Originally posted by epicenter00:
(A small rant)
There's no reason to think every society is going to follow this model of weapons development, even other human ones. In fact, one can make an arguement that a Vilani-descended technological system would never actually move to assault rifles.
The modern assault rifle's existence is essentially justified by "studies" many of which were on WW2: Like most firefights occured at ranges vastly shorter than ranges of the rifles being used at time, rifle cartridges of the time were overkill against humans, carrying smaller, lighter bullets would allow a soldier to carry more ammunition in his load, and so on.
We're currently at the tail-end of an "sub-caliber" craze that's gone on since like the 1950s. Most armies are shooting what are essentially overpowered .22 rifles at each other. My personal opinion is that military rifles will return to firing larger and heavier bullets in the upcoming decades as this mania wears off.
The primary study you are referring to was published by Johns-Hopkins University by Norman Hitchman under the title
Operational requirements for an infantry hand weapon. This was an outgrowth of the ALCLAD body armor study and involved over a million casualty reports collected from both world wars and the Korean conflict. It is the only scientific statistical study of how wounds are accruded of this size ever done. interestingly, the concusions it produced confirmed the conscusions reached by the British in WWII and the Germans after WWI.
Studies of later wars, including Vietnam, the Arab Isaeli wars and even reports from Iraq continue to confirm the validity of the Hitchman study, even though it is in direct contradition with deeply held pet theories of the shooting community.
The fact of the matter is that 90% of all smallarms fire occurs at less than 300 meters, 70% occurs at 100meters or less and that small arms fire effectiveness is virtually zero at 500 meters.
Unfortuantely, the people who downplay the Hitchman report usually know nothing about it. They don't like it because it conflitcs with their notions about accurate long range rifle fire. The ACR studies of the 1980s showed that Hitchman was dead on - much to the dismay of advocates of precision rifle fire.
The one element that will have a profound impaact on future rifles is the developement of new body armor. The currently issued Interceptor armor is capaable of defeating al currently issued small arms ammunition - including the old battle rifle catridges like .30-06 and .308
even using armor piercing ammunition.
Here are some relavant quotes about the Hitchman study that I've posted before"
The assumption of long range performance is based on what I call the "Rifle Range Mentality". The fact of the matter is that studies have consistently shown that the infantryman is not able to engage target over about 300 meters, regardless of how accurate the weapons is (note that this is infantry combat, as opposed to sniping).
The whole rationale of the assault rifle is built around this fact. The reality is that most rifle fire occurs at 100 meters or less. I've posted more detailed explanations of this on this list before. Those conclusions (and other more interesting ones) are drawn from Hitchman's "Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon". Hitchman based his analysis on the ALCLAD study.
During the Korean war, as study on the effectiveness of body armor was commissioned and was later known as ALCLAD (sorry, I don't know what that stands for). On of the factors that became apparent during ALCLAD was that there had never been a detailed analysis of how hits are incurred in combat. Careful analysis was made of all casualty reports from WWII and Korea (data from Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli conflicts was later added and proved the validity of the model.
Hitchman and the ORO made use of this data for their report . Many of their conclusions were controversial, but to date no one has been able to dispute them scientifically. Here are some of the relevant quotes. As the 'Fireside Theater' said, everything you know is wrong.
Quoting hitchman (and with my own comments):
"Rifle fire and its effects were deficient in some important military respects...in combat, hits from bullets are incurred by the body at random:..the same as for fragment missiles..which are not 'aimed'...Exposure was the chief factor...aimed or directed fire does not influence the manner in which hits are sustained...[Despite] evidence of prodigious rifle ammunition expenditure per hit,..the comparison of hits from bullets with those of fragments shows that the rifle bullet is not actually better directed towards vulnerable parts of the body"
If time and degree of exposure was the chief factor in whether a hit was obtained, what was the point of long range shooting? Further, analysis of actual combat in showed that 90% of all rifle fire occured at 300 yards or less and that 70% occurs at 100 yards or less. Interveneing terrain, camouflage and an inability to adequately identify targets were cited. Indeed, the effectiveness of rifle fire drops rapidly to zero at ranges greater than 300 yards.
Hitchman continues:
"It is interesting..that at all common ranges weapons errors are without significance in the man-weapon system...the dispersion of the weapon could be more than double without materially affecting the probability of hitting the target...weapons-design standards which seek perfection by making the rifle more accurate (approach zero dispersion)..are not supported by this analysis as genuine military requirements. Errors in aiming have been found to be the greatest single factor contributing to the lack of effectiveness of the man-rifle system...[in combat] men who are graded..as expert riflemen do not perform satisfactorily at common battle ranges."
"Either a simultaneous [salvo], or a high cyclic rate burst, with the number of rounds per burst automatically set rather than be dependant on the trigger release. In the (single barrel burst) design, controlled nutation [nutate: to nod or droop] of the rifle muzzle would provide the desired shot dispersion or pattern; in the..(salvo), the scatter would be obtained and controlled by multiple barrels, a mother-daughter type of projectile, or projection of missiles in the manner of a shotgun."
While the original Hitchman report is virtually impossible to obtain, significant portions have been reproduced in other scholarly work on the subject. Ezell covered this in detail in
The Great Rifle Controversy. Other recommended works covering the material are
SPIW: the deadliest weapon that never was and
The Black Rifle among others.
Anecdotes trump facts, especially among firearms enthusiasts.
