Tervell [he/him]
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·24 days agoTwo triggers and ... some lever on the back of the grip
I think the two triggers are for different fire modes - one for semi, one for full-auto. There's a few other guns that have that kind of setup, like the Beretta 38, but proper fire selectors eventually took over completely.
And the thing on the back of the grip is a grip safety - the idea is that you have to have gripped the gun properly in order to shoot it, if say something catches on the trigger without you having pushed that bit inside of the grip, it won't fire. This is a bit more common, the M1911 and the Uzi are two famous guns to have that mechanism (although theirs aren't so ridiculously big), but I think it's also fallen out of favor these days, outside of American boomers who think the 1911 is the end-all of pistol design.
I think it's just a small flush-fitting magazine on this specific example, but it should be both detachable and loadable with stripper clips (as was the case for most early self-loading rifles). There's other variants with a bigger one:
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TBK-022PM
Have you seen the animation someone made of its operation? You might be familiar with it already, I just remembered it when you mentioned that gun (and it's just really cool anyway).
I guess in your case it'd be that combined with the P90 magazine idea. Something to note about those top magazines - typical rifle cartridges have a taper, which requires a curve in the magazine to accommodate - the P90 achieves its straight magazine by being chambered in the rare example of a modern straight-walled cartridge. So if you want to reuse an existing cartridge like 5.56, you'd have a magazine on the top of the gun that curves slightly to one side, which might look a bit weird (although there wouldn't be necessarily anything wrong with it it mechanically), especially when you get to higher capacities (since that's one of the points of having it be on the top):
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(this is also a quad-stack, but it's just to illustrate the greater curve of a high-capacity 5.56 mag, imagine something like that mag but lying flat on the top of the gun)
Forward ejector for spent rounds (but like... yet another way of doing it)
the Russian A-91/ADS rifle has an interesting simpler take on forward ejection - rather than having a tube above the barrel running most of the gun's length, you instead have a much shorter tube right above and in front front of the chamber, which ejects forward diagonally
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The US Army seems to want its funny high powered 277 Fury with the stainless case base (is that really the best way of doing things).
I think there's a lot of issues with that approach - compared to the current intermediate cartridges it's supposed to replace, the round is more expensive, weighs more, produces more recoil, causes more barrel wear (and apparently troops are going to train with a less-powerful loading of the round in order to prolong barrel life, which is rather silly - they'll get used to a softer-shooting round, and be handed one that kicks significantly more when they go into combat).
I think the reason for its adoption (beyond just MIC grifting) has to do with a fundamental difference in the doctrinal view of what the individual soldier is supposed to do (although note that I'm hardly an expert, these are just some musings I've had while wandering around the house) - namely that, in the American view, the rifleman should have his combat effectiveness absolutely maximized, thus he needs the biggest bestest round fired from the fanciest rifle with an even fancier optic that's going to do a bunch of the aiming for you (and of course adds even more to the cost).
The Soviet approach (which has since been inherited by the Russian military, and to some extent the PLA), on the other hand, accepts the compromise that the rifleman is going to be more limited in terms of range and firepower, and instead supplements him by increasing the proportion of heavier assets at the higher levels or organization. Yeah, your average guy with an AK can't shoot that far and can't penetrate the fanciest armor - and that's fine, since he's not supposed to. You have designated marksman's rifles (originally one per platoon, but as time went on their ratio increased, and these days some militaries are going into having one per squad), machine guns, rocket launchers, automatic grenade launchers that are light enough to actually be picked up and moved around the battlefield (contrast that to the Western Mk 19's 35 kilograms, over twice as heavy, and mostly relegated to being mounted on vehicles), even lighter magazine-fed grenade launchers in China's case, and so on.
This seems like a much more sensible (and economical approach) to me. The American (and more broadly Western) approach is also reflected in things beyond infantry equipment - see the F35, which is supposed to do absolutely everything in a single platform (and predictably, doesn't seem to be managing it that well), or Western tank design philosophy compared to the Soviet one. It's almost like the side that actually did the hardest fighting in WW2 learned some lessons, while the West, for whatever reason, decided to pick up the doctrine and thinking of the Nazis... who lost the war (although I guess it's really just a reflection of material conditions - the side with the smaller manpower reserve and decaying industrial base is going to inevitably start looking for wunderwaffe tricks to increase the effectiveness of it's smaller military - the "there might be less of us, but each one of us is worth 10 of their guys!" style of thinking)
Is this like a long Uzi
sort of, it's similar in that it also uses a telescoping bolt, but it predates the Uzi by a few years (the Czechoslovaks were in fact the first to start large-scale manufacturing of submachine guns with telescoping bolts, with the idea coming from a few prototype British submachine guns made towards the end of WW2, although the Uzi is what popularized the concept globally)
I think the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8YVh0O1aFA, he linked the channel but not the specific video. There does seem to be some actual testing there
these maces were ceremonial because he assumed they'd make poor weapons
I think the point was that they're poor weapons against plate armor. Fortunately for mace-lovers, most people on the battlefield aren't fancylad aristocrats who can afford a full suit of quality plate so they can get bonked just fine (especially outside of late-medieval Europe, which he brings attention to toward the end - maces were extensively used in other parts of the world, and even for Europe he points out that a lot of the surviving historical maces and artistic depictions from them are actually from the 16th century, at which point armor coverage of the average soldier has decreased somewhat).
