The Germans in WW2 came up with many entries in this category. They had aircraft that killed more of their pilots through crashes and explosions than they killed of the enemy. They also had train-mounted guns that consumed the resources of a division to operate, and tanks that were so heavy that they were almost impossible to get to where they were needed.
The obsession with super heavy tanks is explained by the German fuel shortage for the entirety of the war. A tank that is light, super reliable, and fast is useless if you can't drive it around due to lack of fuel.
+pukedragon I really have to suppress the urge to get all up in arms about this, but I will try and refrain from putting my cross-hairs on all these puns.
Very true , it doesn't matter how many rounds your opponent has in his magazine , if he is unwilling to pull the trigger . You must break his will to fight , not just his body .
True, but when the enemy returns to shoot at your position for the 47th time, you really wished you had killed him the 1th or the 3th time at least. A lot of the wars fought these days rely on exterminating your enemies rather than simply capturing a town or a field. You do not fight grand battles against armies of normal soldiers, but skirmishes against dangerous lunatics and maniacs who'll keep coming back until they are put down. In Vietnam for instance, land was much less useful than dead enemies, causing the Americans to emphasize on a search and destroy doctrine. Sometimes it is a lot easier to just kill the enemy than make him not want to kill you anymore.
exactly, look at Vietnam for example, the USA killed many Vietcong but the vietcong made the US soliders unwilling to continue fighting a never ending war where they made no major ground.
Nice video. Most people dont realize the primary job of infantry is to fix and pin the enemy in place with small arms until things like artillery, mortars, or airstrikes finish the job. Secondly the only way to take and hold ground is boots on the ground. Even with todays tech we still find ourselves stretches thin on manpower. Infantry will always have a place in this centuries warfare.
Also don't forget that if your troops don't have guns their guys are going to run right up to your mortars and tanks. Infantry is requirement for tanks - they can't deal with the small targets that might throw grenades into their hatches or attach explosives to their tracks.
That guy had no understanding of combined arms, if you don't have direct fire weapons to suppress the enemy there is nothing stopping them from moving rapidly towards you and taking out your artillery. And tanks and IFV's are vulnerable to anti tank weapons without infantry covering them and screening there flanks. Infantry also have much better awareness than a tank as they don't have restricted vision.
+SkullKing11841 It reminds me of his bayonets and his pikes videos. Quite ironically, the pikes role was to make sure nothing happened to the musketeers, so they could continue on their jobs. This would be necessary until rifles could be fired at a faster rate. Now, we have the shooters protecting the more powerful at firing, artillery.
Quart Bernstein Yeah, though I should have said the first time that you are also protecting yourself, under slung and multiple grenade launchers are deadly but if the enemy is in good cover or you fail to hit close enough to there position the enemy will gain fire dominance over you very quickly as you can't have the same rate of suppressive fire. You also can't use direct fire grenades in very close quarters because of the danger to yourself. There are defiantly times when having all grenade launchers you be great, but other times were you would loose and the enemy would play to your weakness. That's why modern army's at the fire team team level have one guy with an under slung grenade launcher and have fire support, like mortars, attached to infantry units. This is all just combined arms. And i'll go look up his videos on bayonets and pikes.
I'm reminded of a story my old dad once told me, he was in the royal artillery but one day he and his lads were asked to hold a road block, armed with rifles they sat at the road block all day till an equally armed group approached and a lot of shouting began, long story short, the order was given to "shoot above their heads till they piss off" That worked and everyone from both sides went home alive that day
Part of the reason for people thinking bullets are useless is Hollywood. In movies, guns shoot not metal projectiles but *death itself*. If someone gets shot and they aren't a main protagonist, they die instantly. Therefore, people expect bullets to have the same effect in real life, and are surprised when they don't.
+Matthew Emmett Yep, they either miraculously miss the protagonists (while bullets splatter all around them, or they get shot in the arm and they walk it off lol) Or the bad guy gets shot and is blown away. Unless youre shot in a vital spot you wont die immediately. Even if you are shot in the vitals you wont necessarily die immediately... This is why cops shoot until a suspect is down. Theres been cases where criminals have been pumped full of rounds and keep fighting.
Look at videogames on the other side rather than death itself some guns simply fire puff balls half a magazine of a pistol to take out one petty street thug or 50 rifle rounds to chew through a soldier?
Yes and no. Where you hit someone matters, a bullet in the arm for example doesn't do much, as does the caliber of the bullet. Certain sidearms like 9mm pistols and submachine guns fire such small bullets that, under the influence of adrenaline and other pain-suppressing hormones released by the body in stressful situations, one can easily keep charging through a hail of bullets until the "insta-kill" round hits. But properly trained soldiers with assult rifles yeah dead. Oddly enough though movies are somewhat realistic if you were to take "shoot-to-kill" training or lack thereof into the equation. Just watch Lindy's video on that, its quite interesting
Well, apparently in Hollywood, you can dodge all forms of explosions by running and jumping right as the force of it hits you. So you can jumper longer and, hopefully, win the gold medal.
This is in parallel with the British program to install 40mm pompom guns on merchant ships. during WWII. After a few months some wanted to remove the guns as the 40mm guns didn't shoot down many German planes. Cooler heads prevailed, and noted that ships with 40mm guns were much less likely to be sunk- the fire from the pom pom discouraged the German pilots from closely approaching the ships, and attacks on ships by German planes from further away were much more likely to be misses. The purpose of the pompom is not to kill planes, it is to protect ships. Small arms have an analogous mission.
What people tend to forget (just like going back to cloth and leather helmets when we'd previously had metal) was that certain technology "holds the line" in a stale mate. You eliminate the technology that holds that line and its not longer a stalemate. Small arms may not present any great advancement, but they certainly prevent you from losing ground.
solid points. I had a similar conversation about whether or not you need infantry at all. his point was that tanks, missiles, planes, etc. have made infantry obsolete. My point was pretty much everything you said, as well as that infantry are much more versatile than tanks, missiles, etc. give a soldier a good rifle and a scope, he can take out HVTs with no risk of collateral damage. give him a launcher, he can take out tanks from the bushes. give him a machine gun, he can hold an entire street from a single window. if anything, modern warfare has become MORE focused on infantry. urban warfare in civilian populated areas is almost exclusively suited for infantry.
One broken-down Challenger 2 in Iraq was hit from point-blank range from all sides by many RPGs and there was no crew casualties, but lesser AFVs wouldn't be so fortunate. There are other weapons that would do more, of course, and these could be deployed by infantry.
Damn straight, Lindybeige, sir! Warfare isn't just blasting the other side to pieces. It involves holding and controlling vital areas. You can't do that with just artillery and similar power weapons. You need people to do it, and that means putting them in harm's way and fighting on an individual scale. And more than just scaring them off with either the big or small guns, it means taking them out directly, almost face-to-face.
The idea is such a arm-chair general thing to say anyway. Other than the obvious problems with the idea, how would you even get boots on the ground to secure territory anyway? "Alright lads, we have orders to take this town. We will have tanks and air cover so no need to have a weapon yourself, lets go." You would really have to be a desperately stupid man to say that's perfectly alright and go into hostile territory under those conditions.
+Człowiek Wiking Batons have their uses nowadays, but it's more a Police thing. They're poor against firearms, and insurgency or sleeper cells in occupied territories will most probably have firearms. Having said that, I agree with Mad Jack on the point that any officer leading his troops to battle without a sword is improperly dressed.
A point I'd add is that the experiences of the last 100+ years of recognizably modern warfare have again and again hammered in that everyone needs the capacity towards self-defense that comes from having small arms and knowing how to use them. In the early months of WWI engineer units often did not have rifles, making them extremely vulnerable to brazen attacks which would not have even been possible had they been properly equipped; furthermore, look at the US experiences in 2003 with units that thought they did not need to know the basics of soldiering because they were support formations. They were armed, but lacked most of the basic skills needed to fight with their rifles and machine-guns. One of the most dangerous weapons platforms today remains a skilled soldier with a rifle.
Also, mortars, artillery and fast air all have a large splash zone, so they are relative indiscriminate when it comes to collateral. If there is one bad guy ina building full of civilians, the sniper might be able to get him, but an airstrike will get him AND everyone standing nearby.
One of the biggest misconceptions about troops and fighting I've seen in recent history was the early days of the eastern rebellion in Ukraine. Soldiers with rifles and tanks were sent in to stop all this. But then they ran into a problem. The rebels weren't shooting at them, and the soldiers wouldn't slaughter what had been their fellow countrymen just weeks before. So with an army that wouldn't shoot... The rebels just took their guns and their tanks and told the soldiers off. Obviously not long after both sides were shooting at each other, and its morally easy to justify shooting someone who is trying to kill you. So that was a very short lived situation. But its not just how powerful a weapon is that determines its effectiveness, its often times the threat that is most powerful, and if that threat is undermined it can ruin a weapons ability.
Very glad to see you doing videos again. I notice a running theme that the effectiveness of weapons is not just measured in how many people are killed. For example, your bayonet video, or that pikes were useful to defend the arquebusiers even if the pikemen don't end up fighting, or the use of grenades to flush the enemy out of a defensive position.
when you think about all we've done is find better ways of throwing rocks at each other. with slings we got better range, with arrows we got better accuracy and lethality, and with guns we got everything.
Well ofc there isent a true silencer but i feel like silencers and supressors can both be used. i just feel like more people understand the word silencer over supressor but thx for correcting me :D
+Raven Yeah, a lot of people who just play COD all the time only understand silencer. Just mentioned it because he said guns give us everything except silence-- which is still true.
You are correct. In fact supressive fire is often vital in making artillery or aircraft support useful. It prevents the enemy from abandoning his position after an attack. Right here in youtube there is a very informative video of a soldier armed with a large belt-fed machine gun firing blindly into some hill where the enemy is bunkered to give an A-10 time to deploy and actually hit the enemy. A truly impressive scene considering the sounds of the A-10's massive frontal gun.
A weapon, any weapon, carried by a soldier is also a psychological weapon. It gives the soldier confidence and also a way to release some anger and frustration if he comes under enemy fire a lot. During WW2, cameramen and photographers were sent with the first waves of attacking infantry. Especially in the Pacfic island hopping campaign. These cameramen and photographers were unarmed at first. Or they planned on sending them unarmed into harm's way. But they couldn't carry rifles because that would be too cumbersome with their other equipment. So, they were given pistols and revolvers. *Why?* The colonel or general who had come up with the idea, said that these men needed something to at least fire back. He understood they would not hit a thing but at least it gave them more confidence that they would survive. And of course if an enemy soldier jumped into the same foxhole as you, at least you had a small chance of killing the threat. So soldiers' small arms have a few uses but they're for the most part psychological tools.
