British Tactics

[Secondbrooks]

Just to add to that, and to complain about Secondbrooks being to flipping fast, but the British Army has not really gone for marksmanship but rather musketry, which is the principle of getting effective group fire applied to the target.

Ah. So that is what word musketry is about! I've heard that before but thought that it directly related to marksmanship.

Hmm you say "to complain about Secondbrooks being to flipping fast"... Do you mean that i'm going cuckoo/nuts in fast manner :cool:... I'm drunk at the moment, so i don't blame you.

[flamingknives]

Ooops, That should be: "too flipping fast"

As in "too fast", modified by "flipping" as a stand-in for an expletive.

I'm sober, so I've got no excuse.

[Vark]

I believe this is the footage of the Gimpy gunner you are refering to.

They are, I believe, SBS not SAS and the fighting was at the Quala-i-Janghji prison in Afghanistan, as to the firing stance involved several points.

A) They are UK special forces who have the pick of the top RM recruits, so they should, one hopes, know which appropriate technique should be used for which occasion. Though it is true that the SBS infantry training was overhauled after their first tour in Afghanistan, I don't think it included basic GPMG instruction.

Interesting because the stance is similar to the GPMG gunner and the MG-42 has a higher cyclic rate and the gunner has adjusted the sling to further increase stability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp0FbdrsIGM&feature=related.

C) Interesting because it show the relative accuracy of firing from the hip, the dusty terrain is excellent at showing the beaten zone. Sorry about the appalling music though!

D) Shows various techniques of the Bundeswehr for firing the MG-3, note the techniques for marching fire.

E) I remember asking an IDF soldier why he had canvas wrapped around his GPMG bipod, he said it was to stop his hand from slipping when he fired it from the hip.

F) Finally, if you are going to fire from the hip do it with style!

[Dietrich]

Germans seems to be doing it in modern times during traning. Walk at target while firing MG3 from hip. Is right name for it "walk by fire"? I believe idea is to keep enemy down with enough accurate fire while getting closer to opponent at the same time.

I'd be interested to hear how this worked in ww2

In the MG3 clip Vark provided, the machine-gunner seems a bit lackadaisical in his stance. For a demonstration of Sturmfeuer with an actual MG42 by the reenactor Kurt Suleski, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp0FbdrsIGM. Sure, the MG42 (like the MG3) has an attached bipod, but sometimes the enemy is so close that there's no time to plant the bipod on something or there's nothing to plan it on.

Enfield's bolt has been said to work well for that as one could rifle with middle finger and at same time keep thumb and forefinger on bolt.

I too have read that in several sources. I've also seen close-up video of a Lee-Enfield being fired (

) and also of a Kar 98k (

). It looks to me like the Lee-Enfield's bolt is rather easier to work than the Kar 98k's, which would substantiate the reports of working the bolt with just thumb and forefinger.

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[Pandur]

@Adam

i think its the same if you would have asked "USMC tactics". they wont differ generaly but somewhat in detail cause of other gear.

it will be still;

1 "get standoff distance"

2 "spott badies"

3 "destroy"

4 "get little closer"

5 "start again at 2..."

thats all you will do with army, marines, british and later the other euros. how you do it dictates your gear but there isnt all to much variation in the end, my point of view.

thats a reason why i will skip the british module to 99%. it wont have a Pinzgauer on blue side and wont have any new red gear(as it looks now). and i am not interessted at the other britisch junk at all.

so theres no reason for me to get it, i gona wait for the germans

[Chainsaw]

Regarding firing MG from the hip, its actually SOP with the M240 in swedish units when advancing, untill a few years ago we had 2 M240 per squad and used them like assault rifles kinda, but with more firepower. (today we have the M249 para)

So firing from the hip/rambostyle like that SAS/SBS man did isnt anything that I get upset over. ive been M240 gunner myself and done it allot, you can engage targets effectivly up to about 100-150m firing from the hip, further out you take the time to employ it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9QkuFKiz_Y&feature=related

[Dietrich]

Dietrich, that guy needs to get lower, more weight on the front leg.

"That guy" = Kurt Suleski, the guy with the MG42?

Did you watch the entire video, so as to notice that first he demonstrated the wrong way to fire the MG42 from the hip?

*shrug* Besides, I never said it was a perfect demonstration of Sturmfeuer.

[Vark]

In Russian anything you can do we can do better! Either that or the state of their armed forces are so bad they have run out of tripods!

[flamingknives]

In former Soviet Russia, machine gun fire you!

[Lethaface]

Didnt you see? Thats Rambo's russian half brother!

[simpson22]

Well i believe the Brits have very good firepower talking nowadays terms, il give it to the Americans they have the Thunderbolt which has awesome firepower and good accuracy but nobody can say the Brits lack firepower for one thing our version of the Apache is MUCH MUCH better than the American version as the Brits made the Longbow system and HIDAS. They also have the Spectre Gunship which is extremely powerful with its weakness that it cant fly at night. And people think that the Brits have hardly any armour at all because they always go round in jeeps that get blown up but in fact the Warrior is an excellent armoured vehicle and theres plenty of them.

The reason we go round in jeeps is because they arent allowed to go round in their warriors because the locals think theyre threatening so some idiots in the government said they should go round in the jeeps to look more friendly.

[hcrof]

To be fair I would be getting pretty p***ed off after 6 months of tracked vehicles driving down my high street. Also, to most people, if it has tracks its a tank and in Afghanistan, tanks carry a huge amount of negative feeling because the Soviets destroyed villages with them.

Besides, how are you going to collect HUMINT from inside a Warrior? Freindly locals warning of enemy movements save a lot of lives so it is worth talking to people as you drive though a town. Warriors have their place in very high risk environments but I think the commanders on the ground would use them more if they thought they needed them.

No argument on the hardware we have though - at the low level (Brigade?) we are the equal of the US forces, its just that as far as I know we have fewer high level assets available because we are not planning on defending West Germany any time soon

[Jinef]

I hate commenting on these discussions because someone always takes it to heart and starts banging nationalistic drums. However here is my opinion.

After a long history of managing an empire with a few hundred thousand soldiers (not including indigenous regiments) the British have tried it all. Over the years the armed forces have dealt with protests by shooting everyone in sight, using smash and grab tactics trying to remove leadership from the group, by taking a few round the corner and giving them a kicking, by standing back containing violence but not intervening and by reasoning and diplomatic means. We have dealt with drug problems by sending in SAS teams to unamed latin American countries to train and assist indigenous security forces.

We have dealt with insurgency operations all over the world. In Malaya we set up concentration camps which housed sectarian population elements, removing support for rebels. In Northern Ireland we sent in elite SAS teams to execute top leaders, the obvious hardline approach to such a problem. The result was massive inflammation of violence. We have legitimised our opposition by giving them political power and precedence in order to detract from violent means.

There is a lot of experience behind the doctrine of the British forces. The key learning points are - the less force you use, the better. The more approachable, sensitive to local issues and less intimidating a force is, the better it's chances are at quelling insurgency.

I think a lot of that doctrine has been lost with a desire for escalation, I am a cynic thus I think that large corporations with hefty profit margins are the main force behind this. It's incredibly easy to justify escalation, it just takes a few casualties ... it's not so easy to justify minimum force doctrine with a blood hungry public.