DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus School safety and the gun issue...

Well to be fair, your followers are seemingly trumplodytes so any sense of perceived humor must be tested against the idiocy of the ideology.

What weapons of war do people have BTW? I keep hearing this term, please explain.

Name one country or military that uses an AR15 for war. Ill wait....

the AR-15 might as well be a M4. as someone who rocked the M4 for 4 deployments, its why i bought the AR 15. might as well be the same damn weapon. the only difference between the two when it came to shooting was that the M4 has semi and 3 round burst, while the AR only has semi.

we didn't have full auto rifles because thats what the SAW and 240B was for.

you can literally swap out the M4/M16 for an AR 15 and the only thing soldiers would have to adjust to is zeroing the rifle.

the new m4a1 is fully auto, but that hasn't be integrated into the entire military yet.

Swish - what were the thoughts and opinions of yourself and those you served with about not having continuous full auto fire available on their personal weapon? Any consensus or lots of different opinions? Based just on personal preference or real reasons why it actually did or did not work well for the task?

Good, bad, nobody cared, what? Would this have been useful and something good to have, or is the three-round burst enough? Was this used a lot, all the time, or mostly or sometimes was semi-auto mode used?

One way to put this would be to ask if soldiers died because they did not have full-auto available on their personal weapon? Rare and unusual, or often enough that it was a problem?

this is the part were i wish Lead would chime in, because he's a ranger with more training in urban environments and such than i have as a gunner during convoy ops.

but IMO *and i stress IMO* we roll with semi and 3 round burst rifles because they are accurate weapons, combined with ammo consumption.

a full combat load is 210 rounds, or 7 magazines. so you have 1 already in the rifle, and 6 mags on your IOTV.

could you imagine how quick soldiers would burn through that ammo with a full auto rifle? nevermind the fact that just with gear on, its ALTEAST 45-65 pounds.

so if you have a full squad of soldiers with full auto rifles, in theory anyway, you have to raise the combat load, and now you're sacrificing mobility for more fire power.

unfortunately i've been in fire fights just running stupid ass convoy ops. but the enemy has AK's, full auto rifles, and can't hit crap. they get lucky every now and then, but alot of the casualties we sustained in the middle east were due to guerilla warfare tactics:

roadside bombs. we called it a complex ambush. so basically Mohammed would set up either a Remote IED and such, set it off at a certain point in the convoy (typically the middle truck in an attempt to split the convoy up) and then ambush with their piece of trash toyota pickups and/or hide behind or inside buildings. their aim is god awful terrible. they manage to hit everything BUT the gunners, but thats because we're in armored trucks. my homeboy had his 240B jam on him, so he picked up his M4 and started shooting at them, and hit multiple insurgents because:

A. when you use semi or 3 round burst, you have more control of the rifle and makes for much better accuracy, and
B. on the off chance guys are running ground ops, you're not subject to the "spray and pray" mentality, and it actually LOWERS the chances of collateral damage.

so i can't speak for anybody elses unit, but just for the units i were in, we never even talked about wanting full auto rifles, because since we were gunners running convoy ops, we have .50 cals and 240B mounted on our trucks anyway.

but again, i would love for Lead to chime in because he actually does and know way more urban/ground operations than i do.

Interesting. When you refer to load-out of 45-55 pounds, that include everything in the backpack, or everything you are carrying, including rifle and ammo? I thought it was around 80 pounds or more, maybe that's for a long-term ground operation? Was there material stored in the vehicle that would otherwise have been carried, or was there stuff you didn't carry at all or much less because you were motorized, like extra water or rations?

What would you say is the typical range you engaged at, and also maximum range? Anything over 2-300 yards?

im not saying anything else to you. kick rocks.

Hey Peg: Does it matter how polite your words are - or does it matter what your intent is?

THAT'S El HegPah!

Neither one of those things matters in the slightest. Zero importance.

All that matters is whether or not the desired goal is achieved. That's it.

The fact that Swish got all bent out of shape is because I told him things he did not want to hear. Get used to it, it is going to happen again.

BTW, were you the one who had the 1718 date on the Puckle gun? Was just about to post on that. According to Gun Jesus, you are correct.

j/c

Weaponry in teh hands of civilians back during the Revolutionary War era weren't just limited to muskets. Nelson, you seem to have a good grasp of history.. IIRC, weren't they called 'privateers' that had cannons? Those who owned ships and were commissioned to protect the water ways?

