Thought I would share army rething reliance on m4....

[Renegade]

@Belmont31R

1st round hit at 300M under combat conditions would be GOOD shooting, and Id dare whoever the genius was that said its not lethal at that range to go stand down there, and let me take a couple shots at him.

The problem is, while you are trying to take that shot, PKM and RPG fire and spray and pray AK fire is raining down on your location.

So while it may be lethal, it is hard to deliver.

[Renegade]

@Colt LE6920

I was under the impression that they are the same rifle, but with different options. Different rail system, flash suppressor, and buttstock. What all else is different?

AR-10, SR-25, SASS, M-110 are all variations of the same basic Stoner design.

[Failure2Stop]

I have used 5.56 in more than a few gunfights, some at extended range. If you can stick the bullet where it needs to go, it will do it’s job, but how well it does that job and through what it can penetrate consistently is definately an area for improvement.

[Cagemonkey]

@Failure2Stop

I have used 5.56 in more than a few gunfights, some at extended range. If you can stick the bullet where it needs to go, it will do it’s job, but how well it does that job and through what it can penetrate consistently is definately an area for improvement.

Thanks for summing it up so eloquently. Now lets end the arguing and find a caliber to do the job more effectively.

[ForTehNguyen]

theres no magic bullet that will fit every situation, yet people keep trying to chase it.

[DragonDoc]

@C-grunt

Yeah the 5.56 isnt a powerhouse at range but it still puts holes through your chest. If it happens to tumble as well then the hole is even bigger.

The issue isn’t that you can hit a target at range. The issue is the ability of the M855 round to produce a wound that rapidly debilitates the target. Ideally, you want to shoot the guy and he goes down and can’t return fire. Ranges that exceed 300 meters put the 5.56 at a disadvantage because the wounds don’t rapidly debilitate the insurgents. They can take a hit and continue to fight as they bleed out. When you add the effects of stimulants and it becomes hard to kill the enemy at any range without good shot placement. Most guys in the CZ are saying they are kicking ass and taking names but you have to look at the bodies to tell how well your engagement went. I’m sure quite a few warriors would be surprised to find out that those center mass hits were hits to extremities or outright misses at long ranges.

[C-grunt_old]

@DragonDoc

The issue isn’t that you can hit a target at range. The issue is the ability of the M855 round to produce a wound that rapidly debilitates the target. Ideally, you want to shoot the guy and he goes down and can’t return fire. Ranges that exceed 300 meters put the 5.56 at a disadvantage because the wounds don’t rapidly debilitate the insurgents. They can take a hit and continue to fight as they bleed out. When you add the effects of stimulants and it becomes hard to kill the enemy at any range without good shot placement. Most guys in the CZ are saying they are kicking ass and taking names but you have to look at the bodies to tell how well your engagement went. I’m sure quite a few warriors would be surprised to find out that those center mass hits were hits to extremities or outright misses at long ranges.

I agree with you, but where do we draw the line. As cartridge siza grows, follow up shot times and carry load start to decline. I have used the 5.56 at range and didnt really notice a problem, if there was good shot placement.

But the same can be said about pretty much any round. Being in a Mechanized unit, I saw a lot of use of the 7.62x51 as well. The same thing is true with that round, It needs good placement to be effective.

+100 on the people claiming misses were hits. I remember more than a few guys who could barely qualify at the range claim hits at running bad guys who were 200+ yards away.

[opmike]

@MK18Pilot

If 5.56mm is such a lousy round, maybe Hackler wouldn’t mind acting as a target frame next time I go to the range with a 10.3 barreled AR-15.

I hear comments like this frequently. Regardless of where one stands on these sorts of debates, I must say that I find it rather silly to use straw man arguments such as this as justification for one’s position. I don’t think anyone is saying that these rounds haven’t incapacitated targets. I think it’s more a matter of how effectively/reliably it is doing so.

[beckman]

I find it interesting that the article was posted without any reference to the source or author.

Here’s a source for the article:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHANISTAN_BULLET_WARS?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-05-21-04-41-59

Note that it is an AP article.

[sjopling]

@120mm

There is a brilliant discussion on this at LF.

The US Army, like any army that doesn’t suck, has a system for fighting.

Carbines and rifles work out to a certain range. After which, you have crew-served. After which you have mortars. After which, you have direct fire and indirect fire artillery. After which you have theater indirect, After which you have strat bombers and ICBMs.

Attempting to stretch your carbine range to crew-served/mortar range is stupid, especially at the expense of mobility and training.

Now, if the US Army would start properly maintaining the weapon systems it HAS; then, I might be able to get behind that.

This is all you need to know.

Not every weapon can do every task. Know your weapons and pick accordingly.

[the_fallguy]

@120mm

I have a TIME magazine article from 1941 that describes the utter and complete unreliability and inadequacy of the newly adopted M1 Garand Rifle.

Nothing, whatsoever, is new.

If you ever get a chance to scan that, I would love to see it. That would get some knickers in a twist…

[120mm]

Just on a whim, I tried Time Magazine’s very good search engine, and came up with this:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884292,00.html

Army: Report on the Garand
By TIME STAFF Monday, Mar. 24, 1941

Last week the U.S. Marine Corps released a report on the Garand rifle. Because the Marines know a lot about small arms, and had just adopted the Garand, the report was authoritative and timely. It was also:
• The only official, fully documented account of Garand performance ever published.
• A grave indictment of the Garand’s dependability.
The Test
Until lately, the Marines’ standard rifle was the 38-year-old war-tested Springfield, which was also the Army’s rifle until 1936. (The Army last week had about as many Springfields as Garands in service but was substituting Garands as fast as production [about 700 a day] permitted.) Since the Army adopted the Garand, the Marine Corps has been under pressure to do the same.

[the_fallguy]

Thanks, 120mm. That was a very interesting read. I found it very entertaining that the argument from the neigh-sayers for the M1 was similar to one of the initial arguments concerning the M16 rifles; basically that the new gun is capable of a higher volume of out-put, but it is not as dependable as the gun it is replacing and it might not perform in the real world.

[Failure2Stop]

Done.