.... N-no.. No.. Just no... A firearm, gives soldiers a means of fighting other soldiers whom have firearms. Your "a way to release pent up aggression" idea is, just.. No. Having a rifle doesn't give you a way to release pent up anger at your enemy, it gives you a way to SHOOT BACK, at those shooting at you, so as to have a higher chance of not dying, and possibly defeat your foe. Having noncombatants carry sidearms/smallarms is so if they become endangered bye "the enemy", and no one with a rifle is around to protect them, they would at least be able to protect themselves with something more than their fists. It has nothing to do with rage of war. While having a firearms may provide a boost to your confidence, and maybe even serve to demoralize your foe, (such as if they were not expecting an armed opponent, if you were an armed resistance group) that is not it's sole/primary/intended purpose. It's purpose is for you to be able to fight back, and help you survive.
When I was doing compulsory service, we were told that, unless we were faced with a drugged-up madman that doesn't stop on being wounded (or has explosives strapped to him), wounding rather than killing is always preferrable. A dead man is one less enemy, but a wounded enemy that isn't able to shoot anymore is two or three enemies less, because he will need assistance by his friends.
I'm reminded of the logic in the American Civil War that repeating rifles were garbage because the men would waste ammo shooting at the enemy so we should stick with single shot percussion rifles
similar logic was applied to fighter jets before the Vietnam War. The belief was that the high speeds and long ranges of missiles had made cannons obsolete. The F-4 Phantom is the classic example. By then end of the war all new designs had cannons and I believe the the f-4 had an external cannon pod.
I am not sure if that is jsut a myth but allegedly the first fully automatic gun design was rejected arguing: "It would be a very good weapon if you could kill someone several times."
Hellhound Wyrm/Wurm well, full auto almost is useless, except in CQC, but it'll still take at most 2 shots to kill a guy, and a AN-94 isn't the best gun for clearing houses...
Actaully 2 shots depends heavily if there wearing body armor the power of the round and it takes generally more then 2 rounds of smaller calibers like 45 to stop a person and if they are wearing body armor it could take 3-4 mabey even more depening on the armors qauility and weather or not it breaks his ribs
You don't want to kill someone, even in a combat scenario you want to wound them severely that they can't fight.. then they start screaming and crying for help. That binds people to attend the wounded and demoralizes the enemy.
I've never been in combat and I hope I'll never will but that is what I've been told in my basic training. Not explicitly but implicitly and I believed it because 7.62x33 makes a lot of damage on a soft target on 200-300m especially if it becomes unstable. Thats why I always believed one in the chest is enough to incapacitate a man. I estimate, when your heart isn't hit, your lungs will fill up with blood and you will drown or bleed out. Thankfully I can't be sure but to me it seems very likely since I don't really care about body count I care more about an objective. In a scenario where asymmetrical warfare is more common that might be different thing. I also might have phrased it wrong: Wounding them that they scream for their mother and try to keep their guts in them is a nice bonus.
Noneofyourbusiness Same Fataly wound, a wound that incapacitates someone to that degree that they either can't fight or die a little later. I think one or two shots to the chest (without body armor) would do the job just fine. You want to hit the chest because it' s the biggest target. I guess my phrasing was too absolut I should've said you could care less about if he is dead or almost dead to the point that he can't fight.
An interesting point about the 1 bullet in a million: part of the decision by NATO to switch to a 5.56mm round was the reduced lethality of the round. "When you hit someone," they thought "why ruin it by killing them?" The premise was that by wounding a soldier, he would have to be retrieved (by 2 other soldiers) then evacuated by vehicle (driven by a soldier) to a field hospital where he would be guarded (yet another soldier) whilst being treated for his wounds (by 2 extremely skilful soldiers). Thus removing a total of 3 soldier a bullet from the tactical situation, before temporarily occupying the time of 4 personnel in the strategic theatre. 4 people who would otherwise have been at home not consuming resources had the first guy not been so careless as to merely get wounded. Thus that one in a million hits becomes so much more effective.
If I am not mistaken, the first generals who were also air enthusiasts considered the air plane a war winning machine to the extend of obsoleting everything else. They imagined whole fleets of planes taking over and winning the wars completely by themselves.
'Since the gun ban' doesn't mean much to people here, since it's been an arrestable offence to carry weapons since 1824, so we have all grown up in a gun-free world. The 1997 act was draconian and meant that even Olympic shooters had to train abroad. Gun crime is very rare in GB.
I was also thinking about how much of a confidence boost having a gun would be for a soldier. It makes them feel as if they may be able to defend themselves and their allies and ensure they can keep themselves safe if things get bad. A person who is unarmed and sees a row of armed guys marching toward him might be more adamant to run away and thus lose his position but give him a better chance at survival then be captured and/or risk death
+Dakota Kelley-Greenleaf ye, but this also makes guys with guns feels like gods to those who don't have it. From this comes all war crimes, rapes, marauding and stuff.
I'm not being finicky, just trying to educate. The the definition of a bullet is the actual projectile that fires from the gun that hits (hopefully) the target. If you're talking about the complete package as in primer, casing, powder and bullet together, it's called ammunition (ammo) or rounds in the plural and a round in the singular. If you reload your own ammo and have to deal with all the components individually like the case, primer, powder and bullet, it can get confusing when someone says bullet when they mean ammo. For example, I used to own a gunshop and often someone would call and ask for 30/06 (or any caliber) bullets. When you sell both actual bullets as in projectiles individually and complete ammunition it gets confusing so you'd have to ask which they actually want. It's a very common misunderstanding even among gun people. Great channel, I thoroughly enjoy it!
Just imagine a platoon on a battlefield without guns but instead with mortars and laser designators. if you manage to surprise them all you would need is spears or swords, because what are they gonna do against the man immediately in front.of them?
It depends on the battlefield too. In the Pacific theater during WW2, the rifleman was the primary mechanism for killing the enemy. There simply wasn't enough heavy weapons (tanks and artillery) in theater and the terrain was too harsh for effective employment of those weapons. The same was true in Vietnam. The vast majority of enemy contacts were "meeting engagements" at close range (where tanks & artillery are not effective). The rifle is still the most effective multi-purpose weapon on the battlefield.
Anecdotal evidence that I've seen and spoken with soldiers, is that while the rifles and rifleman in a section or platoon don't cause that many casualties in a "conventional" gun battle, they are there to protect and support the machine gunners who do most of the killing. It has been this way since the second world war and introduction of light portable machine guns.
Yeah the fear of rifles is what prevents the enemy from flanking the gunner as efficiently. Artillery does the most damage, since troops always maneuver until each side gets inevitably dug in long enough for an artillery strike.
Germans in WWII pioneered the concept of the riflemen supporting the MG which does all the work. The Allies stayed with the MG as support, rifleman as core. Both work. The important thing is that the equipment and tactics match.
Seriously. Judging the usefulness of weapons purely by which ones inflict the most casualties is just silly. If war worked like that then there would only be one type of weapon ever used.
A very good point - despite all the fancy modern innovations, like Javelins and various other devices, the machine-gun remains at the very center of modern infantry tactics. The US Army Rangers pride themselves on their ability to conduct assaults and finish firefights in a quarter of the times it takes other Army units. This ability of theirs comes from the discipline and training to set up their belt-fed weapons very very quickly, and thus lay down this volume of fire from the get-go.
Reminds me of several things. Prior to the Vietnam war there was an idea going around that fighter jets did not need to have guns because missiles were coming into effect and you would never get close enough to use the gun so don't have them. (Oddly Similar don't you think?) This resulted in early versions of the F-4 Phantom not having a gun. And because of that, MANY good pilots were killed when the enemy planes managed to get in close. Missiles are worthless at short range because when they blow up they will spray shrapnel right back at you, so you'd shoot yourself down. So whenever I hear people say stuff like that I always respond "Put your life on that line." The people making these decisions are never the ones who will be affected by it and because of that they are perfectly safe while they are sentencing good people to die.
No, missiles are not worthless at short range, the problem that we ran into during Vietnam was that our missiles were still fairly new and we hadn't worked out all of the kinks yet and thus suffered from reliability issues which prevented our pilots from engaging the enemy at optimal missile range allowing them to get to within gun range. As far as shrapnel is concerned, I've never heard of that being a concern and a reason for having guns, I think that it has more to do with minimal arming range for missiles, too close and it won't arm or they're just not able to properly lock on at too close of a range but shrapnel isn't the real concern. I'm not positive what gun range is typically at but I do know that it's not as close as you seem to think it is, if a .50 is good out to a mile then a 20mm round is easily good out to 2 miles.
Riceball01 Minimal arming range is there to protect the plane from shrapnel! Missiles don't strike the target, they get close and explode to riddle the enemy plane with shrapnel. SO being close is like using a grenade for home defense, yeah the bad guy is dead but so are you. If you want to argue that missiles are not worthless at close ranges I simply ask you to talk to the pilots who died because they didn't have guns. Also notice every plane since has a gun! Yeah a gun can target a plane still in missile range. A short Range missile can strike a plane still in range of a long range missile. They are there for when the enemy plane gets to close for the alternative to be used, not the other way around.
While in Infantry School as a US Marine this point was actually brought up. Basically you can't say you have conquered a piece of ground until you have a Grunt standing on top of saying "Ooohrah!". Robert Heinlein covered it pretty good in Starship Troopers. Paraphrased, there is nothing more selectively destructive than an Infantryman. Sure you could kill everyone with a Nuke but do you want to? Probably not. Most people don't care. The ones that do will show themselves and be eliminated by a select fire infantryman.
This is a great video. I always imagine if this would be true in medieval and ancient warfare as well. Wouldn't it be more common that one side gave up and retreated than that both ended up fighting to the death? I think most medieval warriors never had to kill someone with their spears.
the curved blade is at an angle to the surface you are cutting and the power you apply is therefore devidet into two vectors, one perpendiciular to the axe of force and one paralell, the perpendiciular one does the cutting, the other one more chopping....
We actually have empirical evidence as to why that's a stupid idea. The US had major problems in Vietnam when they took guns off their fighter jets (thinking that air to air and air to ground missiles would be more than sufficient) and were forced to develop external gun pods as a result.
