Firepower!

[ISC]

I love guns. I like to go shopping for them, I enjoy working on them and collecting them. I love holding a weapon and thinking about what kinds of stories it or one just like it might tell if they could.

I also appreciate them, in part, because of what they can do as weapons of war. I was thinking about that and asked myself:

What commonly available civilian weapons could be best used by a squad sized element that was engaged in direct military actions.

Here are my ideas:

1) The rifleman in both fireteams are armed with semiauto intermediate cartridge rifles. Ammo and, preferably, magazines should be the same, especially within the team. One man per team should have a scoped rifle, preferable in a full power cartridge, and preferably a semiauto.

2) A seperate "weapons team" (beltfed, .50 BMG, grenade launcher, morters, engineers, demo)would stay with the squad leader and be prepared to deploy as required.

I would love to have some special weapons. I've been thinking about making a potato morter for the heck of it.

[acem]

Re: Firepower!

I have seen bowling ball morters built from a large acetylene bottle (muzzle loader). They were a hoot!

How about a hotter 50bmg. You could blow the case out like a 30-06 Ackley Imporved and get even more velocity from handloads while still being able to shoot milsurp. With some hand turned steel projectiles (hardened after shaping) you could have some significant armor penetration at modest ranges.

Of course you could allways shoot a 4lb muzzle loading cannon. They will shoot a long ways!

Thx-Ace

[noname762]

Re: Firepower!

I love guns. I like to go shopping for them, I enjoy working on them and collecting them. I love holding a weapon and thinking about what kinds of stories it or one just like it might tell if they could.

I also appreciate them, in part, because of what they can do as weapons of war. I was thinking about that and asked myself:

What commonly available civilian weapons could be best used by a squad sized element that was engaged in direct military actions.

Here are my ideas:

1) The rifleman in both fire teams are armed with semi auto intermediate cartridge rifles. Ammo and, preferably, magazines should be the same, especially within the team. One man per team should have a scoped rifle, preferable in a full power cartridge, and preferably a semi auto.

2) A separate "weapons team" (beltfed, .50 BMG, grenade launcher, mortars, engineers, demo)would stay with the squad leader and be prepared to deploy as required.

I would love to have some special weapons. I've been thinking about making a potato mortar for the heck of it.

You remind me of me.

You don't specify the number of men on each rifle team. Let's say you have 10 including leader and assistant leader. Seven guys carry an SKS. Leader carries AK47. Designated Marksman carries M1A or M14, scoped. Tail End Charlie carries AK47.

Ten man Heavy Weapons team: My first choice is a GE Minigun M134 mounted on a Recon/Scout Vehicle. No vehicle? Then a M60E3 The MG gunner+2 men carrying ammo.

Three Engineers carrying the infamous Warsaw Pact RPG. I don't know the particulars of the RPG launcher or weight of the rockets. Let's say 3 men carry 12 HEAT rockets. For personal defense weapons MAC-11s. The other 4 men carry an assortment of AT Mines, Claymores, satchel charges and grenades.

[Sarge]

Re: Firepower!

To OP:
You planning on having a Mech Infantry unit? If not how are you going to transport all of that really heavy stuff, pack horses?

noname762:
WTF, O? What is with the fascenation with ruskie weapons? Nothing made in the US that is acceptable?
Where are you going to get all of those RPGs , claymores and all the other stuff you list? Maby you live in Iraq?
As far as an M14, scoped or not - piece of Junk! On full auto it is uncontrollable for 95% of shooters. Why do I say that - I own one. It would be the rifle I left laying for someone else If I had to E & E.
Of course I have an FN/FAL with a run fast switch that would go with me. Unlike the M 14 that rifle is very controllable on FA - 3 rd burst in the chest of a silloute at 150 yds.
Sarge

[ISC]

Re: Firepower!

Really heavy stuff?

I was only suggesting that the special weapons team would have any of those items, not all of them. If you have a LMG then an ammo bearer or assistant gunner would be on that team, if you've got morters or demo the weight of shells, tubes, plates, etc would be spread out with the team, but we're trying to focus on weapons likely to be owned or quickly improvised by the civilian.

Whatever special weapon that was available, they'd be attached to the leadership element and placed where needed. It would make sense for the members to be armed with a handgun or other compact personal defense weapon.

