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Das Gee-Sechsunddreißig Ist Tot.


Sturgeon

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We must also assure that this bayonet can contain more energy with long distance thrusts then competing 5.56mm and 7.62mm thickness bayonets, less our infantrymen get outranged in long distance steel fights.

 

Our poor infantrymen, being outranged with no other options by evil 7.62mm thick Soviet bayonets!

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With rusty steel and fragile composite carbon fiber bayonets showing clear defects, I believe I've come up with a perfect solution. Just thin the blade down the 6.5mm and put some mounting lugs on this badboy!

 

fk_180bk_konter.jpg

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The one thing I do not understand is why no one is designing a good, portable, heavy grenade launcher.

 

The problem with every rifle is paradigmatic.  Modern western military forces needs a weapon to create an exclusion zone to 500 meters around an infantry unit.  At 500 meters delivered ordnance takes over and as it gets smarter it has dominated the battlefield.  Under 500 meters danger close fire missions are life and death only for good reason, the failure rate of even the smartest munitions is simply too high.  

 

So what we need is an explosive device with simple smarts launched from the shoulder to a range of 250 - 500 meters.  The French make this work by having a recoiless gun and a huge number of rifle grenades in each unit, but tests of the 20mm grenade from the OICW and even the 40mm grenade show that the blast radius for each weapon is too low - the M203 has a larger miss circle at 200 meters than the blast radius x2 of the weapon.

 

However we know from lots of AARs that weapons like the old British 50mm mortar carried a big percentage of an infantry unit's firepower.

 

So how about finding a way to take the AC58 and boost its effectiveness then hand three to everyone in a squad but the GP and DM gunners.  All of the effort to reach a perfect rifle seems like all the efforts people made to reach the perfect bayonet in WW1.  Dump the 20mm OICW - they cost too much and are too heavy and not effective enough, and throw the 40mm grenades down after them.  Having a rifle squad with 30 weapons that have 4-7 times the explosive power of a 40mm would represent the initial fire power of the unit, allowing the close in battle to be accomplished during the time that on call artillery is getting its act together. The soldiers would still have their rifles after that.  

 

I've wondered about this as well: from what I've heard the evolution in insurgent small arms (which represent a sort of support-free version of infantry tactics) has been towards squads with more RPGs and machine guns than rifles (something along the lines of 2-4 RPG gunners, 1-2 ammo carriers with ARs, 1-2 LMG gunners and perhaps a dedicated marksman). If this trend is accurate, then the future might involve rifles being used in the same capacity as SMGs or DMRs - as relatively specialised weapons meant to complement the core firepower provided by other weapons.

 

I'd also put money on cheap guided munitions coming into their own in a big way, making something like a small missile launcher the default infantry weapon.

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We need a General Purpose Bayonet. There are too many bayonets in service, and the smaller bayonets do not kill properly, while the larger bayonets are two heavy and unwieldy. Clearly, we need a fully Hague-compliant bayonet of approximately 6.5mm thickness...

Please stop being a nub. Everyone knows that long ranged bayonet kills can only be achieved by blades in the 12.5mm range. Everything else is just wimps complaining about how their limp wrists can't handle the force of a real man's weapon!

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Please stop being a nub. Everyone knows that long ranged bayonet kills can only be achieved by blades in the 12.5mm range. Everything else is just wimps complaining about how their limp wrists can't handle the force of a real man's weapon!

Silly metric users. real men us a .45 thick blade. :P

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We must also assure that this bayonet can contain more energy with long distance thrusts then competing 5.56mm and 7.62mm thickness bayonets, less our infantrymen get outranged in long distance steel fights.

 Laughing aside, a true story.

 

When the Gewehr 98 first came out it was given a huge bayonet that actually embarrassed the German army, who immediately called for it to be replaced by something a bit more useful.  The reason was a simple mistake.  The G98 was shorter than the preceding rifles it replaced and the specification for rifle+bayonet length was not changed in contracts -- and no one questioned the absurdity of the bayonet being twice as long as that adopted in 1884 - until they saw the first test rifles with this pig sticker sticking out.  Then they immediately moved to change to a shorter bayonet (and eventually, and even shorter K version of the 98 rifle).

 

The British though saw this bayonet and the British press went nuts.  British manhood was under attack.  The Tuetons were building bigger battleships, but this was the law straw - a bigger bayonet could ruin the British empire in a fortnight.  A British lawmaker stated in parliament that "length matters when two men face each other on the field of honor, and I would not want to face another man who has five inches on me!"

 

Longer bayonets were designed for the Lee Enfield, and Britain went to war with a pig sticker that made the short Lee Enfield the envy of the world.  Only by then the Germans no longer had many long bayonets.  

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I've wondered about this as well: from what I've heard the evolution in insurgent small arms (which represent a sort of support-free version of infantry tactics) has been towards squads with more RPGs and machine guns than rifles (something along the lines of 2-4 RPG gunners, 1-2 ammo carriers with ARs, 1-2 LMG gunners and perhaps a dedicated marksman). If this trend is accurate, then the future might involve rifles being used in the same capacity as SMGs or DMRs - as relatively specialised weapons meant to complement the core firepower provided by other weapons.

 

I'd also put money on cheap guided munitions coming into their own in a big way, making something like a small missile launcher the default infantry weapon.

 

I believe this is correct, and we have had the data for a long time on this.  The French when facing machine guns in WW1 developed a solution in 1915 that included snipers, portable automatic weapons, and grenade launchers.  The rifle was at most a defensive weapon to protect the guys who were going to smack down the machine gunner with grenades and suppress him with their own machine gun fire.

