m4 or SAR21?
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hey hey... s'pore tyrannosaur, chill man... it's just a topic... besides... this is about m4 vs sar21... not ociw... haha... relax lah... haha... looks like many of us should really do homework first... heh...
and about the issue of friendly fire, we'll just have to accept it... an infantryman only has a split second to decide whether to shoot at what he sees when in an intense firefight... otherwise, he might end up as the casualty instead...within that split second, if u see someone holding a gun and he happens to come from a place u are not aware of, will u fire at him? i guess so ya know? unless u want to end up in a flag-draped coffin... -
Look, ST, I did not say that 2-3 km is the OICW's range. It does not need to be. You obviously did not get what I was saying at all. I was questioning the idea that more firepower, longer range and more technological gizmos automatically means better warfighting ability.
Why not just nuke every country that opposes you? Or carbet bomb them with FAEs if you do not have WMD? That is the ultimate in firepower! Who needs stinking OICWs? Because war is not just about killing people and destroying things. It is about killing the RIGHT people and destroying the RIGHT things. And sometimes the only difference between the right and wrong people is the thoughts in their heads, which you cannot read through any form of sensor.
The emphasis should be on BETTER SOLDIERING AND LEADERSHIP. That includes the SAF, not just the Americans. That is how you fight wars of belief and ideology, where technology is useless.
Would I like to face the OICW in a stand-up fight? Of course not. So I won't give the Americans a stand-up fight. I will make it a guerilla war. I will wear civvies and ambush their men in cities full of women and children. I will shoot from schools and hide my weapons in hospitals. I will make sure the media is watching when the OICW grenades airburst in homes and detonate in churches. Grenades are even less discriminatory than bullets! Remember, in a war, the enemy will always confront you with the WORST CASE, which for OICW is guerilla war.
That is why it is irrelevant. It is too easily countered. It is like strengthening the guard on the gate, when there is an unprotected side door into the house. The Americans already have more than enough firepower with their M1s, M2s, M4s, M16s, M203s, MLRS, etc etc. There is no need for more. Would OICW or Land Warrior help with the situation in Iraq now? Would they have helped in Vietnam for that matter, where children laid booby traps, and the ARVN was full of traitors?
Instead, the Americans should train their men better for counterinsurgency and guerilla warfare. But training is a sunk cost. It does not result in profits for defense companies. So training is neglected in favor of technology that while impressive does not solve the problem that needs to be solved.
About M4 vs SAR21, the main problem with the M4 to me is the low destructive power of the round. A tiny 5.56mm round only possesses decent lethality when it hits a person with enough speed to fragment inside the body. Since the M4 has a 12" barrel, this effect only occurs at ranges up to 50m, while with a 20" M16 or SAR21 barrel, it happens up to >150m. Shooting an M4 at someone further than 100m would not result in many disabling casualties even if you hit. That is the reason why the M4 or any other carbine is simply unacceptable as a standard issue assault rifle for an infantry-heavy force like the SAF. We do not have organic armor with every infantry unit to provide killing power at longer range like the Americans do. Even the cool upcoming forward-ejecting bullpup FN F2000 only has a 16" barrel, which means it is also not good enough, unless rebarrelled. -
Nonsense, holding true to your logic, you better be happy with sticking to low powered 5.56mm, because you are better of learning how to shoot better and working on your tatics on closing witht he enemy to cause disabling injuriesthen using a more powerful round or barrel configuration.
There is always a place for overwhelming firepower, esp. in the case of the tatical applications of the OICWs, which opens up a new whole chapter in how infantrymen conduct their fighting.
You have also neglected the other aspects of the entire Land Warrior system, such as the information sharing and sensor intergration.
If the Land Warrior as they envisioned it went in today in Gulf War 2, as compared to modern day allied troops, the advantages afforded to them would have meant that a large number of the blue on blues would have been avoided. They would have fared far better, then the troops of today.
There you go, shoot yourself in the foot.
Training and tatics must be taught to the soldiers, be it counterinsurgency or such, but to use it as a subsitute of technology (we can stick with our M-16s) rather then being complementary, is prehaps being overly hopeful and humanstic, like people who think that fighter pilots will have a future... in the future.
Technology will contuine to evolve, and if you don't take advantage of it. You're toast. -
Does the Land Warrior aid in dealing with "non-conventional" targets? Given ur examples in the previous post, YES. U are right, that u don't just shoot at any humanoid therman blob. But at least u SEE it, and will be ready to engage it. Rather than walking into an ambush, and getting killed.Originally posted by dkhoo:Look, ST, I did not say that 2-3 km is the OICW's range. It does not need to be. You obviously did not get what I was saying at all. I was questioning the idea that more firepower, longer range and more technological gizmos automatically means better warfighting ability.
