USMC in Norway using suppressors

[hdwhit]

CoalTrain49 wrote:
The Army has been buying M4/M16's from Colt for about 20% more than they should have paid for about 30 years.

Yes. This was done to preserve critical defense infrastructure and has been included as such in the defense budget for decades. It was effectively a welfare payment and as such has nothing to do with cost as a consideration in the adoption of a new weapons system.

Adopting a new weapon system, however, does take into account cost and as I said, it is not a consideration that should be lightly dismissed.

That was evident when FN won the contract even tho [sic] the gov't has to pay Colt a 5% royalty for each rifle. Remington also built a bunch of rifles that were way less expensive than Colts. The Army should have gone to another design spec years ago instead of being jacked by Colt all those years.

Your opinion as to what the Army should have done essentially confirms what i said about the contract being kept with colt to preserve critical defense infastructure and was a decision made independent of cost.

Suppressors are new technology just like reflex sights. It took awhile for the military to put those on every rifle.

New technology? They've been on the market for more than a hundred years.

And the fundamental idea of releasing expanding gasses into an isolated space to achieve sound attenuation is even older.

What "logistics burden" are you referring to?
What "effect on weapon operation" are you referring to?

Read the rest of the post that you quoted only in part as at least some of the budens and effects are explained there.

But I can add an additional burden; until silencers cease to be NFA items, the military will have to subject each one to the same level of recordkeeping and accountability as the weapons to which they are to be attached, thus doubling that particular burden.

 

[hdwhit]

herrwalter wrote:
Likely all would be my guess.

Probably not.

Such studies are not a case of a couple of officers wandering out and saying, "Well, bubba what do ya think?" The studies must produce objectively measurable and quantifiable data of whatever it was they were intended to measure. That's why the government contracts with people like me to design studies that can generate such data. I doubt it would be possible to design a single operation to simultaneously test for each of those criteria in ways that would allow each criteria to be both simulatneously and independently measured.

You would be surprised how well something will work in one environment but changes significantly once it gets cold. Up until the 1970's or so, many of the primary cold weather experienced units like 1&2 Brigade of 10th Mountain and the 86IBCT were still using the basic Army wide issued stuff that just wasn't cutting in cold weather. Cold weather units need different equipment to meet their mission objectives. If your unit needs half as much communication and signal equipment because the unit is using silencers, that can effect unit cohesion a great deal.

Actually, I would not. When I was a graduate student, one of my professors was contracted to the Army cold weather research facility at Natick, so I became very familiar with cold weather requirements. That's how I knew to ask questions such as whether the environment affected function and durability.

And as a you note, questions such as whether or not the adoption of a silencer allows other equipment to be reduced is something that has to be studied and first determined to be practical and effective. A battalion of Marines playing with silencers in Norway is one such study and is not a harbinger of widespread adoption.

 

[hdwhit]

Indianaboy wrote:
My point was there is no need for a silencer adopted by the military to be made of inconel or stellite. Materials like that really drive up cost. ... That being said, titanium tubes really bring the weight down. So from that aspect some of the more exotic materials would still have a place.

Therein lies a whole new research study for the military and its legions of scientific contractors (yahoo, more work for me); does the military pay for exotic materials to purchase durable silencers or do they specify an essentially disposable design that can be made cheaply but has to be replaced regularly?

Go the first way and unit cost - even with economies of scale - remains high because of the high cost of the exotic materials that even purchased in volume do not become dramatically cheaper. Or, go the second way and get a lower unit cost for the silencer, but then have the need to procure, track, issue, account for and monitor the disposition of a continuing supply of disposable "cans".

 

[CoalTrain49]

New technology? They've been on the market for more than a hundred years.

And the fundamental idea of releasing expanding gasses into an isolated space to achieve sound attenuation is even older.

Who cares how long they've been on the market.

If it isn't using some new technology then why was a patent issued to Russell Oliver for the OSS suppressor. It may be a fundamental idea but so was the internal combustion engine. Fundamental ideas can incorporate new technology. If they didn't your car would still have a flathead engine and a carburetor.

Are you saying the OSS suppressor is the same as those built in 1910? I think you may be confusing a fundamental idea with technology which is new techniques, skills, methods, material and processes to produce something.