The SPAS-12: The Two-timing Italian Wonder Thunder, Part I

A fantastic May to our handsome followers! Continuing our blog restart campaign, the next two posts will be the first new collaborative work between Mr. Shane and myself. Here’s hoping these ones actually get finished!

As we were batting around ideas, a thought came up: public edumacation! No, not the taxpayer-funded variety – more like an elaborate (but arguable useless) public service announcement, though its length seems to put it a bit outside the realm of “announcement.” Either way, considering this blog’s emphasis on popular culture, media, and things that go bang (giggity), we thought it appropriate to shed some light on a cornerstone of action cinema and shooter games – namely, the ubiquitous SPAS-12 shotgun. This first post will go into the real-world weapon’s history and operation, while my esteemed co-conspirator will follow up with an analysis of the weapon’s depiction in film, television, and video games. So, let’s get started!

Before becoming a Hollywood icon, our subject began life in 1979. Envisioned, designed, and manufactured by Franchi S.p.A. (pronounced Frahn-kee) in Italy, it was a cutting-edge weapon for its time. It was chambered in 12 gauge, weighed in at 8.75lbs, sported a 22″ barrel and 41″ overall length with the stock extended, and had an 8+1 magazine tube capacity.

Beating the famous Benelli company by a few years, the SPAS-12 was intended for use as a semi-automatic combat shotgun for use primarily by law enforcement. Semi-automatic shotguns were nothing new by 1979 – the first one, John Browning’s Auto-5, was designed in 1898 and patented in 1900. What set the SPAS-12 apart from basically every other repeating shotgun then-made was its ability to function in both semi-automatic AND pump-action modes. As it stands, it can be safely assumed that every modern police force that utilizes 12 gauge shotguns also uses conventional buckshot ammunition that retains sufficient discharge pressure to reliably and consistently cycle the action of most any modern autoloading shotgun. With that in mind, semi-automatic was to be the assumed default method of operation by users.

That said, however, almost every police force in the world that utilizes 12 gauge shotguns also utilize less-lethal ammunition types for suspect compliance and riot control purposes. The only caveat to less-lethal rounds (in this sense, at least) was their almost universal tendency to discharge at significantly lower pressures than did their lethal counterparts – this meant pump-action shotguns were the only platform capable of employing them. Rather than deal with training officers on two separate types of weapons and deal with the higher cost of maintaining those two platforms, most every agency opted to simply stick with the tried-and-true pump-action Remington 870s, Winchester 1200s, and Ithaca Model 37s, among a few others.

To cut down on training and maintenance costs while maximizing versatility, Franchi designed the SPAS-12 to be capable of operating on semi-automatic or pump-action at the flick of a switch (and ammunition changeover as necessary), enabling the deployment of less-lethal munitions for riot control, as well as semi-automatic fire superiority in regular deadly force engagements, all without the need for two separate guns.

Along with its cornerstone feature, the SPAS-12 was also ahead of the curve in a number of other respects. It featured a pistol-style grip  with a mounting point to attach its folding metal stock. The stock was capable of being folded over the top of the weapon for ease of transportation (or close combat, in rare cases), and extended back for conventional employment. It was also capable of attaching an under-arm hook to the shoulder-plate section of the stock, allowing the SPAS-12 to be wielded with one hand (a feature that surprisingly worked fairly well, according to users). The entire folding stock could also be removed if need be, and some later models replaced the folding stock & pistol grip combo with a single-piece fixed stock and pistol grip pairing.

There were a lot of good things to be said for the weapon, but it wasn’t without a drawback or two. Its twin-operation capability came at the cost of the weapon being unable to chamber 3″ magnum ammunition, only accepting standard 2 3/4″ shells. The operation of the gun between operating methods could also prove somewhat of a problem (arguably). To cycle the action of semi-automatic shotguns, the ejection port almost always sports a charging handle built-in to the bolt of the weapon for manual inspection, loading & unloading, and jam clearing. Pump-action shotguns need no such charging handle, as the pump action already serves that exact purpose. To ensure consistency with the manual of arms of each mode of operation, the SPAS-12 is equipped both with an ejection port charging handle and a conventional pump action. The catch to this setup was that once, for instance, semi-auto mode was engaged, the ejection port handle would function normally, but the conventional pump would be locked in place. Likewise, when set to pump-action, the conventional pump would cycle normally, but the ejection-port handle would be locked in place. While the difference in operation should already have been ingrained in users during training, in the heat of the moment, the potential existed for users to actuate the wrong action, and struggle with what they think is a serious malfunction until they come around or someone points it out to them. Again, rarely an issue, but the potential did exist, just as it does with every other dual-function shotgun manufactured since then.

