Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Both are still in production, FN restarted building M3s a couple years ago for use on helicopters. This happened because the US military lost faith in the 7.62mm gatling gun, which doesn’t out range RPGs and doesn’t work after you've been shot down and have to fight to the death at your crash site.

Anyway, the F-84 has four machine guns in the nose wrapped around the air intake and two in the wing roots; you might not be able to mount anything better then a pair of 20mm M39s in the nose as upgraded firepower. The M61 is totally out of the question. A slight chance exist though that a pair of 30mm guns could be made to fit, and most single barrel 30mm weapons will trash even a 20mm galting for weight of explosive placed on target. Having space for the ammo would be the main problem.

Gunpods suck, forgot about hitting anything in air combat with one. Even against ground targets accuracy is insufficient for hitting point targets like tanks.

Keep the M3's in the wing roots as a supplementary armament and give the main punch as a single 30mm in the nose with a plentiful ammo supply?

[Sidewinder]

Question, Mr. Slade: Does the US military store machinery needed to build firearms? Considering the 5.56 mm NATO's proven ineffectiveness against Baldricks, I'm assuming there'll be a GREAT demand for larger caliber weapons, e.g., the M14 or even license production of AK47s for American soldiers and marines.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Question, Mr. Slade: Does the US military store machinery needed to build firearms? Considering the 5.56 mm NATO's proven ineffectiveness against Baldricks, I'm assuming there'll be a GREAT demand for larger caliber weapons, e.g., the M14 or even license production of AK47s for American soldiers and marines.

*giggles* For starters, read before making comments--the M-14 (at least in the original calibre) and the AK-47 aren't going to cut it. We're talking Elk-hunting rounds here, or smokeless-filled calibres originally designed to work with blackpowder. Hollow-cavity bullets or the likes of Black Talon are a must, of course.

Fortunately for the world, America is the arsenal of democracy for a reason. We are quite capable of manufacturing more guns than you can comprehend, and rather simply, due to our immense civilian market, and our ammunition making capability is even bigger. We just need to switch over the production lines.

Which will, it will rapidly become apparent, need to be toward bigger and bigger rounds....


Ed:

Hey, Stuart, Kim du Toit did an article a while ago on an M1 Garand chambered for .338 Winchester Magnum. It works fine, and mate that thing with hollow-cavity ammunition and we may very well have our service rifle of the Celestial Wars. By extension, I am certain that the M14 could fire .338 magnum as well, but we might want to disable the full automatic as I imagine that couldn't be healthy--and we can't waste ammunition anyway.

As, to quote:

"In trying to determine the ultimate strength of the gun, Mr. Garand built up progressively higher proof loads in increments of 5,000 lbs. pressure, from the regular proof load of 70,000 lbs. to the extreme figure of 120,000 lbs. per square inch. At this later figure, cracked left lugs on the bolt began to be encountered. A gun in which the bolt had the left lug cracked by one of these excessive high pressure overloads was then fired an endurance test of 5,000 rounds of service ammunition, using the cracked bolt, which showed no further deterioration. The US M1 rifle thus has perhaps the strongest action of any military shoulder rifle in existence at this time."

It appears the Garand and by extension the M14 can easily handle being rechambered for .338 winchester magnum, which gives us a 225 grain bullet fired at 2,900 fps. Mate that with maximally designed hollow-cavity ammunition and we may very well have the gun we need to effectively provide our infantry with the ability to kill Baldricks reliably and regularly with a very limited number of rounds. They apparently also have it in .458, but I'd be more worried about the ability of the gun to handle that in sustained battle conditions.

However, if we start grabbing every M1 in existence and retrofitting it on these lines, we can outfit the new infantry divisions fairly well--certainly enough to learn the lessons of this stand in Hit. I suppose one advantage of .338 over .458 is the ability to stuff more in the magazine, particularly of the M14. But it depends mostly on the stopping power of each round vs. baldricks.

