Sheesh - what a bunch of Germanophiles ;-)

[Code13]

Just to add a bit of spin to this debate, but to compare the M16 and AKx is also a waste of time for another reason.

They are two different weapons to start with.

The M16 is a single shot rifle that CAN fire on full automatic and the AKx is a machine gun that CAN fire on single shot mode.

A quibble in semantics perhaps but one that illustrates that they are different weapons that share a common ground.

As for which is better, without a doubt the M16 is better engineered and more accurate, but that is all. The AKx is solid, reliable, accurate enough to do the task at hand.

Given the choice of a weapon that will hit the target when it fires or a weapon that will fire every time, most infantrymen will choose the latter.

(as a side note for all you M16 fans there is a similar debate in the British army, well the Para's and RM, over adopting the M16, because it is easier to maintain in the field than the SA80, despite the fact that the SA80 is more accurate, and better engineered)

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Code13:

(as a side note for all you M16 fans there is a similar debate in the British army, well the Para's and RM, over adopting the M16, because it is easier to maintain in the field than the SA80, despite the fact that the SA80 is more accurate, and better engineered)

I've heard that British SAS units in Afghanistan actually claimed a preference for the Canadian C7 rather than either of these.

[SpitfireXI]

I have also read and seen in Yves Debays books that the Gurkhas in Afghanistan have taken up captured AK's and dropped their SA-80s because of the reliabilty issues.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Abbott,

I congratulate you, you are now supporting my point of view.

LOL, I have not changed my opinion, you just want to claim I have to support your position. I have always believed the AK 47 was adequate for its intended purpose and have posted that claim here in this thread. That purpose being to inexpensively arm large numbers. I find other rifles to be of superior quality when compared to the AK 47. I maintain that the AK 47 is obsolete, just as the M 16 is heading for retirement. Millions of AK 47's will remain in service because of the vast numbers available, just like rats and cockroaches.

[MikeyD]

Don't know if this asside will be helpful in the debate, but let's not forget the almost forgotten PFC Jessica Lynch who became a P.O.W. during the iraq invasion when her M16 jammed on its first attempt to fire. Contemporary Pentagon press releases claiming she heroically fought til she ran out of ammo was all a bunch of hooey.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Don't know if this asside will be helpful in the debate, but let's not forget the almost forgotten PFC Jessica Lynch who became a P.O.W. during the iraq invasion when her M16 jammed on its first attempt to fire. Contemporary Pentagon press releases claiming she heroically fought til she ran out of ammo was all a bunch of hooey.

That maintenance unit was notorious for not maintaining their weapons, I thought.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Abbott:

...

Hitting anything with an AK-47 out past 100-150 meters is very dicey...

Just wanted to say that this is a considerable underestimate... I saw a bunch of signals unit soldiers, i.e. soldiers with a very basic infantry training, score regular (30-40%) hits on man-sized targets at 200 and 250 metres.

I also saw hundreds of 40years+ general staff officers who probably touch an AK-47 once every few years score even better results, all this using AK-47s that, while regularly maintained, have been used by generations of recruits.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Glider:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Abbott:

...

Hitting anything with an AK-47 out past 100-150 meters is very dicey...

Just wanted to say that this is a considerable underestimate... </font>

[Abbott]

Don't know if this asside will be helpful in the debate, but let's not forget the almost forgotten PFC Jessica Lynch who became a P.O.W. during the iraq invasion when her M16 jammed on its first attempt to fire.

Or did she panic and fail to release the safety?

[Splinty]

Originally posted by Abbott:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Don't know if this asside will be helpful in the debate, but let's not forget the almost forgotten PFC Jessica Lynch who became a P.O.W. during the iraq invasion when her M16 jammed on its first attempt to fire.

Or did she panic and fail to release the safety? </font>

[Glider]

Originally posted by Abbott:

I also am curious if they were firing AK 47’s or AKM’s?

