Assault rifles

[[R_H]]

I think it is a bit unfair to take a modification of an existing system and compare it to a new gun. That said, how did the G 36 compare to the SCAR?

If I remember correctly, the XM8 (basically a G36) slightly edged out the SCAR and the '416 in the dust tests.

Edit: It would have been interesting if they had tested the Taiwanese TK65K2/86, as that is also a gas piston upper that appears to compatible with M16/AR15 lower receivers.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I think it is a bit unfair to take a modification of an existing system and compare it to a new gun.

I think it's unfair as well, but H&K made the decision to not make a brand new rifle and opted for an advancement of an already established system, which actually has benefits I'll elucidate on below.

That said, how did the G 36 compare to the SCAR?

The G36 wasn't tested, H&K and FNH USA only got one weapon each to enter and they chose the HK416 and SCAR-L, they were compared against the M4 and the XM8 (which actually got 99 less jams than the SCAR). I think the reason the G36 wasn't included was because the aforementioned one weapon limit, but it also would've been excluded because the US likes to have lots of tacticool rails and the G36 doesn't.

Good news though, a modified version of the HK416 has been chosen for the Marine Corps Infantry Automatic Rifle competition, though I'm hedging bets that it's cheaper for the Marine Corps to order fancy uppers than it is to buy brand new rifles. The Marines don't get a whole lot of money from the Navy so they have to be conservative with it, so often they have worse equipment than the Army and thus it's beneficial for H&K to simply update a proven design. This is similar to what happened when the US started adopting the FN MAG as the M240, the Marines got the original M240 and M240E1s and modified them into the M240G, the US Army got new build M240B. I assume the US Army is going to start passing down their Bravos to the Marines when the National Guard and Army Reserve get the M240L.

[montypython]

From what I've heard about the Bushmaster ACR, it does seem quite a bit better than the typical AR-15 derivatives and cheaper than the SCAR, just haven't seen any military trials done with it yet though.

[Ritterin Sophia]

From what I've heard about the Bushmaster ACR, it does seem quite a bit better than the typical AR-15 derivatives and cheaper than the SCAR, just haven't seen any military trials done with it yet though.

I like the ACR, the ACR to me is what the FAMAS and the G36 are to French and German aesthetics, a very sexy gun and a capable one. However, I worry that it's going to be the NATO-specific AR18.

[Zixinus]

Also, same impracticability issues. There is a reason the Bundeswehr went for the G36 instead of the others.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall that the G11 wasn't implemented due to the reunification drawing away funds?

Not that the G11 didn't have problems (the micro-calibre thing, the ignition temperature, etc), but I recall that it was a tested, battle-worthy weapon.

[Thanas]

I think it is a bit unfair to take a modification of an existing system and compare it to a new gun.

I think it's unfair as well, but H&K made the decision to not make a brand new rifle and opted for an advancement of an already established system, which actually has benefits I'll elucidate on below.

Well, that was due to the experience in past weapons testing which convinced H&K the USA will never ever replace the M4 even when offered superior choices, iirc. Remember the future rifle contest? (or whatever it was called, can't remember it right now)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall that the G11 wasn't implemented due to the reunification drawing away funds?

Yeah, but it was also way too costly and impractical (ammunition etc) so that when funds were available, the G36 was chosen.

[Akkleptos]

How come -and since we're discussing science fiction guns- no one has mentioned the Asimov's dreaded needle gun?

I mean, a handgun that fires miniature-sized nukes?

I can see how these little monstrosities would render things as modern armour obsolete almost overnight, and would prove fatal against human personnel.

[Zixinus]

Well, that was due to the experience in past weapons testing which convinced H&K the USA will never ever replace the M4 even when offered superior choices, iirc. Remember the future rifle contest? (or whatever it was called, can't remember it right now)

That seems to be a staple for USA infantry weapon adoption. The rule of thumb seems to be that the cheaper always wins. That's what happened with handguns (Baretta was chosen over SIG) and that's what happened with the M14 and the whole way the 5.56NATO and 7.62NATO came into being. Again and again, they rejected good foreign designs in favour of in-house domestic ones that they insisted to become standardised instead. At least, that is the impression I get from reading the literature available to me.

