Shooting moving targets - automatic vs semi

[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.

AH sorry i remember what i was now. It was the Falklands. The Marines used single shot SLR versus the Argintine Automatic SLR .... automatic SLR was all over the place hence the Mariines had fire superiority as it was ultra accurate. Sorry for the miss information above.

[acrashb]

But those are firing pistol rounds with an effective range of 150yds, if that. Modern body armor just laughs at them.

Regarding range, it's less about body armour (no-one laughs at being shot, body armour or no - remember you might get unlucky and take one in the face, femoral or other unprotected area, not to mention the bruising) and more about trajectory, which becomes rainbow-like past about 120 yards:

As for why "special forces", SWAT, ERT and so on have largely abandoned sub guns (by definition, those that use pistol rounds), it's both body armour (at close range it may make the difference) and the advent of reliable short-barrel (e.g., 10-11") AR-15's which become the do-all gun.

Having shot full-auto at varying ranges, my take is that at near-contact distance it's more likely to quickly put a target down because of rapid rounds-on-target, but no more likely to actually hit than rapid semi-auto fire. At longer ranges (absent a bipod, tripod or other mount) with a typical ROF (600-900 r/min), I'd just as soon use semi.

[acrashb]

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.

That's not really accurate. The MP5, loaded with FMJ, creates a small wound track. The M16 (20" barrel) creates a more-massive wound track as the bullet yaws and fragments. Larger / heavier doesn't take into account terminal ballistics.

I'd rather be sitting at home in either case, but the 5.56 is far more destructive than the 9x19.

See the M855 profile:

vs. the 9.19 profile (basically drills right through in terms of permanent cavity):

[Battlefront.com]

The other reason SMGs have been used by police and other "up close and personal" assault forces is the lower risk of collateral and friendly fire injuries. When you unload a M4 or M16 inside the average house the rounds will most likely go straight through walls and keep on going. This is apparently not as much of a problem with something like 9mm. And if a 9mm round does go through a wall it will have be going a fraction as fast as a 5.56 round would be.

The whole debate about wounds from the different rounds is rather interesting. Tumble (yaw) can really mess up a fleshy mass. Especially if the projectile is designed to cause extra trauma. But what is often cited as a weakness is that the target might not immediately become incapacitated. This is the #1 argument against both the 9mm pistol round and the 5.56 intermediate rifle round.

Something like a .45cal pistol round, apparently, hits with enough force that the target is less likely to continue fighting after even an extremities hit. As I understand it this has to do with the amount of kinetic energy transferred from the round to the body. Small caliber, high velocity rounds tend not to have the same "stopping power" as the larger, slower velocity rounds.

True story, somewhat related. Old small scale sawmills were made form very large circular saw blades spinning at massive RPMs (now they are pretty much all bandsaws). The problem was sometimes the teeth, or pieces of them, sheered off and would go flying off at super sonic speeds. A friend of a friend was with a couple of guys operating one of these sawmills when one of the guys said he felt tired and needed a nap. They found him later on dead. No obvious signs of cause of death. An autopsy was done and it was found a small piece of the saw blade had passed through his body and severed an artery. The guy never felt it, though he did feel the effects of internal bleeding (which is what he died from). Which is why my friend won't go near one of those things any more, despite the fact he saws lumber for a living Anyway, the point is that high velocity, internally destructive hits doesn't mean the person hit goes down for the count right away. This guy had continued working without even knowing he was hit!

Steve

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[akd]

The other reason SMGs have been used by police and other "up close and personal" assault forces is the lower risk of collateral and friendly fire injuries. When you unload a M4 or M16 inside the average house the rounds will most likely go straight through walls and keep on going. This is apparently not as much of a problem with something like 9mm. And if a 9mm round does go through a wall it will have be going a fraction as fast as a 5.56 round would be.

Actually, no. 9mm is generally more likely to over-penetrate, especially if we assume LE rounds in both calibers.