 

With that, I will turn things over to the care of my associate, who will follow up this post with one on the media depictions of this gun. Heads up – it’s gonna hurt.

 

The depictions. Not Shane’s writing. Totally not Shane’s writing.

 

Just read it.

Evil Dead vs Evil Dead, a comparison

I love the Evil Dead series

Like seriously the Evil Dead series were one of my first horror series. The original movies were hugely contributory to my development as a horror fan (Lets leave aside the fact that actual horror is lacking for the most part, I’m trying to make a point). As many I am very  skeptical of remakes because quite frankly the majority of them suck and suck terribly. However my first reaction to hearing there was an Evil Dead remake was not the standard “Oh this is going to suck” rather it was “You better give this franchise the respect it deserves”. An opinion held by many is that something should not be remade unless the original was horrible. However my opinion is that you shouldn’t do a remake unless you have a good story to tell and the remake does tell a good story. It has gotten good reviews but some of the criticism was that it is not going to garner a cult following. I called this criticism and it is BS because the original Evil Dead and the remake despite following key notes are surprisingly different just based on tone. My goal here is to compare and contrast the two movies. So lets start out with what is similar. Spoilers will most likely follow

Similarities

-Cabin in the woods

-Necronomicon

-5 vaguely 20 somethings

-Demons

-Large amounts of gore via practical effects

Now that we have that out of the way lets talk about the original. The original film was released in 1981. It had a $375,000 budget. I understand that this isn’t a lot and it shows. While the film is good it doesn’t have the greatest effects. However the bad effects are part of the charm of the original. It was meant to be taken seriously ( I think) but everyone has a point when they stop and say “Okay this is now funny”. Two scenes that are like this for me are the point when an eyeball flies across the room into a girl’s mouth and the scene where Ash (who in subsequent movies became badaas extraordinaire) surrounded by Deadites who are psychologically torturing him says “You bastards. Why are you doing this?” in a monotone. So while the original tried for horror I also think that to some degree that Raimi knew he was making a B-movie. It has a tongue in cheek aspect you get when you pull some crap that says “Yes I know what I’m doing and I know you people like it”. Instead of the outright parody/ action-comedy that later entries in the series became. “Gory but kind of funny” That’s the original in a nutshell

Now by comparison the remake came out Friday. It had a $14,000,000 budget. It has grossed almost double that in the opening weekend in the US alone. Its difficult to say right now whether it will be as successful as the original which ended up grossing $ 2,400,000 in the US (speaking in terms of gross vs budget). Whatever the case this does demonstrate that the new film is not bad. However its tone is so amazingly different from the original. It plays everything straight. The Deadites are gruesome and do horrifying things to their vessels and to those around them. The imagery is disturbing even for a seasoned horror fan (needle meet eye. need I say more?). the gore is shoved in your face just as much if not more so than the original movie. There are loving send-ups to the originals and some dark humor but its very much restrained. The actors actually act, which as I pointed out previously did not always happen in the original. This is “What if we made a somewhat silly horror actually hard to watch (in a good way)”.

Now one more thing I should talk about is which is better. Many will say the original and they have that right that is their opinion. Hell I like the original better than the remake but (and this is where I’m going to catch flak) I think objectively this new one MIGHT be better. Lets face it the original had a cult following but i don’t think the original Evil Dead trilogy really reached the nigh-unstoppable juggernaut of geekdom until Evil Dead 2 hit and subsequently Army of Darkness made it an everlasting cult series. My advice? Watch everything. Watch the old trilogy and marvel at the awesome as it goes on. Watch the new one and see just how disturbing the premise can get. And watch out for any rumors of Cambell working with Raimi because according to Raimi Army of Darkness 2 might actually. This is me signing off and saying: If you find a book bound in human flesh and inked in blood, RUN AWAY, unless of course you want a chainsaw hand. 

