CONUS T2K Infantry Team Weapons

[HorseSoldier]

A .30 caliber rifle with iron sights is not much of an advantage over a 5.56mm rifle or one of the Soviet x39s -- you'll almost never be able to acquire and positively ID a target for the added range to matter, and then no one, even with lots of training, manages to make those longer range shots with iron sights with anything more than statistical static on two way ranges.

There is, ultimately, a reason why everyone on the planet quit using 30-06/308/8mm/etc full power rifles in favor of assault rifles. Assault rifles just work better for real combat. At the ranges where you can actually pick out a target who is not being really cooperative in assisting you in killing him (i.e. walking towards you in open order, WW1 1914 style) the assault rifle/intermediate round combo has all the range and hitting power you need.

I've read stories over the years of the Soviets being at such a disadvantage versus Afghans using Lee Enfields in the 80's.

Mostly just mythology. The Afghan Muj took to the AK like junkies to a free supply of heroin, once we started getting serious about supporting them and shipping them real weapons. When they were armed with Lee Enfields (which they had and which we gave them before we were serious about screwing the Soviets) the Soviets mostly mopped the floor with them anywhere they raised their heads.

With rare exception, I would think fire discipline would be a way of life except in dire emergencies in 2000 AD for infantrymen.

They also do a lot more walking than real life infantrymen, and being able to carry twice the basic load of ammo for the same weight means a whole lot.

M14's would be nicer (more due to magazine capacity, ease of scope fitment, and the whole Garand *PING* ejection than any full auto capability), but may not be as available at times, depending on the area.

Without the Cold War ending, the US government would have still had most of the million-odd M14s it bought in storage instead of blow torched and/or given away for free to new NATO members in the Baltic. I doubt they got recycled into DMRs in the Twilight War timeline a la real life, but would guess they might have gotten handed out extensively to local law enforcement, militia/state defense force units, and such (i.e. the guys the Small Arms Guide say got M16EZ kits). Maybe some on the late war USAR divisions as well, and some could have found their way to other units along the way, especially as the war gets hinkier and more disorganized.

Garands would be more problematic -- lots out there through CMP, but on the .gov side, not so much, and 30-06 was not a particularly supported caliber any more by the 1990s, militarily speaking. 30-06 ammo is real common on the civilian side, but loads that don't replicate the USGI load can bend the op rod on a Garand and deadline it completely, so it's not a weapon where you can shoot anything you can scrounge without aftermarket alterations.

Any thoughts?

Optics make a long range gun more than caliber. TA01NSN ACOGs were in service IRL before '96 in the SOPMOD kit and elsewhere, they could have been adopted more broadly in a Twilight era timeline where the Advanced Combat Rifle program fizzled but there was still Cold War style money floating around to try and improve service rifle lethality.

Basis of issue could have been greatly expanded on those, and the earlier Vietnam era Colt x4 power scopes might have been (re) adopted as well.

[schnickelfritz]

Having researched a bit on the Garand action, it seems that they are a bit sensitive to load/propellant type and bullet weight. I think they work well when converted to .308, which is what I would assume would be the case, but .30-06 is a pretty common civillian round here in the States.

You make sone very good points on optics, but I am assuming they are not available in real numbers except for M21's and the like.

I am assuming a few things for the scenario I had in mind:
1) Most of the party are experienced infantry vets returned from Europe with their basic weaponry.
2) The missions they will undertake are basic recon/light strike missions for MILGOV and will follow the usual routine for equipment and ammo loadout. The goal is to locate and harrass NA forces in a variety of CONUS locales.
3) Optics will not be available in any real numbers, although captured scoped rifles will be available from encounters. Two two-man scout/sniper teams will be available armed with M21's.
4) Ammunition will be reasonable...fire discipline and good judgement will be key.
5) Transport will be via horse/mule or light vehicle (jeep, M880, CUCV, perhaps civillian 4x4).
6) Support weapons will be somewhat limited to a handful of M203 or M79 and a M60 team.

