When the US replaced the M1 Garand, the plan was to adopt both a select-fire infantry rifle and a heavy-barreled support weapon on the same platform. During development, both the T44 (later M14) and T48 (FAL) rifles had heavy-barreled versions. In the case of the M14, the final iteration of the heavy-barreled weapon was the T44E5, which was formally adopted as the M15. Before it could be actually put into production, though, it was cancelled as unnecessary.
In testing, first the Marines Corps and then the Infantry Board found that fitting a standard M14 with a detachable bipod gave the same performance as the M15 – and so why bother with an extra version of the gun? Of course, the equal performance was really quite poor compared to proper light machine guns, and once the M14 got into service this shortcoming was noticed. this led to the M14A1 aka M14E2 project, to essentially recreate the M15 with a pistol grip stock and front grip.
Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this truly unique specimen from their reference collection to film for you! Don’t miss the chance to visit the museum there if you have a day free in Springfield, Massachusetts:
https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm
From all that I have read about the M14, the problems with it seem to be about manufacturing quality control, rather than design flaws. If the manufacturing was better, might it have lasted in service longer and delayed the adoption of the M16 (or something else of a more current design)?
So it they decided to cancel the M-15 because one could get the ‘same performance’ with an M-14 plus bipod. But no one noticed that performance was poor until it was too late? That beggars belief. Back of that version one suspects a tale far more convoluted.
Don’t look for convolution or logic past wishful thinking and erroneous design goals. They thought they could rewrite physics, and that they knew better than anyone else what was going on in combat.
They did not.
The biggest problem with the M14 wasn’t what most think it was. The biggest problems were actually conceptual; they thought it made sense to try and do automatic fire with a weapon firing what amounted to a slightly product-improved full-house caliber from the previous century, and they thought that they could do that cheaply on M1 production machinery that was worn the hell out. Also, without John Cantius Garand around to tweak everything; Garand’s actual genius knack wasn’t for weapon design, but for production machinery more than anything. Pull him out of the equation, and… Yeah. Cue them having to bring in TRW before production got fixed, and then basically contributing to the downfall of one of America’s industrial crown jewels when they shut the program down after discovering that the entire conceptual basis it was built on simply didn’t work in the jungles of Vietnam.
I don’t know what military environment the M14 would have worked in, but it wasn’t anything even remotely close to a reality we actually experienced in either the late 19th or 20th Centuries. An infantry individual weapon needs to be light, handy, and something you can basically do “rifle skeet shooting” with out to about 300-400m. The M1 Carbine is something that worked well for that, but the cartridge is too light, and the ideal wasn’t achieved until the SKS/AK47 and M43 cartridge came along. The US was so far behind the power curve, and arguably still is, since they decided to reinforce failure by reiterating the M14/7.62 NATO fiasco with the latest NGSW stupidity.
I despair at these people ever figuring it out. The whole thing is just so tiresome; they keep fantasizing about the individual rifleman dominating combat, when the reality is that simply isn’t how it works. You want to win the infantry fight, and I’m saying this from the pre-drone perspective, you have to have tight integration with truly functional MG fires out past about 300m. You need this because at that range, you’d best not be engaging individual targets, but the entire area around which that target has screwed up and exposed itself. You do that because there are almost certainly more people there to kill, and if you just do the one guy you see, you’re actually doing the enemy a favor by selectively eliminating their high-risk idjit types who’ve exposed themselves, and you’re providing a salutary lesson to the survivors for why “you don’t do that…”
Make believe you’re going to win by playing Alvin York and one-shotting everything you spot? You’re going to lose the war you’re in. Because you’re stupid, and can’t work out how modern combat works.
At this point, I’d also caveat that the drone may have changed all of this going forward. The NGSW still doesn’t make a lick of sense because of the weight and essential unwieldyness of the system/ammo for the individual weapon. The crew-served component doesn’t make sense because there’s no improved tripod for repeatable and controlled fire to be rapidly laid down, as well as a lack of periscopic sights.
Annnd by the time the CSW is set up, somebody drops a drone on top of them. Boom.
The Next Big Thing in Infantry, including MOBUA, is going to be speed. Not how fast you can move across the battlespace in IFVs, but how fast you can set up something like Javelin, localize your target, launch the weapon, and the GetTheHellOuttaDodge before some Mother’s Son on the other side drones your collective ass.
The three things I expect to disappear from the battlefield in the next two decades are (1) Light scouting units in un-armored vehicles, (2) infantry support weapons like mortars that require more than a minute’s worth of setup and breakdown time, and (3) helicopters, both transport and gunship.
All three are simply hors d’oeuvres for drones.
(Sorry about that, Hawke.)
Stay in one place too long on a drone-saturated battlefield, and you get to find out what it’s like to be Wile E. Coyote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4xy2W6cefk
clear ether
eon
I honestly have no idea what the hell is going to eventuate. All too much of it depends on technology that’s still undergoing rapid flux, and we really don’t know where the hell it’s going to end.
