Cost. Anyone telling you weight is a liar. The little asiatics in Vietnam loved the BAR and stole them constantly, and those guys are the size of a 10 year old boy.
US Army Generals saw shit like this and still thought full auto is useless because troops "waste ammo"...
Just kidding, some Major or Lt. Col. read this and gave them a basic summary and they ignored it.
But seriously, this is a great example of the obvious benefits and demand for full auto fire in actual military combat.
Weight when it comes to military weapons in general is also something that is an exagerated problem, caused more by infantry enlisted men b***hing than it actually being a problem.
No, it's just US Army generals being fricking imbeciles.
That and they have been constantly fixated on the resources they have under their individual commands being reduced in some way. That was one of the issues US Army generals had with the creation of the US Army Special Forces, it meant less soldiers under their individual commands with them moving away to serve in the SF units.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Actually in the case of the M16A2 the US Marines leadership were the fricking imbeciles who originally wanted their new M16 upgrade to be semi-auto only. Somehow the burst mode got put in there as some sort of compromise (a badly implemented one) for the less stupid Marines who saw some value in automatic fire.
Grunts will b***h when they get told to carry their cold weather gear so they don't freeze to death. Grunts will also b***h when they're told not to carry their cold weather gear because "dude I'm fricking cold".
The packing lists are unironically usually sensible for light infantry units. The weight comes from shit like the issued rucksacks being way heavier than they need to be with extra rows of MOLLE and 1000d cordura on every square inch. The sleep systems weigh 4x what a civilian equivalent does. Even the issued camelbaks in most countries are chunky compared to their civilian equivalents. This, on top of machine guns, tripods, anti tank weapons systems, ammunition for it all, food, water, etc. adds up very, very, very fast.
Shitloads of body armor, unecessary amounts of clothing and food and water, anti tank guided missiles to use against mobile guerrillas armed with full auto rifles and hand grenades that don't even have mortars etc
>US Army Generals saw shit like this and still thought full auto is useless because troops "waste ammo"...
Which is why, only four years later, they adopted a universal-issue automatic rifle whose development had begun in 1944.
moron.
It's cost plus ability to resupply ammo (mission-dependent).
It's a little more justified not to load up a whole squad with FN MAGs if they're on a long patrol, but for short raids or static defense it is absolutely viable to have an entire squad armed with M60's, M16 with M203 and Stoner M63's. Just ask the Seals, they did it all the time in Vietnam, and they weren't that jacked back in the 60's either - no one was. If you can afford it, if you can supply ammo for it and you don't have to carry it 20 kilometers across a mountain range, you absolutely should be carrying the biggest gat you can. No one ever complained about having to much firepower, and no one ever will.
>What did the BAR do better than an M14 with an extended magazine?
Exist for 25 years before the mechanism that would eventually become the M14 came into existence. >Why did the BAR keep limping along in service even though nobody actually liked it?
Because we paid for 120,000 of them and dammit we're going to use them. People just don't comprehend how little budget Congress gave the Army & Navy to work with outside of wartime. The brief but enormous influx of equipment during WW1 had to be made to last as long as possible. >Use it up, wear it out; make it do or do without.
Even the M14A1 automatic rifle which featured a bipod and several other modifications wasn't thought to be as effective as the BAR in automatic. It was just too light. Maybe if they had used the M15 with those same mods it would have been better. As far as I know the M15 was of somewhat heavier construction more typical for an automatic rifle.
I like that the section before this is just complaining about every single aspect of the BAR
and then it's immediately followed by "also squads were BARmaxxing every chance they got"
Oh look, another disingenuous question from a 1 post OP.
But incase any anons are curious, the US military was heavily downshized after WWII. 16 million served in the US armed forces during WWII whereas over 6 million served in the US armed force during the Korean War, with only a fraction of them being combat personnel in either conflict, especially with regard to Korea. This meant that there was plenty of equipment to go around.
They make the thread and never post in it. Basically they had a question they wanted a one word answer for and never had any intention on expanding on what they initially asked.
Their official name, as from five seconds ago, are Slidethread Susies and they are to be laughed at for not asking these questions in the specific thread we create for these sorts of questions.
There weren't as many BARs falling off trucks in WW2 as there was in Korea.
There were still cases of frontline units retaining the weapons of dead or wounded men though, no reasonable platoon leader is going to complain about squads keeping extra weapons while on the front lines.
smaller army meant more BARs to go around
but also, they had increased the amount of automatics per squad over time in WW2, so korea was just building off their experience in WW2
WW2 started out with just a single BAR per squad, moving up to a single BAR per squad with reserve BARs to hand out to double them up to 2, followed by an unofficial 2 per BAR after the war
Individual soldiers took the BARpill and realized you could file down the BAR mag to fit inside the 1903 baseplate, like this madlad who gave his 1903a4 an extendo clip
There were all sorts of wacky field/armorer mods in basically every modern war. Brits grabbing scopes to plop on Lee-Metfords in the Boer War, French modifying Berthier Mle 16s to use Chauchat mags, people making foregrips since forever, people slapping optics on guns that never had any issued. While it isn't super common, it has happened going back to the 1890s.