VERY different case. One of the main reasons it was an issue then was that the missiles at the time were...kinda crap. Very prone to malfunctioning in the wet jungle environment, AND easy to spoof. Heck you could get Vietnam-era heat seekers to lose lock by flying towards the sun! BUT, cannons are still useful as an emergency weapon, and for strafing runs. Not even counting the A-10, or the gun with an aircraft built around it!
At Basic Training, although we spent 3 weeks on rifle marksmanship, they pretty much told us in our simulated battle drills, "When you get shot at, just shoot back as much as you can." The overwhelming psychological effect of hundreds of bullets flying at you makes a bigger impact than you'd think.
Hi Lloyd! Either way it is understood that the role of the rifle has changed a lot since ww2. Marksmanship training of regular troops is at a low nowadays. I'm a recreational rifle shooter and many times i saw military or former personnel shooting at ranges. They generally lack good position and above all cheek-weld. Open sights shooting is impossible without good position.
although I agree that no-one has to be shot for a bullet to do it's job, but the 1 bullet in a million is kinda far fetched. The reason most people fall back is because they are taking loses. Say both armies are conventional, they aren't just going to fall back because they are taking heaps of fire from enemy bullets, they are going to fall back simply because they are taking loses, either wounded or killed. Now yes in Afghanistan it's different because most of the time the Taliban don't fight a conventional war, instead they fight Gorilla. So both sides don't really have enough time to fire back at each other when the Taliban are doing hit and run. Also, NATO is mostly doing an 'Air War' against the Taliban because the Taliban doesn't have anything sufficient to counter Air. So I would say during a conventional fight where both armies are from great nations like for instance America vs. Russia a bullet would hit it's target 1 out of 100 or 1000. Where in an un-conventional fight, it would be like 1 out of 300-3,000. Although those can be idealistically changed depending on the training and skill of both sides.
In World War II, only one in two thousand bullets found a target. "One in a million" was an exaggeration, but even during World War II the primary purpose of small arms was to suppress a target so that mortars, artillery, or tanks could finish them off, and that's even more true today.
"Say both armies are conventional, they aren't just going to fall back because they are taking heaps of fire from enemy bullets" -- I've spoken with veterans. Certainly people fall back when they are taking fire, not just when someone is shot. Soldiers are certainly smart enough to make the connection between bullets flying around and probable death.
The "bullets don't hit people" trope has a lot more to do with the defensiveness and ingenuity of the enemy than it does the lack of efficacy of an armed rifleman. Also, developments in modern computer assisted aiming may make indirect fire from a platoon of riflemen a possibility. Also, while we in the West are willing to spend a great deal of money to shield our soldiers from harm, from a pure economic perspective, you can't get much more economical in terms of ratio of power to cost than the lowly infantryman and a reliable rifle. Also, consider this: a great deal of hand-wringing is done over the massive killing power of nuclear weapons, and they're certainly awesome weapons and indiscriminate in their effect. However, by comparison, the Russian Kalashnikov and its variants have killed and maimed many, many more people than nuclear weapons ever have, and likely ever will.
Depends on timescale, I guess. A minuteman missile costs ~$7M, the the warhead about a half a million, so you can easily outfit 10,000 men with AKs for the price of one nuke. The thing is, the AK is incredibly reliable and bullets, assuming they're kept in a dry place, will last a very long time. Missile systems have costly maintenance programs to keep them functional. You can't just leave it in a warehouse somewhere. However, the soft benefits of nuclear weapons can't be underestimated. A nuclear-armed nation has never been invaded, and likely never will. My point wasn't to undercut the efficacy and gravity of nuclear arms, but to point out the martial virtues of the rifle.
Hellhound Wyrm/Wurm Certainly true, but nuclear weapons also have hidden and opportunity costs. At no point am I suggesting that infantry or armies aren't expensive, I'm just pointing out that for all the money sunk into nuclear weapons, men with rifles have remained the principal instrument of warfare. Also, there's other expenses you haven't covered: in particular, the care and benefits of wounded soldiers and their families. However, in economic terms, many of the costs of infantry can be recouped. How? Simply put: in a market economy, my expenses are your income, and vice-versa. All the money you spend on your armed forces and their families can go back out into the economy and supply other economic activity. This is why GDP is such a silly statistic. America's GDP could double tomorrow so long as the government was willing to keep sending checks to the lowest quintile of American households to spend as they will. Of course, it's questionable whether such a policy would result in any real increase in American wealth. So, my point about the lack of expense of infantry has more to do with availability of resources. You don't need an immense industrial infrastructure to fit a group of men with rifles.
Yeah, he was good up until the GDP thing. The problem is, there is a cost to employing people. You give "free" money to someone and they'll go and employ someone to build them a porch. That employed person is then out of the labor force so hiring labor becomes more expensive. They guy who wanted to build a factory can no longer afford the labor to do so so he is unable to do so and so the people he would have hired don't get jobs. (This is just an example of how such a thing could play out. It's much more subtle and diverse than that, of course) This is why free money is a bad thing unless we hit that post-scarcity thing people keep talking about. It's basically another take on the broken window fallacy. That's not to say that a military is *not* a good way to spend the money, just that it is not essentially free. Whether what we currently have is justified depends on your point of view.
Chaos Corner The real measure ought not to be GDP. It's a terrible statistic. If one half of a nation spent 10 trillion dollars suing the other half in court, the GDP of the country will go up by 10 trillion dollars. And while you're absolutely right that paying someone to do nothing has opportunity costs, so does NOT paying them to do nothing. People rarely starve quietly. We're already in an economy where our ability to produce items has far outpaced our needs, which is why so much of our economy is devoted to advertising and selling a lifestyle. But what's the cost of a society where disposable clothing is the norm? And who picks up the tab for the landfills brimming over with discarded cotton-blend tee-shirts?
It is thought by some that only 2% consistently and deliberately aim to kill while suffering no psychological immediate effects, yes. The figure has been questioned. I find it very easy to believe that most people find it difficult to kill when they don't absolutely have to. Few men make good snipers, they say, because few people can calmly kill someone who is not a threat.
Not true. Would US guns and bombs magically stop working to kill Vietnamese if they invaded [US into North or North in South]? No. Massed NVA were killed en masse and Boer War style clearances and camps could have destroyed the VC and any NVA guerillas. Of course this would cause gigantic atrocities with many millions more Vietnamese dead and wounded, which would have been politically hard. So not advocating, just saying. A US invasion of the North would have succeeded in final "victory" if DC had the willpower and desire. USA lost Vietnam for the same reason it failed to win in Korea and failed to take Berlin. Lack of political will to invade. A fix by the Elite to empower the Reds to fuel the Cold War to justify the MIC. Now they are resurrecting the Russian Bear since the Muslims are losing cred as The Enemy. Read 1984.
You are referring to the Paris peace accord which allowed the withdrawal of American troops and their allies out of Vietnam. Which then allowed the North Vietnamese to take Saigon ending democracy in the south and the point of US troops being in Vietnam for the last 7 years. The North never played by the 'rules' of war, and its safe to say the war never ended for them, allowing the Americans an out was a smart move to quicken their victory.
Mechanical Turk I'm afraid my friend, you have no idea what you're talking about. America won Vietnam war by bombing the hell out of the Norths capital. Two weeks later the NVA pretty much surrendered to the US by signing the peace treaty. After the signing, America saw no more need to stay in Vietnam after training the Souths army. America couldn't stay there forever you know and they said it's time to see if the South will "Sink or Swim". America also had problems of it's own at home that it needed to deal with, and the only way to stop the riots and marches was to bring home the troops.
What was the goal of the Vietnam war? Stop the south from falling to communism. Was this goal met? No. OR if you prefer. Teach the south to defend itself. Was this goal met? No The peace treaty wasn't a surrender as you seem to think, If the North were surrendering, part of the treaty wouldn't be that American troops had to leave the South. You say it was time to sink or swim, Nixon promised air support if they North invade after the Paris peace accord. This was never given. Why did America Completely pull out of Vietnam, Rising tension at home due to a war that wasn't being won. If you can't handle the heat stay out of the kitchen, which is what Americans did. Just using google, you'll find loads of site about why the Vietnam war was lost, and only arguments for why it was 'won' as most historians believe it was lost, When you look at the goals its clear it was lost. I suggest reading 'about face' by David Hackworth, One of Americas most decorated soldiers, great man.. That book was good example of what happened in Vietnam. here watch this (watch?v=W9_jh-OYb1k)
This is a great topic, I'd love to hear you talk more about it. It's comparable to the bayonets of the past. During the Napoleonic wars for example, only about 2% of wounds were caused by bayonets. But if one side were to get rid of bayonets they would be at a huge disadvantage in their ability to hold any position.
I agree with the man- why would soldiers ever need small arms? We want big beefy lads on the frontline to be operating such large machinery as tanks and anti-aircraft guns. Fat lot of good some manlet with twigs sticking out of his sides is going to do.
Yea , I think he was exaggerating with the whole "one in a million " thing ...I just think he was using that to mean "a lot" ...very many ...(like forty is used in the bible... forty this and forty that...just means... a lot...) But anyway , everyone seems to be all bunged up about how a large number of rounds fired to hit ratio indicates bad marksmanship... I think those stats also include things like Specter gunships...and A10 Warthogs... chain guns and miniguns are freaking bullet hoses, they squirt thousands of rounds per minute down range (cyclic rate of fire).... but even say they only were to do a study on small arms, (with cyclic rates of fire in the hundreds)...shoot a belt-fed machinegun once, or even magazine fed weapons on full auto... and it becomes evident why we base our tactics on creating a "beaten zone" and employing things like "suppressive fire", "cover fire", "grazing fire"... Expecting every single round to be a killshot, and counting those that don't hit the enemy as misses... is ridiculous... In every era of warfare using projectile weapons, most outgoing rounds were addressed "To whom it may concern...", or "current recipient ", anyway, whether it was a shower of sling stones, a volley of arrows or musket balls...or a burst from a machine gun... And yes, its true...you don't control territory until you stand a scared eighteen year old boy with a rifle on it.
I would disagree. I can swing a bokken in a hallway only slightly wider than my body. This definitely restricts the direction of your swings, but it's perfectly possible. Furthermore you can stab just fine in a hallway.