The scenario I had considered from a weaponry standpoint is that at a MILGOV base the character group's CO is given some choices for small arms, including trading M16A2's for some M1 or M14 rifles. GL's are limited...and even if they weren't, you don't have the ability to carry a large quantity of grenades anyway.

Thanks for the tips and background information!

[Panther Al]

*hrms* As far as the Afghans go, I'd say about 50-50 on the whole myth vs. fact thing on how they was scary good with the long rifle. Historically, they never had a lot of firearms, and even less ammo. Hence, the older generations was very very good at taking those single shots and making sure that they hit: they couldn't afford (literally) a missed shot. Now, that changed in 70's and 80's, and as it was said, the younger generations took to the AK like addicts to a free lifetime supply of crack. And Spray and Pray became a favoured method of shooting. After all, they now had ammo coming out of their ears. However, enter NATO: And the standing up of a new Afghan army. Various countries Spec-ops units are helping stand up Afghan versions of the same, and part of that is the art of the long range shot. And from what I have heard first hand from some of the trainers, is that give one a modern state of the art rifle, solid training in how to use it, some sort of racial memory kicks in, and they become scary good - scary fast. One person I talked to says he knows of two that he thinks if they showed up at Camp Perry would make the Marines look like boyscouts learning out to shoot, and the Army team look like they are playing with airsoft.

[Raellus]

If your boys are expecting most engagements to be fought at ranges over 100m, then it might pay to arm them with M-14s or Garands. But in thickly wooded, urban, and/or suburban terrain, 5.56mm weapons are going to be a lot handier. In other words, I think it depends on the mission and the type of terrain that these teams would be operating in. I mean, the M-16 is far from a perfect weapon, but there are some legitimate reasons why the U.S. military moved away from the M-14 and the whole "battle rifle" concept. Weapon and ammo weight, and recoil, especially during full auto fire, being at the top of the list.

I think you'd have a more flexible load-out by arming one man per squad with an M-14 (i.e. the designated marksman), one with a SAW or LMG (to provide a base of fire), one with a GL (either an M79 or underbarrel M204) and the rest with plain ol' M-16s/M-4s.

[Panther Al]

As much as I go on about common ammo throughout an organisation as much as possible, I do agree in that in general, you do need a mix of close range firepower, and the ability to reach out and touch someone. Even my personal Fav, the 6.8, while much better than the 5.56 in almost all ways, just doesn't reach as far as the 7.62 or other similar chamberings. So, getting that right mix (and a blooper is just about required) is going to be the key thing in a squad formation.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

...no one, even with lots of training, manages to make those longer range shots with iron sights with anything more than statistical static on two way ranges.

Speak for yourself!

Hurrumph!

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

They also do a lot more walking than real life infantrymen, and being able to carry twice the basic load of ammo for the same weight means a whole lot.

Again, speak for yourself. My unit was essentially foot mobile and only rarely travelled by vehicle. Everything we needed was carried on our backs for up to several weeks - you didn't pack it, you went without.
At best we had a truck and landrover attached to CHQ loaded up with additonal water, food, and ammo stores.
I say arm them all with 40mm grenade launchers and sawn off shotguns...

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Again, speak for yourself. My unit was essentially foot mobile and only rarely travelled by vehicle. Everything we needed was carried on our backs for up to several weeks - you didn't pack it, you went without.
At best we had a truck and landrover attached to CHQ loaded up with additonal water, food, and ammo stores.

Yup. Australian infantry. Walking, oh so much walking. With two-thirds of my own bodyweight on my back, not counting a whole lot of water depending on where we were operating.

[Legbreaker]

You obviously weren't a machinegunner like me then - I got almost my own body weight to carry, but on then I was only about 65kgs and never had a No2 worth feeding...
No wonder my knees wore out so quickly.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by Raellus

If your boys are expecting most engagements to be fought at ranges over 100m, then it might pay to arm them with M-14s or Garands. But in thickly wooded, urban, and/or suburban terrain, 5.56mm weapons are going to be a lot handier. In other words, I think it depends on the mission and the type of terrain that these teams would be operating in. I mean, the M-16 is far from a perfect weapon, but there are some legitimate reasons why the U.S. military moved away from the M-14 and the whole "battle rifle" concept. Weapon and ammo weight, and recoil, especially during full auto fire, being at the top of the list.