The whole debate about wounds from the different rounds is rather interesting. Tumble (yaw) can really mess up a fleshy mass. Especially if the projectile is designed to cause extra trauma. But what is often cited as a weakness is that the target might not immediately become incapacitated. This is the #1 argument against both the 9mm pistol round and the 5.56 intermediate rifle round.

The only way to immediately incapacitate a living thing is to destroy the central nervous system. Shot placement matters much more than caliber.

Something like a .45cal pistol round, apparently, hits with enough force that the target is less likely to continue fighting after even an extremities hit. As I understand it this has to do with the amount of kinetic energy transferred from the round to the body.

That doesn't really make sense. Certainly 5.56mm has far more kinetic energy, and if the bullet does not exit the body, that energy is transferred. Now I know there is an argument that bigger holes are simply better and that larger cross-sectional area means more energy transfer, but I'm not entirely convinced.

True story, somewhat related. Old small scale sawmills were made form very large circular saw blades spinning at massive RPMs (now they are pretty much all bandsaws). The problem was sometimes the teeth, or pieces of them, sheered off and would go flying off at super sonic speeds. A friend of a friend was with a couple of guys operating one of these sawmills when one of the guys said he felt tired and needed a nap. They found him later on dead. No obvious signs of cause of death. An autopsy was done and it was found a small piece of the saw blade had passed through his body and severed an artery. The guy never felt it, though he did feel the effects of internal bleeding (which is what he died from). Which is why my friend won't go near one of those things any more, despite the fact he saws lumber for a living Anyway, the point is that high velocity, internally destructive hits doesn't mean the person hit goes down for the count right away. This guy had continued working without even knowing he was hit!

Steve

Oh, suck. But even low(er) velocity metal fragments can cause the same damage. (Thus the guy who dies from the grenade explosion, but no one can find any sign of a wound on the body.)

All I'm going to say is that the ranges need to be quite short and that it works the same way a shotgun does when it hits a skeet. Muzzle climb is a very minor issue when you're firing a burst of "saturation" fire at a moving target at close range. Especially when the shooter is braced. (Prone, at a window, whatever.)

First the analogy doesn't really work unless all the projectiles leave the AKM's muzzle before any recoil takes effect. A shot at a clay pigeon, duck, etc. is still just one aimed shot, even if it produces a spread of projectiles. Rapidly firing the shotgun repeatedly will not compensate for poor aim/lead.

Second, the scenario has been so narrowed down as to be entirely irrelevant to your original complaint.

[ScubaSam]

Not at all Steve. It was adversarial and looked to me more like inquisition than inquiry. So I shut down rather than get involved in yet another flame war which always end up ad hominem with one side getting all the leeway to say anything and the other, whichever YOU happen to disagree with, getting the moderation.

Forget it!

Jeez, man, I think all people are after is a link to somewhere that backs up your ideas. It's not a trial, just a discussion. Incidentally, I have such a link to provide - there was a thread a while back talking about the possibility of introducing PDWs for front line troops - based on the idea a long range assault rifle wasn't required because no soldier was accurate enough to provide suppressive fire over a certain distance - essentially if the bullets don't pass close enough, it was assumed it doesn't suppress.

http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets...on_Weapons.pdf

It's not really a view I agree with - the idea of reducing an infantry platoon's firepower to a handful of P90s or MP7s creates a lot more problems than those it solves, IMO. And of course, there's always the psychological suppressive effect of rapid-fire MGs to consider - who wants to charge the MG position? No volunteers?

[Noltyboy]

AH sorry i remember what i was now. It was the Falklands. The Marines used single shot SLR versus the Argintine Automatic SLR .... automatic SLR was all over the place hence the Mariines had fire superiority as it was ultra accurate. Sorry for the miss information above.