Why not just nuke every country that opposes you? Or carbet bomb them with FAEs if you do not have WMD? That is the ultimate in firepower! Who needs stinking OICWs? Because war is not just about killing people and destroying things. It is about killing the RIGHT people and destroying the RIGHT things. And sometimes the only difference between the right and wrong people is the thoughts in their heads, which you cannot read through any form of sensor.
The emphasis should be on BETTER SOLDIERING AND LEADERSHIP. That includes the SAF, not just the Americans. That is how you fight wars of belief and ideology, where technology is useless.
Would I like to face the OICW in a stand-up fight? Of course not. So I won't give the Americans a stand-up fight. I will make it a guerilla war. I will wear civvies and ambush their men in cities full of women and children. I will shoot from schools and hide my weapons in hospitals. I will make sure the media is watching when the OICW grenades airburst in homes and detonate in churches. Grenades are even less discriminatory than bullets! Remember, in a war, the enemy will always confront you with the WORST CASE, which for OICW is guerilla war.
That is why it is irrelevant. It is too easily countered. It is like strengthening the guard on the gate, when there is an unprotected side door into the house. The Americans already have more than enough firepower with their M1s, M2s, M4s, M16s, M203s, MLRS, etc etc. There is no need for more. Would OICW or Land Warrior help with the situation in Iraq now? Would they have helped in Vietnam for that matter, where children laid booby traps, and the ARVN was full of traitors?
Instead, the Americans should train their men better for counterinsurgency and guerilla warfare. But training is a sunk cost. It does not result in profits for defense companies. So training is neglected in favor of technology that while impressive does not solve the problem that needs to be solved.
About M4 vs SAR21, the main problem with the M4 to me is the low destructive power of the round. A tiny 5.56mm round only possesses decent lethality when it hits a person with enough speed to fragment inside the body. Since the M4 has a 12" barrel, this effect only occurs at ranges up to 50m, while with a 20" M16 or SAR21 barrel, it happens up to >150m. Shooting an M4 at someone further than 100m would not result in many disabling casualties even if you hit. That is the reason why the M4 or any other carbine is simply unacceptable as a standard issue assault rifle for an infantry-heavy force like the SAF. We do not have organic armor with every infantry unit to provide killing power at longer range like the Americans do. Even the cool upcoming forward-ejecting bullpup FN F2000 only has a 16" barrel, which means it is also not good enough, unless rebarrelled.
Which would u prefer? Sighting a possible threat, and ready to engage it, or walk into an ambush and getting your troops killed? -
Then again, the enemy doesn't have to snipe at you with a rifle or something like that. It could be remote-detonated mines that cover an ambush zone. Have someone nonchalantly walking around the area with the detonator in his hand/pocket/bag acting like a civilian. The chaos generated during the time of detonation would be sufficient enough to take advantage of.....a coordinated attack on the remaining survivors to finish them off before they can recover from their surprise.Originally posted by Shotgun:Does the Land Warrior aid in dealing with "non-conventional" targets? Given ur examples in the previous post, YES. U are right, that u don't just shoot at any humanoid therman blob. But at least u SEE it, and will be ready to engage it. Rather than walking into an ambush, and getting killed.
Which would u prefer? Sighting a possible threat, and ready to engage it, or walk into an ambush and getting your troops killed?
So the threat of ambush still remains. If the Land Warrior system is good enough, it has to be able to detect scenarios such as these. The truth is, there is still the human component to all of these new technology involved, and training has to cover areas where technology can't.
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Tango1 says it better than me. Both technology and training are important. Bravo!
I am not advocating we stop developing military technology. I do like the SAR21 for example. But it must be developed with an eye to the mission, and complement, not replace, training. The OICW's airburst grenades are overkill and counterproductive in a LIC scenario. The Land Warrior sensors do not help much in a COIN operation. These are the current areas of weakness of the US Army. They should deal with them first, with better training.