Friend of mine just guffaws when you talk to him about how lethal drones are; he insists that we’re literally only a few months/years away from EMP weapons that will likely fry everything that’s not Tempest-rated, which is the vast majority of DJI-style commercial drones. I have no idea, myself.
I suspect that the whole thing is going to be another few movements of the see-saw between attack and defense. Yeah, it looks horrid for conventional armor/infantry, but do let us remember that we’re looking at two former Soviet nations running on Soviet software/hardware, mostly. The ineptitude is almost palpable; every single one of those convoys the Russians ran into Ukraine there right after the 24th of February, 2022? We’d have failed each and every one of them for any unit undergoing an evaluation at the NTC. I’ve seen National Guard outfits demonstrate more tactical discipline rolling out to annual training than those assclowns did on an invasion of another sovereign nation.
I’m not sure what lessons, if any, are there to be learned. Other than “Don’t regard Russia as any paragon of military virtue…”
I mean, do remember that this is the same nation that sent locked trainloads of infantry to Chechnya with no water and no rations, to result in said infantry needing weeks to recover from what should have been a rail journey of only a day or so; they left them on the sidings for nearly a week, out in the middle of nowhere. There are reports from Afghanistan and Chechnya that absolutely boggle the mind, when looked at from a “troop care” standpoint. It’s amazing that they have *any* combat power left, after the way they treat the front-line soldiers. They’re still fighting the infamous “Dedovschina” issue, for example.
There are no doubt things to be learned from Ukraine, but I’ll be damned if I know what they are. At this point, about all I would do, presented with the prospect of modern combat? I’d pretty much have to just stand there, open-armed and say “Instruct me…”, because the current set of idiots we have running things aren’t all that bright.
The people I pay the most attention to in Ukraine are the guys who’re basically the civilians who moved over into the military realm, entrepreneurs and the like. The few former Soviet military “professionals” all seem to be more corrupt and concerned with empire-building than in fighting.
The entire situation is a mess, and I suspect that running around with our hair on fire and declaiming that everything known is somehow obsolete and ineffective…? That’ll prove to be about as wrong as the “Panzer panic” that afflicted Allied armies very early in WWII.
Drones are going to change things, but how much, and where? For how long? No idea. I will project, however, that there will be a lot of people looking back at the long de-emphasis of low-level air defense as a bit of an error in judgment. Something I said at the time, BTW. Having a few Vulcans around for ADA would be comforting. Plus, they’re so much fun for AP work on the ground…
They already have EMP type weapons to fry electronics. They have tested them on drones on the SW U.S. Border.
James Gregory has a recent book about Sgt. York dealing with ‘the other sixteen’ (soldiers) present and fighting on York’s side. Roughly his point is that York is indeed a hero, but the action was a matter of small unit tactics and not the lone rifleman dominating the fray. Title ‘Unravelling the Myth’ Roughly the point here is that the Army spun a certain dramatic narrative to the world then believed its own slightly skewed version of events and used it as a basis for doctrine
Good tip, and thank you for that. I didn’t know someone put together a synthesis of all that. Took me years of digging through various sources to get to the realization that the myth of Sergeant York was just that, a myth.
The real problem with that whole “Sergeant York Mythos” thing is just how much they allowed it to color their thinking about tactics and riflery. Instead of concentrating on the idea of low-level teamwork the way that the Sturmabteilung did, including and acknowledging firepower, the US glommed onto “individual marksman uber alles“, which then led to the fielding of the M1 Garand/M1918A2 BAR/M1919A4 as the tactical solution. Which I suspect contributed heavily to US casualty figures in WWII…
It’s basically nuts how the PR battle shaped the whole tactical thrust of the US Army, but it very obviously did.
Drones are no problem, we have special drone killing bullets now!
I tend to think not. The primary flaw of the M-14 was doctrinal.
[OFF-TOPIC so ignore if you wish]
ALTERING NEWS w.r.t. XM8
so far: it was Heckler & Koch product https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_XM8
now: it is Sig Sauer product https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2026/us-army-designates-m7-carbine-variant-as-xm8-for-faster-handling-in-close-combat
Observe that XM8 is supposed to be more compact version of M7 AND does lack stock folding hinge.
Trying to makes sense of US military small arms nomenclature is an exercise in futility, liable to lead to the person attempting such a feat being found in some hidden corner, wrapped into a fetal position and mumbling something about “It’s all M1…” to themselves.
There’s no real system to it, and when you think that you have discovered one, they break it. Why? Because they can, and that’s what they do.
Its really not that complicated, its a stupid system since there are M1 versions of everything but its not difficult.
Rifle? The first is the M1 every subsequent design gets another number in series, M2, M3, M4, M5 ect.
