Things I Don’t Care About: What You Carry

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Hello, dear reader. Today I would like to comment on all those out there who would like to give you advice on what you should carry, as a sequel to my post about being ok with what guns you buy. Name pretty much any kind of gun, or at least anything even close to reasonable for concealed carry, and I guarantee you that you will find two things:

(1) At least one article by some yahoo telling you why he carries this thing, and why you should carry it too. Likely condescending to people who disagree with said yahoo, but not always.

(2) At least one article by some other joker telling you how carrying this thing will Get You Killed on Da Streetz, dawg. Or something like that. I was never a cool kid. I don’t know how they talk. Again, likely condescending, but not always.

Again, whatever it is. Gun, method of carry, *whatever*. Striker-fired pistol, J-frame, 1911, double-action pistol, bigger-than-J-frame-revolver, appendix carry, condition one carry, condition three carry, etc.

Fear not, dear reader. I am here to tell you that I do not give a hot shit if you carry, what you carry, or how you carry it.

To be honest, there’s an awful lot of ‘butthurt’1 about these things. If you’ve picked something that isn’t popular, you’re probably thinking “Gosh, I wish this was popular, so I could pick up chicks or something”, so you’ve gotta try to change the world and convince everyone you’re right. If you have the popular choice, you have to defend it from all of those annoying attackers, so you can be the one to get the chicks or whatever. Seriously, this is about the tone and nonsense out there that you see.

Well, yinz2 can fuck off. You ain’t going to see that here.

You might be wondering what I carry. I carry a striker fired pistol. Usually it is made by Glock. Occasionally, it isn’t made by Glock. And sometimes, I carry a very nice 1911, barbecue gun style. I carry on the strong-side hip. I’ve grown accustomed to the trigger characteristics of striker fired pistols (especially the ones made by Glock). This works for me. You are not me. You might make different choices. You might have different priorities.

Maybe you prefer double action pistols, like Fishbreath. When he carries, it’s a Beretta PX4 compact. Yes, with the stock safety/decocker. He likes that pistol. There are days when I envy his commitment, because it took me a lot of experimentation to come right back to the same damn (Glock) triggers I started with, but whatever. We’re different. That’s okay.

You see, we’re adults. Also, we’re friends. We understand that we’re different people. We understand that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And that’s okay. You make your bed, and you sleeps in it. Everything has trade-offs.

Okay, great! If you choose to carry, carry whatever you damn well please. Fishbreath and I do. We don’t evangelize about pistols to each other.

But wait! There’s more! So much of this is based on preference and working with your chosen pistol. Don’t believe me?

Fine. Plenty of guys win at competition with Glocks. Bob Vogel is one example. I’m going to pick Bob because his Glocks are pretty much stock, besides new sights. If they’re good enough for Bob, they’re not holding you back. Open gun excluded, of course. That one’s all fancy. But he’s won in divisions that aren’t Open as well. His first win was with the same Glock 35 that he carries on duty. So there. If they’re good enough for Bob Vogel, they’re good enough for you.

Plenty of guys win at competition with double-action pistols too. Ernest Langdon has done great and won tournaments with some Beretta 92s. Even won in IDPA CDP division with a P220 against a bunch of good 1911 shooters. If they’re good enough for Ernest, they’re good enough for you.

So much depends on your goals, the effort you want to put in, and what you’re comfortable with. Presuming you buy something decent from a reputable manufacturer (so, most handgun companies) the gun isn’t going to be the thing holding you back. Also, you probably shouldn’t listen to some random jagoff3 on the internet tell you what you should carry. What does he know about gunfighting? Because he sure as shit doesn’t know you.

As for what you should carry, and where, there are tons of variables in that too. How permissive an environment are you normally in? Do “No Guns” signs carry the force of law in your area? How worried about violent crime or armed terrorist attack are you? Does your job involve lots of sitting? Lots of standing? What’s your body type? What’s your method of dress. I know none of these things about you, dear reader, and I wouldn’t pretend to do so to suggest something to you. I don’t want those clicks.

Going back to Bob Givens’ data on actual CCW gunfights, the key thing has been Having A Gun, probably followed by Got You Some Training, since all of the data comes from Bob’s former students. Trigger type or placement of gun didn’t matter too much. Practice is important. Having something reliable is important. Which reliable thing? Probably doesn’t matter too much. Carry what you like.

Only you can determine what you like. Only you can determine what you’re comfortable shooting and carrying. If you’re taking classes, you can ask your trainer for some advice. In person, so he can get some information about you. But most good trainers will give some broad suggestions. There’s no one correct answer.

1.) I think this is a word kids use on the forums these days, so I’m gonna use it too.
2.) I live in Pittsburgh now, so I’m bound by law to use this word.
3.) I am also bound by law to use this word.

The Crossbox Podcast: Episode 11

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In this episode, Jay rambles for a full half hour on a gun topic (a Crossbox first!), we trash a three-gun group whose rules specify what color your magazines are (and are not) allowed to be, we make a connection between Bond and Longstreet, and we decide that the French aren’t so bad after all.

