New Marine Corps squad configuration, M27 automatic rifle revealed...

My rules of engagement in iraq under Bush were also restrictive, but he’s a Republican so he gets pass right?

 

Bush's Iraq war was fought as a politically correct war.

It must have really sucked big time knowing that every time you pulled the trigger some JAG officer was going to second guess your decision and having CNN reporters all over the battlefield looking for some American soldier who wasn't politically correct.

 

It would have sucked more to murder an innocent Iraqi, especially in terms of helping the insurgents recruit.

 

Keep. Politics. Out. Of. This. Please.
When does Trump, Obama, and political correctness have to do with anything with IAR and marching fire?

Again Marching Fire is garbage unsupported. Marching fire is only good when the enemy is already pinned down by machinegun and artillery fire so he can take position to fire on you effectively. Then it is good to bug out and advance while continuing a hail of fire. Support by tanks is excellent and that is what Patton wanted. Most German soldiers were using K-98Ks bolt action rifles. After your counterbatteries knock out their artillery and your own artillery and air-power takes out all their MG-42 nests, it make sense you can simply overwhelm the enemy.

But to believe that if this was some full scale war today, marching fire is a good idea? Depends. In the scenario above yes. However against an opponent with equal numbers, firepower, fire support? No that is suicide.

Just imagine the US Army storming the beaches of Normandy with Marching Fire.....the Germans would butcher every single landing crew.

 

They say during war time the safest place to be is in the military. More innocent civilians are killed in war than soldiers.

During WW ll the entire Pacific theater of war was one huge free fire zone.

Did the U.S. Navy give a **** when they bombarded an island's native population in the Pacific during the preinvasion bombardment ?

The same was true in Europe but there were a few exceptions like Paris which was declared an "open city."

War crimes were committed like the bombing of Dresden which was also an "open city."

In Vietnam it was said we had one arm tied behind our backs. We had to obey all South Vietnam laws including traffic laws.
There were free fire zones but they kept getting smaller and smaller it seemed every week.

Free fire zone didn't mean you could shoot any thing that moved. It just meant you didn't need approval of the Saigon government when you needed fire support larger than a 60 mm mortar. It was time consuming taking up to 30 minutes to get approval for the A-4 Skyhawk that was above to come in and provide the CAS you needed.

My son flew two combat tours bombing Obama's "JV" team when Obama was his CnC and he said about 80% of the time they had the enemy in their sights and they were denied from 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. from killing bombing the enemy.

Ever read former Sec. of Def. Robert Gates book "Duty" ? In the book he describes when he was on an inspection tour in Afghanistan and while inside a C&C Center he noticed a red phone and asked what the phone was for ?
He was told it was a direct line to the Obama White House. Robert Gates ripped the phone out. Barack Obama was violating the military chain of command.

Don't know what was with Obama always ignoring the chain of command. Either he just never understood it and how it works and why Congress made it the law but Obama and his White House never paid attention to the chain of command.

There was an Air Force Lt. General who had to inform Valerie Jarrett once that she wasn't part of the chain of command.

The way it's suppose to work, the U.S. military plays by the rules. When the enemy no longer plays by the rules then we stop playing by the rules. By August 10, 1942 U.S. Marines no longer took prisoners during battle. Jap soldiers would be given a chance to surrender only during the mopping up phase after the battle had been won. Most Japs rarely took the offer of being allowed to surrender. They still believed that U.S. Marines ate babies every morning for breakfast.

 

I am far from an expert (just look to my shotgun post) but it seems to me that 30 round mags aren't the best for suppressive fire. I would think belt fed would still be needed in that role.

 

Not a stupid idea. There are drones in the pipeline. Land, sea, and air.

One land version even looks like a camel, capable of keeping up with people, and being used to portage the heavy stuff.

They can also bring in people, supplies, and guns.

And take out the wounded and evacuees.

But they can fail, and they need batteries.

Special Forces wants it.

I can even see an "close air support" drone with anti air countermeasures including some really acrobatic moves.

Guided missiles...

 

I recently fired a Thompson sub gun, M1A1.

It looks, feels, and fires like an "old" gun. Lots of mass. Heavy. A particular, and primitive feel to the recoil-though its often quite smooth cycling.

And yet its instantly apparent this is something someone could take to war. The Thompson officially served until 71. It was first built in 1917, envisioning a massive 1919 American assault that everyone knew was going to end things. (thankfully, the war ended just about 100 years ago).

Its important to remember that sub guns are really just pistols, and use them as such.

Games and movies make them out to be sniper rifles and machine guns-but really they are fancy pistols.

Zie Germans got into long range (50 plus yards) sub guns.

But no.

PDW's are interesting though.

