Just a firearm related point of information

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

I'm not posting this in any of the GD threads where misinformation is king.

As I understand it. The 5.56 NATO round shot has a FMJ which generally prevents or at least limits deforming, mushrooming and spreading out after it hits. I remember reading that this is due to laws of warfare against unnecessarily lethal weapons. The same reasoning mandated that triangular bladed bayonets were outlawed.

Also, while I received some Army rifle training, I've never been in the service nor trained for combat. All I know is academic so please correct me on this. My understanding is that the principle advantage to a full-auto from an attack perspective is the ability to overlap fields of fire to provide disabling coverage of the area being assaulted. Also, when the force defending is near in number to that attacking the full-auto becomes more advantageous as a defensive weapon should a retreat be mandated.

If this is correct, I believe that even a full-auto is only marginally more lethal than a semi-auto when used in criminal activities.

Thanks

[tonyt53]

1. "Criminal activities" would be correct. Mass murder of those unaware of a threat is a bit different

[DonP]

2. Generally, full auto and burst is mainly for suppressive fire

Use full auto or burst fire to keep their heads down and use single shot aimed fire to hit the enemy.

That's why, they teach you to shoot very short bursts when using the full auto or use the 3 round burst feature of the M4 and some M16s.

Even with a 5.56 it can be hard to keep it on target when using full auto. That's the main reason they went to 3 round burst trigger systems.

[oneshooter]

3. That and the waist of ammo from going full auto without aiming. n/t

"Spray and Pray"

[DonP]

4. "Turn money into noise"

Went to the Knob Creek Machine Gun shoot once. They almost had to pry my fingers off Ma Deuce.

Came home close to broke, but with a smile that took 2 weeks to get off my face.

[DashOneBravo]

9. My friend goes every year

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. I'm guessing that M-2 didn't have x10 scope...

...like GySgt Carlos' nor were you firing one shot at a time.

[DonP]

12. At Knob Creek a scope is kinda superfluous

Shooting up old cars, trucks and 55 gallon drums doesn't really require much in the way of magnification, even for my old eyes.

But it sure beats the hell out of riding behind one every week or two on a Gun Truck in convoys on mud roads in I Corps.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. Never had the pleasure...

...thank God. Thanks for your service.

[Straw Man]

5. Partly true.

The 5.56 NATO round shot has a FMJ which generally prevents or at least limits deforming, mushrooming and spreading out after it hits.

Commercial hollowpoint .223 is available. AFAIK, it can be fired out of any 5.56 rifle.

Yes, my understanding of full-auto is that its primary use is suppressive fire. The point is to put so many bullets in the air that your opponents will hunker down behind cover rather than risking movement. This wastes tremendous amounts of ammo and wouldn't be the most efficient use of the weapon for a killer facing unarmed opponents.

[melm00se]

6. 223 out of a 5.56 can be ok

5.56 out of 223 is rarely, if ever, ok

they put those stamps on the barrel for a reason.

[Straw Man]

7. Right.

223 out of a 5.56 can be ok

5.56 out of 223 is rarely, if ever, ok

I'm talking about .223 out of a 5.56.

[tortoise1956]

14. Or you can do what I did

and buy an upper chambered in .223 Wylde. It'll take both .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO with no problems, and is often found in Sport Rifle competition firearms. And it wasn't that much more than either 5.56 NATO or .223 Remington uppers...

[DashOneBravo]

8. Also Depends on unit and mission

Last edited Fri Jun 17, 2016, 12:24 PM - Edit history (2)

A light infantry company isn't going to have the same rules as a mechanized infantry, which has literally tons of ammo with them so they can shoot at everything.

If you are assaulting a fixed position then suppressive fire is used. If you are performing an ambush, troops in the open, then direct fire is used. Interlocking fields of fire are used for both attacking and defense. It's nothing more then making sure your field of fire is overlaps the next position.

