Burst & Full Auto

[gdeal]

I heard the 3 shot burst instead of full auto helps to keep the barrel cooler too. But yeah U R right. Better training for our troops is the need of the hour. Perhaps the NRA should take their shooting classes on base.

[Scribe]

I met an old lady once who had been with the SOE in France in 1944. She had experience with the Sten and the MP40. She said that though the MP40 was clearly better made she preferred the Sten simply because of the semi automatic capability. I remember clearly what she said next.

"Rapid fire is tremendous fun on the range, but it does encourage you to squander an entire magazine on every opponent you deal with and when you are in contact with the enemy, nothing is as precious as ammunition. On Repetion you simply present the sights to the eye and solve the problem with two or three rounds."

[Mikeyboy]

While I bow my head with the general knowledge being thrown around this thread I got to ask, would 3 round burst be helpful in round counting. you have 10, 3 round burst in a 30 round magazine. 6 trigger squeezes on burst mode, you know you got 12 rounds left. Spraying and praying you know how many bullets you got left. Full auto should be for machine guns (SAW, M60, etc) and not for rifles.

[model 25]

I favor the abilty to go full auto as need comes. Having shot in full auto matches at ranges up to 200 yards it is very obvious that the second shot out of the barrel is wasted on one target. So of course semi is best.

A close encounter with people comming through the door would seem to warrent full auto just for the firepower to keep em at bay.

Just my 2 cents

25

[too many choices!?]

3 round burst doohickey, as soldiers CAN"T pull the trigger HARD enough to start the cycle and ALSO release the trigger fast enough to interupt it again, to get less than 5 shot bursts with an M4A1...Gets even worse the shorter the gas tube gets, as the distance the gas travels to unlock the bolt and start the cycling of the bolt carrier is less, increasing the speed of the cycle...Just MHO and o.o2 cents...

Makes sense though, don't it...3 rnd burst=:barf:

[ranger dave]

In 2000 We (hhc 1/75 Inf) Got Around 2000 Rounds Per Man To Train With In 2002 That Number Jumped To 4000 Things Are Getting Better The Army Is Realy Stressing Sport Shooting Now . The Idea Is The More You Shoot The Better. And If They Can Get You To Pay For It The Bean Counters Are Happy:d The Burst On Most M 16 Is Going By By With All The M4a1 Running Around. The Remfs Were Using To Much Ammo Its A Good Idea I The Stress Of A Fire Fight Saveing Ammo May Just Save Your Butt

[Thx1138]

Being currently in the Army I have talked to Iraqi Freedom vets and they attest to the semi option, even in 5.56. We need a round 5.56 or otherwise that will put down with certainty the enemy. Automatic fire should be handled by the SAW. Automatic fire is great for suppressive fire. There should always be a SAW around is well as some sort of grenade or rocket launcher. Don't get me started on the 203.

[The British Soldier]

The thing about automatic fire is that...it looks good, sounds good but doesn't hit a lot!

That said, it does have its place and our UK doctrine is that close quarters battle is done on automatic; which really means inside the building! We are trained to put in grenades then make entry hard and fast using high volumes of automatic fire to clear the room - naturally anyone in there is history, so one must make this distinction between clearing rooms and hostage rescue. The latter is the preserve of Special Forces who are trained for it.

The M16A2s we bought from the US for the British Army all had automatic rather than burst; even on the MP5 or anyother HK variant with the burst option on the trigger mechanism, we would skip it and go straight to automatic. If you have the discipline to use it properly, one can get a very controlled two or three round burst to a thirty round burst [which is a lot of fun!].

I hope the burst trend dies away.

[ColonelRivers]

Well I am going to toss in my two cents worth here.
I agree as to the rationale behind the burst fire. The mechanics did add more parts that can fail. also if you stop in mid burst you may have only 1 shot on the next go round as the cam may be on the last lobe.
Training is the answer but under the stress of combat the techno answer is about all thats going to work with certainty.
When I build one of our 502 Thunder Sabre's in select fire we usually go with simple Safe-Fire-Auto parts kit. on some we have done a 4 position kit but the customer (Dept) writes the order.
FYI
The Thunder Sabre is an AR type rifle in a short 50 cal like the Beowulf.

I agree 100% with the British Soldier. Definately the pervue of the highly trained pro.

Something for everyone Check out this little bad boy
This is a 7-1/2" barrel 50 cal Thunder Boss.
Short entry gun with awesome firepower.
335 grain slugs at 1450 FPS comes with Eotech and CMT Laser
CR

[Pyrozen]

IMO full auto/burst is great in certain circumstances, but personally, i would take semi any day.

Being a civ and not in the military i can say that the circumstances, besides at the range, of me needing full auto or burst are nil.

Also, one well placed round, will beat 30 poorly placed rounds.

The answer? Training and practice.

A soldier/leo/civ that can place each and every round on target is worth his/her weight in gold.