That is a good point. Other factors may be that its pretty hard to fight inside a building with say, a mortar, and you cant drive into a house with a tank without causing significant damage (to both the building and possibly the tank) , Better to send in some infantrymen with smallarms.
another important thin is that the in modern wargrounds, such as Afganistan, there are alot of strict rules about firing into the air or onto the ground as warning shots before you engage a potential threat such as a car speeding towards a checkpont
True, and some were used in the ACW, but the Germans were the ones who wasted vast resources on them. The British had a natural use for them: shelling France.
good point you can not sweep and clear with a tank and it is also true that suppressive fire is an effective tactic while artillery causes the most casualties in combat small arms are important
there were studies done at the end of WW2 and Vietnam which found that very few solders actually aimed their rifles during battle. The main objective seemed to be keep the other guys head down so they could not aim either.
A hypothetical walker tank has the same problem in a city as a tracked-tank, cluttered environment a sapper can easily deliver ordinance on the big constrained target. PS: the effort and resources that go into making a walking tank work AT ALL go so much further with more advanced tracked or wheeled drives be very very good. Legs just don't scale well. Trying to make a tank walk is like trying to add tank-tracks to a cheetah.
Excellent video, sir. It's very refreshing to hear somebody that has a grasp of modern military actions. As a mortar infantryman myself, I would not go into the field without a rifle myself. When the enemy flanks my position and closes in am I expected to deter them with harsh language?
You must also control for other factors like "means". The reality is it's often a fleeting irrational compulsion. It's found that putting a fence on one bridge doesn't lead to an increase in suicides on other bridges, overall suicide rate goes down. The evidence points to people having fleeting suicidal tendencies (not ALL persistent and irresistible) will only act on them if it's just a small step or pull of a trigger... and soldiers are around guns a lot. It's VERY complicated.
Absolutely. I should have said "relatively high". The rates among all service personnel are not particularly high, but when you look at the actual combat soldiers within the military, then section them out and look at the percentage, it comes out relatively high.
There's actually an interesting point to be made that I'm surprised you didn't mention. If the role of the individual bullet isn't necessarily to kill someone, but to get your enemy to not be where they want to be...then maybe the role of the infantry weapon hasn't changed all that much. The objective of warfare has never really been to kill your enemy; but to get them to break and retreat under threat of death.
GOT IT !! You remind me of a cross between Richard.E.Grant and that 'bloke' that plays the 'Cook' in King Kong. Phew , now, NOW , I can finally get some sleep... I enjoy your vids very much. Thanks . TOL
I might also add that with the advent of artillery, light explosives, and now IEDs, a large percentage of casualties sustained include lost limbs. Regardless of the victims' eventual fate, losing a limb is by no means quick, nor painless.
similar point, in the Vietnam war. it was considered useless for US fighter planes (f-4 phantom in particular) to have guns since missiles were better weapons. in the course of the conflict, they found that to be a huge handicap when dogfighting. thus gun pods were retrofitted to the planes.
the first half of your video is a philosphy they explore in "Starship Troopers" (the book) when they talk about the navy (star fleet) wanting to do away with the infantry and glass planets instead while the infantry see the job of the military as not killing the enemy but enforcing their gov polices on them which infantry will always ve used for
that is true but u have to remember that the fantastical elements of the book for example the aliens are just used as stand ins for the philosophy of the book which was written just of the back of ww2 it explores the aspect that you carnt just bomb people into submission and accepting ur views unfortunately something that the US have not learned in the middle east its a commentary on human warfare because we haven't been at war with a alien race
It's important to remember in the book that there were aliens that Earth had managed to come to terms with. It was just with the bugs that compromise was impossible. This was, I'm sure, intended to show that Earth was not just a bunch of psycho-fascists as the film tried to imply.
This is usually the SAW's function (Squad automatic weapon). And when he opens up it is to suppress the movement of the enemy and he becomes a giant "shoot me sign". Assault rifles while full auto capable are normally going to be used in that mode to cover advanding friendlies by laying down suppression on an entrenched position, and usually in short bursts. If you have ever played a sport like paintball ..you should be familiar with the terror "tons" of fire impacting on your position can bring
In general, it was to enable more slicing power in a lighter blade. That's a bit of an over-simplification, but it gets the point of the matter across.
An excellent point which is surprisingly often missed. War is ultimately about forcing compliance, actually killing people is, from a strategic perspective, pretty much incidental.
Another thing to consider is that, lately, the types of wars fought (from an American perspective at least) aren't really wars of attrition. They're very much based more around maneuvering and guerrilla tactics. In these kinds of wars, small arms are going to be used more in small skirmishes than in major operations that use heavier weaponry.
"Fire and maneuver" doctrine. Any time a squad of infantrymen is firing, another squad is maneuvering off to one side (or one on each side). Sometimes there will be tens of thousands of rounds fired for every bullet that actually kills one of the enemy, because it's hard to get to a good position to kill them from if you can't keep their heads down. In trench warfare, artillery killed more people than machine guns; but it was the machine guns that kept them pinned down for shelling.
it depends on the armor the enemy is wearing. In the 15th 16th centuries, most weapons were used to thrust (rapier, pikes) because of the plate armors. And in the 18th 19th century, most melee weapons were sabres (except bayonets, and other polearms maybe) because soldier wore no armor.
Not sure what you mean by 'other video'. If you click on my channel's name, it will take you to my channel's page, and from there you can see all of my uploads.
The percentage of soldiers firing to hit a given target is low, Often soldiers merely fire in the general direction, to keep the enemy down and to keep them back. Smaller rounds are used to cause wounding and pain, If one person gets hurt that tends to take one or two others out of the fight as they carry the wounded individual away. The pain factor causes a hurt person to be more ready to give up the fight and/or flee. High rate of fire is a numbers multiplier. Small arms are still important.
"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." - Sun Tzu I say if you can at least avoid needless bloodshed then your doing something right.
This coincides with the fact that in cases where a firearm stops a crime statistics from the U.S. show that it only has to be fired about %8 of the time. People understand that bullets not only hurt but are deadly! No one wants to be shot so if you have a gun it is much easier to get someone to do what you want them, too. Or for a more historical point of view you have the example of the Winter War in which the Finns used Ewok tactics(incendiaries, logs, jamming crowbars into them to damage internal mechanisms, getting on top of them and chucking molotovs into them once they'd been pried into) to, and with great effect, halt Russian tank advances. Even modern 'heavy arms' such as tanks are very vulnerable to incendiaries and are in general a very bad idea for situations such as urban combat.
The will always be a need for direct fire small arms. The supressive fire that "dont hit anything" is the sword of the infantry, the shield of your armor and the biggest killer outside artillery and aircraft. Infantry with small arms is the *only* force that can take and hold objectives.
Where I come from small arms refer not to guns but specifically hand guns or pistols and the like. Rifles will probably never go away, especially since they have basically continued to get better instead of run out of existence. Small arms are very important, though. They are also called sidearms, and kind of play the role of what the arming sword used to do. I've had friends make it home because, when their rifle jammed, they could pull out their handgun and continue to defend. Small arms should not go out when they are relied on as the second line of defense for the body.
Around base, and considering that insider betrayal is a leading cause of troop deaths now that IEDs are being dealt with more efficiently, it makes a lot of sense to arm the soldiers with handguns when around the FOBs and even places like Camp Bastion. Good to see that's exactly what's happening.
Same kinda thing in the old days no matter how good bows an cavalry are both having strong periods in history you still need infantry to hold or take ground. I'm sure a lot of people over estimate how many arrows killed people to but that doesn't make them useless.
I am really late on the ball here (five years or so) but small arms as in assault rifles are considered to be for selfdefence to a lot of units in a lot of nations. You kill the enemy with machineguns, recoilless rifles and automatic grenadelaunchers and so on.
The Germans in WW2 came up with many entries in this category. They had aircraft that killed more of their pilots through crashes and explosions than they killed of the enemy. They also had train-mounted guns that consumed the resources of a division to operate, and tanks that were so heavy that they were almost impossible to get to where they were needed.
The obsession with super heavy tanks is explained by the German fuel shortage for the entirety of the war.
A tank that is light, super reliable, and fast is useless if you can't drive it around due to lack of fuel.
Lindy, I'm afraid this is a hollow point.
Get out. You will not make those puns in this household, young man.
+pukedragon I really have to suppress the urge to get all up in arms about this, but I will try and refrain from putting my cross-hairs on all these puns.
+Charley Grossman I 2nd that!
HA!
+Charley Grossman There's a grain of truth to that!
Actually, I rather like being able to walk around without fearing that I'm at risk of being shot.
it is rather good
People don't realize that the way to win a battle isn't by killing all your enemies, but to make him unwilling to continue fighting.
Very true , it doesn't matter how many rounds your opponent has in his magazine , if he is unwilling to pull the trigger . You must break his will to fight , not just his body .
True, but when the enemy returns to shoot at your position for the 47th time, you really wished you had killed him the 1th or the 3th time at least.
A lot of the wars fought these days rely on exterminating your enemies rather than simply capturing a town or a field. You do not fight grand battles against armies of normal soldiers, but skirmishes against dangerous lunatics and maniacs who'll keep coming back until they are put down.
In Vietnam for instance, land was much less useful than dead enemies, causing the Americans to emphasize on a search and destroy doctrine.
Sometimes it is a lot easier to just kill the enemy than make him not want to kill you anymore.
exactly, look at Vietnam for example, the USA killed many Vietcong but the vietcong made the US soliders unwilling to continue fighting a never ending war where they made no major ground.
Perhaps thats the only real constant of war.
SinerAthin In that case they are stilli willing to fight.
They definitely should stop issuing small arms.
Instead, they need to give soldiers swords, crossbows, longbows, axes, and spellbooks.
+SwitchFeathers dont forget feather dusters so they can tickle their enemies to death
+SwitchFeathers You made my day with the "spellbooks" part :P
+SwitchFeathers Pft, all that troops need are large wooden staffs, a book, and loudly yell "wololo!"!
+SwitchFeathers If a black arrow can kill a dragon, surely it can kill a tank.
+SwitchFeathers No! Issue all troops with plastic Lightsabers and Nerf guns!
Nice video. Most people dont realize the primary job of infantry is to fix and pin the enemy in place with small arms until things like artillery, mortars, or airstrikes finish the job. Secondly the only way to take and hold ground is boots on the ground. Even with todays tech we still find ourselves stretches thin on manpower. Infantry will always have a place in this centuries warfare.
Also don't forget that if your troops don't have guns their guys are going to run right up to your mortars and tanks. Infantry is requirement for tanks - they can't deal with the small targets that might throw grenades into their hatches or attach explosives to their tracks.