Carbine? The first is the M1 the 2nd is the M2 then M3, M4 ect.
Submachine gun? The first is the M1 then the M2 then M3 ect.
You’ve obviously failed to note all the exceptions to the rules, like the aforementioned “XM-8” program that was just conveniently forgotten.
The rules matter until they decide they don’t. There is no convention where there isn’t continuity and/or rational thought on the matter.
The experimental XM designations are not counted in the normal line of official adopted designations, why would they be? its like saying the T-44 “doesn’t fit” with the M designations so the whole system is meaningless. Experimental/trials weapons do not count because they were not adopted.
What was the T44 adopted as? The M14 because it was the 14th M designated rifle adopted by the US Military.
The M1 Garand was the first rifle after the change of designations from year of adoption to the M series, the M2 rifle was a trainer, M3 (skip since a project was given it but never completed) , the M4 rifle is a survival rifle, ditto for M6 many other US Rifle M- designations are either spotting rifles or sub caliber trainers.
The latest adoption is the M5 since its 5th in line of adopted carbines ( this was changed to M7 since Colt already had and M5 line and they retroactively changed the M6 aircrew survival rifle to carbine)
There is a convention that is very easy to understand its M + the number that indicates its adoption in the series of that type of item.
There are a few exceptions to the rule but that goes with basically everything.
Its not a great system since you can have half a dozen M1’s that are all wildly different but that is why the full designations are used such as US M1 Rifle .30 Caliber, US M1 Carbine .30 Carbine. US M4 Carbine 5.56, US M16 Rifle 5.56.
Using their full designations its easy to see what they are in inventory.
Oh, and the other thing? The essential insanity of type-classifying the one thing, which was to be a replacement for the M1918A2 BAR as a “rifle”, which was where the M-15 designator came from, then putting the actual replacement for the BAR, the SAW as “M-249”, in the machinegun category…
The whole thing is nonsensical, and the sooner you acknowledge that fact and become one with it, the sooner they’ll be able to reduce your medications from the psychiatrist.
Because anyone looking for and demanding any of this to make coherent sense is in dire need of clinical help.
You need a chill pill.
“(…)Rifle? The first is the M1 every subsequent design gets another number in series, M2, M3, M4, M5(…)”
Fine, if it so before they induced M14 into system they should use M13, M12, M11, M10, M9…
Where they are?
Caught me right before getting up and going to bed, I already posted this but I will repost since you missed it. There are M2 through M13 rifles and even M17 through M27 rifles.
Full list of M designated rifles adopted into US service with brief descriptions of each.
Rifle Caliber .30 US M1 -Garand
Rifle Caliber .22 US M2 -.22lr trainer
Rifle M3 (cancelled)
Rifle Survival Caliber .22 M4 -.22 Hornet Aircrew Survival Rifle H&R
Rifle Subcaliber Caliber .22 -sub caliber trainer
Rifle Shotgun, Survival Caliber .22/410 M5 -Over under aircrew survival rifle H&R
Rifle Shotgun, Survival Caliber .22/410 M6 -Same Ithaca
Rifle Sub Caliber Caliber .30 M7 7.62×63 -Sub Caliber trainer
Rifle Spotting Caliber .50 M8 – spotting/trainer for recoilless rifles
Rifle Sub Caliber .30 M9 – 7.62×63 Sub Caliber Trainer
M10-M11 -Cancelled
M12/M13 -various H&R/Remington/Stevens trainer .22’s
Rifle 7.62mm M14
Rifle 7.62mm M15
Rifle 5.56mm M16
Rifle Caliber .22 M17 .22lr Semi Auto trainer
Rifle Recoilless 57mm M18
Rifle 5.6mm Primer Actuated M19 AAI flechette Rifle
Rifle Recoilless 75mm M20
Rifle 7.62 Sniper M21
Rifle 5.56mm M22 – Stoner 63 Rifle config.
Rifle 5.56mm M23 – Stoner 63 Automatic Rifle config. (Bren?)
Rifle 7.62mm Sniper M24 – Remington M700
Rifle 7.62 Sniper M25- M14 Snipers, possibly M1A commercial rifles.
Rifle 25mm Individual Semi Automatic Airburst System XM-25/M25- ATK/HK Future Weapon
Rifle M26- Cancelled
Rifle Recoilless 105mm M27
I found post with that further down, so ignore my question.
After scrying, that part:
“Rifle 25mm Individual Semi Automatic Airburst System XM-25/M25- ATK/HK Future Weapon
Rifle M26- Cancelled
Rifle Recoilless 105mm M27”
I must observe that, these designation are not ordered along timeline. M27 https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m27rclr.htm was introduced around 1950 year, whilst https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/XM25 was conceived in 2010
I enjoyed the video and Ian helped me achieve my goal to learn something every day.
