Shooting moving targets - automatic vs semi

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[akd]

The intended purpose of automatic fire in a shoulder-fired small arm is not to shoot moving targets, and I would venture to guess that at all but the shortest ranges, attempting to lead a moving, man-sized target while firing full-auto would be largely futile. The advantage of automatic weapons in game is the same as in real life: they provide a large volume of fire resulting in more rapid suppression of the target.

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[akd]

Whether inaccurate automatic fire is more or less effective than well-aimed slow-fire that actually connects with targets is a whole other debate. But certainly high-volume inaccurate fire is more effective than low-volume inaccurate fire in providing suppression.

In the case of something like an AKM, the vertical dispersion likely to result from automatic fire would likely overcome any compensation for poor lead that might be gained by lateral dispersion. With LMGs or MGs, tracer fire might overcome this, as it would allow for continuous correction of improper lead while firing.

[Wengart]

One of the benefits, imo, for an automatic weapon firing on a moving target is the ability to put several shots near the same point in quick succession. This means that if the shooters first shot was a led a little too much the second or possibly third shot could hit the target. This requires no/little lateral movement which I would imagine (because I've not shot automatic weapons) to be much harder than simply making a "wall" of bullets for the target to pass through.

[dan/california]

I would debate if inaccurate auto fire even generates much suppression in a full scale fire fight. Once the general noise and chaos reaches a certain level, rounds that aren't coming close probably will not even be noticed. The one real advantage of full auto is that it does provide a great deal more firepower at the very short ranges it can be controlled. Which with a bloody lot of them trying to overrun your position can be very important. Actual machine guns are a completely different issue of course.

[Battlefront.com]

I agree with Dan. Anybody who has tried firing even semi-auto at a moving target knows how difficult it is. Hell, firing at a moving target single shot is pretty difficult unless it's up close and/or moving slowly!

Trying to counter act muzzle climb while at the same time tracking/leading a target seems to be futile. The shots are going to go wild, mostly well over the head of the intended target. Again, at close range with something directly behind the target this might not matter too much because all kinds of nasty things happen when bullets hit surfaces like brick.

MGs are designed to overcome this problem in a couple of different ways:

1. It is designed to be fired on a bipod or tripod, giving it better stability. Especially a tripod which has traverse as a standard feature.

2. It uses traces which allows the gunner to "walk" the rounds onto the target.

3. It has an ammo supply sufficient enough to make "walking" rounds feasible. You can't walk rounds you can't see, you can't pickup where you left off when you've spent your 30rnd mag.

General rules of thumbs

1. Automatic fire from a shoulder arm is less accurate than individually aimed shots. Burst fire is somewhere in between.

2. The more motion that is introduced into the equation, either by the shooter or by the target or by both, the more important inherent accuracy becomes if you wish to actually hit the target.

Put another way, taking the least accurate method of fire and applying it to a situation that requires the most amount of accuracy... well... I personally wouldn't expect better results than the most accurate method of fire would achieve.

Or put yet another way... slow and steady wins the race

Steve

[MikeyD]

Fom what I understand the 3-round burst for assault rifles was an effort to compensate for less than-stellar marksmanship. A three round dispersion pattern significantly increases the chance of something getting hit inside the cone of fire. Longer bursts get into the law of diminishing returns -barrel jump and wasted ammo. I understand the Army does a less thorough job of training for accurate longe range rifle shooting than the Marines.

[dan/california]

The other thing full auto does is convince less well trained people that they are doing SOMETHING. If it keeps a group of insurgents in a fire fight long enough to get that golden BB it might be worthwhile in that context. The smart thing for the insurgent to do may be to expend his ammo and discard or re-hide his weapon as rapidly as possible. But one of the measures of a really well trained soldier is how little they use it, if they are so equipped.

This excellent British article on the subject was brought up in an earlier thread.

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Owen,_UK_Platoon_Weapons.pdf

[sross112]

Machineguns vs moving targets:

Machinegunners are trained to pick a spot ahead of the moving targets, lay a line of bullets downrange and let the targets move into the bullets. This works very well with machineguns due to their greater stability during automatic fire and their greater ammunition load.

You do not actually sweep the fire along with the target. This takes up too much time and ammunition.

As for hitting a man that is running perpendicular to the shooter with a shoulder fired rifle; very short ranges are doable, but a man running at 12mph 500m away is going to take a lot of skill. It can certainly be done, but not by your average soldier without a lot of luck involved. You do the same as a machinegunner and pick a spot in front of him and crack a few rounds off while hoping he runs into them.

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[dan/california]

But those are firing pistol rounds with an effective range of 150yds, if that. Modern body armor just laughs at them. There is a reason no serious military issues them to front line troops any more.

[Ryujin]

Well, again I have found that "sub" machine guns, without tracer, are perfect weapons for intercepting moving targets. That's what my research has unquestionably shown. Ranges need to be quite short. I guess you're not going to take my word for it, that's okay.

Well, some contextual info might help.

What is your "unquestionable" research? That has to be quite some research you have there to use that adjective.

How short of a range?

By "sub" machinegun do you mean submachineguns or is this some way of referring to assault rifles?

I agree with dan/steve, firing an unsupported automatic weapon at moving target doesn't seem like it would have the best results at anything other than point blank range.

Unless the shooter isn't even aiming or is just putting down area fire, in which case more rounds might help increase the odds a golden BB. But that doesn't really count and doesn't seem to be what you're referring to.

On a related note, you never seem to see any rapid semi automatic fire in CMSF. Seems to be slow aimed single shots or bursts.

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[Ryujin]

Sorry Ryujin but it's that kind of hostile aggressive approach to things here that discourages me from engaging in this sort of thing.