Why would the high ranking officer be angry about the mini gun if the tank was instrumental in fending off the attack?
Basically, I think all tanks should have multiple rotary guns NOW.
1 month ago
Anonymous
It doesn't say anything about whether it was effective. I'm guessing it was confiscated because it didn't do anything but waste 100 rounds per second.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Besides there just homosexuals?
Because the brass did everything in there power to lose the war. Re watch we were soldiers and tell they thought that would work
Maybe a silly question but how were tanks used in vietnam? The impression I always got was the jungle was too thick/easy for charlie to hide in so you had to walk/helicopter/boat everywhere
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Maybe a silly question but how were tanks used in vietnam?
mostly dispersed as support units
an infantry battalion might be issued a platoon of tanks to strengthen them at key points
1 month ago
Anonymous
Mobile fire support.
Tanks can crush thru jungle and mud at low speed but have reduced visibility. This might be critical if the NVA had tanks for tank-tank fighting but when their heaviest common weapon was RPG-2s or maybe -7s, a tank could move forward and engage bunkers and other strongpoints relatively safely with its main gun then clean up any infantry with its coax MG.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The heaviest common weapon for stuff like this was recoiless rifles from the NVA.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Dispersed infantry support. Once the war became largely conventional after the US left ARVN M48s did end up fighting NVA T-54s on multiple occasions and generally gave as good as they got, but ended up getting abandooned en masse during the collapse of 1975.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Support for infantry and due to the NVA having armor.
Can't attest to the veracity, but my coworker's father supposedly said you could file down a 1919's spring to fit in a thompson to increase its cyclic rate ridiculously so that you could basically just magdump in all of a second during ambushes.
an underbarrel flamethrower.
It didn't get very far as this was before the creation of napalm, so the flames didn't stick to anything and dissipated quickly. It ended up working more as a sorta-kinda flashbang, making a disorientating popping sound and bright light as the fire blew out of the canister.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Why wasn't the idea brought back once napalm was invented?
I remember reading about how two soldiers in Normandy shot one another because they got in a fight over who had to carry the BAR
Bongs had the same issues (to no extent of shooting eachother) towards the bren except being the bren gunner was considered the best job since you got to sit at the back of the squad
They figured out that contrary to fuddlore of the time that the more dakka the better, and the army was heavily reduced from its WW2 size which meant more attainable dakka per soldier than before. I would also imagine given the mountainous regions of Korea that the humble .30-06 was much more appreciated.
Korea was the original Zergrush.
Large human wave attacks on defensive positions where logistics could supply large amounts of ammo.
WW2 Pacific logistics was more limited, WW2 Europe was offensive operations with longer forward movement carrying rifles and ammo, and no Zergrush.
define zerg rush, because they would usually apply heavy firepower on enemy hardpoints first to fix them first before advancing
they would generally avoid infantry attacks without first making sure their own guns are there to provide vital firesupport
it was the japanese who were making unsupported infantry assaults against the US, who would cut them down with machine gun and artillery fire
Has anyone tried chambering a BAR in a magnum cartridge? Something derivative of 30.06 but with better BC. Would be a neat way to get a lmg in a powerful cartridge
Cost. Anyone telling you weight is a liar. The little asiatics in Vietnam loved the BAR and stole them constantly, and those guys are the size of a 10 year old boy.
US Army Generals saw shit like this and still thought full auto is useless because troops "waste ammo"...
Just kidding, some Major or Lt. Col. read this and gave them a basic summary and they ignored it.
But seriously, this is a great example of the obvious benefits and demand for full auto fire in actual military combat.
Weight when it comes to military weapons in general is also something that is an exagerated problem, caused more by infantry enlisted men b***hing than it actually being a problem.
Infantrymen having destroyed bodies by 35 would beg to differ anon.
They're going to be destroyed regardless of the couple pounds shaved off with a lighter rifle
That's because of US Army officers being morons who want their troops to carry unecessary loads, not because of the rifles and ammo.
Garand offered to make a longer magazine for the Garand in the 1930s but US Army generals said no because "troops would waste ammo".
Same reason why they took away the full auto setting from the M16 with the M16A2 in the 1980s even though the whole rifle makes no sense without it.
I get the military having a tradition of marksmanship and wanting to penny pinch. But is "wasting ammo" really that big a deal?
No, it's just US Army generals being fricking imbeciles.
That and they have been constantly fixated on the resources they have under their individual commands being reduced in some way. That was one of the issues US Army generals had with the creation of the US Army Special Forces, it meant less soldiers under their individual commands with them moving away to serve in the SF units.
