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Infantry Effective Range-request and insight


Almac

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"П" sight (П - постоянный, constant or regular) for AK-74 is 400m, for AKM - 300m. (For targets with height 0,4m.) So, 400m is a regular fire distance for AK-74, nothing impossible or very difficult. Soldiers shoot at larger distances during training, 500-600m (but at larger targets, MG nest, ATGM e.t.c.) 

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1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:

There is also 'Stress Fire' it happens when the target shoots back. The performance of lots of people will suffer under these conditions. 

Sure, but stress affects accuracy, not max fire distance. Unit will shoot as taught, but will miss more often. "П" sight was made to let soldiers forget about setting sight in stress conditions. Just shoot under the target. 400m is greater distance, than M16's 300m, but it has shortcoming - at 200-220m trajectory is higher than head sized target.

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1 minute ago, DMS said:

Just shoot under the target. 400m is greater distance, than M16's 300m, but it has shortcoming - at 200-220m trajectory is higher than head sized target.

Lots of people fire centre mass what you describe is holding the sights at the 6 O'clock position with which you can deliver much more accurate fire. Your higher group hits right in the centre at longer range when you hold your sights at 6 O'clock. 

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I also think that's the big difference between small arms from 1944 to 2007 Khalerick. Mistakes are punished far more viciously than in World War 2 titles where automatics are much less ubiquitous, and you might even be able to run off a group of riflemen with an attack straight at them using enough men. By 2007 however the firepower of an infantry platoon is now wielded by a squad. This configuration wasn't possible in the early half of the 20th century when the prospect of needing million man armies was real and you pretty much had to keep using cheap stuff like 19th century bolt action rifles because they're the only thing you have millions of-and you still might come up short in a few places. The priority was that a frontline needed to be composed-and maintained-because frontline density was everything and the worst thing you could do was allow gaps to open up between formations. 

Edited by SimpleSimon
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42 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Lots of people fire centre mass what you describe is holding the sights at the 6 O'clock position with which you can deliver much more accurate fire. Your higher group hits right in the centre at longer range when you hold your sights at 6 O'clock. 

Right. It is standard method of fire in Soviet/Russian army. (As I understand, because beaten zone is larger than if you aim at centre. And ricochets.)

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3 minutes ago, DMS said:

As I understand,

Beaten zone applies to automatic fire. You deliver grazing fire by firing about 3 feet from the surface area. Plunging fire when you fire from an elevation. Here we discuss semi auto fire. The human eye can't look at the Iron sights and the target at the same time. Depending on the trajectory you hold the sights at 6 O'clock or 12 O'clock your target become a blur and your sights are in focus. An experienced marksman can be reasonably accurate at 500 - 600 meters. With a 1.25x scope you can do the same but like anything need experience. With scopes your area of movement seems to be worse than with iron sights this is only subjective. None of this applies playing combat mission the game is generic. In real life you can deliver plunging fire indirectly from cover, you need (The HQ) as spotter to direct the tracer. Rifle fire in CM suppresses mostly. 

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2 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Beaten zone applies to automatic fire.

In Russian it is called поражаемое пространство. Applies to semi-auto fire also. May be danger zone? Zone where trajectory stays in target height. If you aim at 600m below target, you hit 1m height targets in 90 m long area. (From 510 m to 600 m)

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2 minutes ago, DMS said:

May be danger zone?

Called a group. You, boresight the weapon fire a group now you adjust the sight at center mass of the group. Most cases about 300 meters, naturally you can fire on semi-auto also very rapid which expands the group. 

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In the game, I rarely allow my AK rifles to fire at more than 250m arc.   The Reds rarely have as much ammo as the WAllies (the US certainly) and since accuracy goes down, more than 250m I figure one should be using heavier weapons like the ubiquitous BMPs.  

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3 hours ago, DMS said:

In Russian it is called поражаемое пространство. Applies to semi-auto fire also. May be danger zone? Zone where trajectory stays in target height. If you aim at 600m below target, you hit 1m height targets in 90 m long area. (From 510 m to 600 m)

Danger zone is correct the correct term for the area where you'll still hit the target above or below where you were aiming. Also called swept space sometimes.