[adam_grif]

Well, that was due to the experience in past weapons testing which convinced H&K the USA will never ever replace the M4 even when offered superior choices, iirc. Remember the future rifle contest? (or whatever it was called, can't remember it right now)

It's difficult to justify spending significant amounts of money on things that are only going to yield marginal improvements. Assault rifles have been a mature technology for a long time now. ACR was filled with weird rifles trying new things like flechettes and caseless ammo.The ACR program was scrapped without a winner being declared because none of the entrants performed to the level required. The costs of obtaining an entirely new rifle system for the entire army was such that they set the bar at a 100% improvement in general performance (something similar to this was achieved when they did the switchover from M14 to M16), and none of the competitors even came close to this.

So OICW happened instead of ACR. Which also failed

At least, that is the impression I get from reading the literature available to me.

Well it's not like they spend the extra cash on hookers and cocaine. They use it to buy other shit that is (in theory) going to help more than the difference between the rifles they bought and the rifles they could have bought.

[Stark]

Wasn't 'the level required' something ridiculous like '100% improved lethality over M16A2'? Gun not as good as two guns; let's stick with ours! It's not like America has spent piles of money gradually upgrading the M16 to not suck over 30 years, while everyone else just bought a decent gun to start with.

The US Army using the godawful M16 drives a lot of western rifle design, though, so there's a positive in there. It's just not positive for the US Army.

[adam_grif]

I just said exactly that. The M14 - M16 transition was more than 100% if memory serves me correctly, where a 5 man team armed with M16's performed better than an 11 man team armed with M14's or something like that.

[Korto]

The damn thing was meant to be a point-blank to medium range weapon, with the virtue that loadng it with different ammo gave it longer range capability. If it's now otherwise, I either need to redesign, or change the maximum effective range from approx 120m down to something more in keeping (what would that be? 50? 30?)

The problem is that it's too clumsy to make a good close range weapon, because the rate of fire is too low. If it weren't for forcefields making low-velocity high-caliber necessary, you'd be better off with a submachine gun in close quarters, I think.

Really, it's hard to make a weapon that can be fired accurately out of doors at all without giving it a longer range than ~100 meters. Unless your troops never fight outside a building, they will run into situations with lines of sight like that, and it's absurd for them to be unable to hit a target at that distance. I mean, hell, a bow and arrow could hit somebody at 100 meters.

OK, that's the second criticism of the ROF. What about "fires as fast as you can pull the trigger"? Don't know if it would be possible for a semi-automatic to only fire 1/sec anyway, without special mechanisms built in just for that purpose (which would be weird). I really can't see the thing firing automatic however, given that a magazine surely wouldn't be able to hold much more than 6 or so rounds. Unless someone who knows honestly thinks a belt would be good for such a weapon (I'd be quite surprised).
The gun was originally intended to be about the size (proportionally, the users are quite large) of a SMG, attached to the forearm armour and able to be used as a shield in melee. I could go back to that idea, they'd then carry a mace or similar weapon to thump people with. As for long range accuracy, a computer in the helmet could be always reading the way the gun is pointing and painting a targetting cross inside the visor. If the computer gets fried, or has to be powered down for some reason, there'll be iron sights.
When I said 120m max range, I meant for the short-range ammo. That range seems more than needed; 50m sounds more like it. Then there's other ammunition that trades off power for increased range, possibly their longest range ammo (for this gun) has a range of 1000m, although it would be quite ineffective against a shielded target, and they really should use a different weapon (which they do have).

[Feil]

Pump- and bolt-action will both give you rates of fire on the order of 1/s. Bolt action is slower because you have to aim again after working the action, since the act of chambering the next round takes the barrel way off line, but both should be between 0.5 and 3 seconds per shot.

I don't think forearm mountings are a very good idea. As to close combat - people have been sticking bayonets on guns since there were guns to stick bayonets on; and you can wear a small shield on your forearm, anyway (although I think you will find that shields mounted exclusively on the arm are just bulky, unnecessarily heavy replacements for a sturdy vambrace). How are your gorilla men, who I presume are somewhat hunch-backed and have shoulders like watermelons, going to sight down a forearm mount, anyway? How are they going to avoid blowing their own hands off in the heat of close-quarters combat? How will you keep your sights from getting misaligned when a giant gorilla smashes your gunshield along its antiparallel axis with a sword?

