Cool Guns for your Games

[Sundog]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

LOL is right. AK's jam quite frequently. Their "reliability" is a myth.

[Markdoc]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Isn't the H&K 416 the one that won't jam no matter what you do to it?

 

Oh, it'll jam - just at about 1/3 the rate of a regular M4. All guns jam - it's the nature of the beast. It's just a question of how often and then how easy it is to clear. M16/M4s have a reputation of being hard to clear, and a well-documented history of being relatively easy to jam.

 

As an amusing aside, on another thread we were talking about the old Garand M1. In WW2, the Brit.s considered purchasing M1s for their army, but it failed reliability testing, so they stuck with the old Lee-Enfield. Reliability testing back then involved - I am not kidding - burying the weapon in thick mud, leaving it there for 48 hours and then firing a thousand rounds through it. I doubt many modern weapons would hold up under those conditions!

 

cheers, Mark

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Heh...what's with the 48 hours in the mud? Was that some kind of Lungfish Brigade?

[Markdoc]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Heh...what's with the 48 hours in the mud? Was that some kind of Lungfish Brigade?

 

I'm guessing it's based on the experiences of WW1, where troops and their weapons often spent a lot of time in the mud - and you got to admit, it's a pretty stringent test.

 

cheers, Mark

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

That's almost certainly it. Those trenches were pretty bad. Still, from what I've seen of those trenches, if a rifle ever got buried in that mud for 48 hours, no one was ever going to see it again...

[Sundog]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

In some cases, if you simply dropped it on the ground you weren't going to see it again! Especially in the winter, some of those areas were nothing but six plus feet of liquid mud.

[DusterBoy]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

The purists sneered at the Lee Enfield Mk3 because it wasn't a Mauser. Then the British Army took it to war on the Western Front and promptly silenced all its critics. The SMLE achieved rates of fire so high, the Germans thought they were taking machine-gun fire. It's a beautiful weapon and one of my favourites.

 

And talking about the AK's myth of reliability, much about the AK has become mythologised.

[gewing]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

The purists sneered at the Lee Enfield Mk3 because it wasn't a Mauser. Then the British Army took it to war on the Western Front and promptly silenced all its critics. The SMLE achieved rates of fire so high, the Germans thought they were taking machine-gun fire. It's a beautiful weapon and one of my favourites.

 

And talking about the AK's myth of reliability, much about the AK has become mythologised.

The SMLE is imo by FAR the best "bolt action Battle Rifle" The Mauser or Springfield were okay, but...

But Then, I think the Carcanos are underrated. At least the cartridges are. With appropriate bullets, either would have made a good assault rifle cartridge.

 

And if we want ABSOLUTE reliability... Double rifle.

[Wolf]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Yup - they want you to keep your hand on the grip' date=' so it's ready to use. But when you are under fire, the nearest cover is 20 metres away and you have a case full of ammo for the squad MG in your other hand ... a handle's actually useful.[/quote']

 

I'm not saying it's not useful, but if you ever got caught using it, then that's your @**, lol. Technically speaking, that's what your sling is for. Have no illusions, from a strait doctrine approach, you are not to touch the handle even when your life depends on it. In the "rear based mentality" of the Army in the 90's dress right dress is the way to go. Like my section Sargent told me when I was caught using the handle because my sling snapped and I had to assist carrying the 120MM mortar tube 2 miles from the motor pool to the arms room, "Only weak men and civilians use something like a carrying handle for your rifle, it should not be there, and as a "real" soldier, you should not be using what's not there." Then I had to do pushups for a while until I understood what he was talking about.

 

Point being, even in your scenario, you really shouldn't use the carry handle, you can grab the forward grips and do just fine in that situation or even shoulder your rifle and again do well.

 

 

I think it might be more accurate to say that it's always changing its mind

SOCOM did order a bunch of SCARs for assessment - but then cancelled the order. They are apparently buying cheaper H&K M416's instead. It seems the Chiefs think the cost of replacing all the M16's/M4 in service is too expensive, for anything less than a major improvement in technology. Part of the reason for that might be frantic (and expensive) lobbying by Colt, whose weapons finished last in all three competitions held by the army, with 3x as many malfunctions as the next competitor (and about 6x as many as the XM8), but who want to hold onto their lucrative no-bid contracts.

