Just got home from the bar with a buddy who is home on leave from Afghanistan.
Talking with him, I asked him about the report of being outgunned or outranged by the Taliban. According to him its complete bullshit.
He did say that they have engaged the taliban with the heavy guns because they were outside the range of the M4, but the Taliban never had any sort of range advantage over his trops. he has an ACOG on his M4 and has had no problem engaging the Taliban at several hundred meters.
One of his soldiers, he is a squad leader, made an almost 800 meter confirmed kill with one of the enhanced M14 DMR. He is putting that soldier in for a ARCOM medal.
He further said the new Strykers are working wonderfuly there.
You’ll note that the only instances of being “outranged” by Taliban are when British patrols who were carrying only rifles have been engaged by 12.7mm.
This has been spun and manipulated by folks with bad intent and self-interest.
M4>AK47 in ability to hit target at range, which is really what we’re talking about.
M240s do the man’s work, for which they were designed, and which has been the role of the machinegun from WWI. This is not new information.
Infantry rifles should never be the focus of the mid range fight. War fighting systems beat individual weapons systems in every conflict since the greek phalanx.
I’m going to assume the Stryker is better than the MRAP given the poor road conditions in much of A-stan.
the strykers are doing well here. pretty good off road speeds, but gets bumpy for the dismounts. and with the RWS Mk.19 and .50 cal’s the long distance engagements are easy to win. We’ve come under fire by guys with AK’s from a distance of about 200 meters tops, and the rounds were hitting a good 10 feet to the left of our truck.