The M-15 story demonstrated that Army Ordnance didn’t learn anything from the year 1917 and adopting the Browning Automatic Rifle (M1918 or BAR). First thing–the prototype Browning Machine Rifle fired from a closed bolt for semiautomatic accuracy–automatic fire was for “emergencies.” When the Army saw MACHINEGUN the BAR was modified to open bolt firing to better manage heat build-up and eliminate cook-off danger. Second is that the BAR’s receiver was “too long” so that the bolt acceleration and deceleration was more gradual. Third was lack of a buffer in the M-15 (and M-14). When fired full auto, the M-14 doesn’t heat up all components at the same time; the dimensional shifting leads to jamming after a magazine or two, a problem with the FAL heavy barrel, too–a longer and heavier receiver would help even though it compromises the dream of returning to the 1903 Universal Service Rifles of Britain (SMLE) and the USA (M1903 Springfield). No buffer and a short receiver means that the M15 in full-auto pounds itself into malfunctions (again, the FAL shares this) during extended use.
I liked the description of how the bipod “bends” the barrel when used. There’s also a changed barrel whip when the bipod is attached, just as clipping on a grenade launcher or fixing bayonet will shift rifle zero. War Department Field Manual 23-10 September 1943 gave three 300-yard rifle zeroes (page 129)
plain rifle 300 yards
with bayonet 425 yards
with grenade launcher 375 yards
The bayonet also seems to have shifted windage a quarter click to the right (one click right for the M1903A3)
I charge Institutional Alzheimer’s. Don’t charge the US Army with preparing to fight the last war because they don’t remember!
“Institutional Alzheimers” is about as good a diagnosis as we’re likely going to get.
I would term the US military as “essentially ahistorical”, myself. The actual root cause of the problem is something endemic, which I can’t quite put a finger on… All I know is that you can see it everywhere. There’s also this weird dichotomy wherein the services are incapable of learning from anything other than immediate personal experience, and cannot look at something like the South African bushwars and say “Yeah, those IED things…? They could be problems; maybe we should make some notes…?”
I wish I knew what the hell the actual cause might be, but it’s embedded deep, and widespread. I’d almost call it anti-intellectualism, but the flip side to that is that they won’t listen to anyone but their own anointed Ph.D-bearing “experts”. If the information doesn’t come from the right source, with the correct accreditation, it won’t be listened to. Whether or not it is right, whether or not it’s important or accurate? Won’t gain the slightest traction until and unless one of the “right people” says something.
There’s also a weird institutional bias towards even recording experience. I think I mentioned how they were trying to go back and re-develop mine dog companies there at the beginning of the GWO(some)T, and were unable to even find the manuals from Vietnam. Eventually, they did find a partial copy, but only after someone had basically had to go and re-invent the wheel first. What’s insane about it is that if you go into any of the service libraries, and ask for the historical versions of the various field manuals like that, they won’t be able to give them to you… They simply aren’t retained. The “librarians” will proudly tell you that all they have are the very latest and updated versions of the manuals, not the historical ones from years and years ago. You want those? LOL… Baby, I hope you have fun finding them on the commercial market, because Uncle Sam is not gonna help you, one damn bit.
Wish I could tell you why this is so, but it just is. They never quite figure out why past experience should be recorded and paid heed to. Hell, my very favorite one is about the uniform pant crotches. The early iterations of the beloved OG-107 Jungle Fatigues all had huge problems with the crotch blowing out, because of poor construction. They never implemented a diamond-gusset, like you find in most civilian “action wear” pants; they had to go and reinforce the stitching and the construction multiple times, before they got it right. Now, one would think that this lesson would have borne some residual fruit, and that when they went to make the “Hot Weather BDU”, that they’d have remembered. Nope. Not a bit… Those initial versions were infamous for the same issue, blown-out crotches. Which, when you consider the number of GI’s going all “commando” in hot weather, was kind of a problem. Still, same thing: Corrective iterative design eventually fixed the problem. Still no diamond gussets, though.
What really put the peach on top of cottage cheese was the exact same idiocy happening with the early versions of the BDU replacement, the ACU. Blown crotches everywhere, showing the dangly bits all over the Islamic world. Sure that didn’t create some PR issues…
Three different uniforms issued over some sixty-odd years: Same exact design issue and replacement issues repeated on all three.
What. The. Actual. F*ck? I still haven’t been able to wrap my head around that… You can even find the whole thing written up by the Quartermaster Corps on their uniform page, each successive uniform described as having teething problems.
What I still can’t understand is why the hell they’d have copied the failed design from the early OG-107 two more times, because that’s basically what happened. I think they forgot that the design that worked in heavy twill didn’t work in lightweight ripstop, which all three uniforms-that-failed were manufactured in.
That’s the US military for you: Pound-for-pound the most lethal and well-supplied military in world history, until you start paying attention to all the little things they screw up. Things that, logically, they should not be getting wrong…
Except that they’re all essentially ahistorical.
