Virdea

"More than half of the small arms engagements in Afghanistan are beyond 500 meters"
 
However, they are not engagements between soldiers firing old style rifles at each other.  They are engagements between heavy weapons where the infantry basically have to sit on their ass and soak casualties.  I have video from a bunch of engagements, and most have M4 armed soldiers going to ground and negotiating rule of engagement with air power until they can get a kinetic strike in, then finding out their own 60mm did most of the damage. Restrepo showed an action just like that, as did that TV doc that is on now.

It is actually the terminal stupidity of sequestration.  The politicos of the time knew that they could screw the US government and when the rubber hit the road no one would equate that stupid time to them.  A lot of chickenhawks scream to their constituents about how they love defense, let that bit of stupid theatre mess up defense spending for decades to come.

As a police officer we had to deal with a coven of sovereign citizens, and they were such a pain in the balls (note I never curse, save now) that we had to have a manual.  One day these twerps would declare they had a sovereign right to occupy an AME church and when we went in to dig them out they would have camcorders in our faces screaming "see, we were right, they are oppressing us!"  
 
I would take twenty honest criminal bluff estates crack dealers over a family of sovereign citizens who believe that the only property rights in the world are theirs.  Although it is wrong to generalize we picked up one of their kids on the road wandering one day and the kid could not speak and showed signs of nearly constant sexual abuse.  Then we had the entire clan screaming that they did not recognize our laws, but when I grabbed a guy who punched a news photographer he starts screaming about his first amendment rights.
 
The problem with the ultra-NRA is the same as any extremest, their argument does not survive extreme interpretation.  The second amendment states two rights.
 
The two similar versions of the first amendment upon which firearms right rests are written as this:
 
(1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  In this version the division in the sentence turns the second portion of the amendment into a subjunctive clause.  Semi-colons were not in common use, but this is not a semi-colon per quod.  Taking the definition accepted of militia at the time it means that an adult may bare arms in a regulated manner subject to the rulings of the mustering authority.  Thus a nation could rule that weapons must be concealed, or that certain weapons cannot be carried an employed except by specialists.
 
In the second version passed by the states it says:
  (2) A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Less ambiguity.  a subjective clause and a dominate clause second in modern English it would read: Free states should maintain local defensive structures based on the individuals right to bear arms in a regulated manner. This feeds back to the ECL standard of citizen as arrestor and community as legal purveyor of some areas of justice, as long as this is regulated.  So - again the government cannot completely block weapons from the people, and the people as a whole are the militia, but they can require many actions short of blocking them.     There is no right to carry a rifle in public unless the law enacts that right as part of the regulation part of the amendment.   The main problem with these guys is:   1) Complete lack of satisfying and regular sex. 2) Complete lack of satisfying and regular education. 3) Cognitive dissonance from living in a world where their external information is provided only from propaganda sources. 4) Likely, some form of Environmental damage limited their thinking ability.

As a police officer we had to deal with a coven of sovereign citizens, and they were such a pain in the balls (note I never curse, save now) that we had to have a manual.  One day these twerps would declare they had a sovereign right to occupy an AME church and when we went in to dig them out they would have camcorders in our faces screaming "see, we were right, they are oppressing us!"  
 
I would take twenty honest criminal bluff estates crack dealers over a family of sovereign citizens who believe that the only property rights in the world are theirs.  Although it is wrong to generalize we picked up one of their kids on the road wandering one day and the kid could not speak and showed signs of nearly constant sexual abuse.  Then we had the entire clan screaming that they did not recognize our laws, but when I grabbed a guy who punched a news photographer he starts screaming about his first amendment rights.
 
The problem with the ultra-NRA is the same as any extremest, their argument does not survive extreme interpretation.  The second amendment states two rights.
 
The two similar versions of the first amendment upon which firearms right rests are written as this:
 
(1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  In this version the division in the sentence turns the second portion of the amendment into a subjunctive clause.  Semi-colons were not in common use, but this is not a semi-colon per quod.  Taking the definition accepted of militia at the time it means that an adult may bare arms in a regulated manner subject to the rulings of the mustering authority.  Thus a nation could rule that weapons must be concealed, or that certain weapons cannot be carried an employed except by specialists.
 
