Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!spool2.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: bxr307@csc.anu.edu.au Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Using the rifle suited to the previous war? Message-ID: <1991Jan19.041826.5280@cbnews.att.com> Date: 19 Jan 91 04:18:26 GMT References: <1991Jan4.010534.16506@cbnews.att.com> <1991Jan5.021709.27698@cbnews.att.com> <1991Jan7.051146.8339@cbnews.att.com> <1991Jan9.041957.20958@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: Computer Services, Australian National University Lines: 62 Approved: military@att.att.com From: bxr307@csc.anu.edu.au In article <1991Jan9.041957.20958@cbnews.att.com>, thos@softway.sw.oz.au (Thomas Cohen) writes: > Well true, but training should be available. During WW1, British soldiers > armed with the SMLE Mk 3 (Short Magazine (?) Lee Enfield) were routinely The correct nomenclature for the SMLE is "Short,[as in short barrel] Magazine, Lee Enfield." It was used to differentiate from the earlier versions of the Lee Enfield rifle which had a longer barrel. > shooting at ranges over 500 yards. But this was mainly the peacetime troops > who were trained properly, as their ranks thinned through attrition, I don't > doubt that the standard dropped. What is even more interesting is that the "Old Contemptables" as they were known (the pre-WWI British Regular Army) were so highly trained in their musketry drill (as it was still known) that they could achieve a rate of fire of 20 rounds a minute of well aimed shots (and this with reloading their 10 round box magazine once in that minute using charger clips through the action). This was so fast that when the German Army encountered them first in Belgium and then later on the Marne they believed that the British were very well equipped with Machine Guns (when in truth they had about 2 per battalion at this stage). What is even more surprising was that when I joined the Australian Army in 1977 we were using the L1a1 Self Loading Rifle (SLR), the British version of the FN-FAL. We were always taught that its practicable rate of fire was, yes you guessed it, "20 well aimed shots a minute"! In other words the previous 50 years of military technological development had simply given to the common soldier what the highly trained "old contempables" had been able to do in 1914! :-) > >>>The advantages for the M14 in the desert would be (a) greater >>>effective range (b) more reliable in sand/dirt (c) ammo common >>>to M60 MG and other NATO forces. >> >>a) see above >>b) the M-14 has an exposed action. I've never personally doused one with sand, >>but i doubt it's very good for it. The M-16 is on the other hand enclosed >>except for a (closable) ejection port. The M-14 may be more reliable >>inherently but i doubt the sand will but close the reliability gap, if not >>nullify it. > > Col. David Hackworth, in his book "About Face", said of the AR-15 > (quoted without permission) [ Col.Beckwith's very interesting comments deleted...] > Mind you, he says nothing of the M14, but throughout the book he continually > derides the M16 - in its original form. In the glossary, he describes the > M16 as "Unquestionably the worst infantry weapon ever forced upon > American fighting men; the standard U.S. infantry rifle employed in Vietnam. My own experiences with the M16 here in the Australian Army tend to agree. My particular bugbear is that Lungeman direct gas return system. Give me a conventional gas piston anytime. Its more reliable and easier to clean. Brian Ross