Further reading
Jay’s Goldeneye Source review in one line (approximately): wow, how old-school. I don’t remember it taking this many bullets to kill someone. Oh, right. I always used the P90. That’s why.
Goldeneye Source
Civil War II
Your Korean tank…
… and IFV
The FREMM
And the Gripen


(Download)

M2A3 Bradley Planned Improvements

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I’m on record as being a huge fan of the Bradley. But it’s a little bit disadvantaged when compared to newer designs. A large part of this is just the nature of upgrades. Newer designs have more headroom for upgrades than older ones. So while the Bradley still provides excellent firepower, and has enough multilayer ERA to get its protection up there with the rest, it’s now suffering from all that extra weight. Plus, it has a lot more electrical systems, which mean it needs more power. Which subtracts further from what you have on the sprocket for the drivetrain. Let’s see how Big Army is thinking of improving the Bradley.

Perhaps the most urgently needed and the most boring are the suspension changes. The M2(A0) Bradley had a design weight of 22,800 kg. This has gone up to 30,300 kg in the M2A3 version, and higher still with the extra applique reactive armor modules of the Bradley Urban Survival Kit. More weight means more load on a suspension that wasn’t designed to take it. Just like when you overload your car, this makes the Bradley sit lower on its suspension. This causes two problems. First, it reduces mobility across rough terrain. Basically, anything that isn’t a good road, you’re going to go slower. Again, you probably figured that out from your experiences in overloading your car. Second, and perhaps less obviously to those who drive, is that you’re more vulnerable to mines and IEDs. There’s less space underneath, and that empty space helps diffuse the blast. Clearly, we’d like to fix this. And so, top of the list of fixes is the suspension system. This means new tracks and a new set of torsion bars. This will restore cross-country mobility and ground clearance. It’s a much-needed fix, even if few people spend time thinking about torsion bars.

A quick side note. The US Army could redesign the suspension system and check a modern buzzword box or two. But why bother? Torsion bars work just fine. And most of the expected areas of operation are pretty flat. We don’t expect to spend the majority of our time driving over mountains. So hydropneumatics would be a waste of money. Ditto uncoupled running gear. Expensive luxury features aren’t worth the trouble. Those lead to budget kills. Smaller, more modest things are the sorts of things you can get approval for in today’s not-Cold War world.

Next up is the engine. Again, your experiences in driving will no doubt lead you to think that more weight means more power is needed. And that’s part 2. The original Bradley had a 500 hp engine. This was upgraded to a 600 hp model as a part of the M2A2 design. More weight, more power would be nice. I don’t have a model yet, but I’ve heard hints of and would expect a roughly 750-800 hp engine to be coming to Bradleys near you.

Next we come to optics. On the docket for the Bradley are the same third-generation thermal optics as installed on the Abrams as part of the SEP V3 package. This is another obvious upgrade. Have a single sort of thermal viewer across both vehicle fleets, only need to stock one kind of spares and train to fix/replace one kind of unit. Again, this means better visibility through smoke and dust.

We can expect an active protection system as a near-future follow-on. Big Army just hasn’t picked one yet. Again, smart money’s on Trophy. It’s relatively cheap, COTS, and proven capable of stopping things. Expect the Bradley to get what Abrams gets in terms of APS. This might come in ECP2, or might get rolled in before.

The other mod that I would expect is TOW-RF support. This enables the wireless version of TOW to be launched. It doesn’t affect compatibility with earlier versions. I don’t know how well it works in areas with heavy ECM. I would prefer a more modern missile, but this would be a positive step. On the other hand, this is a really small change, and I don’t have good information on whether it’s already being rolled out, part of ECP1, planned for ECP2, or planned on a separate roll out.

One thing I’ve heard exactly nothing on is any changes to the cannon. There were several proposals before Operation Iraqi Freedom, but the US Army appears happy with the 25 mm M242 gun in light of combat experience there. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be. Lots of other modern designs (with the notable exceptions of Russian things and K21), have pretty poor capacity for their primary guns, as seen in this handy table:

IFVReady CapacityCaliber (mm)
M2A3 Bradley30025×137
M2 – 30 mm conversion18030×173
CV90402440x364R
CV903016030×173
CV90357035×228
Puma20030×173
K2122440x364R
BMP-250030×165
BMP-350030×165
T-15/Epoch turret50030×165

Some notes on the above. I’m defining “Ready rounds” as “rounds from which you can fire without manual loading”, since these are autocannons. So the CV9040 gets the quick-access rounds counted as ‘stowage’, because someone has to grab them and refill the 24-round ready feed system (three eight-round racks). The K21 gets credit because the 200 rounds it has under the turret basket are connected to the gun via an automatic resupply system. So it has, in effect, 224 ready rounds with its giant autoloader-thing.

Note also that the Russians do not have any rounds stowed separately in any of their IFVs.

The K21 IFV

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And now for something a little different. Let’s look at the South Korean K21 IFV.

In a lot of ways, this is an old-school traditional style IFV. It’s lightweight, coming in under 26 tonnes. It’s even amphibious. That said, it has some unique construction features. To keep overall weight down given the protection level (which we’ll get to later), the Koreans use fiberglass for the vehicle structure. This is a first for a military vehicle. And while we don’t know a lot about the long-term durability of fiberglass in a military vehicle, it does keep weight down while not jacking the price up too much. It’s a good idea. The K21 also has two (presumably sectioned) rubber inflatable bladders under the vehicle skirts to provide extra buoyancy and stability in the water. This is much nicer than the giant canvas erectable overskirt on the M2(A0) Bradley. And, it means that the K21 can actually cross rivers, like the BMPs. And, just about nothing else these days.