[Feil]

Ghetto edit: forearm mounting is going to make proper gun safety really damned difficult too. You won't even be able to zip your fly without pointing your weapon at your own leg, or hand your buddy a spare magazine without pointing a barrel full of 54mm death at him, unless you take the weapon all the way off your arm - in which case you're combat-ineffective for the first fifteen seconds of a surprise attack, in stead of the half second it takes to pick up the rifle that you propped against your jeep.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, that's the second criticism of the ROF. What about "fires as fast as you can pull the trigger"? Don't know if it would be possible for a semi-automatic to only fire 1/sec anyway, without special mechanisms built in just for that purpose (which would be weird). I really can't see the thing firing automatic however, given that a magazine surely wouldn't be able to hold much more than 6 or so rounds. Unless someone who knows honestly thinks a belt would be good for such a weapon (I'd be quite surprised).

Making it a semiautomatic grenade launcher is quite reasonable. I'd recommend modeling it after existing revolver launchers (the US military has one).

When I said 120m max range, I meant for the short-range ammo. That range seems more than needed; 50m sounds more like it. Then there's other ammunition that trades off power for increased range, possibly their longest range ammo (for this gun) has a range of 1000m, although it would be quite ineffective against a shielded target, and they really should use a different weapon (which they do have).

One problem you'll run into is barrel length. It's hard to design the same weapon to shoot low and high velocity ammo, at least if it uses chemical propellant. At some point, either the high-power ammo is likely to cause damage to the chamber of the weapon, or the low-power ammo is too feeble to be effective, and isn't going to reliably work the semi-auto loading mechanism... at which point the launcher jams a lot.

I may be missing something here.

[Korto]

I don't think forearm mountings are a very good idea. As to close combat - people have been sticking bayonets on guns since there were guns to stick bayonets on; and you can wear a small shield on your forearm, anyway (although I think you will find that shields mounted exclusively on the arm are just bulky, unnecessarily heavy replacements for a sturdy vambrace). How are your gorilla men, who I presume are somewhat hunch-backed and have shoulders like watermelons, going to sight down a forearm mount, anyway? How are they going to avoid blowing their own hands off in the heat of close-quarters combat? How will you keep your sights from getting misaligned when a giant gorilla smashes your gunshield along its antiparallel axis with a sword?

Unfortunately for the bayonet...

Such a melee weapon however needs to more like a mace than spear, as not even a Tai'Qu can expect to pierce the hard armour all militaries wear.

Not quite true actually, as one race uses a light armour optimised against lasers, and is quite brittle, but otherwise they're counting on concussive force that can kill without penetrating the armour.
Its primary sights I believe could be

a computer in the helmet could be always reading the way the gun is pointing and painting a targetting cross inside the visor. If the computer gets fried, or has to be powered down for some reason, there'll be iron sights.

although the iron sights could be your point (and a good one, as I look like a dork sticking my arm out and trying to sight down my forearm). The only other backup I could think of is just sheer practise enabling them to be reasonably accurate without sights. However, since the gun would be removable from its arm mount, there could be some kind of stock extension enabling it to be used as a normal rifle with the iron sights.
Hands being blown off shouldn't be a problem as I see the trigger being on a stout handle, which is contained inside a housing which your hand slips inside. The housing prevents your hand from being able to obstruct the muzzle, although it does impede the hand's movement.
The sights being misaligned by a heavy blow is a problem, but not I believe a serious one. If you're involved in melee, using sights doesn't seem the greatest priority, surely any shooting would be snap-shots. Besides, the HUD is the main target sight, which would be continually updated based upon the actual aspect of the gun, not the alignment of the sights on the gun. After the fight, equipment check would include checking the sights and re-aligning them (I hope I haven't just betrayed my complete ignorance by an airy-fairy implication that something is done in a few minutes when as far as I know re-aligning sights may be quite difficult and take hours).
Oh, and when I say "shield", I really don't mean some kind of kite shield, viking shield, or even a small buckler, but just the reinforced gun attached to the forearm and used to parry blows, like a strong steel bar. The rubber mountings that pad the recoil can also pad the concussion. Not that I'm necessarily addicted to the arm mounting; still trying to work out what's best in utility and story feel.

That's a serious point about how dangerous the forearm mounting could be. Not something I thought about. They do have two hands of course, but that doesn't necessarily negate your point.

