JTarrou
1mo ago
I think you're still drinking the marketing kool-aid. The ballistics are not that much better than conventional modern cartridges (6 ARC etc.), so the high pressures aren't getting you much more for all those trade-offs. The length doesn't matter much when the gun weighs 15-20 lb. Drop the suppressor to make it "as short as an M4" and the recoil is unmanageable (according to testers). The muzzle blast also gets much higher without the can, and you're envisioning shortening it to clear buildings? Guys' heads are going to pop trying to shoot these indoors with no can and no hearing protection.
JTarrou
1mo ago
I don't think this is the answer. Sustained fire is a more basic explanation, and a more important one.
JTarrou
1mo ago
80,000 PSI doesn't require that much more barrel.
Apparently it does. There's a reason no one else is running pressure like this, it's bonkers and for little reason. Any tiny improvements in ballistics are swallowed by the increase in weight. Beyond the pressure, the heat is also cranked way up, which the suppressor also serves as a sort of radiator. I'm guessing those barrels turn into noodles in half a mag if they're any lighter.
JTarrou
1mo ago
From the reports I've seen of guys who have shot the real hot stuff, the recoil is stupid without the suppressor. The can is basically necessary to make the gun comfortable to shoot, and that's another pound and a half of steel hanging off the front of the gun. Absurdly front-heavy.
There's no free lunch in physics.
Recently I had a disagreement with someone in here on the NGSW program and the SIG rifle it's based on. For the uninitiated, this is the Army's newest multibillion dollar boondoggle, rich with corruption and marketing lies. I've been bagging on this system since it was announced years ago, and it has progressed through military testing despite really withering criticism. Many people better qualified than I have articulated the problems with the system both conceptually and in practice. I want to focus on one simple thing that might be easier for non-military/gun people to understand. Weight.
Weight is incredibly important, which is why when I saw that the bare, unloaded weight of the gun was 9.8 lb, I knew it wasn't going to be a general issue weapon. We now know that the whole system in standard configuration weighs about 13.5lb unloaded and somewhere between fifteen and sixteen loaded, depending on ammo. This is with the fancy scope and suppressor, but crucially, not with a flashlight or IR laser device, both of which are standard for line infantry. With all that, we're pushing twenty pounds.
Forget all that extra weight, and just focus on the advertised 9.8 lb a moment. For comparison, the M4 variants most commonly issued now are about 6.5 lb. With sights, lights and lasers, about ten pounds. The old full-length M-16s that they dropped for those M4s weigh 7.5 lb. The gigantic, heavy M1 Garand from ww2 was 9.5, and didn't need any more weight to make it work. The 1903 Springfield, named for the year of its adoption, was 8.6. The last generally issued service weapon to weigh more than the bare NGSW was the french muskets they sent us in the Revolutionary war, and that's only because they were heavier than the British models. The Brown Bess musket from the eighteenth century weighed less than the bare SIG.
Roughly eight to ten pounds is what almost all standard-issue firearms weigh in practice. Any lighter and you add capability, any heavier and the average troop can't lug it.
If we count the actual loaded, serviceable weight of the gun, the last generally issued service weapon to be even close to that heavy was the Macedonian Sarissa pike, at 12-14lb.
If adopted generally, the NGSW would be by a substantial margin the heaviest weapon ever carried by the line in human history. The last infantry to have more weight in their hands were the Roman legions, if we're counting that big-ass shield. On weight alone, this gun is DOA for general issue.
JTarrou
1mo ago
Let me shorten this for you.
Amateur "pro" wrestler roid-rages during match, badly injures opponent.
Apparently subcontinental ethnic bigots have strong feelings on the matter, which is the more interesting bit.
He acts like a friend, and the two use cuss words when they talk.
and scene.
JTarrou
1mo ago
I'm saying if you want to use civilian definitions that every single platoon that has ever deployed to a hot zone commits "war crimes". Fuck me, even pictures are "war crimes". People have cell phones. Even soldiers. It's a meme in the vet community for a reason. There's war misdemeanors and war felonies. Even a few war capital crimes, but if you don't have a single technical "war crime" to your name, you've never seen combat. Bet.
