Lets discuss, "Improving the gun"

Since the late 1800s till now, guns, rifles, pistols, revolvers,etc. Works basically on the same principle.

Trigger is pulled, mechcanism causes the hammer to pull back and released, hitting the rear of the ammo, igniting the powder, small explosion, the head of the bullet is forced out of the barrel.

Is there other ways we could improve it?

So far I can only think of using small electrical charges to fire off ammo and larger cailber rounds. Maybe also a "replacable" rifle body in which we can switch the body of the rifle to fit the type of ammo we using.

Creating a totally reliable caseless round. This would eliminate the brass, of course, and lose the extraction and ejection cycles.

G11 almost had it right, but the ammo wasn't reliable enough in all weathers and other conditions. The G11 I fired at Aberdeen, ran at 1200 RPM, produced even less smoke than standard ammo, and seemed very strange to NOT have a brass pile. BUT, the ammo was too easily broken, the bullets came loose easily, and the primers had a bad habit of falling out in the magazine during firing.

There have been literally dozens of caseless and bizarre ammo types, but so far none have surpassed brass for reliablility and dependbility against abuse and weather.

There was the tround that instead of using a brass case used a piece of plastic.

Originally posted by jetsetter
There was the tround that instead of using a brass case used a piece of plastic.

Using plastic is cool, since plastic is manufactured and brass is a resource.

But that still does not solve the brass/plastic cartiage of the ammo, having to inject out after firing.

Unless the plastic can "Vaporise" upon firing, that will be a good idea.

So far there has come a concept that is superiour enough over current technology that it can not only beat this current technology, but also the current various lobbies.

As long as we dont see an improvement on fleschette or caseless ammunition The only improvements are to be found in newer production techniques and new materials (both lighter and stronger). Or maybe newer sighting technologies, improving on current scopes and image enhaners. Would be nice to have a targetting computer of reasonable size to process visual information. Sadly, this doesnt even work right nowadays with the big computers in tanks and aircraft, to my knowledge anything below the size of a car is not recognized.

Personally I guess we might see a severe impact on handgun technology IF a reliable high-capability energy supply was found. A possible way to go are the micro fuel cells that are currently tested to power notebooks and mobile phones.

The computer on a Tank, is a ballistic computer. It will only process that information given it. The laser ranging device sends distance info to it, the gunner has selected the proper ammo type for the target, and the system is updated continuosly with ammo and ambient temperatures. All info is computed for distance and vehicle attitude, and the slaved hydraulics will set the muzzle angle.

The thermal and day sights on a Tank are quite reliable. The day sight goes up to 10X from 3X, and the thermal is clear enough to discern small animals.....cars are very obvious.

I am talking about computerized image recognition. The systems you mentioned need a human eye to decide whether something in view is a target or not.

There are programs that analyze the images caught by sensoric equipment for threats and try to classify them. This nowadays only works with big targets to my knowledge.

[edit on 27/7/2005 by Lonestar24]

High tech stuff + small arms =

Power supply during combat =

Lets make a small list of currently what we have:
Tech:
Thermo, range sensing, Friend/Foe system for small arms
Require:
Energy supply.

Tech:
Ceasless ammo
Require:
Better Ammo

quote]Originally posted by Humster
High tech stuff + small arms =

Power supply during combat =

Lets make a small list of currently what we have:
Tech:
Thermo, range sensing, Friend/Foe system for small arms
Require:
Energy supply.

Tech:
Ceasless ammo
Require:
Better Ammo


Not that simple unfortunately, as you have to include the 'human factors' elements as well.

Modern humans are much weaker in both sensory acuity and actual physical heft than those of say the 1940's.

Much can be done within the confines of basic to improve on a given biometric 'norm' but the fact remains, at least 70% of 'who you will be' is determined by the laying down of muscle and bone mass _as you grow up_.

At the same time, /everyone/ has autofire capabilities (though it remains a truism that few can use it well) such that not only are you having to compromise soldier-carry factors to run and gun better than before (carryin less weight) but that increasingly, you are not able to lay down even a suppressing fire in bounding type movements because the weight enemy action is too heavy.

