Army Launches Competition for More Powerful Combat Rifle

Military.com ^ | August 5, 2017 | Matthew Cox

[Spktyr]

I for one do not doubt the M-14 is accurate in semi-auto fire. I have an M-14/M-1A here that recently had the damaged barrel swapped out by no less a person than Art Luppino - which if you’re into the M-14 at all, is a name you should know.

[Chainmail]

That should be an outstanding shooting instrument. My own is an early vintage Divine Texas Springfield Armory weapon with an original TRW military match barrel.

[Spktyr]

re: “Your videos are cool but very civilian: there’s never any reason to fire full-auto from the offhand (standing) position in combat. Full auto is almost always fired from the prone, which is what you’d better be if the first rounds the enemy fired haven’t already got you. I have no idea why our YouTube cowboys think that that is way we employed them - but of course, they would be difficult to control.”

There are a number of reasons you see people shooting these while standing.
1. Many ranges prohibit prone firing these days; seated or standing are your only options. “Don’t have a choice if you want to fire it,” is a valid reason. :D
2. Standing/offhand auto fire is a doctrine used in some foreign militaries and at least after the M16 was adopted, our own with the 5.56. My friends just back from the Sandbox tell me that they did use their rifles in full auto from the shoulder more than a few times. They also reported that their full auto usage overall was limited. FYI, as of 2014, the Army has begun retiring all the burst fire M4s and M16s and has re-equipped with the full auto versions.
3. Our own military (and many others) considers whether or not a full auto rifle is controllable or not based on this type of firing - standing up, from the shoulder. This was how they decided the M-14 was not controllable in full auto - and by that standard, they are correct.

The FAL, to continue to use the example I’ve used on this thread, was also considered “wildly uncontrollable” on full auto at the time. There’s period video out there of people using the techniques of the time desperately trying to hang on to the thing in full auto either from the shoulder or from the hip, so you can see why and how they thought this. It was so bad that the British completely eliminated full auto fire from their versions of the FAL. The Germans and some others kept full auto but fitted integral bipods and instructed their troops to never use full auto except when prone with the bipod deployed. However, technique has changed considerably since then and as demonstrated above a modern shooter can reasonably easily control a FAL on full auto from the shoulder. The FAL’s weight, geometry and operating system are just fine for this use, as it turns out. Unfortunately, the M-14 in its original stock is not.

[Spktyr]

Yeah. I’m hoping to go shooting with Mr. Luppino this fall sometime after the Texas heat has abated somewhat. I’ll bring this - and my ex-Israeli heavy barrel FAL that Ed Vanden Berg worked on. :D

[Chainmail]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. I have fired the FAL full auto and it was a handful!

Offhand firing is a lousy method of evaluating the usefulness of automatic fire. I realize that some of our recent combat experience seems to include firing while standing but I wouldn’t recommend it against better-trained and equipped adversaries.

Automatic fire is a tool, a very effective tool if done with training and intelligence.

[60Gunner]

Oh, I’m not knocking the M14 at all. I’ve met a few Vietnam vets who were in-country when the transition from M14 to M16 was made. They unanimously lamented having to give up the M14. never had the chance to try one out myself, but I’ve heard wonderful things about them.

[Chainmail]

The '14 is and was a fine weapon and it became particularly valuable when the early M16s began to fail. It was a miserable experience for our Marines when the M16s began to jam up very often and fatal if you were in the wrong end of a firefight. The '14 was long, weighty and a bear to handle in full-A - but it was very accurate, powerful, and very lethal.

Firing full auto from the standing position is the province of the submachinegun. Since they weigh the same as the regular battle rifle and only fire a pistol caliber, they are controllable from the standing. Sort of: you still have to lean forward a bit to offset recoil. The AK and the StG-44 before it started the used of "intermediate" rifle calibers meant to blend submachineguns and rifles and therefore higher rates of fire from walking troops. Most of us who have faced the AK in combat know that unless the first shot hits you, you're golden because the rest will sail above you to threaten treetops. We did the same thing with the M16 but the Mousegun had the advantage of a much lower recoil impulse and therefore greater controllability from the offhand. I have fired the M16 a lot since Vietnam and the full automatic versions were very controllable - but not necessarily very lethal or effective against protected targets.

The army pushed towards a concept called "walking fire" in the '80s that somewhat amusingly, included the M60 machine gun. The last version of the M60 - the M60E3 - had a little thin wispy barrel and a vertical foregrip so you could stand and chunk away with it. The problem was, as anyone with half a brain already knew, machine gun barrels get hot - really hot - and the M60E3 barrels melted. Literally. I had a desk full of S-shaped M60E3 barrels with bullet holes through the side of them. That's why the Corps went to the M240 to replace the M60 and nobody proposed "walking fire" anymore (mainly because standing around in a firefight more or less guarantees death).

I am a bit of fossil now but if my country called me to serve with a rifle, I'd still lean towards the M14 because it, like me, is an antique - but a really effective antique!

