The gunner on my first Bradley crew had (as a PFC or so) carried one he picked up on day one of the ground war in the '91 go-round. Chain of command eventually told him to get rid of it, on or about the last day of the ground war.

These days I can't imagine anyone with quality, current-state-of-the-art weapons training reaching for an AK because, as suggested, it's just not a very good gunfighting weapon, but in the Twilight War it'd probably happen even before necessity enters the equation. Big Army didn't get serious about gunfighting until . . . well, okay, they're still not very serious about it, but they started trying to get better only within the last five years or so.

That'd be the US military then. Us in the rest of the world have looked upon marksmanship in a positive light for a very long time. ;)

Not marksmanship. Gunfighting. Related but very distinct fields of study.

It have the accuracy of a Brown Bess, it can get hot enough to burn your hand under sustained fire, say what you will, drop it in sand or mud, take it from the tropics to the artic and back, lose parts and have some 3rd World blacksmith beat out a replacement part, but the AK has one thing going for it...its works under any and all conditions. Something that can't be said for a lot of high tech wonders that the West/NATO issues to its troops.

You know, the more I think about it. Im going to go with an SVD as a combo Battle Rifle and DMR. Its kinda limited with the 10 rd mag though. But still its one heck of a rifle, and its sexy to boot.

I can't imagine nobody has produced an extended capacity mag for the SVD....

I've seen some homemade 20-rounders for the "AK-54" (Romanian PSL with AK furniture), but they seem to be two 10-round bodies welded together. Wouldn't want to bet my life on one.

- C.

The SLR is a great Battle rifle. It has a good, heavy round and is proven in combat to be a deadly weapon in trained hands.

The Falklands proved something else about the SLR/FAL, it's a blody pile of heavy crap in the hands of half-trained conscripts and is useless as a fully automatic weapon (which is why the British/Commonwealth SLR was semi only).

The M14 is lighter, easier to control and arguably a better piece of kit for militias and units with little training, it's almost idiot-proof. The M14 is also a good latform for further conversion and tinkering, which makes it such a great DMR thst is still in use today.

We Brits need some tissues and a quiet moment to ourselves when we see the SLR because the British where (and still are) a relatively small and highly tained military with very high standards of marksmanship. A British soldier could make 600m killshots with an SLR because that is what he was trained to do, day in and day out on the ranges come rain or shine.

Nations with larger militaries can't put that much effort into the average soldier. America is a good example as they are required to spend less time on individual training compared to the British (with the exception of the USMC who have a similar focus on marksmanship).

It comes down to doctrine. The British is geared around the idea of individual, aimed shots to make best use of limited numbers and ammo conservation.

The US army is geared around putting serious lead downrange to make the enemy keep their heads down as US troops advance andpush the enemy out.

In a way the Bits are more defensive in style as their advances tend to be slow and steady affairs in a tried and tested fashion that has won many battles. The Americans are fast and furious and their choice of weaponry matchs this philosophy of rapid advance under heavy and sustained fire.

Heh, this has become something of an essay so I apologise. In short, the SLR and M14 are two different weapons with different tactical doctrines inspiring their development and use.

While the British in the 20th century (after bad experiences in the Boer Wars) have always prized marksmanship, there are two other reasons that the British prize marksmanship so highly:

1. Northern Ireland had given us an environment when shots had to be carefully placed.

2. Defence cuts never gave us enough ammo!

Preference between weapons is highly dependent on what you are trained on/national pride. SLR is still the best though :-)

And we in the antipodean Dominions have proudly inherited these doctrines.

It's funny you've mentioned 600m killshots because on my very first range qualification shoot with an SLR, once I'd zeroed it, I didn't miss a single shot on the 600m pop-up range. I was far from being the perfect infantryman but I'm proud of my marksmanship.

Edit: Oops, just realised I said the same thing about accuracy 24 posts above :o

Weather permitting I'm taking the SMLE to Bisley next week, first time on the 600 yard range of Century. Hope I can live up to that standard (and that's without having to cope with semi-auto...)

Just stay out of Magpie Alley!

I'm not a firearms owner/user, although i have spent some nights out shooting rabbits and foxes. So while i come from very much a begginer backgroud, I have a thought on all the statements about accuracy that appear in any "best rifle/pistal etc" thread.

Lets say a person/PC who has an ingame/real life shooting skill of 85% accuracy takes any rifle onto a range, sites it in, and for the most part I think that person/pc would make between 83 and 87% of their shots. With the variation from 85% being the accuracy +/- of the rifle. I think the variation would be small.

But with all that said, i dont think much of the above counts "in battle" or "under fire", where the conditions are just so different. No sighting in, firing quickly (if at all), moving targets, cramped shooting postion etc ...

I think our 85% shooter above would see his hits drop dramatically.

All i'm saying is, from my non-shooting background, is that a rifles shooting accuracy on a range is not the most important factor "in battle". I think other qualities would be higher on my list (like how comfortable any rifle/pistal is in terms of weight, length, reliability etc).

