NationStates

The Manticoran Empire wrote:That was an issue with the rifles of the early 20th century, lethal out to more than 1,000 meters but used by soldiers who can't hit targets beyond 300 meters.

Sure they could. Rifle sights were graduated out to 2000 meters for perfectly good reasons.

gotta win the gravel belly battles of the far future of 191X

Triplebaconation wrote:

The Manticoran Empire wrote:That was an issue with the rifles of the early 20th century, lethal out to more than 1,000 meters but used by soldiers who can't hit targets beyond 300 meters.

Sure they could. Rifle sights were graduated out to 2000 meters for perfectly good reasons.

You can graduate your sights to the horizon for all I care. It does not mean that you can effectively engage targets at that range. A man sized target at 600 meters is going to be smaller than your front sight post. At a thousand meters, you may not even see it. At 2,000 meters, it's even worse. To reliably engage targets at those ranges, you would require a scope with relatively high magnification as well as an understanding of the wind speed, bullet drop, and other such issues. Things that take a while to teach and will be useful in only a handful of scenarios.

Furthermore, why should your riflemen engage any target more than about 500 meters away? You have mortars, you have towed and self-propelled howitzers, you have aircraft with, presumably, high explosive ordnance. Why should your infantry open fire on targets that they can't reliably hit, thereby giving away their location to that hostile force who can then call in artillery and other such weapons to more efficiently destroy your infantry?

https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.co ... anges.html

Because when the rifles were introduced none of those things existed (yes, howitzers existed, but not modern ones), nor did they reach anything like their full potential until WW2.

Volley fire with long-range rifles was the decisive weapon of mobile warfare from the introduction of rifled muskets until ubiquitous mechanization, quickly responsive indirect fire, and lightweight machine guns (note that almost nobody starting using assault rifles until after they had some kind of GPMG in service.)

A decent infantry unit could engage area targets like an enemy infantry unit (rather than individuals) at a mile, and a mile and a half wasn't unheard of - this kind of fire produced relatively few casualties, but it was an effective way to delay and disrupt enemy movements.

Every unit had crack shots, of course. These were the guys who could establish the range to the enemy unit and pass it along to everyone else. Or you could use the relatively limited artillery or machine guns of the time to get the range.

It was recognized in the 19th century that rifle fire was most effective inside 400 meters or yards or whatever. Making a rifle optimized for 400 yards would have been stupid because the rifle also had most of the responsibility of engaging long-range area targets. This responsibility gradually lessened over the years, but a full-power rifle probably wasn't a suboptimal choice until the 50s.

The Manticoran Empire wrote:

Triplebaconation wrote:
Sure they could. Rifle sights were graduated out to 2000 meters for perfectly good reasons.

You can graduate your sights to the horizon for all I care. It does not mean that you can effectively engage targets at that range. A man sized target at 600 meters is going to be smaller than your front sight post. At a thousand meters, you may not even see it. At 2,000 meters, it's even worse. To reliably engage targets at those ranges, you would require a scope with relatively high magnification as well as an understanding of the wind speed, bullet drop, and other such issues.

WHEEZE

infantry companies in 1890 were expected to fight as large, close units, not dissimilar to the US Civil War, waterloo, or something

so like ~200 men shoot together in synchronized mass fires at targets a few hundred meters square a mile or two away

then you close to the final 100 yards and bayonet charge the enemy from his trenches

rinse-repeat until youve taken petersburg/port arthur

The Manticoran Empire wrote:

The united American-Isreali empire wrote:

I agree i think the power of the ammo is helpful. But I do like the ammo for long ranged shooting if needed. But for intermediate use 6.5 and 6.8 ammo was the main subject. What my point was answering what i prefer. But I do believe 5.56mm nato isn't as good as the 6.5 and 6.8 ammo.

Then have a designated marksman in the squads. There is no point in giving soldiers ammo that has more range than they will need. That was an issue with the rifles of the early 20th century, lethal out to more than 1,000 meters but used by soldiers who can't hit targets beyond 300 meters.

i say train infantry to shoot this long, and give em scopes. i hear sights are common today. again personal preference, not whats out today.