That guy had no understanding of combined arms, if you don't have direct fire weapons to suppress the enemy there is nothing stopping them from moving rapidly towards you and taking out your artillery. And tanks and IFV's are vulnerable to anti tank weapons without infantry covering them and screening there flanks. Infantry also have much better awareness than a tank as they don't have restricted vision.
+SkullKing11841 This guy gets it.
+SkullKing11841
It reminds me of his bayonets and his pikes videos.
Quite ironically, the pikes role was to make sure nothing happened to the musketeers, so they could continue on their jobs. This would be necessary until rifles could be fired at a faster rate. Now, we have the shooters protecting the more powerful at firing, artillery.
Quart Bernstein Yeah, though I should have said the first time that you are also protecting yourself, under slung and multiple grenade launchers are deadly but if the enemy is in good cover or you fail to hit close enough to there position the enemy will gain fire dominance over you very quickly as you can't have the same rate of suppressive fire. You also can't use direct fire grenades in very close quarters because of the danger to yourself.
There are defiantly times when having all grenade launchers you be great, but other times were you would loose and the enemy would play to your weakness. That's why modern army's at the fire team team level have one guy with an under slung grenade launcher and have fire support, like mortars, attached to infantry units. This is all just combined arms.
And i'll go look up his videos on bayonets and pikes.
This is why tanks which don't have any infantry with them are far far less affective than those that do
Also tanks on there own are easily taken out without infantry support, especially in towns
***** damn right
I wish you didn't have so many "A Point About" videos - I've been watching them for hours and haven't done anything I need to! Instant subscribe!
I'm reminded of a story my old dad once told me, he was in the royal artillery but one day he and his lads were asked to hold a road block, armed with rifles they sat at the road block all day till an equally armed group approached and a lot of shouting began, long story short, the order was given to "shoot above their heads till they piss off" That worked and everyone from both sides went home alive that day
Part of the reason for people thinking bullets are useless is Hollywood. In movies, guns shoot not metal projectiles but *death itself*. If someone gets shot and they aren't a main protagonist, they die instantly. Therefore, people expect bullets to have the same effect in real life, and are surprised when they don't.
+Matthew Emmett I wish I could get bullets made of pure Mordite too. Darned weak-ass LEAD...sheesh.
+Matthew Emmett
Yep, they either miraculously miss the protagonists (while bullets splatter all around them, or they get shot in the arm and they walk it off lol)
Or the bad guy gets shot and is blown away. Unless youre shot in a vital spot you wont die immediately. Even if you are shot in the vitals you wont necessarily die immediately...
This is why cops shoot until a suspect is down. Theres been cases where criminals have been pumped full of rounds and keep fighting.
Look at videogames on the other side
rather than death itself some guns simply fire puff balls
half a magazine of a pistol to take out one petty street thug or 50 rifle rounds to chew through a soldier?
Yes and no. Where you hit someone matters, a bullet in the arm for example doesn't do much, as does the caliber of the bullet. Certain sidearms like 9mm pistols and submachine guns fire such small bullets that, under the influence of adrenaline and other pain-suppressing hormones released by the body in stressful situations, one can easily keep charging through a hail of bullets until the "insta-kill" round hits. But properly trained soldiers with assult rifles yeah dead. Oddly enough though movies are somewhat realistic if you were to take "shoot-to-kill" training or lack thereof into the equation. Just watch Lindy's video on that, its quite interesting
Well, apparently in Hollywood, you can dodge all forms of explosions by running and jumping right as the force of it hits you. So you can jumper longer and, hopefully, win the gold medal.
This is in parallel with the British program to install 40mm pompom guns on merchant ships. during WWII. After a few months some wanted to remove the guns as the 40mm guns didn't shoot down many German planes. Cooler heads prevailed, and noted that ships with 40mm guns were much less likely to be sunk- the fire from the pom pom discouraged the German pilots from closely approaching the ships, and attacks on ships by German planes from further away were much more likely to be misses. The purpose of the pompom is not to kill planes, it is to protect ships. Small arms have an analogous mission.
What people tend to forget (just like going back to cloth and leather helmets when we'd previously had metal) was that certain technology "holds the line" in a stale mate. You eliminate the technology that holds that line and its not longer a stalemate.
Small arms may not present any great advancement, but they certainly prevent you from losing ground.
solid points.
I had a similar conversation about whether or not you need infantry at all.
his point was that tanks, missiles, planes, etc. have made infantry obsolete. My point was pretty much everything you said, as well as that infantry are much more versatile than tanks, missiles, etc.
give a soldier a good rifle and a scope, he can take out HVTs with no risk of collateral damage. give him a launcher, he can take out tanks from the bushes. give him a machine gun, he can hold an entire street from a single window.
if anything, modern warfare has become MORE focused on infantry. urban warfare in civilian populated areas is almost exclusively suited for infantry.
One broken-down Challenger 2 in Iraq was hit from point-blank range from all sides by many RPGs and there was no crew casualties, but lesser AFVs wouldn't be so fortunate. There are other weapons that would do more, of course, and these could be deployed by infantry.
Damn straight, Lindybeige, sir!
Warfare isn't just blasting the other side to pieces. It involves holding and controlling vital areas. You can't do that with just artillery and similar power weapons. You need people to do it, and that means putting them in harm's way and fighting on an individual scale. And more than just scaring them off with either the big or small guns, it means taking them out directly, almost face-to-face.
The idea is such a arm-chair general thing to say anyway.
Other than the obvious problems with the idea, how would you even get boots on the ground to secure territory anyway? "Alright lads, we have orders to take this town. We will have tanks and air cover so no need to have a weapon yourself, lets go."
You would really have to be a desperately stupid man to say that's perfectly alright and go into hostile territory under those conditions.
Well unless tanks and aircraft were worshipped like polytheistic dieties.
Don't get me started on people commenting that 'they aren't hitting anyone' on videos on contemporary wars in the middle east.
what about using guns without ammo? or swords? anachronism is a powerful psychological weapon, you know... (as demonstrated by Mad Jack Churchill).
+Człowiek Wiking Batons have their uses nowadays, but it's more a Police thing. They're poor against firearms, and insurgency or sleeper cells in occupied territories will most probably have firearms.
Having said that, I agree with Mad Jack on the point that any officer leading his troops to battle without a sword is improperly dressed.
Człowiek Wiking
Wow, one anecdotal example confirms that this would clearly work in all scenarios.
A point I'd add is that the experiences of the last 100+ years of recognizably modern warfare have again and again hammered in that everyone needs the capacity towards self-defense that comes from having small arms and knowing how to use them. In the early months of WWI engineer units often did not have rifles, making them extremely vulnerable to brazen attacks which would not have even been possible had they been properly equipped; furthermore, look at the US experiences in 2003 with units that thought they did not need to know the basics of soldiering because they were support formations. They were armed, but lacked most of the basic skills needed to fight with their rifles and machine-guns.
One of the most dangerous weapons platforms today remains a skilled soldier with a rifle.
True, and he was talking before the post-battle occupation/peacekeeping/mess stage in Iraq.
Also, mortars, artillery and fast air all have a large splash zone, so they are relative indiscriminate when it comes to collateral. If there is one bad guy ina building full of civilians, the sniper might be able to get him, but an airstrike will get him AND everyone standing nearby.
+tSp289 And the building with seventy eight crippled children!
I like this video. You'll never get rid of the Infantry.
One of the biggest misconceptions about troops and fighting I've seen in recent history was the early days of the eastern rebellion in Ukraine.
Soldiers with rifles and tanks were sent in to stop all this. But then they ran into a problem. The rebels weren't shooting at them, and the soldiers wouldn't slaughter what had been their fellow countrymen just weeks before. So with an army that wouldn't shoot... The rebels just took their guns and their tanks and told the soldiers off.
Obviously not long after both sides were shooting at each other, and its morally easy to justify shooting someone who is trying to kill you. So that was a very short lived situation.
But its not just how powerful a weapon is that determines its effectiveness, its often times the threat that is most powerful, and if that threat is undermined it can ruin a weapons ability.
Very glad to see you doing videos again.
I notice a running theme that the effectiveness of weapons is not just measured in how many people are killed. For example, your bayonet video, or that pikes were useful to defend the arquebusiers even if the pikemen don't end up fighting, or the use of grenades to flush the enemy out of a defensive position.
when you think about all we've done is find better ways of throwing rocks at each other. with slings we got better range, with arrows we got better accuracy and lethality, and with guns we got everything.
+lukassnakeman Apart from silence
+AcridCrowd Silencers :P
+Raven you mean supressors... no such thing as a true silencer
Well ofc there isent a true silencer but i feel like silencers and supressors can both be used. i just feel like more people understand the word silencer over supressor but thx for correcting me :D
+Raven Yeah, a lot of people who just play COD all the time only understand silencer. Just mentioned it because he said guns give us everything except silence-- which is still true.
You are correct. In fact supressive fire is often vital in making artillery or aircraft support useful. It prevents the enemy from abandoning his position after an attack. Right here in youtube there is a very informative video of a soldier armed with a large belt-fed machine gun firing blindly into some hill where the enemy is bunkered to give an A-10 time to deploy and actually hit the enemy. A truly impressive scene considering the sounds of the A-10's massive frontal gun.
A weapon, any weapon, carried by a soldier is also a psychological weapon. It gives the soldier confidence and also a way to release some anger and frustration if he comes under enemy fire a lot.
During WW2, cameramen and photographers were sent with the first waves of attacking infantry. Especially in the Pacfic island hopping campaign. These cameramen and photographers were unarmed at first. Or they planned on sending them unarmed into harm's way. But they couldn't carry rifles because that would be too cumbersome with their other equipment. So, they were given pistols and revolvers. *Why?* The colonel or general who had come up with the idea, said that these men needed something to at least fire back. He understood they would not hit a thing but at least it gave them more confidence that they would survive. And of course if an enemy soldier jumped into the same foxhole as you, at least you had a small chance of killing the threat.
So soldiers' small arms have a few uses but they're for the most part psychological tools.
.... N-no.. No.. Just no...
A firearm, gives soldiers a means of fighting other soldiers whom have firearms. Your "a way to release pent up aggression" idea is, just.. No.
Having a rifle doesn't give you a way to release pent up anger at your enemy, it gives you a way to SHOOT BACK, at those shooting at you, so as to have a higher chance of not dying, and possibly defeat your foe.
