Thread: LSW...the Armys view...

Originally Posted by EX_STAB

. . .It's do-able if marksmanship was encouraged more than it is.

About a hundred years ago (1984-86), as a Capt, I was SO3 G3 Training at HQ SWDIST in Bulford..

I was respionsible for things like the Sniper concentration, the GPMG(SF) match, and the SWSAAM (2nd biggest shooting match in UK, after Bisley).

Got to meet an awfy lot of shooters; including the 2 GOCs I worked for who were - respectively - an LI gravelbelly, and an SAS deer manager (Quote Gen T.J of Fastnet race fame "I don't like target shooting. I want to see the thing I shoot, die")

I also learned that the Bulford ranges (2nd biggest range complex in UK, I think) were booked for 90% of the time, but were used less than 25% of the time.

"Howzat happen?" I wondered. So I did some research.

Lead time for getting ammo from Tidworth Ammo Compound?It was 48 hours. (a G4 matter)
Cancellations were mostly notified less than 24 hours out. (a G3 matter)

Try as I might, I couldn't get G3 and G4 tuned in to the same frequency.

So - as a Coy Comd, in Bulford, in 1990-91, within 20 minutes walk of Bulford ranges, my company could have shot every day - if (Bn having no ammo store in its barracks) I had dared to bury the necessary ammo reserve in my back yard.

CO couldn't give a stuff.

And every feckin year they cut the overall ammo allocation, because the Army as a whole, didn't use but a fraction of its training ammo.

Here we are in the 21st Century.

Any improvement ?

Funnily enough, both BAR and Bren fired from an open bolt.

And if our Transatlantic cousins never developed an M16-based LSW, what is this?
http://www.coltcanada.com/lsw-page.htm
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg68-e.htm

Originally Posted by incendiarycutlery

Funnily enough, both BAR and Bren fired from an open bolt.

And if our Transatlantic cousins never developed an M16-based LSW, what is this?
http://www.coltcanada.com/lsw-page.htm
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg68-e.htm

Also, for many years the US Army designated one man in each fire team as an “automatic rifleman� who fired a standard M16 on full-auto, while the rest of the team used semi-auto.

Originally Posted by Canader

Originally Posted by para-dox

Originally Posted by vampireuk

I was also under the impression the L96 was getting dragged back to the units to take over the marksman role.

Theres a need for a 7.62 bolt action, but with snipers, not markman.( the .338 weighs as much as a GPMG, bit difficult to stalk with!) Too slow, un-wieldy,. Besides, AI are not building any more L96's, theres no spare parts beyond whats on inventory at the moment, and just not enough L96's to go around at section level.
The beauty of the LSW conversion is we have shed loads of them, the longer barrel will allow precision shots out to say 600 ( with appropriate sight), it looks like an A2 when its got its rail system on. The balance is changed when this is in place, the rail and bipod are lighter than the old systen and so much better, and no re-training to a different weapon system . Its a no-brainer, as our U.S cousins say, when it comes to a cost-effective solution. Yes, there are probably better off-the-shelf solutions out there, but the LSW conversions make a lot of sense, if we buy into the idea that infantry sections need a weapon system with a bit of a longer reach ( the mid ground between the A2 armes section and snipers) for the best shot in that section.

What would the scale of issue be per platoon? One 'LSW marksman' per section or something like that?

Canader, think thats the concept with School of Infantry. Time will tell.

Originally Posted by Stonker

Funny old thing: Unca Sam's Army (where they know a thing or two about firearms) has never even toyed with the notion of turning the M16 into a squad full-auto weapon.

I wonder whether you chose the word "Army" deliberately. I also note that the US Army resisted optic sights for years, and insist that the current M16 and M4 are perfectly reliable (in the face of evidence to the contrary).

Uncle Sam's Misguided Children are looking at replacing Minimis with the "Infantry Automatic Rifle" in their rifle squads - i.e. going from belt-fed to magazine-fed. One justification appears that the M249 is too heavy and unwieldy once you get into close quarters.

Strangely, the solutions are similar to LSW. A heavy-barrelled rifle with a bipod, rather than a scaled-down machine-gun; FN, Colt, and HK have provided trials weapons.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...itution-05240/

In defence of marksmanship, here's what a good marksman can achieve...

http://www.military.com/news/article...=1186032325324

PS Stonker - I agree. Teach everyone to shoot straight, not just "marksmen". Give everyone an accurate and reliable weapon, with a decent sight, and train them to use it well.

