Originally posted by Corejob:
Peacekeeping is not combat.
Sometimes it is not, sometimes it is. And not all UN missions are peackeeping. Some are interventions. And some non-UN missions have involved activity that looked suspiciously like combat to those involved.
How many rounds were fired per weapon, in the field, under combat conditions? What was the rate of stoppages under field conditions? These factors are knows for weapons like the AK and M-16.
And I am fairly certain the Canadian Army did gather data on this stuff - they did on every other thing. Heck, one thing we have no shortage of (and could use as a weapons system if we had the airlift) is documentation.
See my previous posts regarding the Hitchman study - whose conclusions have been continously proven in just about every fracas since the ORO published "Operational requirements for an infantry hand weapon." The single most important factor determining whether a hit was achieved was time and degree of exposure of the target. As th SALVO studies, and SPIW showed, the nest way to maximize hits was the use of either swarms of munitions (shotgun like) or burst of automatic weapons delivered at a high cyclic rate.
Maybe so. But there is also a factor of how tired are your troops? How worn out? How sore and beaten down? Load has a factor in that, especially for infantry or light infantry who end up doing a lot of movement using the two-step Black Cadillacs.
I'm not saying lethality isn't a concern, or even that exposure isn't a key determiner as well as number of projectiles. OTOH, if weight increases *your* exposure, and if you don't operate as well because you're too tired (miss stuff, don't think clearly, or just aren't where you need to be due to fatigue) and part of that is carrying too great a load.... that'll be a factor too. And the studies you quote don't address that, do they?
]The key word is 'optimal'. My contention is that optimal is not 650-850rpm. That's too slow, particularly as warfare becomes more and more mobile.
Well, the difference between 600 RPM and 1200 RPM is twice the ammo consumption, and twice the ammo weight. When we carried the FN C2, a bunch of us used to carry spare ammo for it. I can't imagine carrying twice as much, honestly. Even with the C9, carrying twice as much ammo would be a pox (not to mention, not likely, since you always loaded out to your max a lot of the time anyway). The only thing you'd do is half your time-in-contact where you could engage. You might score more kills, but you'd run out of ammo sooner.
However, one thing that is neglected is that almost all infantry is mechanized. It is extremely rare for the soldier to be carrying every piece of equipment he owns.
Every piece? Well, I saw a lot of soldiers in both Gulf Wars and in Kosovo carrying a lot of weight, even just patrolling or engaging in movement to contact or the like. Is that every bit of kit? Probably not. But when your threat environment is getting so broad, you leave stuff behind at your peril. Now, you can usually make sane decisions, but troops do still (despite the mechanization) have to do a lot of foot patrols and foot movements... and the weight still counts.
Give me a Grav Belt or Grav Backpack and I might feel differently.... but I carried too many pounds over too many miles not to feel sympathy for a troopie I see with a backpack, rucksack, support weapon ammo/anti-armour disposable, extra water, extra ammo for the squad weapons, etc. walking somewhere. Yes, he doesn't always carry this kit, and there is always the dreaded 'emergency breakaway' (Lord, don't forget to undo the chest strap...) to lighten you up fast. But the point is, it is still weight. And having something back in the AFV might seem a long way off just when you require it....
Sure, the modern soldier has more gear, but the amount he carries all the time is about the same as in WWII, and in many cases, the gear has become lighter.
It had to, in order to pile on more.
I think if you look back to Roman times, you'll find light infantry loadouts haven't changed much. They are limited by the man.... and that hasn't changed much.
Further, higher rates of fire do not necessarily mean expending more ammunition.
Hmmm. In theory, you are right. Whether this is the case in practice, I can't say.
Large amounts of MG ammo is wasted with thing like 'walking fire'. The correct technique with high ROF weapons is to aim furs, and then fire bursts at the target area
Agreed.
- the bursts are the same number of rounds - the bursts just happen to be shorter in duration.
If you get too high or an ROF, unless your SAW has some sort of burst limiter, you will get longer bursts. A 3-5 round burst becomes a 6-10 round burst. Etc.
Rather than firing one round after another is slow sequence, the idea is to fire a cloud of rounds that compensate for aiming errors - the same theory behind why the G11 fired it's bursts at 2,000 rpms.
Yes, but IIRC, it had a burst setting which limited the weapon to discharging N rounds at once (I forget what N was.. was it 3, 5, or 6?). Do most SAWs have this kind of feature? Not to my knowledge. Most rely on firer trigger control, and doubling the ROF will make this a more precise activity.
The US Army has comissioned dozens of studies that all support the above: SPIW, SALVO, ACR, etc. My question is, why do they keep ignoring their own conclusions?
Is it just possible they have other contrary data?
Or that they have reason to question this data?
Those are, of course, only some of the possibilities. Those ones are benign. There are various malign ones... stupidity, NIH syndrome, lobbyists, etc.
