Re: HIGH TECH WONDER INDIVIDUAL WEAPON

On 2 Feb 2002 at 8:04, John Atkinson wrote:

+++SNIP+++

> God, but you sound like a 2LT.  "I read it in a book
> so it must be TRUE!"	That's been the theme of a lot
> of your posts over the past.

That's funny, most of your posts have had common themes also. 
Nay-saying any 
new or different concepts/technology and a general closedmindedness
being two of 
the more notable ones.	Somewhere between your nay-saying and the
fullfillment of 
every gadget-freak's dreams are where real applications of technology
really lie. 

> > were saying the same thing about the US's 
> > first Proximity Fuzed anti-aircraft rounds in WWII.
> > "You mean this 
> > fancy doo dad is going to know when to explode next
> > to one o' them 
> > nazi planes???   Sheeeit..."
> 
> 
> > *shrug*  If you really don't want light anti-armor
> > capability in your 
> > weapon fine. Do you also not want the ability to
> > reach behind cover?
> 
> You keep telling me it's got anti-armor capability.  I
> point out that it MIGHT take a BRDM, but not anything
> bigger.  And if I've got BRDMs running around, then a
> .50 cal has quite adequate anti-armor capability.  As
> for reaching behind cover, Mk-19s or M-203s do quite
> fine, thank you.  And yes, in my platoon there are two
> .50 cals, and 2 Mk-19s.  What more do I need,
> especially while running around on a breach?

M-203's are best-guess weapons, accuracy being more of an art than
sighting in 
your target and aiming center-mass.  The OICW concept is an attempt to
put 
explosives behind enemy cover with accuracy, instead of lobbing it in. 
By putting 
more of the OICW's in the field than 203's there is a gain in volume of
fire that 
might mitigate the size of the round.

I don't know about the armor pentration capability.  It's dubious to me
that such a 
small round could start smacking the snot out of light armor, but the
air-bursting 
capabilities seem very desireable, even over a M-203 and in many
situations the 
Mk-19* is unusable.  MOUT** operations being a biggie, where the
airburst grenade 
capability of the OICW would rock.

IF they can make it work.  IF Pvt Snuffy can make it work and IF the
darned thing 
doesn't wind up weighing a ton (any more than any other honker of a
weapon), then 
the OICW is a weapon system that's worth testing.  They can't test it
until it's 
developed, if nay-sayers like you were in charge of weapons system
design, you 
wouldn't have a Mk-19 on your vehicles, because they'd only be used by
the navy's 
landing craft, and even then only in their older hand-cranked versions
to pump out 
the rounds, (like the first gatling guns).

Our Navy and Air Force are the most effective in the world, due in large
part to the 
technology they put to use.  The Army is investigating ways to update
itself in that 
same way... failure to do so and our lower numbers will hose us, because
it's the 
tech that will make the difference.  America can't survive an attrition
war, it has to 
win another way.  That other way is by applying our know-how to kill
them better 
and faster than they kill us.  Technology is part of that know-how.

--Flak

For the civillian or less than militaristically inclined:

* The Mk-19 is a 40mm grenade launcher that must be on a tripod or
pintle to fire.  
It fires belts of 40mm grenades.  It's "officially" a 2-man carried
weapon.

** MOUT = Military Operation in Urban Terrain, basically it's urban
warfare.  

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