S&F Musings: Call of Duty – Black Ops II

Well, for our first formal post since announcing our return (despite being a few days late), Schwarmenius & Friends will be easing into things with its first video game musings. There is actually a reason I use the term “musings”: it isn’t a formal review analyzing gameplay mechanics in a consistent and definitive manner, and it includes a lot of trivial facts and details about things that largely have no effect on the gameplay itself. The musings will not be consistent in structure, length, or focus either. How each one comes together will just be how it happens to occur. With that out of the way though, I now present you with S&F Musings for Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II (from the perspective of the Xbox 360 platform).

When it comes to realism with the Modern Warfare/Black Ops series of titles, there’s a lot of hit-or-miss, but Treyarch typically comes out on top of Infinity Ward for a number of reasons. For instance – the original Black Ops, while still mistakenly referring to the AKS-74u as a submachine gun with the misnomer “AK-74u”, and even setting the late ’70s-developed weapon in 1968 Laos in the hands of communist guerillas, did earn big points in my book by actually creating a new model for the weapon. Usually this isn’t anything special, but in this case, Treyarch had the good sense to use an ACTUAL AKS-74u variant for the weapon model – this standing in stark contrast with Infinity Ward’s 3-titles-and-counting track record of using a decidedly different model for their “AK-74u”; it just so happens that this model is based on a Chinese-built “AK47 Spetsnaz” airsoft gun. It’s little things like that that keep Treyarch safely in my favor, but not overwhelmingly so.

So when Black Ops II was announced to have a concurrent Cold War campaign alongside the main 2025 storyline, I was rather interested. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the Cold War setting of the first Black Ops game, bringing to light many interesting factors of the conflict (such as the SR-71 Blackbird [albeit portrayed inaccurately] and H&K’s caseless wunderwaffe, the G11). I was more relieved to find out that BO2 would set its Cold War missions in the 1980s, likely resolving numerous problems with anachronistic weaponry that (for me, anyway) plagued Black Ops. Take for instance the FAMAS, a French-made bullpup assault rifle: despite the game occurring no later than 1968, the initial FAMAS prototypes were not developed until 1971, and were not adopted by the French military until 1978. This is a pretty egregious offense, but it is made far, far worse by Treyarch’s use of the FELIN variant of the FAMAS, a modernized Picatinny rail-equipped variant developed for the French equivalent of the US Land Warrior program and built in – drumroll, please – 2001!

So yeah, the 1980s setting helped.

When I did finally get into the campaign, I was somewhat disappointed to see only four 1980s missions and only 2-3 weapons per class. That said, though, the guns that did make the cut were undeniably Cold War legends. By class, they are:

-Pistols: Colt M1911A1, Browning Hi-Power, Makarov PM;

-Shotguns: Beretta Model 682 (called the “Olympia” ingame), Franchi SPAS-12;

-SMGs: H&K MP5A3 (when equipped w/ suppressor, model becomes MP5SD3), IMI Uzi, AKS-74u (called “AK-74u” ingame, depicted with no stock and default black finish);

-Assault Rifles: Colt Model 604 (called “Colt M16A1″ ingame, also known as the “USAF M16″), the composite AK rifle from Black Ops (called “AK47″ ingame), FN FAL “G Series”, IMI Galil ARM (with default black finish);

-LMGs: Saco Defense M60E3, RPD (model reused from Modern Warfare 2);

-Sniper Rifles: Barrett M107 (called “Barrett M82″ ingame, identifiable as M107 by its full-length upper Picatinny rail), Dragunov SVD (with default black/green synthetic furniture);

-Launchers: RPG-7, FIM-92A Stinger (depicted as capable of free-fire and usable against Russian armor), Hawk MM-1 grenade launcher (with 24-round capacity, despite being modeled with 12-round cylinder), M203 grenade launcher, GP-25 caseless grenade launcher, “Valkyrie” launcher (SA-14 Gremlin MANPAD modified for MACLOS [Manual Command Line of Sight] operation);

-Etc.: Spetsnaz ballistic knife, fictional man-portable GE M134 minigun

All things considered, a damn fine lineup, especially when attachments and theatres of operation are considered. Some are a bit out of place, such as the “USAF” M16 being used by special forces operatives in 1989, when the M16A2 and 30-round magazines had been widely issued to frontline troops. All in all though, having FALs blazing through Angola, Kalashnikovs littering the sands of Afghanistan, and MP5s and M16s laying down the law in Panama makes for a damn enjoyable side-campaign.

