Shotgun vs. Carbine for urban war at night?

[entropy]

If it was me (although I can’t think why it would be me) it would be shotgun, for the entire team. All pump actions, and the drill will be carry with the breach open (slide back), push slide forward and fire when target sighted, then immediately pull back the slide and keep it there until next target sighted. This would minimize the friendly fire causalities that would be much more prevalent for any team of screw up amateurs I’d be with, then hostile fire causalities cause by failing to fire quick enough. Also, select fire carbines are especially bad weapons for untrained and under trained fighters; they tend to panic squeeze the trigger when in auto, and waste the whole magazine firing into the sky, their foot, their buddies, etc. That is when they remember to take it off safe.

Gee, who's the CO of your CQB squad, Barney Fife?
Maybe it's just me, but the inference I drew was that these would be trained operators. You don't lead untrained people into a CQB situation unless out of necessity, which is where your weapons would be drawn from. With untrained civilians, the logical option is exfil from the hot AO. Use of IED's to cover one's retreat to the RP would slow any pursuit, buying much needed time and distance.

Mayberry SWAT: We do it with one bullet:

 

[LaEscopeta]

Well, throughout history and around the world civilians have found them self in urban combat situations where they didn’t feel there was a RP to exfil to. Ireland in 1916, Lebanon in the 70s & 80s and the first Chechen/Russian war in the 90s are 3 examples that come to mind. As entropy said, weapons in these situations are drawn from necessity, but the original question asked “Which would you RATHER have…â€, and I would rather have shotguns.

I can’t imagine anything like that happening where I am, but if it did, knowing my neighbors, Barney Fife would stand an excellent chance of getting elected CO. Regardless of who the leader is, I'm with entropy and would vote for the the logical option of running-away-to-someplace-where-people-who-know-what-they-are-doing-are plan.

(And not to go OT too much, but April 19, 2 days from now, is the 230 anniversary of the last time civilians in this country felt the need to form up in military teams in a big way. If I’m remembering history correctly, that first day saw more Barney Fife type work then Francis Marion. I think Militia unit supply records show over 300 rounds fired for each British causality.)

 

[Gunsnrovers]

230 years ago? I seem to remember reading about something rather large just about 140 years ago...

If you recall the violence surrounding the Cabbage Patch Baby shortage of the early 1980's, that was only just 20 years ago.

 

[RyanM]

Okay, how about a different compromise between carbine and shotgun?

http://www.remingtonmilitary.com/images/smallarms/870mcs_AxxWpn.jpg
http://www.remingtonmilitary.com/870mcs.htm

 

[FunGunner]

Shotguns, for Cops. Carbines, for ground pounders.

But for me, NVD, frags, and a FAL with load, if I'm going to war at night.

 

[MajMikeW]

Tough Choice

In a house or CQB a shotgun for me, if distance more than 25M then a carbine like my Mech-Tech .45 accompanied by my Kimber CDP Pro II using the same mags.

It's really a matter of personal preference, if you don't like the recoil of a shotgun don't use it. Body armor doesn't change my choice, if I have a shotgun I just take head shots, same if I have a carbine.

MajMike

 

[Sam]

Texien,
there's lots of old Sgts that like scatterguns.

Entropy,
Your thoughts on buck in the 203=Hoover.
M576 is lousey stuff and at less than 900fps vel it just doesn't cut it.

Sam

 

[olyAR73]

The carbine hands down. The shotgun is a specialty tool for breaching doors and the like. It's heavy, has a slow rate of fire, slow to reload, the ammunition is heavy and relatively short range.

+1.
If I'm assaulting I'll take a SOP-MOD every time.
If I'm defending I wouldn't mind the shotty.

 

[entropy]

M576 is lousey stuff and at less than 900fps vel it just doesn't cut it.

