Army equipment that shouldn't have seen service

I think it's worth noting that America has a national passion for recreational firearms ownership. Most of the "tinkerers" in the US army have probably known exactly how to completely disassemble an AR platform since before they were issued one.

Again I ask, is it SOP for the US Army to teach it's soldiers how to field strip a weapon which includes the trigger assembly as well?
 
idk, I'm just pointing out that many American soldiers probably could without any instruction.
Who cares? I am interested in what the Army teaches it's soldiers to do. What they do, as individuals is up to them but what they are taught is what is important. SOPs for field stripping the firearm are? What exactly?
 
UK-Cadets-AMMO-Boot_2229x.jpg


Ammo boots
I enlisted, Aussie Army 1976, I was issued “ Boots, AB, and gaiters,” for barracks, and “Boots, GP” for field. And that continued for 3 years. Was not a battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment. ( If you really want to know, PM me. ) My point, the “ Boots, AB”, were crap.
 
Who cares? I am interested in what the Army teaches it's soldiers to do. What they do, as individuals is up to them but what they are taught is what is important. SOPs for field stripping the firearm are? What exactly?

Issue is regardless of field stripping SOP, the three round burst adds complexity to the trigger group. Which is not a ideal solution in a fire arm for military use. Less complexity is a good feature after all. In addition the three round burst is not ideal. Full auto fire is for room clearing or trench clearing according to Canadian army training. Everything else keep it in semi auto. With modern accuracy of rifles and optics you are better off not wasting ammo. The three round burst was a semi good idea at the time to increase odds of a hit for a poorly trained riflemen using iron sights cuz it sent 3 rounds down range instead of one or a bunch. In theory this meant in a "uh oh that's a target gotta send round off despite not having a great sight picture you might actually land a hit. However due to recoil the second and third rounds are off target compared to first. Simply tripling rounds fired doesn't make accuracy that much better then sending one round away, then bringing sights back on target and shooting again. It's notable that despite the brief hay day of burst fire it's fading away. It's reverted to semi and full auto again.
 
Issue is regardless of field stripping SOP, the three round burst adds complexity to the trigger group. Which is not a ideal solution in a fire arm for military use. Less complexity is a good feature after all. In addition the three round burst is not ideal. Full auto fire is for room clearing or trench clearing according to Canadian army training. Everything else keep it in semi auto. With modern accuracy of rifles and optics you are better off not wasting ammo. The three round burst was a semi good idea at the time to increase odds of a hit for a poorly trained riflemen using iron sights cuz it sent 3 rounds down range instead of one or a bunch. In theory this meant in a "uh oh that's a target gotta send round off despite not having a great sight picture you might actually land a hit. However due to recoil the second and third rounds are off target compared to first. Simply tripling rounds fired doesn't make accuracy that much better then sending one round away, then bringing sights back on target and shooting again. It's notable that despite the brief hay day of burst fire it's fading away. It's reverted to semi and full auto again.

I wasn't interested in the question of making the weapon more accurate. I was interest in it conserving ammunition. Full auto isn't much use when you don't have any ammunition left after it's overuse. Tell me, do they teach fire discipline in the Canadian Army? In the Australian Army we were taught to fire on command from our section commander/platoon commander - group to fire, range, target indication, target and type of fire.
 
Rickshaw,
That depends upon whose army you serve in.
Hah!
Hah!
Temporary Taliban tend to "spray and pray" their entire magazine during the first minute of an engagement, then run behind Taliban cadre.

OTOH NATO soldiers practice sight picture, squeezing the trigger, etc. for hundreds of hours before getting anywhere near battle.

Firing on command of your section leader harks back to Napoleonic tactics. Modern tactics vary depending upon terrain,lines of sight, weapons, etc.
Modern leaders tend to tell soldiers to hold their fire until the leader springs the ambush, then everyone picks their own targets and rate of fire (within their assigned arcs of fire).
 
Who cares? I am interested in what the Army teaches it's soldiers to do. What they do, as individuals is up to them but what they are taught is what is important. SOPs for field stripping the firearm are? What exactly?

Separate upper and lower receivers. Remove bolt carrier group and charging handle. Remove retention pin to separate bolt and firing pin from the bolt carrier group. Buffer and buffer spring. That's it.
 
Rickshaw,
That depends upon whose army you serve in.
Hah!
Hah!
Temporary Taliban tend to "spray and pray" their entire magazine during the first minute of an engagement, then run behind Taliban cadre.

OTOH NATO soldiers practice sight picture, squeezing the trigger, etc. for hundreds of hours before getting anywhere near battle.

Firing on command of your section leader harks back to Napoleonic tactics. Modern tactics vary depending upon terrain,lines of sight, weapons, etc.
Modern leaders to tell soldiers to hold their fire until the leader springs the ambush, then everyone picks their own targets and rate of fire (within their assigned arcs of fire).
We were trained to fire on semiauto as an LRRP in RVN 1966-67. RECONDO School taught the same doctrine since there is no ready ammunition resupply for an inserted 5 or 6 man team. Team 3 ran out of grenades and were down to last magazine each when they were attacked by a full platoon or more of NVA. SOP was changed to carry a standard bandolier of 7 x 20 round boxes of 5.56 rounds in pack.
 
