BryanP
Member
Mike, you are quite correct. The picture in the book shows an integral box mag, not a tubular mag. Someone just wasn't paying attention. The book was written by a couple of Brits, so what do you expect? 
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Military Firearms: What Should Have Been
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Nightcrawler
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Select Fire
Personally, I think the 5.56mm, 4.73mm, etc.'s low recoil is a fairly moot point. Full automatic fire is of extremely limited utility on a rifle, and is only useful when facing mulitple targets at close range (and even then, in many cases you're much better off leaving it on semi). In many cases it simply wastes ammunition. Laying down a wall of lead is best left to support weapons, like machine guns.
If I'm not mistaken, the concept behind the super-fast three round burst was so that you could hit each enemy target with two or three bullets. Now, while making two or more holes in the badguy is nice, it kind of negates the advantage of your 45 round magazine and low ammo weight if you shoot every single guy three times.
If low recoil and compact size were really all that was important in a service arm, then our military would be using th FN P90 submachine gun. Every advantage the M4 has over, say, a FAL, the P90 has over the M4. It's smaller, lighter, has less recoil, is more controllable, has higher capacity, etc.
It's just a matter of how small a bullet you're comfortable with.
Besides, it's all a matter of weapon design. Recoil isn't the problem, for controllable automatic fire, it's muzzle rise. A well-designed weapon wont' have much.
Personally, I think the 5.56mm, 4.73mm, etc.'s low recoil is a fairly moot point. Full automatic fire is of extremely limited utility on a rifle, and is only useful when facing mulitple targets at close range (and even then, in many cases you're much better off leaving it on semi). In many cases it simply wastes ammunition. Laying down a wall of lead is best left to support weapons, like machine guns.
If I'm not mistaken, the concept behind the super-fast three round burst was so that you could hit each enemy target with two or three bullets. Now, while making two or more holes in the badguy is nice, it kind of negates the advantage of your 45 round magazine and low ammo weight if you shoot every single guy three times.
If low recoil and compact size were really all that was important in a service arm, then our military would be using th FN P90 submachine gun. Every advantage the M4 has over, say, a FAL, the P90 has over the M4. It's smaller, lighter, has less recoil, is more controllable, has higher capacity, etc.
It's just a matter of how small a bullet you're comfortable with.
Besides, it's all a matter of weapon design. Recoil isn't the problem, for controllable automatic fire, it's muzzle rise. A well-designed weapon wont' have much.
Tamara
Senior Member
Andrew wyatt,
Unlike a conventional firearm's ejection port, it can be kept sealed unless you are actually in the act of clearing the weapon.
While a definite design hurdle, from what I understand, the clever gnomes at H&K had mitigated this problem to a large extent.
IMHO, caseless guns don't have an advantage in any way, shape or form over "cased" guns in that you still need an ejection port to clear the thing,
Unlike a conventional firearm's ejection port, it can be kept sealed unless you are actually in the act of clearing the weapon.
...and the lack of a case means the heat that would be carried out of the gun by the case goes into the internals, which leads to a hotter gun.
While a definite design hurdle, from what I understand, the clever gnomes at H&K had mitigated this problem to a large extent.
Jeff Timm
Member
Said Sean SmithMike, sorry but I don't buy your point of view about Ripley. He was not merely a military conservative, but an actively obstructionist ???. Your points are good as far as they go, but most of them would apply just as well in 1865, when the repeaters had already demonstrated their battlefield superiority. You are basically arguing that the Ordinance Department's incompetence in procurement and supply excuses their technological backwardness, too.
Keep in mind. The US Army (OK Grand Army of the Republic) was inventing large scale logistics as it went along. Railroads, telegraph and standardization were new battlefield realities. So was the concept of a Logistics Train from raw material to troop in the field. At the end of the war the Yankee Army was the most standardized and best supplied on earth. Which, given testimony of the veterans in their letters and memoirs means the rest of the earth was in pretty bad shape.
Geoff Timm
US Army Ordnance Corps 1972-1982, USDoD 1982 - Pending RIF/Contracting Out and the whims of our Congresscretins.
Jeff Timm
Member
Said Full-autoYou forget that the entire purpose of an "assault rifle" is its ability to provide controllable full-auto fire to the soldier. A full-auto M14 or even FAL isn't nearly as useful as a full-auto M16 to its user.
Not quite. The evolving use of the M-16 has seen considerable tactical change. Back in the 1970's the US Army actually had a little steel unit that blocked the full auto selector. In an emergency you could break off the tab and rock and roll. This lasted about as long as free Hot pizza and beer at a battalion beer bust.
The M-16A2 stepped away from the controlled fire concept and introduced the controlled burst. Accurate semi-auto fire was replaced with machine dictated full auto burst fire.
Now days the tactics seem to be using the M-4 Carbine as a submachine gun with more range.
Comment: I note the Swedish tests of the 1980's where the wounding effect of the 5.56mm round was found to be very similar to the 9mm Swedish SMG round.
Geoff
Who was taught standing, sitting, prone and hasty sling mount in 1972, with the M-16A1.
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