5.56 NATO Showing Insufficient Lethality in Iraq

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2004-08-24 10:59pm

It's a shame that the OICW was pushed back.

20mm mass reactive high explosive rounds. That's lethality, considering you don't hit someone in the shin or the forearm.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2004-08-24 11:34pm

Falkenhayn wrote:It's a shame that the OICW was pushed back.

20mm mass reactive high explosive rounds. That's lethality, considering you don't hit someone in the shin or the forearm.

It needs a lot more development. As is it right now, it is far too heavy and bulky to be a suitable replacement for a good assault rifle.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2004-08-24 11:52pm

Perinquus wrote:
Falkenhayn wrote:It's a shame that the OICW was pushed back.

20mm mass reactive high explosive rounds. That's lethality, considering you don't hit someone in the shin or the forearm.
It needs a lot more development. As is it right now, it is far too heavy and bulky to be a suitable replacement for a good assault rifle.

I know. Waiting for the next generation of microprocessors I gather.

I also heard that they were having serious reliability issues with the targetting systems.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-08-25 02:31am

Ma Deuce wrote:
Shep, the it's actually the MG3 that totally rules, what with being able to spit out 1,200 7.62mm rounds a minute . To add to the MG3's uberness, it's identical to the legendary MG42 in every way except caliber...

All that rate of fire gets you is the need to change barrels much more often, which is not good.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-08-25 02:36am

Falkenhayn wrote:It's a shame that the OICW was pushed back.

20mm mass reactive high explosive rounds. That's lethality, considering you don't hit someone in the shin or the forearm.

Actually the lethality of the 20mm grenades is quite low; there simply isn't enough mass in the grenade to get a lot of fragments. However it is very effective at causing a bunch of incapacitating wounds, and at the long ranges intended for those grenades it's not so vital that you kill the enemy instantly. Anyway, the stand lone grenade launcher that's being adapted instead of the OICW will be 25mm, which will give a increase in power much greater then the small caliber increase might suggest.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2004-08-25 02:47am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Ma Deuce wrote:
Shep, the it's actually the MG3 that totally rules, what with being able to spit out 1,200 7.62mm rounds a minute . To add to the MG3's uberness, it's identical to the legendary MG42 in every way except caliber...
All that rate of fire gets you is the need to change barrels much more often, which is not good.

Actually, the rate of fire was not a problem in WWII. The Germans had the option of reducing the rate of fire by the installation of a heavier bolt, but they appear to have seldom exercised it. The high rate of fire produced an extremely lethal beaten zone, and as long as you kept bursts down to 5-7 rounds, accuracy and controllability were no more a problem than with other machine guns. With that high rate of fire, a burst from the MG42 has been compared to a giant shotgun blast. It was a very effective weapon, which is why it is still in use by many countries today.

Sebastin · Post by **Sebastin** » 2004-08-25 04:18am

Perinquus wrote: Actually, the rate of fire was not a problem in WWII. The Germans had the option of reducing the rate of fire by the installation of a heavier bolt, but they appear to have seldom exercised it. The high rate of fire produced an extremely lethal beaten zone, and as long as you kept bursts down to 5-7 rounds, accuracy and controllability were no more a problem than with other machine guns. With that high rate of fire, a burst from the MG42 has been compared to a giant shotgun blast. It was a very effective weapon, which is why it is still in use by many countries today.

Actualy we were told to use 3 round bursts. 3-5 really but trying to make it 3 which is piss easy. The very first time we fired the MG3 at all was with 15 rounds and the task of getting at least 3 bursts out of them. Almost everyone managed 4 and many (including me) fired 5 accurate 3rnd bursts. Barrel change is well possible in ~5 seconds as well within about 30 minutes of holding the weapon the first time.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2004-08-25 04:35am