 

Cheers, Mark

 

Figures, I try to keep my head out of the political games that run rampant when it comes to soldiers equipment. As an example look at the deal with Cry Multicam and then the decision to go with ACU cammo.

[st barbara]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Oh, it'll jam - just at about 1/3 the rate of a regular M4. All guns jam - it's the nature of the beast. It's just a question of how often and then how easy it is to clear. M16/M4s have a reputation of being hard to clear, and a well-documented history of being relatively easy to jam.

 

As an amusing aside, on another thread we were talking about the old Garand M1. In WW2, the Brit.s considered purchasing M1s for their army, but it failed reliability testing, so they stuck with the old Lee-Enfield. Reliability testing back then involved - I am not kidding - burying the weapon in thick mud, leaving it there for 48 hours and then firing a thousand rounds through it. I doubt many modern weapons would hold up under those conditions!

 

cheers, Mark

 

That reminds me of a documentary that I saw on the Australian Owen sub-machine gun being tested. At the time the owen was being developed the main alternatives (the Sten and the Thompson) were both susceptible to jamming in muddy conditions. The Owen was tested by being thrown into a nice gooey looking mud puddle, picked up and turned over, thrown back into the mud puddle, picked up again, had a magazine inserted and fired. It worked first time !

[st barbara]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

The SMLE is imo by FAR the best "bolt action Battle Rifle" The Mauser or Springfield were okay, but...

But Then, I think the Carcanos are underrated. At least the cartridges are. With appropriate bullets, either would have made a good assault rifle cartridge.

 

And if we want ABSOLUTE reliability... Double rifle.

 

It depends a little bit on what you want to use your bolt action rifle FOR. If it is sniping that you want then the Mauser action is generally considered superior so you would take a German Mauser or an American Springfield. However if it is putting up a sustained rate of fire against a massive enemy attack that is required, the Lee-Enfield with its faster rate of fire and larger magazine capacity is far superior.

[Sundog]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

That reminds me of a documentary that I saw on the Australian Owen sub-machine gun being tested. At the time the owen was being developed the main alternatives (the Sten and the Thompson) were both susceptible to jamming in muddy conditions. The Owen was tested by being thrown into a nice gooey looking mud puddle' date=' picked up and turned over, thrown back into the mud puddle, picked up again, had a magazine inserted and fired. It worked first time ![/quote']

 

The Owen basically had three moving parts (and two of those were the trigger assembly). There just wasn't much there to go wrong!

[Markdoc]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

It depends a little bit on what you want to use your bolt action rifle FOR. If it is sniping that you want then the Mauser action is generally considered superior so you would take a German Mauser or an American Springfield.

 

Actually the Lee Enfields had a very long history as service as a sniper rifle, being modified for the purpose by the thousands and were so popular with users that that some NATO and Canadian forces retooled them for 7.62. They stayed in active service until the 1980s (with those forces - Taliban snipers ares till using them, as are many other armies). As for "generally considered superior" people have been arguing the superiority/accuracy of the SMLE and K98 for most of a century now, with no clear conclusion in sight. Having owned and shot with both, I can see why: in practical terms, there's little to no real difference. It comes down to whether your preference is for a heavier action or not. I liked the solid feeling of the LE action, but hated the weight of the MKIII for hunting - I sold it and bought a Vz23 BRNO: the czech knockoff of the K98, which is significantly lighter.

 

However if it is putting up a sustained rate of fire against a massive enemy attack that is required' date=' the Lee-Enfield with its faster rate of fire and larger magazine capacity is far superior.[/quote']

 

There's really very little difference in the speed of the action. The difference in rate of fire comes down to two things.

1. As you noted, the SMLE has a magazine twice the size of the K98, meaning you spend less time reloading (and my personal feeling is that when using stripper clips that the SMLE is a bit easier: you really have to jam hard with your thumb to get them to load in the Mauser action - but maybe that was just my gun).