Protectionwise, the K21 is built for the Korean peninsula. It’s got frontal armor against the 30×165 mm APDS threat that’s likely from North Korean IFVs. The rest is protected against 14.5 mm HMG rounds, and the roof is protected against shell splinters. This armor compromise was likely necessary to achieve amphibious capability, but it’s rather marginal by modern standards, as it lacks extensive RPG protection. It should work in the Korean peninsula, and that’s what matters. I don’t know how much more weight the suspension is rated for, so I don’t know how easy it would be to up-armor the K21. But if we can tack a whole bunch of ERA and applique armor on a Bradley, it could be done here, if we wanted.

Okay, I’m not a fan of the armor. I like heavy. But I do like the armament. The K21 has a 40 mm Bofors clone, complete with a modern MBT-grade fire control suite and full stabilization systems. Big punch. Optics for fire control are like those on the K2 Black Panther, so they’re excellent third-generation thermal viewers and modern laser rangefinders. The commander’s sight is, of course, fully independent. Note that the turret is a conventional, two-man affair. Modern MBT fire control with a big 40 mm autocannon? Yes, please.

Let’s talk a little more about that 40. The 40 mm Bofors round means you comfortably outgun just about every IFV in the world. Aside from a few tank-like things like Namer1, you can kill any IFV you want with frontal hits, and you can punch through any MBT’s turret side. Plus, you get a really big HE shell, and the good folks at Bofors have already developed plenty of advanced rounds for you, including the 3P (Programmable, Proximity-fused, Prefragmented). The downside of course is that the rounds are very big. This is the 40x364R mm round, and it’s a beast. Which means ammunition stowage and handling is a massive pain. In the CV9040, the Swedes have a triple-feed ready rack that holds a whopping 24 ready rounds2, and there’s 210 more in various racks with various levels of accessibility. The ready rack has to be topped off from the semi-ready-rack (which holds 48 rounds) by hand, and then the dismounts have to refill the semi-ready-rack from under the turret basket, where most of the rounds are stored. It’s a massive pain, but it’s workable. If the year is 1935, you can’t do better.

The South Koreans took a different, more modern approach with the K21. They still use the 24 round ready rack, but built an autoloader in the turret floor to replenish it. Underfloor storage is about 200 rounds. The system looks like this:

Neat, huh? Way better than that goofy ikea manual reloading process on the CV9040. This is a 40mm system I can get behind. This will actually let you keep fighting for a while, and with a really powerful round to boot. Be still my beating heart.

The K21 also has a 7.62×51 mm coaxial machine gun. It’s a clone of the M60D. There’s also provision for a two-tube launcher for South Korea’s latest ATGM, but I can’t confirm if these have been fitted yet. Or maybe I just don’t have pictures. This missile should be a lot like the Israeli Spike LR, in being a top-attack, fire-and-forget missile. I don’t know if the Koreans had Israeli help, Israeli licensing, built a copy themselves, or just came to the same conclusions Rafael did about ATGM design. Still, it should be a good missile choice. Much like the Puma, if the Germans would get off their butts and finish the integration already, dammit. Seeing as the South Koreans actually have proximate threats, and they spend Real Money on defense, they’re much more trustworthy on such matters. I wonder what ‘Get ‘er done!’ translates to in Korean…

The K21 does not currently feature any kind of active protection system. The Koreans are planning to integrate that as a follow up. Given the threat level on the Korean peninsula, I approve of this plan. Historically, programs that choose not to do everything immediately, and get a working, good enough version in the field and then add on extras tend to do better. There are plans to integrate a hard-kill active defense system on an improved version in the near future. There are also plans to try to reduce the weight further. All in all, this project actually seems well managed for once.

Dismounts are another area where the K21 shines. It holds nine. NINE! That’s a squad! How can they do this on a 6.9 m long vehicle? Simple, they compromised. Given that the most likely confrontation is a conventional war with North Korea, who’s not likely to bury giant IEDs, the South Koreans stuck with old-school bench seats in the back. They’re not fancy shock-absorbing, blast-resistant seats, but they’re more compact. So you can keep the protected volume (and hence, weight) down, and still carry an actual, usable squad of dismounts. Good on you, Korea! Here’s to real wars and not stupid COIN-y “police actions”.

A word on costs. The K21 costs $3.95 million. Given the electronics, this is a very good price. Almost like good project management helps you come in on budget.

There are some other variants out there that you might be interested in as well. There’s a “medium”2 tank version available with a crew of three and a 105mm low-recoil gun. Perfect for your assault gun needs. It also gives you something with a reasonable gun that can cross rivers with your infantry carriers.

So, what do we think? Well, but for the protection, it’s great! And if it had a hard-kill APS, it might be a reasonable compromise on protection, given that it can float. Armament is great, as is dismount capacity. We’d probably prefer to forget about amphibiousity and load it up with a modern, multilayer ERA kit like what’s on Bradley, and call it good. That gun system is really hard to argue with, especially when you add the ATGM capability. This thing rocks.

1.) Not technically an IFV, but you get the idea.
2.) I would call it a light tank, but medium tank probably looks better in the ad copy. It’s the same weight as a regular K21 and is just as amphibious.

Protective Pistol I AAR and Bonus Glock 34 Mini Review

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A couple weeks ago I finally got off my butt and took my first handgun class. It was awesome. I’m going to go over some takeaways in a moment, but first, let’s look at what I brought to class.

Mini Review
I took my Glock 34 (Gen4) with me to class. At this point, there’s not a ton to say about it. It’s a Glock. You probably know if you like them or not by now. Gen 4 means interchangeable backstraps and good texturing. The Glock 34 is the “practical tactical” model. Glock built this with an eye towards competitions, which isn’t to say you can’t do other things with it. It’s size was determined by the biggest possible Glock that would fit in the standard IPSC box, which was built around (among other things) a Government model 1911. Because of the small size of the Glock striker firing mechanism, this means you get a long 5.31″ barrel for your troubles, and a correspondingly long sight radius. Awesome. The frame is the same as that of a Glock 17. It also comes with Glock’s factory extended slide stop and a “Minus” connector, which means a lighter and generally nicer trigger pull. I think my Glock 34 trigger pull feels a lot like my VP9 trigger pull. Take that as you will, subjective evaluation, sample size of one, etc. It’s also marvelously soft shooting, even for a 9 mm.

Why did I take the Glock 34? Well, I shoot it great. Plus, I wanted something relatively unmodded for class. I also wanted iron sights, because I figured we’d be working front sight focus drills and such. Plus, I’m coming back to liking irons, specifically for sight tracking reasons (at least, when I can make that work) and acquiring them quickly when in close. And they’re not annoyingly prone to hanging up on your concealment garment like the RMR does. Anyway, I also picked the Glock 34 because I have another Glock I could use as a backup gun that could take the same mags and holsters. So I’d be set even if my gun broke.

-end mini review-

I’m not going to go into all of the details covered in the class. Mostly because I’m not going to explain those as well as my instructors did. But I’ll cover the broad strokes. Protective Pistol I is all about basic gun handling and developing a response to the most likely sort of threat that a concealed carry permit holder is likely to encounter. We covered a bit on the laws of Pennsylvania, safe handling procedures, and marksmanship fundamentals. We also talked through a number of examples from incidents on the street. My instructors were great at telling us how they got to what they were teaching us, and why they were teaching us that. Usually, they could break out cases or let us go test things to demonstrate that the things we were learning really did work.

Let’s talk takeaways. They taught that a strong grip was key to shooting at speed. Treat the Glock like an old revolver (in double action), not a tuned 1911 for bullseye with the “surprise break”. They taught some movement as part of the response to the threat, in order to better regain the initiative. They even had a video of a convenience store clerk responding to an armed robber. The robber was holding the clerk at gunpoint, but the clerk’s sidestep on the draw bought her time to be able to get the first shot off, which convinced the would-be robber to flee. It was a good example of how their techniques worked without having to make us break out the simunition guns.

I also loved the student:instructor ratio. It was 7:2, which was about perfect. This is a class I’d recommend, and will probably take again to focus on the fundamentals they reviewed. I’m also keen on more classes from these guys. They were great!

How did my gear hold up? Very well. No significant problems. I had a sturdy belt and a good holster already, plus plenty of mag pouches. Our instructors reviewed some quality brands to buy from if we needed anything (I’m sure I will), plus some stuff to avoid. E.g. Dark Star Gear is awesome, serpa holsters suck.

I ended up making a few changes to my Glock 34 after the match. I want to try the Vickers extended slide stop instead of the Glock factory one. I found the factory one pretty easy to bump when going for a high, strong grip. I think the Vickers will help with this. I also would like to get some more time with an extended mag release. I found the stock one to be a little short if I didn’t want to change my strong hand grip. Some time on the range with another student’s gun told me I might like a non-serrated rear better, so I’ve got a new set of sights to poke at. I really like the fiber optic sights though, so I’ll stick with that up front. Fiber front/plain rear worked well for me.

Experience also showed that the MagLula is super effective at loading magazines. Way better than the little thumbsaver that comes with most pistols these days. I ordered one as soon as I got home from class.

Both instructors had Surefire X300U weaponlights equipped with the DG switch. I’m sold on this too, at least if you’re gonna run a weaponlight. It makes operating the light intuitive and easy by adding a grip-activated pressure switch to the light. And Surefire lights are the weaponlights to buy, again, if you want one. For carry, I’m still debating. It does add some width and some weight, and it’s probably not *needed* on your carry gun.

But for a nightstand gun, for the gun you reach for when something goes bump in the night? Hell yes put a light on it. You don’t want the first words you hear after you shoot some intruder at oh dark thirty to be “Daddy, why’d you shoot me?” And yes, this has happened. It sucks. Don’t let it happen to you.

Another lesson, this one from another student. A female classmate was using an XD Mod 2 Subcompact pistol. In 9 mm of course. She was having a lot of trouble establishing her grip in timed drills that involved a draw from the holster. The instructors suggested she try a bigger pistol, and one of them brought out his spare M&P9, complete with holster. This really improved her performance on the drills. She wasn’t a big woman, but she shot the M&P fine. I didn’t get her thoughts on how the gun felt, but it shot right, and that’s the important thing.

Clearly, we had awesome instructors, who were good at diagnosing problems and offering solutions. Good on them for being prepared. The other lesson is that even if you’re petite, it’s easier to get a good grip on a bigger gun. There’s a tendency for women to choose or be given small guns to shoot. I don’t think this is wise.

Maturity and Security in my Choices

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(Sigh. Me having a very upset stomach and not being able to go to a match means you get multiple posts from me today. Lucky you, dear reader.)

I’ve seen some posts out there about things like “Are my revolvers still cool?”, “wheelguns suck”, “I don’t like lever guns”, “No, you’re wrong, lever guns are amazing”, “wheelguns are the best or you’re wrong!”, and the like. And now I’m going to weigh in on all this nonsense.

Right now, on my hip, is a Glock 34 with Surefire X300U-A. 17+1 capacity, loaded to bear with 124 grain 9 mm +P Gold Dots from Speer. I love this thing. It shoots great, conceals well with my normal mode of dress (read: loose fitting t-shirts and cargo pants). Hardcore, serious firepower. Also a total gamer gun. I picked this because I can conceal it (it’s about as big as a government model 1911) and I shoot it well. I have some other buddies who conceal a Glock 34 too, and some others who don’t. I don’t care, because it works for me, and that’s what matters. It is nice to be able to compare notes with some other guys though.

Glocks have a lot of advantages. They’re simple, reliable pistols. You can completely detail strip them with a 3/8″ punch. Magazines are cheap and plentiful, and hold lots of bullets. Everybody makes things for Glock. You can get whatever sights you want for your Glock. It’s pretty easy to get drop in trigger improvements, if that’s your thing. Modern 9 mm hollow points work about as well as any standard pistol caliber in terms of stopping power. And its soft shooting and cheap.

On my desk in front of me is something old school. My S&W Model 29, with the 6″ barrel, in .44 Magnum. It’s currently unloaded. I could conceal it if I want to (yes I have a holster for it), but I don’t. I think my Glocks, even my big 34, work better for carry. The Glock is lighter, narrower, holds three times as many bullets, and is easier to get good follow up shots with.

Now, if I lived in Alaska, or spent a lot of time outdoors, I might value being able to shoot big .44 magnum rounds at bears. I can stop a bear with 9 mm, but it’s easier to do it with .44 Magnum. That said, I’m in Western Pennsylvania, and I don’t hang out in bear country much. It’s not normally a big concern for me.

I bought the Model 29 back when I lived in upstate New York. I didn’t buy it for carry. That’s ok. Not all of my handguns are carry guns. I bought the Model 29 because it’s cool, and pretty, and it’s fun to shoot. Nothing brings a smile to my face faster than shooting a big bore revolver that I am confident I can control, and that’s my Model 29. I don’t care that I have better choices for carry. It’s ok. I like it anyway. I like all of my guns.

Revolvers aren’t the best choice from a military perspective, it’s true. Or if you’re in the bad-guy engaging part of cop work. Semiautos carry more bullets, reload faster, and are easier to repair when parts break. The inside of a revolver looks a lot like an old wind-up watch. Complicated. Not easy to figure out. A Glock is the kind of thing that you can repair really easily.

But, what about for the concealed carrier? It probably doesn’t matter. The most common gun fights (statistically), for a civilian with a concealed carry permit or an off-duty cop are over in about three gunshots. Three shots. My Model 29 holds twice that. Even a j-frame has a decent two-shot margin on that. Rule One of a gunfight is HAVE A GUN. Pick one that suits you. How you tend to dress. Where you tend to go. Carry something you feel comfortable with. Carry something you practice with. And hell, carry something you like. Emotional attachment will help make sure you keep that gun with you. Whatever works.

CARRY YOUR FUCKING GUN.

Tom Givens, firearm instructor, has a wonderful body of shooting statistics from former students. All of his students who had guns on them in their altercations won. The only students who ended up in a bad way were those who didn’t have their guns on them when they were accosted.

So, while less effective than a semiauto, revolvers can still work for you. If you do your part. I’m not the biggest fan of revolvers, but I’m not you. If it works for you, rock on with your bad self. I’m gonna keep carrying my Glock 34, because I like it. Even if it’s a Gamer Gun, it’s probably not going to get me killed on Da StreetzTM.

I’m gonna say the same thing about lever action guns and bolt action guns if anybody asks. Know what’s great about capitalism? You can buy whatever the fuck you want. So can I. I’m gonna buy guns I like, for whatever reason. I don’t care if you don’t like them. They’re not your guns. I think people really ought to harden up a bit about this nonsense. Doesn’t matter if everybody in the 14th Chairborne Ranger Regiment does or doesn’t like your choices. They can pick their things. Be an adult. Go pick yours.

I don’t know what your preference is, but I know two things. One, there’s somebody out there who thinks it’s dumb and that it will get you killed or some nonsense like that. Two, there are others out there who think like you do.

Remote Turret: Russian Epoch

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We’ve spent some time earlier talking about remote turrets in our analysis of the Land 400 finalists. The German Lance turret is a pretty solid design. The Russians have a fancy new remote turret too. They don’t need to make a design with a bunch of different option s for export, so they settled on a somewhat different feature set. It’s in use on the T-15 Armata Heavy IFV and the Kurganets 25 IFV, so let’s take a look.

Unlike most other remote turrets, this new turret, called the Epoch, is pretty big. Russian big. It also contains a whole bunch of lessons from Russian experiences in Chechnya, as well as American experiences in Iraq. Epoch holds ATGMS, a 30×165 mm cannon and a 7.62x54R mm machine gun. And it’s loaded with ammo. The Bradley’s designers would be proud and jealous. There are 500 (no that’s not a typo) ready rounds of 30 m ammo, plus 2,000 ready rounds of 7.62x54R. Lots of ammo is good. The Russians have tended towards large ammo capacities, and just in case they had second thoughts, watching the American Bradleys go Rambo with their 300 rounds of 25 mm in Iraq convinced them that combining an HE firehose with staying power is aweseome. Reloading is for chumps. For the 30 mm, there’s a 340 round magazine and a 160 round magazine, and a dual-feed system for the 24A2 autocannon. We’d expect the bigger magazine to hold HE.

The autocannon and the coaxially mounted machine gun are both biaxially stabilized, and the turret is electrically driven. More interestingly, the Epoch is designed for high angle fire. This isn’t for indirect fire, this is because the Russians remember insurgents in Grozny hiding on the upper floors of buildings. That’s no place to hide now.

Additionally, the Epoch has provision for four Kornet-EM launchers, with two tubes on either side of the turret. I’m somewhat torn here. On the one hand, these are modern missiles, and four is the right number of missiles. More is better. On the other hand, while it has a relatively large tandem warhead, the Kornet is a laser-beam riding, SACLOS-guided missile that takes a direct flight path. It isn’t top-attack, and that’s just lame. Javelin or Spike would be better here. Even the newest TOW model, the TOW-2B, has an overflight top-attack profile. I really don’t like the idea of directly attacking enemy armor, now that the turret might automatically be rotated to present the strongest armor, and how light composite arrays and multilayer ERA arrays are getting. We’ve just had a nasty urban warfare campaign in Iraq which has convinced everybody to augment the side armor of their tanks. Time for some cleverness in your missile design, KBP.

The Epoch has two obvious sighting units, one for the gunner and an independent one for the commander. They appear to have day and thermal viewing units plus laser rangefinders. I don’t know the magnification levels, and I also don’t know how good the thermal viewers are. Historically, this hasn’t been something the Russians are good at. I don’t know if the sensors are quietly being provided by the French, or if the Russians have finally figured things out. This is probably not a dealbreaker though; as I mentioned in the T-14 review, it’s easy enough to change these out.

Moving on to other questions, the protection levels aren’t published, and don’t appear to be all that heavy. Probably good against machine gun fire and shell fragments, but not much else. This is acceptable, given that it’s unmanned. More protection would be better so a support fires kill by enemy IFVs is harder to achieve. It’d be hard to augment it much further given how many systems are externally mounted.

Overall though, this turret is a really good design. I like built-in combat persistence, and most of my serious gripes would be easy enough to work around. Here’s another good, modern design.

On the Gewehr 36

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First, the news.

The German court in Koblenz has found in favor of HK that they are not at fault for the issues plaguing the G36. This was expected, at least by yours truly. HK asserted in its lawsuit that the German government never required their rifles pass the tests in question, therefore they couldn’t be held liable for said rifle failing to meet those requirements. And it is true that the Bundeswehr never had requirements regarding the failures in question. Nor indeed did they do the tests until the chorus from the troops became so loud that they could not be drowned out. A good, legalistic defense. And good news for HK.

And let me be clear. I’m not blaming them for failing to meet standards they weren’t tested for. You might be a trifle peeved at HK if you’re following the news, but how would you feel if you took a high school Algebra test and then your parents scolded you for failing to pass a calculus exam?

What were the problems? To put it mildly, the G36 sucks when exposed to heat. The barrel is mounted to the polymer receiver and the polymer sight assembly in such a way that heat will compromise the mount, causing accuracy issues. I am not sure if this is a question of structural engineering or polymer composition or both.

Here is a picture of the trunnion on the G36.

That area, of course, is right around the chamber of the rifle. It’s gonna get hot quick. Now, I’m no engineer, but that doesn’t seem all that sturdy of a mounting method. And I might be curious as to how hot that area gets. And I know no other rifle does things that way.

These issues can be found in as little as 90 rounds (three magazines) of automatic or reasonably quick semiautomatic fire. They are also significantly exacerbated by high temperatures. The kind you might find in the Middle East. You can imagine the shock and horror in the Bundeswehr when they finally went out to go kick some haji ass with their American (and French!) pals and discovered that their rifles couldn’t take the heat.

Now, Germany is a temperate place. But the Germans have been in warm places before. Where? Hmm. Well, there was that bit in Afrika back in the 40s, right?