And Jester? What I'm hearing here is "Pull your head in a bit about how different ammo gives you wildly more range" I think I'll remember for those times that the Slugger is a specialist short-range weapon, and they do have a range of different weapons, although I was thinking the longer-range projectiles would be substantially lighter and therefore not requiring too much extra power (but higher-velocity powder).

[[R_H]]

It's not like America has spent piles of money gradually upgrading the M16 to not suck over 30 years, while everyone else just bought a decent gun to start with.

The US Army using the godawful M16 drives a lot of western rifle design, though, so there's a positive in there. It's just not positive for the US Army.

It was terrible in the beginning because of some horrible blunders, like using the wrong powder, which caused more fouling than expected, while not having issued cleaning kits or provided training on how to clean the rifles to the soldiers.

The A2 was adopted because of the M249 and the SS109, it had a heavier barrel with a faster rifling twist, altered sights, round handguards and burst only.

A3/A4 are similar to the A2, they just have flattop receivers, and the A3 has FA instead of burst fire.

Ironically, like the Stryker vehicles, the M16 was only supposed to be an interim solution.

[HELLHOUND]

Having fired a pulse rifle, (AN-94) I know blowback shifted pulse weapons do not move until after the second round is on its way out. With this as a result, and knowing that the bolt is striking the third round at this time, this means there would be no real issue with muzzle rise on tri-burst with this firearm.

You're still using three rounds where one generally is sufficient for a rifleman's purposes.
Anything more is the province of machine gunners.

As for your "reasonable version" you might as well just stick with an M16, because that would be universally inferior.

Where the M-16 gets into trouble is its use of a direct impingement gas system, which unnecessarily fouls the chamber and bolt assembly.
A short stroke piston system, such as that on a REC 7 or HK416/417 largely solves that problem.

Also, you cannot have a collapsible buttstock on a bullpup weapon

Did I say bullpup?

Have you ever fired the AN-94? No? Than you likely have no knowledge when it comes to this kind of weapon, and you cannot just cry "soldier" to back a completely ungrounded opinion, especially on the internet, where anyone can make that claim.

I've only fired M-4s, M-16s, M-249s, M-240Bs, and M2s. So I guess guilty as charged. But you'd have to take my word for it. Same as I'd have to take your word on firing an AN-94. Or being an expert on firearms. Especially on the internet, where anyone can make that claim.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Well, that was due to the experience in past weapons testing which convinced H&K the USA will never ever replace the M4 even when offered superior choices, iirc. Remember the future rifle contest? (or whatever it was called, can't remember it right now)

True enough, though my favorite example of this is the M60 and the MAG 58. In the '70s there was a test to find the replacement for the M73/M219 tank machine guns. So they were tested firing 50k rounds with the criteria for winning being the mean rounds between stoppages and failures, the minimum specified was 850/2675 and the desired aim was 1750/5500. The M73/M219 only fired 19k rounds and managed 215/1090, the M60E2 got 846/1669, and the MAG 58 had an astounding 2962/6442. The MAG 58 won with flying colors and was chosen as the US' new coaxial gun, type coded as the M240. The thing that gets me is it took until '91 for the Marines to turn their M240 and M240E1s into the M240G and use them as general purpose machine guns. In their replacement of the M60 the US Army used an M60E4 against the M240E4 (later 240B), the M60E4 averaged around one stoppage per ten thousand rounds and the M240 less and newer tests register the M240B as one stoppage in every forty thousand. No one looked at those tests and thought to put it to the test until over twenty years later.

I've only fired M-4s, M-16s, M-249s, M-240Bs, and M2s.

When did you say you joined the military? The only time I've ever seen someone refer to those weapons with a '-' in them joined in the 80s or a civilian and the 240B wasn't type coded until the late '90s.

Same as I'd have to take your word on firing an AN-94. Or being an expert on firearms. Especially on the internet, where anyone can make that claim.

Especially given he's talking about the AN-94, that's still a rather rare weapon even for Russian forces.

[Sea Skimmer]

Ironically, like the Stryker vehicles, the M16 was only supposed to be an interim solution.