Strangely ive always read that alot of the Brit troops would "liberate" argentine FAL's because they had an automatic function, realy useful for clearing the trenchlines the Argentines dug everywhere. Fire superiority was more likely achived by the simple fact that the marine's, para's and guardsmen where against argentine concripts, poorly led with low morale. Plus they were just NAILS!

[Ryujin]

I never said the research was unquestionable, if you could learn to read, it says "has shown unquestionably" -- in other words, I got a lot of evidence in one direction and none in the other. That doesn't mean the *research* is flawless, it means that the research yielded overwhelming support for one conclusion.

If you want someone to share *work* they've done with you, asking nicely instead of adopting some kind of adversarial stance and twisting their words, would be a good start. Frankly based on the way you write, I'm more inclined to let you do your own work or leave you squirming around in the dark.

Nice sound mod though.

Thanks.

You don't have to share anything with me, it just doesn't make for a very convincing point if you don't. By the way, do you mean work or research? Not answering any questions and taking a hostile stance doesn't help the debate either.

You've stated something that doesn't seem to jive with what I've heard from the various soldiers/marines I know (that fully automatic fire from an unsupported assault rifle is the best way to intercept a moving target). Of course this depends on the range, which you haven't specified either (50 meters? 200?), so I'm assuming you mean out to say 300. So within those parameters my "research" shows the opposite to be true, that being that tracking a target with a lateral spray of automatic fire is most likely going to go all over the place. Correct me if I have your position wrong, since I didn't find it clear.

Maybe you do have some great convincing research that I'll be convinced by, I'm not going to hold my position if it is provably wrong. But that research will convince me, not you saying it's true.

@Akd, from what I've heard read, I think your mostly right. CNS hits are the only sure-fire way to stop someone. Most incapacitation is psychological or due to blood loss otherwise. For example insurgents on drugs have that psychological element removed and would often take multiple hits, even from 7.62 NATO and just get up and run away. Since most tissue is pretty flexible and stretchy, I doubt kinetic energy transfer from has as much of a physiological impact as its often portrayed unless it's enough to actually tear, however it could have a strong psychological impact (the impact and knowledge of being hit). Had that saw mill worker known what had happened, I bet he would have been completely incapacitated even if it was the same damage.

My unqualified $.02.

[vincere]

@Akd, from what I've heard read, I think your mostly right. CNS hits are the only sure-fire way to stop someone. Most incapacitation is psychological or due to blood loss otherwise. For example insurgents on drugs have that psychological element removed and would often take multiple hits, even from 7.62 NATO and just get up and run away. Since most tissue is pretty flexible and stretchy, I doubt kinetic energy transfer from has as much of a physiological impact as its often portrayed unless it's enough to actually tear, however it could have a strong psychological impact (the impact and knowledge of being hit). Had that saw mill worker known what had happened, I bet he would have been completely incapacitated even if it was the same damage.

My unqualified $.02.

That's a really interesting point. I've come accross a few quotes of this but most if not all referred to 5.56. (Or maybe it was my bias in reading).

Not asking for references but if you can recall off the top of your head anywhere that refers to the narco pumped people fighting on after 7.62 and larger hits? Would be appreciated.

[Alan8325]

About taking multiple hits and still going, there are several accounts of that in "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell. Fellow SEAL team members, according to Luttrell, took many seemingly critical hits from AKs, including some to the chest and head, and continued to fight alongside him, shooting accurately. Of course the account has the possibility of being played up for the purpose of selling books, but being SEALs, symbols of mental toughness to most, I have every reason to believe it is accurate.