For anyone interested here is the list of M designated Rifles in US service.
Rifle Caliber .30 US M1 -Garand
Rifle Caliber .22 US M2 -.22lr trainer
Rifle M3 (cancelled)
Rifle Survival Caliber .22 M4 -.22 Hornet Aircrew Survival Rifle H&R
Rifle Subcaliber Caliber .22 -sub caliber trainer
Rifle Shotgun, Survival Caliber .22/410 M5 -Over under aircrew survival rifle H&R
Rifle Shotgun, Survival Caliber .22/410 M6 -Same Ithaca
Rifle Sub Caliber Caliber .30 M7 7.62×63 -Sub Caliber trainer
Rifle Spotting Caliber .50 M8 – spotting/trainer for recoilless rifles
Rifle Sub Caliber .30 M9 – 7.62×63 Sub Caliber Trainer
M10-M11 -Cancelled
M12/M13 -various H&R/Remington/Stevens trainer .22’s
Rifle 7.62mm M14
Rifle 7.62mm M15
Rifle 5.56mm M16
Rifle Caliber .22 M17 .22lr Semi Auto trainer
Rifle Recoilless 57mm M18
Rifle 5.6mm Primer Actuated M19 AAI flechette Rifle
Rifle Recoilless 75mm M20
Rifle 7.62 Sniper M21
Rifle 5.56mm M22 – Stoner 63 Rifle config.
Rifle 5.56mm M23 – Stoner 63 Automatic Rifle config. (Bren?)
Rifle 7.62mm Sniper M24 – Remington M700
Rifle 7.62 Sniper M25- M14 Snipers, possibly M1A commercial rifles.
Rifle 25mm Individual Semi Automatic Airburst System XM-25/M25- ATK/HK Future Weapon
Rifle M26- Cancelled
Rifle Recoilless 105mm M27
The fact that you’re including everything from an individual weapon up through an anti-tank weapon only highlights the insanity.
The fact that this escapes you only goes to demonstrate your own lack of common sense. Not to mention, the weapons you leave out like the machinegun class, whose numbers include the very individual weapon category of the Automatic Rifles. Which they somehow conflated into “machine gun” at a later date.
There is no consistency, no logic, and no defense of this muddled mess possible.
Anything that somehow conflates everything rifled from a .30 caliber individual weapon up to a recoilless 105mm AT weapon, while leaving out artillery and grenade launchers that have rifling incorporated? Are you seriously trying to argue that this is anything other than an arbitrary BS “system” created by utter gobshite morons? Ones who can’t remember from one day to the next what the rules they apparently pulled out of their asses the day before were?
Not to mention the entire era of three “M60s”; one a main battle tank, one a GPMG so-called, and the third a submersible pump.
There were probably more but those are the ones Ohio NG kept getting the paperwork screwed up on.
clear ether
eon
The lack of concise clarity in nomenclature is one of the things that drives home how ‘effed up the US military can be.
You try doing comms or admin work, when you have to have multiple exchanges going back and forth to clarify what precise system you need parts or maintenance on, or to order ammunition. It gets to the point where you’re unable to get things done without including a damn tutorial on the issue with every new iteration, and then trying to train people on why you have to include the full set of identifying features on equipment…?
I swear to God, I’d like to choke some of the responsible parties, but I fear they’d enjoy it. The idjits doing intel reporting figured it out, and began doing code names for enemy aircraft reporting back in WWII. They extended that into the Cold War, but never far enough: Why the hell we had the confusion we allowed with regards to our own equipment? No damn idea, whatsoever.
The categories they threw things into, as well: Why on earth did they think that there’d be no confusion between the M1 Garand and the M1 Carbine? I’ve got a couple of After-Action Reviews from WWII and Korea somewhere in my crap wherein they’re complaining that orders for ammunition for the one got ammunition for the other, and that wouldn’t be so bad if it were interchangeable, but… It ain’t.
All too much of what goes wrong in war stems from a lack of clarity and precision in thinking, and that begins with the language we use, including the terminology. If your categorization somehow lumps everything into the same grouping, ranging from individual weapons up to anti-tank stuff, while excluding various others for esoteric reasons that nobody seems to be able to explain concisely and simply…?
You may have a problem.
It is ‘logical’ in the same way McDonald’s ‘designates’ menu items with ‘Mc–.’
Man you are really worked up over this aren’t you? Relax its not that big of a deal. I provided the list of all the M designated rifles because I see people ask the question a lot and someone might find it interesting.
Im not defending the M designation system from your criticism, I already said it should be better I was just explaining why its set up the way that it is and how it works.
You claim it “has no consistency or logic” even though its been explained to you and you either cant or simply wont understand how it works despite the fact that the system is so simple its stupid.