 

Its best traits are its light and it shoots like .308 ball. (overall trajectory vs accuracy)

It does not hit like .308 ball.

 

In WW2, the American left/commies were for the war.

Pro war commies.

But not in Korea, and sure as hell not the war in Vietnam.

I mainly shoot an M16-A3 clone.

It hits harder and more accurately at 600.

I can plink those tall thin rectangular traffic cones at 600 on a good day.

I can even hit em open sights, and red dots (aiming in space)





Govt rifles are always 10 years behind.

 

Lolz.

 

Fired the Thompson M-1A1 at Pendlelton during the last Marine Corps submachine gun course they had. Only fired 10 rounds.

In the early 70's two of my buddies and I chipped in and illegally bought a M-1921 Thompson with four 20 rnd box magazines and one 50 rnd drum magazine. If I remember correctly we paid either $400 or $500 for it. I'm guessing it was stolen because it had "Property U.S. Navy" stamped on the receiver.

Back in the day submachine guns were so easy to come by, you were able to buy them legally paying the $300 ATF tax or bought them illegally not paying the ATF tax. Even into the 1980's as long as you weren't a leftist the ATF wouldn't even waste their time going after someone being illegally in possession if a submachine gun. It was no big deal until liberals politicized guns.

 

Awesome. Now that lefties have politicized everything there are fewer good gun stores here. Less public and private ranges, and more beef jerky and pocket knives at gun shows.

 

That's because the U.S. Government got out of the gun business back in 1968 when Sec. of Def. Robert McNamara closed down the last federal gun armory that made guns, Springfield Armory.

Since 1968 the U.S. military has been dependent of the civilian sporting arms industry to arm the military.

It's the civilians who buy guns like AR's that keep these sporting arms industries in business or the U.S. military would be dependent on foreign gun manufactures in Europe, Russia or China.

Without American sportsmen, hunters, weekend plinkers these gun manufactures would go out of business and America's national security would be in deep sh!t.

 

I don't think there's one real gun store left with in the city limits of Los Angeles today, they were all forced to go out of business.

It so funny during the L.A. riots during 1992, all of the liberals over on the West Side running to gun stores and after purchasing their guns they had a melt down that they had to come back 10 days later to pick up their guns. They asked who passed such a stupid law and the guy behind the counter told them "you did."

Even today the Los Angeles "West Side" where all of the liberals live has the lowest gun ownership than any other place in California.

 

You are mentioning dated military loads from dated military designs, with obsolete medical data.

Wounding effects are not the reason military loads are chosen.

The US military fights a certain way.

For the way it fights, light, small caliber, high velocity arms make sense.

Terminal effectiveness is not the most important variable.

 

Some may disagree with that view of Ike.

https://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/c...have-led-40-000-deaths-wwii-column/310425002/

 

The assumptions in that article are absurd.

 

I am not very impressed with this new concept to be honest. And I feel the loss of the SAW will ultimately be a mistake.

There are many advantages to the SAW, including rate of fire, number of rounds fired between reloads, and the ability to change barrels. Accuracy is not a key factor when considering an automatic weapon, it is intended for suppressing fire and area targets, not highly aimed shots. To me it feels like a step backwards, to when I was attending Infantry Training School and the Automatic Rifleman was just another M-16 shooter who had double the number of magazines and a bipod.

Back when I first joined (1983), the Marine Rifle Squad was 11 people. The Squad Leader (M16), and 2 Fire Teams of 5 people. The Team leader (M16), the Grenadier (M203), the Automatic Rifleman (M16), and 2 Riflemen (M16). Then it changed, eliminating one of the Riflemen, the Automatic Rifleman moving the M249, and the Squad leader and Team Leaders all upgrading to the M203.

So even though the Squad lost 2 individuals, they had a large increase in firepower. 3 more M203s, and 2 M249s. I remember at about the time I got out (1993) they were in the process of migrating to a new 10 man configuration, with the elimination of the Riflemen and being composed of 3 fireteams of 3 men each, 2 armed with the M203 and 1 with the M249. I am not sure if this ever happened or not.

And while the composition of squads has constantly been changing over the decades, I am not sure what good the elimination of the M249 will do. It seems to me that ultimately this will reduce the number of rounds that a squad can put downrange during any period of time. And in a combat situation, volume of fire can be as important if not more important than the accuracy of such fire.

 

Even more telling is what happened to B&B Guns after the North Hollywood Shootout.

In 1997 during that shootout the police were badly outgunned by the 2 gunmen. Armed with illegally converted AKs, while they only had pistols and shotguns. Realizing they were outgunned, several of the cops took off and went to a local gun store, B&B guns. The owner and employees had been watching the shootout live, and when the cops showed up they handed over AR-15s and ammunition, no questions asked.