It's kind of a clickbaity title, but I guess "flanged maces in the very specific and limited period of 14th-16th century Western & Central Europe" doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely
nah, I don't own any guns, I just have a lot of pictures
The game's OST is one of the few CDs that I haven't lost & it slaps
Yeah, it's really shocking how amazing of an OST was composed for a free and really niche mod. Ed Harrison really nailed it with that one, even a lot of the stuff he threw away or didn't finish is great
tbf, for the MP40 at least, Yugoslavia actually used it pretty extensively and even made a "what if an MP 40 was a PPS-43" gun
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the FAL doesn't really have something like that going for it though, I guess some communist guerillas probably ended up using them every now and again in Africa and Central America, and there were a few Cuban ones, but I think those were inherited from the Batista regime
It probably wouldn't be that bad on a longer rifle, but on a carbine or SMG having like a third of the gun's length be a knife can't feel all that good. And with an SMG in particular, actually gripping it in proper bayonet technique would be a lot more awkward - your supporting hand would have to wrap around a much thicker part of the gun, and you wouldn't be able to grip as far forward.
yes, it's their DMR (although it seems like it might also be intended to be used as a light machine gun, sort of like the Soviet RPK, it's not entirely clear)
·2 months agoSoaring US munitions demand strains support for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan
The U.S. has transferred tens of thousands of its bombs and shells to Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But it hasn’t given Israel everything it wants. That’s because the U.S. military lacks the capacity to provide some of the weapons Israel requested, according to Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ... Put simply, the U.S. assesses the health of its own inventories before sending weapons abroad. At times, those stocks don’t have any margin — and in some cases, the U.S. is even dipping below minimum inventory requirements, according to congressional staffers and former Pentagon officials.
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In addition to Israel, the Biden administration has sent an enormous quantity of materiel to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Meanwhile, the U.S. is gearing up to rush an influx of arms to Taiwan in hopes of deterring a possible Chinese attack on the island, which Beijing considers a rogue province. The U.S. Defense Department already struggled to maintain robust munitions levels in the decades before the recent wars in the Middle East and Europe. But the shipment of arms to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan has placed intense pressure on the Pentagon’s inventory, forcing it to make challenging risk management assessments as it tries to move the defense industry from peacetime production to a wartime footing.
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The shortages are in part symptoms of a chronic issue, said a senior defense official, granted anonymity to discuss the closely held process. The Pentagon has long used munitions as a “bill payer,” neglecting their purchase in favor of platforms like ships or planes in the annual budgets, the official added. Over time, the low orders led to some companies exiting the market, which in turn reduces the number of businesses that will build those munitions and the speed at which they come off the line.
see, this is why you're supposed to have a state-owned arms industry, since when you leave things to the whims of the free market, obviously a ton of companies are going to go out of business during peacetime, like what do you expect to happen
... the U.S. could use Javelin anti-tank missiles or Tomahawk cruise missiles against at least four major competitors: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But the military doesn’t necessarily expect to fight all four adversaries at once and may calculate requirements based on fighting two enemies at a time.
well damn, I sure hope we don't end up facing a couple crises at once! now, that'd be a real bad situation for us
... The U.S. often serves as a “backstop” for European allies, Clark noted, pointing to NATO’s heavy reliance on American munitions in its 2011 Libya campaign. “It’s not so much, are we going to have enough weapons to sustain our own capacity for a ground war, because we probably do,” Clark said. “It’s, do we have enough to sustain our own capacity to fight and also support our European allies who may need augmentation because clearly they don’t maintain the magazines to sustain themselves.” Others interviewed about the munitions requirements process also noted it lags behind real-world events and is closely tied to the Pentagon’s war plans, which usually project short conflicts instead of the reality of longer, protracted wars.
well, good thing protracted wars never happen!
