Thread: Went shooting yesterday....

I can tell you that the surveys are almost always guaranteed to be biased. US service members have the M16/M4 shoved down their throat and get almost no exposure to any other individual weapon systems. Yeah the M4 is the best rifle they have ever used... but the thing is they have never ever held another rifle. For instance, one of my buddies went to the Ukraine with his unit for training with the Ukrainian military. While he was over their, he was able to use a G36. His and his entire unit's opinion changed towards the M4 after using a G36.



By the way, an 18B is a special forces weapons sergeant if you didn't know. They are trained to be experts in using and maintaining a plethora of weapon systems, both foreign and domestic.

Disclaimer: I am just a lowly grunt with seven years experience in Infantry tactics, and no formal knowledge outside of my own experiences.

That out of the way, I have yet to place a weapon on burst outside of playing OPFOR. Every Infantry squad has two M249 Squad Automatic Weapons. Tactics used when the Army adopted the M14 and later the M16A1 were that two men per squad would act as automatic riflemen. In a firefight they would fire on auto while everyone else took aimed single shots. In practice, green Soldiers would panic, switch their weapons to auto and pray they hit something with all the noise they made. As a SAW gunner I carried either 100 or 200 rounds in my weapon. I was trained to conserve ammo and never fired cyclic or even rapid during my time in Iraq. I would fire sustained bursts as I was trained and eventually perfected. The average service rifle holds 30 rounds. It fires just about as quick as a SAW, lacks the control-ability, and is equipped with a thin permanently fixed barrel. Not everyone has the discipline I have learned, and I have seen plenty of weapons start smoking just being fired on burst rapidly.

The more expedient side of me says that we Infantry must work with what we have. That 18B that was shot in the face either wasn't behind cover or was nose-to-nose with the enemy. Me, I had a plan if my open-bolt SAW malfunctioned during room clearing, as Murphy's Law dictates any open-bolt weapon will do (which is why an ambush is never initiated by a belt-fed). If Haji came around a corner, I squeezed the trigger and heard "KERCHUNK", that M249 Squad Automatic Weapon was going to become its own projectile. I had a spare barrel, ASP and MKII knife that was a backup. Never could get the pistol I felt I should have had. We are already better trained and equipped than any enemy we currently have or will have in he foreseeable future. If we adopted a better service rifle, we might get penalized for cheating.

Originally Posted by Bowzer

I can tell you that the surveys are almost always guaranteed to be biased. US service members have the M16/M4 shoved down their throat and get almost no exposure to any other individual weapon systems. Yeah the M4 is the best rifle they have ever used... but the thing is they have never ever held another rifle.

Yeah, I'm just not really convinced by this line of reasoning. I would agree that many soldiers are unaware that other rifles may be more reliable than the M4, not really having any experience with rifles outside of the Army, but I don't think that makes the surveys meaningless. If the M4 really did have a crippling deficiency that was getting soldiers killed all the time, as you claim, I think soldiers would be able to notice that problem even if they've never fired a SCAR or whatever; I think soldiers are capable of noticing crappy equipment even if they don't have first-hand experience with better equipment. Frequent jamming is not a problem that you need to have fired a G36 in order to notice. I think your dismissal of the surveys on this grounds is disingenuous.

And by "shoved down their throats", do you mean... issued to them??

Originally Posted by Syme

Yeah, I'm just not really convinced by this line of reasoning.

Yeah, I really don't give a shit what you think. I am telling you how it is and that the M16/M4 is an obsolete weapon system. Our military is not using the best equipment available and my life, the lives of my soldiers and fellow servicemen and women are at risk.

Originally Posted by Bowzer

and my life, the lives of my soldiers and fellow servicemen and women are at risk.

...

i do hope you see the irony in this

(that was my contribution to this conversation)

Originally Posted by Syme

No, you're telling me how you think it is. You're offering your opinion (rudely, but still). If your attitude is "Well, I'm just right and I'll tell you how it is, end of story", then that's fine, but you shouldn't have come into a forum dedicated to discussion if that's the attitude you choose to take.

Yes, I am telling you how I think it is. I am also telling you what the facts show and experts think.

Originally Posted by Syme

You're just another clown who thinks that having been through your training and run around with an M16 in drills means you're automatically the authority and can automatically overrule any civilian who notices that you're full of it.

And you're just another prick who thinks you know more than experts and those who have first hand experience. There is absolutely no reason the greatest military in the world who spends hundreds of billions more on defense than any other country should be using a second rate rifle.

Originally Posted by Syme

Your claim that AR sporting rifles are "overpriced" at $1000 per rifle, and then your hilarious suggestion that a better choice would be any of various rifles costing $2000 to $9000 (or else being foreign military assault rifles that are totally unavailable, or failed development programs that never even made it into service). Care to talk about that some more? Let's get this thread back on topic. Please, defend your initial assertion that the AR is an overpriced piece of crap that you would never spend your money on.

I would rather have a top of the line superior, cutting edge, top of the line rifle than and outdated inferior rifle with major flaws. I, however, demand excellence in my equipment, especially when lives depend on it.

And I never suggested that you, a civilian, should spend 9000 dollars on a weapon. I was just proving you wrong that you could indeed get a G36.