US Army to replace the M-9

[LAW0306]

SDO


http://www.trijicon.com/na_en/produc...pid=TA11SDO-CP


MGDO


http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcnpd/4437331410/

[perardua]

The British forces relatively recently adopted the Sig P226 for use in Afghanistan, and started issuing them to what seemed like every man and his dog. Previous British thought towards pistols is that they were only for people who had no need for a proper weapon, or for sneaky beaky types, so they used to be a relatively rare sight. My squadron, for example, used to hold a grand total of eight Browning 9mm's for 164 men. On deployment, we ended up with 172 Sigs, and the option to carry one if we wanted it.

For the first couple of weeks, everyone carried their assigned pistol because it made them feel cool. Once that had worn off, we all realised that we were carrying an extra weapon system that had too short a range, not enough stopping power or accuracy, that we hadn't fired as much as the rifle or LMG that served as our personal weapon, and that could be replaced, for the same weight, by more ammo for our personal weapon. As a result, they all went back in the armoury save for the pistols belonging to the drivers (who needed a weapon that was easier to get at when mounted than their rifle).

In FIBUA the L85A2 is, to my mind, more effective than a pistol - it is highly reliable, more accurate, has a greater magazine capacity, is fitted with a laser and torch module, can fire automatic if the situation requires it, and can be fitted with a bayonet, which is an excellent weapon to have if you come round a corner to find yourself face-to-face with someone trying to kill you and your rifle goes click - a quick thrust and twist might save your life rather than dicking around trying to draw a pistol.

As an aside, ACOGs/SUSATs/whatever other sighting system you feel like are, to my mind, pretty obligatory on the infantry rifle of the 21st century. Aside from the increase in accuracy, it gives your section tons more situational awareness even outside of shooting situations.

[Webstral]

Law, why are you yelling so much? We can hear you just fine. The guys who respect you are going to read your feedback without the implied volume. The guys who don't respect you aren't going to listen anyway.

There's a lot for us to learn from the USMC about a lot of things besides CRM. There's a rationale for training soldiers to shoot out to 300m and no further, but I've never bought into it. The Army wastes huge amounts of money on all kinds of ridiculous garbage--money that could be spent on the range.

Of course, the USMC has a different center of mass than the Army. The Corps is a fraction of the Army's size and enjoys a superior reputation. I don't know when the last time the Corps failed to meet its recruiting goals was, but if you told me it hasn't happened since the 70's I'd believe you. This sort of thing has a real impact on the quality of the troops. Since initial entry training is aimed at the bottom half of the recruitment pool, the superior motivation of the Marine recruits vis-a-vis Army Basic troops has a huge impact on the design and quality of the training. (This is not to say that the upper half of the recruits aren't challenged.)

All this said, the Army could stand to tighten its group when it comes to training soldiers on their individual weapons. The cost of small arms ammunition pales compared to the cost of the dead and wounded. The infantry should be on the range once a week; everybody else should be on the range once per month. As I've said many times, the Army could learn a lot from the USMC.

This is one of the reasons why in Thunder Empire Basic at Fort Huachuca is designed and run by the Marines who happened to be on-post at the TDM and who survived the fighting at Yuma to join with Huachuca. Although it tweaks some of the Army drill sergeants and former drill sergeants who want to do things their way, Thomason recognizes that a force with a great numerical inferiority has to have superior troops. Superior troops means superior privates. (As distinct from superior leadership) Given some of the wide-open spaces of Arizona, training riflemen to engage targets at 500m with an M16 is not unreasonable. Also, Thomason recognizes that the USMC has a superior method for instilling esprit de corps, which is another thing the troops at Huachuca are going to need when fighting potentially much larger Mexican forces.

Regardless of what labels one wants to apply, a firefight in a small room in Baghdad seems like pretty close quarters battle to me. I frankly don't give a damn what label a manual writer wants to apply, though I recognize that for the purposes of providing definitions and planning doctrine and training such labels do need to be applied.