In the second version passed by the states it says:
  (2) A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Less ambiguity.  a subjective clause and a dominate clause second in modern English it would read: Free states should maintain local defensive structures based on the individuals right to bear arms in a regulated manner. This feeds back to the ECL standard of citizen as arrestor and community as legal purveyor of some areas of justice, as long as this is regulated.  So - again the government cannot completely block weapons from the people, and the people as a whole are the militia, but they can require many actions short of blocking them.     There is no right to carry a rifle in public unless the law enacts that right as part of the regulation part of the amendment.   The main problem with these guys is:   1) Complete lack of satisfying and regular sex. 2) Complete lack of satisfying and regular education. 3) Cognitive dissonance from living in a world where their external information is provided only from propaganda sources. 4) Likely, some form of Environmental damage limited their thinking ability.

It is an interesting turnaround since the three officers who braced the guy are Black and the whiny, self-entitled guy who has little understanding of the law complaining about his rights being abused is White. Those cops were about as restrained as one could get.

Vird, I really appreciate your posts. Also, I love Jerry Miculek because he uses the word "responsibility" as much or more than "right." I want to chill with him so bad.
 
My big problem with gun nuts (emphasis on nuts) is that they're doing more to create a crackdown on firearm ownership than any anti-gun lobbyist ever could. These guys know their Black Rifles scare people, so they carry them around to get attention and get confrontational at every turn, then wonder why their hobby is under attack.
 
My friend, who just doesn't care about guns (as in he just has no thoughts whatsoever of them) except for when his dad takes him skeet-shooting like once a year and I run a food truck, and I mentioned I bought an antique rifle. I usually take care not to mention this kind of thing in front of customers because I hate political discussion (especially at work), but a woman walking up to order overheard us and politely entered the conversation talking about how unsure she was of guns. I told her I understood. We all come from different backgrounds, and that since she was polite, I would be polite too. I tried to shift the conversation over to the fact that even though I don't compete anymore, I still love it as a relaxing hobby, and that I had a special interest in history, and that I volunteer at the local museum. I then mentioned I participated in safety instructions so people could understand and respect firearms, and she seemed more open to the idea. She even considered coming to the museum I volunteer at when we have one of our "You get to hold the weapon" days where we let people handle the more, well, "handled" firearms in the collection.
 
I still think of what would have happened if she said something like that in front of a more abrasive gun owner. They'd have gone on some prepared speech about rights, spouted memorized stories of home defense, etc. She'd have gotten pissed off, and one more anti-gun voter would exist. I just always consider people to be the emissary of our own beliefs whether we like it or not.
 
 
edit: OH GOOD. That video did wonderful things to my Youtube Recommends list.

As a police officer we had to deal with a coven of sovereign citizens, and they were such a pain in the balls (note I never curse, save now) that we had to have a manual.  One day these twerps would declare they had a sovereign right to occupy an AME church and when we went in to dig them out they would have camcorders in our faces screaming "see, we were right, they are oppressing us!"  
 
I would take twenty honest criminal bluff estates crack dealers over a family of sovereign citizens who believe that the only property rights in the world are theirs.  Although it is wrong to generalize we picked up one of their kids on the road wandering one day and the kid could not speak and showed signs of nearly constant sexual abuse.  Then we had the entire clan screaming that they did not recognize our laws, but when I grabbed a guy who punched a news photographer he starts screaming about his first amendment rights.
 
The problem with the ultra-NRA is the same as any extremest, their argument does not survive extreme interpretation.  The second amendment states two rights.
 
The two similar versions of the first amendment upon which firearms right rests are written as this:
 
(1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  In this version the division in the sentence turns the second portion of the amendment into a subjunctive clause.  Semi-colons were not in common use, but this is not a semi-colon per quod.  Taking the definition accepted of militia at the time it means that an adult may bare arms in a regulated manner subject to the rulings of the mustering authority.  Thus a nation could rule that weapons must be concealed, or that certain weapons cannot be carried an employed except by specialists.
 
