Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Having been involved with the US Army Troop test of the M-16, I read most of the SALVO papers in 1963 and have looked at some of them since.
I've never actually seen the complete set of papers. What I know of them is the ARDEC data that relates to hand-held dispersion. I concur the data they gathered was very much open to abuse, and lacked certain aspects of operational reality. However a lot of basic ballistics and physics is pretty useful stuff.
The SALVO study led to a host of idiotic ideas like 'salvo' rounds, flechettes from small arms and other essentially civilian or technician driven idiocy.
No argument there.
S.L.A. Marshall and Grossman are both wrong. Troops will fire -- and they will hit targets if they are well trained. Western Armies do not invest enough in training and the inability to fire accurately in combat or when exhausted is the result. That can be -- and should be -- fixed.
yep, but these guys won't stay down! I fully concur that there are things you can teach, that reduce the bio-mechanical effects, associated with fatigue, but I am not sure you can do anything about the mental. One NATO country has just done some trials on sleep depravation effects on marksmanship, and they show very sever drop offs after only 24 hours without sleep
The M855 will kill (as opposed to hitting a target on a range) past 500 meters only with luck, a better than average shooter and the right weapon -
Can't say you're wrong. I have little faith in individual combat shots over 200m.