I once fired one magazine on automatic (2LTs do the craziest things). Learnt enough from that never to do it again ... nor to allow any of my troops to do that either. We carried the FN MAG on a ratio of 1:4 so we really got all the firepower we needed from that baby. The riflemen were fillers, always (at least) one facing backwards and unlike the conventional training where the machine gun was deployed on the higher ground flank we pushed it right up front to be there and operating in those first critical seconds when contact is made.
So how does the gunner fire? - bursts of 2-3 rounds in a controlled fashion.
So how did the riflemen fire? - single rounds or at most double taps in a controlled fashion.
With caution indeed. I have a massive problem with averaging the number of rounds fired per kill achieved. Not sure what the point is as every contact is unique and different in one way or tuther enough to question the value of the finding.Quote:
Secondly, the linked article must be analyzed with caution. The Australian Area of Operations was unique in several respects and the Australian and US Armies had differing operating philosophies.. Note that most of their contact were in ambushes or reactions to them -- negligible 'hot LZs.' Most American units had different experiences, more helicopter assaults, fewer ambushes and more meeting engagements.
I would add that for raw unexperienced troops the noise of battle can be intimidating. However, combat experienced troops know and are able to differentiate between the odd stray round and really close stuff. One just needs to watch the difference in reaction to battlefield "bangs" between new guys and the old soldiers.Quote:
I read that article last year and I understand what they say -- but I have reservations about their conclusion. Strong reservations. Much depends on the enemy and the terrain / vegetation but as a general rule, massive volume fire in several varieties of all that are in my observation rarely as effective as a smaller volume of accurate fire -- accurate not being one shot, one kill but fire directed very near the proper target. One problem with the high volume of fire folks is that most of that fire will go in places where no opponent is located. It's wasted. If it's automatic, about 2/3 of it will be high...
In a fire force setting where one could be close to a contact but not personally and physically involved the last thing you needed was troopies ducking and flinching every time a high miss or ricochet passed overhead. We needed to upgrade the battle inoculation part of our training.
Simply put find a piece of bush which will pass for a range. Get the troopies to lie (section at a time) on the firing point. Get your sergeant to fire over their heads high and close so that they can differentiate between stray shots and the real deal. (The Health and Safety Gestapo will never allow this - so that is why I suggest you just disappear into the bush somewhere.) Let the distances vary from 100-150m to 10m. And close is as close as possible.
Also use different weapons (theirs and ours) so that they learn to ID the various weapons at various ranges.
The need result is that you realise when you can clearly hear the shots they are probably not aimed at you but when the noise (of the crack) turns into a "sensation" then you know he wants to convert you into a notch on his buttstock.