 

It is interesting that the best research on weapons in the 1950s and 60s lead to a conclusion that large explosives were the route for infantry.  Salvo tried flechettes and this was shown to be a non starter - but they discovered that throwing grenades was a better idea.  So NIBLINK built the grenade launcher, but they selected a design that threw a shell with only half the explosives research said was needed.  Meanwhile the army kept trying to take away the rocket launcher from units who were, the dastards, using it not to attack tanks but to blow up enemy soldiers.  The M72 was suppose to solve some of this because a unit would get a couple and be told not to use them except if they see a tank.  They would use them on a tank shaped like a machine gunner and ask for more.

 

So I think that a moderately smart rifle grenade and a return to having clear rifle grenade sights on each rifle is the way to go until technology hands us something better.

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 Laughing aside, a true story.

 

When the Gewehr 98 first came out it was given a huge bayonet that actually embarrassed the German army, who immediately called for it to be replaced by something a bit more useful.  The reason was a simple mistake.  The G98 was shorter than the preceding rifles it replaced and the specification for rifle+bayonet length was not changed in contracts -- and no one questioned the absurdity of the bayonet being twice as long as that adopted in 1884 - until they saw the first test rifles with this pig sticker sticking out.  Then they immediately moved to change to a shorter bayonet (and eventually, and even shorter K version of the 98 rifle).

 

The British though saw this bayonet and the British press went nuts.  British manhood was under attack.  The Tuetons were building bigger battleships, but this was the law straw - a bigger bayonet could ruin the British empire in a fortnight.  A British lawmaker stated in parliament that "length matters when two men face each other on the field of honor, and I would not want to face another man who has five inches on me!"

 

Longer bayonets were designed for the Lee Enfield, and Britain went to war with a pig sticker that made the short Lee Enfield the envy of the world.  Only by then the Germans no longer had many long bayonets.  

 

This bayonet?

gew98baj98s.jpg

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I believe this is correct, and we have had the data for a long time on this.  The French when facing machine guns in WW1 developed a solution in 1915 that included snipers, portable automatic weapons, and grenade launchers.  The rifle was at most a defensive weapon to protect the guys who were going to smack down the machine gunner with grenades and suppress him with their own machine gun fire.

 

It is interesting that the best research on weapons in the 1950s and 60s lead to a conclusion that large explosives were the route for infantry.  Salvo tried flechettes and this was shown to be a non starter - but they discovered that throwing grenades was a better idea.  So NIBLINK built the grenade launcher, but they selected a design that threw a shell with only half the explosives research said was needed.  Meanwhile the army kept trying to take away the rocket launcher from units who were, the dastards, using it not to attack tanks but to blow up enemy soldiers.  The M72 was suppose to solve some of this because a unit would get a couple and be told not to use them except if they see a tank.  They would use them on a tank shaped like a machine gunner and ask for more.

 

So I think that a moderately smart rifle grenade and a return to having clear rifle grenade sights on each rifle is the way to go until technology hands us something better.

 

I am fully in favor of adding more options for the infantry. That's what bugs me so much about the GPC concept - not only is it trying to replace two disparate cartridges each designed for two totally different jobs with one, but it also seeks to increase infantry reliance on kinetic energy small arms. Why? This is the sort of proposal that appeals to bean counters and no one else.

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I am fully in favor of adding more options for the infantry. That's what bugs me so much about the GPC concept - not only is it trying to replace two disparate cartridges each designed for two totally different jobs with one, but it also seeks to increase infantry reliance on kinetic energy small arms. Why? This is the sort of proposal that appeals to bean counters and no one else.

 

I agree.  Take an infantry rifle and put a grenade launcher on it.  Not much weight and it expands the envelope of what the soldier can engage.  Give them a scope designed for short range use and they increase the effectiveness of their local engagement options.  That combination has existed pretty solidly since the 1950s although I think the 40mm is a weak contender for a firepower thrower and should be replaced - and not by a 20mm that is even less effective no matter how smart. 

 

However, kinetic energy man portable individual weapons are limited to a 200 meter envelope no matter how power the ammunition they throw is.  Let them keep the 556x45 and be done for now.  I think there is an argument to be made for what ammunition that a squad automatic weapon uses, and I certainly think that the designated marksman can carry different ammunition as well.

 

One issue as well is no longer the huge problems.  Computers have changed logistics a huge amount, and even in the pre-computer days the logistics arm kept 3 distinct ammunition types flowing to combat units without issue.  

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I'm of the opinion that standalone systems are better - you save on outboard weight on their rifle, and you can get a better HE thrower. Stuff like the french captive piston 2" mortar, or a small 60mm. Rifle grenades are also acceptable, since they don't add as much weight.

 

I've wondered about this as well: from what I've heard the evolution in insurgent small arms (which represent a sort of support-free version of infantry tactics) has been towards squads with more RPGs and machine guns than rifles (something along the lines of 2-4 RPG gunners, 1-2 ammo carriers with ARs, 1-2 LMG gunners and perhaps a dedicated marksman). If this trend is accurate, then the future might involve rifles being used in the same capacity as SMGs or DMRs - as relatively specialised weapons meant to complement the core firepower provided by other weapons.

 

I'd also put money on cheap guided munitions coming into their own in a big way, making something like a small missile launcher the default infantry weapon.

 

So the germans were ahead of their time with their squads built around the MG? :P

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