Tag Archives: procurement

Issue Kit Thoughts

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Pondering my AR builds, both extant and forthcoming, as well as modern combat trends has given me some ideas on how one ought to kit out an infantry force. A couple of them aren’t very revolutionary, and one is pretty different. We’ll start with the least controversial, and go on towards things that will require a bit more arguing.

Premise 1: Issue body armor all around.
This one’s a pretty easy sell. Frontline troops have been widely issued body armor since (at least) the Vietnam war. That body armor was a flak jacket, which is designed to provide protection from fragmentation weapons. Body armor saves lives, and that protects the investment in soldier training, plus looks better to the civilians at home. The trick with body armor is to balance weight and protection, which will be the focus of another article. It’s important to not forget to include load bearing equipment in the body armor system. The vest should be designed to distribute the weight of the armor already, and PALS webbing (or similar) saves having to deal with yet another wearable. This is not only awkward, but it makes it harder for medics to get to an injured soldier to provide care.

Premise 2: Every longarm should have an optic
Once again, this one’s pretty simple. Optics are way better than iron sights. The trick has always been getting them rugged enough and cheap enough to issue generally, and we’ve been nailing that since the 90s (maybe earlier). With modular picatinny rail mounts, we needn’t specify which optic to the weapon designer. There are a lot of options here, and we’ll have a future article devoted to the choice. In brief though, there’s the red dot optic, the low-magnification, fixed-power scope, and the low magnification, variable-power scope. Magnification gives the ability to identify targets at range if they’re hiding (maybe insurgents in a crowd, or maybe soldiers in the brush), but the dot is simpler and faster to use. A well designed low power variable scope gives the best of both worlds, but the variable power adds weight and complexity, and they’re not as rugged.

Premise 3: Pistols suck. Therefore, issue carbines
This one’s pretty easy to argue. Happily, it also hurts the feelings of idiots. But a carbine is a much more lethal weapon than a pistol. It shoots a more powerful round, holds more ammo, and is easier to shoot well. Carbines rock. Issuing carbines generally to officers has the fringe benefit of making them stand out less in a sniper’s scope. Pistols are historically a badge of authority. Or, a ‘Shoot Me’ indicator, depending on which side of the scope you are. So there’s a benefit there. The issue, of course, is that carbines are bigger and heavier than pistols. In a highly mechanized force though, this isn’t a huge problem since one’s base vehicle can carry that carbine backup weapon. Even light infantry type forces can go this route: the US Marines issue M4s to just about everybody. Even officers as high as Lieutenant Colonel get M4s. We should follow suit. About the only role I can think of that can’t is fighter pilots. Maybe if I break the weapon down I can get it into a survival kit.

Premise 4: Every carbine, rifle, and man-portable machine gun should have a suppressor
Okay, here’s the one that’s a little out there, mostly because I no longer have a real world force to lean on. SOCOM does this, but they’re all special forces guys. So why would we do it generally? Like optics in the 90s, we’ve got suppressors that are mature enough to minimize the disadvantages. Modern suppressors are reasonably lightweight and quite durable. The Surefire SOCOM RC2 (5.56) suppressors, for example, weigh just over a pound and the Surefire SOCOM-556MG suppressors weigh just under a pound and a half. Great! But, as well-educated firearms enthusiasts, we know that suppressors don’t actually silence firearms like you see in lame action movies. That’s fine. We actually get many benefits from the suppressor anyway, even if it can’t turn a bunch of grunts into ninjas.

The first and most obvious benefit is that a suppressed gun is easier on one’s hearing. This is most noticeable indoors, and is why so many special forces and SWAT guys run suppressors. The suppressor might be thought of as taking the edge off of a gunshot, and this is great if you train a lot indoors, or find yourself indoors. It takes the edge off outside too, which is helpful when you and your buddies are engaging some enemy scumbags. Suppressors also eliminate flash. This brings two more advantages: first, this helps mask a soldier’s position. There’s no big obvious flash to pinpoint his position. Second, in a low-light setting where a soldier might be using night vision equipment, a suppressor prevents flash from washing out the light amplification systems in the goggles. Finally, that ‘taking the edge off’ of the report of weapons also helps obscure the soldier and make his position less obvious in a quick engagement or ambush. It’s not about completely eliminating sound, it’s just about managing it and making it harder to track.

There we go. Four ways to maximize the effectiveness of soldiers. And one of them is even pretty aggressive and forward-looking.

Edit to add: Since it’s come up a few times in the comments, and I’d hate to leave conclusions there to fester, let’s talk prices and make some comparisons. Currently, SOCOM has tested and approved Surefire suppressors for deployment in the field. The MSRP of one of these models is $1,375.00. Let’s look at the MSRP of some other pieces of equipment commonly issued. The USMC’s standard issue optic has been the Trijicon ACOG. The current model of choice is the TA31RCO-A4CP which has an MSRP of $1,724.00. Aimpoint doesn’t list MSRPs on their website, but their Comp M4, used by the US Army, the Norwegian Army, and a whole bunch of others, seems to have an MSRP of about $850.00 or so. Oh, and while not being sold to civilians, the price of one of the super awesome GPNVG-18 Panoramic Night Vision goggle sets used in the Bin Laden raid is about $65,000.00. All prices given in US Dollars and are current to the best of my knowledge as of April 10, 2018.

Resurrected Weapons: RUM-125 Sea Lance

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Submarines have been a serious threat to shipping since the Great War. Recently, the Russians are putting subs to sea like they did in the Cold War, ready to menace the shipping lanes once more. And submarines are more deadly then ever, with modern torpedoes like the Mk. 48 ADCAP having a range of upwards of twenty seven nautical miles. By detonating under the keel, they can split many ships in half. And, unlike antiship missiles, there aren’t many good ways to deal with torpedoes. You’re basically limited to a few decoy systems. So what’s a surface ship to do? Why, attack the sub, of course. This usually involves helicopters that can drop sonobuoys and dip sonars. They can also drop torpedoes if they find a sub.

What if the surface ship needs to engage a submarine directly? Suppose the helicopter isn’t nearby, or is out of torpedoes, or the surface ship detected the sub with her own sensors? Modern lightweight (read: anti-submarine) torpedoes have a range of anywhere from about five to about twelve nautical miles, depending on what speed setting they’re using. That’s a bit less than half of what the submarine’s torpedoes can do, giving him the shot long before you have it. What other options do we have for engaging?

We could use a rocket to get the torpedo closer before we drop it. If you have Mark 41 VLS cells, you could use the RUM-139 VL-ASROC, which puts a Mk. 46 torpedo about fifteen nautical miles from the launching ship. There are versions available with the more recent Mk. 54 lightweight torpedo, which has a much better seeker. Depending on speed settings, this gives us very nearly the range that the opposing sub has with his torpedo. Detente.

For those of you who’ve forgotten your high school French, or you uncultured swine who never had any, detente is a French word that means “you both get to die”. Yay. Personally, I’d rather not die, and would love to have the range for the first shot given a good sonobuoy contact and no torpedo-equipped helicopters nearby. For this, we come to another casualty of dwindling budgets in the ’90s, the RUM-125B Sea Lance.1

The Sea Lance has a bigger motor and a better inertial navigation system. It still fits in a regular Mk. 41 VLS cell. The RUM-125B was originally specced around the Mark 50 lightweight torpedo, but an enterprising designer could fit most any NATO lightweight torpedo in, since they’re all about the same size. The RUM-125B had a range of thirty five nautical miles, so if you see him first, you can shoot him first, helicopters or no. With a powerful weapon like this, it makes the surface ship a more active participant in the search for subs, rather than just a mothership to provide fuel.