I think you'd have a more flexible load-out by arming one man per squad with an M-14 (i.e. the designated marksman), one with a SAW or LMG (to provide a base of fire), one with a GL (either an M79 or underbarrel M204) and the rest with plain ol' M-16s/M-4s.

It part of the reason why back in WWII it was common to find BAR, rifle/carbine, and SMG in the same squad.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull

It part of the reason why back in WWII it was common to find BAR, rifle/carbine, and SMG in the same squad.

For US squads, the BAR, Garand and Springfield used the same ammo and the Colt and Thompson (or Grease Gun) used the same ammo. Only the M-1 carbine didn't share ammo with anything else*.

The US also loved rifle grenades, so you can count them too, although the Springfield was a better firing platform than the Garand early in the war (the Garand damn near had to be disabled to fire rifle grenades**).

Squad-level snipers were just marksmen with standard rifles without a scope. Even true snipers just used standard rifles with standard ammo with low-power scopes.

* At one point there was an attempt to chamber a revolver to use .30 carbine ammo for airborne forces to simplify logistics, but while the .30-cal is low-powered as a rifle round, it's very potent as a pistol round. The average paratrooper had too much trouble with the recoil of was was basically an Uber-.357 magnum

** the gas port had to be fiddled with so that the Garand could no longer fire semi-auto, which had to be refiddled with to use the rifle as a semi-auto again. Plus hand-loading the blank ammo.

[HorseSoldier]

Having researched a bit on the Garand action, it seems that they are a bit sensitive to load/propellant type and bullet weight. I think they work well when converted to .308, which is what I would assume would be the case, but .30-06 is a pretty common civillian round here in the States.

The US Navy maintained some Garands in 7.62x51 after the adoption of the M14 for general service rifle use. No idea if any of them were anywhere still in the inventory by the time frame of the Twilight War, since the USN had long since moved on to the M14 then M16 for ship security rifles and such.

Might have been in a warehouse somewhere. The 308 conversions, as far as I know, were pretty good shooters, but would be subsceptible to the same potential issue as far as shooting non-USGI ammo. The Garand action, in any format, is just subsceptible to damage if subjected to different pressure curves than it was designed for. (Not a hard fix to implement via after market stuff, and it was fixed on the M14 if I remember right, it's just that Garand was designing a rifle to fire mountains of USGI ball ammo, not huge range of hunting loads available for 30-06.) If you're running on mountains of 147 grain M80 ball MG ammo, no worries, but if you're running slow/heavy or light/fast hunting loads, same potential problem.

I would argue that this is more to do with terrain and situation, for example, as has been found in Afghanistan, the current 5.56mm round doesn't have the power required for some engagements due to the distances involved.

There's a high degree of false economy in that. The problem is 99% the acquire-positive ID-score the hit cycle of the equation. In 1% of the time it might be about terminal ballistics, but you've got to actually make the hit in the first place which is where the system is breaking down with boring consistency.

The situation has not been enhanced in any way by NATO's adoption of SS109, a round that is inherently prone to poor accuracy. US M855 is probably a 3 MOA round on a good day, and is waiverable for wartime use up to 6 MOA for the last few years. At 100 meters who cares, but even 3 MOA at 600 meters makes hitting a 19" wide human torso statistically random even if the shooter does everything right. At 6 MOA point of aim/impact at that range are almost plus-minus one meter. No wonder people think you need something magical to win at 5-600 meters when they're stuck with ammo that has WW2 B17 raid CEPs built into it.

(By comparison, having spent a lot of time on ranges with an M4A1, ACOG, and cases of Mk 262, I know for a fact that with good ammo an M4 can make hits out to the acquisition limits of the ACOG on steel chest plates all day long with modest shooter skill. This doesn't translate into battlefield performance, of course, since incoming rounds do horrible things for accuracy, but still indicates where a big part of the problem is.)