In the second version passed by the states it says:
  (2) A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Less ambiguity.  a subjective clause and a dominate clause second in modern English it would read: Free states should maintain local defensive structures based on the individuals right to bear arms in a regulated manner. This feeds back to the ECL standard of citizen as arrestor and community as legal purveyor of some areas of justice, as long as this is regulated.  So - again the government cannot completely block weapons from the people, and the people as a whole are the militia, but they can require many actions short of blocking them.     There is no right to carry a rifle in public unless the law enacts that right as part of the regulation part of the amendment.   The main problem with these guys is:   1) Complete lack of satisfying and regular sex. 2) Complete lack of satisfying and regular education. 3) Cognitive dissonance from living in a world where their external information is provided only from propaganda sources. 4) Likely, some form of Environmental damage limited their thinking ability.

As a police officer we had to deal with a coven of sovereign citizens, and they were such a pain in the balls (note I never curse, save now) that we had to have a manual.  One day these twerps would declare they had a sovereign right to occupy an AME church and when we went in to dig them out they would have camcorders in our faces screaming "see, we were right, they are oppressing us!"  
 
I would take twenty honest criminal bluff estates crack dealers over a family of sovereign citizens who believe that the only property rights in the world are theirs.  Although it is wrong to generalize we picked up one of their kids on the road wandering one day and the kid could not speak and showed signs of nearly constant sexual abuse.  Then we had the entire clan screaming that they did not recognize our laws, but when I grabbed a guy who punched a news photographer he starts screaming about his first amendment rights.
 
The problem with the ultra-NRA is the same as any extremest, their argument does not survive extreme interpretation.  The second amendment states two rights.
 
The two similar versions of the first amendment upon which firearms right rests are written as this:
 
(1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  In this version the division in the sentence turns the second portion of the amendment into a subjunctive clause.  Semi-colons were not in common use, but this is not a semi-colon per quod.  Taking the definition accepted of militia at the time it means that an adult may bare arms in a regulated manner subject to the rulings of the mustering authority.  Thus a nation could rule that weapons must be concealed, or that certain weapons cannot be carried an employed except by specialists.
 
In the second version passed by the states it says:
  (2) A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Less ambiguity.  a subjective clause and a dominate clause second in modern English it would read: Free states should maintain local defensive structures based on the individuals right to bear arms in a regulated manner. This feeds back to the ECL standard of citizen as arrestor and community as legal purveyor of some areas of justice, as long as this is regulated.  So - again the government cannot completely block weapons from the people, and the people as a whole are the militia, but they can require many actions short of blocking them.     There is no right to carry a rifle in public unless the law enacts that right as part of the regulation part of the amendment.   The main problem with these guys is:   1) Complete lack of satisfying and regular sex. 2) Complete lack of satisfying and regular education. 3) Cognitive dissonance from living in a world where their external information is provided only from propaganda sources. 4) Likely, some form of Environmental damage limited their thinking ability.

As a police officer we had to deal with a coven of sovereign citizens, and they were such a pain in the balls (note I never curse, save now) that we had to have a manual.  One day these twerps would declare they had a sovereign right to occupy an AME church and when we went in to dig them out they would have camcorders in our faces screaming "see, we were right, they are oppressing us!"  
 
I would take twenty honest criminal bluff estates crack dealers over a family of sovereign citizens who believe that the only property rights in the world are theirs.  Although it is wrong to generalize we picked up one of their kids on the road wandering one day and the kid could not speak and showed signs of nearly constant sexual abuse.  Then we had the entire clan screaming that they did not recognize our laws, but when I grabbed a guy who punched a news photographer he starts screaming about his first amendment rights.
 
The problem with the ultra-NRA is the same as any extremest, their argument does not survive extreme interpretation.  The second amendment states two rights.
 