Actually in the case of the M16A2 the US Marines leadership were the fricking imbeciles who originally wanted their new M16 upgrade to be semi-auto only. Somehow the burst mode got put in there as some sort of compromise (a badly implemented one) for the less stupid Marines who saw some value in automatic fire.
every round fired had to be moved halfway around the world
What are those unnecessary loads infantrymen have to carry around?
>inb4 moronic neverserved
yeah, not going to join my cucked europoor military
Grunts will b***h when they get told to carry their cold weather gear so they don't freeze to death. Grunts will also b***h when they're told not to carry their cold weather gear because "dude I'm fricking cold".
The packing lists are unironically usually sensible for light infantry units. The weight comes from shit like the issued rucksacks being way heavier than they need to be with extra rows of MOLLE and 1000d cordura on every square inch. The sleep systems weigh 4x what a civilian equivalent does. Even the issued camelbaks in most countries are chunky compared to their civilian equivalents. This, on top of machine guns, tripods, anti tank weapons systems, ammunition for it all, food, water, etc. adds up very, very, very fast.
Shitloads of body armor, unecessary amounts of clothing and food and water, anti tank guided missiles to use against mobile guerrillas armed with full auto rifles and hand grenades that don't even have mortars etc
I mean, better to have destroyed bodies at 35 than 18
shit BARs were replaced with M60 and M63 machinefuns and the M16
Yeah and then they fricked it up by the 1980s with the M16A2 and fricked up again with the M4 in the 1990s.
>US Army Generals saw shit like this and still thought full auto is useless because troops "waste ammo"...
Which is why, only four years later, they adopted a universal-issue automatic rifle whose development had begun in 1944.
moron.
It's cost plus ability to resupply ammo (mission-dependent).
It's a little more justified not to load up a whole squad with FN MAGs if they're on a long patrol, but for short raids or static defense it is absolutely viable to have an entire squad armed with M60's, M16 with M203 and Stoner M63's. Just ask the Seals, they did it all the time in Vietnam, and they weren't that jacked back in the 60's either - no one was. If you can afford it, if you can supply ammo for it and you don't have to carry it 20 kilometers across a mountain range, you absolutely should be carrying the biggest gat you can. No one ever complained about having to much firepower, and no one ever will.
>No one ever complained about having to much firepower, and no one ever will.
Enemy here, I'm complaining and will request a nerf next patch.
What did the BAR do better than an M14 with an extended magazine? Why did the BAR keep limping along in service even though nobody actually liked it?
Automatic fire
>What did the BAR do better than an M14 with an extended magazine?
Exist for 25 years before the mechanism that would eventually become the M14 came into existence.
>Why did the BAR keep limping along in service even though nobody actually liked it?
Because we paid for 120,000 of them and dammit we're going to use them. People just don't comprehend how little budget Congress gave the Army & Navy to work with outside of wartime. The brief but enormous influx of equipment during WW1 had to be made to last as long as possible.
>Use it up, wear it out; make it do or do without.
The Navy was using BARs in Vietnam. They just frickin werked.
Even the M14A1 automatic rifle which featured a bipod and several other modifications wasn't thought to be as effective as the BAR in automatic. It was just too light. Maybe if they had used the M15 with those same mods it would have been better. As far as I know the M15 was of somewhat heavier construction more typical for an automatic rifle.
I like that the section before this is just complaining about every single aspect of the BAR
and then it's immediately followed by "also squads were BARmaxxing every chance they got"
>the BAR sucked
>lots of mobile firepower is good
How are these contradictory?
Oh look, another disingenuous question from a 1 post OP.
But incase any anons are curious, the US military was heavily downshized after WWII. 16 million served in the US armed forces during WWII whereas over 6 million served in the US armed force during the Korean War, with only a fraction of them being combat personnel in either conflict, especially with regard to Korea. This meant that there was plenty of equipment to go around.
>from a 1 post OP
what does that even mean
They make the thread and never post in it. Basically they had a question they wanted a one word answer for and never had any intention on expanding on what they initially asked.
Their official name, as from five seconds ago, are Slidethread Susies and they are to be laughed at for not asking these questions in the specific thread we create for these sorts of questions.
but anon, i'm OP
Hes a /misc/tard that doesn't realise we dont have post IDs on /k/
There weren't as many BARs falling off trucks in WW2 as there was in Korea.
There were still cases of frontline units retaining the weapons of dead or wounded men though, no reasonable platoon leader is going to complain about squads keeping extra weapons while on the front lines.
Production.
smaller army meant more BARs to go around
but also, they had increased the amount of automatics per squad over time in WW2, so korea was just building off their experience in WW2
WW2 started out with just a single BAR per squad, moving up to a single BAR per squad with reserve BARs to hand out to double them up to 2, followed by an unofficial 2 per BAR after the war
How would WWII be different if every infantryman was issued a Colt Monitor instead of the M1? Would it have any effect at all?