AK-47s, in fact M-70s, Yugoslav version of the AK-47.

[Vixen]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Don't know if this asside will be helpful in the debate, but let's not forget the almost forgotten PFC Jessica Lynch who became a P.O.W. during the iraq invasion when her M16 jammed on its first attempt to fire. Contemporary Pentagon press releases claiming she heroically fought til she ran out of ammo was all a bunch of hooey.

I heard that this unit was lubricating thier M-16s with oil. A sure magnet for sand in the desert which caused all the jams. I was trained to not use lube oil in desert environments for that very reason. *shrugs*

[Brent Pollock]

Sheesh...three pages...I wonder if this is how Dr. Frankenstein felt...

[Bigduke6]

Splinty,

My read on the A2 is the same as yours. I certainly shot a lot straighter with it than the AK.

As to this -

As for the assertion that infantryman should be poorly trained cannon fodder, I'll put my squad of well trained, well equipped, moderately well disciplined, grunts against a full platoon of "cannon fodder" anytime. [/QB]

Well, I wasn't exactly arguing "should". More like "could" or "usually is".

I quite agree your well-trained squad would chop up a bunch of untrained cannon fodder, but what about the next platoon? Militaries learn, and the people up against you have survival instincts exactly as strong as your grunts. So the second time you might not be able to pull off a textbook ambush. And then the enemy comes up with another platoon, and another? Each time a little smarter, a little more competent?

Sure your squad will win most of its first firefights. But you know the deal, time will wear on, a mine, a stray round, a momentary slipup - and all of a sudden your well-trained squad is a section.

A big-time military can deal with that well enough, unless the war continues. The infantry replacements are incredibly expensive and, unless your side is clearly winning the war, rifleman fills get harder and harder to find. Meanwhile the other side, to replace its losses, all they have to do is hand some teenager an AK.

Sooner or later natural selection will turn some of those teenagers into infantrymen just as good as the grunts in your squad.

I know it's brutal, but where I'm coming from is that pure infantry fighting if it lasts more than a week is a contest of who can feed more bullets and bodies into the contest. The meatgrinder. Sometimes the meatgrinder runs horribly fast, like in the Somme or Huertgen Forest, and sometimes it runs slower, like Vietnam or Iraq.

That's why I see as a bunch of BS the line fed infantry units about their ability to survive on a battlefield depending on their willingess and ability to close with the enemy and kill him. That's real true if you're talking battles, but not campaigns or wars against another army, and often not even in a campaign or war against a bunch of insurgents.

Then the infantrymen, the ones that live anyway, them, figure out that no matter how studly they are, sooner or later the law of averages is going to catch up with them and they're going to stop a piece of metal.

That realization, and the casualties that go with it, really takes the steam out of peacetime training. And then the generals start whining "our troops have lost their agressive spririt" and "what we need is the school of the bayonet" and "private soldiers need to have more faith in organic firepower of their personal weapons" and "our boys are too willing to back off and let the artillery do the job, it's infantry on the ground that wins wars."

All of that is nothing more or less than propaganda fed soldiers by large militaries to convince them to do something inherently stupid: go somewhere where there are people willing to shoot any one who comes their way. Just like with bootshines and proper paperwork, war undermines the officer corps promise that if the infantrymen will just go forward, everything will work out fine. Infantrymen are people too, so to speak, and they figure out real quick what will get them maimed or killed.

For that realization to take place takes time, information, and dead infantrymen. A big country like the like the U.S. can sustain driblets of infantry casualties for a year or two, but after that things get tougher. A big, brutal country like Russia can sustain serious losses for years and still maintain infantry in the field. But even Russians have a limit to infantry dying because they're just out there against the law of averages - as 1917 proved.

So I'm not saying the AK is the ideal weapon for the well-trained squad. What I am saying is that it is a superior weapon for a nation in a war where most of the casualties are infantrymen.

[ June 17, 2005, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]

[Glider]

Hmmm... a very interesting point you have there Bigduke. But a country like the USA really has no choice. Its society will not accept significant casualties so it has to train the infantry it has as good as it can, no matter the cost, thereby minimizing the losses.

In case of war US leaders can only hope that the will of the society to accept lists of killed and missing in action will outlast the enemy's supply of AKs and teenagers.

[Denwad]

I guess it also depends upon the circumstance of those dying. It might take a nuke from Iran or something to rally the nation.

[Bigduke6]

Glider,

Good logic, but to me it misses the ultimate point. The goal is to win the war. Infantry attrition fighting usually is a means to that end, and far more often than generals have expected in the last 50 years it is the only route to that end.

If you can't win your war without infantry fighting, and if the other side decides to take you on in the bullets and bodies meatgrinder, then you have three choices:

1. Marshal enough will and resources to win the meatgrinder contest, if you can.

2. Change the terms of the war to something besides an infantry meatgrinder, if you can.

3. If you are lacking in will and resources, and in the ability to change the war's terms, cut your losses and get out the war.

Decide wrong, and the price is even more dead infantrymen.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

(snipped for brevity)

Militaries learn,and the people up against you have survival instincts exactly as strong as your grunts….

Meanwhile the other side, to replace its losses, all they have to do is hand some teenager an AK….

Sooner or later natural selection will turn some of those teenagers into infantrymen just as good as the grunts in your squad….

I know it's brutal, but where I'm coming from is that pure infantry fighting if it lasts more than a week is a contest of who can feed more bullets and bodies into the contest….

and sometimes it runs slower, like Vietnam or Iraq….

You clearly appear to have never been under fire and have drawn several incorrect conclusions (listed above) concerning combat troops.

Neither I nor anyone I ever worked with carried an AK 47 for the reasons mentioned here in this thread. A large number of more suitable weapons were available, including the M 16 rifle. We did take a lot of AK 47’s from corpses.

[ June 17, 2005, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Abbott ]

[Glider]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

...

1. Marshal enough will and resources to win the meatgrinder contest, if you can.

2. Change the terms of the war to something besides an infantry meatgrinder, if you can.

3. If you are lacking in will and resources, and in the ability to change the war's terms, cut your losses and get out the war.

...

True. A modern superpower, especially one as sensitive to public outcry as the USA is, will obviously try the option 2 first. If it succeeds you have the Serbia result - you win suffering no loses.

The main problem is, in my opinion, the fact that political leaders are wishful thinking animals. If the no-infantry-meatgrinder options are exhausted they will rarely cut their losses. There is always a powerful momentum demanding that the next escalation step be taken. And it is always easier to take that step than to turn back. So you listen to your generals who promise quick victory and ignore those who express doubts and you plunge ahead because "our credibility" would be threatened otherwise, "the threat to our geo-strategic interests in the region" cannot be ignored.

As casualties mount the great mass of reasons, explanations and justifications that pushed you into war in the first place gets bigger and bigger, "we lost too much to give up now", "our sons have made the ultimate sacrifice and we cannot betray them".

I see only three possible results:

1. You cut your losses and leave. Only possible in initial stages, while the great power still does not feel like it would be losing too much face.

2. You escalate always hoping that the next step will force the enemy to give up. And, fortunately, at some point, he does.

3. The war starts really tearing apart both your armed forces and the fabric of your society back home. At that point whichever political leader is left with the hot potato in his hands *must* cut his losses and leave. The fallout is tremendous.

Wow, this is getting rather long

The point is, well-trained professional infantry allows a Western-democracy type superpower to suffer less and inflict more losses, thereby shifting the "we admit defeat" point further along the escalation curve.

