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

  1. #581
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default "...one IMO should not plan for and accept that as the only certainty."

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    WW4 maybe, not WW2.
    That'll be with rocks and sticks -- no one will be able to afford the other stuff for long...
    We got some clues, got some thinkers - but only actual warfare will sort out the fools and force lessons on us.
    True.
    We simply lack good experiments...
    No way yet discovered to do that.
    Basic training is meant to be the basis for later unit and formation training - but units and formations on the front don't conduct the later any more.
    Also true -- and a good argument for not doing things the way we now do them.
    Short wars are desirable because they are typically less destructive than long ones. To win a war quickly you need to work for it - not prepare for a long one.
    I thought that was what I said???

  2. #582
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Flags, Politics, Bureaucracy and what should be...

    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    You spoke of 'firepower' not MGs.
    No, you spoke of firepower. See the attached screenshots. Merely responded to your usage.
    The moment you start to group these weapons centrally you end up having to 'attach' them to callsigns they have not trained with (enough) and this is not good for unit cohesion as they may be 'detached' again the next day.
    All arimeis are not compoised of Bands of Brothers. Many fight with crowds of people that don't know each other -- and some take so many casualties because of the type of warfare that turnover in units is often above 50% per week. I doubt you've had to deal with those factors. Some have.
    LMG (certainly the FN MAG) weapon handling is not rocket science and should not be considered a specialist weapon.
    In order, true and I disagree.
    The tactical employment for a particular war trumps the training and should lead and dictate where the training emphasis should lie.
    We can agree. Pity that most Generals and the Politicians do not. Once again reality trumps the ideal.
    ...Yank soldiers are normally smart but something is preventing them from acting intelligently on this...Yes BUT... it is insane to prosecute any war (even the smallest) in a halfhearted manner.
    Again, I agree. Again reality intrudes and -- this time the Generals get a bye -- the politicians don't seem to realize how dotty they are...
    Last edited by Ken White; 10-27-2011 at 01:20 AM.

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    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    Weapons development, procurement and squad/platoon design (TO&E, tactics) should be in great part about psychology.
    I have to vehemently disagree.

    Following that course is akin to hoping and wishing that you got it right.

    As for IAR doctrine, there is none. I wish that weren't the case, but beyond the mindset of the antagonists who led the experimentation and testing back in the late '90s and first part of the past decade, there has been zero doctrine, or TTPs for that matter, pushed out in support of the IAR. If you know of any, please share.

    I agree that you could argue about the ideology note, but again, don't confuse sound bytes with practical ideology.
    Last edited by jcustis; 10-27-2011 at 02:01 AM.

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    Fuchs:

    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.
    I define sniper in the context of an infantry squad or platoon as quite the same as designated marksman.
    * an emphasis on camouflage, concealment, cover and deception to the point that he becomes quite invisible even while shooting (including muzzle flash and dust cloud concerns)
    * aimed single shots of unusually good accuracy

    To me the difference between a sniper and a designated marksman is
    * DM is organic to infantry small unit, sniper at most attached to it
    * sniper is more extreme; more specialised weapon, more fieldcraft training
    * sniper is trained as forward observer and usually better at ranging
    * sniper has greater freedom of movement relative to small infantry unit.
    * sniper has his own fire discipline
    * sniper isn't meant to participate in assaults

    So in the context of this discussion they're practically the same and I become occasionally lazy enough to not differentiate between them.

    M16A1 LMG.
    WW II most efficent Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä used rifle that was used by regular infantry with open sights. No optics, no tuning, just marksmanship and discipline. He killed approx the same number of Soviets with Finnish SMG. Single shot rifle plus SMG. If you have red interviews with German WW II snipers then shooting distance 500m was quite rare. Today US military has rifles with Trijicon sights. Hyh would envy. It all depends on training like Ken says.

    M16A1 LMG. Just two thoughts. Those rifles didn't have free float barrels and barrels for accurate shooting at longer distances.

    I have been thinking for some time why we need those small unit level marksmen at all, when there is possibility that machine gunners can hit the same target with 10th round? ... or why we need machine gunners if we have marksmen in small units? Machine gunners were in the beginning compensating low shooting speeds of regular infantry with bolt action rifles. That fire power aspect. Second, due to the bipods and tripods machine guns are more stable for long range shooting. Today you can attatch those shooting aides to your rifle rails. And here we are talking about marksman's kind of machinegun IAR

    Like many here have mentioned here there is ballistics aspect. 7,62x51 flies further and penetrates better than 5,56x45. That's why MG's are still good asset for regular infantry with 5,56 ammo. Will this change with 7,62 IAR?

  5. #585
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    Here is 21. century infantry's MG Maxim (if we are talking relative fire power)

    http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...mm-mk19-mount/

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    No.

    "(1) 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."

    There, fixed it.