5.56 is really only good out to about 200-250m. God knows what the 4.7mm on the G-11 was useful too, I wouldn't be at all surprised if 'effectives' overlapped pistol ammunition and even then, the pistol would only lose based on sighting radius and mag counts.

What the HK weapon brought to the table was the ability to DOUBLE the ammunition load, both on the rifle and total-carry, over the 6+1 for 210rds and 10lbs on web gear vs. 12+3 and 675 rounds for the G-11.

Unfortunately, this is not enough. For if you are going to fight an enemy, even restricted to 3rd burst, you need to be able to not only respond instantly but _sustain_ for a full minute's firing. Which means about 90-100 aimed engagements before reload.

Looking at all the above, we _can_ 'get there from here.'

1. Shorten the barrel and the stock.
Anything which puts more heft weight farther out on the fulcrum of the foregrip arm (where your sight post is if you aren't opticaled) is a bad thing in a weapon of such short range compared to the 400-700m longguns we have fielded in the past. Obviously, there will be added benefits in house cleaning or similar confined space CQB. In theory (especially with a full group recoil slider to dampen felt impulse on autofire) you can use a weapon more accurately as a 'from the hip' Thompson (horizontal hold foregrip and lift->push engagement from the REAR grip) /without/ having to turn your entire body to mate the cheek and butt plate to a contorted head posture. Particularly when running.

2. Compensate The Muzzle.
So that small aim errors are not a function of fatigue or rapid swingthru on a target. This will also help make the run and gun system work IF you can track point sources and use the trigger as more of a 'pickle' consent system than a specific sear/release holdoff.

3. Plasticize or Ceramify the receiver group.
You can only achieve so much by materials improvement to the furniture and overall volumetric enclosure. We must 'Go Beyond Glock' to lighten what remains the heaviest (machined) element of the entire weapon. Even as we must continue to find ways to REMOVE OR HARDEN parts that are exposed to gas fouling (in this, IMO, the pistoned XM8 is a step back, weightwise, even as it finally acknowledges of the M16's principle 'clean or else' continuing reliability problem).

4. Shift the aiming system off the gun.
It makes NO sense to put a frickin' zoom lens camera on a weapon that TRIPLES it's profile size, doubles it's weight and adds ten times to the base cost (XM29). Not when I can buy a throwaway digital camera at King Soopers and toss /it/ around the damn corner.
Because Autofire will rip the gun if not the hand off as soon as it is seen. And big rounds will go right through the wall to get the guy holding it.
It is _essential_ to keep both your head and your systems firmly separated in a 'now I look around, now I shoot' basis of surveillance vs. fire control. If you want to get an overlook don't be a fool and stick a 3ft long PLANK of signature/motion increase up to do it. Punch a fiberoptic camera spike THROUGH the wall with a modified nailgun. Or toss a small 'air freshener' sized, self-righting/attaching sensor device OVER it.
But never stick your gun up unless you intend to kill someone with it. And never use your weapon as the sole means of 'over the front sight' restricted (narrowed FOV) target acquisition.

What you want to instead be able to do is remote-link the weapon to a MASTED system on a robot or vehicle to help you out with firefinding a lot further back (upwards of a kilometer perhaps).

And then let the gun be a remote fires link through a dual _active and passive_ receiver (laser mark and spot track, on mount) capability that is about the size of a pencil eraser. The sniper finder designates the target, you point and click.

Again, in this scenario, you can keep all the 'automatic target recognition/classification' (high value, large powered optics electrical consumption factor) gear waaaaay the heck back on a larger platform. And sweep the gun to engage basd on what somebody/something else sanity checks, even if you can't see it at all.

Such can be _critical_ when you are firing down a 10 block street against a sniping threat 5 blocks up and 10ft back from a curtained second floor window.

And it further reinforces the notion that you never expose, even just your hands, to do other than shoot.

Now, if you get a different kind of scenario (indoor or back of beyond) wherein the heavy gear isn't present, then you want to go to _retinal projection_.

Whereby you have a laser scan your soldiers retinal focus points in HIS 'target recognition' interval.