[[R_H]]

At the range where .50 Beowulf would be effective--remember that's a pistol cartridge--just use a damned shotgun loaded with slugs. The .45-70 Government is for firing at Baldricks at hundreds of meters while still remaining something you can put into a conveniently man portable rifle.

Well, we can standardize logistics across the two calibres while getting rid of any machineguns lighter than the M2. That would help a lot; we already use multiple calibres at that level as it stands, 5.56mm and 7.62mm. We can saw off the barrel of the shotgun, or more precisely just build it with a very short barrel, since it's there for extremely close quarters fighting only, which will save some weight, as will a specifically military design. Semi-automatic heavy shotguns don't kick so dearly as the non-semi-autos. I'm not sure why rate of fire would suffer so much in terms of your potential to kill; remember, we're talking dum-dum bullets in .45-70 here, no normal rounds. That means a single shot should be able to take down a Baldrick reliably. Which means in your magazine you have the capability to kill, say, 5 baldricks. Right now you can empty an entire magazine of 5.56mm and kill one. If you're lucky.

.45-70 seems to have roughly the same accuracy and trajectories (man-sized target at 300m) out of a long barrel as .50 Beowulf and .458 SOCOM. Shotguns and large bore ARs would have roughly the same performance; however shotguns are much less accurate, around 6MOA at 100 meters. According to the manufacturer the.458 SOCOM is capable of .5MOA at 100 meters with hand loads but is usually in the 1MOA range at 100 meters. However, it’s fairly short ranged (100 to 150m with the 16” barrel, but the 24” Alexander Arms Beowulf Overwatch is capable of hitting life-sized targets of wildlife at 400m and up to 600m), but like you said, either way it would provide roughly the same performance at short ranges as a shotgun. The upside though, is that the uppers are compatible with any mil-spec lower and current magazines. The point is, it puts something that can put down Baldricks quicker than 5.56mm, in a package that American soldiers are familiar with and with which the majority have trained with. The Saiga-12 is available with an 8” barrel from Tromix. I wouldn’t be surprised if a semi-automatic shotgun based on the M-16 would be developed, like the Saiga-12 and the AK.

Why are you so keen on the .45-70 round, considering it’s a fairly non-flat shooting round at long ranges?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

At the range where .50 Beowulf would be effective--remember that's a pistol cartridge--just use a damned shotgun loaded with slugs. The .45-70 Government is for firing at Baldricks at hundreds of meters while still remaining something you can put into a conveniently man portable rifle.

The .458 SOCOM, however, duplicates the .45-70 Government's ballistics in a cartridge that can be used in bog-standard M16 magazines (ten rounds in a 30 round mag with the correct upper.) Though these big, slow rounds have only modestly longer point-blank range than shotgun slugs do (fat bullets with lousy ballistic coefficients = rainbow trajectories.) Beyond the first couple hundred meters, you have to start shooting these rifles like artillery pieces. Yes, buffalo were killed by .45-70 class cartridges at hundreds of meters, but these shots were taken by accomplished marksmen in low-stress situations against suicidally compliant targets.

I wouldn't count out rounds like the 7.62x51 NATO just yet. I imagine M4s would give the baldricks much more pause than the M16s and it would improve squad survivability until they came out with heavier infantry weapons. Even the hoary .30-06 Springfield can be loaded with 220 grain bullets at 2500 ft/sec. These don't carry quite the momentum of a heavy .458 caliber round to be sure, but they still make for decent stop-gap solutions capitalizing on existing stocks. Though as one starts to go up in firepower, one starts to experience, more and more, the problem of the gun hurting as much on the butt-end as it does on the recieving end.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why are you so keen on the .45-70 round, considering it’s a fairly non-flat shooting round at long ranges?

As you see, as I did more research, I already changed my mind in favour of .338 magnum or .458 magnum, both of which can be fitted (to the original receiver, no less!) to the M1 Garand and M14.

