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The Crusader wrote:Just sayin. the Challenger 2 has the better gun. Also the west makes THE worst assault rifles ever. I'd stake my life On an AK-47 much more readily than the M-16. Namely because the AK-47 is "Squaddie proof". For those of you less aquainted with british slang I'll explain with a joke:

3 men are captured by the enemy. They're a magician, a mathematician and a squaddie (soldier). They're sent to a POW camp where the Camp commander says " Here are 3 solid steel balls. You have 24 hours to do something amazing with them. If you can you may go free. The 3 men are placed in seperate empty rooms. 24 hours later the commander goes to the magician who makes one ball levitate, one ball disappear and the last one expand. commander says "thats amazing, you're free to go." Commander then goes to the mathematician whom has been calculating for the 24 hours. The mathematician places 1 ball in the exact center of the room, throws 1 ball and rolls the other and they ricochet around the room and come to rest in the center of the room. "thats amazing, you're free to go". finally gets to the squaddie who is just holding the one steel ball. Commander says "what happened to the other 2?". Squaddie replies " I dunno what happened but I lost one and broke the other."

Meaning that to make something Squaddie proof, one must make it as simple as humanly possible. otherwise the squaddie will break it. Which is what Eugene Stoner failed to forsee when he designed the M-16. Kalashnikov obeyed the K.I.S.S. rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

Well sorry to inform you Crusader but the Challenger 2 will be swaping its rifled 120mm for the new german 120mm L/55 smoothbore that exeeds the rifled one in all areas of performance, as per my latest Janes Armor update.

And the best Assault rifle in current usage is the G36 in all its itterations, utterly reliable, light and accurate, the 5.56mm is a meh round but it is the current west standard, my M4A1 did ok by me , but I had to put alot of aftermarket parts on it for my piece of mind.

Shorter Barrel=less pressure build up=less range because the round leavesthe barrel with less force thus reducing the STOPPING POWER. Enfield skirted around the problem by making the weapon a Bullpup. why Britain changed to the SA-80A1 in the first place instead of sticking with the L1A1 SLR is beyond me

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
And the best Assault rifle in current usage is the G36 in all its itterations, utterly reliable, light and accurate, the 5.56mm is a meh round but it is the current west standard, my M4A1 did ok by me , but I had to put alot of aftermarket parts on it for my piece of mind.

I love that German assault riffle to, I am building a Lasgun using model of that rifle.

And sorry to disappoint you Melissa, But I'd take the AK-47 over the SCAR any day of the week in a nanosecond


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And the G36 is possibly the coolest gun ever

It goes like this

G36
AK-47










M-16

M4

I haven't found M-16's to be hard to maintain but that may be because I've only handle the a4's. Sigh, though I do wish the US would switch over to something piston operated rather than gas operated, like the XM-8, that gun was smexy. But I'll be damned if I touch an AK, those clunkers are overrated. Though I will give them a thumbs up for being piston operated.

King Pariah wrote:But I'll be damned if I touch an AK, those clunkers are overrated.

Top millitary experts disagree with you. As do most world military's.

personally I was very happy the enemy shot at me with AKs ... and since I am sitting here typing this demonstrates the fact they did not hit me.

Reliable is nice..rugged is nice, and if I am even a 10 year old 3rd world combatant that can barely remember to clean my weapon and has little to no formal training the AK-47 would be my very first choice.

But seeing as I am not and I know how to maintain and service my issued weapons, then I will take a bit of finicky, for alot of accuracy, you have to hit something to kill it, and I own several weapons including a excellent east german AK-47 and a AK-74 and even a 7.62mm SCAR and I will tell you in a second I will take the SCAR anytime over the AKs.

Now my SVD is another matter, excellent weapon, highly accurate very nice weapon, possibly my favorite Russian/Warsaw pact system, but I will still take my 7.62mm SCAR over it.

And when if ever they release the G36 (other than its planet of the apes SL-8 version) I will scoop it up and play, but the 416 and 417 are basically G36 disguised as M4/M16 , sneaky germans....

Brother Coa wrote:

King Pariah wrote:But I'll be damned if I touch an AK, those clunkers are overrated.

Top millitary experts disagree with you. As do most world military's.

Hey, I'm going off of personal experience. But if you want a dirt cheap weapon which has it's durability making it a top rated weapon, I'm not stopping you. This is my opinion. Sorry that I find need of accuracy more important than durability and price. And frankly I don't give gak about what "top military experts" think or say. I find Kalashnikovs to be innaccurate durable clunkers. That is my opinion.