I’ll lastly touch briefly on some of the 2025 weapons as well. The mix of existing production guns, early prototypes, and theorized future developments touch on just about every proven and high-level tested technology. The PLA entries have undergone noticeable cosmetic modifications from their current real-world counterparts, but still retain the core design elements. The US entries are much more numerous, but rather sporadic in their implementations.

For instance, the machine guns have been streamlined to just three subtypes:

-IAR: FN HAMR w/ drum mag;

-LMG: ATK M250 LSAT (having apparently replaced the venerable M249);

-GPMG: FN Mk48 Mod 1.

In another case, the pistols have four entries with three equally-likely candidates for the official US sidearm. Each one, like the machine guns, fills a specific subtype of pistol:

-Two conventional modern handguns, both manufactured by FN Herstal:

-Five-seveN USG: 5.7x28mm AP, 20-round magazine, low recoil, rapid ROF, lower damage;

-FNP-45 Tactical: .45 ACP (11.43x23m), 10-round magazine, higher recoil, slower ROF, high damage; and,

-Two experimental automatic pistols (both fictional to varying degrees):

-B23R: (presumably) 5.7x28mm AP or 9x19mm NATO AP, 15-round magazine, fires 3-round bursts at very high ROF with moderate recoil and high damage per burst (based on Beretta 93R);

-KAP-40: .45 ACP, 15-round magazine, fires in full-auto at high ROF with high recoil and above-average damage per shot (based on prototypes of TDI Kard, incorporating a similar recoil management system as TDIs Vector SMG).

Excluding the B23R, every handgun enjoys nearly equal representation among US non-player troops, leaving little evidence of which one is standard-issue (though it can likely be assumed from cutscenes and ingame cinematics that the Five-seveN holds that distinction). This manner of tactical ADHD also shows in the assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles.

All that said, the diversity of weaponry in both the 1980s and 2025 cover just about every type of tactical ground there is to cover, and ensure there’s never a shortage of kickass weaponry with which to raise hell.

Other than that, the campaign is well-constructed, voice acting is top-notch, maps are gorgeous and exciting, and multiplayer is incredibly addicting. I’ll be losing a lot of sleep thanks to the evil wizards of Treyarch.

Back [in Black].

Alright, for the few poor souls who checked up on this blog fairly often in its early stages hoping for its success, you have thus far been greeted with no new content for over 1.25 years. My associate and I have a draft or two of planned posts from during that extended hiatus, but nothing has actually been released. In fact, a post I had planned on publishing concerning the current threat (or lack thereof) analysis of Iran and North Korea is more or less obsolete given the most recent developments (the Rodman Summit, the nuclear test, and the “repeal” of the 1953 ceasefire with the South). Needless to say, the life of the blog went not too far off from my most realistic expectations from the night I created the blog (in the stupid-o’clock early hours of a Friday after rampaging through a 2 hour-long take-home poli-sci final).

 

Well folks, I am here to announce the official return of the Schwarmenius & Friends blog! Sometime within the next two weeks, I will release the first regular post of our revival (gonna need some time to figure out material and whatnot). As a teaser, some of the ideas I’m tossing about mi cabeza include, but are not limited to:

-Firearms & military history

-Music recommendations & very shallow reviews (never claimed to be a professional)

-Political analysis & theory, likely focusing on topics such as firearms, national security, civil liberties, etc.

-TEASER: First planned post in this category covers my theory of “Paveway Diplomacy”

-MAYBE some wading into the shores of philosophical thinking

-Video gaming thoughts, reviews, analysis, etc.

-Some (likely sporadic) posts on various parts of popular culture (e.g.: TV, movies, stand-up comedy, entertainers, etc.)

-And perhaps even a post or two on “good” eating

-DISCLAIMER: In this context, the specific meaning of “good” can be subjective

 

This is just a couple of general categories I’m mulling about right now – some of those listed may not make it, some that I haven’t even thought of as of yet may make the final cut. In short though, I wanted to thank our (likely very few) readers for their past viewership, and hope I can add at least a handful more to those ranks in the coming weeks, months, and years. I strongly encourage you to participate in this blog if you feel the urge – comments, questions, debates, anything that livens up the place.