Having noncombatants carry sidearms/smallarms is so if they become endangered bye "the enemy", and no one with a rifle is around to protect them, they would at least be able to protect themselves with something more than their fists. It has nothing to do with rage of war.
While having a firearms may provide a boost to your confidence, and maybe even serve to demoralize your foe, (such as if they were not expecting an armed opponent, if you were an armed resistance group) that is not it's sole/primary/intended purpose. It's purpose is for you to be able to fight back, and help you survive.
When I was doing compulsory service, we were told that, unless we were faced with a drugged-up madman that doesn't stop on being wounded (or has explosives strapped to him), wounding rather than killing is always preferrable. A dead man is one less enemy, but a wounded enemy that isn't able to shoot anymore is two or three enemies less, because he will need assistance by his friends.
I'm reminded of the logic in the American Civil War that repeating rifles were garbage because the men would waste ammo shooting at the enemy so we should stick with single shot percussion rifles
Haha. Yeah good luck managing suppressive fire using only single shots =D
similar logic was applied to fighter jets before the Vietnam War. The belief was that the high speeds and long ranges of missiles had made cannons obsolete. The F-4 Phantom is the classic example. By then end of the war all new designs had cannons and I believe the the f-4 had an external cannon pod.
I am not sure if that is jsut a myth but allegedly the first fully automatic gun design was rejected arguing:
"It would be a very good weapon if you could kill someone several times."
Hellhound Wyrm/Wurm well, full auto almost is useless, except in CQC, but it'll still take at most 2 shots to kill a guy, and a AN-94 isn't the best gun for clearing houses...
Actaully 2 shots depends heavily if there wearing body armor the power of the round and it takes generally more then 2 rounds of smaller calibers like 45 to stop a person and if they are wearing body armor it could take 3-4 mabey even more depening on the armors qauility and weather or not it breaks his ribs
I suspect by 'prefer' he means 'more interested in'. Ancient soldiers did not have to put up with days of high-explosive artillery bombardment.
You don't want to kill someone, even in a combat scenario you want to wound them severely that they can't fight.. then they start screaming and crying for help. That binds people to attend the wounded and demoralizes the enemy.
What if the enemy is draconian and dehumanized their soldiers to allow killing their own wounded?
believe it or not this was a Russian sniper tactic you shoot to wounds then anyone who came to help the guy was dead.
I've never been in combat and I hope I'll never will but that is what I've been told in my basic training. Not explicitly but implicitly and I believed it because 7.62x33 makes a lot of damage on a soft target on 200-300m especially if it becomes unstable. Thats why I always believed one in the chest is enough to incapacitate a man. I estimate, when your heart isn't hit, your lungs will fill up with blood and you will drown or bleed out.
Thankfully I can't be sure but to me it seems very likely since I don't really care about body count I care more about an objective.
In a scenario where asymmetrical warfare is more common that might be different thing.
I also might have phrased it wrong: Wounding them that they scream for their mother and try to keep their guts in them is a nice bonus.
geronimodings Sorry but shoot to wound? Don't think you'd make it in the British Army, mate - nor any armed police force, for that matter.
Noneofyourbusiness Same Fataly wound, a wound that incapacitates someone to that degree that they either can't fight or die a little later. I think one or two shots to the chest (without body armor) would do the job just fine. You want to hit the chest because it' s the biggest target. I guess my phrasing was too absolut I should've said you could care less about if he is dead or almost dead to the point that he can't fight.
An interesting point about the 1 bullet in a million: part of the decision by NATO to switch to a 5.56mm round was the reduced lethality of the round.
"When you hit someone," they thought "why ruin it by killing them?"
The premise was that by wounding a soldier, he would have to be retrieved (by 2 other soldiers) then evacuated by vehicle (driven by a soldier) to a field hospital where he would be guarded (yet another soldier) whilst being treated for his wounds (by 2 extremely skilful soldiers). Thus removing a total of 3 soldier a bullet from the tactical situation, before temporarily occupying the time of 4 personnel in the strategic theatre. 4 people who would otherwise have been at home not consuming resources had the first guy not been so careless as to merely get wounded.
Thus that one in a million hits becomes so much more effective.
If I am not mistaken, the first generals who were also air enthusiasts considered the air plane a war winning machine to the extend of obsoleting everything else. They imagined whole fleets of planes taking over and winning the wars completely by themselves.
+Borilius Belatorium Which is precisely what didn't happen
+AdotLOM It kinda is currently happening, modern sea warfare is carrier based.
MasterGhostf And modern urban warfare is bomber AND infantry based.
'Since the gun ban' doesn't mean much to people here, since it's been an arrestable offence to carry weapons since 1824, so we have all grown up in a gun-free world. The 1997 act was draconian and meant that even Olympic shooters had to train abroad. Gun crime is very rare in GB.
I was also thinking about how much of a confidence boost having a gun would be for a soldier. It makes them feel as if they may be able to defend themselves and their allies and ensure they can keep themselves safe if things get bad. A person who is unarmed and sees a row of armed guys marching toward him might be more adamant to run away and thus lose his position but give him a better chance at survival then be captured and/or risk death
+Dakota Kelley-Greenleaf ye, but this also makes guys with guns feels like gods to those who don't have it. From this comes all war crimes, rapes, marauding and stuff.
I'm not being finicky, just trying to educate. The the definition of a bullet is the actual projectile that fires from the gun that hits (hopefully) the target. If you're talking about the complete package as in primer, casing, powder and bullet together, it's called ammunition (ammo) or rounds in the plural and a round in the singular. If you reload your own ammo and have to deal with all the components individually like the case, primer, powder and bullet, it can get confusing when someone says bullet when they mean ammo. For example, I used to own a gunshop and often someone would call and ask for 30/06 (or any caliber) bullets. When you sell both actual bullets as in projectiles individually and complete ammunition it gets confusing so you'd have to ask which they actually want. It's a very common misunderstanding even among gun people. Great channel, I thoroughly enjoy it!
Just imagine a platoon on a battlefield without guns but instead with mortars and laser designators. if you manage to surprise them all you would need is spears or swords, because what are they gonna do against the man immediately in front.of them?
It depends on the battlefield too. In the Pacific theater during WW2, the rifleman was the primary mechanism for killing the enemy. There simply wasn't enough heavy weapons (tanks and artillery) in theater and the terrain was too harsh for effective employment of those weapons. The same was true in Vietnam. The vast majority of enemy contacts were "meeting engagements" at close range (where tanks & artillery are not effective). The rifle is still the most effective multi-purpose weapon on the battlefield.
Anecdotal evidence that I've seen and spoken with soldiers, is that while the rifles and rifleman in a section or platoon don't cause that many casualties in a "conventional" gun battle, they are there to protect and support the machine gunners who do most of the killing. It has been this way since the second world war and introduction of light portable machine guns.
Yeah the fear of rifles is what prevents the enemy from flanking the gunner as efficiently. Artillery does the most damage, since troops always maneuver until each side gets inevitably dug in long enough for an artillery strike.
Germans in WWII pioneered the concept of the riflemen supporting the MG which does all the work. The Allies stayed with the MG as support, rifleman as core. Both work. The important thing is that the equipment and tactics match.
Seriously. Judging the usefulness of weapons purely by which ones inflict the most casualties is just silly. If war worked like that then there would only be one type of weapon ever used.
A very good point - despite all the fancy modern innovations, like Javelins and various other devices, the machine-gun remains at the very center of modern infantry tactics.
The US Army Rangers pride themselves on their ability to conduct assaults and finish firefights in a quarter of the times it takes other Army units.
This ability of theirs comes from the discipline and training to set up their belt-fed weapons very very quickly, and thus lay down this volume of fire from the get-go.
Reminds me of several things. Prior to the Vietnam war there was an idea going around that fighter jets did not need to have guns because missiles were coming into effect and you would never get close enough to use the gun so don't have them. (Oddly Similar don't you think?) This resulted in early versions of the F-4 Phantom not having a gun. And because of that, MANY good pilots were killed when the enemy planes managed to get in close. Missiles are worthless at short range because when they blow up they will spray shrapnel right back at you, so you'd shoot yourself down. So whenever I hear people say stuff like that I always respond "Put your life on that line." The people making these decisions are never the ones who will be affected by it and because of that they are perfectly safe while they are sentencing good people to die.
No, missiles are not worthless at short range, the problem that we ran into during Vietnam was that our missiles were still fairly new and we hadn't worked out all of the kinks yet and thus suffered from reliability issues which prevented our pilots from engaging the enemy at optimal missile range allowing them to get to within gun range. As far as shrapnel is concerned, I've never heard of that being a concern and a reason for having guns, I think that it has more to do with minimal arming range for missiles, too close and it won't arm or they're just not able to properly lock on at too close of a range but shrapnel isn't the real concern. I'm not positive what gun range is typically at but I do know that it's not as close as you seem to think it is, if a .50 is good out to a mile then a 20mm round is easily good out to 2 miles.
Riceball01 Minimal arming range is there to protect the plane from shrapnel! Missiles don't strike the target, they get close and explode to riddle the enemy plane with shrapnel. SO being close is like using a grenade for home defense, yeah the bad guy is dead but so are you. If you want to argue that missiles are not worthless at close ranges I simply ask you to talk to the pilots who died because they didn't have guns. Also notice every plane since has a gun! Yeah a gun can target a plane still in missile range. A short Range missile can strike a plane still in range of a long range missile. They are there for when the enemy plane gets to close for the alternative to be used, not the other way around.
ArodWingfoot Kindof hard for Riceball01 to talk to pilots that died, don't ya think?
That said, exactly what came to my mind watching this.
101jir Yeah, but you get the point
ArodWingfoot Yeah, I was just having a little fun =D
While in Infantry School as a US Marine this point was actually brought up. Basically you can't say you have conquered a piece of ground until you have a Grunt standing on top of saying "Ooohrah!".
Robert Heinlein covered it pretty good in Starship Troopers. Paraphrased, there is nothing more selectively destructive than an Infantryman. Sure you could kill everyone with a Nuke but do you want to? Probably not. Most people don't care. The ones that do will show themselves and be eliminated by a select fire infantryman.
This is a great video. I always imagine if this would be true in medieval and ancient warfare as well. Wouldn't it be more common that one side gave up and retreated than that both ended up fighting to the death? I think most medieval warriors never had to kill someone with their spears.
Tell that to those that faught in the battle of cannae
the curved blade is at an angle to the surface you are cutting and the power you apply is therefore devidet into two vectors, one perpendiciular to the axe of force and one paralell, the perpendiciular one does the cutting, the other one more chopping....
