Future Warrior

[Richard Bong]

I originally thought exactly what you are saying, but the guard actually makes a guess—bad one, granted—but he guesses at a rate of fire he thinks is high. He guesses 300 rpm. That’s why I noted assault rifles fire about 750 and SMGs about 1200.

I don’t recall how much I explained about this above, so at the risk of repeating myself, the doctrine for personal firepower at the close of the Cold War was that the way to improve hits by average soldiers was for them to fire bursts instead of single shots, and those bursts so quickly that the rifle did not have time to recoil off target. That doctrine is what gave birth to the H&K G11, which fired 3 round bursts at 2,100 rpm from a magazine of 90 rounds. So instead of 30, single shots it delivered 30 bursts of 3. Remember these are all light, “assault weapon” size bullets from The West, so around 50-60 grains. AKs are a very different animal.

I’m bringing it up because the witness brought it up. One supposes whomever that was trained on a weapon that fired about 750 rpm, and judged the Americans shooting much faster. That sounds like burst fire, far above 750. Could be a SMG, but that seems questionable to me. I think this detail is reason to suspect that Delta has access to an unidentified weapon that supports the old Cold War doctrine.

And, as a US Army member at the ends of the cold war, the M-16A1 was changed to the A2 which took away full automatic and replaced it with 3 round burst. 3 Round burst isn't useful for suppressive fire and is a waste of ammo when you are firing at individuals. 3 round burst was pretty useless when clearing rooms in MOUT.

Note the G-11, which is where the 3 round burst at 2200 RPM reference comes from, was a failure and used a lighter (4.7mm) bullet.

Battle rifles are too heavy. If you're going to make me carry that much extra weight, I'd rather have an on an M-203 on an M-16 or M-4.

I still haven’t seen the source Richard found that there were American wounded though, I don’t doubt it. Reports are often inflated and some news media don’t even know what the word “casualties” means.

That is the Pentagon's press release. 7 injured, 2 seriously. You can find it on CNBC and Fox easily enough.

Bullpups are the future. The Army needs to get their shit together.

No, they aren't. Having fired a few, they are overly complicated, making them more difficult to maintain. The trigger is inconsistent and does not have a good tension, and because of design they are both difficult to use and difficult to reload in the prone position. Oh, and they make it difficult to fire left handed. The only advantage they offer is a shorter overall length, which is a questionable advantage.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Richard, none of what you are objecting to about bullpups has been true for more than twenty years. Bullpups have excellent triggers, they’re easy to reload when prone, they’re balanced for use much better and are faster to target. They’re easily swappable left to right handed with no tools. They’re less complex, have fewer parts and are easier to clean. They weigh less and offer much more, especially including much better ballistics attendant to the longer barrel. Keep in mind, the M16 was designed around a 20” barrel, then soldiers started cutting them back to 16”, 14”, and finally 11.5”. You lose hundreds of feet per second and a huge percent of energy when you shorten a rifle barrel.

Your objections are true of the Steyr AUG, but that is a half century old rifle that has been obsolete for twenty years.

I totally get why you think the ergonomics of the lighter and faster bullpups are wanting, but if you knew how these newer systems handle in the field I think your objections would vanish.

Here’s a comparison between the Sig XM-7 that just won the Army competition to replace the M4, and the Wolverine semiauto version of the Sabertooth full auto Bullpup. The Wolverine is in 6.5 Creedmore. An even better chambering is the 6 Max. Abundant Data on that coming soon. You can actually see 6Max trials posted on the Desert Tech page. It is vastly superior to the Fury cartridge in the XM-7, and much lighter to carry.

View: https://youtu.be/7um6SSsRO6k?si=WXHfpRT4XqtXwq_Y

 

[Richard Bong]

Richard, none of what you are objecting to about bullpups has been true for more than twenty years. Bullpups have excellent triggers, they’re easy to reload when prone, they’re balanced for use much better and are faster to target. They’re easily swappable left to right handed with no tools. They’re less complex, have fewer parts and are easier to clean. They weigh less and offer much more, especially including much better ballistics attendant to the longer barrel. Keep in mind, the M16 was designed around a 20” barrel, then soldiers started cutting them back to 16”, 14”, and finally 11.5”. You lose hundreds of feet per second and a huge percent of energy when you shorten a rifle barrel.

