[demlosers]

Ping. I noticed your interested in these threads :)

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[pa_dweller]

Both soldiers and Marines also noted problems with the M-9 9 mm pistol. “There was general dissatisfaction with this weapon,” the Army report said. “First and foremost, soldiers do not feel it possesses sufficient stopping power.”

I hear some guy named Browning has designed a pistol which may be satisfactory.

[Gabrielle Reilly]

read later.

[wysiwyg]

Bang!

[Sofa King]

Just give them a colt .45

[x1stcav]

“The most significant negative comment was reference [to] the M-4’s range,” the Army report stated. “In the desert, there were times where soldiers needed to assault a building that may be 500+ meters distant across open terrain. They did not feel the M-4 provided effective fire at that range.”

No, Sh*t!

500+ meters is 7.62 country. Should have broken out the M14's in storage if there are any left.

[bandleader]

This brings to mind what General George S.Patton Jr. said about the M-1Garand Rifle!He called it:"The Finest Battle Implement Ever Devised"!!Now,I'm not saying that we should go back that far,but how about the M-14?It fires a .30cal.projectile(7.62/54).Or how about the FN/FAL which fires the same NATO cartridge as the M-14??As far as the Beretta 9mm.pistol,this is a DISGRACE!!!The 1911 Colt.45ACP pistol served this country's armed forces BRILLIANTLY for 75-years!!!!If you ask all of the pistol champions,they will almost always favor a 1911 variant.Combat-wise,it has no peer.The only improvement that could(and can)be easily undertaken is to re-engineer the grip so that it will accomodate a straddled,high-cap(15-round)magazine.You don't have to make a "killing shot"with a 1911.ANYWHERE will do just fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jonascord]

FNGs! You never lube a weapon in the desert! You spend a lot of time removing the least speck of oil! If the gun doesn't work without lube, ram it up the Ordinance Dept.'s rear end and get one that does, hence the pickup AK-47s...

Why does every war have to be fought by little boys, who get killed re-learning how to slaughter?

[Gary Boldwater]

Here's a good link on 7.62mm vs 5.56mm rounds:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1986/MVT.htm

Can female soldiers qualify shooting the 7.62 round at 1000 yds (as was the old standard)?

[tortoise]

I would point out that many of the comments reference the "feelings" of the soldiers with no regard to whether it has any bearing on reality and fact. The article has hints of urban legend all over the place in it, and I can state for a fact that most of what grunts think they know about weapons is pure voodoo and third-hand anecdotes of dubious origin. This isn't reason enough to question the effectiveness of a weapon.

There is very little substance to the article that references real specific shortcomings with the weapons that weren't intentionally designed into the platform -- no weapon system can do everything perfectly -- and trade-offs in capability are to be expected to get the maximum performance in the general case.

[Cacique]

BFL8R

[Buzzcook]

Lack of range was and is a crucial problem in Afghanistan. The short barreled rifle simply does not have the range for the conditions our soldiers faced.
Some folks suggested adding a long barreled rifle in 7.62 to each squad to help with the problem. In other words going back 40 years to the M-14.

Buzz

[Shooter 2.5]

I haven't figure out what exactly they're complaining about in this article.

They mention the thirty year old controversy and put the blame on the M-16 rifle instead of the real reason which was the gunpowder. If they wanted controversy in the ancient times, why didn't they discuss the teething problems of the Garand??

Next, they didn't like the range of the M-16 but they picked up AK-47's to use???

Then they traded rifles for pistols but didn't like the fact they were unreliable??

They showed firing pin marks on the primers, neglecting to say that the non-existant problem started in 1936.

Gees, learn to clean a magazine, use a better lube and the rest of these "problems" can disappear.

[300winmag]

But soldiers and Marines alike railed against the poor performance of the M-9 ammunition magazines.

Regardless of your opinion of the 9mm (and I think it stinks as a military round, it isn't even adequate as a police round), magazines are considered "semi-expendable" in the military. Wanna bet there was no money in the budget for replacement mags during the klinton regime, just like there was no money for small arms ammo production?

[Jonez712]

Bring back the BAR-1918!!

:p

[nightdriver]

"Reliability complaints also found fault with the oil soldiers and Marines used to clean their weapons. In the dusty, sandstorm-plagued battlefields of Iraq, weapons became clogged with sand, trapped by the heavy oil, called CLP."

There are myriad excellent substitutes for oil as a lubricant on firearms and trust the mule-headed military brass to be the last in the world to be aware of it. Did they think Iraq was NOT going to be dusty?

One such is trade-named "dri-kote" which is does not attract dust and is an excellent colorless lubricant. One good application of it and dust and grit just bounce off of those tightly toleranced parts. However, if today's army is anything like my training outfit, a soldier would be court-martialed for using it.

I would expect that most of the weapons problems can be traced back to bureauocratic paralysis and lack of professionalism in the upper echelons of the military services.

[Jhoffa_]

Why do we have weapons that leave dents in the primer of unfired rounds?

Don't they know that's a bad thing?

[bandleader]

OK,This is ABSOLUTELY my last word on this subject!I load 9mm with 115grain bullets and 5grs.of Unique!I load .45ACP with 230grain bullets and 6.5-7grs.of Unique!!Can we all agree about something?That is that the 1911 Colt is far superior to the 9mm Beretta??As I said before,you can't get 10grs.of Unique into a .45ACP case!!!!!!!Enough,Already!!!!!!!!!

[bandleader]

Having"messed up"so badly with my previous replies,I will attempt to vindicate myself!I have used Hoppes #9 and standard lubricants to clean my firearms since boyhood.A friend(Marine)recently turned me on to"Tetra Gun".You have to put a mask on when using the solvent(or cotton wool in your nose),but this stuff is GREAT!It is a Fluoropolymer base that really does the job.After you have used it a few times,clean=ups are much easier(especially with fouling propellants like Unique"!!The armed forces should try this stuff!!!!!