We actually have empirical evidence as to why that's a stupid idea. The US had major problems in Vietnam when they took guns off their fighter jets (thinking that air to air and air to ground missiles would be more than sufficient) and were forced to develop external gun pods as a result.
VERY different case. One of the main reasons it was an issue then was that the missiles at the time were...kinda crap. Very prone to malfunctioning in the wet jungle environment, AND easy to spoof. Heck you could get Vietnam-era heat seekers to lose lock by flying towards the sun! BUT, cannons are still useful as an emergency weapon, and for strafing runs.
Not even counting the A-10, or the gun with an aircraft built around it!
At Basic Training, although we spent 3 weeks on rifle marksmanship, they pretty much told us in our simulated battle drills, "When you get shot at, just shoot back as much as you can." The overwhelming psychological effect of hundreds of bullets flying at you makes a bigger impact than you'd think.
If artillery is the king of warfare infantry is the queen.
+Sitting Pyro No, i would say that arty is the pawns.
Artillery is the time limit on how much time you can take on a turn because they ensure you will constantly be taking damage
Pokemon Fanboy and if you don't take care of the arty, it will come destroy you.
+Sitting Pyro Is this an Ashens reference...
I always thought armour was the king of the battlefield and infantry the queen.
Hi Lloyd! Either way it is understood that the role of the rifle has changed a lot since ww2. Marksmanship training of regular troops is at a low nowadays. I'm a recreational rifle shooter and many times i saw military or former personnel shooting at ranges. They generally lack good position and above all cheek-weld. Open sights shooting is impossible without good position.
although I agree that no-one has to be shot for a bullet to do it's job, but the 1 bullet in a million is kinda far fetched.
The reason most people fall back is because they are taking loses. Say both armies are conventional, they aren't just going to fall back because they are taking heaps of fire from enemy bullets, they are going to fall back simply because they are taking loses, either wounded or killed.
Now yes in Afghanistan it's different because most of the time the Taliban don't fight a conventional war, instead they fight Gorilla. So both sides don't really have enough time to fire back at each other when the Taliban are doing hit and run.
Also, NATO is mostly doing an 'Air War' against the Taliban because the Taliban doesn't have anything sufficient to counter Air.
So I would say during a conventional fight where both armies are from great nations like for instance America vs. Russia a bullet would hit it's target 1 out of 100 or 1000. Where in an un-conventional fight, it would be like 1 out of 300-3,000. Although those can be idealistically changed depending on the training and skill of both sides.
***** Nice troll there. Can't find anything else wrong with my statement so you pick out a typo. Congratz on just passing the 5th grade.
In World War II, only one in two thousand bullets found a target. "One in a million" was an exaggeration, but even during World War II the primary purpose of small arms was to suppress a target so that mortars, artillery, or tanks could finish them off, and that's even more true today.
"Say both armies are conventional, they aren't just going to fall back because they are taking heaps of fire from enemy bullets" -- I've spoken with veterans. Certainly people fall back when they are taking fire, not just when someone is shot. Soldiers are certainly smart enough to make the connection between bullets flying around and probable death.
stcredzero I'm talking about a line of defense here, not just one squad.
Could you imagine if a police officer had to fire 1 million rounds in order to hit 1 guy attacking him? That is a lot of magazines.
I love all your rants, you are a well informed man.
The "bullets don't hit people" trope has a lot more to do with the defensiveness and ingenuity of the enemy than it does the lack of efficacy of an armed rifleman. Also, developments in modern computer assisted aiming may make indirect fire from a platoon of riflemen a possibility. Also, while we in the West are willing to spend a great deal of money to shield our soldiers from harm, from a pure economic perspective, you can't get much more economical in terms of ratio of power to cost than the lowly infantryman and a reliable rifle. Also, consider this: a great deal of hand-wringing is done over the massive killing power of nuclear weapons, and they're certainly awesome weapons and indiscriminate in their effect. However, by comparison, the Russian Kalashnikov and its variants have killed and maimed many, many more people than nuclear weapons ever have, and likely ever will.
The expensive part of the riflemen comes to the army by itself, the men.
How does the AK measure up to the Nuke in case of kill/cost ratio?
Depends on timescale, I guess. A minuteman missile costs ~$7M, the the warhead about a half a million, so you can easily outfit 10,000 men with AKs for the price of one nuke. The thing is, the AK is incredibly reliable and bullets, assuming they're kept in a dry place, will last a very long time. Missile systems have costly maintenance programs to keep them functional. You can't just leave it in a warehouse somewhere. However, the soft benefits of nuclear weapons can't be underestimated. A nuclear-armed nation has never been invaded, and likely never will. My point wasn't to undercut the efficacy and gravity of nuclear arms, but to point out the martial virtues of the rifle.
Hellhound Wyrm/Wurm Certainly true, but nuclear weapons also have hidden and opportunity costs. At no point am I suggesting that infantry or armies aren't expensive, I'm just pointing out that for all the money sunk into nuclear weapons, men with rifles have remained the principal instrument of warfare. Also, there's other expenses you haven't covered: in particular, the care and benefits of wounded soldiers and their families. However, in economic terms, many of the costs of infantry can be recouped. How? Simply put: in a market economy, my expenses are your income, and vice-versa. All the money you spend on your armed forces and their families can go back out into the economy and supply other economic activity. This is why GDP is such a silly statistic. America's GDP could double tomorrow so long as the government was willing to keep sending checks to the lowest quintile of American households to spend as they will. Of course, it's questionable whether such a policy would result in any real increase in American wealth. So, my point about the lack of expense of infantry has more to do with availability of resources. You don't need an immense industrial infrastructure to fit a group of men with rifles.
Yeah, he was good up until the GDP thing. The problem is, there is a cost to employing people. You give "free" money to someone and they'll go and employ someone to build them a porch. That employed person is then out of the labor force so hiring labor becomes more expensive. They guy who wanted to build a factory can no longer afford the labor to do so so he is unable to do so and so the people he would have hired don't get jobs. (This is just an example of how such a thing could play out. It's much more subtle and diverse than that, of course)
This is why free money is a bad thing unless we hit that post-scarcity thing people keep talking about. It's basically another take on the broken window fallacy.
That's not to say that a military is *not* a good way to spend the money, just that it is not essentially free. Whether what we currently have is justified depends on your point of view.
Chaos Corner The real measure ought not to be GDP. It's a terrible statistic. If one half of a nation spent 10 trillion dollars suing the other half in court, the GDP of the country will go up by 10 trillion dollars. And while you're absolutely right that paying someone to do nothing has opportunity costs, so does NOT paying them to do nothing. People rarely starve quietly. We're already in an economy where our ability to produce items has far outpaced our needs, which is why so much of our economy is devoted to advertising and selling a lifestyle. But what's the cost of a society where disposable clothing is the norm? And who picks up the tab for the landfills brimming over with discarded cotton-blend tee-shirts?
It is thought by some that only 2% consistently and deliberately aim to kill while suffering no psychological immediate effects, yes. The figure has been questioned. I find it very easy to believe that most people find it difficult to kill when they don't absolutely have to. Few men make good snipers, they say, because few people can calmly kill someone who is not a threat.
I guess your site supervisor hadn't heard of the vietnam war... where no amount of firepower could defeat the north.
Not true. Would US guns and bombs magically stop working to kill Vietnamese if they invaded [US into North or North in South]? No. Massed NVA were killed en masse and Boer War style clearances and camps could have destroyed the VC and any NVA guerillas. Of course this would cause gigantic atrocities with many millions more Vietnamese dead and wounded, which would have been politically hard. So not advocating, just saying. A US invasion of the North would have succeeded in final "victory" if DC had the willpower and desire.
USA lost Vietnam for the same reason it failed to win in Korea and failed to take Berlin. Lack of political will to invade. A fix by the Elite to empower the Reds to fuel the Cold War to justify the MIC. Now they are resurrecting the Russian Bear since the Muslims are losing cred as The Enemy. Read 1984.
Say what? American firepower did defeat the north. Haven't you heard of the 2 weak nonstop bombing, which made the North agree to sign a peace treaty?
You are referring to the Paris peace accord which allowed the withdrawal of American troops and their allies out of Vietnam. Which then allowed the North Vietnamese to take Saigon ending democracy in the south and the point of US troops being in Vietnam for the last 7 years. The North never played by the 'rules' of war, and its safe to say the war never ended for them, allowing the Americans an out was a smart move to quicken their victory.
Mechanical Turk I'm afraid my friend, you have no idea what you're talking about.
America won Vietnam war by bombing the hell out of the Norths capital. Two weeks later the NVA pretty much surrendered to the US by signing the peace treaty. After the signing, America saw no more need to stay in Vietnam after training the Souths army. America couldn't stay there forever you know and they said it's time to see if the South will "Sink or Swim".
America also had problems of it's own at home that it needed to deal with, and the only way to stop the riots and marches was to bring home the troops.
What was the goal of the Vietnam war?
Stop the south from falling to communism. Was this goal met?
No.
OR if you prefer.
Teach the south to defend itself.
Was this goal met?
No
The peace treaty wasn't a surrender as you seem to think, If the North were surrendering, part of the treaty wouldn't be that American troops had to leave the South.
You say it was time to sink or swim, Nixon promised air support if they North invade after the Paris peace accord. This was never given.
Why did America Completely pull out of Vietnam, Rising tension at home due to a war that wasn't being won.
If you can't handle the heat stay out of the kitchen, which is what Americans did.
Just using google, you'll find loads of site about why the Vietnam war was lost, and only arguments for why it was 'won' as most historians believe it was lost, When you look at the goals its clear it was lost. I suggest reading 'about face' by David Hackworth, One of Americas most decorated soldiers, great man.. That book was good example of what happened in Vietnam. here watch this (watch?v=W9_jh-OYb1k)
This is a great topic, I'd love to hear you talk more about it. It's comparable to the bayonets of the past. During the Napoleonic wars for example, only about 2% of wounds were caused by bayonets. But if one side were to get rid of bayonets they would be at a huge disadvantage in their ability to hold any position.
I agree with the man- why would soldiers ever need small arms? We want big beefy lads on the frontline to be operating such large machinery as tanks and anti-aircraft guns. Fat lot of good some manlet with twigs sticking out of his sides is going to do.
During Vietnam the US army took the smallest guys they could find and made them tunnel rats.
what about urban environment?
a video discussing suppressing fire...opening with "missing the point". Loving it.
