Gun Porn!

Like the M16 did in 1964? It performed rather admirably on a relatively sanitized grass range at Ft, Benning, Georgia. Then it went to Vietnam and well, it still has that notorious reputation for unreliability over 50 years later rightly or wrongly.

That and they made changes to it against the advice of both people who designed it and failed to implement suggestions that were recommended before fielding. The original design faired fairly well but the catch was it used different ammo and projectile design compared to what eventually got shipped. We definitely need to avoid that situation again and test this stuff out in the field in smaller numbers first and if any changes are made test said changes as well.

The US military has been doing a good job of weeding out the really problematic weapons rather than rushing them into standard issue.

US Army is looking to pick up the G-28 a variant of the HK-417 as their Squad DMR fire arm in 7.62mm NATO. The 416 and 417 seem to be doing pretty decently for HK the Marines seeking to order large number of the M-27/ 416 and the Army looking to pick up a fair number of variations on the GP 28/ 417 for their infantry squads.

The Sturmgewehr Through Soviet And US Eyes.

\*Cue history fight.*

On the other hand, if the US had gotten its STG-44 or Kalashnikov variant by the Korean War (somewhat unlikely, since the United States Armed Forces still had lots of World War 2-era equipment in inventory), if they'd assessed the STG-44, they might have converted to a cartridge based on 8mm Kurz or 7.62x39, and we now know that those are kind of ballistically inefficient for the 'assault rifle' role except in certain circumstances.

So they might have gotten it earlier, the question is whether or not it would have had the same longevity as the AR-15 family.

There's always the question of 'when is something invented' vs 'when it is practical to mass-issue.' The Brits had APDS as early as 1944, but you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from inside with a sabot, so its armor-piercing capabilities were entirely academic.

edited 13th Mar '18 7:02:37 AM by math792d

Nothing new or controversial in that bit. The US was slow to move to AR's resulting in first reusing WWII stock enmasse and later the problems that dogged the M-14.

US Ordnance Board officers are notoriously ultra-conservative and hidebound, always looking backward to re-fight previous wars instead of looking forward to the next war fought with entirely new tactics.

Well some of the comments do touch that. First after WW 2, the idea of a general purpose "do everything" rifle aka an assault rifle was gaining ground in the US which turned into the M14, a weapon intended to replace upwards of a half-dozen previous ones including carbines, rifles, and submachineguns all with one system. While it wasn't up to the job in a fully satisfactory manner, it doctrinally succeeded at what it set out to do, make a general purpose "do everything" rifle.

In the Soviet side of the equation, all it convinced them initially was the use of intermediate ammo. It produced a carbine intended to be for riflemen (SKS), an assault rifle used for various forces (AK) and a machine gun built to augment both (RPD). Almost immediately this doctrine was found flawed and eventually abandoned although it took until the late 50s (like the M14) for them to replace all their WW 2 vintage and post-war SKS's with AK's. (Even then, some WW 2 vintage survived into the 60s in various roles until new replacements were made, among them still using Mosin-Nagants for snipers/marksmen until the SVD came online.)

Then it amusingly came together on the same page for both sides of the Iron Curtain about 30 years after WW 2 ended with the AK-74 and M16 in the 1970s.

Also it is noted in the comments that post-war, the idea of a 30 round assault rifle didn't gain many advantages when a rifleman armed with a Garand could call in all manner of ordnance with but a simple radio call from howitzers, to air support, to naval guns, to strategic bombers to even the atom bomb (late 40s/early 50s) if allowed. There wasn't much reason to "up the firepower" from a semi-auto rifle to a full assault rifle with that kind of support at his beck and call. It was only after experiences in Korea and Vietnam and most importantly the hands-tied nature of those conflicts (US riflemen were certainly not allowed to call in atom bombs in either Korea or Vietnam for instance.) showed the need for more importance in the infantry to defend themselves with say assault rifles (or the M14).

The M-14 most definetly did not succeed given they rushed to replace it not long after it entered service. It failed a general issue rifle being too heavy, too long, and troops could carry too few rounds. It failed as an automatic rifle because it was too difficult to control in full auto fire. It had technical and physical flaws that dogged it until someone basically stripped away nearly every aspect of the rifles and did a serious work up. Doctronally the M-14 was an abject failure and frankly is a case study of how to not try and create the mythical do all platform.