But wait, there’s more. You may be wondering why the designation started with B. It didn’t. B is just the normal, conventional-warhead
model. Throw a torpedo, have it engage. When you really, really want range, when Ivan’s sub just absolutely, positively has got
to die, and when you want to really piss off greenpeace, there’s the RUM-125A. This missile variant can lob a 200 kiloton nuclear depth bomb out to a range of one hundred nautical miles. So you’re probably going to be safe from that blast. Maybe. It’s not very accurate, but then, it doesn’t have to be. This is the mother of all depth charges. Guaranteed to crush hulls, kill marine life, and cause an international incident, or your money back!

That’s not all. There were variants (designated UUM-125A and UUM-125B) that could be launched from submarines. These would get launched from the torpedo tubes in a buoyant capsule that would float to the surface and then launch the missile. It’s a great way to give attack subs a long range punch if they’re aware of a sub threat. Or just want to nuke the whales.

So go ahead, Captain Viktor Tupolev. Push your pissant Alfa-class boat as hard as you want. You’ll only die overheated.

Now, if only Sea Lance would work on those pesky land whales on Twitter.

Verdict: Approved by the Borgundy War Department Procurement Board

1.) Yes, this is a lower designation number. Trust me, it’s more advanced. Or don’t. More for me.
2.) This post is all in nautical miles, because we’re talking about things at sea. If you’re a communist, and prefer metric units, multiply all range figures above by 1.85.

Milspec Challenge

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Here’s one that came from Fishbreath. I’m a big AR-15 guy, and he suggested I spec one out as if I was going to issue it. So here goes. An issue AR-151, Parvusimperator-style.

We’ll start with the receivers. Both upper and lower receivers should be forged from 7075-T6 aluminum. Forged to keep it simple. The forging process is cheaper than the billet manufacturing process, and marginally stronger. Win-win. We’ll focus on the lower receiver and its components first.

The trigger group is a safe/semiautomatic/fully-automatic one. The AR-15 trigger group allows for a three-position selector without some serious modifications. The reader might wonder, ‘why not three round burst?’ My response is ‘why bother?’ The three round burst is the latest in a long line of devices designed at the urging of girly-man bean counters to force soldiers to not “waste ammo”. In the 1870s, the US Army didn’t issue the Winchester repeating rifles to the cavalry because the soldiers might waste ammo. Bolt action rifles around the turn of the 20th century had a magazine cut off, because soldiers might waste magazine after magazine of bullets. Both decisions were proven wrong. Discipline must be taught; it cannot be enforced by weapons. You might not always need ammunition, or fully automatic fire, but when you do, you really need it. So safe/semi/auto is the trigger group we’ll use. We’ll also specify an ambidextrous selector switch.

The receiver extension should be 1.14 inches in diameter, and should have six position detents on the underside. This part may also be called the “buffer tube” but it’s better to think of it as an extension to the receiver that gives more room for the bolt carrier to decelerate. It should be held in place by properly-staked castle nut. This will ensure that the castle nut will not back out on it’s own, but can be removed by an armorer if necessary. In terms of buffer internals, we’ll use chrome silicon wire springs (something like the Springco Blue model extra power spring) and an H32 weight buffer.

As for the stock, we’re going for the Crane3 SOCOM-pattern stock. This is heavier and sturdier than the standard collapsible stock, and comes with two waterproof storage compartments. These are perfect for storing batteries for the various issue electrics that will get attached to the carbine, as well as small bottles of lubricant to keep the gun running. It’s a convenient place to store some lubricant to make sure it’s available when needed.

There are a few other gubbins we need to specify. We’ll specify an ambi bolt catch and an ambi mag catch. Installing these in a convenient manner will take some reworking of the lower, but it can be done. Knight’s Armament and several of the fancy billet receiver companies have already done this. I’m not overly particular about most other small parts. Appropriate aluminum pins, etc. are fine. The one other thing to call out is the pistol grip. I hate the A2-type grip, so that’s right out. It’s too small and it has a pointless nubbin in a stupid place. Fortunately, there are lots of alternatives out there, and almost all of them are better. I’m a fan of the TangoDown BG-16 grip, as it fits the hand better and doesn’t have a stupid nubbin on the front in the wrong place, so let’s go with that.

That takes care of the lower. Onto the upper. We’re going to call for a 14.5″ barrel. Why 14.5″? Because it’s a military standard with lots of available data, and it’s shorter and handier than a 20″. This is a general issue carbine, so barrel length is going to be a compromise. Plus, that hot deathray M855A1 ammunition is designed around a 14.5″ barrel. It will have a 1:7 twist rate4 and a lightweight profile. Why a lightweight profile? Because I don’t see a point to anything heavier. A lightweight barrel was perfect for full-auto ambush drills in Vietnam. A lightweight barrel will take something like 900 rounds before it fails, and that’s if you reload as fast as you can and never stop firing. That’s about three times a basic ammo load for the average soldier. This is more than adequate for a select fire carbine. It’s not a support weapon built for sustained automatic fire. The barrel should be made of 4150 chrome molybdenum steel. And yes, Virginia, it will have a chrome lining.

The gas system should be a carbine-length one, or about seven inches from the receiver to the gas block. Again, this is the standard on a 14.5″ barreled gun. The gas block should be a low-profile unit held onto the barrel with a pair of taper pins. This is the most secure method of securing a gas block to a barrel. It should also have a bayonet lug at the front, since the length is right for a bayonet. And bayonet fighting teaches a lot of good things to troops, plus it’s occasionally very useful on the battlefield. Just ask the British. For they bayonet lug to work, the gas block has to be as long as a front sight block, but this isn’t hard to do.

For handguard, we actually want a 9″ long unit, even though our specified gas system is only 7″ long. This will cover most of our low profile gas block, giving us more room for a grip and accessories, but still let us access the bayonet lug. We want a quadrail handguard, because picatinny rails are the standard accessory mount. There are some alternatives out there, namely keymod and mlok, but they don’t totally replace the picatinny rail. We see no reason to adopt two mounting systems, so we’ll stick with the picatinny. I went back and forth quite a bit on which handguard design to call out here. I’m rather fond of the notion of a monolithic design, where the rail and upper are one continuous piece. However, this is generally heavy, and doesn’t let us change the handguard out at all. One of the joys of the AR design is just how modular it is. We’re using a very different handguard design than my father would have found on an AR-15, and we’d like our sons to be able to apply their own wisdom. So let’s skip the monolith, cool though it might be. We want a durable design though, and since we’re covering our gas block, we’ll need something tube-style, i.e. free float. No mall ninjas, we’re not getting a free floated barrel for accuracy benefits. It’s a service carbine. Don’t kid yourself–no one cares about tiny group improvements. We just need it to work with our gas block system. We’ll take the Daniel Defense DDM4 rail, in the 9″ length. This is an off the shelf product, just like everything else on our list. It’s lightweight, sturdy, and easy to install. It will still let us access the bayonet lug, but give us plenty of room for lights and lasers as needed. It also has quick detach sling swivel sockets built in, which is convenient. Saves us a part.

So far, so good. There are a few more notes that we’ll make for the upper. The muzzle device should be a three-pronged-style flash hider, since these seem to work the best. It should also be a suppressor adapter. Since we haven’t specified a suppressor, we won’t specify a muzzle device. But a good example would be the Surefire SF3P, which would work with Surefire’s excellent line of suppressors.