Yea , I think he was exaggerating with the whole "one in a million " thing ...I just think he was using that to mean "a lot" ...very many ...(like forty is used in the bible... forty this and forty that...just means... a lot...)
But anyway , everyone seems to be all bunged up about how a large number of rounds fired to hit ratio indicates bad marksmanship... I think those stats also include things like Specter gunships...and A10 Warthogs... chain guns and miniguns are freaking bullet hoses, they squirt thousands of rounds per minute down range (cyclic rate of fire).... but even say they only were to do a study on small arms, (with cyclic rates of fire in the hundreds)...shoot a belt-fed machinegun once, or even magazine fed weapons on full auto... and it becomes evident why we base our tactics on creating a "beaten zone" and employing things like "suppressive fire", "cover fire", "grazing fire"...
Expecting every single round to be a killshot, and counting those that don't hit the enemy as misses... is ridiculous...
In every era of warfare using projectile weapons, most outgoing rounds were addressed "To whom it may concern...", or "current recipient ", anyway, whether it was a shower of sling stones, a volley of arrows or musket balls...or a burst from a machine gun...
And yes, its true...you don't control territory until you stand a scared eighteen year old boy with a rifle on it.
Amen
Romeo Whiskey Wow someone who actually knows what he is talking about. Yet you can't expect the common guy to understand machine gun theory.
I have read a whole book on that very topic. I may do a rant...
Tbh, the only side arm soldiers need to carry nowadays is a katana. Problem solved.
not really, if you have to go down a hallway it would be useless.
I would disagree. I can swing a bokken in a hallway only slightly wider than my body. This definitely restricts the direction of your swings, but it's perfectly possible. Furthermore you can stab just fine in a hallway.
another weaboo
I cant stop watching your videos Lindybeige
Of course, if you really wanted to make infantry end their foe's rightly, you would give them Spandau's that fire Kantanas and unscrewed pommels.
They will always be needed
Nicely put. Many people don't understand the tactical advantages of suppressive fire.
Also, FIRST!
Very insightful. A justification even if not a vindication; a rhetoric which is seldom heard.
That is a good point. Other factors may be that its pretty hard to fight inside a building with say, a mortar, and you cant drive into a house with a tank without causing significant damage (to both the building and possibly the tank) , Better to send in some infantrymen with smallarms.
Correct. Infantry is still the backbone. However, the usage of heavy ordinance allows for drastic reduction in casualties.
another important thin is that the in modern wargrounds, such as Afganistan, there are alot of strict rules about firing into the air or onto the ground as warning shots before you engage a potential threat such as a car speeding towards a checkpont
True, and some were used in the ACW, but the Germans were the ones who wasted vast resources on them. The British had a natural use for them: shelling France.
good point you can not sweep and clear with a tank and it is also true that suppressive fire is an effective tactic while artillery causes the most casualties in combat small arms are important
there were studies done at the end of WW2 and Vietnam which found that very few solders actually aimed their rifles during battle. The main objective seemed to be keep the other guys head down so they could not aim either.
I suspect the point was about whether curving them serves a useful purpose. I think you covered that point in a video about scimitars.
A hypothetical walker tank has the same problem in a city as a tracked-tank, cluttered environment a sapper can easily deliver ordinance on the big constrained target.
PS: the effort and resources that go into making a walking tank work AT ALL go so much further with more advanced tracked or wheeled drives be very very good. Legs just don't scale well.
Trying to make a tank walk is like trying to add tank-tracks to a cheetah.
Excellent video, sir. It's very refreshing to hear somebody that has a grasp of modern military actions. As a mortar infantryman myself, I would not go into the field without a rifle myself. When the enemy flanks my position and closes in am I expected to deter them with harsh language?
You must also control for other factors like "means". The reality is it's often a fleeting irrational compulsion. It's found that putting a fence on one bridge doesn't lead to an increase in suicides on other bridges, overall suicide rate goes down.
The evidence points to people having fleeting suicidal tendencies (not ALL persistent and irresistible) will only act on them if it's just a small step or pull of a trigger... and soldiers are around guns a lot.
It's VERY complicated.
Absolutely. I should have said "relatively high". The rates among all service personnel are not particularly high, but when you look at the actual combat soldiers within the military, then section them out and look at the percentage, it comes out relatively high.
There's actually an interesting point to be made that I'm surprised you didn't mention. If the role of the individual bullet isn't necessarily to kill someone, but to get your enemy to not be where they want to be...then maybe the role of the infantry weapon hasn't changed all that much.
The objective of warfare has never really been to kill your enemy; but to get them to break and retreat under threat of death.
GOT IT !! You remind me of a cross between Richard.E.Grant and that 'bloke' that plays the 'Cook' in King Kong. Phew , now, NOW , I can finally get some sleep...
I enjoy your vids very much. Thanks . TOL
I might also add that with the advent of artillery, light explosives, and now IEDs, a large percentage of casualties sustained include lost limbs. Regardless of the victims' eventual fate, losing a limb is by no means quick, nor painless.
similar point, in the Vietnam war. it was considered useless for US fighter planes (f-4 phantom in particular) to have guns since missiles were better weapons. in the course of the conflict, they found that to be a huge handicap when dogfighting. thus gun pods were retrofitted to the planes.
Outstanding video/perspective. Completely agree.
the first half of your video is a philosphy they explore in "Starship Troopers" (the book) when they talk about the navy (star fleet) wanting to do away with the infantry and glass planets instead while the infantry see the job of the military as not killing the enemy but enforcing their gov polices on them which infantry will always ve used for
That pro infantry argument is pretty vain in the case of Starship Troopers. They never enforce any policies other than total annihilation.
that is true but u have to remember that the fantastical elements of the book for example the aliens are just used as stand ins for the philosophy of the book which was written just of the back of ww2 it explores the aspect that you carnt just bomb people into submission and accepting ur views unfortunately something that the US have not learned in the middle east
its a commentary on human warfare because we haven't been at war with a alien race
It's important to remember in the book that there were aliens that Earth had managed to come to terms with. It was just with the bugs that compromise was impossible. This was, I'm sure, intended to show that Earth was not just a bunch of psycho-fascists as the film tried to imply.
He meant rifles and submachineguns too. The things that ordinary soldiers all carry.
This is usually the SAW's function (Squad automatic weapon). And when he opens up it is to suppress the movement of the enemy and he becomes a giant "shoot me sign". Assault rifles while full auto capable are normally going to be used in that mode to cover advanding friendlies by laying down suppression on an entrenched position, and usually in short bursts. If you have ever played a sport like paintball ..you should be familiar with the terror "tons" of fire impacting on your position can bring
In general, it was to enable more slicing power in a lighter blade. That's a bit of an over-simplification, but it gets the point of the matter across.
An excellent point which is surprisingly often missed. War is ultimately about forcing compliance, actually killing people is, from a strategic perspective, pretty much incidental.
Another thing to consider is that, lately, the types of wars fought (from an American perspective at least) aren't really wars of attrition. They're very much based more around maneuvering and guerrilla tactics. In these kinds of wars, small arms are going to be used more in small skirmishes than in major operations that use heavier weaponry.
"Fire and maneuver" doctrine. Any time a squad of infantrymen is firing, another squad is maneuvering off to one side (or one on each side). Sometimes there will be tens of thousands of rounds fired for every bullet that actually kills one of the enemy, because it's hard to get to a good position to kill them from if you can't keep their heads down. In trench warfare, artillery killed more people than machine guns; but it was the machine guns that kept them pinned down for shelling.
it depends on the armor the enemy is wearing. In the 15th 16th centuries, most weapons were used to thrust (rapier, pikes) because of the plate armors. And in the 18th 19th century, most melee weapons were sabres (except bayonets, and other polearms maybe) because soldier wore no armor.
Not sure what you mean by 'other video'. If you click on my channel's name, it will take you to my channel's page, and from there you can see all of my uploads.
The percentage of soldiers firing to hit a given target is low, Often soldiers merely fire in the general direction, to keep the enemy down and to keep them back. Smaller rounds are used to cause wounding and pain, If one person gets hurt that tends to take one or two others out of the fight as they carry the wounded individual away. The pain factor causes a hurt person to be more ready to give up the fight and/or flee. High rate of fire is a numbers multiplier. Small arms are still important.
"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." - Sun Tzu
I say if you can at least avoid needless bloodshed then your doing something right.
I don't understand anything you're saying, but you're still the coolest guy on UA-cam.
I have heard of the one million rounds per killed enemy in vietnam anecdote which is likely where he heard it from as well.
What point would you like me to make? That they are not straight?
This coincides with the fact that in cases where a firearm stops a crime statistics from the U.S. show that it only has to be fired about %8 of the time. People understand that bullets not only hurt but are deadly! No one wants to be shot so if you have a gun it is much easier to get someone to do what you want them, too.
Or for a more historical point of view you have the example of the Winter War in which the Finns used Ewok tactics(incendiaries, logs, jamming crowbars into them to damage internal mechanisms, getting on top of them and chucking molotovs into them once they'd been pried into) to, and with great effect, halt Russian tank advances. Even modern 'heavy arms' such as tanks are very vulnerable to incendiaries and are in general a very bad idea for situations such as urban combat.
The will always be a need for direct fire small arms. The supressive fire that "dont hit anything" is the sword of the infantry, the shield of your armor and the biggest killer outside artillery and aircraft. Infantry with small arms is the *only* force that can take and hold objectives.
Where I come from small arms refer not to guns but specifically hand guns or pistols and the like. Rifles will probably never go away, especially since they have basically continued to get better instead of run out of existence. Small arms are very important, though. They are also called sidearms, and kind of play the role of what the arming sword used to do. I've had friends make it home because, when their rifle jammed, they could pull out their handgun and continue to defend. Small arms should not go out when they are relied on as the second line of defense for the body.
Around base, and considering that insider betrayal is a leading cause of troop deaths now that IEDs are being dealt with more efficiently, it makes a lot of sense to arm the soldiers with handguns when around the FOBs and even places like Camp Bastion.
Good to see that's exactly what's happening.
Same kinda thing in the old days no matter how good bows an cavalry are both having strong periods in history you still need infantry to hold or take ground. I'm sure a lot of people over estimate how many arrows killed people to but that doesn't make them useless.
I am really late on the ball here (five years or so) but small arms as in assault rifles are considered to be for selfdefence to a lot of units in a lot of nations. You kill the enemy with machineguns, recoilless rifles and automatic grenadelaunchers and so on.