Originally Posted by Gravelbelly

Uncle Sam's Misguided Children are looking at replacing Minimis with the "Infantry Automatic Rifle" in their rifle squads - i.e. going from belt-fed to magazine-fed. One justification appears that the M249 is too heavy and unwieldy once you get into close quarters.

In that case, they are trying to square an un-square-able circle. A mag-fed squad weapon that is small and light enough to be suitable for CQB is unlikely to meet a requirement to apply a decent weight of fire at longer range.

Originally Posted by incendiarycutlery

Funnily enough, both BAR and Bren fired from an open bolt.

And if our Transatlantic cousins never developed an M16-based LSW, what is this?
http://www.coltcanada.com/lsw-page.htm
http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg68-e.htm

1. I stand corrected: penalty of posting in haste. Having learned the Bren as a boy cadet in the years befor ABBA, I should have pressed-and-paused before speaking -. My point (badly made) is that because LSW IS a closed bolt weapon, it is thus prone to overheating when used at the rapid rate for prolonged periods. The Paras who put it through trials found it quickly got so hot that the firer could not place his cheek against the weapon to use the sights because he would burn his face if he did so. Closed bolt also makes the weapon prone to cook-off (workaround being to apply the holding-open device before moving between fire positions - as if Tommy didn't have enough to think about). Part of the problem was the design spec that set an unrealistic max weight for the weapon, thereby denying the engineeers the opportunity to use a heavier barrel for the LSW, as a more effective heatsink. The light weight of the barrel, combined with its length, also made it 'whip' when burst firing, resulting in split groups, so the designers had to incorporate a rail running along the barrel to give it sufficent rigidity to meet the desired accuracy standard. The whole thing had "FROGS, Box of, Size XXXL" written all over it during the development of the SA80 system (the start of which was trumpeted to my Pl Comd course in 1975, and finally bore fruit when I was running SWSAAM 10 yrs later)

2. The M-16 variants in those links are commercial offerings, that is rather different than being produced in response to a US Mil SPec. I am not convinced that they have ever seen active service, or if they have (given that the Colt Canada blurb talks about them being designed for 'Small Expeditionary Units' - like Special Forces) , it was not in line-infantry units. The only instance I can think of of a similar weapon actually being deployed into serious firefights, was an LSW variant CETME (Spanish-made, German-designed precursor to the G3) used by Portuguese forces in the fighting that preceded their withdrawal from their African colonies. I think they found mag-fed preferable to belt-fed in jungle/thick brush. Similar dilemma, I guess to the US discussed earlier

THe LSW certainly does overheat. First time I did a live firing section attack with it after about 120-180 rounds the fore-end was so hot that I needed a glove to carry it. This was a summer's day in Thetford nevermind somewhere hot.

the dutch had a lsw a heavy barrled m16 and they loathed it

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

Originally Posted by Canader

Originally Posted by FNUSNU

They got rid of the Bren becuase they realised that a magazine-fed support weapon wasn't a very good idea, then after the GPMG came the LSW, oh dear...

... and the sections that won the Falklands battles carried 2 x GPMGs each.

Exactly the reason why Para Regt never binned the GPMG out of the sections like the rest of the infantry battalions did.

Thats one thing I always hand to the Paras, they really do understand the argument 'Strength through superior firepower'

The attempt to turn a basic rifle design into a sub-standard support weapon isn't unique to the UK. The US had a similar experience in the 1960's with the Stoner weapon system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_63

That didn't work either.

Some comments on the past six pages…

IIRC the Bren was chambered for .303 and at some stage around SLR introduction time re-machined for 7.62. The weapon was extremely accurate as the Bren and I was told by some HSF that used it in both calibres that it was slightly less accurate in 7.62.

Fact. The Bren was often criticised by its users in WW2 as being too accurate.

The complaint, and this is probably extremely difficult for Falmschirger with his 20 years of Firefights to appreciate, is that if your machine gun is too accurate then when engaging a running target at 400m all the bullets either hit or all the bullets miss. To explain in a little more detail for those of us on crack but based on personal experience, five rounds fired in one second period will all go through a 1’ square box, which makes hitting a running man at 400m quite tricky. But a GPMG which is less accurate will, in the same second, put down around 7 rounds and these, courtesy of the Gimpy jumping around, put 7 rounds into a 2’ square box (e.g. four times a larger area). So a question then: Which weapon, when engaging running targets, targets at ranges difficult to work out and/or grouped targets, would you prefer to use?