And you train him to swing the gun casually to match as he lets his eyes stay in 'scan mode'. Half the errors inherent to shooting come from the wide-area to tight-FOV biology switch inherent to 'taking aim' with a weapon which is not particularly designed to be point-accurate against a multitude of time-critical targets who WILL shoot you 'anyway' if you don't simultaneously engage them ALL, first. It is a combination of brain motor impulse function and accessing different visual centers, the psychology of fear and kinesthetics of body.

If you put a laser marker on the gun and a laser reader on the retina and hold down the trigger as a pickled consent, you can 'swing through' and as each target is covered by the beam, the eye-reflex monitor will both supply an aimpoint index and a _correction_, thru the flex muzzle, (probably using some kind of miniaturized inertial measurement and head/eye angular differential memory unit on a set of glasses or the weapon) to correct fire even as the actual weapon comes slightly off target (we are talking millisecond reactions here so the error difference won't be much).

4. More Rounds, More Power, Less Kick.
That means pulling the magazine out of the bottom of the gun, switching from a banana styles clip to linear boxes. And relaying them, muzzle to receiver, to get the maximum possible length of round stowage. It also means a stronger propellant (as I recall the G-11 used a kind of solidified HTPB 'rocket propellant') in a given case length (ideally, I would like to see 9-10mm 'pistol cased' round coming out the barrel at a minimum 2,500-2,700fps). And of course it means shifting to some kind of active compensation by which, particularly in automode, a given burst fires very quickly as one felt impulse while the ENTIRE receiver group and attached magazine slides down the main weapon rail on a sealed hydraulic or pneumatic piston. The latter being yet another reason to keep one's head off the gun and hands _well below it_.

Iraqis and Taliban hill billy's have ZERO respect for the 5.56mm round at medium or long combat distances. But you start center punching them with 4X the mass:diameter sectionals and they will think a lot more carefully about desultory engagements and casual ambush.

Perhaps just as importantly; if you make your weapon an integral but _not central_ element in a passive-netcentric engagement system (you don't have to have LINK to be able to exploit lase-on target designations from remote sensor platforms); losing it to a partisan or to export sales doesn't necessarily compromise you when it comes back in an Israeli, Chinese or EU/Russian copy.


KPl.

Originally posted by ch1466


1. Shorten the barrel and the stock.
Anything which puts more heft weight farther out on the fulcrum of the foregrip arm (where your sight post is if you aren't opticaled) is a bad thing in a weapon of such short range compared to the 400-700m longguns we have fielded in the past. Obviously, there will be added benefits in house cleaning or similar confined space CQB. In theory (especially with a full group recoil slider to dampen felt impulse on autofire) you can use a weapon more accurately as a 'from the hip' Thompson (horizontal hold foregrip and lift->push engagement from the REAR grip) /without/ having to turn your entire body to mate the cheek and butt plate to a contorted head posture. Particularly when running.

2. Compensate The Muzzle.
So that small aim errors are not a function of fatigue or rapid swingthru on a target. This will also help make the run and gun system work IF you can track point sources and use the trigger as more of a 'pickle' consent system than a specific sear/release holdoff.

3. Plasticize or Ceramify the receiver group.
You can only achieve so much by materials improvement to the furniture and overall volumetric enclosure. We must 'Go Beyond Glock' to lighten what remains the heaviest (machined) element of the entire weapon. Even as we must continue to find ways to REMOVE OR HARDEN parts that are exposed to gas fouling (in this, IMO, the pistoned XM8 is a step back, weightwise, even as it finally acknowledges of the M16's principle 'clean or else' continuing reliability problem).

4. Shift the aiming system off the gun.
It makes NO sense to put a frickin' zoom lens camera on a weapon that TRIPLES it's profile size, doubles it's weight and adds ten times to the base cost (XM29). Not when I can buy a throwaway digital camera at King Soopers and toss /it/ around the damn corner.
Because Autofire will rip the gun if not the hand off as soon as it is seen. And big rounds will go right through the wall to get the guy holding it.
It is _essential_ to keep both your head and your systems firmly separated in a 'now I look around, now I shoot' basis of surveillance vs. fire control. If you want to get an overlook don't be a fool and stick a 3ft long PLANK of signature/motion increase up to do it. Punch a fiberoptic camera spike THROUGH the wall with a modified nailgun. Or toss a small 'air freshener' sized, self-righting/attaching sensor device OVER it.
But never stick your gun up unless you intend to kill someone with it. And never use your weapon as the sole means of 'over the front sight' restricted (narrowed FOV) target acquisition.

