Author Topic: Tom Clancy has died.  (Read 7360 times)

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Offline Askold

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Re: Tom Clancy has died.
« Reply #30 on: October 03, 2013, 11:48:10 am »
Also, they had PPD which was a predecessor to PPSH (And the appearance was quite similar though they work differently.) And I think some of the warsaw pact countries had other SMGs as well.

Skorpian, PM63, Kiparis, and most notably the PPSH. Those are just the ones I know off the top of my head from the appearance in COD:BO. They had SMGs, most aren't particularly famous though.

I think skorpion vz 61 and PPSH are quite famous. And near the end of WWII they had entire battalions armed mostly with SMGs for close combat and assault firepower.
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Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Tom Clancy has died.
« Reply #31 on: October 03, 2013, 12:34:21 pm »
Yeah, but the PPSh-41 (as well as its predecessor, the PPD-40 and its successor, the PPS-43) was built in a time before the assault rifle existed in the first place. Back then you either had a submachine gun or you had a gigantic bolt-action rifle with a low capacity and way more power and range than any soldier would actually need. The assault rifle was meant to bridge the gap by totally replacing both weapons in Soviet service with non-specialist soldiers, as it had relatively low recoil and just as much volume of automatic fire as an SMG while still hitting harder than a pistol cartridge.

Most other nations actually kept building SMGs (this is when the "second generation" of submachine gun design came into vogue everywhere, with ultra-cheap guns made of stamped and spot-welded steel with cheap plastic grip panels; the "first generation" was the relatively expensive, heavy stuff made with fancy wooden furniture derived from rifles like the MP-18 and the "third generation" is where we are now, with PDWs that can punch through armor and Picatinny rails and strong plastic receivers), but the Soviet Union tried to use the AK to replace them almost entirely.

The Skorpion, for instance, was almost totally restricted to vehicle crews and got most of its pop culture reputation from use by criminals and guerrillas; they even built the AKS-74U exclusively as a crew weapon before the special forces realized how useful such a compact carbine would be. The PM-63 I believe was exclusively restricted to Poland, and most communist nations that built SMGs were generally Warsaw Pact countries that built them independently and kept them to themselves. The USSR did build a new design, the OTs-02 Kiparis, which was designed in the 1970s but never actually entered service until the 90s after the Soviet Union collapsed. Only in more recent years has Russia started to embrace the submachine gun as a general service weapon in the age of assault rifles.

Even then, they want to overdo it: they made their own custom loads for the 9x19mm round that increase its power to try and make it punch through body armor better, and most of their current 9mm weapons are built stronger than normal so they can easily fire such a powerful cartridge.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Tom Clancy has died.
« Reply #32 on: October 03, 2013, 02:03:40 pm »
The chinese also treated AK47 like a submachine gun. At some point they had most of the infantry squads using SKS (btw, I like SKS despite the fact that by the time it was in production it was already outdated and more expensive than AK47 as well) with just the squad leader and his assistant using an AK47. Much like rifles/SMGs had been used in WWII era armies.

And since we are getting into gun nerd SUPER mode (Still appropriate for any discussion about Tom Clancy) I would like to tout my own opinion on SMGs as well: I think the Soviet idea of restricting SMGs to back up role for people who don't need a large gun is a good idea. Submachine gun might be useful for police work (where overpenetration is dangerous) or clearing out buildings during urban warfare but for most troops an assault rifle is a much better choice.

Vehicle crews nad support personnel need some type of gun to defend themselves but an full sized assault rifle is too heavy and cumbersome. A submachine gun or PDW is better than nothing and hopefully cheaper as well. But for frontline troops having yet another type of ammo to carry complicates supply and an assault rifle can do a better job than a SMG in most situation. Apart from close quarters fighting such as clearing out rooms where the higher rate of fire combined with greater controllability is handy.

And I think one of the reasons why Russia made a superpowered 9x19mm load is that they can now use common commercial 9mm para ammo for their guns in case of emergency but hostile forces can't load their pistols or SMGs with the Russian ammo. Much like when they made the 82mm mortar. (Most countries had 81mm mortars and Soviet 82mm could fire their ammo but the same was not true for 81mm mortars.)
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
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Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Tom Clancy has died.
« Reply #33 on: October 04, 2013, 01:47:06 am »
Well, most guns can still run the Russians' hot loaded 9x19mm ammo. It'll probably decrease the service life quite a bit, but their guns won't burst. Not to mention that if they needed to, they could just ship the rounds to the armory to have the bullets pulled and a little powder dumped out to bring them down to a safer level, rather than having an actual diameter problem.

The reason compact carbines took precedence over submachine guns in the past was because there was no P90 or MP7 that bridged the gap between intermediate rifle cartridges and pistol cartridges. It's always best to have something capable of defeating body armor, especially in a modern conflict where every professional soldier has torso armor that can withstand multiple 7.62x51mm NATO rounds (I've seen it myself) and even guerrillas and civilian insurgents can at least get their hands on Kevlar. Modern technology means that we can now make low-recoiling armor piercing SMGs that are smaller than any carbine but still have punch.

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(btw, I like SKS despite the fact that by the time it was in production it was already outdated and more expensive than AK47 as well)

It's only outdated if you're talking about how it stacks up in a modern battlefield scenario. It has a lower capacity (unless you use a model that can load AK magazines or modify it with a cheap kit) and is semi-auto only (again, unless it's modified in some way). But it's also more accurate and powerful thanks to the longer barrel and improved manufacturing techniques (rather than being slapped together as fast and cheaply as possible) and you can carry more ammo for lighter weight due to not needing heavy steel magazines.
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Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Tom Clancy has died.
« Reply #34 on: October 07, 2013, 05:58:32 am »
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The political left, they deal in symbols rather than reality. The general difference between conservatives and liberals is that liberals like pretty pictures and conservatives like to build bridges that people can drive across. And conservatives are indeed conservative because if the bridge falls down then people die, whereas the liberals figure, we can always build a nice memorial and make people forget it ever happened and was our fault. They're very good at making people forget it was their fault. Alright? The CIA was gutted by people on the political left who don't like Intelligence operations... and as a result of that, as an indirect result of that, we lost 5,000 citizens last week.


Because conservatives are never, ever hypnotised by symbology. They absolutely love pragmatic government spending on infrastructure, too.

Tom Clancy was a deeply silly person. He wrote some occasionally entertaining pulp fiction with tanks in it, but he also reflected a deep sickness at the heart of conservatism- irrationality, childishness, lack of serious thought, narrow-mindedness, dishonesty, hubris. HUBRIS. And that's being very kind to him.

It's beautifully apt that Clancy and Vo Nguyen Giap died within a few days of each other- the greatest author of American hubris and the man who most ruthlessly exploited it.
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