A lot of people in decision making positions are pushing DMRs these days as an inadequate solution not only to a flawed bullet design (though that has been addressed recently for general use, less recently with 262 for precision use) but also to hide the lack of real fire support (indirect, timely CAS) for troops in contact at nuisance fire range, where Afghans prefer to fight, largely ineffectually, since when they close the range they get killed. For political reasons we don't let people drop artillery and mortars on the enemy in ways we did in previous wars, even though that is an excellent way to kill bad guys at longer ranges.

For example, during the Boer Wars in South Africa there were many accounts of what we today would consider extreme range shooting. In some cases these were marksmen (not snipers) and in other cases they were normal infantrymen, but they were shooting over iron sights.

See previous comment about weapons losing effectiveness when opponents start actually using cover and concealment rather than advancing in open order skirmish lines asking to be shot.

Again, speak for yourself. My unit was essentially foot mobile and only rarely travelled by vehicle. Everything we needed was carried on our backs for up to several weeks - you didn't pack it, you went without.

But if you had a contact and burned through available ammunition, resupply would have been trucked in, flown in, or whatever. Even light IRL infantry operate in a much cozier web of support than would be typical for even well equipped units in T2K.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

But if you had a contact and burned through available ammunition, resupply would have been trucked in, flown in, or whatever. Even light IRL infantry operate in a much cozier web of support than would be typical for even well equipped units in T2K.

That may well be true for the US army, but it's a little different in the rest of the world. Sure every effort would be made to resupply in contact, but that's just purely combat stores, not day to day items.

When you're hundreds of kilometres from anywhere on foot chances are you're not going to get anything more than what you've got already. Things may be different today in 2011, but back in the early 90's it was a completely different ball game. This situation would have continued on into the Twilight War, perhaps improving in 1996/97, but certainly getting worse the later it was.

In T2K, those units who were already used to minimal resupply, are likely to be the most sucessful post nuke.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

...See previous comment about weapons losing effectiveness when opponents start actually using cover and concealment rather than advancing in open order skirmish lines asking to be shot.

These weren't cases of people just walking in open order towards the enemy, the warfare during the Boer Wars was closer to combat in WW2 than in WW1 but often involving spotting and engaging the enemy at far greater distances. There were a number of reports of Boer sharpshooters engaging British forces at 800-1200 yards. The Boers would typically place their forces on hilltops, watch for British troops and then engage them at maximum distance so that they could inflict some casualties and then escape from any follow up.

I'm not saying that all combat takes place at 500+ metres, it's been shown time and again that many, if not most, engagements take place under 300m. And I'm not saying that everyone can identify and hit the enemy at 500+ metres. There are however, still circumstances were you can see the enemy at distances greater than the effective range of assault rifles (Afghanistan has furnished a few examples). In these cases a 7.62mmN/7.62mmL/.338 DMR and/or a Medium MG is a definite asset.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

A .30 caliber rifle with iron sights is not much of an advantage over a 5.56mm rifle or one of the Soviet x39s -- you'll almost never be able to acquire and positively ID a target for the added range to matter, and then no one, even with lots of training, manages to make those longer range shots with iron sights with anything more than statistical static on two way ranges...

I would argue that this is more to do with terrain and situation, for example, as has been found in Afghanistan, the current 5.56mm round doesn't have the power required for some engagements due to the distances involved.

Any region where there is a lot of open terrain favours a heavier projectile with a higher charge like the 7.92mm, .303, 7.62x51 and so on. For example, during the Boer Wars in South Africa there were many accounts of what we today would consider extreme range shooting. In some cases these were marksmen (not snipers) and in other cases they were normal infantrymen, but they were shooting over iron sights.
They managed to identify and hit their targets at distances greater than 800 yards in some cases. This was true for both sides in the war and Boer long range shooting was a significant factor in reducing the effectiveness of British cavalry in that conflict (to the point where they were no longer used as an offensive unit).

While the Boer Wars are a century ago, similar engagement distances are being found in other conflicts, they might not be the norm but they do still occur.
And while I don't dispute that optics do much for long range shooting, I'd rather have a telescopic sight on a 7.92mm Kar98 or .303 SMLE than on a 5.56mm AUG or M16 for medium- to long- range shooting.