NEIN!
DISCUSSION OF THE WAR IS STRENG VERBOTEN!!

Okay. So, maybe not. I imagined Rommel. But hey. When 90 or so shots make your targets look like you forgot how to shoot all of a sudden, there’s no trouble at all, right? We’re imagining things.

But don’t take my word for it. I’m just some Amerikaner. What do I know? What do the German special forces units use? They use the HK 416 as much as they can. Hmm. Aluminum receiver, eh? I think my police friends might call this a “clue”.

German troops deployed to Afghanistan always tried to acquire G3s or HK 416s in the field. Another clue!

Then there’s the XM8, which was a G36 with a fancy shell. Same construction. It was plagued by heat issues, which caused its weight to skyrocket. Huh. This is turning into Cluetown over here.

Other than the massive heat issues, the G36 isn’t a terrible design. It looks kinda space age. It has an ambidextrous charging handle and ambidextrous safeties. The mag release is a paddle (which is in the center, and therefore also ambidextrous), and the mags do not drop free. The paddle isn’t operable by the strong hand from its usual position on the firing grip. It’s not as nice as an AR-15 pattern weapon ergonomically. The gas piston system works well. The magazines are also a good feature of the weapon. They can be clipped together using lugs on the side. They are also made of a translucent polymer, so you can see how many rounds remain. Plus, they were designed from the start for thirty rounds, so they have a continuous curve, instead of the dogleg of the AR-15 magazine. The optics are kinda goofy, and they’re integral, so have fun with that. The compact G36C version would introduce a lower picatinny rail sight/carry handle. But not as low as on other not-G36 rifles, because the charging handle is right there under the carry handle.

Also, in case there was doubt, the HK 416 is basically HK’s take on the AR design, but with the G36 op rod system. So there’s that, and it’s way better. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. They’re clearly paying us Americans back for stealing the Mauser design for the Springfield 1903.

Overall, the G36 a meh rifle before we knew about the heat problems, and now I can’t imagine why you’d get one. Despite all of the fancy new-age polymers, the regular G36 rifle isn’t lighter than the M16A2 (or M16A1, which is lighter still). And the M16A2 won’t make your groups the size of a barn after 90 rounds.

HK 416 Wins in France!

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The French are not wasting any time in selecting a replacement for their worn-out FAMAS rifles. The HK 416 has been selected as the new French Service rifle, beating out the other downselected rifle, the FN SCAR 16.

Congratulations, HK!

I came to a similar conclusion while back in my own HK 416/SCAR 16 head-to-head. So I totally called it.

Let’s review salient points in the 416’s favor, in case you’re wondering why the French picked a gun from La Boche. I’ve got some more thoughts on the 416 itself, but those will wait. This is about France.

1.) The HK 416 has been chosen as a general issue rifle already, by Norway. The SCAR 16 has not. While both were developed by American special operations units, and both are in service with a number of special operations groups around the world, including some in France, there’s a lot you can learn from a rifle by giving it to a bunch of grunts to use and abuse. Grunts can break everything. And the Norwegians have found some minor issues, which HK has fixed. So that’s a bunch of bugs the French won’t find. Picking something someone else has already issued generally means you’ll find fewer problems.

2.) The HK 416 is going to be the G36 replacement. Only a matter of time. I’ll have more on the G36 later this week, but given the problems it has in the heat (even if no one in cold-ass Germany thought to test in the heat), the Germans will be ditching the G36. The winner is going to be German, because they’re still secretly nationalist. And that means it’s going to be the next service rifle of Germany.

Why does this matter for France? Well, France is trying to cooperate a lot more with Germany on military matters. They’ve got a bunch of projects in the works with Germany, including a new tank project. Even if I think multinational projects like that are a terrible idea, and no multinational tank project has ever actually delivered anything, they’re committed. So choosing a common service rifle is a no brainer.

3.) The HK 416 is very automatic-rifle-like. Remember, in its off the shelf form (ok, they nicely put USMC on the side), the 416 was selected as the Squad Automatic Rifle for the US Marine Corps, in sort of a modern-BAR type role. I’m not sure if this is important to you, but if it is, if you’re worried about battles like Wanat (and can’t just fix your officer corps), the 416 is the rifle for you. It is also heavy. If you like heavy, it’s the rifle for you.

So there you have it. That said, I’d still prefer a more traditional direct impingement M4, maybe from Colt, or maybe Colt Canada (they actually have a somewhat different catalog than regular Colt), or LMT.

Opentaflvecken: final AI notes, plans for the future

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This is the third article in a series of posts on OpenTafl. You can read the first and second parts at the preceding links.

Welcome back to the third and final entry in Opentaflvecken, a one-week period in which I provide some minor respite to poor parvusimperator. We’ve hit the major AI improvements; now it’s time to cover a grab bag of miscellaneous topics left over. Onward!

Playing out repetitions
In OpenTafl’s versions of tafl rule sets, threefold repetitions are invariably handled: by default, it yields a draw; some variants define a threefold repetition as a win for the player moving into the third repetition of a board state1. Prior to the AI improvements release, the AI simply ignored repetitions, an obvious weakness: if you found a position where you could force OpenTafl to make repeated moves to defend, you could play the forcing move over and over, and OpenTafl would obligingly find a different way to answer it until it ran out and let you win. No longer! Now, OpenTafl is smart enough to play repetitions out to the end, using them to win if possible, or forcing a draw if necessary.

