that, while less practical, would cause more suffering. Flame throwers, for instance, are very useful, and certainly cause great suffering. Their use has been accepted for decades, so fielding them is no violation. They are useful for clearing bunkers. However, if a leader stopped troops in a clear position to do so from clearing a bunker with grenades (which also work if you're close enough) for the purpose of bringing forward a flame thrower, solely for the purpose of causing the soldiers int eh bunker to suffer more, that would be a violation.
How to prove that was his intent? That's a hard one; one can imagine myriad reasons he could use to claim military expedience.
This is the reason that we train our soldiers that if it's a legitimate target, you may use any weapon or munition you have been provided, in whatever the most useful way is.
Hint: When arguing whether something is or is not a violation, ask a professional.
Hint: When arguing whether something is or is not a violation, ask a professional.
Too many argue fine points of exception and legalism, points which often. In other words, you're engaged in sophistry. You have no provable expertise in a forum environment; citing self as expert is trolling. Cite some published expert, if you can, that supports your position.
As for the undue suffering, DU vs personal body armor is going to leave particles in and near the wound; that directly increases the target's chances of suffering long term illness from radiation induced cancer. Plus, uranium itself is considered toxic if ingested or inhaled; I'm fairly certain that it would be likewise toxic if in the wound channel. A check of the MSDS seems to confirm that.
http://www.ibilabs.com/URANIUM-MSDS.htm
http://www.ibilabs.com/U3O8-MSDS.htm
No, he is not. Words have meanings, and he is discussing those meanings in regulation and practice. Sophistry, on the other hand, is "An argument that seems plausible, but is fallacious or misleading, especially one devised deliberately to be so." In other words, a serious insult, especially to those of us who make our living through precise use and definition of words and arguments.
That does not seem to be in the Forum Rules here, nor is it observed in everyday usage here in this particular forum, in which individuals frequently refer to their own expertise in weapons/environments/science/you-name-it.
Whereas personal attacks, such as accusing someone of sophistry, are expressly forbidden by Forum Rules.
See, there is an example. You started off with two important words: "Undue suffering". Then you proceeded to ignore the first of those words and talk only about the suffering. Word mean things. "Undue" is important, and that is what Sam spent several paragraphs talking about, that you dismissed as sophistry. So even if the DU round causes all of the suffering that you mention, if that is a necessary side-effect of the use of the DU round for its legal purpose of penetrating armor better than some other rounds would, it is still not "undue suffering."
I never said I was an expert. I did imply that I was a professional. I count two of mine relevant: the military and law. http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Gallery/index.php?n=1599
I have qualified and been admitted to both.
I do not know whether you would consider Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to be an expert. Since he's likely a lawyer, I'll call him a professional. I think even in Belguim you have to pass an exam, or something. In conducting an inquiry as to whether DU munitions violated any treaty, his committee concluded, "There is no specific treaty ban on the use of DU projectiles. There is a developing scientific debate and concern expressed regarding the impact of the use of such projectiles and it is possible that, in future, there will be a consensus view in international legal circles that use of such projectiles violate general principles of the law applicable to use of weapons in armed conflict. No such consensus exists at present." Quoted in Joe Sills et al Environmental Crimes in Military Actions and the International Criminal Court (ICC)-United Nations Perspectives of American Council for the UN University, April 2002. Page 28. http://web.archive.org/web/20041015...i.army.mil/internet/env-crime-icc-printer.pdf
You opine that "too many argue fine points of exception and legalism." I'll take your expert opinion on the matter, but share my professional opinion that in construing the law legal analysis is useful.
As I tell my students "One word will get you in the law." Here, that word is "undue." One of the three principles of the law of war is "necessity."DU penetrators (at least those used by the US, and any others that I, an inexpert professional, am aware of) are not designed as anti-personnel weapons. The suffering one undergoes as a result of unintended exposure to uranium oxide fragments is considerably less than getting naped. It is "undue" if it serves no military utility. Glass bullets (in addition to being really problematic) would serve no purpose over FMJ; they are the classic example given of an illicit munition.
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Check point 6 of the rules. Then think REAL hard before going there.
Pointing out that one is engaged in an untoward behavior ___ is NOT a personal attack. Calling someone a ___ is, the two are not the same. The appeal to own authority &/or unprovable expertise is, by the way, one of the standard recognized fallacies, except when that expertise has already been stipulated to.
[m;]Think a staff member crossed the line in a post? Report it. [/m;]
I'm usually pretty decent about admitting when I've screwed up. In this case, yes, I ran right to the edge, but did not cross it.
[m;]There are only a handful people on the board who may use the self-endorsing as expert, and then in limited areas:
- Ancient (Marc Miller) on OTU, CT, MT, TNE, T4, T5, and 2300 canon
- Mongoose Matt on MGT (he is the head of that company)
- DonM on what is official CT/MT/TNE/T4 errata
- Cryton and Me on board rules
- Spica's account on what is canon for their ATUs.
- GM's in the PBF games, but only in their game.
- Colin Dunn on MGT2300 and 2320AD - he is the man doing those.
[/m;]
Any other "expertise" claimed is untestable and not authoritative, and is an action to the detriment of the boards; it has no place in on-board arguments unless asked for.
Thank goodness this is Traveller, where we have non-radioactive and non-toxic Superdense to make our armor piercing bullets out of.
Well, that's part of the point!
The U.S. does not make bullets (meaning smalls arms projectiles) out of the this stuff. We have AP that we use in small arms, and it uses tungsten or steel cores. We do use it for heavier duty AP tasks, like Bradley and Abrams shells. We are not allowed to fashion a small arms round out of a high explosive, because they are intended to be shot at a person. Mortar rounds are an area fire weapon: anyone aiming to hit an enemy infantryman center-of-mass with a mortar shell has way too much time on his hands. But we don't say that the mortar causes undue suffering because it's possible that it would hit directly. 
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