I'll jump on the G36 wagon too.

And I said the AK was ugly, not that it sucked.

The Ak-47 7.62mm round has a shorter range than 5.56 NATO rounds. This was proven on Future Weapons on the Discovery Channel a while back.

The M-16 is more accurate, and has more complex interal mechanics. The AK-47 was designed to be cheap and easy to use. The M-16/M4 is designed to be used by professional soldiers who know how to maintain their firearms.

The AK-47 also has bolt wiggle, which also decreases accuracy.

At equal distances, a 7.62x39 Russian round will do more damage than a 5.56mm NATO round. That's does't make anything better. 5.56 will still put someone down, there just won't be as big a hole in the person.

A longer barrel doesn't have to do with power. It has to do with accuracy and range. A shorter barrel will not prevent a bullet from reaching near-maximum velocity, but because it is not travellingas fast as it could be, the maximum range will be shorter. So many people (many of them play CoD or Battlefield, I'm not saying anyone here does, I'm just generalizing) don't realize that the aummunition is what give a firearm its power. It's like in Black Ops where making a revolver snub-nosed somehow increased its damage by 50%. WTF?

We also now have the ACR, which is also a fantastic weapon. There's also the HK 416, which you can freeze, sink in mud, cover in sand, and it will still operate. There's also the HK G11, which has outstanding accuracy and actually fires caselss ammunition (not sure if it is still in use, though). The HK G36 series of rifles are among the best series of weapons in the world.

There was a project weapon called the OICW (http://world.guns.ru/assault/usa/xm29-oicw-e.html) that was the current XM-25 plus the now-defunct XM-8 rifle in one weapon.

EDIT: almost forgot about the FN SCAR L and SCAR H weapons. L fires 5.56, H fires 7.62. Both versions are great weapons.

All the AK has going for it is its reliability and low cost. It is not an optimal weapons platform by any means.

AK is also over 60 years old. The time has come for it to be changed.
Or for us to make infantry energy based weapon at last.

Brother Coa wrote:AK is also over 60 years old. The time has come for it to be changed.
Or for us to make infantry energy based weapon at last.

G3 and FAL are almost as old and I would still take either over a AK.

Naw dont need energy...we need mini rail guns, now that would be fun. That and puke lasers for everyone, enemy cant shoot when puking .

Brother Coa wrote:AK is also over 60 years old. The time has come for it to be changed.
Or for us to make infantry energy based weapon at last.

Um it has changed, many times. AKM, AK-74 and many more times. AK-74 went down to a smaller round similar to the standard NATO 5.56 but uses pneumatic rounds "Staining rounds" (essentially filling any flesh cavity with air like a balloon causing massive internal damage) which are actually pretty bad ass, but not very effective against armor. The AN-94 being generally based on the same principle is the best. The ability to put two rounds in the exact same place will penetrate most any armor, however this ability made the weapon over complex and hard to service in the field. No the best idea for a conscripted army, so it's only used by special forces.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:we need mini rail guns, now that would be fun.

I could only imagine them as long range snipers, but main assault rifle....

What about Plasma Guns?

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:AK is also over 60 years old. The time has come for it to be changed.
Or for us to make infantry energy based weapon at last.

G3 and FAL are almost as old and I would still take either over a AK.

Naw dont need energy...we need mini rail guns, now that would be fun. That and puke lasers for everyone, enemy cant shoot when puking .

Mass Effect, anyone? Every single gun is a miniature rail gun. Pistol? Mini rail gun. Rifle? Larger mini-rail gun. There's also a heavy weapon that shoots black holes, another that shoots lightning, and another that shoots nukes. Then there's a particle weapon that's a sniper rifle with energy beams.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:we need mini rail guns, now that would be fun.

GD-10's for everybody! lol

Brother Coa wrote:AK is also over 60 years old. The time has come for it to be changed.
Or for us to make infantry energy based weapon at last.

It's been changed several times over.

I meant, to get from AK and it's variants to some other gun.
Like Americans from M1 Garand to M14 and finally M16.



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McNinja wrote:Mass Effect, anyone? Every single gun is a miniature rail gun. Pistol? Mini rail gun. Rifle? Larger mini-rail gun. There's also a heavy weapon that shoots black holes, another that shoots lightning, and another that shoots nukes. Then there's a particle weapon that's a sniper rifle with energy beams.