Also, the laws of war are a bit like the laws of politics. It matters who wins.
No, almost none go that way. Officers start out in college, usually with a communications degree. Then they get a couple weeks learning military terminology, a few schools for their specialty, and then they get a platoon of dudes who don't respect them and wouldn't follow them into a public restroom. 99% aren't in combat billets. For the few who are, they spend six months to a year as second lieutenants on "the line", the only time in their career they'll regularly interact with real soldiers. Mostly they'll be bailing them out of jail and handling their pay.
After that, it's administration for twenty years, and if you're shit hot, maybe a command.
JTarrou
1mo ago
"War crimes"
Jesus. Son, you need an education.
Read up on the US civil war, especially the "irregular" areas. Go look up Canadian war trophies, WW1. Go read the history of the Red Army's advance to Berlin in WW2. Go read absolutely any actual memoir from any actual soldier in any actual war, and see how much of it you've been taught to think is "war crimes". Then go read the actual history and definition of war crimes and the incidence of prosecution (or not).
And when you're done, come back and tell the class what you learned. Right now, you simply don't know enough about the subject to even ask the right questions.
JTarrou
1mo ago
It's all officers, who by definition are not soldiers and know fuck and shit about fighting all making up theories about how soldiers fight. They quite literally know nothing. They're vaguely aware that they're in charge of fighting, and a good officer might even know which sergeant he needs to tell to go fight, but they know as much about the process as a big city mayor knows about trash collection.
Very nearly 100% of all military analysis, history and theory has been catalogued and written by people who have never even seen a gunfight firsthand, much less kicked a door. Interesting so far as it goes, but to use any of it as a practical manual is ridiculous.
JTarrou
1mo ago
Our understanding of insurgency is pretty developed at this point, and applying more violence is not the answer.
Uh, Hadrian wants a word.
Somehow I doubt the "understanding of insurgency" that you imagine exists actually works in any real sense. More violence or no violence are the only two answers.
JTarrou
1mo ago
Lol, WW2 was nicer than afghanistan?
See, this is the sort of thing civilians believe that makes it necessary for vets to have their own entertainment. Bonkers.
JTarrou
1mo ago
I was prepping for deployment when they rolled that "hearts and minds" shit out. We started referring to the Mozambique drill as the "Hearts and Minds" drill. Two in the heart, one in the mind.
JTarrou
1mo ago
The vets we see in politics today are coming commonly from middle-ranking specops officers (there's apparently a direct pipeline from Navy officers to congress). Previously it tended to be high-ranking commanding officers (Eisenhower) or low-ranking ones from aristocratic families (Kennedy, Bush). I'm not sure what the actual numbers are, or the trends over time, but the type of vets who are becoming politicians are changing.
JTarrou
1mo ago
Civilian discovers war involves killing and vets have dark senses of humor. And marines are gay.
News at 11.
JTarrou
1mo ago
And you interpreted that to mean if an international entertainment company ever produced a show aimed at boys, then what I said was falsified?
You guys are slaying that straw.
JTarrou
1mo ago
That's a lot of words for "I don't like the way poor people look and find them less sympathetic than cartoons".
Which is......a take.
JTarrou
2mo ago
So, they only broke the norms a bit by removing Trump from the ballot and charging him with a hundred felonies?
Sure, I say only remove half of them from the ballot and charge the Democrats with eighty felonies each. Let's de-escalate this shit!
JTarrou
2mo ago
It means they consistently believe this tactic will build them credibility to burn in the future on some more important issue. You're not even close to cynical enough for politics.
Nah, it's just that gunpowder is a mature technology, and has been for a century. There has been nothing new in firearms or ammunition in a hundred years. Frankly, I don't think there's much room to go anywhere significantly better until we get energy weapons. You can make the guns lighter, faster, bigger mags, more sighting capabilities, but the fundamental gun and cartridge haven't changed and probably won't much, ever.
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