 

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

In the game, I rarely allow my AK rifles to fire at more than 250m arc.   The Reds rarely have as much ammo as the WAllies (the US certainly) and since accuracy goes down, more than 250m I figure one should be using heavier weapons like the ubiquitous BMPs.  

Yeah, I think a lot depends on how much ammo you're willing to expend for what effect. With the well stocked units I tend to do a fair amount of massed fire at longer ranges, even if it takes a lot of rounds a bunch of guys with rifles can suppress and get some hits out around 400m. The effect per round is pretty terrible, but it works when you need it and ammo isn't much of an issue.

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1 hour ago, Ryujin said:

and ammo isn't much of an issue

Yes, that is really the deciding factor.  FWIW I find myself being economical with ammo as am used to playing campaigns where ammo and force conservation can be very important.  IIRC there are some scenarios that penalize one if one uses more than a certain % of your ammo.

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Picture is better than words. In short, like beaten zone, but for rifles. (Without dispersion of shots, just mean trajectory) It is surprising that there is no equivalent English expression. At 600 m that "beaten zone" is 140 m long for AK-74. Man sized targets will be hit from 460 to 600 m. Shooter can make mistake on 100 m.

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Edited by DMS
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There was an interesting paper written some years ago called "Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer" by US Army Major Thomas Ehrhart.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA512331.pdf

It argued that small arms fire from modern US troops was not effective past 300 meters. Since the Vietnam era, US equipment, training, and doctrine had been optimized for firefights on level terrain at less than 300 meters, and most effective at less than 200. I don't know if anything has changed at all since the paper was written, but according to the paper, about half of all engagements in Afghanistan occurred at ranges beyond 300 meters, and US troops were often at a disadvantage against the Taliban. Taliban fighters liked to park themselves on high ground extremely far away, and then hammer US infantry down below with mortars and machine guns, outranging them. The Taliban were usually lightly equipped as well, and could maneuver easily through the rough terrain. By contrast, the US infantry were loaded down with heavy equipment and were not set up properly for the high altitude. So the Taliban could both out-gun and out-maneuver US infantry. Some guys would be equipped with M240s and whatnot, but about 80% of a typical US infantry company could not effectively return fire at the ranges involved.

Based on that, a 500 meter engagement range for US infantry in CMCW seems excessive. WW2 US infantry could certainly do that though.

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You can see this in CM:Afghanistan when Russian troops with their AKs are being outraged by Mujahideen using rusty old Enfields. Plus the big bullets pierce masonry walls that smaller assault rifle bullets don't. After 2000 the US got into bringing hole-punchers into the squad, and other armies soon followed - the 7.62 SR-25/ M110/Mk11 or whatever its called. Early in the Iraq war U.S. National Guard units deploying to Iraq were desperate to get their mothballed 7.62 M14s shipped over for much the same reason.

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3 hours ago, MikeyD said:

You can see this in CM:Afghanistan when Russian troops with their AKs are being outraged by Mujahideen using rusty old Enfields. Plus the big bullets pierce masonry walls that smaller assault rifle bullets don't. After 2000 the US got into bringing hole-punchers into the squad, and other armies soon followed - the 7.62 SR-25/ M110/Mk11 or whatever its called. Early in the Iraq war U.S. National Guard units deploying to Iraq were desperate to get their mothballed 7.62 M14s shipped over for much the same reason.

I’ve competed in matches with both the M1903A1 and the M1 Garland, and as I’ve said before, qualified with the M-14 and M-16. There’s a reason that the Navy SEALs favor modified M-14s when they need accuracy and stopping power. Unfortunately, I suspect most military planners have never heard a shot fired in anger, so they remain mostly clueless most things except what their superiors want to hear. Politics at it’s lowest form.

4 hours ago, Bozowans said:

There was an interesting paper written some years ago called "Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer" by US Army Major Thomas Ehrhart.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA512331.pdf

It argued that small arms fire from modern US troops was not effective past 300 meters. Since the Vietnam era, US equipment, training, and doctrine had been optimized for firefights on level terrain at less than 300 meters, and most effective at less than 200. I don't know if anything has changed at all since the paper was written, but according to the paper, about half of all engagements in Afghanistan occurred at ranges beyond 300 meters, and US troops were often at a disadvantage against the Taliban. Taliban fighters liked to park themselves on high ground extremely far away, and then hammer US infantry down below with mortars and machine guns, outranging them. The Taliban were usually lightly equipped as well, and could maneuver easily through the rough terrain. By contrast, the US infantry were loaded down with heavy equipment and were not set up properly for the high altitude. So the Taliban could both out-gun and out-maneuver US infantry. Some guys would be equipped with M240s and whatnot, but about 80% of a typical US infantry company could not effectively return fire at the ranges involved.