New info, more: The McCan M1s apparently have a capacity for five rounds of .458 magnum when adapted for that calibre. Note, again, due to the shortness of the .458 magnum bullet (which winchester has long been criticized for), it can actually fit just fine. That will turn out to have been one hell of a blessing in disguise. This is going to kick like a bitch, but then, soldiers were trained to handle that in the .455/.577 Martini, so why not here? This means that a similarly chambered M14 could have a magazine with at least 12 rounds; not bad, that.

And, again, that we're going to want hollow-cavity ammunition is of no question at this point, I'd say.

[pdf27]

It appears the Garand and by extension the M14 can easily handle being rechambered for .338 winchester magnum, which gives us a 225 grain bullet fired at 2,900 fps. Mate that with maximally designed hollow-cavity ammunition and we may very well have the gun we need to effectively provide our infantry with the ability to kill Baldricks reliably and regularly with a very limited number of rounds.

Probably want to use .338 Laupa rather than .338 Winchester - it's about 10% more powerful and is in current NATO use (including the US). It's 9mm longer overall though (just over 1/3 inch)

It's also worth considering other rifles beyond the M14 if you're going to change calibres - the FN-FAL is likely to be highly suitable, and the AR-15 started out as the AR-10 in 7.62mm NATO so the operating principle could presumably be scaled up fairly easily to bigger rounds.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The .458 SOCOM, however, duplicates the .45-70 Government's ballistics in a cartridge that can be used in bog-standard M16 magazines (ten rounds in a 30 round mag with the correct upper.) Though these big, slow rounds have only modestly longer point-blank range than shotgun slugs do (fat bullets with lousy ballistic coefficients = rainbow trajectories.) Beyond the first couple hundred meters, you have to start shooting these rifles like artillery pieces. Yes, buffalo were killed by .45-70 class cartridges at hundreds of meters, but these shots were taken by accomplished marksmen in low-stress situations against suicidally compliant targets.

I wouldn't count out rounds like the 7.62x51 NATO just yet. I imagine M4s would give the baldricks much more pause than the M16s and it would improve squad survivability until they came out with heavier infantry weapons. Even the hoary .30-06 Springfield can be loaded with 220 grain bullets at 2500 ft/sec. These don't carry quite the momentum of a heavy .458 caliber round to be sure, but they still make for decent stop-gap solutions capitalizing on existing stocks. Though as one starts to go up in firepower, one starts to experience, more and more, the problem of the gun hurting as much on the butt-end as it does on the recieving end.

M4s are M16 carbines, so what are you talking about? They have even more inferior ballistics. As for the M1 and M14, I'm already taking about refitting them for the .458 winchester magnum as an ideal general-use service rifle; I dropped the .45-70 after doing some deeper looking at it. We need both high velocity and fairly heavy bullets. But not just fairly heavy bullets; expanding rounds are where it's at. We need to tear channels through Baldricks the size of a doubled fist to take them down for the count.

[Beowulf]

.50 Beowulf is a rifle cartridge, Mari. It was designed to have a similar overall length to a 5.56x45mm while being compatible with existing bolts (namely 7.62x39). The idea was that all you'd need is a new upper reciever/barrel, and you'd have a working gun. It also happens to have relatively similar velocity and energy to the .45-70 Government you're so fond of. The .458 SOCOM is similar, but has better sectional density bullets available. One of the designed uses for both rounds is taking down heavy game animals. Baldricks almost fit that to a T. And since the existing magazines will hold ten rounds, with only a follower replacement, you get a higher sustained rate of fire, which will help in repelling a Baldrick assault.

As for aircraft armament, if M3s are back in production, I say we go with those. Most other armament fits would require some reengineering of the gun bays. I wasn't thinking of actually mounting a gunpod, but rather was using it as a weight comparison. The problem with 30mm rounds is that the USAF doesn't have any preexisting guns that are appropriate for a fighter. They're either far too large, or don't have a sufficient rate of fire. This is also why I didn't suggest the M39.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

.50 Beowulf is a rifle cartridge, Mari. It was designed to have a similar overall length to a 5.56x45mm while being compatible with existing bolts (namely 7.62x39). The idea was that all you'd need is a new upper reciever/barrel, and you'd have a working gun. It also happens to have relatively similar velocity and energy to the .45-70 Government you're so fond of. The .458 SOCOM is similar, but has better sectional density bullets available. One of the designed uses for both rounds is taking down heavy game animals. Baldricks almost fit that to a T. And since the existing magazines will hold ten rounds, with only a follower replacement, you get a higher sustained rate of fire, which will help in repelling a Baldrick assault.