True, it isn't a 4dram eqivalent load, but it is better than no shotgun at all, and I'm talking only using it for door breaching/point; and the 203 pulls double duty as bunker buster and break off weapon. I've seen those M4/870 combos in games, but I got out before the M4 was issued, so I have no experience with them. Lotta versatility in the 203 for the added weight. And I'd still not want to get hit with those buck rounds, they may be slow, but I'll bet they hurt, even wearing body armor. The more savvy recon types while I was in (86-89) got hold of a Thumper, and chopped it off on both ends, turning it into a very powerful yet light and compact weapon you could hang from a single point sling. Great for clearing houses no matter which round you used,(We trained to put HE or CS thru windows) and still had the ability to transition to the main issue weapon quickly, simply by dropping the M79.

 

[The_Antibubba]

Neither

Carbon fiber compound bow with Teflon-coated Tungsten Broadheads!

Seriously, given your parameters, I'd not be qualified to do much-I don't have that kind of training.

 

[swacje41]

One can be guided to some extent by looking at the past. Numerous tests have been conducted over the years, and without fail the commonly available weapon that gave the best first round hit capability and fastest at close range was the shotgun. The Brits found that out in Malaysian jungle warfare, the Marines found it in multiple engagements, and so on. Urban combat, night, go with the shotgun. A good autoloader is fast, easy to shoot, and if yo know what you are doing it is easy to keep it in action. The slow reload is a function of poor technique, not of the shotgun itself.

 

[Jeff White]

swacje41 said:

One can be guided to some extent by looking at the past. Numerous tests have been conducted over the years, and without fail the commonly available weapon that gave the best first round hit capability and fastest at close range was the shotgun. The Brits found that out in Malaysian jungle warfare, the Marines found it in multiple engagements, and so on. Urban combat, night, go with the shotgun.

Small arms technology has advanced a bit since the Brits stopped the insurgency in Malaysia and the USMC was stomping around in Central America.

The slow reload is a function of poor technique, not of the shotgun itself.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here. Shoot one/load one drills will keep your shotgun running in a fight, but there is no way, even with best technique, it's as fast as keeping a fresh 30 round magazine in your carbine. You're going to have your weak hand off the weapon retrieving another shell from either your pouch or your sidesaddle when you may need both hands on the weapon to engage a hostile. If you stop the flow of the stack while inside a building to top off after you've fired a couple rounds, you'll slow things down enough that you may lose the momentum to the enemy.

Jeff

 

[dave3006]

Based on my very, very limited real life experience and some of the replies (Jeff makes some excellent observations), I am of the opinion that the shotgun would be most useful for home defense instead of the dynamic run and gun world of urban warfare.

Home defense would tend to involve mostly single targets at close range. A smart defender would be behind cover letting the bad guy come to him. Most likely a reload would never be needed.

I definately think there is overlap between the two weapons. As many have said, you wouldn't exactly be unarmed with either.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

I certainly can't improve on Jeff and Preacherman's posts. Quite sensible. On a personal note, I would prefer the carbine because I am more practiced with rifles and hit better with them. Never was much of a shotgunner.

 

[PzGren]

So, it would be a small team, doing CQB at night. A very specific situation! Unless you do a raid with good reconnaissance, you can run into all kind of unexpected situations.

Assault rifle for me, then subgun, then shotgun. If I can choose.

 

[swacje41]

Small arms technology has advanced a bit since the Brits stopped the insurgency in Malaysia and the USMC was stomping around in Central America.

Not that much generally, and very little when one looks at what is available to the typical non-military gunowner. And while there has been a bit of time since Malaysia and the bannana republic wars, more recent engagements haven't seen any reduction in the effectiveness of the shotgun.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here. Shoot one/load one drills will keep your shotgun running in a fight, but there is no way, even with best technique, it's as fast as keeping a fresh 30 round magazine in your carbine.

The disagreement seems to be with something that I did not say. Yes, swapping out 30 round magazines may be faster (as long as you have loaded magazines) but that does not mean all other reloading techniques are slow. A standard shotgun drill commonly called "Rollling Thunder" will quickly demonstrate that it is not difficult to keep the shotgun loaded and running at a high speed with a little training.