 

As a last order of business, I also wanted to state that as of now, we have only two content writers/contributors – myself, and the honorable Mr. Shane. If you think you’d like to contribute to creating content for this little slice of bandwidth (and can respect my ownership and, ultimately, supreme rule over the running of the blog), feel free to contact me here on on my Facebook page. Whatever you feel like adding to this site, no matter how large or small, I’ll be happy to discuss things with you!

 

With that said, I again thank our previous readers/friends/family/passers-by for their patronage, and eagerly look forward to the future of this Not-So-Grand American Experiment!

 

Sincerely,

-E.M. Schwarm (A.K.A.: “Schwarmenius”)

Zombie PSA

It’s almost Halloween and the dead are rising! Again. Like every other year.

Yes dear readership I am talking about zombies. In this post I will talk about how to survive the inevitable rising of the dead that will happen on Halloween. This post will include weapons (which I’m sure my co-conspirator will expand on when he reads this post), How to identify the undead, what survival tactics you can and should use and things you may have misidentified as zombies (that you still need to be worried about)

Zombies the damn bastards just won’t stay down, people die every day which means no matter how many you shoot in the head there will always be a (metaphorically) fresh body to fill in the ranks of the undead. So the first lesson is: always be prepared, They will so if you aren’t and you get eaten….it’s your fault. So how should you be prepared? first of all have 2 weapons on hand: one gun and one melee weapon, I know some of you are thinking “a melee weapon? why would i want to fight them up close?” clearly you have neither seen the walking dead nor read the back of the zombie survival guide. The base line is hand on hand weapons don’t run out of ammo and they are much quieter than a firearm (and no a silencer won’t make a gun as quiet as a pipe to the skull) less noise means less zombies homing in on your position. Another zombie preparedness step is to have a kit of of water, non-perishables, flashlights and medical supplies(won’t be as useful in a zombie situation) coincidentally this is also a good idea to have on hand in case of a power outage or a natural disaster. Also have a vehicle that can go off-road as the roads will become a giant zombie feeding ground. The final step to being prepared is to have friends, friends who can handle a zombie apocalypse; said group should include at least one of each of these: a gun guy, a melee weapons guy, someone who knows first aid( don’t let them treat bites! just shoot the bitten in the head while apologizing and crying), someone who can keep your vehicles running, someone who can hunt(the gun guy can probably do this) and love interests(they may not fall into any of previously mentioned categories and a love interest increases your survival chances by 15%)

In terms of survival tactics you can and should use. You can use three basic tactics: the stronghold, roving hunters/survivors, and a convoy. First the stronghold you see this one in almost every zombie movies the protagonist holes up in some defensible structure with complete strangers and they argue while the zombies gather outside; you see this in every zombie movie for a reason: it is going to fail at some point, it might be years before this happens but it will.(don’t do it your a young man!) The roving hunters/survivors is basically zombieland a bunch of people(usually 2-8) get together and start surviving. If you do this I give you a 60/40 chance of surviving provided you limit your use of firearms and always stay moving. The convoy is easily your best chance in my opinion. You get heavily armored vehicles, lots of friends and lots of guns. You drive through infested territory blowing away zombies and in case of the apocalypse you clean out towns to get supplies and get a nice safe(ish) camp to sleep in, with guards.

Weapons are fairly simple you go with blunt weapons you can use in close quarters or if your going to go with blades than you go with a curved blade which a better for slashing(we’re trying to dismember zombies not stab them, stabbing them doesn’t work) in terms of guns you have two options for maximum zombie killing shotguns and high-powered rifles (I’ll leave the rest of the gun section to my co-author)

How to identify zombies:

First off if you see a rotting corpse walking, it’s either a zombie or Jason Vorhees (you should run in both cases). But what about the early stages? how does one identify a bite victim? for one they will tell you that some crazy dude tried to bite them, they will then become less aware of there surroundings, they may start moaning or asking for brain, They will become pale, start sweating, develop a fever and later o become cold. If they pop up after seemingly dying don’t rush over proclaiming it a miracle, they are now the undead, kill them with fire.

