Army, Marines rate weapon success (M16A2/A4; M4; M9)

Stars and Stripes, European Edition ^ | Sunday, July 13, 2003 | Mark Oliva

[Travis McGee]

But we can’t go back to the tried and true M1911 .45 pistol – unless NATO also changes.

We can do any damn thing we want. NATO is a dead diplomatic letter. Belgium was even threatening to arrest our generals for war crimes. Screw the Euros.

[Travis McGee]

You are right on. Every special unit with their own weapons pipeline and budget uses on version or other of a .45 pistol. I can't think of a single exception.

The dirty truth is the 9mm was selected because most of our lady soldierettes couldn't rack the slide on the .45 or shoot it without flinching.

How can the crack troops guar a gate if they can't load their .45? So it went.

[Travis McGee]

Going back to Viet Nam, SEAL armorers converted M-60s to "chopped 60s" weighing 15 pounds. Short barrel, helicopter micro stock, fwd pistol grip. Yeah baby!

Sounds like the grunts are doing this to SAWs now.

[VOA]

bump

[Joe Brower]

Excellent point about U.S. vs. Miller, Travis. And yes, 12-gauge could easily be shortened to where it could be readily carried in a sheath slung across the back, light-weight, out of the way but readily at hand when needed. High speed, low drag.

[Travis McGee]

So much for "there is no military use for the sawed-off shotgun."

I hope this ref gets into the hands of our side when preparing for a SCOTUS challenge.

It would be great to blow Miller out of the water from one more angle.

[harpseal]

Nothing clears a room like a grenade through the window fired from 200 yards down the street.

Very true.

It seems the complaints against the M9 seem more than justified. The reason for going to the M9 was political not military. It had to do with stationing Pershing missles in Europe as I remember. Clearly a 9mm with a small capacity is not a good replacement for the .45acp M1911A1.

The complaints against the M4 seem less justified as it is a better urban warfare rifle the the M16 with its longer barrel. however, in longer range situations as one would expect it is not as effective as the M16. This seems like a matter of choosing teh equipment and tactics to fit the terrain.

[Joe Brower]

You've got that right, Trav. Assuming, of course, that the court would even allow facts to override their social-reengineering agenda. A hard call.

[Joe Brower]

"Nothing clears a room like a grenade through the window fired from 200 yards down the street."

Or closer! I find it interesting to note that the RPG and it's many variants like the B-40 have been a bane to our armed forces for almost forty years, and no effective countermeasures still have yet to be introduced by our armed forces. Strange, that.

[Euro-American Scum]

Bump for future reference.

[RogueIsland]

The 5.56 may have adequate stopping power at ranges inside 100 meters, but beyond that it isn't nearly as capable as the 30-06 or 308. Many of the engagements in the desert were well beyond the effective range of the 5.56 and the bad guys with the AK-47's had a clear advantage.

The bad guys did not have a clear advantage. 7.62 Warsaw has poor ballistics and AKs are not particularly accurate at long range. If someone's ever seen one place at a highpower match, let me know. 7.62 Nato, on the other hand, has excellent ballistics. But you point out what should be a well known truism by now: you can't have one caliber or weapon do everything well. With the correct ammunition for the twist and the target type, the 5.56 has shown itself to be very effective in CQB and urban warfare distances (anyone who disbelieves the lethality of .223 on man-sized targets may wish to look at the fatalities rate of aimed 5.56 fire in the DC sniper shootings). On the flip side, the superiority of .308 is (one would hope) pretty universally acknowledged at longer "sniping" ranges.

The one-size-fits-all mentality may simplify logistics, but that's about it.

[asformeandformyhouse]

The report said Marines asked for a heavier-grained round — up to 77 grains

I believe this larger round would require a different twist ratio for the barrel. I'm not sure the existing rate would stabalize the bullet.

[Joe Brower]

"Numerous soldiers showed us bullets in their magazines that had small dents in the primer,” the Army report said."

This is hardly news, as you probably already know. The whole issue of "slam fires" has been one of the most ballyhooed and yet inconsequential "issues" related to the AR-15 series of weapons. It seems scary, but it's not a problem. The firing pin is light enough and the primers hardened enough to where this is a non-issue, at least in my experience. I've seen hundreds of thousands of rounds fired through ARs in all sorts of conditions, and have personally expended tens of thousands myself, and never experienced a slam-fire.

Cheers,

[SLB]

Thought you might enjoy: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m16.htm

[Travis McGee]

After our Iraq experience, I'm more open to getting rid of the 5.56mm. It's great advantage, the ability to carry double the ammo, may have been very suited to jungle warfare with long foot patrols and sometimes a long period between resupplies.

But in our current warfighting, we are mostly talking about mounted troops dismounting from vehicles for short sharp engagements. In this case, .243 or 7.62 may do better.

[Travis McGee]

The new 62 grain ammo has greater accuracy at long range, and penetrates armor etc better, but it is much less lethal than the old 55 grain ammo.

The new ammo often drills neat "knitting needle" wounds which may be lethal later, but are not manstoppers now.

The old 55 grain stuff was unstable and "tumbled" when strking an enemy, leaving awesome wound channels for much better instant stopping.

[Hat-Trick]

pleased as punch with my new Kimber Ultra-Tactical II.

[Joe Brower]

IIRC, in the 62-grain "penetrator" round, "SS 109" is the actual bullet, and "M855" is the U.S. designation for the round designed around it.

Your recollection of "such a fast, small round that it wasn't doing any knockdown at all....just passing on through" was a phenomenon reported by our troops in Somalia, as well as later in Afghanistan, where the adversaries were not "trained by Hollywood" to fall down when hit, and instead kept going until actually physically incapacitated (and aided by indigenous substances such as khat). The tunsten tip of these rounds, while effective on vehicles and covered targets, did have a tendency to simply drill a pencil-diameter hole through the bad guys.

In Afghanistan, the 77-grain ammunition has been put into service for the last year now, and has a much more severe wounding effect, as well as better terminal ballistics at longer ranges.

[Shooter 2.5]

Bump for a later read.

[harpseal]

As a personal view I would think that the equipment should be suit for the terrain and tactics. In Desert envirornments with mechanized support the M14 is an ideal weapon. In urban envirornments the M4 or perhaps the 12 gauge is the better weapon. If troops could be trained with all of the above and issued appropriately for where they will be employed it might be better but it might well be a logistical nightmare.