You may have guessed we’ll be using a “flat-top” or “A3-style” upper receiver, and you’d be right. That’s prime optic mounting real estate. And we’ll have the standard folding dust cover on there too. Yawn. Tell me something interesting, you say? Fine. We’re specifying our uppers to not have a forward assist. Why? Because it’s a stupid, useless, protruding, weight-adding piece of junk. Get rid of it. It makes the design simpler. It makes the design lighter. It’s how Stoner originally intended it to be. And stupid Army was wrong to insist on such a device. If you’re in a situation where you need to force the bolt closed, then your gun is FUBAR, and unsafe to use. Any case so screwy that you have to force it into the chamber because the buffer spring won’t do the job has no business in your gun. Yes, you can force a fucked-up, bulged case into an M1903, M1 Garand, or M14, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Or even a military requirement. The M1918 BAR has no such capability, but troops loved the BAR all the same. Look, when both John Moses Browning and Gene M. Stoner don’t think it’s needed, it’s not needed.

Didn’t see that coming, did you?

Now for the guts of the rifle. But first, the charging handle. Surprise, the stock one is fine. It doesn’t need ambi anything. It’s already ambi. It’s on top of the freaking gun, for crying out loud. Fine as is.

Anyway, the guts. Or, more specifically, the bolt carrier group. We’re going to call out somewhat nonstandard parts here. No, we’re not going to retrofit a piston. There’s already one there. It’s inside the carrier, you dumb idiot. We’re going to use a specialty bolt carrier and bolt, specifically the Lewis Machine and Tool Enhanced Bolt Carrier and Enhanced Bolt. Why? Well, let’s take a look at our system, here. We have a shorter gas system length than Stoner originally specified, so we’re getting more gas pressure than Stoner originally designed around. The M193 ammunition that was originally used had an average chamber pressure of 52,000 psi. But we’re calling for something like M855A1, which takes advantage of more consistent modern powders to increase the average chamber pressure to 63,000 psi, which of course means more gas pressure for the system. Plus, we like suppressors, which means yet more gas pressure. What does all this gas pressure mean? Well, it means we’ve got more velocity on the bolt, which increases the likelihood that the bolt will try to unlock to early, which puts a shear and bending load on the bolt lugs. Surprise, this is bad for bolt life. The Enhanced Bolt Carrier has more vents and a revised cam path to reduce pressure and slow unlocking of the bolt. The revised bolt has a different extractor, using two springs instead of one, which is designed to give longer spring life. The lugs are redesigned for added strength as well. The end result is a longer-lasting system. Plus it’s a slightly not-stock part, so I’m not just picking a rifle off the rack here and calling it good.

So how is the rifle issued? Well, it comes with an issued optic, which we haven’t chosen yet. But there will be an optic. There will be a two-point, quick-adjust sling. More convenient than a standard carry strap type sling that your grandfather had on his M1 Garand. There are three rail panels issued. I prefer the Tango Down units, but the exact model isn’t very important. Just something so that the picatinny rail doesn’t cut your hands up after lots of campaigning. The rifle is also issued with a set of folding back up iron sights. Specifically the Troy industries M4-style front and their standard (non-dioptic) rear sight. The rear sight is “A1 style”, i.e. it’s has two apertures, but is not adjustable for elevation. Nor should it be. It should be durable and simple. It should be zeroed and kept safely in reserve. It should not be complicated. It is a backup sight on a carbine, not iron sights on a National Match rifle. Keep it simple.

The carbine is issued with iron sights and optic fitted and properly zeroed. Since we’re not dumb, our weapons racks are designed to hold the carbines with optics mounted, so soldiers can trust that the carbine they draw from storage has a good zero.

Some of you may be wondering what I would do if you made me get an AR-15 that I couldn’t piece together as above. What if you had to buy something off a shelf, all-up, Parvusimperator? Simple. I’d call Knight’s Armament Corporation, and ask if they give a bulk discount on large carbine orders. So there. Smartass.

1.) I’ll be using AR-15 as the generic term here, so as not to sound like I’m specifying brand or model details. Also, the AR-15 designation came first.
2.) 5.6 oz weight.
3.) NSWC Crane designed, produced by LMT and B5 Systems.
4.) I.e. one complete rotation in seven inches of travel

Squad Support Weapons

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Ack, the board has become overrun with Taflmen. Thanks a lot, Fishbreath. Fortunately for you, dear reader, I have just the solution:

Underneath our starry flag, Civilize ’em with a Krag!
And return us to our own beloved home.

Wait, no, wrong century. Krags are rather old fashioned. What about more modern weapons? Well, we’ve already opted for the kickass HK 416 for general issue carbine. Let’s look at what our soldiers have in terms of lightish support weapons.

We’ve established an eight man dismount squad, nominally comprised of two fireteams of four. Let’s talk basis of issue of some support weapons. We’ll also flesh out a few more choices.

We’ve established our choices of rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles in the Panzerfaust 3 and the FGM-148 Javelin, and will not repeat the reasoning here. In any case, we’ll call for one Javelin CLU and one PzF 3 computerized Dynarange sighting unit per squad. In general, we’d expect two Javelin missiles and two Panzerfaust 3 rockets, some combination of the PzF 3T anti-tank rocket and the PzF 3B demolition rocket. This is some of the joy of a mechanized force: the IFV can carry the weapons when you don’t need them.

We’ll also allocate each fireteam one underbarrel grenade launcher. This needn’t be carried all the time, but it’s a quick way to give the squad some indirect firepower. For underbarrel grenade launcher, we want something that needs nothing beyond a picatinny rail for a mounting solution. Our choice is the HK AG36. It’s a 40mm grenade launcher that is as modular as we need, plus it has a sideways-opening break action that lets it accomodate longer specialty 40mm rounds. And yes, it attaches to picatinny rails.

You’re probably waiting for the machine gun choice though. Every squad needs a machine gun. Or two. Or three, even. We’re going with two, one per fireteam. Again, nothing surprising here. Now we ought to choose a machine gun. There are many to choose from, but first we ought to determine the caliber. Nato-wise, we’ve got 7.62x51mm and 5.56x45mm. All of the advantages of the smaller, lighter round are apparent. Troops carry more, full stop. But this is a mechanized army, and this brings a wrinkle. The CV90, like nearly all other self-respecting IFVs, has a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun, and provision for several hundred rounds of 7.62mm ammunition in belts. The infantry, of course, have 5.56mm carbines, but those operate with “loose”1 5.56mm ammunition in magazines. So, with a 5.56mm squad automatic weapon, we have three kinds of small arms cartridges to ship, according to the logistics tables: 5.56mm magazines, 5.56mm link, and 7.62mm link. If we go with 7.62mm, we drop this down to two kinds, plus the infantry can share ammo with the coax. One big pool of reserve ammo. So we’ll go with this.

Now, the question becomes, which 7.62mm NATO machine gun to choose? Here, weight becomes an important factor. There are lots of excellent, big, heavy machine guns out there, built for lots of abuse and sustained fire. Chief among them is the excellent FN MAG 58.2 This is our coaxial- and pintle-mounted gun of choice, but it weighs 11.79 kg (about 26 lbs). Nicely accessorized with modern rails and a heat shield in the M240B variant brings us up to 12.5 kg (27.6 lbs). Both weights are unloaded and without optics, and we can see how it’s hard for a MAG gunner to move with his squadmates. He can’t assault positions very well. There is a lightened version available, the M240L, which uses expensive titanium parts to cut weight, and manages to get under 10 kg (21.8 lb) if you reduce the barrel length to about 20″ and use a collapsible stock.

Can we do better? Sure, provided we give up some durability for lots of sustained fire. And this is ok for our needs. Remember, this is for the squad automatic weapon. It’s not for sustained fire from a vehicle or a weighted tripod. It’s for support of the close attack. Fire and movement. Plus, the IFV is going to be a better base of fire anyway. The Russians have a superlight machine gun in the PKM, which comes in at a svelte 7.5 kg (16.5 lbs). But it’s in 7.62x54mm R. The R is for Rimmed, and while archaic, the brilliant Mikhail Kalashnikov used it to his advantage in the feeding mechanism. One might think to convert it to 7.62x51mm Nato, but then we gain wait. The Poles have done this in the UKM-2000, and that weighs almost a full kilo more, coming in at 8.4 kg (18.5 lbs). Oof. That’s still lighter than the M240L though.