    You cannot turn most riflemen into high firepower soldiers because competent armies select their best infantrymen for the high performance weapons and equip the low performance infantrymen with assault rifles (to suggest to them that they ain't more porters than anything else).
    Low performance infantryman + high performance weapon = still low performance

    You cannot kick all low performance infantrymen out of the infantry (just some real duds) quickly because that would be inefficient. You'd have too few infantrymen. It's better to choose your small unit leaders, machine gunners and scoped riflemen carefully and assign helper infantrymen to them.
    It would take major personnel system improvements to solve this without resorting to a tiny all-SF infantry force.

    Btw JMA, I already wrote about this a year ago.
    Your article is good as usual.

    In cases of general mobilisation where you have little time and little ability to select you are correct (probably without reservation).

    The problem I see is that the upward flow of training seems to be faulty.

    I think we can believe that everything is built on the foundation of individual training. One understands that when a mobilisation takes place training gets shortened, less experienced and qualified instructors are used then the troops get to be commanded by rapidly promoted, probably poorly selected, under qualified and experienced officers (and probably also NCOs) in battle.

    What are the basic skills required of basic infantryman?

    Basically he gets trained in fieldcraft, minor tactics and all platoon weapons and equipment (including bits and pieces on map reading, medical, radio voice procedure, survival etc etc) - I have a 1979 18 week training programme somewhere.

    All recruits do range firing classification on both their personal weapon (FN) and the platoon LMG (FN MAG) in week 9.

    The whole guiding training design is to teach the recruit how to close with and kill the enemy using the tools of his trade.

    Not to conduct presence patrols (while playing hop-scotch with the IEDs), handing out sweeties to kids, bandaging cuts on kids hands and feet, escorting veterinary services around the place and securing LZs for VIP visits (etc etc).

    You take an 18 year old and you turn him into a killing machine. In a peacetime army his is a volunteer and in a general mobilisation you have no option. Giving this type of training to conscripts in peacetime has ethical connotations about which I have concerns.

    After the basic training you concentrate on the next level from fire-team (or in our case the 4-man stick) to section and so on.

    My read based on the information I have is that Brit independent platoon level operations are 50:50 while any independent deployment at section or fire-team levels is simply out of the question even against a mediocre enemy such as the Taliban. They have let something slip.

    Remember with regular soldiers serving on 3/5/7 year contracts you have time to work on the even the dummies to bring them up to the acceptable standard and even beyond.

    Remember the four steps of training... demonstration, explanation, imitation, repetition. Good instructors and good platoon sergeants will keep the repetition going until the required standard is met. (Officers tend to get bored too quickly)

    I found the motivation of wanting to stay alive worked pretty well for the vast majority.

    When you operate independently at fire-team (4-man stick) level you have the commander, the gunner, the stick medic and a buckshee rifleman. Normally the buckshee rifleman is a new kid fresh out of training and holds that position until he graduates up wards to one of the other three positions. You can hide a dummy there for a while but yes later he ends up blocking a spot reserved for feeding through the new kids.

    Rhodesia was pretty unique in that it produced some fine young men (from good British stock) - and I am talking as a South African here. I little known fact is that 42% - yes 42% - of Rhodesian second world war volunteers ended up commissioned in the British Military and despite many entering the Air Force as pilots it remains a pretty impressive statistic. So we had them coming through as conscripts. Amazing material for a small country.

    Finally, I have always said that platoon weapons must be like the commander golf bag, he makes his selection of what he needs according to where he is, what he is meant to do and who he is up against. Select you clubs for the shots you need to make and leave the rest in the bag.

    Good article! Worth a thread of its own.

  7. #587
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kaur View Post
    Fuchs:

    WW II most efficent Finnish sniper Simo Hyh used rifle that was used by regular infantry with open sights. No optics, no tuning, just marksmanship and discipline. He killed approx the same number of Soviets with Finnish SMG. Single shot rifle plus SMG. If you have red interviews with German WW II snipers then shooting distance 500m was quite rare. Today US military has rifles with Trijicon sights. Hyh would envy. It all depends on training like Ken says.

    M16A1 LMG. Just two thoughts. Those rifles didn't have free float barrels and barrels for accurate shooting at longer distances.

    I have been thinking for some time why we need those small unit level marksmen at all, when there is possibility that machine gunners can hit the same target with 10th round? ... or why we need machine gunners if we have marksmen in small units? Machine gunners were in the beginning compensating low shooting speeds of regular infantry with bolt action rifles. That fire power aspect. Second, due to the bipods and tripods machine guns are more stable for long range shooting. Today you can attatch those shooting aides to your rifle rails. And here we are talking about marksman's kind of machinegun IAR
    I know about that sniper, but he was sniping in a specific setting; winter, forests, not exactly competent adversaries (and German snipers did not count kills during combat, jsut kills done when they were on their own).

    The widely quoted interviews with IIRC three German WW2 snipers confirmed that shots at 600 m or with 6x sight were rare and rarely needed. The Russians of their period were much-respected for their quick digging and good camo discipline (by the Germans). This yielded less targets, especially at long ranges.
    I expect a modern infantryman to be lethal AND at least until the first shot quite undetectable at 100-300 m. So there's no need for a specialist to do that at 100-300 m.
    A designated rifleman should in my opinion have a calibre advantage over normal infantry. This distorts the ammo standardisation, but it also emans that the squad has an organic ability to penetrate weak cover (walls, trees) in excess of what most of its guns can do.