So for anyone who asks the question as to whether or not civilians should have access to the same weaponry as the gov't, seems to me the precedent has already been set.

Besides, that whole point is a non-issue in practice anyways. Even your more ardent NRA supporters are trying to get restrictions lifted on explosives and automatic weapons.

That post makes 100% sense to me.

now that i got through your laughable BS in the other thread, here's the response:

our gear continues to get lighter. for example, the older vest we use to wear was heavier than the new IOTVs they issued us. now, i've been out since 2014, so for all i know, it's got even lighter, or they are coming out with an IOTV that's even lighter than the first generation.

also, it only gets to 80 pounds with our rucksacks on. but typically everybody throws their gear into the truck, that way you're walking around as light as possible. when soldiers are patrolling the streets, they aren't walking around with the ruck on. and we rarely, if ever, march anymore, especially in the desert lmao. you know how many soldiers would pass out due to heat exhaustion wearing all that nonsense?

it got to the point where we couldn't even take our gun trucks out on mission if the AC didn't work. we called those trucks "deadline" and have to PMCS another truck to take out. obviously that wasn't the case during the initial invasion, but things have changed.

a lot.

i personally never engaged with anything past 1500 yards. remember, these guys have craptastic aim, they HAVE to be close in order to be effective. but actual gun fights weren't all that common, especially in iraq. yea, we were wide in the open, but so were they, and they knew they couldn't win in a straight up gun fight, which is why they use guerilla tactics.

now afghanistan is a different ball game. these assholes know the mountains like the back of their hands. so they have more time to set up and create a lot more chaos than a lot of those guys in iraq, and IMO, the complexity of their attacks has to be respected.

thankfully, we didn't have an ambush happen after one of the IEDs went off in the mountains, and none of our vics got hit, but the blast made a bunch of rocks tumble on the road, so we were expose for a long time while we tried to clear it up and push on. but there's times where that happens to other convoys, and the ambush did happen. thankfully i wasn't part of that in afghanistan. most of the crap i've been apart of happened in iraq.

but yea, the army now is about mobility. we have to be mobile because our enemy is mobile. so if we're still carrying around a bunch of gear like the old school days, we are at a disadvantage. the kind of weapons tend to matter little, its more about tactics.

we also have to look...i guess if you want to say, less intimidating. because even George bush understood that we aren't in traditional warfare anymore. it's about hearts and minds.

Swish - I probably used the wrong word. By engaged, do you mean you were shooting at targets 1500 yards away, with your infantry rifle?

Just as a thought, if you did it once or twice, does that mean it was common or happened a majority of the time?

Were 1500 yard engagements a major portion, or would they represent a fringe area?

with the rifle? god no lmfao!! with the 50 bro!!! and thats eyeball math. it was probably closer than that, but if i'm firing the 50 or 240, the range of the enemy was probably between 500-1000 yards, 1500 is the max i ever think i shot at something.

but also you gotta understand that for the most part, we were NOT allowed to fire at people solo dolo. meaning, i could only fire the 50 at equipment aka people in trucks or buildings with the approval of the CC (convoy commander). we have to use our rifles if we're just firing at people on the ground, because it's an excessive force issue.

the ROE's and EOF's are very complicated.

again, 1500 is rare.

we engage close because they are close. plus we also have to wait until fired upon.

Many army units, and militia, had cannons.

The "privateers", or pirates, operated in a sort of limbo. Private citizens, government contractors, criminals, they were rarely officially recognized. Many countries did it, most denied it and accused the other guys of doing it.
"Letters of Marque" were issued. Extremely vague contracts.

Yes, they definitely had cannons, but whether or not they were private citizens - depends on who won the war, and then exactly how that particular pirate acted, whether they would get a medal or a hanging, or just get ignored.

SFAIK whatever they took they kept, including ships and cannon, in England they usually paid the King a percentage but in the US they were more independent.

Swish - first, I should mention that I never served, I do not want you to get the impression I said something I didn't.

I was pretty sure that the M16, or its variants, was not at all effective at anything like 1500 yards, but that does not mean nobody ever tried it. Just a question, do you know for certain that nobody ever did, or just that damn near everybody knew it made no sense?

I just do not get the concept of excessive force in a military engagement. Wasting munitions, OK, but how do you kill the enemy too much? Were there situations where you could use the 50 on your own initiative, or absolutely always had to get command approval?