Everything on the list of M designated rifles I provided is a rifle by definition which is why they were all given numbers in series.
Machine guns are different, grenade launchers are different, artillery pieces are different, are any of them called “rifles”? (leave out the BAR the single outlier since it was adopted before the M system and kept its original designation)
Nope not one of them is a “rifle” by US military definition which is why none of them are included.
You don’t have to like it (I don’t) but just because you disagree doesn’t mean its not a system that follows rules. Its stupid simple its Category/Model #’s in series.
Other Military inventory systems with 4 digit letter/number combo’s can be just as dumb and equally redundant/confusing if you leave out the category descriptions off the names.
Go look at how many L1A1 designated items the British had/have, there are rifles, machine guns, blank firing adapters, flares, rockets, demolition charges flashlights and 50 other things all marked “L1A1” its their version of “M1” even though it contains a tiny bit more information the L means “land” 1 is model A1 is variant its not very helpful either. Again that is why they have descriptors next to the model designations in inventory.
No matter what the system is, no matter how good or how bad there is no reason to get so excited over it.
This is supposed to be a fun/interesting hobby not something to give yourself a stroke over.
Have a nice relaxing walk or something and a lovely evening
I said it was a stupid system. You disagreed, initially, and now are agreeing with what I said, apparently.
So, what was the point of your entire line of commentary?
You remind me of that one ever-present smartass you have gumming up every single class who tries to act smarter than they are; the fact that you see no issue with a system that quite literally shows a sequential continuity between a Garand and a 105mm recoilless rifle while telling us that there is method to the madness…? What have you been smoking?
Wow….
Go back and read my first comment… And every subsequent comment.
In my first sentence I said “its a stupid system because there is an M1 version of everything but its not that complicated”
So no I didn’t go from disagreeing to agreeing all I was doing was explaining how it worked to someone who said there “was not consistency or logic to it” even though there is.
You don’t have to agree with it, you don’t have to like it but claiming it makes no sense and follows no consistent rules is just plain wrong which is why I explained it.
Yes there is continuity between the US Rifle .30 M1 (Garand) and the US Recoilless Rifle 57mm M18…. They are both designated as rifles…
Its….just….that….simple….
You don’t have to agree that is how it should be done. I don’t, but unlike you I can separate my opinion from my ability to see and understand how something is organized/categorized and how it works.
You remind me of every whiner I have ever met who just complains about how “stupid” everything and everyone else is because you disagree with how something is done, you wont listen and you don’t pay attention.
Despite me saying half a dozen times that I think the M designation is a stupid system you still claim that I am “defending it”. Understanding isn’t the same thing as agreeing.
Nope I am just explaining how it works and the astonishingly simple rules it follows.
You are the ever present smart-ass in the class arguing over terminology and how things are being done instead of sitting down, shutting up, and letting the presentation continue so everyone can go home on time.
Kirk, you need a chill pill. You are insulting people online just because they disagree. You sense of worth seems to be pontificating on this site ad nauseum. And you don’t use you full name so you can insults and not be called on it. Sad.
You need a chill pill, insulting strangers just because they disagree. Sad.
Kirk, you need a chill pill. You are insulting people online just because they disagree. You sense of worth seems to be pontificating on this site ad nauseum. And you don’t use you full name so you can insults and not be called on it. Sad.
Kirk is better informed by far than most of us. And if being called an idjit is the worst thing that befalls me today, then I just had a pretty good day. I’ll take information and conversational sparks over play-nice safe spaces any day
Kirk:
Kudos on your use of the term “gobshite”. It is a very British insult, indeed very much from the North of England. Did you pick it up from the Brits?
In regards to the stripper clips; its humorous to listen to some of the old Service Rifle shooters who rail that you’re supposed to feed the M-14 with stripper clips and keep your loaded mags “in reserve”
Hard though that may be to believe, that was what was in some of the older manuals…
The mentality was endemic, and totally counter-survival.
It is very easy to criticise something. If you do not like the designating system create a new one and make a suggestion to the army. If you think the NGSW-program is stupid, then explain to me how are you going to penetrate level IV body armour at 300 m with a M4 carbine. You must design a projectile that you can fire from a M4 that will defeat level IV body armour. What you need to specify is the material, projectile diameter, weight, BC and velocity at which it should be fired. The projectile and cartridge you will need will probably look like 6.8×51 mm. In do not say 6.8×51 mm it is the best solution to the problem, but that u can not provide a better solution.
Here’s the issue with the NGSW cartridge: Too powerful, and the weapon firing it is too heavy. They’ve already reduced the size between the M7 and the M8, which should tell you something.
The real issue here is that the people behind all of this do not understand what the individual weapon is supposed to do, what its characteristics should be.
If you examine what’s going on in Ukraine, right now, nobody is demanding more powerful individual weapons. Why? Because power and armor penetration aren’t issues.
