Current Armament

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Loki
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Current Armament

Post by Loki »

After discussing this with Linda, I will try focusing this thread on two questions. What do you think is the current best battle tank and battle rifle. Should you want to go into which weapons were best of different eras, that would be fine too. As for now, I'm going to just go with what I said in my other thread:

I'm going to have to just go with D and E because those are the only ones I really feel like answering.

Best Main Battle Tank: I think the M1-A2 Abrams is the best tank out there, provided that you can have all its support equipment available.

Best Main Battle RIfle: In my opinion the best Combat Rifle is the H&K 416. It is basically the M16 design, but has its gas tube system replaced by H&K's patented short stroke piston (found on the G36, yet another good rifle). It is the best part of two different weapons and gets my vote. However, its not actually in production, so I'm going to have to offer my rundown on the different weapons.
1) FN FAL: An all around good gun. Has had many other firearms based off of it (British L1-SLR, American SCAR system). I have a personal preference for weapons in 7.62 (.308 Winchester) as opposed to 5.56 (.223 Remington), I just think that the extra power provides for better ammo. A gun I have actually considered purchasing for myself.
2) AK-47: An all around robust rifle that has been reproduced under various names by many Soviet Bloc coutnries. While its accuracy is not near as good as many other rifles, it makes it up for this by being able to fire under much worse conditions than most other rifles.
3)CETME/G3: The classic assault rifle. Developed in Spain and then transfered to Germany. It is a good all around weapon, accurate, a decent caliber, and fairly cheap to make.

As long as we are able to keep this to the weapons of war, and not about the countries themselves, we can keep this an open topic. So behave.
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Post by Rork »

Battle tank: Challenger 2.

OK, so the abrams is hardcore, but it still uses a smoothbore barrel. The Challenger 2 has a rifled barrel, so is more accurate (on top of the usual computer gubbinz that both have).

But the MBT is starting to become out of date with modern warfare. They're starting to become the battleship of ground warfare - superseded by air power and more mobile vehicles.

Battle rifle: AK-47.

No doubt anything the americans build will be technically superior. It's durable and has a ridiculously simple firing mechanism. Accuracy, range and stopping power are only of any use on a "traditional" battlefield - Wars such as Vietnam and Iraq negate many of the benefits of the technologically superior weapons.

With so few wars fought on anything like equal terms (insurgencies, rebellions and so on) these days, the AK edges ahead of anything designed for a (conventional) form of warfare.
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Post by Loki »

I would have to agree with you that the AK certainly wins for the reasons you have stated, but I think that the way the 416 is designed it will solve many of the problems that the M16 has. For those who don't know, I will explain the way the M16 works. Along the top of the barrel, under the handguard, is a gas tube. When the rifle is fired, part of the gas from the bullet is redirected through the tube and flows back along the gun and pushes against the receiver which recocks the gun, allowing it to fire the next round. Guns like the AK and the G36 (which has the same operating system as the 416) uses pistons. There is only a small valve for the gas to go through before it pushes against a piston, which pushes against the receiver itself or the an operating rod which pushes against the receiver. Now what this all comes down to is this. The gas tube gets dirty and clogged which causes jams, especially in dirty environments (like a desert). With the piston system, there is much less area to get dirty, plus it is much easier to clean. Now the reason that I find the 416 better than the AK is this. It is almost all plastic and aluminum meaning it is quite light. In an age of almost all urban battles the smaller caliber makes no real difference as the range is usually within 200m. The smaller caliber also means that the ammo is lighter, allowing the soldier to carry more (perhaps armor). Being more accurate than the AK at most ranges, I think this weapon will be quite good, should it ever be adopted.

Rork, you do have a point that Air Superiority is a large factor in current wars, probably more so than tanks. We can discuss this further if you like. Personally I find the F-22 to be the best, on performance quality only. Obviously, they heavy price tag that prevents it from being used in large numbers. In combat tests, it was able to take down 8 or so F-15s in a dog fight situation. 8 on 1 against one of the better fighters of all time.
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Post by Rork »

Air power is a tricky one. There hasn't been many proper air battles since Korea and Vietnam, and the most modern european jet, the eurofighter, hasn't seen any action to really demonstrate how it ranks with the likes of the F-22.

(Both Iraq wars were a whitewash in terms of air warfare, the Falklands were too long ago and saw a ground attack aircraft fight combat jets. Most other contemporary conflicts didn't involve much air power, of course)

Both have all sorts of shiny toys, the best weapons and lots of computing power. Who would come out on top probably depends on what we don't know about these planes. No doubt both the americans and europeans keep a few secrets up their sleeves.
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Post by Darthken »

i like the steyer myself.
very light due to plastic constuction.
short barrelled, great for urban enviroment and equally as good in open terrain.

easy to clean as well.
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Post by Arquinsiel »

Remember that air combat these days is not about dogfighting, it's more about missile capacity, targeting systems, missile range, fighter range etc.
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Post by Loki »

Arquinsiel wrote:Remember that air combat these days is not about dogfighting, it's more about missile capacity, targeting systems, missile range, fighter range etc.

True, and the F-22 does have plenty of all those things, as well as fairly decent stealth capabilities. I was only pointing to the dog fighting capabilities as how it would do against another decent Air Force and how it compared to some of the current fighters.
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Post by Asikari »

Remember, the F-15 is a circa 1975 design with a few engine and other hardware and software upgrades along the way. Granted, they've taken no losses in air-to-air combat in the service of any air force in the world using them during that time, which is also a testament to all the Eagle pilots. As long as the F-22's opponents are restricted to 20 year old or more designs, I think we can count on a single Raptor successfully engaging 6 or more opponents.

More modern fighters will be more of a problem if the wrong people get their hands on them (or design and build them themselves). There have been concerns about how the F-22 would fair against the Su-35 (the Flanker variant with canards and thrust vectoring).

More on topic:

I stick with my choices from the other thread: M1-A2 and the AK-47 for many of the reasons already stated.
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