MAJ Ehrhart - Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afgh.

[Chris jM]

Is there still use for the tripod with dismounted Infantry GPMGs then?

Absolutely! A decent tripod can almost double the effective range of a 7.62 MG. The combination of tripod-stabilised fire and a tight beaten zone (as you'll normally find with a 7.62 calibre MG) is a potent combination. A bipod-supported MG provides a great platform combining mobility and firepower, but a tripod really enhances the accuracy and range of the weapon in a very small amount of time and with minimal training burden.

Finding the situation in which this capability is of benefit is, as you note, always down to the situation. It's not a capability I'd spurn out-of-hand though. Being able to deliver accurate, sustained fire onto a narrow area from a position of concealment from over 1km away can be a very useful effect to employ from a fire-support position during offensive ops, or more generally during a defensive or delaying battle. It may also be the only effect available to you, especially if your mortars and artillery are unavailable or being used elsewhere (or remaining hidden).

Fuchs are you aware of any current tripod / periscope designs that would allow an MG to fire from behind cover? I'm imagining you'd need to have it on a 'slide' (in much the same way as the SE5a mounted the Lewis gun in WW1) so you could reload / clear stoppages, but I think the concept has a lot of merit.

[Ken White]

We picked up a slew of bad habits in Viet Nam and Ranger School embedded most of them as did IOBC -- interestingly, because of far less Armor branch exposure in Viet Nam, AOBC did not fall into that trap. We are picking up more rand even worse habits as a result of Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is, as noted a considerable difference between SOF operations conventional operations. Small unit patrols are one thing and the tactical efforts are similar -- but both do a great many things aside from conducting patrols (though in the current wars no one is really doing much else...). That is dangerous, a mid or high intensity conflict will shred units with little besides current experience. Thus far in 2011, all ISAF has incurred 509 fatalities (combat / non combat not diffrentiated). In a mid intensity conflict like Viet Nam or Korea, one Division could endure that many killed -- or more, many more -- in a quarter. In WW II like conditions, it could reach that figure in a week or two.

The current fights obviously provide little to no use of tripods -- except for the M2 and Mk19. One has to wonder if the M240 were more often tripod mounted if as many .50s and 40mm would be about.

Chris jM has it right. As he points out, defense is far from the only use for tripods. The use of really accurate fire as a support measure in the offense has great merit -- you cannot provide accurate long range fire from a bipod so no thinking Commander is going to allow his MGs to fire over the heads of advancing troops unless the guns are tripod mounted. That occurred often in WW II and Korea, only rarely in Viet Nam and is even more rare today -- yet it is needed capability. Sometimes the organic stuff is all that's available...

As jcustis notes:

As for application, that tends to be difficult to do when pre-deployment training takes the fore.

That's reality -- and that is the danger. Training for the here and now should not be in lieu of needed training, it should be in addition to. We often forget that; we forgot it post Viet Nam. We're forgetting it today. Hopefully we will not repeat that 1970-90 mistake.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs are you aware of any current tripod / periscope designs that would allow an MG to fire from behind cover? I'm imagining you'd need to have it on a 'slide' (in much the same way as the SE5a mounted the Lewis gun in WW1) so you could reload / clear stoppages, but I think the concept has a lot of merit.

There's still the classic MG 34 / 42 /3 /74 tripod...



link

[kaur]

With the US military reportedly spending over $28 million on the new M240 machine gun variant, the M240L, Special Forces soldiers have found that the new machine guns cannot be mounted on vehicles. The M240L uses titanium in key areas to help lighten the machine gun, and ultimately the load carried by soldiers, by five pounds.

http://kitup.military.com/2011/07/ne...n-vehicle.html


hosting images

[Ken White]

http://kitup.military.com/2011/07/ne...n-vehicle.html

Developers do not like to talk to users, they prefer to adopt elegant engineering solutions. Thus the SOF guys have the SCAR they do not like or want and now the 240L -- which, predictably and as always occurs, is 'lightened' to the point of non-reliability. Amazing as this had already been discovered with the Mk46 / Mk 48...

The article notes that the troops pointed out this shortfall:

When one Special Forces NCO brought this deficiency to the forefront in a meeting to a group of officers who were overseeing the program, “-they looked at me like I was crazy!”

I'm sure they did -- they didn't listen to anyone, particularly a bunch of 'dumb NCOs,' during development and were so focused on lightening for the average weapons squad they lost sight of other things. Typical and occurs all too often. Mission focus is necessary -- excessive mission focus has always been a killer.

I shudder to think what might happen if the weapon was confronted with the harsher and more frequent vibrations of Helicopter mounting.

Messing with things that work well is rarely advisable, not listening to actual users and not testing all conceivable scenarios to save time and money are never advisable. Check out the light weight Tripod in the picture Kaur provided. Durable, huh...

Using MGs where they are most effective and providing adequately sized crews so the weight can be shifted and shared will lessen the load carrying concern. We've spent probably millions of dollars creating a weapon that is lighter so it can be more easily carried by people who shouldn't be carrying it in places where it shouldn't be used. Flipping brilliant.

[Fuchs]

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.

[Ken White]

...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...

[kaur]

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/

[kaur]

Fuchs, thank you.

http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot....ry-theory.html

[Fuchs]

Fuchs, thank you.

http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot....ry-theory.html

Only the last 40% of that text are relevant here.
I guess everybody here knows about the history.

[RJ]

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

[Firn]

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.

[Fuchs]

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.