Seems like the ad men have gotten to the military, and I'd prefer a little more realism. As in any given military conflict half* of the participants are bound to be on the losing side.
So, suggesting more realistic naming of stuff, like Operation It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, HMS Mediocre, and the ship defence system We Should Have Used Linux.
*Not necessarily an equal half.-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 08 2014 It depends on whether you include Italy or not, as special rules apply (ho ho, 60 year old joke, etc)-- Zeuxis, Apr 09 2014 [Kwest] you and I need to have a chat. I mean, really?-- Alterother, Apr 09 2014 Mistakes made in building military equipment, or in planning military operations, are only obvious in hindsight... after the equipment or operation was named. Furthermore this idea has little originality and is scarcely an idea. I rate it a whale bone.
And the M-16/AR15 is an excellent rifle for a military with amazing logistics support and well trained soldiers.-- Voice, Apr 09 2014 There ya go. The AK takes the trophy for durability, but name me one quality in which the AR-types fall second to any other battle rifle and I'll name you five in which they're far and away the best.-- Alterother, Apr 09 2014 // Mistakes made in building military equipment, or in planning military operations, are only obvious in hindsight //
Many have said this, but Ike said it best: "A plan is a wonderful thing to have until the first shots are fired."-- Alterother, Apr 09 2014 Plans are useless. Planning is invaluable.-- Voice, Apr 09 2014 //Mistakes made in building military equipment, or in planning military operations, are only obvious in hindsight... after the equipment or operation was named.//
Simple then, give them serial numbers when the leave the factory and make them earn their names.-- the porpoise, Apr 09 2014 //battle rifle// isn't a category that applies to most of the worlds' current conflict scenarios.-- FlyingToaster, Apr 09 2014 // They fail in knockdown power.//
You imply knockdown power is desirable in a war rifle. The idea is to cause as much injury as possible without killing the other guy, thereby causing a huge logistics load. There isn't yet sufficient reason to believe the era of large wars is over.
//They fail in durability compared against Kalashnikov offerings.//
I'll give you that if you'll grant that these Colt firearms have much better accuracy.
//They fail in popular support of the troops, many of whom prefer the lighter, shorter-barrelled M4 or even the slightly heavier but more powerful M14.//
People busting into houses want shotguns. People sniping from fox holes and not moving much want 50 cals. People moving in wars want lighter, less jammable weapons. But the decision needs to be made for whole services in order to provide the best possible logistics support. You can't argue the M-16 isn't a good compromise as a battle rifle when you aren't sure which specific situation it will be needed for.
//They succeed in being a weapon of choice for cowards who target small children at schools.//
Water is the drink of choice for mass murderers. Colgate is the toothpaste of choice for torturers. Toyota is the truck of choice for drug smugglers. Let's get rid of water, Colgate, and Toyota trucks as soon as possible!
//They succeed in being Made in America.//
Because it's surely unwise to avoid importing weapons of war.
//They succeed in accepting the widely-used, laughable 5.56 mm round.//
The 5.56 does what it's designed to do.-- Voice, Apr 09 2014 //More realistic naming of military stuff//
"Ah! I see you have the Machine That Goes Ping!"-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 09 2014 I don't think this is a problem confined to the military, the issue arises whenever men are permitted to name anything. I am thinking primarily of corporate finance project names, which tend to be named after the holiday destination or wank fantasy of the person who commissioned the project. This leads to a buttload of Projects Maldives and Tiffany, when more predictive project names would be Project Moneyhole, Ballache or Toss. Not entirely coincidentally, Moneyhole, Ballache and Toss are a leading corporate finance advisory firm.-- calum, Apr 09 2014 [FT] I've taken to using the antiquated term 'battle rifle' due to the stigma now attached to the widely misunterstood term 'assault rifle'. If it helps I can call them 'black rifles', which is a gun nut term for an AR but can also just mean a military-style weapon.
