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Thread: MAJ Ehrhart - Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afgh.

  1. #601
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Ken, I once learned to make the technical mechanics calculations for constructs like that. It's difficult to see the mechanical strength of a design without knowing details and having very much experience in this specialty.


    About lightening weapons:

    A most extreme example was probably the MG 45, a late-WW2 successor project for the MG 42.
    The weight was reduced by much, rate of fire was apparently increased to up to 1,800 rpm (details are not known for sure). I have no idea how they believe soldiers would be able to control this beast on a bipod.


    It IS advisable (or at least a debatable option) to reduce weight and durability (not totally the same as reliability) IF you assume that the hardware won't be used much.
    Fighter aircraft cannons, weapons for support personnel, infantry weapons in a great war (high attrition) are examples for this.

  2. #602
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Wink I know but I'm also old and cyncial...

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    ...It's difficult to see the mechanical strength of a design without knowing details and having very much experience in this specialty.
    True and the Tripods may end up as the best thing to come from this.

    Even the M240L, properly placed will be okay. I'm just unduly cynical regarding US procurement practices as too much is politically (internal, US Domestic external -- and even foreign policy external) driven for my taste...
    It IS advisable (or at least a debatable option) to reduce weight and durability (not totally the same as reliability) IF you assume that the hardware won't be used much.
    Yep. Good examples are the Mk 46 and Mk 48 -- they're fine for SOF intermittent use, not tough enough to be fully reliable for for normal infantry wear and tear. Same is likely true with the M240L, it'll serve it's current purpose then die...

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    Marines got HK IAR, Army goes their own way.

    The light machine gun is part of the Lightweight Small Arms Technologies, or LSAT, program, which is managed by the JSSAP, part of the Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, or ARDEC, at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.

    The LMG is a gas-operated, cased telescoped light machine gun. It is air-cooled and belt fed with selectable semi-automatic and fully automatic fire and fires from the open-bolt position. Its rate of fire is approximately 650 rounds per minute.

    The JSSAP team hopes that the LMG will eventually replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, knows as a SAW, as the standard issue machine gun used by Soldiers in combat zones.
    http://www.defencetalk.com/new-light...rs-load-38174/

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  5. #605
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kaur View Post
    Only the last 40% of that text are relevant here.
    I guess everybody here knows about the history.

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    Carbine/rifle firepower quality is being overestimated and it's still the machine gunners and snipers that do 80% of the job (~Pareto) - just as they did in the age of bolt-action carbines.

    Carbines are not the distance weapon, a rifle is.

    The exception to your comment about back ing the day bolt action weapons was a WWI battle in an area near Chateau Tierry that Frace renamed "The Wood of the Marine Brigade."

    The 5th and 6th US Marine Rifle Regiments with an attached machinegun battallion (4th MG Bn.) assualted dug in German positions and defeated them by accurate rifle and bayonet assualts in a battle that lasted 20 days. The Marines were armed with 1903 Springfiled .30-06 rifles

    The German surivors of that action and those of German Regiments who tried to retake the lost positions unsuccessfully knicknamed the Marines "Tuffel Hunds" "Devil Dogs".

    I had family in that fight.


    Semper Fi, Ken! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

    Dec. 7. 2011 70 years ago today.

    The Big Marine Rifle Squad is 65 years old and is still taking the hearts and minds of our enemies efficiently and effectively.

    M/3/5 0311, 0331 and 0369

  7. #607
    Council Member Firn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RJ View Post
    Carbine/rifle firepower quality is being overestimated and it's still the machine gunners and snipers that do 80% of the job (~Pareto) - just as they did in the age of bolt-action carbines.

    Carbines are not the distance weapon, a rifle is.

    The exception to your comment about back ing the day bolt action weapons was a WWI battle in an area near Chateau Tierry that Frace renamed "The Wood of the Marine Brigade."

    The 5th and 6th US Marine Rifle Regiments with an attached machinegun battallion (4th MG Bn.) assualted dug in German positions and defeated them by accurate rifle and bayonet assualts in a battle that lasted 20 days. The Marines were armed with 1903 Springfiled .30-06 rifles

    The German surivors of that action and those of German Regiments who tried to retake the lost positions unsuccessfully knicknamed the Marines "Tuffel Hunds" "Devil Dogs".