The two similar versions of the first amendment upon which firearms right rests are written as this:
 
(1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  In this version the division in the sentence turns the second portion of the amendment into a subjunctive clause.  Semi-colons were not in common use, but this is not a semi-colon per quod.  Taking the definition accepted of militia at the time it means that an adult may bare arms in a regulated manner subject to the rulings of the mustering authority.  Thus a nation could rule that weapons must be concealed, or that certain weapons cannot be carried an employed except by specialists.
 
In the second version passed by the states it says:
  (2) A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Less ambiguity.  a subjective clause and a dominate clause second in modern English it would read: Free states should maintain local defensive structures based on the individuals right to bear arms in a regulated manner. This feeds back to the ECL standard of citizen as arrestor and community as legal purveyor of some areas of justice, as long as this is regulated.  So - again the government cannot completely block weapons from the people, and the people as a whole are the militia, but they can require many actions short of blocking them.     There is no right to carry a rifle in public unless the law enacts that right as part of the regulation part of the amendment.   The main problem with these guys is:   1) Complete lack of satisfying and regular sex. 2) Complete lack of satisfying and regular education. 3) Cognitive dissonance from living in a world where their external information is provided only from propaganda sources. 4) Likely, some form of Environmental damage limited their thinking ability.

Higher education .MP4:
 

400mm penetration from a 58mm projectile is nearly seven calibers of penetration.  Penetration of concrete is usually double the penetration in RHA, so that does lend some credence to the higher number.  Seven calibers is tip-top of the line performance in this day and age, especially for a mass-produced infantry weapon.  By comparison, US 40mm HEDP only manages a bit over 1.5 calibers of penetration.
 
Shaped charges penetrate better in tests if the test block they're being fired into is just under their maximum penetration.  So, if you fire the charge into a 500mm thick witness block, it may penetrate less (say, 350), while if the block is 400mm deep, it may punch right through.  This is because there's less material providing resistance to the jet at its maximum penetration into the block.
 
There are also differing standards of what constitutes penetration.  If the jet just barely makes it through, some may not count that as a penetration, as it wouldn't have enough oomph to really hurt anything on the other side.
 
Not surprised it costs $200 a pop.  Performance that good requires extremely precise manufacture of the charge liner.  You start having to manipulate residual stresses in the liner material, as these can affect liner collapse symmetry.

My contact tells me the French love grenades in Afghanistan because they are very difficult to trace back to their source of origin and even though 200 bucks is expensive, it is cheaper than firing a $10,000 ERYX down range.  They also love the AT grenades because the Taliban do not fortify their positions heavy enough to keep the weapons from punching through their cover.
 
Khand, that is an interesting diagram.  

Israel is moving away from the era when it was all about protecting world Jewish rights, and is moving toward an era where it is about control the power they never expected to have.  In some ways Israel is color blind anymore to choosing it allies, as long as its allies give them what they want and keep their mouth shut.  Good old Ben, by involving himself in US politics and not being very subtle about his criticism of his allies, is signaling that Israeli loyalty is for sale.  In Likud thinking, the weak Americans will not be able to avoid giving them something, but that better deals can be had with some other ally - China or Russia being only examples.  The same thing happened when Israel kicked France to the curb in the 1960s for the US.  No one expected that the French / Israeli axis would ever fall, but it did and dramatically.
 
We are moving to a time when Israel is going to try and throw off its "protectors" and seek better deals for itself.  The only question is how graceful this realignment is.

This is not uncommon in history.  During the Great War better than half of the weapons made for the allies were made in the US, and the loans that paid for them came from US banks.  BEFORE US entry into the war the US was the largest participant in terms of dollars invested in fighting.  While allowing millions of US soldiers onto the continent trained to the highest standard of small unit advance tactics was stupid on the part of Germany, they had been fighting the US already for three years.
 
In WW2 30% of every dollar spent by anyone, Axis or Allies, was a US dollar.  
 
In defense seminars it is said if you want to build up your defenses cozy up to the US, if you want to invade your neighbor call the US names and collect the check from Russia.  Getting US aid is like buying from the Apple store - great products that go bang every time and look good doing it, but you do it Apple's way of no way at all.  Russia is like the Dell store - cheap beige boxes which work (sometimes) but no one cares if you run your child porn empire on it.
 