We might think to try the M60, but that comes in around 10.5 kg as well. No better. But SOCOM has some ideas. They had FN scale up the Minimi/M249 light machine gun to take the 7.62mm Nato round. This is the FN Mk. 483, and it fits the bill for a reliable modern 7.62mm machine gun that’s lightweight. SOCOM approved! And it comes in at 8.2 kg (18.3 lbs). Not bad. Beats out the German HK121 as well.

So is that it? Have the Belgians taken the gold? Not quite. There’s still the Israelis to think about. And their Negev NG7 is another scaled-up 5.56mm machine gun. But it’s phenomenally light. Comes in at 7.6 kg. That’s almost PKM weight, and with rails and an adjustable stock to boot. We have our winner. Mazel tov, IWI.

Oh, and if you do have a song celebrating more modern weapons and using those to civilize terrorist scum, drop us an email. Or, write to us at:

c/o This song should have been at Fishbreath’s Wedding
1 Parvusimperator Way
Imalwaysright PA, 16046

1.) I.e. unbelted
2.) You may be more familiar with the American version, the M240.
3.) Not to be confused with the Mk 48 torpedo.

Steel Rain: The Greatest Rocket Artillery

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With a fantastic gun artillery system like the PzH 2000, one might wonder why we’d need anything else. Gun artillery is great at providing sustained striking power. To increase the destruction, you need more howitzers and more time, especially considering the cost of modern self-propelled howitzers. Sometimes you need a lot of destruction all at once. Sometimes, you catch the enemy with his guard down, and you really want to hit with a big haymaker and frontload your striking power all at once. For that, you want rocket artillery.

The first big users of (modern) rocket artillery were the Soviets, who used it to great effect against the Germans on the Eastern front. Rocket artillery hit really hard and was pretty cheap, since all you needed were rails on the back of a Studebaker truck. The rockets themselves were pretty simple too. Say what you like about the Russians, but they learn from their successes, and they continue to be a world leader in rocket artillery systems, with their flagship being the BM-30 Smerch. Being blatant copycats of the Russians, the Chinese are also big rocket artillery producers and they currently produce the biggest rocket artillery system available in the 400 mm WS-2. But we’re not talking about either of those systems. No, the best rocket artillery system is the American M270.

The M270 was designed in 1977, when the US Army remembered that the M4 Sherman Calliope rocket artillery was actually kinda helpful, and gee, if those Soviets had so many stupid rocket artillery systems, maybe we should get some too. It’s built on a Bradley chassis that’s been so heavily modified as to be almost unrecognizable. It’s more like the bastard spawn of a Bradley and a flatbed truck. The M270 has a crew of 3, a 500 hp diesel engine, and an operational range of 640 km. It carries twelve 227mm rockets, and can launch them all in under 40 seconds.

Big rockets like the 227mm units on the M270 are designed with cluster munitions in mind. The standard loadout is 644 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) per rocket. These are basically shaped charge submunitions with a fragmentation shell. The basic rocket has a range of 32 km. Variant rocket types are available with improved range at the cost of fewer submunitions (518 DPICMs and a range of 45 km). Other options include GPS guidance, a big unitary warhead variant, and a variant equipped with the high-end guided SADARM (Sense and Destroy ARMor) submuntion.

SADARM can be fired from rockets or 155mm artillery shells. It works by using a system of parachutes to slow its fall while it scans the area below it with both millimeter wave radar and an infrared optical system. If it detects an armored vehicle, it can be steered toward the target by altering its rate of spin. Once over the target vehicle, it deploys an explosively formed penetrator. It’s pretty lethal, sort of a “quality” alternative to the “quantity” attack option of DPICM.

The big DPICM attack option is pretty formidable. In the first Persian Gulf War, the British found that a single M270 could basically kill everything in a 1 km by 1 km grid square on a general’s map. This is pretty cool, but none of this is really unique to the M270. For those that are cool with cluster munitions still (yes, this includes Russia and China, and Borgundy too), the Russians and Chinese offer rockets of equal size or larger that can carry all kinds of submunition payloads. Satellite guidance is also something they can do, as is fancy guided antitank submuntions.

It should be noted that the big 300mm rockets of the BM-30 and the 400mm rockets of the WS-2 can both carry more submunitions, since they’re bigger. The big advantage of the M270 is that it can also launch the MGM-140 ATACMS short range ballistic missile. It can carry a pair of these instead of the dozen 227 mm rockets. Again, ATACMS can be equipped with submunitions or a unitary warhead, and GPS guidance is available. Not that we’ve tried, but you could put a small nuclear warhead1 in without too much trouble. Range is basically constrained only by the pesky MTCR. So the M270 provides both a standard rocket artillery capability and an SRBM capability in the same vehicle. It’s more or less equivalent to both the Russian BM-27 and Iskander systems, if you could combine those.

Production of the M270 ended in 2003. If there was one unit I’d like to restart the production lines for, it’d be the M270. Maybe we can make a deal, Fishbreath?

1.) The W84 seems like a good choice for a “physics package.” If you wanted destabilizing, anyway.

Luchtburg Picks A Carbine

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The Luchtbourgish procurement apparatus has been slothful over the last year—the members of the Procurement Board have made their preferences clear on a number of challenges, but the secretary has yet to finish typing up most of the proposals. He’s hammering one out right now for you.

The Luchtbourgish Individual Carbine Competition has a few extra constraints imposed by Luchtburg’s defense priorities. One: Luchtburg has a vast stockpile of 7.62x39mm ammunition left over from its time as a Russian client state. Any proposal for a weapon chambered for a different cartridge will have to account for the price of acquiring new ammunition stockpiles, and other new infantry weapons to replace other 7.62x39mm . Two: Luchtburg is a jungle country, and a heavy bullet is desirable1. Three: Luchtburg’s land army is small2, and so the price of an individual rifle is less important than it might be otherwise.

With those constraints in mind, I can easily eliminate 5.45x39mm and 5.56 NATO. Neither are bad cartridges, and both are perfectly acceptable choices. They are not, however, the right choice for us. Disposing of 7.62×39 to acquire a new cartridge would be expensive—conservatively, the cost of a modern corvette out to a ten-year horizon, and probably another FREMM over the 25-year lifetime of the Procurement Games. It would also violate another constraint: jungle effectiveness. I can also eliminate full-size rifle cartridges, for the same reasons that parvusimperator does. I’ll leave the takedown to his post. (Look back through the militariana tag for the post about SCHV rounds.)

So, that leaves me with the intermediate intermediate cartridges, if you will: 7.62×39, the great granddaddy of the field; the modern American contenders, 6.5 Grendel, 6.8 SPC, and .300 Blackout; and lesser-used wildcats. The latter class is right out on production scale grounds. We’ll be buying, at the least, several hundred million cartridges, and sorting out production at the same time as a new rifle is not something Luchtburg wants to do.

The modern American contenders present more interesting problems. I’m a huge fan of 6.5 Grendel based on its ballistics, and of .300 BLK and 6.8SPC based on larger bullets and similar magazine capacities to 5.56, along with specialty loadings for various purposes. The thing about .300 BLK and 6.8SPC is, I’m not sure that their main advantage over 7.62×39 is inherent. You could just as easily load 7.62×39 with a heavy, subsonic bullet for use with a suppressor, or load it with a lighter bullet and hotter powder for ballistics more similar to 6.8SPC. I don’t think it’s quite possible to match Grendel, which is much less a compromise round than the other two American contenders. Generally speaking, though, I don’t think that 7.62x39mm is less capable by design. It’s less capable by less development. The expense of developing new loadings down the line is offset by not having to buy new training ammunition, or new squad automatic weapons3.