    I had family in that fight.


    Semper Fi, Ken! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

    Dec. 7. 2011 70 years ago today.

    The Big Marine Rifle Squad is 65 years old and is still taking the hearts and minds of our enemies efficiently and effectively.

    M/3/5 0311, 0331 and 0369
    Merry Christmas!

    I think it is hard to see anything special in that battle apart for those who were involved in it and that it was the first major combat action of Marines in the Great War. Artillery and machine guns certainly played as usual a very important part in the fighting. Maybe the Americans were indeed more "reckless" then usual, which was a rather common among fresh troops with little experience and good fighting spirit.

    ... prompted his men of the 73rd Machine Gun company forward with the words: "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"[13]

    The first waves of Marines—advancing in well-disciplined lines—were slaughtered; Major Berry was wounded in the forearm during the advance. On his right, the Marines of Major Sibley's 3/6 Battalion swept into the southern end of Belleau Wood and encountered heavy machine gun fire, sharpshooters and barbed wire. Marines and German infantrymen were soon engaged in heavy hand-to-hand fighting. The casualties sustained on this day were the highest in Marine Corps history to that time.[9] Some 31 officers and 1,056 men of the Marine brigade were casualties. However, the Marines now had a foothold in Belleau Wood.[14]
    In the end it seems to be a important piece of the history of the USMC as they proved themselves for the first time against a respected foe and it is quite understandable that it is so.

    P.S:

    Grammar problems

    A poster created by Charles B. Falls in 1918 (exhibited further up) was one of the first recorded references to the term.

    In German, a compound noun is always a single word, so using two words "Teufel Hunden" is grammatically incorrect. The correct German would be Teufelshunde in nominative, genitive, and accusative cases, and Teufelshunden only in the dative. In either form, the linking element "s" steps between the words. Examples:

    Sie waren Teufelshunde. - they were devil dogs.
    Er war ein Teufelshund. - he was a devil dog.
    Er sprach von den Teufelshunden. - he talked about the devil dogs.

    Furthermore, the word "Teufelshund" is unknown in the German language, and may possibly be an example of Denglisch. The nearest equivalent is "Hllenhund" ("dog of hell"), the German translation of the mythical Kerberos; a term that can also be used to describe a reckless and courageous person. All this suggests that the Marines were never actually referred to as "devil dogs" by German WWI soldiers.[1]
    Additionally, as far as I know, the nicknames by Germans soldiers for enemy troops were usually short and non-martial, "Ivan", "der Russe", "der Ami", "der Tommy" so this American combination really smells like good propaganda.

    PPS: Ironically a German king is said to have shouted, in a famous battle roughly a 150 years earlier to his troops: "You cursed rascals, do you want to live forever?[1]" and I'm pretty sure this motivational line was use even before that.
    Last edited by Firn; 12-08-2011 at 09:36 AM.

  8. #608
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Nicknames supposedly in use with opposing forces have been proved to be propaganda fabrications so often that I generally ignore them.
    One such example is "Whispoering death" for the F4U Corsair; the Japanese only learned about their wartime use of this nickname after the war.


    By the way; in modern German I would either say

    "Teufelskerl" (admirable)
    or
    "Höllenhund" (not necessarily admirable, often rather despising).

    I've never read or heard "Teufelshund" before.

    A quick google search yielded pages full of entries where the word was used as a translation for "devil dog" in a fantasy context.

  9. #609
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default 5-20% shots hit the target in training

    IMHO a "gem" from KoW.

    I think this passage fits in here, although it is a general comment on firearms training and not Afg. specific. It is specific to the British Army today, with my emphasis:
    For example, they have identified that just 5 to 20 percent of shots have been hitting the target during live fire tactical training, a stunningly low figure. They have identified why this occurs (firing training is often viewed as box ticking exercise) and why it matters (COIN campaigns require precision shooting to ensure we accurately hit the targets we want to and avoid collateral damage against non-combatants). They have even thrown a little history into the mix: drawing a fascinating parallel between the recognition of low small arms expertise during the Boer War, the subsequent focus on firing training afterwards, and the high quality of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.
    Link to the source article which covers a far wider topic and the citation is within the second author's comments:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2012/02/no-...-were-british/
    davidbfpo

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