With all these anti-full-auto weapons quotes as of late, I was surprised that it took until the second day before someine brought up the idea of “light machine gun suppressive fire” in the comments.
The Heartless Libertarian, a fine citizen and officer in the United States Army brought the topic up. While I have no doubt that his case for light infantry citizen militia with LMGs is both heartleft and workable, LMGs are highly restricted and highly expensive for the citizen to own. We wouldn’t have the dire need for a citizen militia that we have today if this were not so.
Americans being at their best when challenged have done exactly what every member of the military has done when facing a life and liberty challenging situation: Adjust and Adapt.
As the militia aged citizens have seen their ability to provide suppressive fire slowly disappear, they have gone back to tactics that have been shown to defeat the “Fire and Manuever” tactics taught to today’s miitary: The Rifleman Ambush.
Basically, because marksmanship is no longer taught to today’s armed forces, American or otherwise, the Ambush will take place at distances less reachable by the infantry’s carbines; over 300 yards. Small groups (4-6 people) of well concealed individuals taking shots with full-fledged battle rifles in manstopping calibers, stopping numerically superior groups (20-30 people) with highly controlled fire. Presenting no definitive targets for the SAW and/or Crew Served gunners to fire at, they are left to fire randomly at nothing until they and their successors are stopped.
It can be done because it has been done.
In WWII, the battlelife expectancy of the light infantry LMG gunner was just under two minutes. By the time of Vietnam, it was down to 45 seconds.
In combat situations, the man causing the most damage has to die first. Then comes whoever takes his place, and so on. All fire is proximated upon that position until the problem is quieted. I would rather be better concealed, more effective with my fire, farther away and less of an immediate target than that.
Then, of course there is always this little dilemma, our QotD
At 600 rounds per minute, how many minutes can you carry?
Douglas P. Bell
With a gun that has a higher rate of fire than of hits, you will need more ammo. The rest of the rifle company has now been relegated to supporting the weapon with the lowest hit rate.
LMGs and HMGs and their ammo/supplies can be captured using the Rifleman Ambush technique and then used when necessary. But marksmanship is much too easily learned and practiced skill and is more effective than the “Fire and Move” when used properly. They can “Fire”, but if they don’t know where I’m at that fire is useless. And when they “Move”, they get Stopped, Dropped and Rolled.
MGs also have a tendancy to keep the enemy hunkered down under/behind cover instead of popped up looking for your single shot, thereby making them harder to hit.
In short, it’d be nice, but I don’t think they are necessary for a successful militia.
What say ye?
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BTW, this means that next week we’ll be talking about marksmanship.
Seems to me that a light machine gun would come in real handy as a defensive weapon for a facility. Sure, our military can just bomb a building, but if they come in en masse, I’m thinking that being able to use up a minute’s worth of ammo just might be nice.
As the military gets better and better night/heat vision and gunfire detection equipment, it will be much harder to pull off even a long distance sniper attack.
On a related note, do you think it would tend to put a damper on the enthusiasm for no-knock SWAT style arrests if the next few times that the storm troopers barged in the whole lot of ’em got full auto’d? I don’t think little old ladies with a .22 revolver are going to cause the kind of deterrent that is needed, other than public outrage.
GunGeek, perimeter defense might be a decent use, seeing as how the gun won’t be moving all that much, but I’m afraid that if no knock raids were stopped even once with a FA firearm, it would just cause more problems than atopping that single raid was worth.
The technology you spoke of will work a couple of times, but once the riflemen learn what it looks like and who carries it and where they usually are, those individuals will be the first taken out.
Surprise and stealth are the biggest threat equalizers.
Yes, completely agree. Appleseed will help those in need.
Aside from feeding them ammo, full-autos are only expensive because the legal American supply was limited in 1986 (thanks Ronny). As we learned in Economics 101 -unless you’re a leftist- limited supply with regular or increased demand drives the prices up. Why else would you have Stens -guns manufactured for less than $50 originally- going for prices in the ten$ of thou$and$ of dollar$?
Otherwise, I think you’re right; they’re not necassary for militia-duty, but sure would be nice to have for things like perimeter defense.
However, alternatives for a LMG can be made. There are drum magazines for AR-15s, Mini-14s, and AK variants that give you between 75 and 100 rounds. While you won’t have full-auto, one person with one rifle and a lot of ammo at hand can do a job defending the choke or entry point of a home or building nicely.
Every discussion of marksmanship is welcome, as should discussion of the physical requirements for militia members. Being fat and out of shape will not help matters if the SHTF any more than not being able to hit what one is aiming at.
I think that the focus on equipment and not technique/conditioning disguises a hobby as preparation.
