The swedish model was real enough, only problem was realising Id got the gender wrong the morning after!
“Hello Hans…”
I’m sure i heard somewhere that the reason the UK forces went with 5.56mm was that a 5.56mm round will stay in the body whereas a 7.62mm will pass through and may injure innocents, a consideration for NI perhaps?
Interesting idea but after moving to 5.56 they still had 7.62 GPMG. No it was a NATO change. Now 9mm is used by police so it will stop in the person but the bad guys are now in body armour so they need something a bit stronger, enter FN 7mm.
Isn’t there already a British Military thread? Why do you feel the need to post such here? Please guys, do chit right.
Errr, seeing as you so clearly can’t take it, why the hell do you insist on handing it out all the time??
If you want people to be nicer to you, wind your neck in a bit. :x :x
Yes there is, but they were right in putting it here. The British Military thread is supposed to be relating to WWII.
The last gun I recall that was generally used as a real indirect fire wpn was the venerable Vickers.
It was also rebarrelled to 7.62 after WWII for service in various armies around the globe.
Indirect fire is a sadly lost art in the modern British Army but is something that should be reinstated.
However until someone can come up with a weapon that can supply sustained fire better* than the Vickers it will remain in history like some ancient alchemist’s forgotten discovery.
(*Better than the Vickers means significantly over five million rds without a wpn failure or measurable wear.)
excuse me,the standart pistol of the british army is 45 cal?
and the standart rifle is _____??? (fill in the blank :))
SA80 A2 is 5.56 caliber, Student Scaley was I believe right the switch down from 7.62 was due to NI considerations, as contacts where often in up close urban environment. The problem wasn,t so much an on target through and through but incidents of 7.62 rounds ending up inside someones house via the external wall, well that was what we where told at the time. Of course the bean counters at the MOD may have had other considerations.
no, the standard pistol is 9mm, and the rifle is 5.56mm.
no, the standard pistol is 9mm, and the rifle is 5.56mm.[/quote]
oh,i thought the standart was 45cal,like us. thanks for replying 
.
I have read various different explanations for the adoption of 5.56…
1)In a history of the M16 that I read a long long time ago, it suggested that the lighter round was more likely to tumble in the body, and caused more graphic damage than 7.62, which tended to just punch through. Apparently, the early problems with lethality and jamming in Vietnam were down to poor quality powder being used in the production rounds, as opposed to the higher quality used in tests.
2)5.56 is lighter than 7.62, allowing more rounds to be carried. Its shorter range was considered less important, especially in a period which envisaged large conscript/drafted armies slugging it out with the Russians. Long range marksmanship is not a skill that can be cheaply & quickly taught to conscripts, and is perhaps of limited battlefield utility anyway.
- is pretty much the reason.
You are correct about the powder causing stoppage problems, but the lethality problems are because it fires a weeny bullet, and once you’re above the range where it will tumble and/or split in the body, you’re punching .22cal holes. IIRC, the powder in the offending rounds contained calcium carbonate as an additive (reduces muzzle flash & flame temperature), and this clogs the gas tube. Plus the users had been told that it was essentially “self-cleaning”, which of course it wasn’t.
The last gun I recall that was generally used as a real indirect fire wpn was the venerable Vickers.
It was also rebarrelled to 7.62 after WWII for service in various armies around the globe.
Indirect fire is a sadly lost art in the modern British Army but is something that should be reinstated.
However until someone can come up with a weapon that can supply sustained fire better* than the Vickers it will remain in history like some ancient alchemist’s forgotten discovery.
(*Better than the Vickers means significantly over five million rds without a wpn failure or measurable wear.)[/quote]
Although I would not argue that the Vickers was the best at indirect fire the skills that were employed by it have continued. There was a gap of 20 odd years between the Vickers going out of service and the GPMG SF being used for indirect fire. This skill was reintroduced in the late 80s early 90s. Up till that time SF was only used out to 1800m, and that was difficult to correct due to observation of strike. Most of the time it was not used much beyond 1100, tracer burn out. By adjusting the C2 bearing scale to grid north any reading will relate to the map and by the use of range tables targets can be engaged by use of map.
