Jump to content
Please support this forum by joining the SH Patreon ×
Sturgeon's House

Virdea

Contributing Members
  • Posts

    382
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    8

Everything posted by Virdea

  1. He went to his grave claiming no connection, but it is hard to read Frodo's soliloquy and not read Tolkien's own angst.
  2. Few people know, and during his lifetime he denied, that Tolkien wrote much of his middle earth, in response to his own experiences in war. Siegfried Sassoon was a similar person in terms of his writings.
  3. Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land, Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows. In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives. I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, And mocked by hopeless longing to regain Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, And going to the office in the train.
  4. This has been the case for years. However, I would discard the term micro-caliber and if I were still writing on the subject i would start my own vocabulary. Own the word, make their word uncool.
  5. By the way, I just got off the phone with a friend and gun zealot who is "pretty high up." This is part of a money donation effort on the part of two presidential contenders - there are several major asks coming up, and they need this to bring the blogoshpere to a rile to keep money coming into some campaigns who have hit the rocks recently. Like the 9 billion rounds of hollow point asks, this will be around for a while as various political groups squeeze money out of the common joe for this election cycle. There are something like 17 ITAR changes to USC and all of them are benign. The worst of them will affect any of us who are writers and are currently being paid by Al Qaeda, ISIS, or other terror organizations. You cannot, now at least, write a pamphlet for Al Qaeda with public domain information if in doing so you create a markedly different product. I am not sure how many people on the gun forum are paid by foreign terror organizations, but I suspect the number is an integer smaller than 1. Another category of change is what state department writers can write about.
  6. Thanks! You might not be able to review the rifle one because I have you a free Beta version (.08) but I appreciate the effort!
  7. http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00Z8DWMD2?ref_=pe_1724030_132998070 My colleagues on this forum are welcome to visit my new Amazon page and give me a follow or post a comment about my general quality as a human being. This is completely an effort to generate traffic for my new books and is quite shameless.
  8. You have the AP round whose bullet is 3.5 grams. Dockery and Ezell both list the AP round at 8.5 grams. The regular round is 7.65 grams with a bullet mass of 2.7 grams. However using an 8 gram round mass with the 4.8mm Sturgeon round (and testing in the 1970s proved that round this size were perfectly capable of handling modern stopping power requirements and even of penetrating vests), you are still throwing out nearly 4 grams of mass on a 5.56mm. Your ultimate bullet is not useful past 300m, but then again, it does not really have to be.
  9. I will post a picture of Lindsey Lohan cleaning an AK, we will have it in no time.
  10. Brick Fight, Any academic is familiar with public domain research rules. The public notice says that the Department of State will be reviewing its process for releasing information, not that it will be arresting people for discussing public-released information. This is the sort of nonsense the NRA plies to us lifetime members on a regular basis to get us to donate another thousand so the president can buy another mansion. File this along with the warnings about the post office buying hollow points and Obama's secret agenda to take guns. The following is important to remember: 1. The state department lacks any authority to regulate free speech inside of the United States, and can only affect you if you publish a very narrow band of classified information. AND - the most that agencies like State or the FBI will do, even if you are running around spilling secrets, is usually give you a phone call (leaving you to wonder how they got your cell phone). That happened to me before and it was not a cause of paranoia, but of great glee. I identified a North Korean transport of arms one time from watching a hobby website that posts pictures of the shipping industry, and spent ten minutes explaining how I did it. And the guy was really bored, like he has to ask me this stuff. 2. Obama is the democratic president who least cares about guns in the past 50 years. He scored a 0 in the Brady rankings. He will make some waves once in a while to get donations, but to someone scientifically minded I would worry not one bit that Obama is running wild taking guns. 3. I am sad to say since you all know him, but Mr. Johnson's response is a bit - weird.
  11. Except, the round actually exists. The mass I quote is the actual manufactured mass of a real bullet that I had the pleasure to shoot at the FN range. Effective range nods out to 300m. The 4.6x36mm was the result of the little known sg.36 project where a team was given the ability to design the best round for infantry combat IF no political concerns were in the way and IF no one was forcing the designed to make it do more than be an infantry weapon. Their findings were a little more generous than mine - 300m instead of 200m, and they relied on a trick bullet which skirted the various conventions called a spoon head which had been noted in emergency rooms to cause terrible wounds, but the round is a 7.65 grams.