For cartridge to have better pen of armor, for small arms, should it be longer, larger, or both ? Technically still under 8mm and controllable in full auto.

Gallia- wrote:
infantry companies in 1890 were expected to fight as large, close units, not dissimilar to the US Civil War, waterloo, or something

Not really. To maneuver a large number of men to where they need to be quickly you pretty much have to put them in a marching column. Ideally from the introduction of the rifled musket they'd go into open order outside of the range of enemy rifles and artillery. (This hasn't changed much since then or Troy I guess, although obviously the ranges have increased.)

The cases you read about from 1914 of columns being shredded were mostly due to them not going into open order soon enough due to reconnaissance failures or very fluid situations - plus ça change, plus c'est la même.

Of course later in the war you had units that weren't used to maneuver so they were dumbfounded when they made a breakthrough and couldn't really exploit it.

ic

i guess no longer needing to mass firepower once the rifle musket shows up means that skirmish formation becomes viable for literally everyone rly ye

Yeah but you can't really maneuver a skirmish line very far or fast.

The united American-Isreali empire wrote:

The Manticoran Empire wrote:Then have a designated marksman in the squads. There is no point in giving soldiers ammo that has more range than they will need. That was an issue with the rifles of the early 20th century, lethal out to more than 1,000 meters but used by soldiers who can't hit targets beyond 300 meters.

i say train infantry to shoot this long, and give em scopes. i hear sights are common today. again personal preference, not whats out today.

Training isn't the issue, a well trained marksman is going to have trouble hitting a man sized moving target in the time that target is going to be exposed. Especially since the target isn't going to be at a known range, wind conditions will be hard to determine, and the shooter is unlikely to be in an ideal position, and probably under fire themselves.

Firing out to these distances requires specialized training and gear, an important note is snipers work as part of a team, with a spotter. When regular infantry with sights out to thousands of yards/meters was a thing the infantry were not engaging individual targets, but instead engaging in volley fire at area targets, and even then they generally weren't very good at it and the oppertunity to engage this way was relatively rare.

6.5 and 6.8 are better at range, but they weigh more. What is more important, more ammo or more range? More ammo is always more useful but more range is situational for a modern infantry unit which should have a plethora of ways to engage the enemy at extended ranges. If you don't have those capabilities and you don't have modern rifles, see late 19th and early 20th century, then the extended range is more reasonable because you aren't losing as much and you don't have as much to cover the gap.

Gallia- wrote:if you lose the esbit stove you eat the food cold i guess

steel helmets are most versatile, dig a small hole, put a pot on top, and cook

Spirit of Hope wrote:Training isn't the issue, a well trained marksman is going to have trouble hitting a man sized moving target in the time that target is going to be exposed. Especially since the target isn't going to be at a known range, wind conditions will be hard to determine, and the shooter is unlikely to be in an ideal position, and probably under fire themselves.

Firing out to these distances requires specialized training and gear, an important note is snipers work as part of a team, with a spotter. When regular infantry with sights out to thousands of yards/meters was a thing the infantry were not engaging individual targets, but instead engaging in volley fire at area targets, and even then they generally weren't very good at it and the oppertunity to engage this way was relatively rare.

6.5 and 6.8 are better at range, but they weigh more. What is more important, more ammo or more range? More ammo is always more useful but more range is situational for a modern infantry unit which should have a plethora of ways to engage the enemy at extended ranges. If you don't have those capabilities and you don't have modern rifles, see late 19th and early 20th century, then the extended range is more reasonable because you aren't losing as much and you don't have as much to cover the gap.

Basically this. No matter how well trained your average infantry, and how precise their individual weapons, you will not be getting reliable hits beyond 300m. In fact, you'd probably be getting more accurate fire around the 600m range with 5.56mm due to the heavier recoil of 7.62 or 6.5mm options.

The main reason for people on NS going with 6.5mm Grendel or something sexy is because rule of cool tends to prevail on this site and the stats on paper of these weapons cause them to be overhyped. Personally, I would say to step back and actually design your nation's military around a cohesive doctrine. Small arms is a great place to start, since infantry tactics and the weapons involved in them are fairly simple and a lot of NS military roleplaying revolves around the infantry.

