Posted on 12/28/2020 10:04:53 AM PST by Onthebrink
Yeah but they faced American platoons throwing back devastating semi automatic 30-06 fire from all directions. That meant better cover fire for maneuver.
The BAR hit hard. If you were struck anywhere, you went down. Its long barrel also made it a good sniper rifle in a pinch. I think a form of it ought to be brought back into service.
Yeah, the big guy who carried the BAR in the TV series Combat!
When it was getting really tough for the squad they'd call on him to blast away and fix it :)
Most likely, I made it into the world because they dropped the bomb.
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So true. All you need to do is read first hand accounts of the battles of Pelilu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa to know the Hell that US forces would have faced invading Japan but for Harry Truman’s inspired decision to drop the Bomb. Indeed, IMHO, that decision, and the tens of thousands of American lives it saved, are probably why he won the 1948 election.
And we still use Ma Deuce to this day...
Army: “Hey, John... we need a new automatic rifle...
Browning: “No problem... gimme a week...”
Just damn...
When those damn things jammed, it was the worst kind of jam: the double feed. It would tear the head off the fired cartridge case in the chamber and then feed a new round into that, effectively fusing the mess together and holding the bolt in place with its very strong extractor.
The Marines that carried the M16 drilled holes in the back of their plastic handguards to hold an assembled cleaning rod, so they could bang the jammed cartridges out of their chambers rapidly. In a fight, they looked like they were firing Civil War muzzleloaders, firing, then using the cleaning rods and then firing again.
I went back to my tent to retrieve my not-yet-turned-in M14 and carried it for next 3 months in combat, feeding it by stripping M60 belts to fill my magazines. Dependable, accurate, and deadly beats the snot out of "light, stylish and cheap".
True enough, but 7.62mm also uses the 162gr boattail and the 175gr match for competition. It's just an efficient remake of the .30-06,
If I had been given the choice, I would have carried a BAR in Vietnam, since it is supremely stable - almost a full-auto sniper rifle. But my M14 did fine and I'm likely able to write the reply because of its superb accuracy, dependability, and lethality.
I never got the details on the jam. Geez, it’s amazing more didn’t die under those conditions. I know they eventually added the forward assist to help clear the jams. A marine friend of mine pointed out it is still there on the M4. He asks the question, if they fixed the weapon then why is it still there.
those saying the BAR isn't as good as X or doesn't have this feature seem to forget one important fact, X did not exist when the BAR came on line. in it's time, i see no equal
“The MG34 and later MG42 were much, much superior to the BAR as a squad level automatic weapon. Unfortunately, overall the superior belt fed made the German squad more effective.”
MG34 and 42 actually had too high a rate of fire. Needed a trailer to keep one supplied. German squad tactics were the opposite of American. In the USA the mg supported the squad. In the wehrmacht the squad supported the mg.
And no body else had anything compared to the M2 hmg until post war Soviet 12.7 and 14.5s.
My father lugged a BAR through four campaigns in the Pacific. In November 1944, he used his BAR to take out a couple of Japanese machine gun nests that were holding up his squad on a recon mission on Leyte. He earned a Bronze Star that day and a promotion, which meant he didn’t have to carry the BAR on Okinawa because then he was toting a Garand.
The jams held the bolt firmly, so the charging handle wasn't able to pull it open and the edges are too small to use your foot to kick it open, as you could do with an M14 or an M1.
Have never thought that the M16 was a well-designed weapon for infantry combat.
- Deeply recessed and inaccessible chamber
- gas tube vents gas and debris into the bolt/carrier/chamber. If you ever fire that thing with a suppressor, you end up gassing yourself! Nasty stuff.
- flexible receiver/barrel area: supporting the end of the barrel or using a tight sling to hold the weapon during firing, moves the strike of the bullet.
Bullet's too light for adequate lethality past 300M or punching through heavy cover/walls/vehicles. This last probably sounds like it's reaching, but if you have found yourself in those situations, you know what I'm talking about.
Agreed - but I’d still take a BAR over that puny little paintchipper M249.
sorry- images posted too large- asked mods to delete
That makes sense. Only shot an M4 or variant a couple of times. A .223 for deer and elk is somewhat useless.
sorry- i reduced size of photos, or so i thought- still posting too large for some reason, please remove both the too large posts- thanks-
LOL!
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