You know, you should maybe read before replying? I already dropped the .45-70 about ten posts back and am working on other things, and this is getting irritating now that three people have done it in a row.

Though a .50 cal cartridge designed to fit the dimensions of a 5.56mm, howevermuch it might technically be a rifle cartridge, isn't going to have the ballistic characteristics of a magnum round. Not like, I suppose, in close-range fighting that will be a problem--but a lot of the fighting will probably take place considerably at range.

Garands with a heavy magnum round like the ones I've been talking about remain the best solution, particularly for mass production. .338 lapua magnum may turn out to be the most workable solution there (apparently they go up to 300 grain bullets, which is probably what we need) Already a NATO round and the best compromise between ammunition that can be carried and stopping power that we'll probably be able to get. I wonder how long it will take to start mass production of hollow-cavity rounds for it? That, and refitting as many Garands and M14s as we get our hands on.

As for aircraft armament, if M3s are back in production, I say we go with those. Most other armament fits would require some reengineering of the gun bays. I wasn't thinking of actually mounting a gunpod, but rather was using it as a weight comparison. The problem with 30mm rounds is that the USAF doesn't have any preexisting guns that are appropriate for a fighter. They're either far too large, or don't have a sufficient rate of fire. This is also why I didn't suggest the M39.

Oh, I have no problem with the M3 on the F-84K.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Nix the Lapua on the Garand and M14, by the way. Nice idea, but it won't work without basically building new guns, which is pointless. I want something that can work by refitting the existing huge stock of the two rifles. The reason is that the overall length of the cartridge is longer. .30-06 government, .458 winchester magnum, and .338 winchester magnum are all 3.340 inches long in overall length. I had assumed that people proposing cartridges to refit rifles with would have checked in advance if that cartridge could actually fit in the rifle in question. Oops, shouldn't make assumptions.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

As it stands, it seems the best strategy is to issue as many shotguns and M14s to soldiers as we can, and then start simultaneously retrofitting M16s to operate with heavier calibres (I'll leave that debate over which to someone else), while repossessing every single Garand in the United States and starting to rebuild them all for .458 winchester mag. We still have production capability of the M1, whereas the M14 production toolings were sold to Taiwan. Fortunately, there's several modern M1 designs out there which can accomadate a box magazine, which gives at least 12-round magazine capacity in .458 mag. So while the rebuilt old rifles will only offer a fairly limited 5 rounds, twelve will be available in new-builds. Having multiple calibres is bad, but I don't see how we can avoid it if we're going to give all the requisite stopping power to our infantry, until we can manage to build a truly staggering number of rifles with the most powerful cartridge available.

[[R_H]]

M4s are M16 carbines, so what are you talking about? They have even more inferior ballistics. As for the M1 and M14, I'm already taking about refitting them for the .458 winchester magnum as an ideal general-use service rifle; I dropped the .45-70 after doing some deeper looking at it. We need both high velocity and fairly heavy bullets. But not just fairly heavy bullets; expanding rounds are where it's at. We need to tear channels through Baldricks the size of a doubled fist to take them down for the count.