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[Dietrich]

various posts by Adam, Steve and Ryujin

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

various subsequent posts by Adam, Steve and Ryujin

What's really at issue here, anyway? What is the OP arguing for/against? All too quickly what could have been (and yet partially is, somehow) a thought-provoking and perhaps even mutually enlightening discussion has devolved into a near argument due to merely suboptimal choice of words on both sides.

making not-especially-specific statements with non-standard terminology (i.e., referring to AKMs as SMGs)

+

saying others are hostile and lack reading comprehension when they ask for clarification/elucidation

=

a recipe for confusion

[vincere]

About taking multiple hits and still going, there are several accounts of that in "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell. Fellow SEAL team members, according to Luttrell, took many seemingly critical hits from AKs, including some to the chest and head, and continued to fight alongside him, shooting accurately. Of course the account has the possibility of being played up for the purpose of selling books, but being SEALs, symbols of mental toughness to most, I have every reason to believe it is accurate.

Doh, maybe Ive been blinkered with this because there's a fair few references to US and Brit guys carrying on after hits and shrapnel.

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[JonS]

Well, no, I'm afraid you aren't thinking about it right.

Famous last words

All these things are *quantifiable*, including the dispersion caused by muzzle climb per unit time. You need to look at a dispersal of shots over a period of time and distance. Mechanism of dispersion only matters insofar as it actually affects the dispersion pattern at the range in question and over the time in question.

But muzzle climb isn't quantifiable. Or rather, it is but not in any generally meaningful or useful way.

Muzzle's climb: check

But how much a muzzle climbs is dependant on a bunch of variables, at least some of which cannot be controlled between different instances of the same weapon, or even the same instance with different firers ... or even the same instance and the same firere but different conditions.

That, fundamentally, makes the dispersion of a singleshot weapon different to that of a shotgun.

[Ryujin]

That's a really interesting point. I've come accross a few quotes of this but most if not all referred to 5.56. (Or maybe it was my bias in reading).

Not asking for references but if you can recall off the top of your head anywhere that refers to the narco pumped people fighting on after 7.62 and larger hits? Would be appreciated.

The account of 7.62 (M240) specificly being used I'd heard from a buddy who heard from a buddy. But here's some related links:

Strabbing said his platoon found five locations with stockpiles of needles and adrenaline. "My guys put five [machine gun] rounds into a guy who just stood there and took it and then took off running," he said

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/13/world/fg-iraqdrugs13

At 5:00 they start talking about US Army Staff Sergeant David Bellavia in some insane house to house fighting with drugged insurgents

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzVHWnB3_is&feature=related

There's a lot of similar accounts from Fallujah.

Mr. B

Talking about ranges under 50 yards, less than 40 preferably. Target exposure something like 2 seconds, tops. Think shooter reaction time - prepared to fire on the location but not sure when the target will appear. ROF is key.

RPK/bipod house to house, AKM for indoors. Compare SKS semi ROF in this specific circumstance, taking reaction time into account. You know what's right.

There you go, that I can see the logic in. At 50 yards/indoors, yes, you may actually be close enough to spray rounds on with an assault rifle and have more/same effect as semi auto. Now that there is a clear range, that helps. A little info goes a long way.

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[Ryujin]

the semantics was half joking after someone pointed out that bit about the submachineguns. but that doesn't translate well on the internet.

Anyway, people seemed to be talking about differing ranges, and recoil putting rounds off target, which implied a farther range. I added the 300m bit to try to get you to actually quantify what we were talking about. I'm not trying to put my argument in a new light, you are right that <50m it could be possible to just spray a target.

If you really want to get all defensive about everything, note:

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.

.

<50m is about point blank range (I freely admit that's not well defined), so please relax and we can actually discuss this. I maintain my position, I just didn't think you were talking about that short of a range (I was figuring 100m or so).

It certainly seems like previous debates are influencing your responses here, which is frustrating because I'm not trying to start any kind of "flame war" here, but being treated as such by just trying to clarify your position.

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[Ryujin]

Well asking you didn't work

Anyway, I hate arguments where we're basically agreeing but communicating poorly.

And they certainly are out to get me... . Luckily the aliens can't see my flannel patterned tent.

[akd]

So now all we need is a video in-game of an SVD having more effect on moving targets at less than 40 yards than, say, a PKM. Otherwise this whole thread is pointless.