Thermal sensors are also not the wonderweapons you think they are. The wargame scenario with the snipers getting shot is a very contrived scenario since thermal camoflage is also available. They range from uniform and face paint additives to break up the heat signature to a non-humanoid shape, to cooled suits with heat sinks that can be issued to soldiers that need a lot of stealth (like snipers). Thermal decoys are also not hard to rig up, and snipers would do it. They are mostly cheaper than the thermal sensors too (not cooled suits though). The other side can have thermal sensors too (and snipers certainly would, and should have killed the Land Warriors from far outside their range). And of course, the cheapest way to deal with them is guerilla war, to make thermal sensing irrelevant.
The important thing is not the sensors, but whether the soldiers are trained to fight smart. Do they know how to put up decoys, camoflage themselves and deceive the enemy? Do they know how to counter this? Land Warrior will give you a lot of information -- what do you do with it? The same detection-deception game has been played for thousands of years, since before Sun Tzu. Technology changes nothing but its appearance. The most disciplined and motivated soldiers are still the ones who win. This is true of war in general -- it is a very old game, which merely changes appearances from time to time.
The Americans have the toys, but are still bad at this game. You do not become a champion footballer by buying good shoes. They bombed Serbia for weeks but hit almost nothing, because the Serbians put up decoys and hid their equipment. The Americans had satellite surveillance and communications, gunships, nightvision and thermal sights, but were still intercepted, surrounded and defeated by handphone-carrying skinnies in Somalia. The Americans had ground radar, air surveillance, first-gen thermal sights and every other form of information and technological dominance in Vietnam and still were completely outmaneuvered. The North Vietnamese followed patrols around for weeks, ambushed them and eventually defeated the whole US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
You should read a little more military history, ST. Technological advancements have always been useful only if there is also the training and leadership to employ them effectively. They are merely tools, which must be used by disciplined, well-led men to fully realize their potential. The OICW and Land Warrior systems are very cool, but if the Americans spent just a fraction of what they are spending on it on training, and revamped their personnel system, the gains would be far greater.
You are not wrong, ST. The OICW is a cool piece of tech. But I am tired of the "wunderkrieg" mentality that people who learn about war by watching CNN seem to develop. Weapons are tools. Do not put the cart before the horse by neglecting the men who employ them.
Back to the M4 vs SAR21 debate. The shorter effective range of the M4 is not necessarily a fault. The Americans really liked them in urban combat in Iraq. They even carried SHOTGUNS there, which have even shorter ranges. There are times when a short-ranged weapon is not just acceptable but optimal. The problem is that you lose some flexibility if you have a short-ranged weapon. That is OK for specialty troops, or troops engaged in special missions, but for a general issue personal weapon, flexibility is important. -
All I'm saying here, and my point remains unchanged, is that the OICW is a needed weapon, and NOT OVERKILL. For the Americans, it's their reaponsibility to get their troops up to date on how to deal with such threats, and how to utilize the abilities of their new weapon to the max.
You points on counterterrorism and such are moot, for I am only addressing the issue of the OICW as a tool to be used. You keep harping on the ability of the Americans as workmen... that of course, is irrevelant to the quality of their tools.
So to say that they are better off with their current suite then with the new Land Warrior suite, is insane. Because we are addressing the issue on a per-warrior basis. Both troops are of the same quality and training... guess who has the edge?
That's the point you have been missing all the while, instead choosing the use the OICW for a scapegoat, blaming it on the lack of the Americans to deal with non-conventional threats... which in my opinion, is at best a weak link, as most of your structured arguments have been. The overreliance on technology is not the fault of the technology itself, but the attitudes of the people. And that of course, is besides the question here when we are just adressing the OICW itself as a weapon, which is of course, far superior to the conventional systems you advocate. -
Ah, I see the confusion now. I believe that the OICW is the wrong direction to head in weapon design. I also contend that the Land Warrior programme comes at the expense of better training and personnel system reform and is therefore crippling the US Army's warfighting ability. I have made these points before, but I have not emphasized them.
What do infantrymen want in a personal weapon? I do not speak for all infantrymen, but I think my views are not atypical. I want something simple and reliable. I want something which can achieve fire superiority over the enemy by being lethal, accurate and intimidating. I want something light and easy to use. I want sufficient ammunition and supplies to run the weapon all the time without fail. The OICW fails on all of these points. It is complex and most likely unreliable and difficult to maintain. The grenade launcher is powerful, but fires too slowly to achieve fire superiority and pin down the enemy, while the 10" barrel 5.56mm "carbine" is a joke. It is heavy, and difficult to use. The ammunition is expensive and fragile, and will probably not be issued in great quantity. It also needs batteries.
