Good, moved to sunny :rolleyes: WA and I am now in a sniper section (WANG).
Been hanging out mostly on SOCNET these days.
Reed
Printable View
Apparently the grenade launcher system has deployed to Afghanistan in very limited numbers, with limited results.
Quote:
The XM-25 has fired 55 rounds in nine firefights between Dec. 3 and January 12, when the formal Forward Operational Assessment ended. Officials say the weapon “disrupted” two insurgent attacks against an observation post, destroying one PKM machine gun position in one of those attacks. That is where the ”usually our engagements last for 15-20 minutes. With the XM-25 they’re over in a few minutes” line came from.
The XM-25 also “destroyed” four ambush sites during engagements on foot patrols or movements to contact. In one instance, the 25mm HE round exploded on a PKM gunner and he was either wounded and fled or scared and fled, but dropped his machine gun, which Soldiers later recovered.
Read more: http://kitup.military.com/2011/02/in...#ixzz1KLNJSaXO
Kit Up!
The Marine Corps' Commandant has decided, based on the results of testing and further field evaluation by using units, to recommend ending the limited test and evaluation fielding for the M27 IAR and going straight to full-fielding of rifles to each infantry battalion and its LAR battalions.
The Gunner community is surprisingly very much behind the fielding and employment of the weapon. I'm surprised because the grizzled veterans are typically the most vocal critics of the move to a lightweight automatic rifle as a replacement for the SAW (to be precise, SAWs will remain in a infantry company's T/E for some time to come, in the qty of at least six)
A pair of recent articles from the Marine Corps Gazette have touched on this topic again.
Save the Infantryman's Firepower
and
The M249 Light Machine Gun in the Automatic Rifle Role
My article from the June Gazette is not adrift on the web yet, but I am curious to see the responses. Of note, the Gazette does not present coffee mugs to writers any longer, but instead Quill pens are mailed out. They are a lot more expensive form of compensation than a mug, but the cartridge is blue ink...(wry grin)
That's correct granite_state. The Commandant decided that he had enough available data from the results thus far though, and decided to skip the combat deploys it would seem.
Kind of an indicator of the Talibans' counter-move(s).
A former Royal Marine helped smuggle scopes for sniper rifles to Iran which ended up in the hands of the Taliban, an investigation has revealed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ling-ring.html
Smuggling? Decent hunting scopes are good enough for the job, and easily available even in countries with gun control laws. It should be extremely simple to get some - even without some form of smuggling (save for smuggling into AFG).
Was the US Army expected to report that initial use of the pre-production XM25 was disappointing, inconclusive or going well ? Did anyone expect something more than a folksy anecdotal press release ?
Re-reading the PR blurb it may even include some double counting. One predictable outcome of the XM25 project is that those who devised and promoted it for issue to each “infantry squad and special forces team” will be seeking cover from verbal fire. [Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE]
Currently the US Army infantry squad has a squad leader plus two 4-man teams each equipped with a 5.56mm LMG and three 5.56mm carbines/rifles, or an LMG plus 2 carbines/rifles and a 5.56 or 7.62mm DMR. To provide baton, buckshot, HE, smoke, AP and other chemical support each team has at least one carbine/rifle fitted with a 1.5kg single-shot UBL attachment that can fire a 40x46mm LV projectile weighing 160 to 180gm to about 150m against point targets, or 350m against area targets. The squad leader may also have a UBL attachment.
The 6-shot semi-automatic XM25 was ostensibly developed as a partial successor for the M203 UBL. Weighing about 6.5kg unloaded the XM25 includes an electronic ranging and fuzing system and can fire a projectile of about 100gm (estimated on basis of acceptable recoil into the shoulder) at more than 200m/sec. Its reported range with a low elevation trajectory is up to 500m against point targets and 700m against area targets.
However, the infantry squad is intimately concerned with close range firepower extending outward to rifle range. So is a squad or team likely to relinquish one or more of its simple, rugged and ubiquitous 40x46mm UBLs in exchange for the substantial capability and system weight of an XM25 ? That’s as likely to happen as requiring one of its infantrymen to give up hand grenades because the Claymore is available.
Also - unlike the Claymore - the XM25 is an attempt to validate the attractive ballistic paradigm in which a sophisticated sight overcomes dispersion with range and hence improves the feasibility of a small payload. For the infantry squad and even were it to be carried in place of one of the LMGs, it is apparent that adding an XM25 together with its need for yet another variety of ammunition would be burdensome.
Due to its system weight, complexity and range capability the XM25 should have been developed as a platoon support weapon rather than as a component of squad level fire and movement. The question that keeps surfacing is ‘ Was it necessary to develop a flyweight range of 25mm ammunition ’ ?
Currently there are three basic types of 40mm grenade ammunition (approx data from Wiki etc):
40x46 LV: 160 to 180g at 75m/sec, max effective range 350m from M4/M203 (5.5kg unloaded);
40x51mm MV: 160 to 180g at 110m/sec, max eff rge 700m from M32 MGL (5.5kg unloaded);
40x53mm HV: 240gm at 230m/sec, max eff rge 1600m from Mk47 AGL (inc tripod 30kg unloaded).
A strong selling point for the XM25 has been that its air-burst proximity to target derives from a precise correlation of range and spin count. Presumably - but not certainly - that fuze performance and also weight have been evaluated against those of the air-burst fuzes that are already available for 40mm grenades.
Regardless of the brilliance of its ranging/fuzing system, there are at least two alternatives to the XM25. One, development of a magazine-fed semi-automatic weapon to fire 40x53mm HV ammunition from a recoilling over-the shoulder barrel. Such a weapon might have an unloaded weight with bipod up to the 12kg of the M240 MG and yet be acceptable at platoon level provided it could deliver radio and impact fuzed 240gm projectiles accurately to say at least 300m, and 900m against area targets. To reduce system weight it might be practicable to also fire LV and/or MV rounds.