    The great advantage of machineguns is their effectiveness against moving targets.
    The great advantages of aimed single shots are minimal firing signature (including dust) and the ability to hit tiny targets (such as helmet at 300 m) somewhat reliably before they duck into cover.

    The only guns that combined both were afaik the HK 21, HK 21E and HK G8 (essentially three versions of the same modular gun).

  8. #588
    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    The great advantage of machineguns is their effectiveness against moving targets.
    By what standard? I'm sorry Fuchs, but can you please provide more depth to this? I'm scratching my head as to where you draw this conclusion. Do you mean machine guns employed in a final protective fire against assaulting troops?

    I would nod if you had said that the machine gun is at its best against enfilade, massed targets.

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    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    I was thinking of lead shooting. Soldiers usually don't get the lead right, and competent opponents don't give them many free attempts.

    A machinegunner can use a burst (~20 rds) to cover the full range of probable leads (1m ahead of running man, 2m, 3, 4, 5) in a very short time period (a German "Sprung" run from one relatively safe location to another lasts only a few seconds) thanks to the controllable full auto fire capability.

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    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    Okay, I see what you were saying. Still not sure I agree, because in practice, it tends to be a lot harder than what you describe.

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    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jcustis View Post
    Okay, I see what you were saying. Still not sure I agree, because in practice, it tends to be a lot harder than what you describe.
    It depends on the bipod/tripod. With MG3 on bipod I was only able to spray into a general direction (some heavier guys had it under fine control, though).
    Quite the same weapon on a good tripod saws through the landscape at your will.

  12. #592
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Very true

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    Quite the same weapon on a good tripod saws through the landscape at your will.
    True of most other MGs as well....

    Amazing how well things work when one uses them correctly.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    It depends on the bipod/tripod. With MG3 on bipod I was only able to spray into a general direction (some heavier guys had it under fine control, though).
    Quite the same weapon on a good tripod saws through the landscape at your will.
    Is there still use for the tripod with dismounted Infantry GPMGs then?

    I ask b/c I once had a conversation with my ranger buddy during the mountain phase of that school (this was many years ago, so forgive the "one time in training" story). He was badged Navy Seal with one non-combat float under his belt. For the life of him he could not understand the point of having a tripod. At the time, I couldn't tell if that came from the differences between SOF and Conventional Infantry tactics (which shouldn't be that different when it comes to small unit patrolling, methinks), or whether we simply used the tripod in the Infantry b/c that's what we've always had.

    Basically the only thing we could come up with is that it was good to have for Final Protective Fires and in a static defense. My later experience is that a tripod was too heavy to use in the mountains of A-stan, and too unwieldly to use in the cities in the Sunni Triangle. But am I missing out on something, besides the usually caveat that METT-TC applies?

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    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    Basically the only thing we could come up with is that it was good to have for Final Protective Fires and in a static defense. My later experience is that a tripod was too heavy to use in the mountains of A-stan, and too unwieldly to use in the cities in the Sunni Triangle. But am I missing out on something, besides the usually caveat that METT-TC applies?
    Indirect fire, employed from both a reverse slop defense, as well as a reverse slope support-by-fire position, used to be taught to infantry officers and is still taught in machine gun leader courses. As for application, that tends to be difficult to do when pre-deployment training takes the fore.

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    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vojnik View Post
    For the life of him he could not understand the point of having a tripod. At the time, I couldn't tell if that came from the differences between SOF and Conventional Infantry tactics (which shouldn't be that different when it comes to small unit patrolling, methinks), or whether we simply used the tripod in the Infantry b/c that's what we've always had.

    Basically the only thing we could come up with is that it was good to have for Final Protective Fires and in a static defense.

    This made me recall an article from IIRC the 90's, Infantry Magazine probably. It was about the far ambush and how it's being neglected (IIRC "far" as "beyond hand grenade range").

    I agree that the elaborate world war tripods are too much today (they weighed and costed as much as the machine gun itself).

    The optimum nowadays is a tripod that does dampen the recoil and dispersion somewhat AND makes use of the shoulder. The point of the whole thing is to make the machine gun more controllable than on bipod, after all.
    This is especially important the more lightweight the machinegun becomes (desirable) and the more firepower it has (MG3 is quite extreme in this regard).

    More elaborate tripods are only debatable if they at least use a periscope for a fully or almost fully covered fighting position.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vojnik View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Chris jM; 10-29-2011 at 11:26 PM. Reason: spelling fixations...
    '...the gods of war are capricious, and boldness often brings better results than reason would predict.'
    Donald Kagan

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    Default Bad habits are easy to acquire and quite difficult to lose...

    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.

  18. #598
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris jM View Post
    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

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    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

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Yet another example.

    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.

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