What you want to instead be able to do is remote-link the weapon to a MASTED system on a robot or vehicle to help you out with firefinding a lot further back (upwards of a kilometer perhaps).

And then let the gun be a remote fires link through a dual _active and passive_ receiver (laser mark and spot track, on mount) capability that is about the size of a pencil eraser. The sniper finder designates the target, you point and click.

Again, in this scenario, you can keep all the 'automatic target recognition/classification' (high value, large powered optics electrical consumption factor) gear waaaaay the heck back on a larger platform. And sweep the gun to engage basd on what somebody/something else sanity checks, even if you can't see it at all.

Such can be _critical_ when you are firing down a 10 block street against a sniping threat 5 blocks up and 10ft back from a curtained second floor window.

And it further reinforces the notion that you never expose, even just your hands, to do other than shoot.

Now, if you get a different kind of scenario (indoor or back of beyond) wherein the heavy gear isn't present, then you want to go to _retinal projection_.

Whereby you have a laser scan your soldiers retinal focus points in HIS 'target recognition' interval.

And you train him to swing the gun casually to match as he lets his eyes stay in 'scan mode'. Half the errors inherent to shooting come from the wide-area to tight-FOV biology switch inherent to 'taking aim' with a weapon which is not particularly designed to be point-accurate against a multitude of time-critical targets who WILL shoot you 'anyway' if you don't simultaneously engage them ALL, first. It is a combination of brain motor impulse function and accessing different visual centers, the psychology of fear and kinesthetics of body.

If you put a laser marker on the gun and a laser reader on the retina and hold down the trigger as a pickled consent, you can 'swing through' and as each target is covered by the beam, the eye-reflex monitor will both supply an aimpoint index and a _correction_, thru the flex muzzle, (probably using some kind of miniaturized inertial measurement and head/eye angular differential memory unit on a set of glasses or the weapon) to correct fire even as the actual weapon comes slightly off target (we are talking millisecond reactions here so the error difference won't be much).

4. More Rounds, More Power, Less Kick.
That means pulling the magazine out of the bottom of the gun, switching from a banana styles clip to linear boxes. And relaying them, muzzle to receiver, to get the maximum possible length of round stowage. It also means a stronger propellant (as I recall the G-11 used a kind of solidified HTPB 'rocket propellant') in a given case length (ideally, I would like to see 9-10mm 'pistol cased' round coming out the barrel at a minimum 2,500-2,700fps). And of course it means shifting to some kind of active compensation by which, particularly in automode, a given burst fires very quickly as one felt impulse while the ENTIRE receiver group and attached magazine slides down the main weapon rail on a sealed hydraulic or pneumatic piston. The latter being yet another reason to keep one's head off the gun and hands _well below it_.

Iraqis and Taliban hill billy's have ZERO respect for the 5.56mm round at medium or long combat distances. But you start center punching them with 4X the mass:diameter sectionals and they will think a lot more carefully about desultory engagements and casual ambush.

Perhaps just as importantly; if you make your weapon an integral but _not central_ element in a passive-netcentric engagement system (you don't have to have LINK to be able to exploit lase-on target designations from remote sensor platforms); losing it to a partisan or to export sales doesn't necessarily compromise you when it comes back in an Israeli, Chinese or EU/Russian copy.


KPl.

For No4.
How is it more effective by removing the aiming system off the gun?
Adding other equipment to aid at aiming, wouldn't it increase the overall cost of a gun? And Masted system, I assume that you need extra manpower right?

For No4.

Humster,

>>
For No4.
How is it more effective by removing the aiming system off the gun?
Adding other equipment to aid at aiming, wouldn't it increase the overall cost of a gun? And Masted system, I assume that you need extra manpower right?
>>

100-150 men in a company, each with a 10,000 dollar IR/TV CCD imager atop their gun. Plus five, 200 dollar lithium battery cells per man to run them. But no cooling to improve the detector's performance because you can't manpack a dewar flask.