[Corvidae]

The trouble is, that having instilled a sense of nationalism in colonized and formerly colonized peoples, the democracy empires are now facing nationalistic peoples, who want to be regarded as people, While it was once common practice to buy the loyalty of local chieftans to get the colonized to submit,, the democracy both A) does not attempt to buy loyalty, but only demands obediance ,, and B)treats the conquered peoples worse than any former colonial master ever did, while expecting the people to love them for it,,,

You cannot parade old grandmother Shamilah through the streets of the city naked ,, and expect her grandsons to not seek vengeance,

those grandsons WILL find an ak47,, or a musket, or a rock,,, and fight back,,

And all the rhetoric and media spin of the democracy wont stop the weak from seeking freedom, nor will the might and arrogance of the democracy stop a freedom fighters bullet,,

[JasonC]

For the love of sanity, shut the freak up and take your political drivel to the general forum. This is combat mission.

[Bigduke6]

Glider,

Obviously I generally agree with what you say, but there is one quibble - I don't blame mostly/just the political leaders.

I would say there is plenty of blame left to go around. At minimum I would also indict a western democracy's populace, for neglecting the history of war in its public education.

My big rounds however would go towards the western democracy's officer corps. It's their job to see the military probabilities honestly and clearly. More importantly, since being human sometimes they will be wrong, if officers are not willing to sacrifice their careers to stop a war gone bad, young men die. Lack of moral bravery, shame on Paulus, that old line.

Abbott,

Gee whiz, actually, you know, I actually have been under fire, and more than once when you stop and think about it. If I get to use the Pentagon definition of combat veteran, then I probably have enough campaigns under my belt to take a shot at joining Napoleon's Old Guard.

I'll tell something else: Having a bit of metal fly your way doesn't annoint you as the Last Word on What Works in Combat.

Kitchner and Haig had decades of experience as field officers in all sorts of wars (peculiarly enough, often against poorly-armed and fanatic Islamic tribesmen), and history remembers them as the worst kind of butchers during WWI. I remind you Adolf Hitler was a decorated combat veteran from that same war, and if you do a search on this forum you will see Hitler is not remembered as a person with a deep understanding of wars and how to win them.

Good for you that you policed AKs from corpses. Seriously, no irony at all, IMO if every one in the world got to see the effects of wars first-hand, i.e. the corpses of young men, there would be a whole lot fewer wars.

[Barkhorn1x]

...the democracy empires...

Ha, that was a funny one.

Barkhorn.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Abbott,

Gee whiz

Big Duck,

I have never claimed to know all about any subject. I am saying that you have drawn several incorrect conclusions based on your theorization. I also would remind you of your first god-like condescending post as we began this discussion, it helped set the tone for our discourse. Now you are on to posting your political rants. I would suggest that you take a few deep breaths and step away from the vodka.

[ June 18, 2005, 08:29 AM: Message edited by: Abbott ]

[yuvuphys]

Yowsers! May I propose something, guys? This whole debate stems from differing philosophies on how to run a military. BigDuke, I'm assuming you served in a non-US military, probably non-western. In that case, you probably don't have access to the insanely profuse firepower that the US military does. That makes it easier for people to get close to you and fight you at close range, where the AK comes into it's own. In that case, I'd say yes, it should be the weapon of preference, since it has the higher rate of fire. On the other hand, the US military operates on a different principle. Somethings starts getting too close to you, call in a 500lb bomb, or a few 150mm howitzers, or an M1, and take care of the problem that way. Every soldier is a rifleman first, meaning that if you see a target at 500m out, you need to be able to take one shot at it, and kill it. For close-in work, the US releys on the M16 for clearing houses so you don't accidentally hose a hostage or civilian, where the M16 is the superior weapon. However, if you're in a close in battle with only the enemy, the US doesn't reley on the M16, but has the SAW and a new fully automatic shotgun. Thus, for the US, the M16 is the rifle of choice.

The weapons are meant for different things, and fill different roles in different armies, reflecting the different philosophies of the armies.

One last point; the guys in Iraq have plenty of chance to pick up AK's off the street to use for themsevles. If they felt it'd improve thier chances for survival, they would. I've not seen one do it to date.