[RT]

Re: Firepower!

Depends on terrain, ammo availability, and likely opposition.

A rifleman who is a RIFLEMAN needs to be toting a full size full power rifle, preferably with some sort of optic, and in either event, something that is dialed in for real ranged shooting. I don't buy all that mystique stuff about "snipers" any decent rifleman with any decent combat rifle should be able to confidently get torso hits most of the time at 300 yards.

AKs - decent brush busters, slight disadvantages in urban terrain, distinct disadvantages at longer ranges, actual longer ranges, like 200 meters and farther. At shorter ranges, it is as good as anything. Most AK users will adjust their tactics to compensate for this.

So if the terrain is heavily wooded, lots of cover that I want to be able to shoot through, but not too far away, then AKs rule. Florida swamps, definitely AK turf.

The ammo had been pretty cost effective to stock up on, but here is one huge issue: it may no longer be imported, and it uses nearly as much manufacturing resources as .308, therefore expect US made AK ammo in the future to cost more than .223, and may get restrictions. Almost nobody reloads it or has reloadable brass.

ARs - decent overall choice, but lack that brushbusting power, and now have ammo issues.

7.62 battle rifles - during a brief honeymoon of cheap ammo these were top dog choices, 2000 to 2005ish, FALs built from parts kits or even the DSAs were a no brainer. Now the ammo is costly, but the supply situation is likely to recover. If you can handle the rifles which usually require more skill to use than AKs or ARs, then you have a lot of advantages with the FAL, M14, G3 or .308 ARs.

Personally, if I still had all of my toys, and it were SHTF roll to what may be a one way trip to battle, here was the squad mix I had

3 FALs, lotsa mags.

Grendel folding sniper rifle, with the sniper also carrying an M4

A couple Benellis come along, maybe all three.

Everyone uses a .45 sidearm, something full size, full power full capacity magazines. Personally, especially if your rifles are large, my take on going indoors is going to be to sling the rifles and transition to handguns during the building clearing operation, with the shotguns being the number two man on each stack. Number one man has enough to worry about with doorknobs and immediate response, the backup guy with the benelli is there to dump a lot of lead in a hurry if the number one guy has a problem.

Outdoors, the crew has M4s but main battle rifles are the FAL variants. M14s would be a legit option, but I had more FALs than M14s, and sold my last M14 to get another FAL, which is what I decided was going to be my big main rifle platform. I was going to be testing a DPMS .308 AR, but had not finalized any decisions on dumping all the FALs to get .308 Ars.

Now, to be able to handle things, you probably need one of each for yourself, an AR, AK, and then some sort of .308/7.62, and there are several good valid choices out there. The trick is to figure out what the other guys have and then make some realistic decisions on whose stuff gets sold off and replaced with the standardized stuff.

As for heavy weapons, it depends a lot on what is available to you. I had some belt feds, all gone now but the idea on the belt fed or any crew served weapon, or those who have to hump the landmines, they all carry .223 carbines of some sort in order to save weight.

The regular military has a lot of reasons for not making large powerful handguns general issue to all troops, but that is entirely different when you start looking at SOCOM and what's good for them is good for me. Getting dudes to agree on what is the best handgun, damn near impossible. If you can, then great, and if you are providing the handguns, then that gets to be your decision alone. For me, it was the EAA witness .45 (I owned several) and for 9mm, I had five Beretta 92fs.

The bad thing though, is when some scum gets wind of your stocking up on hardware for the next revolution and gets paid $10K to set you up to get busted by the BATFags.

[RT]

Re: Firepower!

Really heavy stuff?

I was only suggesting that the special weapons team would have any of those items, not all of them. If you have a LMG then an ammo bearer or assistant gunner would be on that team, if you've got morters or demo the weight of shells, tubes, plates, etc would be spread out with the team, but we're trying to focus on weapons likely to be owned or quickly improvised by the civilian.

Whatever special weapon that was available, they'd be attached to the leadership element and placed where needed. It would make sense for the members to be armed with a handgun or other compact personal defense weapon.

The thing about having any "heavy" infantry type weapons then gets to the issue of what vehicles they get transported in, then by logic, those vehicles then become "light" fighting vehicles.

A natural progression happens which always seems to end up with a small convoy of African style "technicals" or something like what the PMC's rolled around Iraq with.