And only /limited/ 'wide area scan' utility because they are being specifically employed as _sighting_ (NFOV) mechanisms by which the shooter points the gun at an area of interest determined by his limited biologic eyes rather than establishing what might /be/ interesting by moving the gun around.

i.e. 150,000 dollars in batteries and 1.5 MILLION dollars in weapons sights that are never really used the way advanced _sensorization_ of a netcentric (everybody contributes surveillance and targeting) engagement system should be.

Now, cluster five of those focal plane arrays together to make a 512X512 pixel detector instead of a 64X64 one. Give them cooling to improve background clutter rejection and overall popout resolution of potentially IR camouflaged targets in a multitude of thermal environments.

Put a spinning mirror optics set atop the lot, so that you can provide a 360` scanned FOV atop the say 60`X60` instantaneous one (think Cylon back and forth 'eye dot' here).

Jack the whole thing up atop a 3-5m mast so that line of sight and thus serviced area is perhaps 100 times that of any individual or clustered group of soldiers.

And set somebody down in an armored truck or shelter with a coke and air conditioning to play systems manager and sanity checker. _Knowing_ that "Hey, noboy is shooting at /me/..." as a function of absent fear of personal injury vs. focussed attention to a 17 or 19 inch 'widescreen' monitor.

Say that this entire ensemble costs 700-900 grande, not including the Hummer.

_Not only_ have you saved money by not trying to give every idiot private and corporal a thermal sight which they can only employ by exposing themselves and their weapon.

_Not only_ have you made it ten times as hard to /steal the technology/ due to battlefield 'acquisition' of weapons from fallen troops (and believe me, there will be a run on infantry when mini-TI hits the field).

But you have also made the TARGET SEARCH portion of the sensorization viable again.

Since a thermal imager (with a separately articulate, on-mount, laser marker) can get perhaps .25 degree worth of 'historical' (averaged scan to scan) angular accuracy; more than sufficient to mark and engage multiple individual personel over a kilometers worth of downrange distance.

Even as it maintains the search mode of a 'big picture' (wiide area) scan, not fixed sighting while handing off to the laser designator.

Now, for instance, if the scanner sees the running movement of a man with an AK-47 in his hands or the unique IR plume chemistry of a firing signature from one, it is a simple matter send a message to a soldier '40 right!' and mark the target with the laser.

Said grunt then shifts his _on gun_ laser spot tracker acquire the spot marker to cue the soldier (or a remote gun platform) and with the trigger acting as a _consent_ 'safety off' system, supply a perfect firing solution via the flexmuzzle attachment as the weapon sweeps across.

Thus, _by separating_ the shooter from the sensor, you also make the total engagement process FASTER and MORE ACCURATE.

And quite possibly safer. As the only reason the soldier is going to expose himself or his hands/rifle is for the purposes of killing something.

Not 'looking for threats' but _prosecuting them_.

All with a little coded laser pin diode which should cost less than 100 bucks per rifle. Maybe 300 bucks if it also has it's own marker mode.

As far as the retinal scan 'rayban' visor and personal eyeblink designation mode, that can be added to as many or as few soldiers as you wish. The weapon still works the same, it's just the electronics of the target designation are either 'plugged in' from offboard. Or not.

>>
For No4. >

In general approach, the P90 is getting towards 'how to do things'. I don't like all that furniture below the barrel just to cover up the bullpup trigger actuator rods and the foregrip is both too vestigial and too close to the principal trigger group for a male to be able to use effectively.

Obviously, they have also sacrificed even more cartridge length for loadout convenience and that doesn't do much for target surety and knockdown,

IMO, if you have to hit somebody more times 'to be sure' and soldiers in combat don't do that very well when they can already see another shooter about to 'service' them in turn, you are playing a losing battle between more rounds and more required burst-accuracy.

The question I have is how they turn the round from crosswise to linear-forward for chambering. As I recall, in the G-11, the rounds were vertical in the horizontal magazine (conventionally stacked if you turned the clip upright) and required a waterwheel type revolving cylinder feed which I believe was battery initiated and then continued via gas bleed to turn them 'down and around' for firing.