Also, did you ever experience, or hear of, a soldier who, for whatever reason, rendered himself or his weapon combat ineffective and if so what action was taken by the unit, not necessarily command? I mean like drunk, trippin, wouldn't clean his rifle, sleeping, etc?

The M16A4 was the variant I trained with when I was in the Marines back in '06-'12. It was designed to conceivably be accurate out to 800yrds w/ iron sights, but we never shot that far. The farthest we ever went for qualification was 500yrds, and that was with and without the ACOG, which was a 4x scope.

Even at 500yrds, shooting an M16 accurately required a good amount of adjustment to compensate all the variables, such as wind. I think the 5.56 round is too light to get a shot off at 1500. When you start getting beyond the 500 yrd range, I believe that's when you start seeing the deployment of what we'd consider your standard high powered hunting rifles. And of course for crazy ass distances you see people using .50 cal rifles. Swish had a lot more combat/patrol experience than I, so I'd defer to him.

nah bro i thought we were just having a discussion lol.

im pretty sure somebody tried to lol. but really, anything past 800 yards and you're just kind of hoping you hit something, that or just trying to lay suppressive fire.

im sure somebody can show a competition video of marksmen hitting targets at 800+ with a basic rifle. but in the desert, with wind and sand, with the adrenaline pumping, and most likely moving target, it's a complete waste of time.

so im sure somebody tried it. im sure somebody might have hit whatever they were aiming at. just from my end, i've never tried, and i don't know anybody who's ever tried.

so excessive force is complicated.

so first, at least with discussing it on this board, we have to establish basic excessive force principles.

ok. so if a kid is throwing a rock at my truck, is the appropriate response to then point and shoot the kid with a 50 cal?

no.

is the appropriate response to then aim my rifle and shoot the kid?

no.

is the appropriate response to throw the rock right back at the little crapstain?

absolutely. and thats what we use to do. before convoys, we go around and pick up rocks, just incase those little bastards decided to get tough. some of us (not proudly in hindsight) would even through our pee bottles at their ass if they tossed rocks.

ok, so thats a simple scenario.

now here's the complicated one.

we're rolling down the street, and approach a choke point. we're in an urban area. we start taking fire from insurgents inside a building. you can identity where the shots are coming from. you can see the insurgent.

is the appropriate response then to fire back with the 50?

that depends on a crap ton of factors, and thats where excessive force gets tricky. remember, these guys are experts at guerilla warfare. they also don't give to craps about human rights.

so if i decide to fire back at the insurgents, but that building ended up being a school, or a makeshift hospital, or some innocent family that they decided to post up in, the collateral damage i caused is excessive force, and now im possibly looking at UCMJ action.

because it's a crap storm if i end up injuring/killing more innocent people than the number of terrorist. at that point, no matter what, i was in the wrong.

and thats why it's complicated. in most cases, us gunners are good to engage if fired upon. but if youre in a middle of a village/city....ugh.

if i could use my rifle, that means i have better control over the weapon, most importantly better AIM, and quite possibly not hit anything other than the guy im shooting at.

now if we're in the middle of nowhere, and homeboys roll up in their toyotas with some machine gun mounted on top, i'm free to engage and let the 50 rip. because they have equipment (the truck, machine gun etc).

buildings are more complicated. if we know the building is empty, and they are just using it for cover, then yea we can tear it to shreds with the 50.

have you ever seen a 50 cal rip through buildings? i promise you, me and 4 other gunners (standard convoys have 5 gun trucks) can demolish a building faster than a bulldozer.

and thats why its a problem.

combat ineffective? lol, we just call those dirtbag soldiers. yea, they will get article 15's, and if it's bad enough, they will be sent back to the rear, get more UCMJ action, and possibly get kicked out, especially if it went down during a deployment.

and it happens for various reasons. some guys can't handle being deployed. we have a suicide problem DURING deployments that aren't really talked about a lot. and some guys who are just dirtbags in general. but the majority of the time, we already knew they were crap before we deployed, so they don't even come with us.

as far as drunk soldiers during deployment though....i mean....you're not "suppose" to drink downrange, just like you're not suppose to have sex during deployment.

that doesn't stop soldiers from doing both. to be honest, thinking on it, i can't remember a soldier who didn't drink every now and then. lord knows command was.

as long as nobody is doing that nonsense once mission kicks off, nobody says anything.

Not anymore! Thank you Trump!! he he