What is at issue is “handy”. The individual weapon is basically more akin to a skeet shotgun than it is some uber-sniper rifle. You want something that you can easily carry, get into action quickly, and which is effective enough to at least discourage the enemy. If you’ve got something that’s too heavy to get into action and hit with, then the weapon you’re carrying is pointless, no matter how much armor it can penetrate.
The thing that has to be remembered here is that this is nothing like sitting on a firing line, taking your time and getting a perfect shot. This is modern warfare, where you’re only getting a fleeting glimpse at a target you have to engage in literal fractions of a second. It’s more important to be able to deliver accurate fire rapidly, with multiple follow-up shots until you put the target down.
People trained on the classical sort of known-distance ranges that are so beloved of the old-school marksmen that ran the Marine program are simply incapable of wrapping their heads around it. They base their concept of war around those calm ranges, where you have comparatively forever to make the perfect shot.
And, while some of those occasions still exist, it’s flatly f*cking insane to design your individual weapon around them. Probably 90% of your shots are going to be snap-shots you’ll only get fractions of a second to even recognize, let alone set yourself up for.
This is the fallacy that every single idjit in the decision chain behind the NGSW fell into. They don’t grasp that they’re trying to pound a square peg into a round, machinegun-shaped tactical hole. If you’re seeing anything out there past 300m, then you need to engage with an area-effect weapon. Close in, you need to engage quickly and effectively, which may not even mean actually connecting with your target. At what amounts to danger-close range, just getting the enemy to go to ground so that you can reach out and touch them with an area-effect weapon would be a better solution than trying to set up for a perfect shot, not taking it, and allowing that enemy to get to cover or complete their mission within your individual weapon envelope.
The skeet-shooting aspect of the individual weapon is far more important than people realize, or than the vaunted “system” credits.
You understand that 7.62×51 mm do not penetrate level IV body armour at 300m
@Lallie:
Do you understand that there aren’t any combatants in Ukraine who’re looking for heavier individual weapons? The Russians are not mass-issuing SVD rifles, the Ukrainians aren’t looking for heavier NATO rifles in any of their aid packages, and what few they have gotten aren’t being carried around the combat zone.
Your conception of combat is laughably out of touch with reality today, and yesterday. You do not win wars with a bunch of over-trained, over-specialized wannabe lone-wolf Daniel Boones that are taking all the time in the world to get the “perfect shot”. That doesn’t work, never has.
I don’t know why you keep playing this game. You don’t understand anything about it; your continued advocacy for the uber-marksman is completely out of touch with war as it is fought. You’re like a kendo master trying to argue that sword is the ultimate arbiter in combat, while all around you the pole arms, bows, and matchlocks are doing all the real killing. You simply do not grasp that your idea of how it all works is flawed and utterly lacking in any basis in reality.
The M14 and NGSW are conceptual failures. They cannot succeed, because the ideas behind them simply do not work as actual weapons of war, and trying to implement them just gets a lot of good men killed play-acting as Kentucky Rifleman in the modern era.
You’ll likely have the unpleasant experience of watching all your lovely fantasies exploded when the US Army actually takes the M7 or the M8 to war; they’re going to wind up abandoning them and defaulting to the M4 Carbine simply because the soldiers will refuse to carry them into combat after their first failed attempts. Hell, it’s already happening: What else is the M8 but a repudiation of the ideas behind the M7?
Its official Kirk cant tell the difference between self satisfied cries of “everyone else is so stupid!” and actually having an idea of his own.
Hes right no one in Ukraine is calling for heavier weapons, the Russians would just be happy to have gear from this century and optics on all the rifles in the regular infantry. They would also love to have actual modern armor in those fancy new rigs not just Soviet helmets in nice fabric covers and mild steel shoved into “new” rigs.
The Ukrainians are fielding plenty of 7.62NATO machine guns but most infantry rifles are in 5.56, they did get some “battle rifles” but there is no real need for them, they are long, bulky and heavy and since the Russians average kit (weapons/armor) is from the late stages of the Cold War an M4 with an optic is already a big advantage and 5.56 with M855 or M855A1 can easily penetrate late cold war steel plate/kevlar and fake armor.
Not to mention that for that war which is as unique of a situation as the fighting in Afghanistan light/fast and good defenses that protect from drones is a priority over long range hard hitting rounds.
Its odd that such a self professed genius like Kirk cant realize that Ukraine is not actually an example of peer vs peer combat since one side can’t field gear from this century in any real numbers…
You would also think he would realize that war in Ukraine is not the “new meta” meaning that other wars between other countries in other theaters will look very different. Drones are staying but that doesn’t mean their influence on the overall shape of the battlefield will produce the same results seen in Ukraine.
Kirk if you spent any time reading and trying to understand what someone is actually saying you wouldn’t waste so much time/effort and blood pressure telling everyone how stupid they are.