It was never really supposed to be anything. The US Army rejected the weapon every time it was tested, but McNamara ignored the tests and preferred the M16 which was cheaper. He ordered M14 production halted, and after that the USMC and US Army had no choice but to buy it. Only the USAF ever wanted the M16, for its MPs who were currently using mostly submachine guns and M1 carbines. Not hard to beat those, and the lack of reliability didn't show up when you were guarding a place with paved roads in the central US.

This is a major factor in why the gun was fielded with such an utter lack of refinement, as it would have gotten had it actually completed a proper R&D and adaption cycle. McNamara rejected all proposals for modifications, insisting the original design would have had them if they were needed, and so he saw no reason to increase costs. It didn't help that the US Army Ordnance Corps has been run by some of the worst officers the nation has ever produced for most of its history.

[Shroom Man 777]

Why is McNamara so prevalent in these 60s-era US military blunders, anyway? He's a SecDef, SecDefs don't get to choose every single tiny detail of military matters, do they?

[Stark]

How is it his fault the M16 was never changed for anything else?

[HELLHOUND]

I've only fired M-4s, M-16s, M-249s, M-240Bs, and M2s.

When did you say you joined the military? The only time I've ever seen someone refer to those weapons with a '-' in them joined in the 80s or a civilian and the 240B wasn't type coded until the late '90s.

I joined in late 2003. So far as I know, both with and without '-' is considered acceptable nomenclature.

[Feil]

Korto

Realigning sights is done by aiming very carefully down the sights as they are, and firing at a target at a known distance under known conditions. If you don't hit the target, you futz with the sights until you do. It takes an absolute minimum of two discharges of the weapon to make sure it is firing in the right direction, then however many more shots it takes to establish how high above the axis of the weapon to fire to hit a target at various ranges. One might sight in a rifle for 25 yards, 50 yards, and 100 yards, so that you don't end up shooting the air over the enemy's head at 25 yards with a bullet whose parabolic trajectory would have taken it into his chest at 100 yards.

If your forcefields actively track incoming ordinance, you might be able to have a similar targeting device track your own bullet, and - if you specify the circumstances - sight the weapon in for as many distances as you can please - or even a continuum of distances, with a built-in laser rangefinder automatically correcting the location of the crosshairs so that you never have to guess the range and which tick on your sights to aim with. That might only take a couple shots for a fancy computer to determine, reducing sighting the weapon in to a matter of a few twists on some tuning screws. If your soldiers are already depending on a fancy computer to keep them from getting splattered across the jungle by the nearest jackass with a carbine, I don't see much reason not for them to rely on a similar fancy computer to sight in their weapons. Having to sight in your weapon after every close quarters battle still sounds like a bad idea if close quarters battles are a common part of combat, though. An enemy soldier just needs to wait until you finish fighting in close combat, then gun you down with little fear of effective return fire.

If your enemy has impact-absorbing armor that is designed to stop bullets, you will not be able to hurt him through it with a mace. Maces achieve their armor-penetrating effect by deforming armor, not by acceleration trauma. To hurt somebody by accelerating their whole torso (which is what you will do if you smack somebody in rigid armor with an object that does not penetrate or deform the armor) you need to do something truly drastic, like run into them with a MACK truck at fifty miles an hour - unless you can bash them hard enough in the head to cause a concussion or spinal injury. I would recommend doing some research into renaissance combat in full harness and basing your melee combatants off of them. Generally - except for 'jam a heavy, pointy object straight through a sheet of armor steel' this involves getting into a position - by whatever means - in which you can jam a pointy object through a place the armor doesn't cover fully, like an armpit, groin, face, or neck - and involves trips, sweeps, takedowns, and joint-locks as much as strikes with the weapon intended to injure or kill.

If your fights are going to last longer than a few seconds in close quarters - as fights in heavy armor tend to do - how are you going to protect your soldiers from enemy riflemen, or even snipers, while they are engaged in close combat?

Please note, I am a 40k fan. As such, I find giant, armored warriors with absurdly Freudian guns, and people charging into close combat in a world with automatic weapons inherently appealing. I'm just trying to provide such criticism as you may or may not decide to employ in making your awesomely ludicrous universe a ever so slightly less ludicrous.

[Spoonist]

Making it a semiautomatic grenade launcher is quite reasonable. I'd recommend modeling it after existing revolver launchers (the US military has one).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVfhTqL95jY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTPz59y5 ... re=related