Russians were already onboard the multiple automatic weapons train by the end of WWII not just with SMG's but they ahd already started the process of developing and rapidly adopting a series of full auto capable assault rifles and had already been tinkering with their own intermediate cartridge to begin with.

The comments about artillery are complete drek. It has nothing to do with the ability to call for fire capability as just about any grunt, officer, commander, and general could easily have pointed out the simple fact it is not universally or reliably avialable on the battle field outside of pre-planned assets. Especially limited access assets like naval gun fire with a limited 25km range to strategic bombers which were only avialable if it was arranged in advance. The closest you get to reliable fire support is field artillery and it is just as easy for them to be supporting other missions, fending off their own attacks, or simply not available to the unit in question. This wasn't a unique or new phenomnom either.

To top it off the US did push for greater overall individual fire power which is why they wnet for semi auto rifles initially, the BAR before that, and adopted not one but two different SMG's, and given select fire the M1 Carbines. They had already laid plans to develop select fire weapons by that point and is partly why the M-14 even had select fire options in the first place given how bad an idea that proved to be. They had multiple programs that pre-dated the M-16 that were aimed specifically at improving the individual troopers fire power in a myriad of ways a trend that still continues today. Someone in the comments needs to go back to their history books.

There was always a good reason to up individual fire power given the US had already been doing just that and constantly fiddlign with assorted plans to do it further.

The M-16 also predates the AK-74 by a decade. The USSR though had been using and toying around with various intermediate cartridges already and had already proven that a lot of automatic fire power was effective when used correctly.

Not having an atomic weapon at the beck and call of some grunt shit is not having your hands tied by any measure. Neither is not having strategic air, artillery land or naval, or any other fire support. It has next to nothing with imaginary "hands being tied".

Marines To Adopt M17 MHS.

Tuffel, quick! Go beat your fellow Marines over the head with a PM manual! They're demonstrating that they might have a brain in there somewheres!

Some fun trivia since we're talking about the M-16 and the M-14. One of the rifles the M-14 competed against was the AR-10, which is basically the Giant Mook version of the M-16, chambered for 7.62mm.

Tom: I have been trying to phone Satan but apparently his tongue is frozen to the gates of hell. A new rifle, a new side arm, oh and they are starting their orders of M 320's.

^ And Now Possibly CSASS As Well.

....Wow. The Corps budging this much on key equipment hasn't happened in a rather long time.

^ And They're Replacing Your Beloved M40.

I am not overly fond of the M-40. It was ok while it lasted but Recon and USMC snipers have been asking for a new weapon for several years now.

That and the M-40 has been modified so many times over the years it looks nothing like the A1 or A2 did. The last iteration was the A6 or something like that.

edited 3rd Apr '18 7:09:45 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Victor Kalashnikov Has Passed Away.

I'm on a hunt for something and not being able to find a good picture of this thing is driving me up the wall.

I wanna find a good picture of the PP-19-07 model. It's chambered in 7.62 Tokarev and supposedly feeds from a 35 round box magazine like the PP Sh of old. Although I've also heard 45 round helical mags for it exist.

It's known to exist but I can't find a picture of it for the life of me.

Well then just build one and take a picture of that

Garcon: A little digging around suggests that instead of looking under the PP-19 try Bizon-2-07. There appear to be a few pics floating around as well as the PP-19 Vitayz (sp).

I got one. Well, not just a piccy but an article on it talking about it being all slathered up in Picatinny.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/02/chris-dumm/much-rail-russian-pp-19-bizon-2-hearts-picatinny-big-time/

Note the date on the web-page. The weapon may not be around anymore as it's been over four years since that went up.

The article definitely shows it's age, that's a Vityaz. Both it and the Bizon share the PP-19 designation despite not actually being properly related.

No worries though, I found a sketchy Russian forum a many pages deep into google with this picture.◊

Which looks like complete ass but it did have accurate pictures of other obscure Bizon variants like the integrally suppressed model◊ and the .380 ACP prototype◊

I think that's about as good as I'll ever get for it.

edited 12th Apr '18 7:41:43 PM by LeGarcon

Good pictures of Soviet prototype stuff can be particularly hard to find.

You could also try seeing if any of the pics from the Kalashnikov Museum may have one in it.

Ew. It looks like it accordioned.