For your reading enjoyment Gentlemen:
http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/05/05/politics/soldiers-deserve-better-weapons/#comment-1372450015
We’re supposed to take this joker seriously?
He will respond to you if you comment. He is monitoring the comments section.
Did that once and started receiving spam in my email. It’s also deliberately controversial meant to generate traffic and I just don’t have the energy for it
Deserve a better rifle yet no better rifle exists… This guy is a moron.
We can do a product improvement (Block-II Type Upper, A5 Receiver Extension and Stock) when replacing components on already worn rifles - keep the lowers that are in spec, etc. - at pretty low cost since replacement parts would be needed anyway, and make actual improvements there.
In honest terms, the biggest combat advantage we have is that we have the luxury of equipping everybody who will DFL armed with an optic (better than snipers had until post-Korean war times), NVG’s and IR Laser/Illuminator (better than anybody had until post-Vietnam war), so the force multipliers are everything but the rifle. That said, there are numerous product improvements that can be made (use the installation of the new M4A1 Colt barrels on M4’s as an excuse to drop on DD RIS-2 FSP handguards; Use armory level teardowns to install A5 kits on M16A4’s (or even M4’s) for improvement in length of pull adjustment.
The cost for rifle changes are still comparatively small, but unless we’re able to stop buying redundant hardware, or junk which makes marginal sense, I’d rather not spend money even on those improvements when there are such bigger fish to fry.
I wonder which competing company this guy works for?
When he lead off with the LBJ/McNamara stuff, I stopped reading.
He doesn’t. He’s a military scifi author (and a good one). He’s combining his service experience with some anecdotes and ancient history. He’s neglected to take into account the more recent developments and combat experience of the 21st Century.
The M4 is the rifle the Army deserves, but not the one it needs.
Sorry, couldn’t help it.
There’s some logic there, but in the actual practice of asymmetric warfare the quality of the rifle pales compared to what air supremacy and good C2ISR capability can bring, so if in the mid-90’s this was written it would make more sense, but as bad as the FutureWarrior project was in concept, the DARPA shove towards making the spinoffs relevant has produced a lot of quality kit.
It’s the wrong analysis, but the fact that we’re not making smart product improvements and using the onus of some required changes to do things smarter (e.g. use the green ammo push to make Solid Copper ‘Brown Tip’ (or Mk318/Mk319) service-wide) is symptomatic of the uselessness of upper echelons of leadership, and how disconnected the majority of the generalship is.
He keeps pinin’ for a return to the 20 inch rifles in the comments when even the Marines are starting to question that decision.
I was much more interested in the article about the 57 porn stars without make-up.
I see what you did there!
A simple bump up in caliber would be a 100 % improvement, ie to 6mm you can keep all the ergonomics of the current M4 with better ballistics of the heavier bullets. This would be at a slight gain in ammo weight. A 80 gr bullet at 2900 fps trumps anything a 5.56mm can through. A 90 gr bullet at 2700 makes the 5.56mm look wimpy at best.
We need a free floating rail, a variable power optic, and BNVDs. That’s really about all we “need”.
And a shitload of better training. Make one E6 per Company the Small Arms Master Gunner and have that individual receive professional training. Units like the 75th and SFG could send MTTs to all major posts with a “train the trainer” approach. The trained E6s/senior E5s return to their Company and then train all of the other NCOs, who in turn train their respective Soldiers.
There’s nothing wrong with what we have. It doesn’t matter if they gave us portable nukes, if we can’t hit the intended target, what’s the point?
Isn’t this what Asymmetric Warfare Group does, or at least part of it? Just expand that unit instead of pulling from operational SOF. It would be a huge improvement either way though. An extended free float rail would be the biggest material upgrade. A better lubricant and the knowledge to go along with it, as well as the knowledge about magazines almost always being the issue…
He’s talking about two different things. The ballistic effectiveness and reliability. Clearly he knows little of either, just what he’s read in Army Times or may have seen personally, but not truly understood. Big surprise there. Being an Infantry LTC alone doesn’t mean you know jack shit about any of this. And his writing style bugs the hell out of me.
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That’s such a poorly written article, I’m surprised he made it to LTC. Or perhaps that’s why he stopped at LTC.
I’m not referring to the content, but the article itself.
The content… I couldn’t even figure out what point he was trying to make. But I go back to my point that most casualties are caused by high explosives, not small arms.
LWRCi?
I think the correct term is “rambling on.”