[Quest], the M4 is an AR-type. You're saying they prefer one AR over a different AR. I will successfully refute the rest of your absurd slander later, but at the moment my son needs me.-- Alterother, Apr 09 2014 I think the Ghillie suit is responsible for most of the BigFoot sightings! [+]-- xandram, Apr 09 2014 [Ao] I've usually taken "battle rifle" to be a pigeonhole term for personal military weapons designed for troops' usage in the massive symmetrical'ish non-urban land conflicts of most of the previous century, ie: a "battle" rifle.
While b-r's are arguably non-optimal as general issue in recent conflicts, note that both Canadian and Norwegian northern Rangers are still issued over-a-century-old-design bolt action battle rifles, and not (just) because they had a bunch laying around after WWII.
I mean, you could have an AR based battle rifle but it wouldn't be the first choice to clear a building with.-- FlyingToaster, Apr 09 2014 //or in planning military operations, are only obvious in hindsight
Er, not they aren't....pick one country with rugged terrain, very porous borders and where the locals have no love of you, invade...that always seem to work (very badly)...
//made in building military equipment,
ditto, see 1944 German study, which led to a cut-down cartridge and the development of the assault rifle. Which was then completely duplicated in the 1960's as the Salvo Studies->M16. Which was then competely duplicated the rest of the world sometime in the 1980's->SA-80.
All military conflict is just like watching two very drunk people trying to have a fist-fight.-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 10 2014 [21] continues to amaze us with the depth of his misunderstaning of modern warfighting doctrine.-- Alterother, Apr 10 2014 //warfighting//
This is one of a special few words that cause physical pain when read.-- Spacecoyote, Apr 10 2014 If you kill someone, his buddies leave him there and carry on fighting. Afterwards they bury him - either under your directions or their officers'.
If you wound someone, the medic has to work on saving his life. If he lives, he often has to go to hospital for more treatment. The first step often involves two of his buddies leaving the battlefield with him on a stretcher. If they leave him, they fight on, having to ignore his cries for help.
After the shooting's done he'll do an ambulance trip (moderately expensive) or a helicopter casevac (very expensive). This will take him to a hospital, and from there the costs go on and on.
Now the survivor and the guy who died have one important thing in common: Neither of them are still shooting at you.
Tie up the loose ends left here, and you'll see that the weapon that kills "best" is not necessarily the best.
(Just my idea of what this modern warrazing is all about.)-- skoomphemph, Apr 10 2014 Wow! I'm so surprised to see us having a fight about naming, fighting tools, & such. </s>
Hmm... how to properly bait you folks best? (not going to troll, not going to troll... not going to troll...)
My next idea? "Auction for Naming rights 2 Physics Laws" Go ahead & fishbone it, you know you want to say something!-- sophocles, Apr 10 2014 I remember when this place spent less time in pissing matches.-- RayfordSteele, Apr 10 2014 Well, here's my best shot, so if anyone else's goes further sobeit.
[Quest], I have given it quite a bit of thought and I have come to the conclusion that you are correct about the AR family of rifles, and in being so you prove me correct as well.
I shall explain:
In comparison to its contemporaries, the AR (for simplicity's sake I shall group the entire AR family, i.e. AR-15, AR-10, M16, M4, etc. under this sobriquet) is indeed second to everything (save in the category of field survivability in the hands of an untrained moron, in which the clear leader is the AK family and the AR is down at the bottom alongside the L85). For out-of-the-box accuracy*, the AR is second only to the G3. A standard-issue M4 with a full magazine is heavier only than the FAMAS. The AR's field survivability in the hands of a trained professional is surpassed only by the Galil (which is no longer in active service, retired in favor of the AR). The versatility of the AR's design is arguably second to the L85. That's as far as I can get without consulting a book. My point is that the AR comes in second in nearly every fashion. No other contemporary military combat rifle is second to all others, which means that the AR is in fact the best of them all.
Piss on that, kiddo.