[HorseSoldier]

MY MOS brought in the M16A4 and it's better than what you guys have on every level ( IE you dont train past 300 meters in Marksmanship and we do 500m for everone). If you want data just come and ask I'm the Officer in Charge of range control at Marine Corps Base Hawaii!!!. Also the RCO or ACOG is better that anything you have a red dot M68 is crap. our sight can do so many thing's and so Many sights have spawned off it IE (SDO,MDO). CQB is done at our CQB school (Security Force Reg ) something the army does not have......MOUT on the other hand is what you are talking about is done with a Rifle/Carbine my last choice would be a pistol (effective use of a fmj no expanding 115 grain bullet for terminal ballistics vise a SOST)

A) Just to clarify where I'm coming from when I hurt your feelings, I have 18 years in service, four and half of them as a support guy in an SF unit where I spent all that time directly assigned out to an ODA. Whatever you think I was trained to do under your understanding of army doctrine and a couple bucks might be barely adequate to get you a beverage at Starbucks.

B) Reading comprehension in the USMC must be fairly substandard if even the zeros can't grasp that my previous post praised the ACOG. I had an issued TA01 when the RCO was still a distant glimmer in an optimistic Gunner's eye, and mass issue of the TA31 is about the only thing the USMC has done right about small arms in a decade or more.

C) Sorry -- M16A4 is a wrong answer for every question the gunfighter asks about how to score okay on USMC Table 1 and do D&C -- precisely the two real reasons why the USMC picked it over the M4. Every marine enlisted guy I dealt with while issued an M4A1 was universally critical of the M16A4 for actual combat, said the M4 wouldn't be as good for Table 1, and would have traded their mother for an M4 and to be rid of their musket.

D) Whatever you think soldiers do or don't get in terms of weapons training, I personally was trained to shoot out to 600 with my issue M4, ACOG, and decent ammo (Mk 262) and make consistent hits. Our flawed qual course involves shooting to 300 meters, your fetishistic antique festival that passes for a basic qual course involves shooting to 500. Yippy skippy. Since no one has produced any data I've ever seen that actually shows marines making more hits under combat conditions I'm underwhelmed by the allegations of superiority.

and I'm a grad of HRP/Gunslinger school and a few other Marine corps schools for actions with a pistol. Please before you knock another service be in for more than 4 years and have some MOS street creed to back it up. Our M27 smokes anything you have in General Service and it might be our new Service rifle if we can get the cash for it.

The M27 is . . . like the M16A2/A4 a bunch of wrong answers for what it is supposed to do. As a base of fire weapon/automatic rifle it's going to get troops killed. Period. But it's sexy as hell. If you're an HK fanboi or live in the shadow of CAG and SEAL Team 6.

Yes that means every Marine would have a piston Carbine/Rifle that has a Heavy floated barrel that does sub MOA work....nothing the army has on the Table for there SF can beat that...How do I know welllllll I work with them.... I had a ODA team on my range last week and this week they will be back and they are blown away with what our basic guys do and what my scout sniper school does out here.

Having been in that community and seen the USMC by comparison, I have to credit the ODA you worked with for their politeness. Nobody I was ever around was overly impressed with what the USMC brought to the gunfighting table. Not bad, but notably good.

As for the M27 -- wow, so they've fixed the accuracy issue HK416s had? When the M27 was still making people scratch their heads at its T&E victories over better actual base of fire weapons, the HK416s some of our ODAs were actually running operations with were 4-5 MOA weapons (charitably) with green tip, and still 2.5-ish with Mk 262.

Maybe the 27s have fixed the crap accuracy issue, but the fact that the USMC bought a weapon with a mag well that won't accept PMags so guys can better use a Starsky & Hutch SWAT team front-of-magwell grip . . . well it demonstrates that decision makers who don't even know the right questions certainly won't get the right answers, will they? Garbage in-garbage out, as the computer types say.

(Most of our guys that got 416s issued at the team level? Ditched them and either went back to stock M4A1s or M4s with shorter direct gas uppers. One of the good parts of SF is that the works/doesn't work decision cycle happens at a much lower level, for the most part, efforts to ditch the M9 notwithstanding. Once the chicks dig it factor wore off, the 416 mostly got tossed. Lance Corporal Schmuckatelly in a line infantry unit in the USMC won't have the benefit of being able to do the same thing until someone with a lot of stars on their shoulders owns up to their mistake, which takes a whole lot longer -- if it ever happens at all.)

