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