Thursday, November 15, 2007

When in doubt, make stuff up...

8. "Spray-firing" from the hip, a widely recognized technique for the use of assault weapons in certain combat situations,
"Widely recognized"? Really? On what planet?

I can see that somebody got their tactical training from watching Starship Troopers.

In the real world we like our bullets to hit the stuff we're aiming at so that it stops trying to kill us, and therefore we use those funny metal widgets atop the gun called "sights".

(H/T to NRAhab)

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, in fairness, visit or see the photo's of any third world battlefield and the "soldiers" ( and I use the word for a reason in "" ) ARE often spraying the putative target zone from the hip.

With predictably little effect on actual combatants, but some danger for innocent bystanders a long distance "down range".

This is why trained soldiers go through those wankers like a red hot knife through butter, with a lot less ammo and noise.

Anonymous said...

I will forever adore J. Michael Straczynski for including a scene in Babylon 5 in which three idiots attempt an assassination by spray-firing the futuristic equivalent of automatic rifles from the hip, and their target reacts by taking cover and immediately taking all three of them out with carefully aimed single shots from his sidearm.

Brought a tear to my eye, that did.

Anonymous said...

anon, get a name! You're worth coming back to.

There is nothing in this life so pitiable and depraved as a man in the depths of trying to teach himself hip-firing. At an indoor range.

theirritablearchitect said...

The smug nature of their bullet points (pun, hahahaha!) over at the VPC page, and the accompanying sanctimonious finger wagging that I'm imagining them doing while making out their stupid effing list, makes me want to punch Paul Helmke in the face.

Anonymous said...

Well, to be fair it is a wildly recognized technique. One used by idiots and fools.

Those of us who recognize it stay the hell away from them. Especially on an indoor range.

AE

Anonymous said...

What's a barrel shroud anyway?

From the pictures on the VPC's website, it looks like a heat shield (or heat sink). But heat sinks become very hot, so a person can't possibly touch one.

Anonymous said...

Third world "soldiers", hah!

In one of the first letters he sent to me during the Iraq invasion, my son said "Dad, don't worry, the Iraqis don't aim. They just stick out their rifle and spray in our general direction and then run away. We take cover and take them down with accurate return fire."

He gets back from another tour in Iraq in about 3 more weeks. Just in time for Xmas. Can't wait!!

Tokarev

Anonymous said...

Toke, have you seen the YouTubes of "activist" shooters in Somalia? It would be comedy gold, were there not intended targets on the other end; commenters got called racist, and the charge is hard to ignore.

I feel for you. You've got to be going through the absolute shit just now. I mean, who knows, he might get caught in road-rage traffic on the way in from the airport...

I'm not taking a stand (here and now) about this-that-or-any-other war, but waiting for a soldier. Soldier. Has to be the hardest thing for any parent or spouse to do.

Hold fast. Man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

Words Twice said...

"...the Iraqis don't aim. They just stick out their rifle and spray in our general direction..."

One of my more frightening experiences over there was at an impromptu range that we had set up to confirm our zeros and do a little practice. The Iraqi National Guard who were manning a checkpoint along with US forces heard our shooting and came over to see what we were up to. They wanted to join in and we agreed. They then proceeded with the most egregious string of safety violations and utter buffoonery I have seen in a long time. I was lucky that I didn’t get shot.

In addition, they hit almost nothing that they were aiming at. We then demonstrated for them what proper marksmanship fundamentals and semi-auto fire could accomplish. I personally didn’t care if they learned anything, since my gut feeling on training those guys is that I would eventually have to fight them again anyway.

Anonymous said...

"When in doubt, make stuff up..."

Worked fine in college.

"Well, in fairness, visit or see the photo's of any third world battlefield and the "soldiers" ( and I use the word for a reason in "" ) ARE often spraying the putative target zone from the hip."

I see you're familiar with General Buck Naked and his Liberian All-Stars. Rumor has it he's now a preacher.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

I spray from the hip all the time. It's a perfectly sound technique. Just pull that trigger and inundate the target. I find it to be a safe and effective way to rinse the soap off my car after washing down with lather and a sponge.

Anonymous said...

I can actually think of one instance where "firing from the hip" would be useful, although never in full auto bursts, and that's when you have a line approaching an entrenched position(one without heavy machine guns) in which case continuous fire from the hip would be a good way of keeping your opponents heads down. But that requires enough soldiers to literally saturate the area with fire. It also requires less than disciplined enemies. Against a well-prepared opponent, such a tactic would be well nigh useless.

Anonymous said...

Expecting VPC to provide accurate appraisals of firearms is like expecting a barber to give you an accurate appraisal of whether you need a haircut or not.

gvi

Abby said...

That whole "aiming" thing is really a revelation in the developing world.

I never could figure out what the Iraqi Army was doing, until I realized that "making noise" was an accomplishment in their military.

Anonymous said...

"Civilian assult rifles are more dangerous than military assult rifles"
No linear logic with these folks.
What a bunch of dips**ts.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me I remember a certain military a while back adopting one of JMB's better, but heavier, efforts with an eye to using it for "walking fire." Which turned out so well the next time it was used against the same tribe it was equipped with a bipod, the sling was for carrying, not shooting, while in motion, and it turned out to be a pretty damn good squad weapon, even at 19 pounds.

SpeakerTweaker said...

I went to check this out, as I felt compelled to see what made up the rest of the list. Boy, some folks will believe anything.

What I found more poignant that this list, was the fact that the website had no "contact us" link. I guess they got tired of emails debunking the website's "information."

Interesting.



tweaker

red said...

"7. The most significant assault weapon functional design features are: (1) ability to accept a high-capacity ammunition magazine, (2) a rear pistol or thumb-hole grip, and, (3) a forward grip or barrel shroud."

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't thumb-hole grips only appear on "assault weapons" after the ban?

Anonymous said...

"When in doubt, just make stuff up." Works like a charm, unless, as Officer Glenn Todd Greene found out, somebody not only knows you are BSing, but also has the time and resources to prove it. And even then, the MSM is not going to play up a story that doesn't fit the nanny-state template.

karrde said...

re: Barrel Shroud as Heat Sink.

If a barrel shroud were a heat sink, it would have all sorts of fins sticking out. A heat sink (designed to radiate heat away rapidly and efficiently) must have a large surface area.

If you ever crack open the innards of a computer, you will probably see a large block of metal spike-shaped things sitting atop a square section of the main board. That large block of metal is a heat sink. (some good examples here).

I suspect that the barrel shroud is better described as insulation.

Anonymous said...

If a barrel shroud is insulation, won't that just make the gun barrel hotter? I assumed the "shrouds" operated like the "cooling flanges" (or whatever the hell those are called) on Thompson submachine gun barrels.

Either way, the gun banners are still idiots. The Type 68 is an assault rifle, but it lacks a projecting pistol grip.