M4s don't have that much more inferior ballistics than the 20" M16s (lower velocities out of the barrel) but the ballistics problems show up in the short barrel rifles (12" and less). Why are you looking at the M1 and M14 as general-use rifles? It'd take even longer to re-equip the troops, because most of them would need to be trained to use that weapon (different controls layout etc). Regarding the .458 WM, you might as well use .338 Lapua. It's in-service already (not with the US though) and 300 grain round is more powerful (out of the same length barrel) than the .458 WM. Plus there's the AR-30, which is chamber for .338 (although it's bolt-action) and there's the RND2000, available with barrels from 20" to 26" butweighs in at 6.35kg

[pdf27]

Nix the Lapua on the Garand and M14, by the way. Nice idea, but it won't work without basically building new guns, which is pointless. I want something that can work by refitting the existing huge stock of the two rifles. The reason is that the overall length of the cartridge is longer. .30-06 government, .458 winchester magnum, and .338 winchester magnum are all 3.340 inches long in overall length. I had assumed that people proposing cartridges to refit rifles with would have checked in advance if that cartridge could actually fit in the rifle in question. Oops, shouldn't make assumptions.

Sorry, didn't realise that the Winchester Magnum was the same length as .30-06. I was assuming that round was longer than the original anyway so if you're going to modify the magazine/feed mechanism it's worth doing a bigger mod for a better round that's already in mass production. Rifles are something you are going to be needing in huge quantities anyway, and which are relatively easy to make in a hurry. Trying to round up a huge number of rifles for which you don't have a history, and which you don't actually know what mods have been done to is going to be pretty time consuming in itself. You may well not save yourself any time over manufacturing from new.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

M4s are M16 carbines, so what are you talking about? They have even more inferior ballistics. As for the M1 and M14, I'm already taking about refitting them for the .458 winchester magnum as an ideal general-use service rifle; I dropped the .45-70 after doing some deeper looking at it. We need both high velocity and fairly heavy bullets. But not just fairly heavy bullets; expanding rounds are where it's at. We need to tear channels through Baldricks the size of a doubled fist to take them down for the count.

M4s don't have that much more inferior ballistics than the 20" M16s (lower velocities out of the barrel) but the ballistics problems show up in the short barrel rifles (12" and less). Why are you looking at the M1 and M14 as general-use rifles? It'd take even longer to re-equip the troops, because most of them would need to be trained to use that weapon (different controls layout etc). Regarding the .458 WM, you might as well use .338 Lapua. It's in-service already (not with the US though) and 300 grain round is more powerful (out of the same length barrel) than the .458 WM. Plus there's the AR-30, which is chamber for .338 (although it's bolt-action) and there's the RND2000, available with barrels from 20" to 26" butweighs in at 6.35kg

*groans* Didn't you listen to me? You'd have to build far more new parts for the M1 to fit it with .338 Lapua. The overall length of the Lapua is 3.6in, of the .30-06, 3.34in. Granted, the same is true with the M14, but that just means we issue the M14 everywhere with the existing round (7.62mmx51 with hollow cavity will do okay enough for now) whilst we start refitting M1s.

And, seriously, what the hell are you going on about "trained to use that weapon" and "different controls layout". I mean, what the fuck? This isn't a jet fighter. A person trained to fire a rifle, period, can learn to effectively fire a different rifle in a couple of hours. The training for cleaning procedures and so on won't take much longer. And many American troops have handled an M14 anyway.

And guess what, on top of that? We're drafting millions of men into the Army. So stop thinking about how to arm the extremely small existing armies, and start thinking about how to arm the millions of new conscripts being brought to the colours.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Sorry, didn't realise that the Winchester Magnum was the same length as .30-06. I was assuming that round was longer than the original anyway so if you're going to modify the magazine/feed mechanism it's worth doing a bigger mod for a better round that's already in mass production. Rifles are something you are going to be needing in huge quantities anyway, and which are relatively easy to make in a hurry. Trying to round up a huge number of rifles for which you don't have a history, and which you don't actually know what mods have been done to is going to be pretty time consuming in itself. You may well not save yourself any time over manufacturing from new.

Oh, I was thinking that we would just do inspections for obvious defects, modify them, issue them to soldiers, and accept that some of them would fail. That's better than having an M16, which at the moment means you can empty the entire clip into the enemy and have them be able to fight for a few more seconds before dying.

[Firethorn]

The L-L agreement, IIRC, said we either had to buy what was supplied to us; not going to happen as we'd spent all of our money; return them (the US wasn't interested in a bunch of worn out equipment), or scrap them, which essentially what was done.
I don't think we got any of the Reverse L-L equipment back from the Americans, AFAIK.

I was talking about the personal arms many americans sent over there to help supply the home guard so the actual battle rifles could be used on the front.

We're talking about personal deer rifles and such. Many with the individual's name and address carved on the stock.

Of course, I hang around on a board where several 'heirloom' rifles were lost to this.

Back on weapons - there's plenty of room for different countries to try different calibers.

The .45-70, while good for dropping buffalo, is a legacy cartridge at this point. We have and can create rounds with superior power, ballistics, and accuracy at this point.

Modified M16s will probably be at least the short term answer in the US and other countries that use them.

Still, making new M1 Garands would be relatively dead simple at this point, even going with larger rounds. Perhaps unfortunately, most are in civilian hands at this point, and I'd tend to leave them there to help in case of a baldrick attack.

New production M1s would be best for issuing on the other side of hell to help rearm all the doughboys who used them in WWII.

With a 500 meter range, the Baldricks would quickly come to hate them.

[pdf27]

Oh, I was thinking that we would just do inspections for obvious defects, modify them, issue them to soldiers, and accept that some of them would fail. That's better than having an M16, which at the moment means you can empty the entire clip into the enemy and have them be able to fight for a few more seconds before dying.

Thing is, that's only ever going to be a stopgap solution. If you're after a stopgap, wouldn't you be better off using 7.62mm NATO which is already available in huge quantites and wouldn't need any mods at all? The difference in lead time between manufacturing a modified rifle and manufacturing a rifle from scratch isn't all that long. I'm not a production engineer so can't be sure, but certainly would guess that it's pretty close.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

With a 500 meter range, the Baldricks would quickly come to hate them.

I know, isn't it beautiful?

We'll have to try and work out the ballistics performance of the .458 winchester magnum with hollow-cavity ammunition in an M1. We're building M1As at the private Springfield Armory company as it stands, being sold to police and commercially, which have a detachable box magazine; that will be the ideal pattern.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

[quote="pdf27"
Thing is, that's only ever going to be a stopgap solution. If you're after a stopgap, wouldn't you be better off using 7.62mm NATO which is already available in huge quantites and wouldn't need any mods at all? The difference in lead time between manufacturing a modified rifle and manufacturing a rifle from scratch isn't all that long. I'm not a production engineer so can't be sure, but certainly would guess that it's pretty close.[/quote]

We're going to need so many stopgap rifles that you can't imagine. The problem with 7.62mm NATO is that, while better than 5.56mm for this task, and obviously with hollow-cavity we'll be able to get a much better ability to kill demons, it still clearly doesn't have the firepower to reliably take down a baldrick which requires two shots of .50 to kill in some cases (though one disables them, thankfully).

I'm actually thinking longer term, here, in terms of setting up an ideal new battle rifle for production. The answer is to base it on a Garand modified for a detachable box magazine, i.e., the M1A, except in an extremely heavy magnum catridge. The ideal of which is the .458 winchester mag for fitting that gun. The Garand is familiar to Americans, it's an excellent service rifle, we can certainly get tooled up to mass-produce them fairly easily.

[JN1]

The L-L agreement, IIRC, said we either had to buy what was supplied to us; not going to happen as we'd spent all of our money; return them (the US wasn't interested in a bunch of worn out equipment), or scrap them, which essentially what was done.
I don't think we got any of the Reverse L-L equipment back from the Americans, AFAIK.

I was talking about the personal arms many americans sent over there to help supply the home guard so the actual battle rifles could be used on the front.

We're talking about personal deer rifles and such. Many with the individual's name and address carved on the stock.

Of course, I hang around on a board where several 'heirloom' rifles were lost to this.

In that case you have my apologies. However I don't think that accounting for Home Guard weapons was all that well done; when they did finally get P.17s, or Ross rifles I doubt anyone thought about returning any weapons sent to the UK from private individuals.
I suspect that there was nobody available to catalogue the weapons so that they could be returned.
Anyway I fear I'm taking this thread off-topic, so I'll say no more.