That's not to say that you can't have some rule of cool elements in there, but be sure to also touch on the downsides of these elements so you don't sound full of yourself. For example, the Green Union service rifle is currently a full sized 7.62x51mm battle rifle. This is, of course, a terrible idea in real life. But I get a lot more mileage out of writing up and roleplaying the quirks and flaws of GU infantry than I would if I simply said "my weapons and tactics are the best."

Micro-calibers for example rule the Kassaran armed forces, things of 5.45mm being the largest -outside of marksman and sniper rifles- and everything else being lower. The SMG's are caseless 4.5mm because you're not really shooting to kill, but suppress hunting parties at your crash or landing site.

I use my 5.5mm Purpelian for rifles, 7.5x55mm Swiss for MG's and snipers and stuff and 7.5x25mm Felix MSP as my PDW round. The later is like a supercharged 7.5mm pistol round with a nasty pointy bullet made to penetrate armor and like murder children and whatnot.

"Terra's right arm" for centuries, the Winfield R75 was adopted by the Terran Union as its standard infantry rifle after it absorbed the North Atlantic Federation in the late 1st century AG. Firing a 7/5x50mm squeeze-bore round from a 20-round magazine at 1800 rpm in bursts and 600 rpm in fully automatic, the R75 was capable of piercing a 20mm Duralon plate at 500 meters. Standard sights were adjustable from 100-1000 meters and 0-1.25 standard gees and could be easily replaced with infrared or starlight snooper scopes. The straight-line Zerlon stock featured an integral bipod, allowing the R75 to be used as a light machine gun with optional 50-round drum magazines. A variety of bayonets were issued over the years, from knives for terrestrial use to spikes designed for penetrating pressure suits.

Triplebaconation wrote:(Image)

SPIW is that you

and will there be more?

since we opened this thread with food we will end it with food:

What, in your opinion, would the best multi-purpose helicopter be as far as infantry transport and fire support? Would I be better off going with American or Russian helicopters? Does the Osprey have the potential (or already doing so) to replace attack helicopters as well as troop transport?

Ormata wrote:What, in your opinion, would the best multi-purpose helicopter be as far as infantry transport and fire support? Would I be better off going with American or Russian helicopters? Does the Osprey have the potential (or already doing so) to replace attack helicopters as well as troop transport?

The Mi-24 because it is the one and only one ever created that actually does the job.

Ormata wrote:What, in your opinion, would the best multi-purpose helicopter be as far as infantry transport and fire support? Would I be better off going with American or Russian helicopters? Does the Osprey have the potential (or already doing so) to replace attack helicopters as well as troop transport?

Mi-24 is probably the best but in theory you could use a modified Blackhawk or Huey
I know they were discussing attaching weapons to an Osprey but nothing concrete/good enough at the moment to really take over

Dothrakia wrote:

Ormata wrote:What, in your opinion, would the best multi-purpose helicopter be as far as infantry transport and fire support? Would I be better off going with American or Russian helicopters? Does the Osprey have the potential (or already doing so) to replace attack helicopters as well as troop transport?

Mi-24 is probably the best but in theory you could use a modified Blackhawk or Huey
I know they were discussing attaching weapons to an Osprey but nothing concrete/good enough at the moment to really take over

You can attach guns to a Mi-26 if you are crazy enough. But if it hasn't been done odds are it's not a good idea to do it.

Bottom line here is really that nobody but the VDV really had a desire to build a flying IFV and thus they were the only ones to make one. So if you have the same requirement odds are your engineers are going to come up with a similar design as opposed to something kludged together just so that you don't have to use soviet tech.

Why were the Russians the only ones who wanted/needed a flying IFV? Are helicopters usually better off with a "division of labor" between attack and utility helicopters, or were the Russians the smart ones here?

Greater Catarapania wrote:Why were the Russians the only ones who wanted/needed a flying IFV? Are helicopters usually better off with a "division of labor" between attack and utility helicopters, or were the Russians the smart ones here?

Russians enjoy making things fly (Honestly unsure).

Thank you everyone! Good information.