Your objections are true of the Steyr AUG, but that is a half century old rifle that has been obsolete for twenty years.

I totally get why you think the ergonomics of the lighter and faster bullpups are wanting, but if you knew how these newer systems handle in the field I think your objections would vanish.

Here’s a comparison between the Sig XM-7 that just won the Army competition to replace the M4, and the Wolverine semiauto version of the Sabertooth full auto Bullpup. The Wolverine is in 6.5 Creedmore. An even better chambering is the 6 Max. Abundant Data on that coming soon. You can actually see 6Max trials posted on the Desert Tech page. It is vastly superior to the Fury cartridge in the XM-7, and much lighter to carry.

View: https://youtu.be/7um6SSsRO6k?si=WXHfpRT4XqtXwq_Y

Which ones?

• They are definitely not less complex, they have to have more moving parts.
• The ones I've fired have crappy triggers, and that is because the trigger you are using is a remote linkage to the place where the hammer is, they have to have that linkage in order to work.
• They are more difficult to clean because of the complex parts needed for the remote triggers.
• You don't need a tool to switch from right to left handed, but you can't just switch hands in a combat situation.

When you are using a Carbine, of course you lose velocity. In situations where you need a carbine range is short. Having said that the Effective range of the M-4 Carbine is 500 Meters, which is the same as the M-16A2.

Firing Prone with a Bullpup the magazine forces you to be higher, exposing more of your head. Changing the magazine forces your non-firing hand to travel much further to load a magazine and when prone you have to move the weapon in a way where you are no longer holding yourself on your elbows. Further the magazine is likely to get stuck in your body armor/combat webbing.

As for the future:

• France is phasing the FAMAS out.
• The UK is phasing out the L85.
• China has dropped theirs.

IIRC the only countries with a Bullpup as the primary weapon, are Austria and Australia both using the AUG.

Nobody is adopting new bullpups.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

That all sounds great until you watch the vids of people firing prone. Then it means nothing.

I suggest you watch the actual reviews. The trigger pull has not been an issue since the AUG, twenty years ago. It’s what people say who have never shot a bullpup.

 

[Yex]

it was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.

Sigh

History somebody probably already knows, back to 2018. There were two bits of hardware that have been around a long time that spawned a third. It goes, audio, visual and sensory.
Visual was pretty straightforward - lasers on gimbal with a little computer vision that also captures face recognition for later use. Temporary blindness - dispurses.
Second has been around for a long time, just blast auditory oscillating high frequency noise - dispurses. Often fitted to boats.

Sunglasses and ear defenders counter both. So it only works once realistically.

The third is microwave using the frey affect. Its intent was to be uncounterable and not give away its own location, two things the prior two can't reasonably do.

You can of course detect and protect against it, tin foil or as the yanks call it alloomanun foil at about 0.5mm thickness is effective against the frequency range. Problem is it needs a face mask too as enclosure is needed, so respirator tech probably needs it added or retro fitting mesh into the plastic.

You can fit the antenna to a heavy lift drone. Same sort used for lidar.

I am glad the UK is increasing it's cyberwarfare division. This is the concern.

Edit: you can also directly counter it after detection with destructive interference, a jammer basically. Problem is it doesn't 'destroy', it basically just scatters the beam and could hit anyone twice as hard. E.g. You cook your own guys and possibly who you're aiming at

 

[Combat_Bob]

IIRC the only countries with a Bullpup as the primary weapon, are Austria and Australia both using the AUG.

Did the Israelis ditch the Tavor? I hadn't heard.

