The FAMAS' physical design really appeals to me (except that butt ugly stock), but sometimes I think it's a self defeating concept. 1000 rounds a minute plus bipod implies a machine gun, but with 30 rounds per magazine and clunky mechanism you're not going far. The bullpup design aims for compactness and lightweight, but the French adds bulky accessories onto the poor thing. It comes with a bayonet, but its shortness makes it a poor spear.

edited 24th Jul '16 7:45:16 AM by flameboy21th

The FAMAS is honestly a very strong contender for the worst small arm to come out of the West in modern times, possibly ever.

It's main competition is the original SA-80.

To be fair, most early versions of assault rifles today suck. M16 and AK-46/47 have a lot of issues until new and improved versions come out. The French and Brits just don't spend tthat much money in upgrading, and by the time they did Colt and Kalash had already taken over the world, and bullpup designs are hard to pull off.

edited 24th Jul '16 8:57:44 AM by flameboy21th

Ahem, Colt got really luck that they bought Stoner's design for a song. The AK was designed to be cheap to make in the aftermath of World War Two. NATO had the FN-FAL from whom the G3, FN-FNC and yes the SCAR all owe their designs to.

But the French are just stubborn and when the Wall Came Down™, well small arms kinda fell by the wayside (see the death of the G-11 caseless). FN kept going because of demand and the SOCOM tender for a new rifle.

The French small arms got mugged by reality and it's telling that they are fishing for either a Belgian rifle that is not the FN 2000 or a German rifle (that's based of an American design..that's like Inception levels of anti-Frenchieness!).

edited 24th Jul '16 10:11:30 PM by TairaMai

A thing that crops up in gun and rifle forums (and an Urban Legend) is that small calibers like the .222/5.56mm et al "produce wounds instead of a One Hit K Ill". Trust me, someone will say that the .223/5.56 is a "poodle shooter" or say "The Geneva Convention man! Those rounds make wounded soldiers so the enemy has to treat'em!"

Please don't take a drink whenever this happens, you liver will hate you.

Come now the Firearm Blog with their response:

Hit this link for the sauce...

edited 24th Jul '16 10:16:27 PM by TairaMai

Well we know the AR-680 steel level III plates won't stop M855A1. It blows clean through.

However the level III Ceramic plates seem to get the job done. Lesson learned use the ceramic inserts

For you 7.62mm fans say hello to the M80A1 the EPR style round in NATO 7.62mm. There is an article about it on TFB but I can't link from here.

Sauce at the link. Sadly, a lot of commanders would rather do nothing until the mag they have break down. The Army should take the old ones away and sell them as surplus. That ain't gonna happen. But at least better mags will be in the right hands.

Both Magpul and Brownell's make AR 15/M16 mag upgrades: better follower, spring and floorplates.

And yes T-Hound, there are issues with P-Mags in non-AR/M16/M4 rifles.

Which is why the E-Mag exists.

Eh like I said in GP. I don't care that much about other weapons platforms in terms of P-mag. If someone makes a polymer mag that works for them like FN or similar the better for em.

Then again I have less then fond memories of trying to keep those rat boxes we called magazines in working order for the unit. Not a fun job.

And now for something silly:

A wild Pokemon appeared!

All your Pokemon are fainted because Gary Oak rekt you in the last battle.

How well would your carry weapon (should you have one) protect you?

Depends entirely on the pokemon. They vary from being rats, pigeons, and goldfish to being rhinoceroses (rhinocerosi?), dragons, and main battle tanks.

Some of them have Bulletproof ability.

Funny you should mention, I once wrote a fanfic with the premise of a Badass Normal Gunslinger (from an area without pokemon) having to fight against Team Rocket's Pokemon trainers in order to save the pokemon world.

But to answer the question: It depends strongly on the pokemon you're fighting against. For example, most Rattata could probably be stopped with your average handgun. A major factor is size-smaller pokemon would logically require less firepower to kill.

However, stronger evolved pokemon can be a nightmare and would probably call for military-grade weapons and special training-especially if you'd dealing with a pokemon with a trainer. Think about how many times Pikachu's destroyed vehicles with rocket launchers and their ilk on them. Having said that, if you're a badass Navy SEAL with an M 4 A 1, you might just win.

Legendaries are generally not going to be killed by infantry-level weapons short of maybe rocket launchers. They call for fighter planes and tanks, and even that can't be guaranteed to be sufficient (Mewtwo was able to hold off such an attack in Mewtwo Returns-though to be fair the enemy was trying to capture him alive). However, it's highly unlikely any pokemon can survive a nuclear weapon.

Victini is a nuclear weapon.

Flame Thrower in Slow Motion

Very cool.

By the way, how come the Ruger MP 9 (Which I recently added to the Rare Guns page. Still needs a picture and sorting out the red links, though) never took off?

Because quite simply machine pistols and sub machine guns of the sorta Uzi/Mac 10 type and size really just aren't a thing anymore.

Times have changed.

SMG's are pretty much in the 9mm range, with HK dominating the pack due to sheer mindshare and inertia. A bunch of AR-type subguns have flooded the market. Since they use 9mm or 5.56mm they are scooping up the "we hate HK" crowd. The P90 and and a few others are taking up the slack. However body armor, carbines and standardization has killed the SMG in the military role.

SWAT teams use them, but most usually get the P90 or the MP 5.

Has machine pistol ever be practical? Too low ammo to shoot for long, too much recoil, and rather bulky.

Hence assault rifles, SMG's taking the place of the machine pistol. Machine pistols don't have a lot of ammo (unless you like a comically large magazine), they have accuracy issues and military units don't have much use for them.

SMG's are the tablet to the machine pistol's PDA- machine pistols are getting swallowed whole by SMG's. Just like the PDA died with tablet's and smartphones taking away their niche, SMG's (and carbines) have taken away the machine pistol's reason for existence.

Really the only places you'd find machine pistols these days are maybe vehicle drivers and even then with the uptick of this new PDW class of weapons they're disappearing even there.

And possibly the hood, though even the MAC-10/11 has lost popularity now.

Nah, the age of the Tec-9 is long over and the Mac-10 actually got hit hard with that Assault Weapons Ban.

People always list it as an example of bullshit gun control but it actually did a pretty good job of removing certain weapons off the streets. The Tec-9 actually went completely out of production because of it and Intratec went bust.

Nowadays it's mostly pilfered handguns and the occasional sawed off or super shorty type shotgun.

Machine pistols are also pretty popular with bodyguards, or at least they were when I read about it. I think GIGN shieldbearers use them as well.

I wonder how practical a machine pistol firing 7N21 or 7N31 would be.

There already is one, the PP-2000, which is currently used by Russian police.