I have to go with the M14/M1A. As it is basically an external magazine fed, M1 Garand. Which (And I agree with) George S Patton described as "the greatest implement of battle ever devised." I'll be damned if he wasn't right.

it depends a bit on the way you marksmans mind works. i know people that can barely qualify on the range, but put a bit of stress on them and they suddenly can't miss.(i still wanna find a way to get this combat ability to translate to more garrison concerns though)

A friend of mine just got a FN SCAR 17S. I know it's not in the TW2K Timeline but it feels nice in ones hands. Plus it is much more ergonomic and accessory friendly than the M14. Hopefully after the hollidays I can get off graveyard and try it out. Their SCAR 16S was a really nice shooter.

This one has to come down to nationality. If you are Americanit's the M14, if you are European it's the FAL (and if your British or commonwealth then it's the legendary SLR).

Not quite:

I'm a US Vet, and I picked the G3.

Hmm, once again old poll. What is it with me and old polls? That's polls, mind you, not strip club poles....er, nevermind, back on topic. :o

But it seems I picked the G-3. Oh well, hey, you can't go wrong with German engineering, right? Don't want to sound like an H&K fanboy, but they do make some pretty decent firearms. That plus, G-3's along with spare parts and the ammunition can be found in various parts of the world and aren't too hard to find. Perhaps not as common as the FN FAL, but they're around.

Then again, in all honesty, perhaps the best answer to "favorite battle rifle" would be, IMHO, whatever is actually AVAILABLE, is reasonably accurate, and above all else, DOES THE JOB.

I went with the M-14 as it is the only one I have any experience with.

I would say some place between none and zero, I know it is the cool thing with the games (both rpg/table top and video type) to have full auto, but in real life it would be almost useless on most of these. Short of using it as a replacement for the LMG/SAW, most people would not be able to hit anything with it on full auto.

I hear things like this all the time from fans of the AK, but my first hand experience with them in Iraq, does not back up most of this. Yes it will get hot enough to burn you, it can do it within one magazine on semi-auto if fired quickly enough (not a selling point to me), most of the ones that I got to deal with the accuracy went from OK (for the best of them) to shooting patterns out of a bench rest. We also had several that had to be chopped up as they would nor work due to lack of maintenance, we had more of the AK's go down due to lack of maintenance than AR's. So my experience with them is they are not something I would trust my life to, unlike the AR.

After action reports indicated poor repair of Ak's as a major factor in the poor performance of various insurgence actions. Yes its rugged but it needs PM too. Od Soviet policy was to loan out older weapons when new stuff was issued, so one wants to take care of it. An M14 with a synthetic stock and a scope is a handy thing to have. I went with an AR10 variant since 60% of the parts are AR15/M16.

M-14
 

Hmmm went through Basic with the 14 went through AIT as well.
Then go to Nam and get a 16......... er wtf?
buy browning auto five and get permission to carry. Happy again.
My SWAT team started out with a L1A1 as heavy support weapon carried by the 6'5" 245 lbs middle linebacker of our team.
Me ... shortened mini 14 and restocked as I was the happy Scout.
I do love that garand action ( have one) and have the 30 carbine and m1a1 scoped as well.
It is a very good and dependable design as seen by the use as a sniper weapon now.
I will say I think you members of HER Britanic forces are just biased :D
PS I can not spell and am taking pain meds so there.

I once was looking online and a British possession had a defense force with Mini14's. Don't know which island.

Hello
 

When we put the team together the Boss ( Sheriff) did not have military background and did not like military "types". but he sure wanted a trained group to respond to and reduce any problems.
Ergo, no money support, as in you guys get it together , equip and I will 'let" you have paid time to train...maybe.
the others were into and had the ar 15 I I did and do not like that action or configuration of that weapon, sooooo
I bought the mini 14. I did not trust the head space from the factory and had it checked it was not within what I considered specs and I wanted a bit shorter weapon so I had an inch taken off the chamber and an inch taken off the muzzle re-chambered and re-crowned,
restocked with a top of the line folder and man what a weapon, oh yeah it had the four power Buris(sic) scope.
Our location put us between Denver and Salt lake airports and at the time skyjacking was a threat, our airport could land the big stuff sooo We received our training and some grant money from the Feds and were the fast response to our airport for any such emergence until the FBI could get on scene.
Great training and super experience.
Oh yeah and a whole bunch of pretty good war stores.;)

I do like the AR platform, but Ruger has supposedly fixed the barrel harmonics of the Mini 14 and tightened the average groups. New rifles don't need the little gizmo from Firearms News(old Shotgun
News). I think new rifles have 1-9 twist barrels as well. but for Real world price, I can build a nice AR-15 and have a lot of accessories, or buy a used AR-10. A new Ranch Rifle could be a nice truck rifle otherwise.

It's Alive!
 

Based on the new responses on the Favorite APC/IFV thread, I thought a bit of thread necromancy might be in order.

My HK-91 remains probably the most accurate rifle I own. I can shoot 1" groups easily at 100yds, and it has never malfunctioned. It would outshoot the Remington Mdl 742 deer rifle I use to own is what I usually try to hunt deer with if shooting out as far as 300 yds.

I recently bought a new ParaFAL and can hardly wait to see if it can better the HK.

Stop it! You're making me extremely envious (I would love to own either or preferably, both, of those rifles. Alas, both those rifles are restricted in my country).

Beyond restricted. Those few people allowed to have anything like that are rarer than unicorns. :mad: