(From here)
Caveat: I did not serve as a rifleman. My rifle training in the service consisted of shooting 30 rounds from a M-14 once a year at a 25-yard silhouette from an offhand position. But unless that soldier is using tracer rounds, I don't know what the hell he expects to hit. Hell, I don't know what he can see.
The only possible rationale is that there is a lens cap visible dangling from the handguard, so it is possible that the soldier was using a laser. But since he wasn't using night-vision goggles, the laser would have had to have been in the visible-light spectrum and a laser at night is like a tracer; it can be seen in both directions.
But this looks awfully like "spray and pray", a shooting method that generates a lot of noise, uses up lots of ammo, and accomplishes little else.
Well, I suppose it does keep a few heads down...
ReplyDeleteWhat baffles me is the guys I see firing the M-16 with the toe of the buttplate high up on their shoulders. Sure, you CAN do it, because the recoil isn't much, but why would you WANT to? Looks like a really shaky position.
Is it entirely possible hes doing that to keep the bad guys "heads down" while his teammates are sending a surprise? Like keep them down while I deliver a grenade, missle, .50cal though the wall!
ReplyDeleteMuch we don't know.
I have seen elsewhere that for every hit literally many 10s of thousands (maybe more) of rounds are sent down range.
Eck!
Well, you've got more assault rifle experience than I do (mine is all in video games). To me it looks like he's about to experience recoil and bash himself in the head! If he were just trying to lay some suppressing fire and not actually hit anything, why not at least get his head behind those sandbags for cover?
ReplyDeleteBridget: A 5.56mm doesn't have that much recoil.
ReplyDeleteEck, more like 50,000+ for Vietnam, over 200,000 for Iraq.
Went over to Defence and Freedom (blogroll) and seems the bigger story is it's horror show of what to do wrong.
ReplyDeleteFortunately and apparently the other side hasn't figured out sniping to any great degree.
Eck!
"over 200,000 for Iraq"
ReplyDeleteIs that for killing baddies or just killing?
I knew several people who were at Khe Sanh who said they spent a lot of time firing in that fashion; it was mainly to keep a wall of lead up against the enemy riflemen, and to keep their heads down. They were already getting pounded by artillery, so they didn't want enemy soldiers trying to move in closer to take advantage of the confusion.
ReplyDelete