I don't see how that is possible in the P90.

Again, it is also pointless to shorten a rifle only to stick a giant 'carry handle' (sigh, when will they /get over/ the M16?) and sight block over the front end, adding mass where you least want it. Soldiers DO NOT fire better with their cheek glued to the butt stock and their upper torso mass cranked over sideways on a run and gun basis!

Indeed, in combat, soldiers tend to fire about half as well as they do on the range anyway which means more or less like crap (50,000 bullets for every kill in WWII).

It is better by far to let them spray from a comfortable mid-forward 'push' or waist tucked 'twist' position while using a _FLEX MUZZLE_ attachment center up their aimpoint. I cannot overemphasize how much I think that THIS is where the 'next great improvement' in projectile weapon effectiveness is going to come from.

For as few as a 5` to either side of bore and 3` above and below would be a MIRACLE of intelligent aimpoint refinement in per-round attrition accuracy, whether you 'saw' the target or simply stuck your muzzle up and let the weapon attack a predesignated target with your trigger-held permission.

In any case, by shifting the weight back towards the shoulder and pulling the clip out from a ventral mag well, you do help with both muzzle control and user clearance of the weapon from a prone position or around obstacles/windows/entryways (between their breasts and their shorter arms, women in particular have a very hard time getting accurate with a long gun which they have to arch their backs significantly off the ground to clear the magazine and hold 'muzzle high' to anchor against a typically narrower shoulder muscle pad. As bad as recruitment has gotten, it is inevitable that women join the combat infantry ranks if we stay in Iraq much longer... Either that or we will be down to employing mercenary levvies like the Romans once did.)

Again, if you have a 3ft long weapon, each magazine weighs 1-1.5lbs, AND you have a need to fire continuously aimed engagements for a full minute before needing to reload (45-90rds in semi or 3rd burst) in a FIBUA close-in ambush environment (where the first minute is often determinative as to who wins and who lives to run away and try to slaughter another day); it simply doesn't make sense to pay the equivalent weight penalty for THREE 30rd clips to feed the 'shortest axis' of the weapon.

I know that there are some who argue the clumsiness of toploaders vs. an 'instinctive thrust' up the well from below but the reality remains:

1. You have to lift and/or turn the weapon either way and this means pulling your eyes off sight picture and fumbling for the magazine release button which is itself a massive signature indicator.

2. If someone can see you doing 'any of the above process' by which you are changing mags in the middle of a firefight, you're freakin' dead at the convenience of their own casual accuracy vs. whatever residual level of suppressive fires the rest of the squad is still putting out.

Thus the REAL question is _Why The Hell You Ran Out Of Rounds To Begin With_. And that question will never be properly answered in a ventral feed system which has to force heavy, long, rounds upwards against gravity within a magazine spring system that a man can force down hard enough to load more than 30 staggered cartridges without feed irregularities resulting somewhere early or late in the fire out process.

The only reasonable alternative being an M249 type (200rd) box system and that in turn makes the _total_ weapon weight more than most riflemen can accurately shift fires with.


KPl.

5.54 still has inferior knockdown punch. Even a hit with that round will not give you the type of disabling effect the 7.62 will. More rounds do not mean more kills if you have to hit the man twice. This has been said by countless people talking about the M-16.

And this is why the Ak-47 is still a lethal gun.
Cheap, big round, big clip, never fails.

Another one of ch1466's techno-babble posts . If there are any other members from Mars I would seriously love to know what on earth this means:

"It is better by far to let them spray from a comfortable mid-forward 'push' or waist tucked 'twist' position while using a _FLEX MUZZLE_ attachment center up their aimpoint."

For reference, the P90 magazine aligns the rounds nose forward, sorry, let me put that into your language:

"The spring tab follower in the semi-transluscent choate constructed ammunition holding device re-orientates the 5.7mm solid cored projectiles through a 90 degree re-alignment arc prior to presentation in the bolt's linear pathway and insertion into the weapon's chamber. This is achieved via the use of Newtonian physics and advanced Gauss theory via the use of specifically designed TAP devices, towhit, a spring and an angled buffer at the terminal (presentation) end of the ammunition holding device."