It is a fantastic weapon, but it is not a fantastic INFANTRY weapon. It is not built for a hungry private who will be lying in mud for weeks at a time, with little access to logistical resupply, too shagged to think. It ignores the dirty reality of infantry combat. It is an "infantry" weapon designed by someone from Armor or the Airforce (no offense to tankers or zoomies: I would probably suck designing a tank or plane).
The perfect infantry weapon would be a GPMG which weighs as much as a rifle and is as accurate as a sniper rifle. It would be as rugged and reliable as a MAG or AK. The ammunition would be lighter than 5.56mm, but cut through armor and hit as hard as .45", and it would be issued by the 5000 round box. It would have only two controls and break down into three parts for cleaning, which you would need to do once a year or so. It would be paired with super-light LAWs with advanced thermobaric warheads, which would simply blast apart any cover used by the enemy and incinerate groups in the open -- far more effective, reliable and flexible than airbursting mini-grenades.
I think you get the idea. Research for infantry weapons should focus on greater reliability, weight efficiency and accuracy, through improved mechanical, materials and explosives technology. The OICW tries to solve all the problems with infantry (low accuracy under combat stress, poor ability to defeat enemies in cover, poor weight efficiency of ammunition) with computerization and complexity, which is incompatible with infantry combat. These problems should be dealt with through better training and technologies that take the infantryman into account.
While I understand your point that this new technology need not come at the expense of training, the truth is that it does. The OICW is only the last of many attempts to solve training problems with technical solutions. The M16A2 rifle has a 3 round burst instead of full auto because they do not want to take the time to train their men to have proper fire discipline. The M9 pistol is double action for the same reason. This goes all the way back to when the Union issued single-shot rifles during the Civil War instead of repeaters because they were afraid the men would shoot off all their ammo, even though they had the industrial capacity to do either. All these "improvements" resulted in less effective weapons for the men. This whole attitude is endemic to the US Army, and I fear it is going to lead to trouble yet again with the OICW.
As I have said, we will see. The OICW is very cool technology, but I fear it is not going to be very effective or well loved by its users. It may even prove to be less effective than the M16/M4 for the reasons I stated. No use having a wondergun if it runs out of batteries, or the software crashes, or it jams, or is so heavy you leave it at base, or you only get a few rounds. Weapons are a bit like computer software -- more features does not necessarily mean better. Land Warrior is not necessarily better than the current situation if it is not reliable, rugged, and logistics-light. We will see how it goes. -
Apparently you belong to the lightweight fighter mafia...
You're more likely to find your kind of weapon and engagement style in CS mods. -
Actually i believe the OICW is better suited for modern warfare then for the days where you'd be doing LRRP's.....let's face it when going for LRRP's for 1 or 2 weeks at a stretch the OICW is going to run out of batteries,ammo or simply run out of spares.But as mentioned modern day warfare is short,fast and furious.....this is where the OICW has the advantage.It has great firepower in the short term.You can use it for an engagement of say 3days before you'd prob be back in base like currently in Iraq.The soldiers are facing hit and run tactics.....meaning after say at most 2 days they be back in base.If that is the case they wont be worried about ammo weight and stuff since they wont be out there long enough.The gizmos in the gun would surely help me find the snipers and help me engage them even if they were hiding or tell me where the gunfire is coming from and where friendlies are NOT.Notice how the land warrior system does not really come with a full pack......it has 1 bladder bag and not much space for MRE and other things......which i doubt will last you more then 2 days.So i suppose the OICW is good for this new type of warfare but it would really suck in conventional warfare....
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Well, to be fair, I confess I have been a little bit schizophrenic in my analysis. The Americans precisely fight in the style that H05 talks about. Their infantrymen do not spend much time on maneuver, but are rotated backward and resupplied often using mechanized or air assets, making a weapon like OICW feasible. This is very logistics intensive, but they are willing to pay the cost in months of set-up time before a war and horrible cost efficiency. They apparently learned just one lesson from Vietnam -- never get into a classic infantry war again. Their style of fighting maximizes high-technology, which is where the Americans excel. Their infantrymen fight basically as small tanks, so OICW might be optimal for them.
However, there is evidence that this style of warfare is not always suitable. The escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora, the fiasco at Mogadishu and their inability to affect events in Kosovo indicate that their potential foes are wising up to their limitations. As I said, their super-heavy style of war needs a lot of set-up time. It is not good for small conflicts or peacekeeping. It is only feasable on certain types of terrain. They need to broaden their repertoire. I am not so much a light fighter as an all-weight fighter. The Americans have the heavyweight fight mastered. They need to learn other skills. OICW is more of the same, as I have alluded to in previous posts. It does not solve their current problems. -
The entire Force 21 concept does not rest on the Land Warrior system and it's OICW, and no, they are not more of the same. They are components of a new revolutionary way to engage the enemy consisting of a massive network of sensors, intelligent weapons and information sharing at speeds and quantities never before possible.