* and I'm talking about the Colt and Armalite bangsticks they hand out to overtrusting recruits, not the DPMS and Windham tack drivers that the veterans buy on their own dimes-- Alterother, Apr 10 2014 OK, so with a Taliban type attitude, you're dealing with something more like the Waffen-SS, I suppose. Low sanity or something like that.
All the same, there are very few flesh wounds. We're talking about a rifle not doing its job, not bad shooting messing things up, so the round that was meant to hit a major blood vessel on the way through (etc etc -- I'll keep it less gory) only rattled it up some. However, it's supersonic, so it travels in the middle of a massive shockwave (which oddly collapses down to a wound track with a diameter smaller than the round). I had a mate once who had no inner thigh because of a shockwave like that.
What I'm getting at (while still conceding the point, understand) is that even in lunatic forces, once the adrenalin has gone, there will be wimpering, and similar effects to those affecting sane lads forced to do insane things in trenches, who just want to live, and then go home. There must be a degree of partial validity to the premises.
But yes, the very best ones are the live ones. They do better than sing like canaries; they give you Osama and deals like that. Next Al Quaeda leader to die will die with the help of his friends (and I would guess the right qualifier to add to that would be "again"). So if Al Quada has managed to find a way to penetrate the Halfbakery, and gain access to this thread, I can offer a fair-minded tip: Don't fret about Delta Force; keep an eye on that cousin of yours, rather. The big danger comes from within.-- skoomphemph, Apr 10 2014 Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
The military is suppose to kill people and break things. Their words are primarily used to sell the people who hire them on better or more expensive equipment. But when thew use the same words in practice, they abbreviate because saying the whole string gives their opponents time to shoot.-- popbottle, Apr 10 2014 A very long time ago, and for a just a few months, I worked as barman in an officer's mess; and every night after the rest of the officers had gone to their tents, the commanding officer - an American lieutenant - and a Namibian major in charge of things I took great care not to know too much about, would sit there arguing Colt 45 vs 9mil. I heard it so many times I once knew it back-to-front, this never-ending, never-changing argument.
It goes sort of like this: Colt 45 is fat enough not to go the whole way through. It dumps all its kinetic energy in the body - has stopping power. 9mil is supersonic. It does less damage to tissues in front; more to those deeper, and out the back. Speed kills.
I suppose they both have their pros and their cons, but the indecisiveness of the argument always meant that the bar closed much too late for me to share in the contraband hard tack I was waiting to smuggle out of there to the mate of mine who used to fence it for me.
And the point? Everyone is going to see the same set of facts from a different front door. To an officer the bar is a place to hang out with colleagues and get drunk talking about interesting things. To a barman, it's a place where you endure long discussions before you can close up and move that bottle into good hands.
And then years later you occasionally revisit this.
I suppose it's similar to the less gory situation where to the officer, a mess is where you dine in better company than the day has forced on you, but to a chef it's the place where you try to guess who got the flies you caught and put in the food.-- skoomphemph, Apr 11 2014 The war to end this war.
The Khmer Rouge cloning peace process.
Folding clear nylon atomic shelter placebo.
Anti missile system for previous war.-- pashute, Apr 13 2014 The ak is not a gun but rather traditional garb.-- pashute, Apr 13 2014 Let's see what happens plan-- pashute, Apr 13 2014 Operation Listify Ideas-- Spacecoyote, Apr 13 2014 //The war to end this war.
Like.-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 13 2014 //When I joined the USAF, my group of new recruits was told we basically have "one purpose: blow shit up and kill people.// My how things have changed. Now they're hyping how much humanitarian work the USAF does and how you'll most likely be delivering food aid to 3rd world countries. Which may be true.-- DIYMatt, Apr 15 2014 //delivering food aid to 3rd world countries
Hmm, well explosives contain nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon and some kind of oxidiser, so it might be categorized as food,,-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 15 2014 random, halfbakery