[ColonelRivers]

The burst fire mechanism was put in the M16 family of weapons simply to save ammo being wasted by the spray and pray mentality. I agree 100% that training is the only answer but that is not going to happen in the US Army with the numbers that go through. I battle hardened spec ops soldier is going to be able to do all these wonderful calculations under stress but the average grunt is going to grab a hand full of trigger and rock. Brains is always preferable to a mechanical device doing the thinking but sometimes you just have to work around some issues.
I personally hate the burst fire system on the M16 family the extra parts are just more stuff to fail and the 4 position fire control is even worse. They are all fine for some applications but for combat I would prefer on and off and more training.

[grndpndr]

Some excellent points for and aggainst,but for use by all sorts of troops especially those who are not as well trained as they should be the 3 rd burst makes alot of sense.Those tthat are well trained should have enough trigger control to shoot 2-3 rd bursts w/trigger control alone.i was trained w/the A1
and as you all know it is Safe,Semi,and FA.Some soldiers didnt get it and may never,for them the 3rd burst makes agreat deal of sense,the 16 is not a SAW after all and the burst feature allows some sort of fire discipline.I agree w/the idea there is far to little emphasis on riflery at least when i was an infantryman and i doubt that has changed. Full auto or burst an infantrymans
primary weapon is his rifle and he should be trained to use it with as much emphasis as is placed on crew served weapons.I do believe that short bursts(3rds) are effective on point targets ,if aimed low center mass w/the bipod and tight hold of the sling all 3 rds will impact the target if the soldier ios well trained out to 300 meters,area targets the burst feature would be effective as well,but again assuming you have a rifleman well trained w/his weapon.
Fact is a mauser can be much more effective than the ,most modern assault rifle or MBR in the right hands. Hello All,My first post on what appears to be a fun ,well informed sight! grndpndr

[JoeK]

Coming from experience (US Army, Ft. Bragg, 1993-2000), here are the reasons why fully automatic M16's are impractical:

1.) Anyone that has done any live fire exercise knows that you fly through the magazines with just 3 round burst. As much as you try to conserve ammo, it doesn't happen. Adrenaline, whatever, if my M16A2 was had full auto instead of burst, I would have run out of ammo quickly.

2.) The true purpose of full-auto - suppressive fire. This is why some unlucky sap (usually the shortest guy ) gets to hump the M60 (or M240G). There are other squad weapons designed to lay suppressive fire. As a matter of fact, in my last year I had soldiers get assigned a M249 SAW as their personal weapon instead of the M16A2. On a side note, I disagreed with this policy as I thought it was more difficult to qualify SS or expert with the SAW instead of the M16 or M4. This hurt several E-4's trying to rack up the promotion points.

3.) Weight - Weight is your enemy when rucking anywhere. More weight = slower, more weight = fatigue. Humping extra ammo on movements or jumping is not fun. For those that have shot fully automatic weapons (see point 1), you know that it's difficult to keep your rate of fire down. It's easy to rock that trigger and smoke everything in your lane of fire. This also wastes ammo. A lot of ammo. Shoot all of your ammo and you're a$$ed out. Maybe your buddy will hook you up, maybe not. Firing efficiently and accurately is difficult when firing on automatic. Efficiency and accuracy is paramount (even when laying suppressive fire).

There were some good points about weapons malfuntions. Malfunctions are par for the course with older automatic weapons (read: M60). Nothing better then a double feed when in the middle of a fire fight or in a live fire exercise. Game over unless your AG brought the extra barrel. I think full auto capabilities increase the chance for malfunction. I would rather have a few crew serve weapons go down in the platoon, then half of the personal M16's or M4's. No weapon = combat ineffective.


This is my .02
JOE

[Chaingunner]

I'm a Navy Gunner's Mate, currently working as an Armorer onboard USS Tarawa. When issuing M16s, I make it very clear that the watchstander is NOT to go to full auto for any reason if SHTF - thanks to the Navy, these guys get little enough opportunity to shoot and I'd rather they didn't waste half their ammo in one 30 round burst and hit nothing. The same applies when I find myself having to issue M14s equipped with selector switches (actually moreso, since the mags on 14s hold ten fewer rounds and the felt recoil is no joke - if you've never experienced a full auto 14, you probably don't want to do it for the first time while SHTF).

The lack of training we are experencing is completely and utterly insane. Granted, there is plenty that can be done without actually firing live rounds - you can practice breath and trigger control, for instance - but we encounter quite a bit of difficulty in actually getting people to show up to training. Making it "mandatory" doesn't make Leading Petty Officers get their people to go, unfortunately.

However, our biggest problem is that most of the military's ammo is being sent to the middle east for use in combat, so those of us in the Gator Navy aren't receiving much to shoot (for training purposes, anyway), and once we burn through our "training" ammo we're not given anymore for the rest of the fiscal year. Because of this, we're limited to only a handful of live fire gun shoots a year - five or six, tops. :\