But not very powerful. Zaeed survived shot in the head wit that "miniature railgun" pistol.

I like trains...


actually would a train stop a marine?

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:I like trains...


actually would a train stop a marine?

If he failed his terrain test and got stuck on the tracks he would be squashed I sure.

Brother Coa wrote:I meant, to get from AK and it's variants to some other gun.
Like Americans from M1 Garand to M14 and finally M16.



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McNinja wrote:Mass Effect, anyone? Every single gun is a miniature rail gun. Pistol? Mini rail gun. Rifle? Larger mini-rail gun. There's also a heavy weapon that shoots black holes, another that shoots lightning, and another that shoots nukes. Then there's a particle weapon that's a sniper rifle with energy beams.

But not very powerful. Zaeed survived shot in the head wit that "miniature railgun" pistol.

Yeah, just because one badass Merc survived being shot in the face doesn't mean the pistols are weak, he just got extremely lucky. People in real life have survived getting shot in the head, does that mean pistols are useless?

As far as I understood it (and I am by no means experienced) these are the virtues of the AK-47:
- Cheap to mass produce
- Extremely reliable, replacement parts are readily available, more so than allot of other assault rifles.
- Fires a decent round and therefore packs a decent punch.

However

- Most other assault rifles are more accurate
- Some others fire a round with equal or greater stopping power than the AK.
- Allot of others have a greater effective range than the AK.

If you had a choice between an AK and a gun which is better in combat terms but difficult to maintain, you would choose according to your situation. If you had little knowledge how to service a rifle/you would be in a position where you couldn't service it effectively you would choose the AK. On all other occasions you would choose the other rifle.

Or in a position where most other rifles would be exceedingly difficult to mantain

If i remember correctly, the AK isnt widely military used anyways anymore, accept buy those who cant afford to mass manufacture anything else. The main reason its still used is because of how mass produced it was, and that there are so many that its the easiest to get ahold of.

The Crusader wrote:Or in a position where most other rifles would be exceedingly difficult to mantain

And in those situations ,the AK wouldn't be much better.

People seem to think that the kaloshnikov is like the lasgun and doesn't ever jam, but that is SO not true.

But it is a hell of a lot more robust than nearly any other weapon. I'm not saying it doesnt jam, It just jams a helluva lot less. The History/discovery channel buried it in sand, then put it in a puddle then ran over it in a Toyota Pick-up truck. AND IT STILL WORKED! I'd like to see an M4 do that

The Crusader wrote:I'd like to see an M4 do that

They're lucky, nothing more, that the AK47 didn't blow up when they used it. Pure, unadulterated luck.

Well, not exactly lucky, no. The AK series has always had a reputation for dependability in adverse conditions. These are rifles that, yes, can be submerged underwater, buried in mud, rained on, dropped, kicked, knocked about against rocks and trees, and still be expected to fire. If it had failed to operate, that would be more of an unlucky occurrence, rather than the rifle functioning as expected. If you did this with a '16, then you would be lucky if it fired. It's not expected to operate after all of that.

Of course, these aren't optimal firing conditions, but that's not unusual in combat. It's less accurate and has a shorter range than most standard assault rifles, yes... but most firefights don't happen at optimal range. Or even at long range. A couple hundred meters, at most, is the average, with current conflicts beginning to skew the average towards much closer-range affairs.

Most real soldiers would prefer to use something other than an AK-47 and do. Very few real professional soldiers use AK-47, they may use an AKM or 74 or one of the other better modern interpretations of the gun. The very first soviet ak-47 were very good actually, but they then found ways to make them cheaper the trade off being that they were not quite as accurate. This made little difference because they were not being supplied to REAL soldiesr so accuracy was not a real concern. The loose tolerances also made it very forgiving and a perfect weapon to hand to untrained 10 year olds.

It is a militia rifle not a true soldiers rifle.

You can do almost anything to them, the most that is usually required is to kick the bolt, if you can get it to cycle you are golden.

This reminds me of the 'best weapon in 40K' thread that showed up not long ago. Same thing basically - it's going to depend entirely on the sorts of criteria you're using to evaluate the weapon(s) by, and there is almost certainly a measure of personal preference and opinion tied ot that. It reminds me a bit of some of those 'Dragon Skin vs Interceptor' body armour debates I've seen around sometimes.