You may have noticed that I’ve rather biased the contest toward 7.62×39, and may additionally have noticed that this seems not to leave me with many good options: old AK variants, the AK-103, and (questionably) the AK-124. Russian-built arms, dependable but not generally known for their accuracy are not a particularly good fit for Luchtburg’s well-trained, well-supplied, well-maintained professional army. Fortunately, there is another contender, and it is the victor.

Enter the Swiss Arms SG5 553R. A member of the SG 550 family, it’s based off the current issue arm of the Swiss military, a pedigree that carries weight in the halls of Luchtbourgish government6. SIG/Swiss Arms is a large conglomerate, no stranger to handling large contracts, and is not Russian—a point in its favor when it comes to support and services. The design has been in service long enough to work out its kinks. As a bonus, it accepts AK magazines, meaning Luchtburg can dip into its stock of those, too. The short version is very short, and with the folding stock, is suitable for issue to vehicle crews and others who work in cramped spaces.

It does have some downsides—for one, we’ll probably want to pay for a longer-barreled version. The extant ‘long barrel’ version only has twelve inches of barrel length. We’ll probably want 16″, or maybe even a 20″ (although whether the squad marksman will also use 7.62×39 depends mainly on how our cartridge development project goes7). For another, it’s a precision-machined Swiss masterpiece. That kind of quality comes at a price. It’s hard to find contract price figures, but I’d expect to pay north of $1500 per rifle. Finally, there’s very little data on the SG 550-series in the sorts of terrain we’ll be using it most often: jungle, seaside, and aboard ships, none of which feature heavily in Switzerland’s landscape. It’s possible that those rather harsh conditions will reveal some flaws not otherwise known.

With all that being said, though, it’s a gun with very little downside for us: it isn’t as thrown-together as a Kalashnikov, so it costs a pretty penny, but the nice thing about small armies relative to defense spending is that they can afford to be well-equipped. The SG 553R is a modern rifle with a fine pedigree, and it’s the thing to take Luchtburg into the next 25 years.

I admit, this one was something of a foregone conclusion, given the constraints I imposed upon my choices, but that, I think, is a lesson in itself: procurement choices are ordinarily dictated by factors other than the raw quality of the platforms. (Else I might have ended up with SCARs.) We merely continue in that long tradition8.

1. Undoubtedly parvusimperator will quibble about the effectiveness of a fast, small bullet, but penetration of a barrier to hit something directly behind it is a very different game from penetration of a barrier to hit something 50 yards behind it. That’s the story in a jungle.
2. 75,000 rifles would cover every front-line combat formation, including vehicle crew, with about 10,000 to spare. 200,000 rifles would cover every reservist as well, with plenty of headroom.
3. Modernized PKMs will serve for now.
4. Izhmash would certainly sell them to me, but it’s unclear whether they’re vaporware or actually in testing right now.
5. Formerly SIG, but they’re currently organized as separate manufacturers. I think. The web of firearms manufacturer acquisitions and spinoffs is dizzying to untangle.
6. Several of the generals on the procurement board carry surplus K31s as hunting rifles.
7. You need speed and ballistic coefficient for that, and it’s hard to get both out of 7.62×39 at the same time.
8. Although my frigate choice was a lot more wide-open, as was parvusimperator’s carbine choice. It’s probably also true that your headline capabilities are the ones where you get to be a bit choosier.

Challenge Response: Borgundy Integrated Air Defense

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To work out our short to medium range air defense system, it’ll help to see how it plugs in to the rest of our integrated air defense network. We’ll bracket the problem by working out our man-portable system first, then our long range system, and then we’ll fit our challenge answering system in between.

For man portable air defense systems (MANPADS), there are two schools of thought. One is typified by the famous FIM-92 Stinger, and relies on some type of infrared seeker for guidance. This one is much more common. The other system, typified by the RBS-70, uses a semi-active laser homing guidance method.

On the one hand, the Stinger is easy to use. Acquire target, get tone, shoot. The operator does not need much training, and the missile is fire and forget. Plus, there are no emissions (like radar or lasers) to give the missile launch away. On the other hand, IR guidance is commonly used in short range missiles, so infrared countermeasures are common. A large part of the success or failure of Stinger-type missiles depend on the relative strength of the seeker design and the countermeasure systems on the opposing aircraft. The RBS-70 is not fire-and-forget, and requires a trained and keen operator. The laser-homing seeker is much harder for an aircraft to spoof, and is generally considered only counterable kinematically. This is a problem for all MANPADS; they must be small to be able to be carried by the infantry, so they don’t have much room for launch motors. That said, not having any kind of big obvious radar makes them much harder to suppress. Kinematically, the most formidable missile in this size class is the British Starstreak, which has a nice range advantage over its competitors and achieves the astonishing speed of Mach 3.5. Starstreak uses a SALH seeker, and an interesting warhead that requires a hit to work (i.e. it has no proximity fuze). Given the missile’s speed and the size of other missiles’ warheads, this is probably not much of a disadvantage. Starstreak uses the nigh impossible to decoy SACLOS guidance system, which is training-intensive. However, even for this most modern of the SACLOS system, manufacturer claimed hit probabilities are significantly lower than those of contemporary IR guided weapons. This might have been somewhat rectified by the auto-tracking system that the British had planned to develop for Starstreak, but this has been cancelled.

Looking at IR guided missiles, the seeker is key. Range, performance against countermeasures, and Pk all depend on the seeker. Of the IR guided missiles, most modern ones have a two-color seeker. A focal plane array seeker would be better, but none are currently available, so range is more or less equivalent, as is countermeasure resistance. Some variation in counter-countermeasure capability can be expected based on software updates, but these don’t really put one model ahead of the rest. Interestingly, the French Mistral 2 sacrifices weight for kinematics, and is capable of an astonishing Mach 2.5. It’s not as good as Starstreak, but it’s far ahead of the competition. That said, it’s very heavy, and can only be fired from a tripod platform or from a vehicle mount. Ready to go, Mistral 2 in launcher weighs about 40 kilos or so, more than twice that of Stinger. We’ll take the mass produced, lighter, cheaper Stinger. We nominally deploy a platoon of MANPADS per battalion.

How does Stinger stack up to the Russian systems that Fishbreath hasn’t allowed me to buy? Pretty well. Stinger is pretty similar to Igla-S, with a bit of a larger warhead and slightly better range. Newer Russian systems (the Verba) come with a three-color IR seeker, as opposed to the two-color of Stinger, so that’s a seeker advantage to the Russians. Verba should be better at distinguishing between real targets and decoys. Overall, the missiles are quite comparable. Stinger also has the very neat M1097 platform, which I’ll get to later.

MANPADS only gets us so far though. It’s mostly an ambush sort of weapon. It’s great for pegging helicopters or low flying aircraft, but it’s not that hard to switch to a medium-altitude attack profile and avoid the pesky little missiles entirely. So we’ll clearly need something bigger, which brings us, as promised, to our long-range air defense system.

The western standard long-range surface to air weapon system is the MIM-104 Patriot. It’s got a PESA radar, was the first in the world to network effectively with other air defense components as well as AWACS, and has been proven in combat. It has some notable shortcomings, including not providing all-around radar coverage and using towed components rather than self-propelled ones. There’s also the issue with the latest missile, the PAC-3, having relatively limited range. This missile problem also plagues the MEADS system, which uses the same PAC-3 round. MEADS does have much better radars than Patriot, and uses solely self-propelled vehicles. However, it’s not actually ready yet; while it is on offer, the buyer would have to toss money at it to finish development, which has left it out of the running in several recent contests. In general, Borgundy doesn’t like to be the first to adopt something, so MEADS is out. Plus, waiting sucks.