However, this led to millions of dollars in legal fees, as the DoJ and state agencies went after them for violating multiple lawsuits and other fines and penalties related to this. That is because they simply handed over the firearms the police asked for. No background check, no 10 day waiting period. The end result was over $2 million in legal fees and penalties, 5 years later they were out of business.

California is probably the worst state in the country to try to own a gun in. The laws are byzantine in the extreme, and even attempting to come into compliance with them can get you arrested. Where even such things as price can make a weapon illegal.

 

I would sometimes travel over 30 miles to Van Nuys to visit one of the best gun shops with in L.A. city limits, the Pony Express gun store.

Mushroom, you were a Marine grunt longer than most, what's your opinion of removing the automatic rifleman from the fire team ?
A three man fire team ???
I defiantly will want to read the Marine Corps Rifle Squad field manual when it is released. They will have to rewrite FMFM 6-5
Old Corps -> http://www.citadel.edu/root/images/marines/docs/mcwp-3-11.2-marine-rifle-squad.pdf

 

The 3 man team does not bother me, this was the configuration they were trying to move to in around 1993. But the Rifle Squad would have had 7 M-16/M-203 operators, and 3 M-249s. I do not know if this ever happened, but it was what they were talking about when I got out. The idea was that 3 teams of 3 men each would be more flexible, as well as easier to expand at needed by adding in a 4th member to each time to resume the role of the Rifleman (M-16). That would make it a fast conversion from a 10 man Squad to a 13 man squad.

Not unlike how during the contraction from 4 Company Battalion to a 3 Company Battalion, the individual companies were not renamed. A "1st Battalion" remained as Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie companies, a 2nd Battalion remained as Echo, Fox, and Golf companies, and a 3rd Battalion remained as India, Juliet, and Kilo companies. At a date in the future, the missing Delta, Hotel, and Lima companies could be reconstituted and thrown into the Battalion with minimal impact in operations.

But the loss of a dedicated large capacity Automatic Rifle will have a large impact on the ability of a squad to provide sustained return fire. The ability to throw out 200 rounds without changing magazines was a huge help for the squads when I was in. The AR generally practiced "Talking Guns" drills with the other M249 gunner in the squad. So that one took over fire as the other reloaded. That way the squad was never without automatic weapon support.

I do know from my initial training that this was a much harder task when we were only equipped with 30 round magazines. Even with a practiced 3 round burst, we could only get off 10 such bursts before we had to change mags. Compare that to the ability to get off almost 70 3 round bursts with an M-249, and you can see the decrease in firepower, even if a designated Automatic Rifleman was to carry the same amount of rounds.

And then you get into other factors. Firing from a closed bolt means the weapons are more prone to overheating. And without an interchangeable barrel, it means that when it does overheat, you can do nothing about it except to stop firing.

I have carried the SAW many times during my career. Yea, it was a PITA during a hump. But we were all glad to have it in the event that it was needed. And having an integral member of the squad was much better than the old technique of having an M-60 gunner attached to you during an operation.

Yes, the 60 was good, but the gunner was not a permanent member of your team. He did not know all of your team signals, and did not know how you all operated in the field since they only worked with you occasionally.

Removing the "Automatic Rifleman" means nothing to me. Remember, when I trained as an 0311 this was just an M-16 gunner with more magazines. It is the loss of a dedicated high capacity automatic rifle that bothers me the most. Being able to thrown out 200 rounds without reloading. I would hate to even think about trying to withdraw to another fighting position without that capability to have the enemy keep their heads down as we fell back.

And that was one of the maneuvers we used to practice a lot. SAW gunner laying down a base of fire as we withdrew to a better place of cover, then we all would pop up and do the same thing in return for the SAW gunner. It would take the rest of the team to even come close to providing the volume of fire that the SAW could, with a lot more magazine changes.

And to give an idea, out typical loadout was that each person on the squad had 180 rounds, in 6 30 round magazines. And a 200 round drum for the SAW. The SAW gunner carried 2 200 round drums (400 rounds), when combined with ours gave them 1,000 rounds of belt fed ammunition. In addition to the ability to use our magazines if needed.

I simply see no way to replace that in this new configuration.

 

Well said.

 

Didnt know what happened to that shop.

I remember watching it live.

Doubt youd see it on the air these days. Maybe telemundo would air it.

IIRC, there was a made for tv movie mafe soon after that was pretty accurate.

 

Was hoping youd chime in on this.

The move seems to be more towards tech and explosives, and less on small arms.

Im wondering how much of a gamechanger those are at the squad level.

Howd they would fare against peers or near peers.