Quote Originally Posted by Syme View Post
You are over-simplifying the issue if you just say "Well the more suppressive fire the better, and suppressive fire comes from full-auto weapons, so every infantryman should have a full-auto weapon".
I believe that every soldier's rifle should be capable of laying down aggressive, fully automatic suppressive fire. If the shit hits the fan any soldier needs to be able to lay down a good base of fire to make a withdrawal for themselves and their buddies.

Quote Originally Posted by Syme View Post
It's instructive to note that today, even armies that do issue their troops with full-auto-capable rifles (such as the Brits) generally train them only to use that setting only when clearing rooms and trenches; suppressive fire is generally left to the machine-gunners, because if every infantryman uses his rifle to provide full-auto suppressive fire, they go through ammunition very quickly.
Infantrymen generally are outfitted with a double basic combat load. Using one or two mags to lay down suppressive fire to maneuver into position is nothing. And while automatic rifles and machine guns usually make up 70% of a unit's organic firepower, they may not always be available for hasty support.



Quote Originally Posted by Syme View Post
I do know about the dust tests. Notice that at the end of the article, it mentions that surveys of troops in the field reveal that they are satisfied with the M4s performance.
When you do not know that there are much better weapon systems out there, you're probably not going to complain. Those who do have something to complain about are probably dead. 882 jams for 6000 rounds is completely unacceptable, especially when another weapon system only jammed 127 times in extreme dust conditions.