Originally posted by Raideur
5.54 still has inferior knockdown punch. Even a hit with that round will not give you the type of disabling effect the 7.62 will. More rounds do not mean more kills if you have to hit the man twice. This has been said by countless people talking about the M-16.

And this is why the Ak-47 is still a lethal gun.
Cheap, big round, big clip, never fails.

Lord, where do I start. Firstly, it's 5.45mm NOT 5.54mm, secondly, which 7.62mm round are you talking about, 7.62x51 or 7.62x39, big difference. Thirdly, it's a MAGAZINE, not a CLIP.

As for the rest of your post, I really don't have the time to go over everything, but the 5.45mm was referred to by the Taliban as the "poison bullet". Men shot with it were wounded far more critically than those shot with 7.62x39 rounds (there is a big reason why) and define "knockdown punch" do you mean energy, momentum, or terminal ballistics.

The 7.62x54 is overkill for anything under 500m, but the 7.62x39 is still the large round with a good size cartrige behind it. And knockdown punch being not only to literally take someone down, but the damage done by the large round spreading out is greater than the smaller one, and yes Im sorry I switched the numbers.
Making the bullets smaller so you can fit more rounds in a clip, which is pretty much the same thing a magazine... is not the answer if the rounds do not have stopping power when needed.
I understand you can give the 5.45 the speed, but unless you plan on some exotic type of bullet, it wont cause the damage soldiers want. As in they want every hit to "count."

ok I think I understand you now, but 7.62 x 54 is now only used as a sniper round (Dragunov etc), I think you mean 7.62 x 51, and I would disagree that it is overkill under 500M, especially as your argument is that we should have more powerful rounds (which I sort of agree with).

7.62x39 doesn't "spread out", it doesn't expand or fragment in military loadings, standard 5.56mm ball ammo does fragment (under certain velocity related conditions).

To be honest, I'm a fence sitter on this one. I alternate between 5.56mm, 6.8SPC, 7.62 x 39, and 7.62 x 51 as my favorites. All things considered, if I had to go into combat right now, I would choose to be armed with an AR15 style weapon in 5.56mm loaded with the new Black Hills Mk.262 Mod 1 military special contract ammunition. But I would not presume to argue with someone carrying a 16 inch barrelled DSA 58 (FN FAL copy) in 7.62 x 51 - an equally great choice.

5.56mm is a truly devastating round that is being refined to offer more reliable performance out of the short 14.5 inch barrels. We all tend to forget that the 5.56mm was designed for use with a 20 inch barrel, it really needs velocity to work well. Those chopped off M4 carbines that the Marines run around with are not a good fit for standard 5.56mm ball if used beyond 100M - that's the problem.

WRT,

---
"It is better by far to let them spray from a comfortable mid-forward 'push' or waist tucked 'twist' position while using a _FLEX MUZZLE_ attachment center up their aimpoint."
---

I am one of those schooled to shoot the gun, not the sights.

Admittedly, this works better when the target is under 50m out but it is based on the notion that you can get into a 'a groove' of kinesthetic feel (muscle memory helping you sense and lock repetitive skeletal positioning).

Which is more repeatably accurate than trying to switch from wide to narrow field of vision while 'tweaking' a fine aimpoint and maintaining even a walking pace of advance hunched over a weapon pulling you forward even as it blocks your path view through unfamiliar terrain.

Target acquire,
Weapon up,
Head over,
Sight,
Squeeze,
Weapon Down (clearing the lower 40` of the search box),
New Target Search.

Then being so much more complicated.

If you think pistol or SMG, a 'push' is therefore bringing the weapon up to whatever fixed orientation (visual perspective reference point) you are comfortable with as a lock point for the straight line orientation between your shoulders, elbows and wrists.

Before, as a function _of that established motion_, accepting the recoil and/or muzzle rise that follows trigger release by dynamically compensating for it as a function of continuing through with the weapon-up _forward thrust_.

You are admittedly going to be typically firing short of eyeline alignment through vee and post or true focus into combat optics, especially on a long gun.