Sebastin wrote:
Perinquus wrote: Actually, the rate of fire was not a problem in WWII. The Germans had the option of reducing the rate of fire by the installation of a heavier bolt, but they appear to have seldom exercised it. The high rate of fire produced an extremely lethal beaten zone, and as long as you kept bursts down to 5-7 rounds, accuracy and controllability were no more a problem than with other machine guns. With that high rate of fire, a burst from the MG42 has been compared to a giant shotgun blast. It was a very effective weapon, which is why it is still in use by many countries today.
Actualy we were told to use 3 round bursts. 3-5 really but trying to make it 3 which is piss easy. The very first time we fired the MG3 at all was with 15 rounds and the task of getting at least 3 bursts out of them. Almost everyone managed 4 and many (including me) fired 5 accurate 3rnd bursts. Barrel change is well possible in ~5 seconds as well within about 30 minutes of holding the weapon the first time.

Doctrine may have changed a bit since the 40s. I have read that the Wehrmacht soldiers of WWII were trained to shoot 5-7 round bursts.

I have always regretted that the American attempt to copy the MG42 failed. We did try, so impressed were we with the MG42. But sadly, and rather inexplicably, someone forgot to take into account that the American .30-06 Springfield cartridge is just a bit longer than the German 7.92mm Mauser. They simply made a dimensionally exact copy of the MG42, except for a barrel and chamber sized for the .30-06. Unfortunately, the action was not quite long enough, so the bolt didn't recoil quite far enough to clear the longer cartridge and the American copy would fire one round and jam.

It really is a pity, for had we succeeded, and adopted a version of the MG42, we would have had a much better GMPG than the M60, which we got about a generation later. The M60 had some good points, but had several bad ones too, and the MG42 was a much better gun over all.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2004-08-25 01:10pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Falkenhayn wrote:It's a shame that the OICW was pushed back.

20mm mass reactive high explosive rounds. That's lethality, considering you don't hit someone in the shin or the forearm.
Actually the lethality of the 20mm grenades is quite low; there simply isn't enough mass in the grenade to get a lot of fragments. However it is very effective at causing a bunch of incapacitating wounds, and at the long ranges intended for those grenades it's not so vital that you kill the enemy instantly. Anyway, the stand lone grenade launcher that's being adapted instead of the OICW will be 25mm, which will give a increase in power much greater then the small caliber increase might suggest.

The arcticle in Popular Science indicated that there was delayed fuse and contact function for the 20 mike. I talking about cranking one of those directly into a target's center of mass. If you are addressing that, I can't understand how there could be poor lethality.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-08-25 01:15pm

Nothing beats the stopping power of the Birdman Nuke .50

Jade Falcon · Post by **Jade Falcon** » 2004-08-25 01:44pm

Isn't the M240 basically a licence build of the FN MAG?

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-08-25 01:54pm

Yup, because just about every infantry weapon the US has used since WWII has sucked shit.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-08-25 02:05pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Yup, because just about every infantry weapon the US has used since WWII has sucked shit.

WRONG!

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-08-25 02:12pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Yup, because just about every infantry weapon the US has used since WWII has sucked shit.

Oh really? So the M14, M16, M9, Benelli M1, and the MSG-90 "suck shit"?

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-08-25 02:12pm

Jade Falcon wrote:Isn't the M240 basically a licence build of the FN MAG?

Yes, but it's interesting to note that from a mechanical perspective, the MAG is little more than a belt fed version of the M1918 BAR...

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-08-25 02:13pm

Alyeska wrote:
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Yup, because just about every infantry weapon the US has used since WWII has sucked shit.
Oh really? So the M14, M16, M9, Benelli M1, and the MSG-90 "suck shit"?

The M9, Benelli M1 are Italian-designed weapons, and the MSG-90A1 is German.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-08-25 02:14pm

M-67....

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-08-25 02:17pm

Ma Deuce wrote:
Alyeska wrote:
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Yup, because just about every infantry weapon the US has used since WWII has sucked shit.
Oh really? So the M14, M16, M9, Benelli M1, and the MSG-90 "suck shit"?
The M9, Benelli M1 are Italian-designed weapons, and the MSG-90A1 is German.