The amount of times a primary weapon has failed a Marine in the Global war on terror is so low we cant even find numbers for it in our Marine Corps lessons learned branch. we clean our weapons!!! we teach this in boot camp check any movie , we dont use the M4 as a machine gun and burn up the barrels and make the chamber so hot rounds cook off. I have read after actions of this from the army MANY!!!!. so a back up is for tier one operators who have a mission to use one. Ie guys trained in CQB......witch take a long time and a ton of ammo.

It's awesome you (over) clean your weapons, since the primary failure point in the M16/M4 weapon system is bad mags. I kept my M4 running for a good long time with no more cleaning than wiping the BCG down with an oiled gym sock and soaking the bolt with oil. And using good mags. Big Boy Rules and all that -- my gun always went bang when require to, and I didn't have under-employed and underqualified NCOs trying to justify their existence to senior officers but working above their level of competence.

From the perspective of my training and experience absolutely nothing demonstrates systemic leadership failure like watching Joes try to scrub the parkerizing off parts of their weapons to satisfy officers and NCOs who know pitifully less than they should about absolute basics and fundamentals.

As for not using the M4 as a machinegun -- no, as an institution you've made a collective decision to deprive the infantrymen of effective base of fire and suppressive weapons. You've made the decision to replace a belt felt weapon with one that runs on 30 round magazines, firing the same cartridge as the standard service rifle. Congratulations -- 70 years late, but you're reinvented the Bren Gun or BAR. And actually that's charitable, since at least the Bren offered a fire power differential next to bolt guns that the M27 simply doesn't provide. (And, as a side note, both those weapons came up woefully short against belt fed squad machine guns circa 1944 -- maybe the USMC never learned this lesson since they were never on the wrong end of an MG34 or 42, but since I know for a fact marines have been on the wrong end of PKMs I'd think if the people running the show were half as smart as they think they are they'd have connected the dots.)

Oh but you'll suppress via precision fire. Holy Jesus, where do I get the quality of narcotics issued to me that the decision makers who hit on that plan were smoking, shooting, and/or snorting? Was there like a gunnery sergeant convention where they were crushing Oxycontin, cooking it in a spoon, and injecting it directly into their eyeballs as they contemplated weapons procurement I never heard about?

Your not doing CQB by definition in Iraq or Afghanistan you are doing MOUT. Look it up in your FM 90-10,FM 90-10-1 , FM 3-06 FM 3-21.8,FM 7-8, FM 7-85, FM7-92

Doctrinally, you don't know what I was trained or tasked to do, so before you split hairs maybe you should also see if you can peruse a syllabus for SFAUC, SFBCC, and the like.

[ArmySGT.]

[ArmySGT.]

[Cpl. Kalkwarf]

Hmm why not the CZ97 or an EAA Witness in 45? 10 rd .45. Then again the Glock in 45.

Hmm if the adopted a new pistol in 10mm then maybe the price of ammo would drop as it would be made in larger quantities.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

(Most of our guys that got 416s issued at the team level? Ditched them and either went back to stock M4A1s or M4s with shorter direct gas uppers. One of the good parts of SF is that the works/doesn't work decision cycle happens at a much lower level, for the most part, efforts to ditch the M9 notwithstanding. Once the chicks dig it factor wore off, the 416 mostly got tossed. Lance Corporal Schmuckatelly in a line infantry unit in the USMC won't have the benefit of being able to do the same thing until someone with a lot of stars on their shoulders owns up to their mistake, which takes a whole lot longer -- if it ever happens at all.)

Sadly, this is the Army I know (with Specialist Schmuckatelly standing in for his lance corporal counterpart).

Comparisons between the USMC and the Army often break down under analysis. The Army dwarfs the USMC and has all the attendant problems. The average Army brigade is not the same fighting force as the average Marine regiment. (I'd be happy to enterain arguments regarding the 82nd Airborne, though.) By the same token, the average Marine regiment isn't the same fighting force as the 75th Rangers or an SF group. I'm not talking firepower or equipment. I'm talking about the troops themselves. The more you restrict the pool of folks accepted, the more remarkable the end product. There's a reason the SO communities aren't hundreds of thousands strong.

