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US Combat Arms Rifle
- Thread starter HarryO45
- Start date
Nimrod71
Senior Member
I have never been a fan of the 5.56 as the primary infantry round. They do have there place in battle but I think a heavier round would preform better. As and assault round for which their primary arms are called they work fine. Their size and weight makes it possible for soldiers to carry hundreds of rounds in quick loading magazines as compared to the much heavier 7.62 X 51. Maybe one day they will find a weapon and round that is a good as the old 50 cal. M2 BMG.
fauxferret
Senior Member
Neat concept but somewhere, on some range, a soldier is gonna fail cause he doesn’t have good fundamentals and relied on optic. I hope this round does what they want it to do. We only spent $100m and 15 years trying to develop a non toxic 556 round.
GeorgiaBob
Senior Member
We can agree that 5.56 is underwhelming. But is converting to a complicated rifle and a complicated round really an improvement?
GeorgiaBob
Senior Member
And 30.06 killed more than that.
Bobby Bigtime
Senior Member
I think the 7.62x39 probably has the edge on both of them.
GeorgiaBob
Senior Member
The 30.06 was the primary cartridge for all US Armed Forces in WWI, WWII, and Korea. It fed the Springfield 1903, the M1-Garand, the M-14, as well as several squad and platoon level MGs. The 30.06 round was in almost every firearm wielded by US troops in WWI and 95% of infantry weapons in WWII and Korea (the M-1 carbine's short 30 cal was the only other cartridge). The 30.06 was also used in a number of USAAF and USAF combat aircraft. Just in the Pacific during WWII the Japanese lost over 500,000 troops to US infantry weapons firing the 30.06.
I seriously doubt that the US/NATO 5.56 has been responsible for even a tenth of the combat casualties of the venerable 30.06.
Robert28
Senior Member
The bad guys choose AK’s for a reason
Reliability not caliber drives AK use. Dunk it in water and roll it in sand and it still fires.
Robert28
Senior Member
To me that’s exactly what a “go to war” rifle should do.
SKS’s are about as reliable as the sun rising..and pretty accurate if you do a trigger job & find what Ammo it likes ?
Robert28
Senior Member
Yeah I bought one of the Chinese type 56’s back in 2019. Mine took HOURS to clean up, it’s still a beat up gun but shoots fine.
Bobby Bigtime
Senior Member
A friend of mine bought an sks in the late 80s and kept it in his service truck out here in the wild west. He deliberately never cleaned it. He said it never jammed once. He took virtually all creatures with it. I bought it from him a couple years ago and had a gunsmith friend give it a thorough cleaning. He told me it was the filthiest firearm he had ever dealt with. This is one of the dustiest environments anywhere as we receive about 10 inches of moisture per year. Don't have to worry about rust though. I foolishly sold this relic of experimentation
This is true. (Except the M14 is 7.62x51/ .308 not 30.06)
WWI and II had huge casualties compared to any other conflict/s. There is no certain way to determine how many Soldiers have been killed in combat by exactly what weapons, but if you measure the overall casualties, and then look at the percentages of likely infantrymen contributions you can make an educated guess. It seems very likely that the 30.06 has taken more lives over any other cartridge in history. The M1 Garand is likely the single rifle that has killed the most enemy Soldiers in history. Some may make a strong argument for the Mauser, but remember the Mauser had many different configurations. There was only one model of the M1 Garand.
I bet that the 7.62x39 from the SKS, A47 or AKM (they are all different rifles) are the firearms that have the notable distinction of killing the most civilians / non-combatants in all of history.
trial&error
Senior Member
Not positive which rounds the Germans used, but 24 million Russians were killed in ww2 Only 9 million Germans killed. Not saying all were shot with any specific rounds. Nearly 20 million Chinese were also killed in WW2 + an additional 15 million during the 10 yr Japanese occupation.