Confusingly, on the range the answer will probably always be the LMG with its heavy wind resistant rounds and accuracy, but in the field without range markers the same rounds from a GPMG I think are far preferable.

Gravelbelly’s comment about the GPMG belts being 50 rounds at a time is of course correct (and speaking for the Royal Anglians, we never 'always' had a number two, in fact it was a rarity in FIBUA and plenty of other places. But we also practised defence which meant the number two nearly always appeared and you’d be constantly hooked up to at least 100 rounds. Likewise, for certain attacks, I seem to remember having a tonne of link in my smock snaking out of my chest, this did allow for around 200 to be hooked up. But really only once per attack.

As OOTS says and where Falmschirger may be accurate about accuracy and what may be colouring his opinions somewhat is Herrick (and maybe Telic, I don’t know), there, as far as I can see, is a lot of long range engagement and therefore I imagine that the LMG could make a difference over the Gimpy. But surely a 3 more L96’s per section would be an improvement over the IW too??

and just not enough L96's to go around at section level.

– Don’t give Labour another excuse to cut back on the infrantry.

Lastly, the USMC are looking at an LSW type weapon, this was covered elsewhere about a year ago, either way, they’ve identified a need for a weapon to deliver rapid fire at range accurately – this of course may be more because of their choice of m16 variant and its limitations rather than a green field site and perfect scenario.

For my part, I think the current mix of GPMG, LSW, SA80, UBGL, Minimi is probably quite enough for a section and provides a tool for almost every moment but if asked a further L96 and an sov-style RPG element would be the cherry on the icing on the cake.

Originally Posted by Mobat

. . . the big problem in Afghanistan is seeing the enemy. If you cannot see the enemy it does not matter how “accurate� you are.

Originally Posted by Mr Happy

The Bren was often criticised by its users in WW2 as being too accurate.

WW2 Bren users like Sydney Jary would paint different scenarios to highlight the deficiencies of the Bren. In a defence scenario, f’rinstance, covering a track or wire obstacle with a mag-fed Bren (DOB -DOB – DOB – DOB – gunner changes mag – survivors scuttle away - DOB -DOB – DOB – DOB) is much harder than covering the same track with a belt-fed MG34 (deafening sound like ripping muslin goes on unabated for minutes at a time. Survivors? What survivors?). In attack, they faced the same problem that had surfaced at the beginning of the 20th C.

The Brits went through a steep learning curve on cam, concealment, personal skills and the effective application of fire in S Africa, at the hands of the Boers (my under-age Great Grandad’s first major adventure). In WW1 (my over-age Great Grandad’s second major adventure), the Hun called it “Die Leere des Gefechtefeldnis� (or similar) – meaning The Emptiness Of The Battlefield.

It happens because well disciplined soldiers deal with the threat of automatic weapons, by taking great pains to not be seen, whether in attack or defence.

That means soldiers in combat will more often identify an area from which the enemy is firing rifles/MGs, than they will actually see a person - recognisable point target – long enough to take aim and shoot him.

That gives rise to the need to deliver effective suppressive fire (a lot of shots, delivered in a short space of time, onto an area actually occupied by the enemy, accurately enough to make him stop firing, and to prevent him moving) in order to enable a manoeuvre element to close with the enemy and kill him (or perhaps to buy time until CAS can wipe him out, dependent on ROE)

LSW/Bren are mag fed – the latter having a slow rate of fire as well, so prolonged, heavy weights of fire are not what they are good at, LSW and Bren were/are optimised for point targets, so they are not the best bit of kit for the area thing.

Disciplined troops know effective fire when it arrives: when bursts are striking your WMIK close enough for you to reach out and touch the damage, the fire is effective. Well-aimed and controlled bursts regularly striking 5 or 10 metres away are no more effective fire than is a Lebanese unload in your general direction. It is a hard lesson to teach ahead of time (at the very least, you need to debrief battle inoculation exercises, to point out that - close though the shooting might have felt, it was well within safety limits, and therefore ineffective. Likewise, time spent in the butts is useful for making Toms aware of the sound of fire passing safely overhead.)