[[R_H]]

*groans* Didn't you listen to me? You'd have to build far more new parts for the M1 to fit it with .338 Lapua. The overall length of the Lapua is 3.6in, of the .30-06, 3.34in. Granted, the same is true with the M14, but that just means we issue the M14 everywhere with the existing round (7.62mmx51 with hollow cavity will do okay enough for now) whilst we start refitting M1s.

And, seriously, what the hell are you going on about "trained to use that weapon" and "different controls layout". I mean, what the fuck? This isn't a jet fighter. A person trained to fire a rifle, period, can learn to effectively fire a different rifle in a couple of hours. The training for cleaning procedures and so on won't take much longer. And many American troops have handled an M14 anyway.

And guess what, on top of that? We're drafting millions of men into the Army. So stop thinking about how to arm the extremely small existing armies, and start thinking about how to arm the millions of new conscripts being brought to the colours.

Unlike you, I’m not a proponent of rechambering and reissuing decades old rifles. And yeah, you’d be surprised that the guys that use the rifles bitch about anything different in the weapons layout than they’re used to (look around the Lightfighter and 10-8 forums in threads about the SIG-550, -552 or -556 etc.). Of course it isn’t a fucking plane, and effectively using an entirely new rifle on the firing range is a whole lot different when a fucking monster from hell, let alone another human soldier is trying to kill you. It’s not about the bloody cleaning procedures, it’s about handling the weapon while in combat ie reloading quickly, which of course requires repetition so that it’s not bloody fucking akward. How many is “many”? Designated marksmen are pretty much the only ones that might have handled an M14 (if they’re not using an M16), and that might have been a rebuilt one (Sage EBR, Troy etc) – those would have pistol grips, adjustable buttstocks, railed fore-ends, BUIS and optics that they’re familiar with. A quick Wiki search shows that the M14s used as DMRs by the Marines are being replaced in favour of the Mk.11 or Mk.12. The Army on the other hand uses modified M16s, with flattop uppers (fluted 18” stainless steel barrels) naturally also with railed forearms and ACOGs (similar to the Mk.12).

Guess who’s going to train all those millions of draftees? Soldiers that were trained on the M16/M4. There would be those that have experience with other weapons, but would it be enough for them to train other soldiers adequately? Not to mention the majority of those, and those that have no other experience than the M16/M4 would have to be certified/trained to be able to train all those draftees.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Unlike you, I’m not a proponent of rechambering and reissuing decades old rifles.

Then what do you proposing doing to arm and equip a 12-million man army from the resources available, which were intended to support a 1-million man army? You do realize that anything and everything will have to be used, right? As a matter of fact, we may be looking at more of a 25-million man army.

[JCady]

The answer is to base it on a Garand modified for a detachable box magazine, i.e., the M1A, except in an extremely heavy magnum catridge.

If you mean the Springfield Armoury M1A, that is a civilian adaptation of the M14, not the M1 Garand per se. On the other hand, the M14 itself is really just a Garand with a box mag anyhow.

[[R_H]]

Unlike you, I’m not a proponent of rechambering and reissuing decades old rifles.

Then what do you proposing doing to arm and equip a 12-million man army from the resources available, which were intended to support a 1-million man army? You do realize that anything and everything will have to be used, right? As a matter of fact, we may be looking at more of a 25-million man army.

Well, first of all how many surplus Garands are there still in storage? Is it enough to equip a 12 million man army, let alone a 25 million man army? Assuming it isn't, you're still going to have to either manufacture more Garands or issue another (surplus) weapon as well. Seeing how you're going to have to inspect and then rechamber, rebarrel and maybe even rebed all those surplus rifles (if I'm not missing something) (not to mention slap on a collapsing stock and a rail for an optic at least) you might as well put those man-hours into manufacturing weapons based off of the M16 family, which are currently in production in various different facilities all over the US.