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| Home Front: Tech |
| MOUT Weapons |
| 2005-06-25 |
| MOUT - Military Operations in Urban Territory. The linked article includes a "wish list" from a US Marines machine gunner, Fallujah veteran, of what he would have liked to have had, and not had, in that environment. He mentioned armored piercing rounds, for use against moving car bombs, and a more powerful hand grenade. This raised in my mind the long-held and often asked question: what does a modern infantry squad need as weaponry? And this is a great thought problem. Not just from a wish list point of view, but a "Yeah, and what if *you* had to carry the damn thing?" point of view. One consensus item I have long heard of is the light cannon. Essentially a small recoilless rifle. A tube with a front and rear grip, with trigger mechanism. The back section breaks open to insert a round, somewhere in the order of 30mm, then snaps closed. Unlike the LAW, it is re-useable. It should fire HE, AP, and special purpose rounds. A man should be able to carry the tube on a sling and several rounds in addition to his rifle. Another item is the "peek shield", a transparent Japanese-fan-like device that is thin and light, but can deflect a 7.62 round and some fragment. It clips on the side of a rifle, then 'fans' its clear panels around the rifle, guarding the face and head of the rifleman much like protector on an epee protects the hand of the fencer. It can also be used like a fan, for peeking around corners or over ledges. More than anything else, it gives a little extra confidence, thus significantly improving firing accuracy. A shield is not such a bad idea in a MOUT environment, and there are other types of shields that could also enter service as general purpose devices. Shields can be mounted on armored vehicles, not just to protect the crewmen, but temporarily affixed to afford some protection to their infantry escort. Grenades need a major technological redesign. The two major types are concussion grenades in the advance, and fragmentary grenades in the retreat. This concept has been unchanged since before WWI. It boggles the mind to think of the grenadier as a speciality still worth having, but the grenade is a weapon that "shoots around corners" and carries a lot of punch in a small package. A small team of grenadiers could, with advanced grenades, do far more and faster than riflemen alone. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |