EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL RIFLEMEN IN AN INFANTRY SQUAD

[dpast32]

And here's another, relatively interesting 'Study', from 2017.

[PDF] EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL RIFLEMEN IN AN INFANTRY SQUAD - DAIR - Acquisition Research Program - Naval Postgraduate School
dair.nps.edu › NPS-AM-18-025

LINK At:

https://www.google.com/url?q=https:/...vPALtxDnNLgSQA

[CPM]

Two officers who never spent a day in the Infantry start their report referencing World War 1, then make judgement calls about what the next infantry rifle should be. Government work at its finest.

Waiting in the optometrists office and read the whole thing. Save yourself the time and don’t. What a waste of time for something they can stick on their LinkedIn.

[ggammell]

You deliver more than UPS. Top notch.

[C-grunt]

I just saw that the "taking back the Infantry half kilometer" was in the beginning of that paper. Not sure if this is where that paper came from or this work just uses it but I have a couple issues with it.

1. The overwhelming cause of lack of lethality from rifleman at 500 meter is missing the target.

2. Unless we are going to switch to a ridiculous new battle rifle round a 500 meter hit isn't going to be a hammer unless you hit specific vital spots.

3. I worked with a guy that was a SEAL and tested the 6.8 overseas. He found it no better than 5.56 except he couldn't get easy replacement ammo from outside his supply chain. To quote him "a good hit was a good hit and a bad hot was still a bad hit"


Now to the paper as a whole and the effectiveness of a single rifleman. Well that's really going to depend on which rifleman we are talking about. There are some non shooting mother****ers in an infantry company. There are also guys who are much more likely to engage the enemy early on than others. History is ripe with stories of single Soldiers and Marines doing very heroic things and changing the flow of a battle either by themselves or through actions they took.

[lowprone]

And only hits matter , .30 calibre hit matter more !

[glocktogo]

I just saw that the "taking back the Infantry half kilometer" was in the beginning of that paper. Not sure if this is where that paper came from or this work just uses it but I have a couple issues with it.

1. The overwhelming cause of lack of lethality from rifleman at 500 meter is missing the target.

2. Unless we are going to switch to a ridiculous new battle rifle round a 500 meter hit isn't going to be a hammer unless you hit specific vital spots.

3. I worked with a guy that was a SEAL and tested the 6.8 overseas. He found it no better than 5.56 except he couldn't get easy replacement ammo from outside his supply chain. To quote him "a good hit was a good hit and a bad hot was still a bad hit"


Now to the paper as a whole and the effectiveness of a single rifleman. Well that's really going to depend on which rifleman we are talking about. There are some non shooting mother****ers in an infantry company. There are also guys who are much more likely to engage the enemy early on than others. History is ripe with stories of single Soldiers and Marines doing very heroic things and changing the flow of a battle either by themselves or through actions they took.

Recalling the words attributed to Heraclitus:

For every one hundred men you send us, ten should not even be here. Eighty are nothing but targets. Nine of them are real fighters; we are lucky to have them, they the battle make. Ah, but the one. One of them is a warrior and he will bring the others back.
--Heraclitus, philospher/tactician, around 500 B.C.

[crusader377]

1. The overwhelming cause of lack of lethality from rifleman at 500 meter is missing the target.

2. Unless we are going to switch to a ridiculous new battle rifle round a 500 meter hit isn't going to be a hammer unless you hit specific vital spots.

If people were truly honest with themselves, infantry rifles effective ranges have been higher than the average soldier could utilize their rifles for at least a 100 years. A British Lee-Enfield, Mauser 98, or Springfield M1903 were all capable of effective ranges of 600M to 800M. However, due to training and the relatively primative sights an average soldier could not hit a single man on the battlefield at that range.

Actually the Springfield .45-70 trapdoor or the British Martini-Henry rifle from 150 years ago had an effective range of 400M-500M. Could your average soldier hit an individual target at that range in combat, probably not.

[C-grunt]

If people were truly honest with themselves, infantry rifles effective ranges have been higher than the average soldier could utilize their rifles for at least a 100 years. A British Lee-Enfield, Mauser 98, or Springfield M1903 were all capable of effective ranges of 600M to 800M. However, due to training and the relatively primative sights an average soldier could not hit a single man on the battlefield at that range.

Actually the Springfield .45-70 trapdoor or the British Martini-Henry rifle from 150 years ago had an effective range of 400M-500M. Could your average soldier hit an individual target at that range in combat, probably not.

Not only that, people tend not to just stand around in the open during combat. In 2005 I made the longest shot of my Battalion that deployment at 410 meters. The longest shot our snipers took was something like 375 meters. I was using a SDMR with an ACOG and shooting M262. So the shot itself was pretty easy. But the only reason I was able to make that shot is that my squad was in an overwatch position well away from the rest of our unit. The insurgent was shooting at my unit about 300 meters to his south and I was 400 meters to his northeast. So while he was utilizing cover and concealment from the guys he was engaging, he was basically wide open for me. However after I shot that dude and my team leader started engaging with his M4/Aimpoint, the group of insurgents took cover from us and I never saw them again well enough to make a good shot. After that we just shot into the treeline, bushes, and small canals where we last saw them, hoping to score a few more hits.

In my experience, actually seeing dudes at over 200 meters in combat is hard. I think the adoption of the ACOG and now the 1-6 LPVO as a standard rifle optic has and will improve the riflemans lethality at range vastly more than a change in rifle cartridge.

[lysander]

If people were truly honest with themselves, infantry rifles effective ranges have been higher than the average soldier could utilize their rifles for at least a 100 years. A British Lee-Enfield, Mauser 98, or Springfield M1903 were all capable of effective ranges of 600M to 800M. However, due to training and the relatively primative sights an average soldier could not hit a single man on the battlefield at that range.

Actually the Springfield .45-70 trapdoor or the British Martini-Henry rifle from 150 years ago had an effective range of 400M-500M. Could your average soldier hit an individual target at that range in combat, probably not.

You are forgetting the fact that there are such things as "area targets" . . . .

Not all targets are "point targets" . . . .

Infantry should not have to rely on the GPMG for suppression at ranges longer that 300 yards.

The problem with relying on indirect fire support is the US has not fought anyone with serious counter-battery capability equal to our own since 1945, maybe 1951-52.

[26 Inf]

Two officers who never spent a day in the Infantry start their report referencing World War 1, then make judgement calls about what the next infantry rifle should be. Government work at its finest.

Waiting in the optometrists office and read the whole thing. Save yourself the time and don’t. What a waste of time for something they can stick on their LinkedIn.

Actually, three officers, two of whom had infantry and/or mech infantry commands. One was the Assistant Product Manager (APM) for Army Handguns, Carbines, and Subcompact Rifles, including the Modular Handgun System.

I'm going to read the meat of this tomorrow, too late now.