Israeli criticism of the US has become existential and dangerous.  In Israeli Likud circles the US is referred to quite openly as a weak and overbearing nation of idiots, and there is wistful talk that Israel would prefer a supporting nation that had the technology and money of the US, but the social and foreign policy of Russia.  

This is not uncommon in history.  During the Great War better than half of the weapons made for the allies were made in the US, and the loans that paid for them came from US banks.  BEFORE US entry into the war the US was the largest participant in terms of dollars invested in fighting.  While allowing millions of US soldiers onto the continent trained to the highest standard of small unit advance tactics was stupid on the part of Germany, they had been fighting the US already for three years.
 
In WW2 30% of every dollar spent by anyone, Axis or Allies, was a US dollar.  
 
In defense seminars it is said if you want to build up your defenses cozy up to the US, if you want to invade your neighbor call the US names and collect the check from Russia.  Getting US aid is like buying from the Apple store - great products that go bang every time and look good doing it, but you do it Apple's way of no way at all.  Russia is like the Dell store - cheap beige boxes which work (sometimes) but no one cares if you run your child porn empire on it.
 
Israeli criticism of the US has become existential and dangerous.  In Israeli Likud circles the US is referred to quite openly as a weak and overbearing nation of idiots, and there is wistful talk that Israel would prefer a supporting nation that had the technology and money of the US, but the social and foreign policy of Russia.  

This is not uncommon in history.  During the Great War better than half of the weapons made for the allies were made in the US, and the loans that paid for them came from US banks.  BEFORE US entry into the war the US was the largest participant in terms of dollars invested in fighting.  While allowing millions of US soldiers onto the continent trained to the highest standard of small unit advance tactics was stupid on the part of Germany, they had been fighting the US already for three years.
 
In WW2 30% of every dollar spent by anyone, Axis or Allies, was a US dollar.  
 
In defense seminars it is said if you want to build up your defenses cozy up to the US, if you want to invade your neighbor call the US names and collect the check from Russia.  Getting US aid is like buying from the Apple store - great products that go bang every time and look good doing it, but you do it Apple's way of no way at all.  Russia is like the Dell store - cheap beige boxes which work (sometimes) but no one cares if you run your child porn empire on it.
 
Israeli criticism of the US has become existential and dangerous.  In Israeli Likud circles the US is referred to quite openly as a weak and overbearing nation of idiots, and there is wistful talk that Israel would prefer a supporting nation that had the technology and money of the US, but the social and foreign policy of Russia.  

This is not uncommon in history.  During the Great War better than half of the weapons made for the allies were made in the US, and the loans that paid for them came from US banks.  BEFORE US entry into the war the US was the largest participant in terms of dollars invested in fighting.  While allowing millions of US soldiers onto the continent trained to the highest standard of small unit advance tactics was stupid on the part of Germany, they had been fighting the US already for three years.
 
In WW2 30% of every dollar spent by anyone, Axis or Allies, was a US dollar.  
 
In defense seminars it is said if you want to build up your defenses cozy up to the US, if you want to invade your neighbor call the US names and collect the check from Russia.  Getting US aid is like buying from the Apple store - great products that go bang every time and look good doing it, but you do it Apple's way of no way at all.  Russia is like the Dell store - cheap beige boxes which work (sometimes) but no one cares if you run your child porn empire on it.
 
Israeli criticism of the US has become existential and dangerous.  In Israeli Likud circles the US is referred to quite openly as a weak and overbearing nation of idiots, and there is wistful talk that Israel would prefer a supporting nation that had the technology and money of the US, but the social and foreign policy of Russia.  

This is not uncommon in history.  During the Great War better than half of the weapons made for the allies were made in the US, and the loans that paid for them came from US banks.  BEFORE US entry into the war the US was the largest participant in terms of dollars invested in fighting.  While allowing millions of US soldiers onto the continent trained to the highest standard of small unit advance tactics was stupid on the part of Germany, they had been fighting the US already for three years.
 