What discussions to date have missed – being focussed on weapon characteristics and optics – is that the systems only work when the blokes using them are on the ball.

The standard training syllabuses of my time in Infantry units (1974 to 2001) devoted precious little time or effort to finding the enemy (I doubt that most infantry soldiers in those days would experience more than 1 'Finding the Enemy By His Fire" demo in a typical career), and to target indication. Both these skills were bread and butter to my Great Grandad’s Army, The Old Contemptibles. That is why, for so long, orrsifers carried canes, not rifles: their weapons system was the Platoon or Company – rifles were too tempting a distraction, and adopted by officers only after snipers (another trade revived by dust-bowl experience) began shooting jodhpur-clad cane-bearers with excessive regularity.

A quick read of the 1916 reprint of the 1908 Musketry manual - a real gem of a book, in its own way - will show you that observation and target indication were core infantry skills, and central even to competition shooting. It knocks the SAAM manuals of my time into a cocked hat.

Modern-day SAAM competitions engaging silhouetted targets at known distances, are post WW1 aberrations, better left to civilian gravelbellies: they do nothing to enhance the combat effectiveness of the average soldier’s skillset.

I only hope that our present generation of Infantry leadership will have more luck anchoring these core skills in the training syllabus than did their forebears.

Originally Posted by Mr Happy

. . . . for certain attacks, I seem too remember having a tonne of link in my smock snaking out of my chest, this did allow for around 200 to be hooked up. But really only once per attack.

Coincidentally, I made pretty much that point, about the load-bearing role of the smock, on a thread about combat smocks only a day or so back.(Baggy smocks became very much the ‘ally’ fashion in about 1982, after the Falklands war: prior to that ‘ally’ was skin-tight kit, tailored for comfort for wear in NI, under a flak vest, and a complete nightmare on Ex, as soon as you were issued a belt of 7.62mm and /or couple of 2� mortar rounds to stow somewhere. Happy daze)
========
Stonkernote:
The 7.62 LMG was issued for 3 reasons as I remember:
(a). For local defence, to non-inf sub-units (RE, RCT f'rinstance)
(b). To AMF(L) Infantry for Norway (some pansy Brit neurotic fear of ammo belts freezing: didn't seem to stop Fritz or the Finns in WW2, IIRC )
(c). For Internal Security ops in NI - based solely on seeing piccies of foot patrols in built-up areas in parts of rural NI, back in the '70s. There again, they might have been Cav/RA - in which case, see (a) above.

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Originally Posted by Mobat

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Thanks for the compliment. I wish that more of the COs I worked under had been smart enough to grasp and deal with said issues. Too many of them had that "When I . . " kind of mindset - if it hadn't happened to them personally, it might as well have never happened at all. An incurious and professionally very limiting way of thinking, and a very frustrating one under which to work.

The 1916 reprint being the book that Britain's massive Army used to train for the Somme and up to war's end, it ought to be pretty common, even now. It is a little square book, coloured a sort of Doc Marten's shade of oxblood, about an inch thick, and would fit - somewhat snugly - in a WW1 tunic pocket.

Last time I saw one on a bookseller's shelf was in a used/antiquarian book shop on the edge of Woking town centre (opposite a cycle shop), about 6 years ago - they had several copies on the shelf that day.

That said, such bookshops are increasingly rare (the one that used to grace the London Road shopfronts in Camberley binned it around 2001, to trade online - which is probably your most promising hunting ground).

Abebooks.co.uk ought to bear fruit eventually, but you'd do better, I suspect, to look for specialist traders in military books and manuals, and start to visit the fairs at which they parade their stock-in-trade (coincidentally, I stumbled on just such a one online, only last week. Sadly, not being in the market for any more books, I'm buggered if I can remember his details)

From memory,, about 10 years ago - when I was trying to use MM 1908 to point up the utter bollox that the SASC had packed into a new policy on APWT and field-firing, I think I scanned some parts of my copy (a gift from my Dad when I was not yet 10, along with a toy cap-firing rifle. Never read it until I was over 40, and him long dead - so it ain't going up for sale, ever).

Let me know by PM if that scanned material would be of interest. Since I never ever throw data away, I could trawl my old hard drives for it, but with no guarantee of success or even of 'delivery' timeframe. Failing (or perhaps in addition to) that, I may still have that unpublished diatribe - it quotes MM1908 quite a bit - again, PM if interested.