  12. This precisely hits my point on the head, and you even use one of my examples, and you nearly duplicate one of my thesis statements on an article I have written. An infantryman is, in my theory, a mobile intelligence platform whose job is indeed to carry a variety of tools to suppress and destroy the enemy when strategically it is unwise and ethically vacant to create a highway of death. Anyone who backpacks knows the limited factor for infantry intimately, and that is weight. Each soldier, baring some wild advance in exoskeletons, has a practical capacity of between 30 and 40 kilos of mass, and they are standing at the end of a supply chain where any savings we can make in that mass is a crucial advantage. I find it convenient to think of an infantryman averaging out 15 kilos of ammo (including their share of the unit support ammo), 5 kilos of weapons, 10 kilos of food and water, and 10 kilos of armor and clothing. The rifle is a specialized PDW designed to carry with a soldier when there is no real way to use their better tools, and to keep hostiles out of hand grenade range. The idea that mechanized infantry are the spotters for a vehicle that carries an array of heavy weapons into battle I think is what is missing from nearly all proposals we have for new IFVs.
  13. Belesarius is correct. When I listed 4.7 above I was not referring to the G11 round, which I do not refer to by traditional calibre since it is caseless, but to a brass cased bullet that functionally matches your bullet from the artwork. (Note if I was referring to the G11 round it weighs in at an even more impressive 5 grams). So I took the functional equivalent to your round, the 4,6x36mm (which was developed by the Germans and has a huge database on it) and re-ran my logistics figures with it, calling it 4.7mm. While I believe that a P90 is enough for the modern warrior, the bullet you propose is ok by me, as long as we get away from these rifles trying to do everything. That way we can finally admit that the rifle is a point defense weapon.
  14. I have a two rifle bag with a scoped MAS 1949 and a plain jane MAS 1936. While I own a box of Chat mags, I have never found a gunsmith brave enough to modify one for me for my MAS.
  15. Yes, but I never objected to your hypothesis, just reached from a different direction. Now observe: 4.7mm - 7.6g per round or 7.6kg per thousand. 5.56mm - 11.85g per round or 11.85kg per thousand. Currently soldiers carry a little over 500 rounds into battle between magazine loaded ammo and spare ammo. You just gave me 2 kilograms back on the back of a soldier. If you have never carried a basic load all day 2kg is valuable weight. That is 3 rifle grenades, or 4 magazines. And three rifle grenades just doubled my unit's killing power for the first 8 minutes of a firefight if everyone gets in on the action. And I am not even getting into the saving of hook turns for an infantry battalion. Hook turns that can carry more artillery ammo out.
  16. Err, 10003 - you get the picture.
  17. Well, 10002 because I told you about the fart joke.
  18. 10001 - I just posted an extended fart joke.
  19. Then I buy this. Now imagine the smallest reliable weapon that can be made from this round. That is the infantry weapon of my dreams.
  20. My question for a ballistics expert would be: Given the 200 meter envelope that every study since WW2 shows is the rifleman's engagement window with kinetic weapons, what is the lightest, cheapest kinetic round that can be designed. Think of the Spitfire fighter or the A4. Here is the engine (representing the technology envelope) - here is the job the engine must do. What is the smallest, cheapest design that can fulfill the job of dominating the under 200m battlefield. Free weight being given to carrying new generations of reach out and touch you weapon systems. And I am perfectly comfortable with the bullet giving away everything past 200m. I mean, if it flies 201 meters, throws out a small flag and says, "I give up," then plunks to the ground I would be happy as a clam. As long as it knocks down an enemy at 199 meters. That would get infantry off the notion that they are doing much good firing at longer ranges, unless we return to indirect area sights and consider the goal out to 600 meters is to land four round volleys into a 3x3 meter square of ground at a high angle for suppression effect.
  21. Let me state why I am against 6.8 as it is different than anyone else' reason. As a person who studies several forms of technology I would introduce a theory that all technology performs, from a macro point of view, in the same manner, and by watching historical trends one can predict where you are on a technology adoption or change curve, and that allows you to invest time and money on looking for changes. Two trends always show up - the trend of convergence, where a new technology sucks in all other technologies until it dominates the world, and that of shift, where a technology hits up against a wall and the only way to improve is to seek a new breakthrough outside of the dominant paradigm. The last convergence for technology was 1886 when smokeless powder introduced new chemical paradigms into ground warfare. Other technologies are peripheral - like digital and electronic, but still important. However for guns, the convergence is long past, and now we enter shift. The universal weapon idea was the dream of convergence and happened twice - the musket (300 year dominance) and the advanced breach loader (only fifty years). Now we have entered the far ends of the period of shift where hundreds of specialized designs vie for king, and where minor corrections to course are constantly made seeking out changes that barely can be measured. My objection to 6.8mm comes from this. Sure, maybe it has a chubb advantage, and if we measure the erections of gun experts for the larger and longer throw weight of their tumescence we may determine that 6.8 gets a bigger boner factor than 5.56, but the 6.8 is merely a way of hiding from the fact that we are on the bottom of a new slope in technology, and it is very scary because we do not have the scope of the slow yet - we have no idea what is coming next. I like