Rickshaw,
That depends upon whose army you serve in.
Hah!
Hah!
Temporary Taliban tend to "spray and pray" their entire magazine during the first minute of an engagement, then run behind Taliban cadre.

OTOH NATO soldiers practice sight picture, squeezing the trigger, etc. for hundreds of hours before getting anywhere near battle.

Firing on command of your section leader harks back to Napoleonic tactics. Modern tactics vary depending upon terrain,lines of sight, weapons, etc.
Modern leaders tend to tell soldiers to hold their fire until the leader springs the ambush, then everyone picks their own targets and rate of fire (within their assigned arcs of fire).

I wouldn't say it's particularly Napoleonic to be honest - it's just the format of the orders has changed. Away from the ranges you're unlikely to hear "at the target to your front, five rounds rapid FIRRRREEE" these days but we still teach fire control orders. It just happens that usually there's a delay between the order and the actual shot these days because the target is unsporting enough to be hiding/under cover rather than marching slowly towards you in a column while wearing brightly coloured clothes. I'd say that "section, 200 metres half left, enemy in farmhouse, watch and shoot" is just as much of an order to open fire as anything that Major Sharpe and his men would recognise.

Obviously "two shots dash, down, crawl" as a reaction to enemy fire doesn't need your section commander to tell you to open fire but there's still plenty of times when you're firing under command even if it's not quite as formal as it used to be. Even in your ambush example, the subordinates are opening fire on the leader's command - he's just using his first shot as the order in lieu of actually shouting "fire".
 
I wasn't interested in the question of making the weapon more accurate. I was interest in it conserving ammunition. Full auto isn't much use when you don't have any ammunition left after it's overuse. Tell me, do they teach fire discipline in the Canadian Army? In the Australian Army we were taught to fire on command from our section commander/platoon commander - group to fire, range, target indication, target and type of fire.
Unfortunately I'm not a member of the CAF so can't give accurate insight about fire discipline. They do practice it but I'll leave detailed description to someone who either serves or has more learning about current CAF. From conversations about rifle and MGs I've had with friends who serve they state that; burst setting adds cost and complexity to rifle and results in increased chance of stoppage or mechanical, breakdown. They said they were trained that when switching to full auto they were to fire short controlled bursts, same with machine guns . In short they all concluded that range time training was sufficient to make a burst setting rather unnecessary.
 
Rickshaw,
That depends upon whose army you serve in.
Hah!
Hah!
Temporary Taliban tend to "spray and pray" their entire magazine during the first minute of an engagement, then run behind Taliban cadre.

OTOH NATO soldiers practice sight picture, squeezing the trigger, etc. for hundreds of hours before getting anywhere near battle.

Firing on command of your section leader harks back to Napoleonic tactics. Modern tactics vary depending upon terrain,lines of sight, weapons, etc.
Modern leaders tend to tell soldiers to hold their fire until the leader springs the ambush, then everyone picks their own targets and rate of fire (within their assigned arcs of fire).

It may sound like Napoleonic tactics but it is taught in the Australian Army. Ambushes are a specific tactic and are mounted from cover to surprise the enemy. When you are conducting a "advance to contact" you don't get the luxury of springing anything on the enemy. It is he who springs it on you.
 
I enlisted, Aussie Army 1976, I was issued “ Boots, AB, and gaiters,” for barracks, and “Boots, GP” for field. And that continued for 3 years. Was not a battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment. ( If you really want to know, PM me. ) My point, the “ Boots, AB”, were crap.
Australian Army 1975 I was issued one pair of boots AB and Gaiters and one pair of Boots GP. After my recruit course I only wore the GP boots except when undergoing watermanship (rafts, assault boats, floating bridges, personal flotation, build it yourself flotation) training was the only time I wore ABs.
 
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As far as Army equipment that should NEVER have been issued, no clearer example can be had than that of the Chauchat MG. Foisting it on the French Army was an act of criminal stupidity.

Calling the Chauchat a broke-leg yellow dog of a firearm is an injustice to broke-leg yellow dogs....
 
As far as Army equipment that should NEVER have been issued, no clearer example can be had than that of the Chauchat MG. Foisting it on the French Army was an act of criminal stupidity.

Calling the Chauchat a broke-leg yellow dog of a firearm is an injustice to broke-leg yellow dogs....

It outnumbered all other light MGs on both sides of the war combined twice over though. When you have to equip an army you need what you can get and in 1916 the chauchat was the only real option.

An automatic is better than no automatic.
 
There's a cartoon from either the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes or Yank in which a Japanese officer/NCO/EM is offering to surrender on the condition they not be fed Spam
Irony, considering the effects of all that Spam on the culture of the Pacific islands from Hawaii to Guam...
 
This will be controversial but I'm going to nominate the No 4 Mk 1 Lee Enfield rifle and it's derivatives. Why? The improvements over the S.M.L.E. were not worth the time, effort and money spent developing a new rifle. If the British were going to spend scarce resources developing a new rifle in the 20's and 30's those resources should have been spent developing a self loading rifle not reworking a design dating back to the 1870's.
 
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