You know it would have.
Set them all up to use rifles grenades and supply the men with plenty of them and they could fight there way out of anything
The only reason this happened is because it took 16 years for Americans to figure out how to put a magazine on an Garand.
Individual soldiers took the BARpill and realized you could file down the BAR mag to fit inside the 1903 baseplate, like this madlad who gave his 1903a4 an extendo clip
>stendo mag'd 1903
maybe CoD wasnt too far off
There were all sorts of wacky field/armorer mods in basically every modern war. Brits grabbing scopes to plop on Lee-Metfords in the Boer War, French modifying Berthier Mle 16s to use Chauchat mags, people making foregrips since forever, people slapping optics on guns that never had any issued. While it isn't super common, it has happened going back to the 1890s.
Ayup. And it only gets wackier after welding equipment becomes more common.
>ywn use a coathanger and car battery to weld an M134 to an M48
Why live?
Why would the high ranking officer be angry about the mini gun if the tank was instrumental in fending off the attack?
Basically, I think all tanks should have multiple rotary guns NOW.
It doesn't say anything about whether it was effective. I'm guessing it was confiscated because it didn't do anything but waste 100 rounds per second.
>Besides there just homosexuals?
Because the brass did everything in there power to lose the war. Re watch we were soldiers and tell they thought that would work
Give me one good reason why the M1 Abrams' driver's hatch shouldn't have a RCWS gun on it.
The troops will waste ammo
Maybe a silly question but how were tanks used in vietnam? The impression I always got was the jungle was too thick/easy for charlie to hide in so you had to walk/helicopter/boat everywhere
>Maybe a silly question but how were tanks used in vietnam?
mostly dispersed as support units
an infantry battalion might be issued a platoon of tanks to strengthen them at key points
Mobile fire support.
Tanks can crush thru jungle and mud at low speed but have reduced visibility. This might be critical if the NVA had tanks for tank-tank fighting but when their heaviest common weapon was RPG-2s or maybe -7s, a tank could move forward and engage bunkers and other strongpoints relatively safely with its main gun then clean up any infantry with its coax MG.
The heaviest common weapon for stuff like this was recoiless rifles from the NVA.
Dispersed infantry support. Once the war became largely conventional after the US left ARVN M48s did end up fighting NVA T-54s on multiple occasions and generally gave as good as they got, but ended up getting abandooned en masse during the collapse of 1975.
Support for infantry and due to the NVA having armor.
Can't attest to the veracity, but my coworker's father supposedly said you could file down a 1919's spring to fit in a thompson to increase its cyclic rate ridiculously so that you could basically just magdump in all of a second during ambushes.
I love all the goofy tacticool gun attachments from the WW1 and prohibition gangster eras
What is the flaming bayonet canister?
an underbarrel flamethrower.
It didn't get very far as this was before the creation of napalm, so the flames didn't stick to anything and dissipated quickly. It ended up working more as a sorta-kinda flashbang, making a disorientating popping sound and bright light as the fire blew out of the canister.
Why wasn't the idea brought back once napalm was invented?
There any reports about the thompson from the korea?
I remember reading about how two soldiers in Normandy shot one another because they got in a fight over who had to carry the BAR
Bongs had the same issues (to no extent of shooting eachother) towards the bren except being the bren gunner was considered the best job since you got to sit at the back of the squad
They figured out that contrary to fuddlore of the time that the more dakka the better, and the army was heavily reduced from its WW2 size which meant more attainable dakka per soldier than before. I would also imagine given the mountainous regions of Korea that the humble .30-06 was much more appreciated.
Korea was the original Zergrush.
Large human wave attacks on defensive positions where logistics could supply large amounts of ammo.
WW2 Pacific logistics was more limited, WW2 Europe was offensive operations with longer forward movement carrying rifles and ammo, and no Zergrush.
US was doing the zerg rushing in ww2 pacific
define zerg rush, because they would usually apply heavy firepower on enemy hardpoints first to fix them first before advancing
they would generally avoid infantry attacks without first making sure their own guns are there to provide vital firesupport
it was the japanese who were making unsupported infantry assaults against the US, who would cut them down with machine gun and artillery fire
Because they didnt have tons of spare BARs lying around and the Germans weren't doing suicidal mass waves like the Chinese.
They already had firepower advantage against Germs with bolt actions, unlike chinks with burp guns.
probably needed it in defensive positions against the Chinese human wave tactics
Based Chinks were the first enemy US army actually had to fear
"We're not murdering them fast enough" isn't really a fear, exactly.
Has anyone tried chambering a BAR in a magnum cartridge? Something derivative of 30.06 but with better BC. Would be a neat way to get a lmg in a powerful cartridge