The other alternative is SAMP/T, a land based Aster system. While its radar provides all-around coverage, it lacks the range and power of the Patriot’s radar, being based on the smallest and least-capable naval Aster-compatible radar system. Patriot brings many more available missile types, having an ABM-ready missile in the PAC-3 and an anti-ECM aircraft missile in addition to the regular SAM. The Patriot missiles have longer range and slightly more speed (Mach 5 v. 4.5), but use track-via-missile guidance, as opposed to the Aster’s active radar homing seeker. Track via missile is cheaper (for missile components) than active radar homing, and doesn’t give the distinctive warning of an active-radar seeker, but is dependent on that main radar, so it’s vulnerable to ARM attacks as well as escaping the envelope or breaking line of sight. All that said, we still think the Patriot is the better buy. It’s proven interoperability is a big edge, and we can expect future upgrades, since the US has opted to keep upgrading Patriots rather than go with MEADS. We’d really like to see MEADS radars and some of the fancy plug-and-fight capability of MEADS make it’s way over to the Patriot system.

How does Patriot compare to Russian systems? Well, the latest Russian system, the S-400 (which is a lot more expensive than Patriot, strangely enough), has a really long range missile, and Patriot lacks anything in the same range class. However, such a missile has serious radar horizon issues, and I wonder what targets it’s designed to engage at 400 km. Probably AWACS or incoming ballistic missiles, since anything else would be able to make a turn or something and make the missile miss. Otherwise, the systems compare quite favorably. The regular SAMs on the Russian systems are pretty comparable to those of Patriot as far as kinematics goes. Sensorwise, the Russians have a bunch of cool options like a radar-on-a-pedestal to help provide locks on low-flying targets. On the other hand, Patriot has a much better networking system, specifically when it comes to networking with other things that aren’t SAM systems. Just like the US Navy’s Aegis SAM system, Patriot can network with the F-35 Lightning II for targeting data to cue and guide the missiles. S-400 can also network with other systems, but not as well as Patriot. It certainly can’t use a Su-35 for targeting data directly. The S-300 systems can really only network with other missile systems, and they don’t do this very well.

Now let’s examine the medium-range problem presented by Fishbreath. We need to fit something in between the Stinger and the Patriot. We’d like it to be able to network with the Patriot system as well as other air defense assets, and we’d like it to be reasonably mobile. And, the western SAM market being what it is presently, there aren’t that many options. Roland and Rapier are out of production, and both are rather archaic. Rapier also fails to meet mobility requirements. It may also help to consider how the system will be deployed. As we’ve said, MANPADS are generally deployed at the battalion level. The Patriot system is quite elaborate, and as such it’s not going to be the best choice for covering a fast moving armored assault. We would expect Patriot missiles to be deployed at the Corps level if at all in an operational theater. Like most longer range systems, they’re much better suited to protecting big zones and large fixed targets. There are a couple upcoming SAM systems that look promising: CAMM and LFK NG. Both of these seem like formidable options, but aren’t available yet. We could wait. We could also make do with some older systems, like buying used Rolands or trying to get France to keep the Crotale lines open. But we won’t, because (a) that’s rather poor cricket, as Fishbreath would say, and (b) there’s an obvious system that meets all of our needs and then some: NASAMS II.

NASAMS II was originally developed for Norway’s air defense needs. It was originally designed to fire the AIM-120 AMRAAM, but launchable missiles have been extended to include AIM-9, IRIS-T and a RIM-162 ESSM variant with the AMRAAM’s active seeker. The system is designed to have high network interoperability and pull data for targeting from other platforms. It can also use it’s own radar, which is usually either an AN/TPQ-36 or an AN/TPQ-64. The -64 is the radar used with the latest variant of the venerable Hawk SAM system, so these are pretty common and not all that expensive. Alternatively, since the missiles all have either active radar seekers or IR homing seekers, the launchers can fire off of external references only, which is perfect if they’re on the move and caught with the radar out of position. The launcher is a rather simple affair that can be mounted on the back of a truck. An alternative rail-type launcher can be mounted on the back of a HMMWV. Plus, we were already going to buy AMRAAMs, ESSMs, and either AIM-9s or IRIS-Ts, so we don’t need to stock another missile. Being a rather simple system, we expect costs to be low, for once.

Compared to Crotale, we can get better guidance options with either IR or active radar seeker in NASAMS II. Crotale uses radio command guidance, which also requires either IRST cueing on the launcher or radar cueing from the launcher. Radar cueing can be particularly dangerous for short range systems, since they’re quite overmatched in range by anti-radar missiles. Compared to the nearest Russian equivalents, the launch system is going to be cheaper than the SA-15, but that’s not strictly a fair comparison, since NASAMS doesn’t have a radar of its own and Tor does. As a battery with radar(s) command vehicle and several launchers, NASAMS II is pretty similar to Buk. The missiles are somewhat less well performing, but cheaper. It networks much better though, and the launchers can be used independently. We’re trading raw power for economics and trickiness.

Okay, let’s review. We have Stinger missiles as our man portable air defense system. We can also use the M1097 Avenger system to gain some network capability on the short range end. This system holds eight Stingers on a rotating turret on the back of a HMMWV, and has a network datalink for missile cueing. We have NASAMS II launchers that can be fitted on the back of medium trucks (or more HMMWVs), and those can cue off of networked radars or their own radar system, and we figure that each division would have a good number of these to use and allocate to brigades as they advance. Finally, we have the big Patriot missiles for area and corps-level defense. We can network in AWACS assets, and even our fighters.

But wait, there’s more. Since the Borgundian War Department is somewhat paranoid (it’s in their job description), and they reckon that the Sov–I mean, the Russians might decide that perhaps, just once, they might try this launching this new ‘surprise attack’ thing themselves rather than getting suckerpunched. So it would be really cool if we could have a big radar to provide some level of early warning. Fortunately, Raytheon is happy to deliver. The AN/FPS-132 BMEWS has a trio of AESA arrays that are a massive 25.6 meters in diameter. It provides all around coverage at extremely long ranges, albeit at rather low resolution. Still, it’s a nice addition to the network.

Any network this fancy needs a name. Something cooler than just Borgundy backwards (like Iraq’s system). Since a cornerstone is the Patriot, and most of the components are made by Raytheon (headquartered in Andover, Mass), and since I know he’s Fishbreath’s favorite football coach, we’ll call our system BELICHICK. Air defense control personnel will be issued the SB15 sweatshirt, hooded, grey.

Retro Air Force Procurement

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Here’s a change of pace from our regular procurement game. Let’s go back to a time before precision guidance was all the rage. A time when Saigon was still Saigon (albeit about to fall). A time when a favorite marching cadence was ‘Napalm Sticks to Kids’. A time when the Soviet Union was extant and terrifying and, yes, a time when Gerald Ford was in the white house. Welcome to the mid-1970s. Borgundy is still a reasonably well off European nation, a proud NATO member squaring off against the Warsaw Pact. We’d like a big new frontline fighter for the defense of our realm, and the best and latest in advanced western types are both American: the Grumman F-14A and the McDonnell Douglas F-15A. Let’s compare them, and see which comes away with the win. Remember, it’s 1975, so we can’t let any knowledge of how these two planes shook out affect our choice.