Another use for LMGs is to divert enemy attention from the real threat for the few seconds necessary to gain the upper hand in an ambush. This can be a particularly attractive application when one captures large numbers of LMGs, most with a nearly expended ammo supply, from the enemy. Using controllers adapted from radio controlled cars and model aircraft, one need not even risk one’s own troops for such diversions.
You raise a good point, Phil. Hell, one of the reasons that the death tolls on the Eastern front in WWII were so hideous was that the Soviets did not attempt to remove German machinegun squads – ie. almost all German infantry platoons – with arty, or my fire and manuever, as the Americans had. Instead they sent waves of subgun armed men into the teeth of the MG-34s and 42s. So by the time the Soviets were in range to fire, they had already suffered staggering losses.
To me, that is one of the most important lessons one can glean from shows like Shootout, or Band of Brothers. Whenever the Americans ran into emplaced machine guns, they either dropped High explosives on them, or manuevered to a position where the crew could be quickly eliminated. It is part of the reason that American losses against German infantry were not as hideous as the Soviets’, even accounting for the differences in scale.
Hell Bellau Wood shows the damage that skilled riflemen with ’03s can inflict on heavy machine gun crews.
The toughest problem those men in the German pillboxes had was that their position was both easily determined and fixed in location. That made them targetable by aircraft or longer range weapons, or even simple maneuver tactics.
However, in a guerilla war where a MG or SAW can be rapidly transported into (and out of) a combat zone that may pop up and disappear within a few minutes – faster than aircraft can respond, unless they are already on station – the occupying force can have a world of hurt laid on them, even when using the harshest possible security measures, as the Germans found out in WW2 France (a small group of 3-5 could ambush and seriously damage a military caravan with minimal effort, using surprise and ambush, and escaping before the superior firepower can be coordinated and brought to bear in defense).
Just my zwei pfennigs…
Well I think they have their uses. Not all citizen militias will have the skill needed to make 300+ yard shots on a regular basis.
A closeer ambush with withering firepower can still have it’s place.
As I understand it, basic U.S.N. SEAL protocol is for a far heavier per-man ammo-load, with a much higher preponderence of belt-fed, man-portable weapons than normal forces.
This of course, requires a huge amount of live-fire training. They learn to coordinate layers of fire, especially in ambush and layered exfiltration~extraction tactics.
With a practice ratio of many tens of (or hundreds of) thousands of rounds fired in practice per single round fired in anger, this is expensive practice, indeed.
Now then. Here we all are, worried about how much that next case of Mil-Surp from Ammoman’s gonna cost, and the pros burn that much up in a single excercise?
If we’re (more or less) constrained to a “run-what’cha-brung” level of equipment and training, I’d vote to equip my squad with something along the lines of ARs with BETA mags, emphasizing accuracy, even in initiating an ambush.
Like the man said, it’s rate of HITS per minute that counts.
Gawd, I sure do miss the days of Unka Sugah payin’ for me to burn belts of 7.62 through his (thoroughly used up) USAF M-60s.
At least I’ll know what to do in a full rock ‘n roll world, even if I prefer to spin a slower dance tune, m’self.
Hmmm… maybe a DMPS Panther M-4 config in .308, with irons co-axial to an EOTEC optic? *drool*
Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX
The Rifleman Ambush?
Mortars and Artillery. Close Air Support. Snipers. Can your camoflauge defeat NODS or Thermal scopes? How are you going to hide muzzle flash?
The Rifleman Ambush works, a Palestinian with an old Mauser took out 5 man team of Israeli’s armed with M16’s a couple years back. If it worked then, why aren’t more Palestinians doing it? Tactics change.
The Designated Marksman program is taking off in the Army quite well (shooting out to 600 meters) and the Marine Corps still teaches how to engage out to 500 to every Marine in boot camp.
Not to mention that the long range ambush requires good intel, or LOTS of patience, just like every other ambush. You have to know where the opposing force will be in order to ambush it. Sitting around in the mud and muck all night long just to learn that the other side chose not to play that day isn’t good for morale.
Sure a militia will kill some professional soldiers, the Mujahadeen in Afganistan did pretty well in, they only had a 30 to 1 loss to kill ratio. 2 million North Vietnamise for just 58 thousand US troops. A citizens army can only “win” against a superpower by causing the will of the superpower to withdraw it’s troops. They cannot defeat the superpower through military means.
A well trained squad of riflemen who understand their equipment and capabilities, and understand their enemy equipment and capabilities, can do amazing things on the battlefield. But I have yet to see a militia that is totally populated with professionals of such high a caliber.
Jimro