2. Training. The old British army had a training requirement called the "mad minute" - you had to fire 15 shots into a 12 inch target at 300 yards in 60 seconds. Many lifers took pride in doing twice the required rate, which given it meant two reloads, is pretty bloody amazing. I don't know of a similar requirement in any other army at the time.

Put those two things together and a well-trained squad could lay down an impressive amount of fire.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Wolf]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Just because it's topical, I give you for review:

The XM25

 

Personally I think it looks too much like the OICW or whatever that acronym was for the project that the XM-8 Came out of. But I gotta say as much as I doubt the effectiveness of a troop carried (weight of ammo alone, much less other worries) 25MM Main Battle Rifle, I do dig the effective range of 2,300ft. Again it seems a bit much for me, but hey, if they use it and like it... I mean, heck being able to set where your ammo detonates... still... 25MM WOW!

 

Unless this is 25MM like the Desert Eagle is .50 Cal... lol.

 

Okay, so I'm assuming that this is going to be more of a replacement for the 203/grenade launcher... I can get behind that a bit more, we'll have to bring back the "Grenadier" though, lol.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

The gunny compares the Springfield (Mauser action) to the Lee Enfield, and Garand. I thought it was apropropriate and amusing.

 

 

 

I thought this was cool too, a demonstration of "the mad minute". Also on the right end is an Enfield Jungle Carbine, not very common to see. I may have miscounted but I believe some of these guys are exceeding the 15 rounds, it looked like a few were into their 3rd clip when time was called.

 

[Markdoc]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

I thought this was cool too' date=' a demonstration of "the mad minute". Also on the right end is an Enfield Jungle Carbine, not very common to see. I may have miscounted but I believe some of these guys are exceeding the 15 rounds, it looked like a few were into their 3rd clip when time was called. [/quote']

 

They probably were - the world record for the mad minute is a British army marksman trainer with 38 round - so he was on his fourth clip ...

 

cheers, Mark

[gewing]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

I'm not saying it's not useful, but if you ever got caught using it, then that's your @**, lol. Technically speaking, that's what your sling is for. Have no illusions, from a strait doctrine approach, you are not to touch the handle even when your life depends on it. In the "rear based mentality" of the Army in the 90's dress right dress is the way to go. Like my section Sargent told me when I was caught using the handle because my sling snapped and I had to assist carrying the 120MM mortar tube 2 miles from the motor pool to the arms room, "Only weak men and civilians use something like a carrying handle for your rifle, it should not be there, and as a "real" soldier, you should not be using what's not there." Then I had to do pushups for a while until I understood what he was talking about.

 

Point being, even in your scenario, you really shouldn't use the carry handle, you can grab the forward grips and do just fine in that situation or even shoulder your rifle and again do well.

 

 

 

 

Figures, I try to keep my head out of the political games that run rampant when it comes to soldiers equipment. As an example look at the deal with Cry Multicam and then the decision to go with ACU cammo.

 

 

I keep thinking that if we canned a couple of Generals, the savings would pay for a lot of rifles or ammo...

NOt only the General's pay, but the cost of his staff, his office, his VIP transport...

 

IMO Hackworth turned into a bit of a "Light infantry is the only Military needed" Hack, but IMO he was dead on about the "Perfumed Princes" at the Pentagon.

[gewing]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

The gunny compares the Springfield (Mauser action) to the Lee Enfield, and Garand. I thought it was apropropriate and amusing.

 

 

 

I thought this was cool too, a demonstration of "the mad minute". Also on the right end is an Enfield Jungle Carbine, not very common to see. I may have miscounted but I believe some of these guys are exceeding the 15 rounds, it looked like a few were into their 3rd clip when time was called.

 

 

 

My first shooting experience with the SMLE was at the 1994(iirc) ANZAC day shoot outside Sydney. I loved it so much I bought two sporterized ones in the next year or so.

[Wolf]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

I keep thinking that if we canned a couple of Generals, the savings would pay for a lot of rifles or ammo...

NOt only the General's pay, but the cost of his staff, his office, his VIP transport...

 

IMO Hackworth turned into a bit of a "Light infantry is the only Military needed" Hack, but IMO he was dead on about the "Perfumed Princes" at the Pentagon.