It turns out, as with everything in AI, this is not as simple as it sounds. The problem is the transposition table. It has no information on how many times a position has been repeated, and repetition rules introduce path dependency: the history of a state matters in its evaluation. Fortunately, this is a very simple path dependency to solve. OpenTafl now has a smallish hash table containing Zobrist hashes and repetition counts. Whenever a position appears, either in the AI search or in the regular play of the game, the repetition count is incremented. Whenever the AI finishes searching a position, it is removed from the table. In this way, at any given state, the AI always knows how many times a position has occurred. If the position has occurred more than once in the past, the AI skips the transposition table lookup and searches the position instead. This seems like it might cause a search slowdown—repetitions can no longer be probed—but in practice, it’s turned out to have almost no effect.

Move ordering improvements
I discussed move ordering a little bit in the second article, but I want to go into a little more depth. Move ordering is the beating heart of any alpha-beta search engine. The better the move ordering, the better the pruning works; the better the pruning works, the deeper the AI can search; the deeper the AI can search, the better it plays. Early on in OpenTafl’s development, I threw together a very simple move ordering function: it searched captures first and everything else later. Later on, after the transposition table went in, I added a bit to try transposition table hits in between captures and the remaining moves. The move ordering used Java’s sort method, which, though efficient, is more ordering than is necessary.

Late in the AI improvements branch, when I added the killer move table and the history table, I decided to fix that. Move ordering now does as little work as possible: it makes one pass through the list of moves, putting them into buckets according to their move type. It sorts the transposition table hits and history table hits, then searches the killer moves, the history table hits, the top half of the transposition table hits, the captures, the bottom half of the transposition table hits, and finally, any moves which remain. Though there are two sorts here instead one, since they’re much smaller on average, they’re faster overall.

Puzzles
Okay, this one isn’t exactly an AI feature, but you’ll note that the title doesn’t limit me to AI future plans only. It also turns out that this isn’t much of a future plan. Puzzles are already done on the unstable branch, so I’ll use this section to tell you about the three kinds of puzzles.

The first is the least heavily-annotated sort, the one you might find on the hypothetical chess page of a newspaper: simply a rules string, a position string, and a description along the lines of ‘white to win in 4’. OpenTafl supports these with the new load notation feature: paste an OpenTafl rules string into a dialog box, and OpenTafl will load it. (There’s also a new in-game/in-replay command which can be used to copy the current position to the clipboard, ctrl+c and ctrl+v being nontrivial for the moment.)

The other two are closely related. They start with a standard OpenTafl replay, then use some extra tags to declare that the replay file defines a puzzle, and tell OpenTafl where in the replay file the puzzle starts. The puzzle author uses OpenTafl’s replay editing features to create variations and annotations for all of the branches of play he finds interesting, then distributes the file. When loading the file, OpenTafl hides the history until the player explores it. The two closely-related kinds I mentioned are loose puzzles and strict puzzles, the only difference being that loose puzzles allow the player to explore branches the puzzle author didn’t include, while strict puzzles do not.

OpenTafl has all the tools you need to author puzzles, although, at present, you will have to do your own position records. (Sometime down the line, I’d like to add a position editor/analysis mode, but today is not that day.) The README will have more details.

You can expect two or three puzzles to ship with the OpenTafl v0.4.4.0b release, along with all puzzle-related features.

Future evaluation function plans
I mentioned before that there are some weaknesses in the current evaluation function, and that some changes will be required. I’m becoming more convinced that this is untrue, and that what I really ought to do is an evaluation function which is easier for humans to understand. The current evaluation function just places an abstract value on positions; the one I’d like to do uses the value of a taflman as an easy currency. In doing so, I can ask myself, “Would I sacrifice a taflman to do X?” Having that as a check on my logic would be nice, and would prevent me from making dumb logic errors like the one in the current evaluation function, where the attacker pushes pieces up against the king much too eagerly.

This may also require more separation in the evaluation function between different board sizes; sacrificing a taflman in a 7×7 game is a bigger decision than sacrificing one in an 11×11 game. I may also have some changing weights between the opening and the endgame, although, as yet, I don’t have a great definition for the dividing line between opening and endgame.

Anyway, that’s all theoretical, and undoubtedly I’ll be writing about it when I get to it, as part of the v0.4.5.x series of releases. In the meantime, though, I have plenty to do to get v0.4.4.0b done. I’ll be testing this one pretty hard, since it’s going to be the next stable release, which involves a lot of hands-on work. The automated tests are great, but can’t be counted on to catch UI and UX issues.

Thanks for joining me for Opentaflvecken! Remember, the AI tournament begins in about three and a half months, so you still have plenty of time to hammer out an AI if you’d like to take part. Hit the link in the header for details.

  1. This isn’t exactly intuitive, but the person moving into a state for the third time is the person whose hand is forced. (Play it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.) Although it’s traditional to declare a threefold repetition a draw, I think it works better in tafl if the player making the forcing move is forced to make a different move or lose.