Quick question for small arms buffs

[Kartoffel]

Why did armies in real life switch to crappy 8 hex rifles when 10 hex rifles are so much better in-game? Ditto for the 10 hex LMG vs. the 12 hex.

Give me a circa 1930 A.D. Lewis & Enfield armed squad and I will beath any 21st century squad, with less points spent to boot!

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by Kartoffel

Why did armies in real life switch to crappy 8 hex rifles when 10 hex rifles are so much better in-game? Ditto for the 10 hex LMG vs. the 12 hex.

Give me a circa 1930 A.D. Lewis & Enfield armed squad and I will beath any 21st century squad, with less points spent to boot!

Switching to intermediate power cartridges was necessary in order to make automatic fire possible (or at least usable).
You could never build an AK or a STG44 around the same powerful cartridge used by the Mosin Nagant (as a matter of fact they had trouble enough making a reliable semiauto around it) or the Mauser. In essence some range has been traded for greater short range firepower.

[Marcello]

Ditto for the 10 hex LMG vs. the 12 hex.

It is usually an issue of weight and ammo compatibility with rifles. Not everyone has gone down that route, PKM are pretty popular AFAIK.
Contest must be also kept in mind. When the Lee-Enfield was introduced MMGs were a newfangled toy,as late as 1914 a british infantry battalion would have IIRC two of them (and it was considered to be a generous allotment),and LMGs were only on the drawing board.
So a rifle with good range was necessary, because the only alternative was artillery. On the other hand a WW2 german squad could count on its MG42 to reach beyond individual weapons and options have only increased since then (grenade launchers, more responsive fire support...).

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Kartoffel

Why did armies in real life switch to crappy 8 hex rifles when 10 hex rifles are so much better in-game? Ditto for the 10 hex LMG vs. the 12 hex.

Give me a circa 1930 A.D. Lewis & Enfield armed squad and I will beath any 21st century squad, with less points spent to boot!

There are endless discussions about this on various sites, like ARRSE (try digging through this thread http://www.arrse.co.uk/weapons-equip...-calibres.html there forex) and so on.

Also worth a look are Tony Williams articles on weapons and ammo
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/miltech.htm
see this article for example: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Assault.htm


Basically - blame the cold war, mechanised infantry and the Americans for First insisting on the 7.62 as standard, then for introducing the 5.56 in spite of thier previous insistence on the 7.62 NATO.

The .280 British that the USA stepped on, in retrospect would have been a perfect 'balanced' cartridge.
See: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/256brit.htm

The 5.56 was really introduced as a jungle carbine round, not for all-round use. It just kinda-sorta "Borged" into the all purpose calibre in the USA and then elsewhere.

But mechanised doctrine of the old cold war saw a short and handy carbine as being all troops would need - tanks and APC would do the long range stuff. 5.56 would do at close range and in the urban area that modern Germany usually was.

Now fighting has generally focussed on long range fires in open terrain in Afghanistan. 7.62 vs 5.56 is a hot topic - but is it just a temporary aberration?. 5.56 certainly does have a problem with knock-down lethality especially if used from short carbine barrels. (The USMC still uses as many "long" M16s, having deliberately not completely going the wholesale carbine way the US Army seems to have?).

SP maps are perhaps not as crowded in Europe as they need be, though fields these days are much more open than even in the 60s due to the digging out of hedges and so on. But a "Germany" map can have quite a lot of urban terrain.

In SP:
Assault rifles do have better hitting and accuracy if in range, but full bore rifles have that extra little bit of range. If you can catch enemy out in the open, and keep him at a distance, then the full bore rifle is a no-brainer.

If however it is a jungle, wooded or urban map or you are prepared to close with the enemy (using smoke, arty, MMG, tank or APC support fires as well as movement to facilitate this) - then your assault rifle trumps the bolt rifles. It is like a longer ranged bayonet - aggressive tactics may be needed to close and kill with the AR.

in SP the most powerful thing is the Section LMG(s) however. Quite frankly, I see no point in 5.56 or 7.62 AK SAW if you have access to a proper full bore LMG using 7.62 "long" (NATO or Soviet).

The rifles behind that are not too important then, provided your LMG is full-bore. Also provided that your rifle does have a useful range (8+ hexes). The SMG, or extra-shortie AR with 3 or 4 hex range is barely usable outside a city or close wood or jungle, even with a section LMG. A section (as opposed to a scout team or other sneaky-beaky type) with only these personal defence weapons is asking to die in open field combat.

Thus something like the later UK sections where the GPMG was returned to the section level is perfectly OK. Just avoid any sections with any 5.56 LSWs or Minimis (unless there as a booster to a proper "general" in 7.62).

The 1970s UK rifle section with a "general" as well as the 7.62 SLR would have a small margin of superiority for 2 hexes over this later organisation. (Ignoring the night sight ability). It is entirely nullified by closing those 2 hexes. Plus the modern UK platoon usually has several generals in the fire support section, unlike the 70s one.

Note that the Soviets kept the full bore LMG in the rifle platoon (PKM etc), with the AK versions being used more as a backup SAW. This appears to also have been more emphasised as a policy post Afghanistan. So if buying Russian sections - check that it is one with a longer range full-bore LMG (12 hex) if there is a choice.

If fighting a primarily infantry enemy then a section with 2 full-bore "generals" is golden.

But - once more - blame the US generals and their confused ammo standards that they imposed by fiat on the rest of the NATO alliance in the 50s and 60s. Everyone could have been using a 6.5mm intermediate cartridge in the 50/60s and no dichotomy would exist.

Cheers
Andy

[Kartoffel]

Thank-you for the in-depth and helpfull reply, you are like the archtypical friendly professor that everyone who has gone to college has met.

[rfisher]

I have to say, that turned out to be a great question with some genuinely interesting answers.
Thanks to all!

[daferg]

I am smarter now that I have read this thread. Thanks for asking the question.

[Cross]

I like all the answers above, but in addition - as far as the British Army is concerned - it may also be the result of a War Office study that found Enfields and Brens were rarely used at long range except by snipers.


Cross

[Darkfather]

The main reason for the decrease in weapon range and calibre size turns out to be statistics, which is why you have special operations bucking the trend for smaller and shorter ranged rounds and why it seems armies adapt in strange ways. For the average infantry solider 5.56 is the best round for the job. For special operations, whose requirements are different, a different round / weapon combination is sometimes needed, but many of these units still carry 5.56 when they could use anything they wanted.

Likely we will see a new general infantry cartridge developed or adopted in the next decade, although I tend to think the trend will be to smart ammunition in the next generation of infantry weapons.

Inaccuracies in game modeling are why some games give advantages to some weapons when real life trends tend to the other direction. In reality the firepower of an M16 is significantly greater than the Enfield unless they meet in very disparate tactical situations. The enfield is incapable of generation good enfilade fire, and has little or no tactical throw or chance of disrupting a trained squad. Unless the shooter has a fixed sniper nest and good side cover, the M16 user has it all their own way. 2 extra hexes range is a poor trade off for loosing the real life ability to force a squad to ground.

[troopie]

Real combat with the exceptions noted, takes place at 300 meters or closer. Also, consider that in such combat the typical footie is scared almost kakloos, that there isn't time to take good aim, IME firefights are very short, and the enemy is under cover. It's better to point and spray, and you might hit something. If you take a long time to aim, you certainly won't.

5.56mm ammo is lighter than 7.62, and soldiers can carry more of it. That's important to the PBI who has to lug it. An R-4 weighs less than an R-1 and that's important too.

troopie