NCsmitty said:
Not hardly! You echo what's been happening for nearly 50 years. There's only so much you can do to improve the 5.56 ammo and platform.
Sometimes you just need a bigger gun.
NCsmitty
That is probably the solution. However, I will say. You hear a lot of people Beltch about the 5.56 at, lets say, knock out power. i didn't have a problem. If you hit someone in the off hand with a 30-06 they still have fire capability.
I spent most of my time in Afghanistan, with only a two month lay over in Iraq. I was SsGT in the 82nd and we didn't see jack in Iraq. Some patrols and no assault missions, so I don't have much experience in that field.
However, when my company first landed in Afghanistan with M4's, it was already pretty obvious it wasn't a good idea. The Marines kept the M16A4 for good reason, it's a rifleman's weapon, the M4 is meant for small time work. I
hated the M4 on my first tour. And was glad I had the SDMR M16A4 on the subsequent two. It wasn't the M14, but I reached out a good 800 meters, while most of my squad was bricked at 300.
By the time I was Ssgt I had to give up the SDMR to a Corporal, and I carried the M4 again. We need a rifle in Afghanistan, not a g-d sub-machine gun. The 5.56 suffered some range difficulties, but not compared to the 7.62 they were using. The issue was our rifles. And M4 is a house clearing weapon, not a battle weapon. I bet it was fantastic, if not a bit late, in Iraq, but had no place in the theatre I served. As my experience the 5.56 had great elimination, just pop them twice. But that should be followed no matter what round.
As Ssgt I had to take charge of the battalion as lead officer, and then another three months getting the actual CO used to operations. I professed to my soldiers to become proficient in semi-auto because full auto was completely wasteful. Especially as desolate as we were. We couldn't even get batteries for our NV. And as far as I know he continued such. We have accuracy and training on our side, where as they do not. Our deficiency was range without an intermediate rifleman. We took care of that with the SDMR, but even then we faced a times where we had to push with undue possible loss.