the G11 because it is a test of paradigms that would answer the question "are traditional kinetics ready to go one more round." I also like the idiotic 20mm thing the US tried out and the idea of plastic rounds, and metal storm. It keeps someone working on the edge while the next paradigm develops. The 6.8mm is an automatic looser for me just because it is a return to ideas we have already walked across, with the idea that the past was better than the future. In reality, I am a big proponent of adopting the 5.7 (and was a fan before it existed, since I am older than most of you, of the Spitfire) and fielding the PDW as a universal rifle. BOPE has been working with this in their high threat environments and they love the 5.7. My own experience with it was great, out to 200m a smart reflex sight generates great accuracy. In combat the 5.7 can have a suppressing effect 250 meters further, which is all 5.56 does anyway. So I would give units a little gun with that 200m envelope coverage. That is inside danger close envelope where you won't get anyone shooting the big stuff anyway, and the entire modern job I believe of the hand-held kinetic is to fight in alleys and houses, or to clear the area 200m out. I would design the sights to allow area fire to 600m, but this would be more to sustain suppression while the sniper or other assets find their cover. Next, develop a universal thrower for each rifle that allows each soldier to toss 60mm mortar grenades out to 450m These should be versatile (different models do different jobs), and include some with terminal guidance. The GPMG stays with the team, as does the designated marksman, and this group is keyed to engage to this range or a little further. In Iraq and Afghanistan engagement outside the 450 mark is mostly done by heavies and artillery.
  22. Rumor in the chatosphere is that Erdogan's people crossed a line by bombing opposing HQs and using the police to rule the polls. The worry is that with the line crossed, there is nothing stopping Erdogan from abrogating the Constitution and declaring a his new model. That would ignite one of the more stable countries in the region.
  23. Turkey has for 500 years been a key nation - first as the core of a world girding empire, then as a country whose very existence was not a foregone conclusion. It has also been the focus of some real issues - genocide denial, VERY loose play with extreme Islamists, and the like. In terms of understanding her history there is more lie than real in nearly every conversation about her. Few people realize that the genocide against the Armenians was carried out largely by Kurds who were paid auxiliaries of the Ottomans, or that the Turks did admit the genocide until the 1920s, or that nearly 1000 perpetrators of the genocide were assassinated by Armenian hitmen in the years after the events. Erdogan came to power in 2002 with a rising swell of love for Islamic traditions based in part in Turkey seeing Islam, with the successful attacks on the US, as the route it would take into the future. With a failing Russia, Turkish pundits talked of the new Caliphate, eventual remove of the holy cities from the House of Saud and their return to subordinate Mufti control, and a movement to a Turkish lead Islamic axis. The problem with this is that only about 20% of the population agreed. So Erdogan had to change the constitution to allow minority rule and turn one Turk one vote to one Turk, one vote, one time. The result has been revolt by common people, brutal repression, secret police, and a Turkey that looked more like the Sublime Port than the land of Ataturk. That all crashed to a halt today. In one of the most violence ridden and corrupt elections of Turkish history - with bombs going off at nearly all major opposition HQ, with Turkish police beating up and sending away from the polls known supporters of opposition powers, with mass mailings threatening arrest and death to people who vote against the government, and with poll operators outright refusing to allow some polls to open in position neighborhoods, AKP still succeeded in having crushing defeat handed it. If the election was free the polls would have handed them 25% of the seats. As it is they got 40%, and if they cannot form a coalition government then the option of calling a new election simply won't fix it for them because they will likely loose MORE seats as people who were scared away from the first round come back for the second. While no one will notice this in the west, this is the equivalent of Putin loosing an election in terms of earth shaking results.
  24. Gas tube versus piston, 6.8 versus 5.56. It is all too much time on the hands of too many people who have a vested interest in being victorious rather than right in an argument. https://mountainpreparedness.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/the-forgotten-french-history-of-the-all-american-m1-garand-rifle/ The famous Garand is just a WW1 French design modified RSC - I love throwing that in when people start saying we should dump the M4 and go with the Garand. Anyway - the 6.8mm is a great round - in 1920. In 1920 the 6.8 with its shorter profile would have allowed adoption of a compact Rossingol or RSC weapon that could have been a game changer in terms of squad based firepower. In this age grenade fusing and mortar fusing limited the power of explosives that could be carried in portable weapons and even though small explosives dominated the battle field even then, the 6.8mm would have substantially increased the firepower of squads. Today - the 6.8mm does not increase hit percentage off the range. The issue is not that the rifle can increase engagement envelopes in Afghanistan, it is that nothing can and we have to figure out how to deliver firepower out past the 200m mark with man portable weapons better at a weight that can be sustainable in combat. In fact, I see room for the G11 to return.
×
×
  • Create New...