Now in some cases other creatures rise, if you think they’re zombies and they aren’t treating the the same way will get you very dead very fast. For example: vampires it may seem like zombies since the bitten change and there is a sickness beforehand and all but if you try to shoot a vampire in the head it’ll just get back up and rip your throat out. in case of a vampire make sure you destroy both the head(as in separating its head from its shoulders) and its heart maybe push it into the sunlight(note: this will not work if the vampire is wearing body glitter). signs that you may be dealing with a vampire instead of a zombie are: a dark, abandoned castle nearby, sudden swarms of bats, and foreign nobles with odd accents. If your town finds a savaged, half eaten body that in the woods but finds unusual tracks it may not be a zombie but a werewolf. You need silver for werewolves as a blade or a blunt weapon, silver functions poorly as a bullet. I have only heard one good idea for silver bullet this book:http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-International-Larry-Correia/dp/1439132852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319745859&sr=8-1

Coincidentally an awesome book, you should totally buy it. Signs that you are dealing with a werewolf instead of a zombie are: a full moon, gypsys, and more than one person speaking the prose: Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf, when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

In conclusion stay safe, keep your swords sharp, and you guns well loaded. Happy Halloween.

 

Part Two: Guuuuuuuuuuuuns….. (pronounced with a moan and slurred, but only slightly incoherent!)

 

As promised, here’s the section concerning weapons selection (mostly, firearms) in the highly likely event of a zombie apocalypse.

 

First things first: STOCKPILE! STOCKPILE! STOCKPILE!!!!!! When society breaks down and zombies roam the earth, the gun stores will be GONE!!! Ammunition and weapons prices may cost you an arm and a leg today in the proverbial sense, but don’t keep up your stash and that may become literal for you (and there’s no sequel for the ones who die! Maybe a nice statue or memorial when society begins rebuilding itself, but that pales in comparison to living to say you survived the freaking zombie apocalypse!)!

 

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, time for the fun stuff…

 

My co-conspirator mentioned earlier that high-powered rifles and shotguns were the best ones to deal with zombies, and he’s right, but there are more that will suffice quite well. Each weapon type has its own advantages and disadvantages!

 

Assault Rifles (select-fire, military/LE): Generally speaking, this is your best bet. Manageable recoil, high magazine capacities, good ergonomics, and given the almost universal usage of western weapons by the US government, you really can’t go wrong with whatever you get in this category. Just keep in mind – SEMI AUTO IS YOUR FRIEND! Full auto may be fun, but fun don’t count worth shit in Armageddon, and you CANNOT miss fast enough to make a difference!

Assault Rifles (semi-auto only, civilian): I actually prefer these a little bit more since there’s much less opportunity for frivolity with ammunition than on weapons with alternate fire modes. Also, the barrels are generally longer than government weapons; namely, M4 pattern weapons, with commercial models almost universally having at least 16″ barrels, while most government M4 pattern weapons sport 14.5″ barrels. While this doesn’t make almost any difference in the short term, the longer civvie barrels wear out less quickly due to lower levels of abuse in the actions. Plus, longer barrels generally give you slightly more accuracy and stability in general.

Pistol caliber carbines/SMGs: Since we covered the basic differences between government and civilian versions of rifles, you basically know how they translate to any other select-fire small arms. Pistol caliber carbines and SMGs (for sake of shortness, I’ll refer to both as SMGs from here on) have one key advantage over assault rifles – weight. Ammunition is smaller and lighter, and the size of the weapon needed to deliver them tends to be smaller than rifle caliber carbines, and thus, also lighter in weight. This would not be a selling point in a world of organized militaries engaging each other at good distances and utilizing lots of armor. However, in a world of slow-moving unarmed and daft zombies, it becomes quite the perk. Assuming zombies can be killed by a single clean shot through the brain, pistol caliber weapons will be on a much more even ground with their bigger and badder brothers. The light weight will allow you to carry greater quantities of ammunition for longer distances over longer periods of time, and every pound saved is another margin more capable you’ll be to survive. Again, don’t rely on automatic fire modes!