If you stop the flow of the stack while inside a building to top off after you've fired a couple rounds, you'll slow things down enough that you may lose the momentum to the enemy.

If you engage in poor tactics with any weapon you can create a problem. That is not a shotgun problem.
The shotgun allows the shooter to get more projectiles on target in a faster time and with a greater likelihood of first-round hits than any other weapon ordinarily available. If one chooses not to utilize that ability it doesn't mean the shotgun is the issue. It is more difficult to operate, but the effort to learn to maximize the operation of it is well worth it.

 

[Jeff White]

The disagreement seems to be with something that I did not say. Yes, swapping out 30 round magazines may be faster (as long as you have loaded magazines) but that does not mean all other reloading techniques are slow. A standard shotgun drill commonly called "Rollling Thunder" will quickly demonstrate that it is not difficult to keep the shotgun loaded and running at a high speed with a little training.

I've got just a little training and experience with the shotgun (Louis Awerbuck's Stage 1 Shotgun and various law enforcement training) and I even use the "Rolling Thunder" drill when I teach. I know how fast you can keep a shotgun firing. I also know that when you add all of the manipulation of the weapon what is required to keep it loaded (we're talking 7 round capacity for most combat shotguns) to the other tasks you have to be able to accomplish to fight and win in this type of environment, the shotgun is not as effective a weapon as the full caliber semi auto carbine.

In an earlier post I said;

If you stop the flow of the stack while inside a building to top off after you've fired a couple rounds, you'll slow things down enough that you may lose the momentum to the enemy.

And you replied;

If you engage in poor tactics with any weapon you can create a problem. That is not a shotgun problem.
The shotgun allows the shooter to get more projectiles on target in a faster time and with a greater likelihood of first-round hits than any other weapon ordinarily available. If one chooses not to utilize that ability it doesn't mean the shotgun is the issue. It is more difficult to operate, but the effort to learn to maximize the operation of it is well worth it.

The equipment and weapons that you have available will affect the TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) that you use on any operation. The limitations of the shotgun (small magazine capacity compared to other weapons, slow to load {even for a trained operator when compared to other weapons}) force you to modify your TTPs accordingly. It would be poor tactics (actually technique) to try to flow through a structure occupied by hostiles without modifying your TTPs to account for any strengths or weaknesses in your weapons systems. The use of shotguns will require you to slow down. This isn't a good thing in an operation that requires speed and violence of action to prevail.

I don't think first round hit probablity is any higher with buckshot then with a rifle round at CQB ranges. The pattern is barely wider then the bore at that distance. Hit's require you to aim, just like with the carbine.

Jeff

 

[entropy]

Well said, Jeff! I train with my 870 constantly for HD, and for this role, it serves well. The combat shotgun has a place in a fire team, but as an auxilliary arm, (in a military setting) or for the tail gunner, who (hopefully) will not be using it much. More and more LE SWAT teams are finding the M-4 type carbine suits their needs as training levels increase. The shotgun was originally issued to PD's at a time when no other alternative exsisted, and the intimidation factor alone was often sufficient to end an altercation.
This being less and less the case, and with the likely instance of a lawsiut after any incedent where weapons are fired by LE, it is not surprising that more LE agencies are turning to the M-4 style carbine for their SWAT teams, and as the long arm in their patrol cars, where budgets allow for the extra training that should accompany them. (Granted, there sould be competent training with the shotgun, also. Unfortunately, many PD's call a round of trap, or 5 rounds fired at a silhouette a year adequate. )
I'll take an M4 with the infrared laser and a PVS-14, supressor (For muzzle flash control as much as sound discipline) and an Vang CQB 870 slung 3pt. over the back, thanks. The M4 with a 203 would work, also. As would the Bizon. And I want Jeff on my team!