[Spktyr]

It should be pointed out that just as the M16 isn’t the same rifle it was in Vietnam, the AK isn’t either. A lot of the AK’s inherent accuracy issues have been dialed out over the years, though the massive bolt carrier slamming back and forth still causes issues endemic to the platform.

Starting with the AK-74, muzzle climb on full auto became much less of an issue - not just because of the 5.45x39 cartridge that version fired but because they put a very effective muzzle brake on the end of the barrel. Then they backported that idea to the regular AK 7.62x39 line and found it to be even more effective. Our guys in the Sandbox who’ve played with captured AKs or borrowed them to test from coalition troops they’re serving with (Poland and other former Eastern Bloc countries that have joined NATO and/or come to the Sandbox prefer their modernized AKs) have discovered that at this point the major limitation on a modern AK on FA isn’t the rifle, it’s the operator. A reasonably well trained shooter with a modern-spec AK is going to be about as effective on FA as a correspondingly skilled shooter with an M16 on FA at this point. The old rule of “first round missed, so will the rest” of an AK on FA sadly (for those that have to oppose it) doesn’t apply to a modern AK in the hands of a trained shooter any more.

Fortunately, the Taliban, ISIS and most of our other opponents in the Sandbox are *not* well trained. Then there’s also the “inshallah marksmanship” they’re prone to, which doesn’t help them. You really don’t want to see what the Russians can do with them, though.

Here’s a modern spec AK in 7.62x39 (the AKMS spec with the now famous ‘slant brake’) and an AK-74 clone in full auto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJnJhhX_Nqs

You can see the difference between the AKMS and later and the older spec rifles - here’s a professional using an old-spec AK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cosc-RO_oMg

That simple slant brake and the slightly more complex brake on the 74 has turned out to be shockingly effective.

FYI, the M60E3 was not the end of the line for the M60. The M60E4 or Mk43 continues in US service and the M60E6 has just been adopted by the Dutch. Among other things, they fixed the Stellite lined barrel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_machine_gun#M60E4.2FMk_43_Mod_0.2F1

[Spktyr]

AKMS-ish spec rifle with the AKMS muzzle brake, one of the older vertical foregrips (yes, the Eastern Bloc got these too) from before RIS caught on and an RPK drum on FA for 100 rounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXUlLIeNT6A

Again, not at all doubting what you said about the weapons as they were back when, just showing that the AK improved just like everything else did in the intervening time. :D

[Chainmail]

Agree that weapons are more evolved (you left out the rate ruducer used in the AKM and recent AK- series weapons) but completely against firing while standing. If you’ve ever been in the presence of literally thousands of rounds fired in the space of seconds, standing - or just being above cover - is death.

Anybody who has survived combat knows that getting down is vital and if you’re in range of artillery, mortars, or rockets, digging down below ground level is also vital.

Why would anyone emphasize firing while standing? All that does is make you a lot more likely to have your name engraved on a wall somewhere.

We won’t be fighting non-aiming primitives forever..

[60Gunner]

Very good points.

Speaking only for myself, I can only say that while keeping under the line of fire is always a good policy, the ability to fire the M60 with reasonable accuracy while maneuvering (without pausing) helped to keep the bad guys' heads down while repositioning.

As far as learning to fire the M60 while standing/crouching went, those were more an exercise in balance and confidence in a non-combat environment rather than an actual tactic. Since the belt-fed wep is THE target that the baddies aim for, standing still is suicide.

[Spktyr]

I didn’t forget the rate reducer because the Russians also played with a rate *increaser* in the AN-94 variant, with the ‘stupid fast two round burst then normal autofire rate’ system - so they’ve gone to both ends of the spectrum.

I think that governments/militaries using standing automatic fire as a test is less of a replication of a commonly used combat mode and more of a lowest common denominator test. It’s the most difficult stance in which to control an automatic weapon, so if the weapon can be controlled while standing, kneeling or prone unsupported fire will be easier. They do have a point there.

On the other hand, from what I’ve read and from what I’ve heard from others, it seems like open field combat may be less of a thing in the future than in the past. It seems like urban warfare, house to house will be more likely, given the increase in number and capability of overhead sensor systems. Even against skilled professionals, standing, crouching or kneeling autofire is something that needs to be employed. Prone is not that useful in such situations, I am told.

[Chainmail]

If you are acquainted with WWII history - and Korean War and some extent, Vietnam - then you are also aware the really massive firefights are fearsome things. Besides the hundreds of rifle caliber weapons, there were mortars, grenades, shoulder-fired rockets, and artillery of all calibers.

Don’t just consider the types of limited combat we are seeing recently as the norm. The future could very well be North Korea again, or Iran, or even China with all of the mass and weaponry that we could see again.

It’s a perennial question in small arms design: long reach and precision versus high volume and “hit probability”. The StG44 started the revolution towards high volume of fire, stand-while-firing weapons and while they are attractive and handy, the long magazines preclude prone firing and the short sight radii preclude precision engagement.

The arguments will go on, but I can tell you from experience that firing from the prone helped me stay alive - and let me hit what I was aiming at.

Don’t assume that the current evolution is the best direction. Remember - StG44 or not, the Germans lost!