 

Seriously, what we called "Ranger Games" that went/go on are pretty silly also. These current wars have all but eliminated the "light infantry" model that existed when I was in. By way of an example my old unit in the 82nd Abn (Aco 3/325) has now been replaced (I think the whole bloody 3/325, not just Alpha co.) by a Cavalry unit... Airborne infantry needing an embedded Cav unit... wow man, just wow. And now almost every unit has vehicles to move troops around city and rural environments... I think they called it Medium infantry for a while back in 03-05 ish...

 

I even heard that people are being herded through Airborne school after basic so quickly (because everyone is deployed) that almost all green recruits coming into units are all 5 jump chumps. Oh, how the mighty fall. But still, that's a huge waste of money and training (remember there is only the 82nd and Vicenza Italy have jump units...

 

Many changes... It's a different Army, that's for sure. Still, I miss it .

[gewing]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Seriously, what we called "Ranger Games" that went/go on are pretty silly also. These current wars have all but eliminated the "light infantry" model that existed when I was in. By way of an example my old unit in the 82nd Abn (Aco 3/325) has now been replaced (I think the whole bloody 3/325, not just Alpha co.) by a Cavalry unit... Airborne infantry needing an embedded Cav unit... wow man, just wow. And now almost every unit has vehicles to move troops around city and rural environments... I think they called it Medium infantry for a while back in 03-05 ish...

 

I even heard that people are being herded through Airborne school after basic so quickly (because everyone is deployed) that almost all green recruits coming into units are all 5 jump chumps. Oh, how the mighty fall. But still, that's a huge waste of money and training (remember there is only the 82nd and Vicenza Italy have jump units...

 

Many changes... It's a different Army, that's for sure. Still, I miss it .

 

 

I just read that the CHinese have practiced air dropping their airborne into Tibet. Imagine that fun! Even after you land, you have altitude sickness?

 

My buddy just transferred to Ft. Lewis from the 10th Mtn. He had to fight tooth and nail for the transfer, apparently once you are light infantry, they don't like letting you out...

[Wolf]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

I just read that the CHinese have practiced air dropping their airborne into Tibet. Imagine that fun! Even after you land, you have altitude sickness?

 

My buddy just transferred to Ft. Lewis from the 10th Mtn. He had to fight tooth and nail for the transfer, apparently once you are light infantry, they don't like letting you out...

 

I think a drop into Tibet would rock, but hey... I volunteered for airborne

 

Yah, once you get locked into one of the "non-traditional line units" (by this I mean, Airborne (82nd), Air-mobile/Air Assault (101st), or Mountain (10th) all these units have specialized training/Tactics/Combat role) it's difficult to transfer out. However note two things: one, Lewis has mechanized and light infantry units, if I remember right, they also even have a Ranger Bat. And two they now have all infantry (outside of mortars) as 11B, so the old distinction between Mech infantry (11M series) and light infantry (11B) is no longer there. So when I was in, literally, once you were either mechanized or light, you would stay with that until you left the service. Again there was an exception for Mortar infantry, we could go light and Mech whenever.

[Remjin]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Hey, far as I'm concerned, yer all braver than me if you've jumped out of a plane. I wouldn't do it unless the dang thing were going down, and only then, because it was the only chance of surviving... and even then, I might need a diaper or at least a change of underwear and/or pants. =) Only other way to get me to do that is if you beat me in a fight to the death.... hehehe.

[Markdoc]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

Hey' date=' far as I'm concerned, yer all braver than me if you've jumped out of a plane. I wouldn't do it unless the dang thing were going down, and only then, because it was the only chance of surviving... and even then, I might need a diaper or at least a change of underwear and/or pants. =) Only other way to get me to do that is if you beat me in a fight to the death.... hehehe.[/quote']

 

Hell, I used to do it for fun - and pay for the privilege! It's actually a pretty nice way to start your day, if the weather's good.

 

cheers, Mark

[gewing]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

E. is transferring into the Stryker Brigade. Should be at least a LITTLE easier on the knees.

[matrix3]

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

 

E. is transferring into the Stryker Brigade. Should be at least a LITTLE easier on the knees.

 

Wait, there's a whole brigade of them?