Bullpups certainly have nontrivial advantages, but they definitely do have tradeoffs, too. One is shooting around corners to your offhand side, if it is side-ejecting. And if it's forward- or down-ejecting, there are issues with such systems- they are easier to get debris inside. No matter what The Internet says, there is a longer trigger linkage that adds roughness to the trigger and while it is possible to overcome that it tends to be a finicky process. Desert Tech did it well, but those are $2500 rifles, whereas Uncle Sam only pays about $700 for an M4A1 carbine. Reloads are less ergonomic- you have to train the hell out of someone to get reload times down. Admittedly, that's not critical is mass warfare, but it can be crucial in CQB. Related to that is the awkwardness of clearing a malfunction- that is a common complaint of actual soldiers transitioning to them, and it is not a trivial issue. Really short bullpups lack rail space, and even on some longer ones a whole side of the foregrip is taken up by the charging handle, though that is obviously not universal. And oddly, the modern bullpups are all kinda heavy. Not sure why. The Desert Tech WLVRN is likely the best on the market right now and it's 7.5 pounds slick. The Tavor with a 16" barrel is almost eight pounds. (The Kel-Tec is only 7 pounds but... it's a Kel-Tec.)

But all of this fanboism (on both sides) is ignoring the elephant in the room:

The rifle an army issues is fairly irrelevant.

Once you meet a certain minimal level of functionality, it just doesn't matter. Most of the free world are adopting ARs because they meet that standard, are easy to train on due to having what may be the best ergonomics in the world, by pure luck the design has proven to be very adaptable, and they are cheap because the patents are all in the public domain. But the biggest killers on the battlefield is artillery and air strikes. By a HUGE margin. The next is probably machineguns.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I would argue that cartridge is key. I get why the army wants to shoot through body armor and extend lethality to 1km. The 5.56 really doesn’t have the reach for places like Afghanistan. The 6 Max does however, and unlike the Sig Fury cartridge that comes in mags of 20, the Max shoots from the same boltface as the 5.56 and comes in mags of 60. All the reviews I have seen adore the quad stack 60 round mags.

Test so far soldiers hate the weight of the Fury cartridge, they hate the 20 round mags and they hate the idea of carrying 140-200 rounds instead of 210-300. With the quad stack 6 Max you have 240-300 and it still weighs less than the Fury ammo.

 

[Richard Bong]

That all sounds great until you watch the vids of people firing prone. Then it means nothing.

I suggest you watch the actual reviews. The trigger pull has not been an issue since the AUG, twenty years ago. It’s what people say who have never shot a bullpup.

Bullpups don't do well, which is why only two major militaries aren't getting rid of theirs.

I have done better than watch reviews, I have handled bullpup weapons. I've had a magazine hang up in my gear. I've felt the triggers.

 

[Richard Bong]

Did the Israelis ditch the Tavor? I hadn't heard.

Bullpups certainly have nontrivial advantages, but they definitely do have tradeoffs, too. One is shooting around corners to your offhand side, if it is side-ejecting. And if it's forward- or down-ejecting, there are issues with such systems- they are easier to get debris inside. No matter what The Internet says, there is a longer trigger linkage that adds roughness to the trigger and while it is possible to overcome that it tends to be a finicky process. Desert Tech did it well, but those are $2500 rifles, whereas Uncle Sam only pays about $700 for an M4A1 carbine. Reloads are less ergonomic- you have to train the hell out of someone to get reload times down. Admittedly, that's not critical is mass warfare, but it can be crucial in CQB. Related to that is the awkwardness of clearing a malfunction- that is a common complaint of actual soldiers transitioning to them, and it is not a trivial issue. Really short bullpups lack rail space, and even on some longer ones a whole side of the foregrip is taken up by the charging handle, though that is obviously not universal. And oddly, the modern bullpups are all kinda heavy. Not sure why. The Desert Tech WLVRN is likely the best on the market right now and it's 7.5 pounds slick. The Tavor with a 16" barrel is almost eight pounds. (The Kel-Tec is only 7 pounds but... it's a Kel-Tec.)

But all of this fanboism (on both sides) is ignoring the elephant in the room:

The rifle an army issues is fairly irrelevant.

Once you meet a certain minimal level of functionality, it just doesn't matter. Most of the free world are adopting ARs because they meet that standard, are easy to train on due to having what may be the best ergonomics in the world, by pure luck the design has proven to be very adaptable, and they are cheap because the patents are all in the public domain. But the biggest killers on the battlefield is artillery and air strikes. By a HUGE margin. The next is probably machineguns.

The Israelis only deployed the Tavor in limited quantities, and are going away from it.

The Aussies are looking for a new rifle now, too. They are early in their process and may go with a bullpup for their next generation. It hasn't been decided.