We’ll start with the Grumman offering, since it’s newer. The Grumman F-14 can be thought of as the ultimate fleet defense fighter. It’s built more or less to the same concept that gave birth to the fabulously successful F-4 Phantom II, but supersized, and uses the latest aerodynamics technology. It’s designed to have a long operating range and endurance, so it can fly a good distance out from the carrier, from where it will engage Soviet bombers before they can launch their missiles. To that end, it has plenty of fuel storage, high-tech swing wings for good speed and short-field performance, the most powerful fighter radar in the world (the AWG-9), and the longest range air to air missile in the world (the AIM-54 Phoenix). The Phoenix even has a fancy active seeker, unlike those lame semi-active seekers on the USAF standard Sparrow missile. Like the Phantom, the Tomcat has a two-man crew, one pilot, and one to operate the advanced radar system. It has the same TF30 turbofans as the F-111, however. Peformancewise, the F-14 was designed to match the Phantom as far as speed and maneuverability goes, but have a main armament that’s much longer ranged. And unlike the F-4, it does have a gun–the US Navy learned its lessons from Vietnam.

The McDonnell Douglas F-15 is designed to be the ultimate air superiority fighter, something the US Air Force hasn’t had in years. It is designed to be able to beat any current or projected future fighter type in air to air combat. The US Air Force took the Vietnam lessons to heart too. The Eagle is faster than the F-4, and is second only to the MiG-25 in top speed. It’s more agile overall than the F-4 or the F-14 because of it’s superior thrust to weight ratio and structural tolerance for more Gs. Like the F-14, it has a 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon with plenty of ammunition for a shootout or a strafing run. It does not carry the Phoenix missile, instead it carries Sidewinders and Sparrows, just like the Phantom. Unlike the Phantom and the Tomcat, the Eagle is a single seat fighter. It’s radar, while more advanced than the APQ-72 on the Phantom, is less powerful than the AWG-9 of the F-14. However, automation allows a single pilot to use it effectively. The F-15 was designed with offensive counter-air sweeps in mind, just like USAF F-4s flew in Vietnam.

So how do these two compare? Contractwise at about this time, they’re dead even. The Shah of Iran chose the F-14, the Israelis chose the F-15. Which will we choose? Well, the F-14 has the better sensor suite by far, with the AWG-9 being able to track 24 targets simultaneously, and attack up to six with Phoenix missiles. It even has look-down/shoot-down capability. The Tomcat also has an infrared search and track system mounted under the nose to help with target identification. While the F-15 also has a look-down/shoot-down capable radar in the APG-63, it has less range, simultaneous tracking capability, and simultaneous engagement capability. What it does have are a number of semiautomatic modes that make it very easy for a single crewman to employ in combat. The F-14 was designed to operate (more or less) on it’s own on extended patrols protecting a carrier battle group, or covering a Vietnam-style strike package from Yankee Station. The F-15 was designed with the significant USAF support assets of AWACS and jamming aircraft in sweeps to support strike packages, again, as in Vietnam. It also has a superior IFF system. Recent experience in the air war over Vietnam has demonstrated that beyond visual range methods are not as guaranteed as the missile manufacturers claim. The long-range AIM-54 was designed to kill bombers, and we are somewhat skeptical of its ability to effectively kill agile enemy fighters at range.

Vietnam demonstrated that air combat maneuvering capability is important, and the F-15 excels here. Part of this is because it’s a lighter, smaller plane. It carries less fuel. It’s structure is also rated to handle more G-force than that of the F-14. The F-15 also has far superior engines. In order to cut costs, the US Navy tried to re-use as much as it could from the colossal failure that was the F-111B, and that included the engines. However, not only does this give the F-14A a rather anemic thrust-to-weight ratio, but the TF30 is also very prone to compressor stalls at high angles of attack. It was never designed for a platform that would maneuver aggressively. And because the Tomcat’s engine nacelles are widely spaced, in order to provide room ot carry the big AIM-54 missiles, a compressor stall in one engine can lead to a flat spin, which is very difficult to recover from.1

The Eagle is the cheaper fighter to procure, but the numbers I found may be colored by its larger production run. It isn’t that much cheaper though; they’re certainly in the same price class (like a Porsche and a Lamborghini). The F-15 is significantly cheaper to operate and maintain. It has a number of design elements that simplify maintenance, and it doesn’t have the complicated variable geometry wings.2 This translates into increased availability for sorties, and (of course) more sorties for the money.

Famously, the F-15’s unofficial design motto was “Not a pound for air to ground”, though this is probably apocryphal. As seen by the minor changes needed for the F-15E, McDonnell Douglas certainly put in enough structural strength for ground attack missions. The Tomcat is also capable of carrying plenty of bombs, though neither the USN nor the USAF has bothered to integrate any air to ground weapons into the stores management system. So that’s a wash. As far as air to air armament goes, the biggest difference is the massive (but also very expensive) AIM-54 on the Tomcat. In terms of number of missiles, both planes field eight air to air missiles. In the ‘small advantages’ column, the F-15 carries more ammunition for its 20mm cannon, with 940 rounds to the F-14’s 675.

So, what is the final decision? We’re going for the Eagle. Better air combat capabilities against fighters and lower operating costs put the F-15 ahead of the F-14 for us. The offensive counter air mission is a much bigger need than a long range interceptor. And if the Soviets come at us hard, it will probably be by land, and we’ll want to neutralize their frontline aviation while bombing the living daylights out of their second echelon, reserves, and logistics. We’ll actually need another plane for the mud-moving; the Eagle is expensive enough without us trying to make it into a ground attack aircraft on our own.

1.) See Top Gun for a hands-on demonstration of a nasty flat spin. At least it’s not inverted. Or you could, but this is 1975, and it hasn’t been made yet.
2.) Stepping out of 1975 for a moment, we can see this reflected in that the USAF still operates F-15s, but the USN phased the F-14 out of service in 2006. But we have no way of knowing that in 1975 of course. 2006 is a long way off in the future; people probably commute in flying cars or something weird like that.

Borgundy Chooses A Carbine

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Here’s another challenge I tossed Fishbreath. It’s also a chance for me to wade into a bunch of classic internet arguments. First, we’ll deal with the old elephant in the room: the M4. The M4 gets an advantage over the competition by being based on an old (good) design, so the research and development costs are long since paid off. The Stoner-type operating system (colloquially known as “direct impingement”, even though the back of the bolt is technically a piston riding inside the bolt carrier assembly), means that it’s lighter than its competitors with similar barrels. Finally, Colt and the US Army have been quietly rolling improvements into the gun to improve reliability. Current mean rounds between stoppages is currently 1 in 6,000, which is phenomenal. The AR-15 series has the ergonomics that everyone loves to crib from, with the super-fast reloading magazines that drop free and a last-round bolt hold open. Nothing has a simpler or faster reload process than AR-15s, as evidenced by their competition popularity. The aluminum quadrail handguards and barrel nut serve as a heatsink, pulling heat away from the barrel and increasing the length of time to cookoff. But it would be really, really boring for me to just take an M4 and call it a day, so I decided to restrict myself to only the stock version available from Colt Defense, without all those fancy aftermarket gubbins. And also a legislature that wants a new, cool carbine. So, glossing over the M4, on to the new stuff!

We could go with a bullpup, but bullpups suck. The concept is to get a longer barrel in a shorter package for those obsessed with urban warfare. And shorter is better, but let’s remember that everyone’s classic idea of a room clearing gun is a Remington 870 with an 18″ barrel, and that’s the same length as an M16 overall, and longer than an M4. For vehicle ops, the shorter length is nice, but there were no complaints from using full-length M16A2 rifles in Desert Storm. Overall length is not the most important firearm characteristic. And we have to pay a significant price by going with a bullpup configuration. First, because the trigger is fundamentally detached from the hammer/striker, we’re introducing linkages, and thus a sucky trigger. This negatively impacts the accuracy of our soldiers. We can’t have a collapsible stock without sacrificing the length advantage, so we can’t adjust length of pull for body armor or different size soldiers. While most modern bullpups have switchable ejection, so left handers don’t have to eat a steady diet of brass, this isn’t really something to be done in the field, so soldiers can’t choose which side of cover to expose themselves over (Well, unless they want to expose most of their torso, and that’s silly). Modern bullpups tend to lack rail estate, and don’t have easily swappable handguards, so they’re harder to accessorize with lasers, lights, thermal scopes, and all the other accoutrements of battle. Finally, reloading is awkward for a soldier wearing modern body armor (i.e. with hard plates) and load bearing equipment. The SAS basically teach soldiers to move the back end of the rifle from the shoulder to the middle of the chest in front of the stuff that the soldier is wearing in order to be able to manipulate the magazines effectively. It’s interesting to note that for the vast majority of countries who issue bullpups generally have their hardcore tier-one special forces operators use a conventionally-configured rifle. And it’s nearly always an M4. When it’s not it’s something like the HK416, which is 95% M4. So, really, why bother? There are more important things than having the shortest carbine. But in case you don’t believe me, let’s look at some specific bullpups and why they suck.