Below is an extract from the machine gun section commanders course. Most S of I course are given and may be of interest.
Week 3 - Defensive Operations week
Week 3 begins with the necessary defence lectures, followed by TEWTs and exercise occupation of a defensive position in support of either a company group. The week culminates in defensive live fire tasks in support of a main defensive position, using direct fire support and Map Predicted Fire (MPF).
I have heard that it was the intention of the designers to have the round tumble and cause injuries and not kill. This seems to have come out after it was found that the round did not do what it said on the tin. :roll: The M16 was originally issued to SV troops to replace the M2 as we all know they are small and cannot handle a large M14. :roll: it would seem that the US troops took a liking to it and it replaced the M14 probably due to the reasons Man of Stoat gave that the ammo was lighter.
Having seen a firepower demo of various weapons it was shown that single 7.62 would penetrate a single course of brick but not a double or cavity wall. GPMG fire on the other hand would quickly dig a hole in the wall. Most instances of round entering houses came through windows not wall, although I would never say it never happened. It also was never clear whose round entered the house.
The idea that we would have changes rounds just because of NI is not credible. We had gone to 7.62 because of a NATO decision. When the decision to go to 5.56 came to followed the pack. With hindsight we should have gone to 7mm and probably 4.85 but the US calls the shots and we follow. There was no way that the US was going to change rounds, the cost would have been too great.
If Britain had gone to 7mm/.280 I doubt there woud have been any need to go down to 4.85mm other than “carryable quantity”, 7mm was designed specifically for the assault rifle task whereas 4.85 was only really born out of the fashion for very small calibres. 7mm was also intended to be a capable LMG round with a belt fed Bren-derived machine gun specially designed, the GPMG/MAG may also have been originally intended for 7mm as the FAL/SLR was.
It could well have been that a smaller .280 cartridge could have been designed later with similar performance to the original 1950’s version in a smaller case, after all modern military 7.62NATO/.308WIN is reputed to have similar ballistic capabilities to the .30-06 it was cut down from.
The last gun I recall that was generally used as a real indirect fire wpn was the venerable Vickers.
It was also rebarrelled to 7.62 after WWII for service in various armies around the globe.
Indirect fire is a sadly lost art in the modern British Army but is something that should be reinstated.
However until someone can come up with a weapon that can supply sustained fire better* than the Vickers it will remain in history like some ancient alchemist’s forgotten discovery.
(*Better than the Vickers means significantly over five million rds without a wpn failure or measurable wear.)[/quote]
Although I would not argue that the Vickers was the best at indirect fire the skills that were employed by it have continued. There was a gap of 20 odd years between the Vickers going out of service and the GPMG SF being used for indirect fire. This skill was reintroduced in the late 80s early 90s. Up till that time SF was only used out to 1800m, and that was difficult to correct due to observation of strike. Most of the time it was not used much beyond 1100, tracer burn out. By adjusting the C2 bearing scale to grid north any reading will relate to the map and by the use of range tables targets can be engaged by use of map.
Below is an extract from the machine gun section commanders course. Most S of I course are given and may be of interest.
Week 3 - Defensive Operations week
Week 3 begins with the necessary defence lectures, followed by TEWTs and exercise occupation of a defensive position in support of either a company group. The week culminates in defensive live fire tasks in support of a main defensive position, using direct fire support and Map Predicted Fire (MPF).
Ah yes MPF, I’d forgotten about that.
In a vain attempt at recovering some face I can only claim that it was due to the late hour of posting and the vast amounts of wifebeater consumed at my then locstat ! :lol:
By the way the five million round demonstration was carried out at Strensall, and the gun was run for seven days and seven nights continuously !
It ate bbls of course, they were replaced every hour to hour and a half, but it is still probably the most impressive wpn demo I know of.