But the U.S. could still quickly run through certain munitions even in a short conflict with a major adversary like China. A wargame conducted by the Center for a New American Security think tank and the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party last year found the U.S. would run out of long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week in a fight with China over Taiwan. Outgoing committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., subsequently told Defense News that America’s inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles stood at 250 last spring, noting a conflict with China would require at least 1,000.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the U.S. has also used weapons that could be relevant to an Indo-Pacific battle, like the Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawks, to respond to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes off Yemen’s coast. “Is it a sustainable, long-term strategy to use million-dollar munitions to shoot down drones and loitering munitions that are $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a piece?” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., asked Gen. Michael Kurilla, the U.S. Central Command leader overseeing forces in the Middle East, during a House hearing in March.
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The Pentagon hopes the foreign aid legislation will allow it to continue large-scale arms transfers to friendly countries. And as the department replenishes systems to those three partners, it hopes the additional munitions demand will pump resources into lagging munitions production lines. A significant chunk of that will go toward increasing domestic munitions capacity in the U.S. ... But even with the foreign aid legislation, expanding industrial base capacity is no simple task. ... Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress in October that some contractors have required employees to work additional shifts to keep up munitions production rates, highlighting labor shortages in the industrial base.
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A former senior Pentagon official who now works in the defense industry, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to talk to the press, told Defense News the Pentagon is generally willing to take more risks on munitions inventory levels than in other areas, expecting that Congress will quickly fund replenishment efforts. “The mentality in the Pentagon is if I do get in a fight, Congress is going to be real responsive to give me as much money as I need,” the former senior defense official said. “Right now, we’re having a problem replenishing artillery for a war in Europe that we’re not even in.”
·2 months ago
impressive, very nice... let's see the Hohenstaufens' HREShow
the best kind of medieval border-gore is when the same guy owns territories that aren't contiguous, just everything being exclaves within exclaves on top of other exclaves
tbf, with Giedi Prime they're at least doing it deliberately because of some lore mumbo-jumbo about how that planet's sun works
I mean, it still hurts my eyes to look at, but there was some vision involved. The desaturation elsewhere is a lot more glaring
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And interior shots in particular piss me off, it's not just the lack of color, it's the lack of... anything. It's like people in Denis' Dune universe have just recently invented the concept of furniture, and haven't gotten around to figuring out interior decoration yet
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like, I sort of get what's he going for, evoking some sort of coldness and desolation with the environments, I just think it looks like shit (and also feel like the setting with space feudalism and millennia-old feuds between noble families ought to not look like this, that's why I love the space landsknechts from the miniseries so much, it's a silly idea but for me it's absolutely perfect to have that as the uniform of the emperor's personal army)
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the virgin generic sci-fi armor vs the gigachad space landsknecht
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the miniseries wins just by virtue of having actual color, I'm so fucking tired of the desaturated color grading trend
an uneasy feeling but nothing specific to complain about
vibes-based performance evaluation
holy shit they made Metal Gear Solid VR training but for being a retail employee
THEY EVEN HAVE AN AI RECREATION OF THEIR FOUNDER, they're just actually doing MGS2
Egh, this comparison seems a bit iffy...
I sort of agree, but that's why I added the bit afterwards about desperate measures - Gazans are in exactly such a situation, fighting a foe that openly declares its intention to exterminate them. In such circumstances, a lot of things are justifiable that otherwise wouldn't be. The various rules of war can be useful in "normal" conflicts where a negotiated settlement can be reached, and following those rules can limit escalation and thus minimize damage to all parties involved, but if one side seeks to completely slaughter the other, that framework kind of falls apart - things have already escalated to one of the highest levels possible.
Poland was, until the Nazi invasion, not fighting a genocidal foe, and in fact had been the aggressor in their war against the Soviets, had participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia, and had some pretty wild expansionist ideas. So their case is rather different.
"the law requires every graduate to be an officer, so killing officers is actually killing the intelligentsia"
Um, maybe if you don't want that to happen, just... don't have that law? This is like conscripting child soldiers and then complaining that your enemy is murdering children. Like, if you're actually fighting a truly desperate conflict against a genocidal foe, like the Soviets against the Nazis, some desperate measures can be justified, but this is interwar Poland we're talking about here.
We've fully entered the "killing soldiers is actually genocide" phase of rhetoric (except when Western countries actually kill civilians, that's just regrettable but unavoidable collateral damage).
I don't think I have that one, only one with a bipod:
although I assume it would have probably used a regular AK-style bayonet