Irrelevent. GAT said commented that the bulk of the US infantry weapons post WW2 are bad weapons. The M203 and M79 are two more weapons that are post WW2 and are very good weapon systems.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-08-25 02:32pm

Alyeska wrote:Irrelevent. GAT said commented that the bulk of the US infantry weapons post WW2 are bad weapons. The M203 and M79 are two more weapons that are post WW2 and are very good weapon systems.

Another example would be the M72 LAW, which was revolutionary in being the first disposable light-AT weapon. I've heard of soldiers that prefer the M72 to the AT4, because it's easier to lug around (especially given it's telescopic tube), and most vehicles that cannot be defeated by the latest versions of the M72 (It's still being developed and produced, and IIRC, they are up to M72A7) won't be defeated by an AT4 either. There are a number of countries that still use it, including Canada.

There's also sniper rifles to consider, like the M82, which is by far the most widely used large-caliber sniper rifle. As for normal-caliber rifles: Instead of the MSG90A1, you might have mentioned a completely indigenous American design, namely the M24/Remington 700...

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-08-25 02:45pm

Alyeska wrote:
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Yup, because just about every infantry weapon the US has used since WWII has sucked shit.
Oh really? So the M14, M16, M9, Benelli M1, and the MSG-90 "suck shit"?

The M14 was not a good assault rifle, it was too light for its bullet (but still heavy). The original M16 was a disaster. The rest aren't American.

rrelevent. GAT said commented that the bulk of the US infantry weapons post WW2 are bad weapons. The M203 and M79 are two more weapons that are post WW2 and are very good weapon systems.

Infantry weapons was a bad term, I was mainly refering to small arms.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-08-25 02:50pm

The original M16 was a disaster.

The original M16 was only a disaster because of logistics fuckups, namely the original rounds had the wrong powder (which left a residue that gummed up the action), and cleaning kits wern't issued with the earliest rifles, because they were assumed to be "self cleaning". Once these problems were solved, most of the M16A1's woes went away. The rifle itself did not have to be modified in any way.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2004-08-25 04:31pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote: he M14 was not a good assault rifle, it was too light for its bullet (but still heavy). The original M16 was a disaster. The rest aren't American.

The problem with the M14 was the fault of the cartridge being too powerful; there wasn't a thing in the world wrong with the design of the weapon. It was accurate, reliable, and easy to maintain.

As Ma Deuce pointed out, the problems that plagued the M16 were not really the fault of the design. They arose from the substitution of a faster and less clean burning powder that left more fouling in the mechanism, and the fact that the rifles were initially issued without cleaning kits. When these problems were solved, the M16 settled down to be a very reliable weapon. I'd like to see it replaced with a 6.8mm SPC version of the XM-8, because I do think the M16 is not perfect. It suffers from a cartridge that just a bit too small, and while it is reliable, its direct gas action demands a lot more maintainance time that other rifles need. The M14, for example, needed far less maintainance time because it used a gas piston instead of a direct gas action on the blot carrier.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-08-25 04:38pm

someone had BETTER address my M-67 point or FREAKING CONCEDE!!!

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-08-25 05:00pm

Falkenhayn wrote: The arcticle in Popular Science indicated that there was delayed fuse and contact function for the 20 mike. I talking about cranking one of those directly into a target's center of mass. If you are addressing that, I can't understand how there could be poor lethality.

Well a direct hit would certainly be lethal, but the weapon isn't designed to be used that way and the grenade launcher really isn't accurate enough for it, at most ranges your going to be lofting the grenade in an arc to hit the target via the help of the fire control computer. The contact fuse and delay action exists for piercing windows, not having the grenade explode inside someone's chest.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-08-25 06:12pm

The .223 Remington does have its advantages. It weights a lot less than .308 Winchester. 200 rounds of 5.56x45 weights 6.25 pounds, while 200 rounds of 7.62x51 weights 20 pounds.

But for roles where you don't need to carry as many rounds, a heavier more powerful cartridge would be better (duh). Something like the 6.8 Remington SPC. Which, incidentally, is used by the Barrett M-468.