From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: A thought about fully automatic weapons...
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Destructive Testing Systems
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 18:44:49 GMT

In article <102969@netnews.upenn.edu> yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee) writes:
>On tpg it is frequently stated that fully automatic weapons are less
>than useful in a militia and that all one really needs is a semi-automatic
>weapon.  The only real use of a fully automatic weapon is to lay down a
>field of fire to suppress the enemy.  Fully automatic fire is difficult 
>to aim and that it only results in the waste of ammunition.

Not only will you see this line of argument here, but also in Sci.military,
and among the military themselves. That's one of the reasons that the M16A2
no longer has a full automatic mode. When troops habitually go on full
rock and roll and spray and pray, much ammo is expended with little result.
So the current military thinking is to not issue full auto weapons to
the general run of troops and restrict full auto fire to specialists in
each squad who do the suppressive fire while the rest of the squad does
the actual killing.

>I have come to question the veracity of the statements which purport to
>say that fully automatic weapons are not really all that useful.  I speak
>not from experience but from other data points.

Full auto has it's uses, but it's not a general panacea. The squad
automatic weapon, heavy machinegun emplacements, and vehicle mounted
machineguns all have the primary purpose of laying down suppressive
fire, with the secondary purpose among the heavies of chewing up lightly
armored vehicles. They are useful, but only in restricted circumstances.

>First of all, I note that the military has not yet decided to forsake
>automatic weapons in favor of semi-automatic weapons.  Could it be that
>short bursts are indeed useful?  I note that the M-16 is capable of
>3 shot bursts.

That's mostly psychological. If you miss with the first shot, you're
going to miss with the next two as well. But the troops want to rock
and roll and would whine if they only got semi-autos. Note that there
is a small advantage to the three shot burst, it delivers about as
much bullet mass to the target as a single shot from a real rifle like
the M14. 3 55 gr .22s versus one 150 gr 30 cal. I see it mainly as
a grudging admission that the .22 is underpowered.

>Second, I take notice the arguments posed on rec.radio.cb and
>rec.radio.amateur.misc  For those of you who are not familiar with current
>FCC rules, CB's are restricted to 4watts.  Amateur radios (aka ham radios)
>can transmit as much as 1500watts.  In this analogy, CB's are the semi
>automatic weapons and Amateur radios are the fully automatic weapons.

No. A more accurate comparison would be that the CB is a .22 and the
amateur station is a 16 inch 45 off the New Jersey. It's a difference
in striking power rather than in frequency of transmissions.


Gary
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