Two, there is the less ambitious but rapid LV/MV path adopted by the USMC with the 6-round M32 semi-automatic MGL as a platoon or squad weapon. It has a capable sight that can be used to fire 40x46mm LV rounds with better accuracy than the M203. It can also fire 40x51mm MV rounds to about 275m against point targets, and 700m on a high trajectory against area targets. The 13-man USMC squad with three 4-man teams seems well structured to add one M32 and drop one LMG or other auto weapon.
It's in practice likely less a grenade launcher than a thermal sight that uncovers even some camouflaged opfor and can see through smoke and night.
People get too fixated on firepower at times.
Average probably not, but there were times when Enfield bolt action rifles and their copies dominated the popular Afghan armament. Those rifles were made for long-range rifleman fire, albeit not for single shots.
I haven't seen this sort of solution in the works, but it sounds interesting. Over the shoulder has worked well for one of the most prolific weapons, the RPG-7 for ages.Quote:
One, development of a magazine-fed semi-automatic weapon to fire 40x53mm HV ammunition from a recoilling over-the shoulder barrel. Such a weapon might have an unloaded weight with bipod up to the 12kg of the M240 MG and yet be acceptable at platoon level provided it could deliver radio and impact fuzed 240gm projectiles accurately to say at least 300m, and 900m against area targets.
This seems to fit your description fairly well except it is not over-shoulder.
The residual difficulty with over the shoulder recoil for a 40x53mm HV barrel is the need for a correspondingly taller bipod. But that would be preferable to having the barrel recoil in a tube that extends under the butt to pass below the shoulder.
35mm QLZ-87 is an interesting weapon with its full auto presumably usable only when tripod mounted. That site also reveals that China went on to develop a 35mm QLB-06 semi-auto with ergo features well suited for use by light infantry. Their projectile weight is likely to be less than that of 40mm LV and MV ammunition but higher than that of the XM25.
Greetings.
1.I just read from news that finnish army is going to replace traditonal 7-men infatry squad with new 9-men squad in light infatry battlegroups.
In Finland "basic" squad has consisted of
1.half-squad/gun group with
Squad leader
Machine gunner
Assistant machine gunner
2.half-squad with
Anti-tank guy with M72
Anti-tank guy with M72
Assistant squad leader
Assistant squad leaders buddy pair.
+possibly vehicle driver some times
All that is disclosed about new nine men squad is that it consist of 3 teams of 3 soldiers.
Educated quesses have been that squad will have "command team", rifle team and MG team and not three identical teams.
2.I have (maybe silly) question. Does land mines belong to standard equipment of infantry squads in armed forces of other countries?
I am asking this because here in Finland part of infatry squads standard equipment are 10-12 anti-tank mines.
That would work, though I tend to think fewer but larger squads are better for sustained combat than more smaller squads. The trade off is in leaders trained, though...
The US Marines briefly had a ten man squad, three teams of three plus a Squad Leader; each team had an Automatic Rifle / LMG. Combat experience quickly led to the team size being increased to four men for a 13 man Squad.For the US, that was true in Europe World War II and it was true in the early days in Korea. In the Pacific Theater in WW II and later in Korea and in most of our wars since, we've gotten out of the habit due to lack of need. It's a METT-TC thing...Quote:
I have (maybe silly) question. Does land mines belong to standard equipment of infantry squads in armed forces of other countries?
I am asking this because here in Finland part of infatry squads standard equipment are 10-12 anti-tank mines.
Finnish defense concerns make it perfectly understandable on that basis.
It shouldn't.
Armies that expect real wars - not petty expeditions - have to expect that even entire battalions get crushed in a matter of hours. Squads certainly have to expect multiple casualties per fight.
An army with such expectations HAS TO have way more leaders than its TO&E requires. Squad leader need to be able to assume command of a platoon, senior enlisted need to be able to assume command of a squad.
An infantry squad - no matter 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13 men - has to have several men capable of assuming command of a squad on the spot - even do it on their own initiative seconds after squad leader became incapable.
The difference should be marginal between a 5 and a 13 men squad, simply because platoon leaders might in the hours after a fight transfer more promising replacement leaders from one squad to another anyway.
In the best peacetime case, you approach the personnel-constrained Reichswehr or Napoleon's Old Guard; both were essentially replacing enlisted men with NCO-capable men both in selection and qualification.
Agree with all you wrote. From the NCO leader standpoint, the size of the Squad makes little difference. The absolute number of them is only marginally an issue.
My too cryptic comment was aimed not at training NCOs, that's easy and even democracies can and do get that done in short time periods with few problems -- the issue is training Officers. Simply put, smaller Squads mean more Platoons, and thus more Companies and so more Battalions -- the latter two critical training and development positions for Officers in war or peace.
Training new Lieutenants is easy and we did it in '90 days' in WW II, seemed to work fairly well. However, at higher echelons, developing good commanders takes time and experience; more smaller units simply equals more opportunities to develop such experience in and for larger units.
Democracies will always have to sacrifice some efficiency and effectiveness for politically prescribed concerns and thus cannot undertake optimum training regimens -- particularly in peacetime... ;)
So while I totally agree and have long advocated a Reichswehr - like approach for the US Army and Marines (i.e. raise the standard for entry and in training considerably among other things), the probability of seeing that happen is not good. :(
Demand for officers is less a problem than a solution in the medium term.
Kill 2/3 of staff positions, assign the officers to line units in new command jobs.
They'll be happier and you solve the staff madness.