In the defense mech units can do a mad minute firing everything you have. In a light infantry or small units full autos fire last and only if you are about to be overrun. You use grenades, claymore, and rifles first because the minute they can pinpoint the machine guns they're gonna start trying to kill them.

[Big_Mike]

11. Also, from a very technical infantry perspective

Most people in the attack fire at about rate of fire, and therefore run out of ammo at approximately the same time and need to reload. The designated automatic rifleman takes up firing during this period, maintaining fire downrange while his teammates reload. He then drops off his fire as they return, reloads in his turn, and repeats as necessary. This scenario is in open field movement to contact or deliberate attack. In built up areas (towns and cities), techniques differ. Someone else who trained for that can step in if needed.

You are in error regarding the attack/defend rationales. In the attack, you carry only so much ammo, so limiting auto fire is required. Also, you need to have some left at the end to defend against counter-attack. On defense, again aimed fire as so much auto fire is wasted from a rifle. Machineguns are entirely different weapon systems, and are designed for that type of fire. Shoot what you got, was always the call, saving some to beat off counter attacks.

The one case where everyone auto-fires, at least at the beginning, is in some ambush scenarios. Fully automatic fire is psychologically dominating, so a MG just going and going helps defeat the enemy on two fronts, not just one.

This is all at a military level. What you do in a zombie apocalypse is up to you and your favorite brand of zombie.

[benEzra]

15. Actual select-fire assault rifles were originally developed to allow a single weapon

to fulfill both the room-clearing role of a submachinegun (in full-auto mode) and the medium-to-long-range role of a rifle (in semiauto mode). Remember that the primary CQB weapons of the time were submachineguns, like the Thompson, the PPSh-41, and the MP40.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPSh-41

Combining both functions into one select-fire rifle simplified logistics and made individual soldiers more flexible, instead of having to have different guns (or different soldiers) assigned to long range vs. close range.

The ammunition was also downsized to split the difference between a pistol round and a rifle round in terms of power. For example, 7.62x39mm sits almost exactly (in terms of case length, and power) between the 7.62x25mm round used in the PPSh submachinegun, and the 7.62x54mm round used in full-power Russian rifles.

If you take away the automatic fire capability and leave only the semiauto mode, you do reduce the number of rounds you can put into a close-range target or multiple closely spaced targets in a very short time. But for civilian use, whether law enforcement or home defense), that's not a negative; aimed fire is always going to be better in a LE patrol or HD role than less-discriminate fire, and particularly hosing a hallway or a room full-auto with a subgun. In long-range shooting, you are correct that full auto *from a lightweight rifle* is not going to be more effective than aimed semiauto fire, unless you switch to a compressed-burst mode like the AN-94 or HK G11. But at very close range, a full auto putting multiple rounds on the same target or multiple adjacent targets in a very short time or for hosing a doorway/hallway/small room, full auto is going to be more effective than aimed semiauto.

I'll point out that the U.S. originally made the M4 with just semiauto and 3-round burst capability, but brought back full auto after the Iraq war showed that semauto and 3-shot burst were inferior to full auto for CQB:

[

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2013/August/Pages/CarbineCompetitionFailstoFindImprovementOverCurrentWeapon.aspx

“I am convinced we have had guys get killed because of the three-round burst fire,” he said. “If you go into a room and there is 10 feet of wall you want to render uninhabitable, you don’t do that with a three-round burst. One of the best things they are doing is going back to automatic fire."

As to FMJ vs. HP, the Hague accords (written with full-power rifles in mind) mandate FMJ for general infantry use when fighting other nations that are signatories to the accords. There are some exceptions (open-tip match bullets for precision rifles are allowed, softpoints/hollowpoints are allowed in law enforcement, or combat with non-state forces, etc.). The military also tends to have more interest in shooting *through* things than in limiting penetration, whereas in civilian use like LE or HD, limiting penetration with a fragile HP or SP is safer for bystanders and neighbors.