Based on that, a 500 meter engagement range for US infantry in CMCW seems excessive. WW2 US infantry could certainly do that though.

@Bozowans, thank you very much for posting the article. It is very informative. I suspect most of the Staff Officers in all of the militaries all over the world tend to “train to fight the last war.” I know that in 1978, we were still using “Viet Nam” tactics such as circular defensive positions and such. The break down in discipline was directly caused by officers and NCO (“Leaders”) who failed to enforce discipline in their subordinates. For example, I was in a USMCR light helicopter squadron. Since there wasn’t much maintenance needed on our Hueys, a number of us banded together to do combat training with our Training Gunny to keep up our proficiency (EVERY Marine is a rifleman first and foremost). We ran some aggressor exercises against National Guard troops at the request of their training staff. We always wiped them out simply because we could follow the smell of pot and the sounds of beer can pop tops to locate their positions. They wouldn’t have lasted 15 minutes in actual combat. The fault was with their leaders not doing their jobs. The Marines have a saying “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war!,” and a Marine leader, officer or NCO, is held responsible for the conduct of his subordinates whether he, or she, is present with them or not. Failure is the failure of the leader!

Edited by Vet 0369
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You will have the effect during volley fire which is an older expression. Covering or area fire as ordered. You will have a beaten zone effect. I just checked in SF2 each trooper in a squad has 500 rounds you have the potential to be out of ammo inside 2-3 minutes. How many people use snipers for suppression? It is effective if he takes 1 out the rest of the enemy platoon stops. @MikeyD you have a very effective cottage industry in that country. The .303 like all bolt action rifles are economical and often in excellent condition. The jungle version in Australia was popular as a pig or vermin rifle at least in the 70's. 

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9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

You can see this in CM:Afghanistan when Russian troops with their AKs are being outraged by Mujahideen using rusty old Enfields. Plus the big bullets pierce masonry walls that smaller assault rifle bullets don't. 

Well, Mk.7 ammunition had 745 m/s velocity. 5,45 weapons had much better ballistic. Even 7,62mm RPK was close, having same velocity, but worse BC. May be Mujahideen used hand loaded ammo with light bullets? Or it is just a myth about "superior enemy weapons", that is always popular among soldiers.

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18 minutes ago, DMS said:

Mk.7 ammunition had 745 m/s velocity.

I can say .303 like all handloads you can get a much better performance than any intermediate round in production today. Doing my sums with the 5,56 NATO which is similar I imagine to the Russian 5.45 mm I just looked it up it is 55Grain going at 3000ft/sec. It gives you a performance similar as a 9 mmx19 at 25 meters at 300 meters. You can custom load any bolt rifle for any purpose. .303 with a scope you will be effective between 500 meters and 1000 meters depending on visibility and the weather. I gave you my insight as a handloader which I did as a hobby till about 30 years ago.  Higher velocity doesn't mean better ballistics. I would prefer the 7.62 x 39mm rather than the more modern 5.56 NATO which used to be affected by brush or wind more than a slower and heavier projectile. It depends what your purpose is, for accuracy the .38 Special with a 148 grain wadcutter velocity 800ft/sec is more accurate than a 9 mm Parabellum with a 115 grain going at 1200ft/sec at 50 meters. Why that is? I don't know but I selected the .38 special for competition. 

Edited by chuckdyke
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23 hours ago, DMS said:

Picture is better than words. In short, like beaten zone, but for rifles. (Without dispersion of shots, just mean trajectory) It is surprising that there is no equivalent English expression. At 600 m that "beaten zone" is 140 m long for AK-74. Man sized targets will be hit from 460 to 600 m. Shooter can make mistake on 100 m.

unnamed (6).jpg

You mean 'Grazing Fire'?

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