Infantry Discussion Thread 10: Shovel Edition [NO FWORDS]

[Fordorsia]

That's just a really thick barrel?

[Gallia-]

That's the point.

Retaining MG-42's QCB is probably better than water jacket. MG-42's rate of fire would demand an obscene quantity of ammunition with water cooling to be used like a Vickers or something.

[Fordorsia]

hmmm thats not as cool as watercooled

[Gallia-]

IDK.

You'd be able to swap from heavy MG to GPMG in a short amount of time.

True universal machine gun.

Water cooling can be done to any gun, but in the place of MG-42, you'd be pinning it to a single job. Which kinda defeats the point of MG-42: Versatility.

A fortress barrel wouldn't be able to shoot for an arbitrary period of time like a water jacket, but with MG-42's rate of fire, I doubt you could supply enough ammunition for it to be a problem.

[Fordorsia]

I could just use my ribbed 15mm

A 15mm on each side of open topped armoured car with a 20mm hanging out its ass

[Crookfur]

I could just use my ribbed 15mm

A 15mm on each side of open topped armoured car with a 20mm hanging out its ass

If it's for a raiding vehicle why bother with water cooling? A raider would be more focussed on short bursts of maximum firepower rather than the ability to shoot for hours...

[Fordorsia]

I could just use my ribbed 15mm

A 15mm on each side of open topped armoured car with a 20mm hanging out its ass

If it's for a raiding vehicle why bother with water cooling? A raider would be more focussed on short bursts of maximum firepower rather than the ability to shoot for hours...

With something as fast as the MG42 I was thinking that with such a huge amount of shooting going on, it would need a waterjacket even with it being a short time

[Gallia-]

You don't hold down the trigger.

[Fordorsia]

You must

[Crookfur]

If it's for a raiding vehicle why bother with water cooling? A raider would be more focussed on short bursts of maximum firepower rather than the ability to shoot for hours...

With something as fast as the MG42 I was thinking that with such a huge amount of shooting going on, it would need a waterjacket even with it being a short time

Vickers ks/VGOs worked just fine for that in the desert.

[Fordorsia]

Would the MG 15 still work on its side?

Asking for a good cause

[Puzikas]

Most machine guns will work upside down!

Also I don't...I don't know if it's realized a lot, but you do re use the barrels you change. Just because they're hot doesn't mean they're useless. You change it after, you know, 400, 500 rounds, shoot the next one, then swap.

After 800 rounds a PKs barrel needs about 20 minutes to cool to handling point again

[Fordorsia]

Most machine guns will work upside down!

Very good

Also I don't...I don't know if it's realized a lot, but you do re use the barrels you change. Just because they're hot doesn't mean they're useless. You change it after, you know, 400, 500 rounds, shoot the next one, then swap.

After 800 rounds a PKs barrel needs about 20 minutes to cool to handling point again

Yeah I know. I just like overwhelming fire that never stops

[Puzikas]

There's a point where no more fire can really do anything

Like there is such a thing as too much saturation of fire. Past a point the enemy will no longer realize they're being shot at by another machine gun.

Two MGs in concert can fill the gaps each has and generally proves to be quite efficient at preventing the enemy from moving, barring them being a substantially larger formation or being armored.
Which is why there's ATGMs and ATGLs.

[Gallia-]

Constant streams of bullets are a myth.

There's a point where no more fire can really do anything

Like there is such a thing as too much saturation of fire. Past a point the enemy will no longer realize they're being shot at by another machine gun.

This can actually be quantified to an extent, too. The relationship between firepower and quantity of machine guns is decidedly non-linear, but I don't know the maths.

(...) The conclusions reached by the researchers during this study indicated that there were no differential effects between semi automatic fire and automatic fire when firing equal numbers of bursts and rounds per burst. They also concluded that the differences in number of rounds per burst of fire resulted in no differential effect on average duration of target exposure. However, they found that increasing the number of bursts over time had a greater effect on decreasing target exposure. As to whether random or systematic distribution of fire on the target area was better, it was concluded that random fire produced more target hits. The implication of this conclusion is that a random pattern of fire produces as much psychological effect as a systematic pattern and kills more targets.

Although the true values of the psychological effect of small arms fire are difficult to assess, the consistency of results in the studies done by Psychological Research Associates and combat experience by the author of this thesis lends inferential validity to the study results. Certainly, the absolute amount and type of fire required to neutralize the enemy will vary depending on the terrain, visibility, level of combat experience and training, and leadership. However, the relationship between relative amounts and types of fire and the enemy's reaction to fire should remain generally in line with the conclusions in these studies. (...)

(...) Testing showed that the machine guns were a very important part of the squads in both attack and defense situations. The loss of just one machine gun caused a decrease in the squad's fire effectiveness of twenty percent. The loss of both machine guns caused a decrease of thirty-five percent in fire effectiveness. (...)

The OCR scans of MAJ Kay's paper are kinda rubbish. Search for the quote up to the first "differential" will bring it up, but the following "effect" was rendered "effht".

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/clvnhk3gofntkg ... n.pdf?dl=0
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/3t4fyexi8s2vtc ... d.pdf?dl=0

[Puzikas]

That's the direct study I was referencing.
A similar Soviet study took place in WWII and a second in 1982 which lead to the Soviet decision that they were right all along.

I do know the maths kinda because they were used to an extent again in the 1989 ACR study.

[Gallia-]

Stoner 63 was cool I guess, but M16 HBAR is my winner. Then again I have communist sideclamps on Galla's M16s. The left side too, so shooters can see down the iron sights while they use their scope, because that's apparently a thing IRL. I thought I had a picture of some Iraqis with a Tabuk doing it, but I don't.

The US Army, for whatever reason, came to love belt-feds so much they bought a belt-fed BAR.

Belt-fed
Automatic
Rifle

M249 BAR.

Unfortunately the magazine adapter sinks that. Too useful to be abandoned and too obscure to be noticed by anyone who hasn't shot the gat. ;~;

[Fordorsia]

State of the art multiple weapons system

[Gallia-]

The casings will hit the sight.

[Fordorsia]

Ejection port is below it

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Ejection port is below it

That's the problem.

[Puzikas]

They'll bounce off the spring protector mg-15, apparently.

Both sets of brass will hit the opposite gun and the gun itself

Kek

[Gallia-]

Ejection port is below it

It's going to bounce when it hits the gun, though.

Spent cases are flung at surprising velocities and distances. I'd imagine it's little different with MG 15.

The best way to fix this would be some sort of chute or brass bag, like on tanks, which often have the same problem.

[Fordorsia]

Well there is a conveniently placed gap between the scope and 20mm. But I'll give it a deflector.

[Gallia-]

Well there is a conveniently placed gap between the scope and 20mm. But I'll give it a deflector.

The gap will exacerbate it because it'll let the casing ping off the cannon and hit the scope multiple times.



Something like that is just fine. You'd have to empty it occasionally, which just means pitching it out the top I guess, but it's better than risking equipment damage.

It's also tidy.