For what it's worth, the former Marines in my Guard unit outshot the center of mass of my unit. The top ten percent of shooters weren't all former Marines or even predominantly Marines. However, on a standard Army qual range at Bliss, the unit as a whole shot 28 for 40. The former Marines shot 30 for 40. The XO compiled these statistics to settle an argument of the type Law and Horse are having right now. One should assign whatever significance one wants to the difference. It's worth bearing in mind that none of the targets were more than 300m from the firing positions. Coincidentally, I had a bad day on the range and fired 30 for 40 (I'm pretty reliable against targets 250 meters and closer). Were I forced to engage targets at ranges greater than 300m, I'd hit fewer than half of them. Sad but true. I can't speculate on how things would have turned out differently on a range with targets out to 500m, although you can be certain that the former Marines in my unit did.

I think there is a value to having confidence in one's ability to hit targets at long range. Personally, I'd love to have that confidence. On the other hand, maybe we should read something into the fact that the Germans, who entered WW2 with a bolt action rifle and superior marksmanship, switched to a rifle oriented towards shorter ranges. Granted, the loss of scads of well-trained manpower and its replacement by under-trained newbies would have rewarded a switch away from (comparatively) long-range riflery and to assault riflery. Nonetheless, crew served weapons exist to engage targets beyond 300m. Again, though, I've only served in the line dog world. I can't speak to how the Rangers, SF, or anyone like that does their business other than to say that those guys are far superior to me.

[LAW0306]

Since were on a forum. I guess I lose because I will never be able to sway you to my side. you will type and be a key board commando and I will goto work tommorow and do it for real. Your tougher... your cock is bigger and your wife is better looking. but if you were ever to see me and tell me i did not care (IE save money and put people in a grave) ... well we would see what way the wind blows. people on this forum have see me real world and know who I'm and where I live. Hell Chico/Jason wiser has trained with my guys at Camp. your facts are wrong plan and simple. I work with big kids at a higher level. I'm not a Gunny I'm a Gunner 0306 look it up. I just returned from the annual Gunners meeting in quantico were we did big kid stuff. sorry you win I wont talk any more.

[Cpl. Kalkwarf]

Originally Posted by LAW0306

Since were on a forum. I guess I lose because I will never be able to sway you to my side. you will type and be a key board commando and I will goto work tommorow and do it for real. Your tougher... your cock is bigger and your wife is better looking. but if you were ever to see me and tell me i did not care (IE save money and put people in a grave) ... well we would see what way the wind blows. people on this forum have see me real world and know who I'm and where I live. Hell Chico/Jason wiser has trained with my guys at Camp. your facts are wrong plan and simple. I work with big kids at a higher level. I'm not a Gunny I'm a Gunner 0306 look it up. I just returned from the annual Gunners meeting in quantico were we did big kid stuff. sorry you win I wont talk any more.

Damn, I enjoy yer Experiences, and am glad to keep hearing about them. If it puts some one else panties in a bind!?! To hell with them.

Its been a while since I have been in the Corps. I have a young nephew that spent his time in the FAST over in the sand box (Iraq) for two tours. He thought the M16a4 and the M249 SAW were fine weapons. And that was from personal experience of using the M16a4 in Urban fighting and House clearing.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by LAW0306

... and your wife is better looking.

My wife is pretty scorching, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, there's as much lament as boast in my observation. We have two young children at home, the youngest of whom is still nursing. Thanks to the nursing, the pregnancy weight came off in six weeks. Thanks to the demands of the young children, the ratio of moments when I think "Wow, I want some of that!" to moments when I actually get some of that has become about as favorable as the rounds-fired-to-kills ratio of US troops in Vietnam. These are the times when a gorgeous wife is not a blessing.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

A) Just to clarify where I'm coming from when I hurt your feelings, I have 18 years in service, four and half of them as a support guy in an SF unit where I spent all that time directly assigned out to an ODA.

Four years in an SF unit is fairly impressive I'd have to say. They don't let just anybody in, and everyone's subject to being shown the door at any time if they don't perform unlike in a conventional army or marine unit where it's possible to kick it into neutral and coast along.
My guess is you'd have to really know your shit to last so long...