The AUG sucks
The Steyr Aug was one of the first bullpups, and it looks really cool. It has a quick-change barrel, but who cares? Soldiers won’t carry a bunch of extras in case they shoot one out playing Rambo. And they’re not going to swap barrels before a mission. So, cool but useless feature, check. It’s got a really crappy trigger where a partial pull shoots a single shot, and pulling it all the way back shoots fully automatic. Possibly one of the most bone-headed trigger ideas of all time. Are the Austrians too good for a normal fire mode selector? Eventually the Irish got fed up with the stupid, and added a little locking catch to the trigger to function as a fire mode selector. It probably makes the trigger even worse. It uses it’s own proprietary magazines, not the M4 magazines that everyone and their uncle makes, and that many companies in America have worked to improve. They’ve finally figured out in the A3 version that last round bolt hold open is good, and that people might want something that isn’t the tiny 1.5x scope that came on the original. Good for them, but good luck mounting anything more than another optic on that small unit. God forbid you want to add some night vision or a laser or a light. Oh, and you have to do some serious modifying to make it work with an underbarrel grenade launcher like the M203, since most quick-change barrel assemblies have a built-in vertical foregrip. But don’t worry, it shoots rifle grenades. Which is great if it’s the 1920s and you’re French, but the rest of the planet has moved on. Oh, and it was kicked out of the Norwegian service rifle competition early, which probably means reliability sucks.

The F2000 sucks
The FN F2000 is the one bullpup where you can switch sides at will thanks to the forward ejection system. On balance this is a good thing, though it’s going to piss off every range safety officer in the world. And it’s going to make clearing a jam a new special level of hell, since you have to start opening little ports to be able to get at anything. It doesn’t have a last round bolt hold open, which is lame. Again, there’s minimal space for accessories, so you’ll want to contract for some adapters, or fight like it’s 1983 all over again. It comes with a pretty lame 1.6x sight by an unknown manufacturer, but at least there’s a rail under that. I will give points to FN for doing a good job with a grenade launcher attachment. They have a reputation for having poor reliability and being maintenance intensive–maybe because you need trapdoors to get to the operating parts, maybe because its ambidextrous design is too clever and ends up being a magnet for things that cause stoppages. But hey, it’s been adopted by Slovenia, so there’s one not-so-major military who thinks it’s ok. Oh, and it’s Gadaffi approved. At least the other bullpups here have been adopted by a bunch of actual militaries.

The Tavor Sucks
The Tavor is probably the best bullpup around right now. That said, the trigger on it is really horrible, even by military standards. It has feed issues when trying to run it with Pmags. I have no idea how well the design deals with heat from a bunch of shooting–probably badly, since it looks like it’s just going to trap most of it. There’s room for a red dot, but accessory placement options are pretty limited when compared to more conventional designs. Accuracy testing has produced mixed results, with many of the more reliable sources giving poor accuracy under otherwise good conditions. And it still suffers from all those inherent bullpuppy drawbacks. If you wanted a bullpup, this is the one to get, but we don’t.

That leaves conventional carbines. By similar reasoning as in our pistol post, the ARX-160 is out because no one else has bought one yet, and it also has a bunch of extra complications internally (switchable ejection? Really? Just use a brass deflector). That leaves the HK416 and the FN SCAR 16. Another classic internet argument, yay. First thing we notice is that the SCAR is lighter than the 416 by a lot. And it has a cool stock that collapses and folds, instead of just collapses. All that is good, but a good chunk of the weight of the 416 comes from a heavy barrel profile, large steel barrel nut, and large aluminum quadrail handguard. This all works to provide a big heatsink that means that the HK416 can deal with waste heat better than other carbines. When the USMC wanted an automatic rifle for more sustained fire than a regular M4, HK basically engraved USMC on the side of a regular 416 and called it good–and won. They didn’t need any fancy closed bolt/open bolt hybrid operation system; the HK416 met all of the rounds-until-cookoff standards that the Marines wanted as originally designed. Further, the extra area of the rail means that there’s more room for a soldier’s hands, plus the increasing number of accessories that the mission might call for. The other big advantage is that the HK416 is issued more widely, so more bugs have been worked out. It’s the general issue service rifle of Norway, and is the USMC’s new automatic rifle. So we too will go with the HK416.

Borgundy Sidearms

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Not wanting to throw a challenge to Fishbreath that I could not do myself, I think I’ll pick a sidearm for Borgundy. Like the US Marines, we tend to issue anyone who might see some combat somewhere a carbine. Yes, even officers. But it would be a colossal copout to write “see carbine post”, and there are still some needs for pistols, so we should pick one of those too. First, caliber. This part is easy: 9mm Parabellum. Frankly, pistol calibers suck at combat (which is why we issue so many carbines), and the only reason you fight with a pistol is because you don’t have anything better at hand. Once we accept that, 9mm is about the smallest acceptable round in terms of ‘pistol stopping power’, and going bigger doesn’t get us much more in stopping power (since .45 ACP is still a sucky pistol cartridge, not a manly rifle cartridge). Choosing the smallest acceptable round gives us more rounds per mag and lower recoil, which is important since most military guys don’t shoot their handguns all that much. So they get the most chances to hit, and the lower recoil makes follow-ups faster.

That entirely too predictable choice out of the way, we come to the decision of which pistol to pick. There are many to choose from, so let’s run down what we need in a pistol. We want a reliable pistol, that’s also reasonably priced (come on, it’s a pistol…there are better things to blow cash on) and accurate. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help us very much. There are tons of pistols that meet these criteria. We’ll go further by requiring it to have been already adopted by another major military, since we don’t want to be a testing ground for such unimportant things. We do this because pistols aren’t worth losing sleep over, but it still doesn’t help us very much.

We still have several excellent pistols in the running, including the Beretta 92, the SiG P226, the Glock 17, the HK USP, the Browning Hi Power, and the CZ 75. Now we come down to pedigree and shooter’s preference. Shooter’s1 preference being what it is, the Hi Power gets tossed out for having a stupid magazine disconnect. It’s also the oldest of the bunch. The Beretta 92 is the next out, since I don’t like the combination safety/decocker. Why would I both add a step to my draw stroke that I might forget and have a long, heavy double-action pull? No thanks. We’ll next toss the SiG since I’m really not a fan of double action triggers on semiautomatics. On revolvers, I see the point, on semiautomatics I do not. I don’t like the double action/single action transition. Both the USP and CZ can be carried cocked-and-locked, which I like. Gives me that consistent trigger. So we have gotten it down to three on purely preference grounds. The CZ has a somewhat less favorable reputation for reliability than the HK and the Glock according to the best sources I can find, so it’s out. The HK and Glock are both hard to beat in that regard. HK vs. Glock is a classic internet argument, but for our purposes the decision is simple: Glock is cheaper, and in all other characteristics, the guns are comparable, so we’ll go with Glock. More specifically, that Glock 17.

Well, that was easy.

1.) Namely mine