Sanctimony is its own reward...
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Originally Posted by
JMA
You mean that US soldiers being issued with substandard personal weapons through a bureaucratic (and quite possibly corrupt) process is something that can't be changed or rectified?
It's not substandard, just not as good as it could be -- few things are.
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This matter does not reflect well upon members of the US military who should be ashamed of their timidity in the face of this challenge.
Bravely spoken. Your courage in taking on the bureaucracy over the internet is noted.
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I watched your USMC Gen Amos... It seems that having gays in the Marine Corps is a bigger problem than having a crappy personal weapon. Talk about screwed up priorities...
The weapon is not crappy, it's good enough. As for screwed up priorities, that's democracy and politicians at work. Your distaste is noted, you inability to understand the fact that several people have told you the weapons is not the significant problem you'd like it to be is also noted, as is your penchant for diverting, devious and essentially pointless innuendo. :rolleyes:
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That sounds like a poor excuse for inaction on your behalf.
Inaction implies that there is a windmill worth tilting at out there -- in this case there is none. Anyway, I'm retired - I'm supposed to be inactive. Get paid for it, in fact... :D
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Is it, or is it not, the responsibility of a country and an army to at the very least provide their soldiers with a decent personal weapon?
It is and US Forces have a better than decent weapon -- it just isn't a great weapon, any more the SLR / FAL was great. All weapons have good and bad points. The M4's failings are minor.
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It all gets to sound like Little Big Horn again where that cavalry were issued a crappy weapon while the injuns could buy/trade a far better weapon from traders.
Don't know, wasn't there. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Montana, they say it's nice in the summer.
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Now compare the M4 with your average AK-47. For $1,000 a soldier can give him the edge over the AK. And you are OK with that?
He's already got that edge most places, most of the time -- the AK is a better brush buster and requires less maintenance but those are the only real advantages. So yeah, I'm okay with it.
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I am less concerned about what the population of civilians think than what the military thinks... and it appears that the military is not thinking.
Well, you know what they say about you Ossifers...:)
You may not be concerned about what civilians think but then in this matter you don't have any responsibility for anything except poorly informed or purposely obtuse and generally idle carping and you are not a Politician -- they care very much about what the civilians think. Surprisingly, US Politicians are more concerned with the mass of US voters than they are about the million or so Troops. Weird but there it is...
Bolt actions will almost always be more accurate than semi-autiomatics.
Plus the cartridge has an effect on accuracy. The 5.56 has some problems in that regard due to a light, fast bullet.
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Originally Posted by
Stupendous Man
Mhhh. It appears to me there are dimensions to this. While what you seem to be getting at is that public interest in the matter would rise during an existential conflagration and thus lead to a tightening of production standards, such a conflict might actually quickly produce the opposite effect as it eventually did ie. in Germany, Japan or the Soviet Union.
True and possible, however, our WW II experience was the reverse of that. Though what I was getting at is not the public but the politicians, they get more serious and thoughtful. I also meant not the production aspect but the specification issue. In such cases, we tend to stop fooling around and get at least semi-serious and want results.
We'd rather not toughen up and get real -- but we can if we must. Only if we must will we do that... :o