But in trade, you are firing at a more constant point of felt recoil vs. amplified WEAPON kinetic absorption of same. Which makes followup reengagement that much easier and teaches you to hold a _level grip_ (the absolute fundamental skill of weapon based marksmanship) extremely quickly.

Those two things then making it much easier to average out a consistent target grouping. I also find that it helps novices get over 'the flinch' of knowing they are setting off the firing impulse that will lead to the report and action function. Largely due to the hot gas, loud noise and sudden movement of the bolt/slide being literally less //in// their faces than in below it.

A twist is prelocking the weapon across the waist so that the muzzle index is more or less stabilized at the belly button and the trigger hand at a following hip start position before bringing that hand and leg forward as you swing the weapon across with UPPER torso movement.

This insures that the direction of motion stays oriented towards the lead leg and only limited head scan is needed to compensate for the felt shift of the muzzle coming across the center of the WFOV scanning sight into the peripherals.

The problem is then (biometrically) restricted to trigger control as the muzzle stops and then reswings the oppositde direction at the end of each walking stroke.

My 'innovation' being the notion that if you train your eye to a pointer and /then/ shooting, you are going to be slower than a man who simply snaps one off on a skeletal tension point for individual targets.

While for grouped threats, you are slowing your start-stop-restart aimpoint settling process even more (the trigger hand also stopping the gun arc through the same muscle set).

BUT if you are dealing with a grouped threat and particularly a grouped threat which occupies a variable range of near-far/sloped/popup positions (which effects motion parallax and stereoscopy for accurate aimpoint selection using conventional, sightbased, techniques anway).

Then _holding the trigger down_ as a consent mechanism while letting the pointer 'engage as it comes to bear' (much faster, more reliable, sear release as an electrical solenoid detente to initiate firing) via a pupil dilation/retinal focus tensioning inherent to threat recognition.

Is likely to be equal on single target snap shooting.

And VASTLY faster as a total-group/ambush servicing of numbered popup threats.

Since you only need see a target 'collide' (2D) with the pointer arc as the barrel precesses back across each _single_ opponent without change in visual psychology (your brain literally scans a scene 'at infinity' from one region and depth-searches with another with a noteable lag in shifting from one mode to the next) or kinesthetic lockup and restart on the muscles.

>>
For reference, the P90 magazine aligns the rounds nose forward, sorry, let me put that into your language:
>>

This is the image I was working from-

remtek.com...

On this page-

remtek.com...

To me it seems as if I am staring at the primer end of rounds that are laid horizontally and orthagonally /across/ the long axis of the weapon.

If so, then you have to turn the round 90` 'forward' (towards the base of the magazine stack) before you can begin to chamber it and that seems...unusual.

OTOH my memories of the G-11 were of a gun which had rounds columnated like so: ||||||||||||||||| with the rotary receiver block taking each stripped round downwards and bringing it around (counter clockwise) to present to the chamber without changing the orientation of the cartridge longitudinal axis beforehand.

I could be wrong, it's been awhile.


KPl.

Uh...

How do recoil dampeners work? How can we improve on that?

1. Gauss Technology: Can fire almost at the speed of light! We've already gotten 2 work on a Gauss Pistol:

www.pskovinfo.ru...

In a test, RAIL Technology is better 4 larger weapons than 4 small arms compared 2 Gauss Tech.

2. Armor Piercing HE rds: I think they've got a .22 version, so it'll b a lot better. It could penetrate body armor, and do heavy damage 2 flesh. Obviously, not good 4 SWAT Teams, but 4 the military, it's a "must-have". Espicallyt sense "our enemies r using body armor 2".

3. Caseless Rds: I agree. Now, like ya'll said, we need 2 find a reliable material.

4. Not so complicated OICWs: Ppl r right, they're not easy 2 use. They'll b like the AN-94s. A great weapon, but not easy 2 4 regular troops, except the M29 would b a lot harder.

5. Bullpop Design: Simple: Better range and accuracy while keeping it compact. I mean, the Steyr AUG has a longer barrel than the G3. I would prefer the P90s Mag Design, but that won't b good 4 support weapons sense u would have 2 make the mags sooooo long. Nor would it b good 4 larger calibers cause it would have 2 b even wider.

[edit on 1-8-2005 by SEAL Trident]