In WW2 30% of every dollar spent by anyone, Axis or Allies, was a US dollar.  
 
In defense seminars it is said if you want to build up your defenses cozy up to the US, if you want to invade your neighbor call the US names and collect the check from Russia.  Getting US aid is like buying from the Apple store - great products that go bang every time and look good doing it, but you do it Apple's way of no way at all.  Russia is like the Dell store - cheap beige boxes which work (sometimes) but no one cares if you run your child porn empire on it.
 
Israeli criticism of the US has become existential and dangerous.  In Israeli Likud circles the US is referred to quite openly as a weak and overbearing nation of idiots, and there is wistful talk that Israel would prefer a supporting nation that had the technology and money of the US, but the social and foreign policy of Russia.  

A relative told me a story.  Being young, naive, and just mustered into the 34ID, he was about to head to town with a group of farm boys just like him when they hit England.  The division was having difficulties that English women LOVED US farm boys.  So the division medical staff issued condoms with 5 page instruction books for the soldiers.  
 
The condoms on the first page had three bold sentences.  Always Keep This Device ON Your Person When Engaging in Fornication, Visually Inspect This Device to Assure It Is Not Torn, and the cryptic warning, Remember, One Device, One Soldier.  Never Share.
 
They looked at the device and could tell that the device looked like could be easily torn, being made with a wax paper and having a rubber circle on the inside.  They decided for safety that the best place to keep it during "fornications" was in their socks.  They also decided that they could not remove their socks when they fornicated.  Off they went.  It took nearly a month before a First Sergeant discovered what they were doing and held a course on how to use these devices properly.

The author is quoting a single section of Kevin's book on special operations, and fails to call Kevin up for a complete understanding of why he wrote what he wrote and what it meant.
 
For those of you who have never met Kevin, he is the KING of statistical understanding of firearms when applied to gaming, and he has for a long time had massive access to the special operations world, plus is in tight with a number of gun manufacturers.  I doubt the author of the article has ever spoken to Kevin.
 
Kevin's point from the article sourced by Trevithick was that the AK47 was a prestige capture for US Special Operation soldiers in the early 1960s.  In this era the Special Operations soldiers were issued weapons by the US Air Force.  This included the AR15 on an experimental bases starting in 1960, and the M16 in 1962-63.  Otherwise they got .45 SMGs, Carbines, Garands, or BARs.
 
The AK-47 was VERY rare in Vietnam prior to 1969, but the ammo for it was not.  When Special Operations soldiers could get the AK47 they jumped at them, discarding experimental and hated AR15s (which they could not get much ammo for), and the whole suite of WW2 weapons.  Here Kevin is on firm ground because it was true - the AK47 was beloved by advisors in the early 60s.
 
Trevithick however makes a serious mistake when he compares apples to oranges.  In Kevin's book he goes on to discuss in many cases where the M16A1 was a key asset of special operations arsenals to the point where they actually scrambled for a LMG to fire 5.56, adopting the Stoner 63 which they LOVED.  How does Trevithick square that one: that the M16A1 was so entrenched in special operations that they searched the entire world to find an LMG that fired the same ammo.  And then carried the 63 for a decade past Vietnam when money and resources existed to have anything they wanted.
 
A little knowledge...

Article, as promised.

Earlier today, the Venezuelan Air Force used two of its F-16s to interdict a Embraer EMB-820C Navajo carrying 600+ packages of the white stuff. The pilots of the drug plane where Brazillians, they died. Source

 
I wonder what they used to down the plane? Pyhton IVs? 
 
Might this also be telling of the F-16s performance compared to their SU-30s that the F-16 was used?

Another trick is to find (or have me send you one) a French recoil sleeve.  They were designed in 1952 because French rifles began to throw HUGE direct fire 22mm grenades as part of a new anti-tank strategy with the eventual ideal of having each member of a French squad able to tackle a tank.  These pad fit the comb of an Enfield and add about four centimeters to the reach.
 
Let me know if you want me to track one down for you.

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

Like the 6.8mm SPC?