Lallie never said he thought the M7/M8 and the 6.8×51 cartridge was great, or the right choice, quite the contrary. He just asked for you to provide a suggested solution to the problem of needing to penetrate modern armor instead of more ranting.
You are playing Don Quixote, when someone says something that seems to contradict your pronouncements you don’t bother reading, you certainly don’t try understanding, you are building giant imaginary straw man dragons in your mind and slaying them with what you consider a sharp intellect and a brilliant wit while ignoring the core of what was said, putting words in peoples mouths so you can swat down what they DIDN’T say and continually failing to provide solutions.
Get over yourself, stop talking, start reading and actually think about what someone says and what it actually means before spewing more nonsense.
Here Here!
In reserve for what? Carrying on the fray in Valhallah? I guess those guys were ballsy indeed. Able to classify regular and serious gunfights.
There isn’t anything quite like the confidence of a peacetime one hitch Marine when it comes to pontificating about riflery and its use in combat.
John Clark just handed me my ass on a platter. I stand corrected
Please tell me you’re being sarcastic.
The idea is to keep your rifle as full as possible and to keep your combat load of full magazines as effective as possible. Instead of being counter survival its keeping you combat ready.
Instead of tactical reloading after firing a dozen shots and ending up with a half empty magazine in your kit that needs to be refilled later anyway you just top off your rifle with stripper clips when you have time/opportunity/cover.
It is slightly slower than just changing magazines but its definitely faster than having to go through and top off half empty mags in your kit. Using stripper clips also keeps your gun up and ready for use unlike having to reload empty/partial magazines.
If you are in a serious fight running magazines dry in danger of being overrun at any moment you want to have as many fully loaded magazines as possible at the start so in less extreme situations reloading by topping off your rifle with a stripper clip makes good sense.
Yes soldiers with a little experience can tell the difference.
Unfortunately like with most Military training the valid concept that should be taught as “use your judgement” became an “only do it this way” doctrine without reason.
Here Here!
I was told decades ago that as long as you can move tactically, there is no such thing as too much ammo.
it sounds very much like a carry over from the adoption of the krag;
we like the trapdoor Springfield, but we’d better have these new fangled small calibre high velocity and the magazine things
– but only in reserve
can’t have soldiers wasting ammunition with disorderly firing
got to keep them in formation and engaged in regular volley fire, on command.
even with the 1902 (single column mag) and 1903, the whole things were set up for dropping single cartridges in, and the magazine cut off used to keep the magazine in reserve.
the lessons of the Spanish American wars were totally ignored
got to have this mauser type rifle but make it as much like a krag, that was made as much like a single shot trapdoor Springfield as was possible.
I think it was Herbert Spencer, who commented about people who lost their religion in name, but still retained it in all of their thoughts and actions…
Brilliant post. In college I used a hoary old sporterized 98 Mauser hunting deer and elk. My landlord had a .30-40 Krag he kept around. He let me handle it and I recall thinking ‘why why why?’ They took a highly functional rifle and tried to primativize it. Kind of like equipping a Model T Ford with a set of reins and a buggy whip
I think a lot of pain could have been avoided if the M1 Carbine had just been called the M2 Rifle. Then again, I wonder why the standard M1 Rifle was not the M1A1, after it replaced the M1 gas trap Garand? That was a pretty significant change after all. May the Army did not want anyone to know they had screwed up?
What I will never understand is how Ordnance managed to convince themselves that the M14 could replace the M1 Rifle, the M1 Carbine and the M3 Sub-Machine gun. It was a rifle. The carbine and SMG were each designed for different roles. The engineer who needed a small, accurate PDW did not need a Garand. Neither did he need an M14. Why is this not obvious?
The only thing McNamara did right was at least getting the services to somewhat standardize on aircraft designation.
The Army has it’s fucked up M- system. The Navy uses “Mk” for everything. And the Air Force uses GAU.
Its ridiculous and a great example of bloat and disorganization of the DOW.
I agree there should be a better system but its not a simple problem to solve which is why basically every military has their own version of M designations.
Go look at the list of British equipment with L1A1 designations and you will just laugh.
From what I remember, the movie”Sargent York” was made to stir up support for the British ( as I understand it, there was a lot of Anti-British/isolationist attitude in pre-WW2 America). Also, I read somewhere that the American pre-war movie industry was more “patriotic” (jingoistic?) than the British film industry, regarding anti-Nazi messaging. So they got Gary Cooper to show that a religious, American lad should be enthusiastic about wanting to help the redcoats.
Bonus points,
A:the actor portraying the character “Pusher” played Gladys Kravitz’s husband on Bewitched.
B:. Sargent York’s governor of his home state provided him a house to live in until Alvin passed away in the 50’s.
3:. Name Alvin York’s home state for double bonus points.
Tennessee wasn’t it? Or is this a trick question?