Light/heavy machine guns/Infantry Automatic Rifles (IARs): Good for suppressing soldiers who have fear and self-preservation in mind, machine guns really aren’t that useful unless you have irresponsibly large supplies of ammunition and operate from a fixed location (base, outpost, shelter, etc.). High rates of fire, marginal comparative accuracy, and heavy weight make these largely burdensome devices, especially when you consider the fact that almost every belt-fed automatic weapon can only fire on full auto. The ones that can really shine, however, are infantry automatic rifles (IARs) or light support weapons (LSWs). These are usually standard assault rifles that incorporate heavier, longer barrels, higher rates of fire on full auto, bipods, and higher-than-standard capacity magazines. Again, full auto has been discussed at length. However, the increased weight of LSWs and their barrels allows for noticeably increased accuracy and controlability compared to their smaller shorter elders. Since these are usually modified infantry rifles, semi-auto fire modes and drastically more common on LSWs than on belt-fed weapons. Couple these advantages with a scope rail and some optics and you have an excellent interim weapon between a service rifle and a full-blown sniper rifle, making them ideal for defense of fixed positions, but allow much greater mobility than do belt-fed machine guns.

Sniper rifles:

Target/plinking rifles:

Shotguns:

Revolvers:

Automatic pistols:

Personal Defense Weapons (PDWs):

Rockets:

 

Final recommendations:

War in Iraq to be completed(cont.)

Eric considers the military implications of the end of the Iraq war but forgets the political and economic consequences here at home. The main thing I want to draw your attention to is the economic consequences; in particular a term called demilitarization, this term means exactly what it sounds like: troops come home and all of them that aren’t career soldiers are suddenly unemployed and while some will go off and get an education (payed for by the GI bill which they totally deserve); a lot more will be looking for a job which will mean a more competitive job market which of course will mean a higher unemployment rate.

Also the political consequences is basically Obama has more fuel for his election campaign. Now as far as presidents go we’ve had worse (looking at you Jimmy Carter), Obama has made some good moves but not many. Despite much of what you heard from mainstream media Bush had done a lot at the end of his presidency to improve are economy. Just for comparison purposes right before Bush left office gas was $2.50 a gallon, last i checked the price is now something like $4.20 a gallon. My main point is that I’m not sure we can survive two terms of Obama This move coupled with the movie of Osama bin Laden’s death (good riddance) which conveniently should come out campaign season could give Obama an edge in the polls.

War in Iraq to be Fully Completed by Year’s End

Well, first official post. No pressure

Basically, Obama announced today that his initial plan of removing all combat troops by the end of 2011 would happen on schedule. This leaves approximately two months for US forces to remove the 39,000 boots still left on the ground at the time of writing. The only troops that will be left in Iraq for a long-term duration after this will be the mandatory compliment at the US embassy. This will mark the formal and final end to the almost 9 year-long conflict and change the US’s approach towards Iraq from nation building to normalized diplomatic relations.

I had the opportunity to watch the President make his address live on CNN earlier today. He appeared confident and really gave the impression that the most ideal route to ending the war had been reached. There’s just one little problem with that…

This announcement apparently marks the end to a US push to keep a reserve contingent of 3-4,000 in-country as an emergency reaction/stability force should Iraq need it in its early stages of new-found independence. The main thing hampering the possibility of leaving such a reserve force was, ironically, lack of support in the Iraqi parliament that we helped set up in the first place. What’s troubling about the opposition, however, is that the major party in power in Iraq is a more religious-focused party that just happens to…

…wait for it…wait for it…

…have warm relations with the current Iranian regime!

Yeah, thought that might concern you, too.

Now the Vietnam withdrawal was particularly stinging for two main reasons: 1) the war formally ended in a draw, a conclusion that has never before or since been seen in an American military conflict, and 2) it took just about a year for the North to sweep in and conquer the South after US withdrawal. Now imagine how much more damaging that could have been if instead, we had outright defeated the North, left the country, and in just a few short months of years, the system of democracy we fought so hard for wound up inviting the remnants of the communist North to get back on their feet or become friends — and soon enough, that democracy doesn’t become much of a democracy anymore.

Unfortunately, that’s almost what we’re facing today. God willing, a continued American influence in Iraq will help stem that potential relationship from budding too much, but the US can only go so far in stopping the very government they spent nearly ten years creating.

On the bright side (possibly), it appears Obama is keeping his word – the last United States Marine officially left Iraq earlier today.

Strangely, a phenomenon was reported across Iraq of every male citizen’s nuts expanding by 1/3rd in size just as the C-130 crossed the border…looks like Saddam wasn’t the only thing the Devil Dogs sent into hiding