I made my point. It's fine if you don't believe me but I don't intend to pursue it any further than what I've already said. There are loads of things you can do to research the topic on your own if you are interested and I don't expect you to take my word for it.

I apologize if not taking your word for it was in anyway hostile, but it's impossible to engage with what your saying without any details or support. With no information to back up the claim other than alluding to some unquestionable research and not very well defined claim I have to ask questions.

My assumption was if you created a thread about the topic and wanted something changed in CMSF, that you would want some constructive discussion of it and would share your research to support why the game should be changed. Apparently I misunderstood?

[Battlefront.com]

Adam,

You made a claim that is quite strongly worded and have dismissed everybody else's posts without offering any citations for your claim. Someone asked you, quite rightly, what that claim is based on to word things so strongly that would allow you to be so dismissive. That's not aggressive, that's inquisitive. And in this sort of discussion, essential. Getting huffy about answering a reasonable question isn't at all helpful to the topic you started.

Note that "subguns" are called that because they fire a subsonic round, usually 9mm these days. "Assault rifles" fire a supersonic rifle round, either full sized or shortened. Therefore, by definition an AKM is not a "subgun".

Spray and pray actually works fairly well with a subgun because muzzle climb is much, much easier to control because the propellent charge is not all that powerful. This is why subguns are the preferred weapon for police and (at times) military special forces. If you have to get in close with the enemy, especially in confined spaces, a subgun will generally rule the day. But at anything other than very short ranges it is not very useful. Which is why no modern army uses subguns for anything other than personal protection (and even then, few nations bother with them) or special forces operations. As a battlefield weapon, they're pretty much useless against any target, moving or otherwise.

Steve

[Lanzfeld]

Steve,

I think most 9mm is supersonic (over 1115 ft/sec). Some is just under. Depends on barrel length too.

I think subgun is just short for submachine gun isnt it?

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, it is short for sub machine gun as common usage (at least in English, the Germans call it a "machine pistol" for example). However, I thought it got it's start because the rounds that were fired were sub-sonic. But this doesn't matter anyway because this is beside the point because I don't think anybody considers an AKM a "subgun".

The point is there's a big difference in the ability to control a pistol round vs. a short or long rifle round. 5.56 NATO is about three times faster than NATO standard 9mm, which is just a hair over sub-sonic. My guess is most NATO standard would fire sub-sonic in some subguns. The .45cal is significantly slower than 9mm.

Steve

[Ryujin]

Yeah, most 9mm is just a bit over supersonic at muzzle velocity. .45 tends to be subsonic I think.

However, pistol ammo is still popular with SF because it's naturally lower/power velocity and this means subsonic ammo will still cycle most submachineguns. This is not the case with something like the M4 (unless you use super heavy ammo which will quickly go subsonic with horrible ballistics), so SMGs still fill a niche that can't be replaced by something like the Mk18.

If I remember correctly, Lanzfeld is right, submachinegun/subgun is more in reference to the pistol ammunition than the velocity.

However, Steve's post correct, minor technicality aside.

But if we're going to nitpick Steve's post, I'll add by definition, assault rifles fire intermediate rounds as I understand it. Full size rounds are fired by "battle rifles" .

[Michael Emrys]

If I remember correctly, Lanzfeld is right, submachinegun/subgun is more in reference to the pistol ammunition than the velocity.

Something like that has always been my assumption. The term seems to have come into general usage some time after the First World War to differentiate full automatic weapons firing pistol ammunition from full automatic weapons firing rifle ammunition. The German term 'machine pistol' was actually a better descriptive, but never caught on in English.

Michael

[scottie]

i watched a documenary recetly about the British Marines in WW2. They using a bolt action single shot weapon (303 i think) versus the automatic german (i think) counterpart. Marines were more accurate due to single shot and the weapon muzzle did not kick up continuely. (i think it was WW2 they were talking about , i maybe wrong. Was before they starting using the SLR anyway). Though this maybe relevant.

[Noltyboy]

Bolt action rifles are more accurate due to not having the big heavy working parts moving around while the round is still traversing the barrel like a Semi auto Rifle. This is only realy an issue over long ranges as it has only a small effect. Hence why most "sniper" rifles are Bolt action but Designated marksman rifles are semi auto.

As for using automatic fire the only time im told its used by UK forces is during final assaults on a position. Lots of grenades and clearing with rounds. As a current "part time" sailor im told im not even allowed to use the automatic mode on the L85

[Jonny(FGM)]

I can see us getting lost in the horrible world of semantics here . . . . .

[Praetori]

Regarding SMGs. IF I were to get shot I'd really rather get shot by an M16 at 30m than a MP5 to be honest, seing the kind of injury the larger, heavier projectile causes.

Back on track:

Automatic fire from a MG makes hitting moving targets quite easy.

They often have a bipod way up front, are heavy and the weapon is designed for automatic fire with some degree of precision.

Doing the same with an AR is another story. At any range (except for close quarter combat) most Assult Rifles are just plain bad in automatic mode.

Hitting a moving target with an AR with singe fire will (in my experience) score hits faster than automatic fire. At least for ranges over 50m. At lower distances it's more of a dualing range and most soldiers don't look through their sights as much as over them (unless in prone firing positions).

Soldiers with extensive hunting experience can often be really good shots against moving targets. Some of the best shooters I've seen have had an interest in civilian game hunting.

Most soldiers (again in my experience which is not representative for all) seem to just pick a spot and ahead of the moving target and wait while the better hunters seem to track and "lead" the target, chosing a good timeframe when to shoot rather than a specific spot.