The final project design objectives was to be able to run the entire system on power for a minimum of six days before needing to recharge.
For next-generation counterinsurgency, it appears the Americans are putting their money into a whole array of unmanned robots, some large, some small, to take away more of the fog of war and to figure out where the enemy is hiding.
Some time in the forseeable future, troopers of tomorrow (at least the american ones) will deploy ground and airborne robots armed with advanced sensors to scout the ground in front of them, reporting everything of interest back to the Land Warriors. Making the battlespace a very difficult place for a potential enemy to hide.
The OICW does more then just spit out 5.56mm and 20mm rounds. It is a tool which allows the Land Warrior to view around corners without being seen, and also quite literally act as a probe for both him and those networked with him to view the battlefield through. And if the need arises, which it would almost certainly be, the OICW can be used to spot and designate targets to be pounded by airpower or next-generation missiles launched from miles away.
As of such, it appears the OICW capabilities are just one thing a large array of high tech tools that Americans intend to deploy in the future to handle threats that are unconventional in nature. Be it mirco-UAVs that buzz around the urban battlespace carrying sensors can spot the enemy, or even ground robots that are designed to find snipers by keying into the sound of the gunshot, tringulating it's position, and then relaying the information to the Land Warrior, or even non-lethal hyperslick gels that can be launched into a group of combatants and non-combatants to keep them off their feet without having to zap them all. To even powerful sonic cannons to disperse crowds without having to show them full metal jackets. These are just the few of the ideas they are coming up with as part of Force 21 to make sure that in any future war, they will not be slouches in this area of combat. -
I understand the whole Force XXI concept, ST. Since it is a very wide-ranging vision for the US Army that includes elements of Armor, Artillery and the other combat arms, I am not qualified as an infantryman to address it in its entireity. I can only talk knowledgably about the Infantry component, which is Land Warrior, and includes OICW.
It is clear we have very different views on the correct direction that armed forces should develop in the future. If you do not mind me stereotyping you a little, you seem to belong to the RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs) camp, which stresses C4I, precision weapons and IT as the future force multipliers. It is a very fashionable viewpoint nowadays, especially among the civilian and high-level leaders of the military. People like me who are much further down the chain of command tend to view things quite differently. As Clausewitz says, even the simplest military operations are subject to immense "friction". Land Warrior seems too reliant on everything working correctly. It is not sufficiently proof against Murphy's Law.
Since starting this discussion with you, I found a website that expresses my views better than I possibly can. It consists of letters by many people, including several professional infantrymen and veterans:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/infantry.html
Anyway, it is clear we disagree. The best thing is to simply see what happens in the future. It is an exciting time to be a military enthusiast.
Back to the M4 vs SAR 21 debate. The good thing about the M4 is the customizability of the weapon. While I understand that they wanted to "standardize" things with the SAR 21, especially the pre-zeroed scope, having at least one P-rail would be a good thing, at least for weapons issued to the CDOs or Recce formations, as well as maybe the guards. -
Good call! I think the SOF formation already employs the P-rail version of the SAR-21. The issue is whether SAF is willing to spend on providing specialized scopes for all these P-rail SAR-21s if they issue them to other formations like you mentioned. The ACOG is quite expensive I heard... A second point is that they should equip some of these specialized troops (Cdos, Recce Scouts) with grenade launcher attachments for their SAR-21s. The Cdos might already have grenadiers, but as far as I recall, the only real heavy weapon in a scout team is the SAW. Rifle grenades would be good for breaking contact...have a mix of buckshot, HEDP, and smoke rds...Originally posted by dkhoo:Back to the M4 vs SAR 21 debate. The good thing about the M4 is the customizability of the weapon. While I understand that they wanted to "standardize" things with the SAR 21, especially the pre-zeroed scope, having at least one P-rail would be a good thing, at least for weapons issued to the CDOs or Recce formations, as well as maybe the guards.
I say extend P-rail system to the GPMGs and SAWs. It doesn't cost as much as having to replace an entire weapon. All SAF has to do is to change the MG cover/top. The US military has pretty much switched over to P-rail systems for most of their smallarms. It helps extend the accuracy of the gunners.