Gun wankery

[BenKenobi]

It can probably go into this thread:

Why are modern soldiers (I've seen it on US, UK and now heavily on Ukraininans) carrying scissors in a somewhat privileged and immediately accessible position on their vests? I haven't seen it in older wars and suspect it to be a recent (NATO?) thing. Why scissors instead of knives?

Oh, and I was on a shooting range with a Tokarev TT-33. Against all expectations, it turned out to be actually a very sleek, elegant and nice gun.

 

[Baguette Eater]

Scissors to cut through clothes if someone is wounded, you want the shirt/pants/boots out of the way, and it's not the time to fiddle with buttons or zippers, so you snip it.

 

[Seff]

Oh, and I was on a shooting range with a Tokarev TT-33. Against all expectations, it turned out to be actually a very sleek, elegant and nice gun.

Copy of a good ol' John Moses Browning system.

 

[Baguette Eater]

Yeah if only the last Browning I shot didn't date from WW2

 

[Seff]

We had WWII vintage M2HBs in the army when I was in. ?

 

[Baguette Eater]

I hope they work better than the Hi-Power

 

[Seff]

They work flawlessly. Ridiculously overengineered.

Hi-Power was not completed by JMB.

 

[Baguette Eater]

I heard they were fine when they were introduced, and newly produced guns run well, but ours are just so beat up, the mags struggle to feed the gun properly and you get a ton of jams. So, maybe more of a mag problem than gun problem

 

[Lord Ferdinand]

Guns? I like guns.

Obligatory picture of of one of mine.

Spoiler

Damned american... I can only buy a softair version of this. ???

 

[Tibertus]

It can probably go into this thread:

Why are modern soldiers (I've seen it on US, UK and now heavily on Ukraininans) carrying scissors in a somewhat privileged and immediately accessible position on their vests? I haven't seen it in older wars and suspect it to be a recent (NATO?) thing. Why scissors instead of knives?

Oh, and I was on a shooting range with a Tokarev TT-33. Against all expectations, it turned out to be actually a very sleek, elegant and nice gun.

Could be as simple as one person did it, so now everyone does it. My flight medic when I was flying helos always wore shears externally on her vest. Quick access for expediently stripping clothes from an injured body part. On my own gear, it's just the most convenient placing for movement and access to have it strapped to one of my tourniquet holders on an external position on my gear. There's also been a cultural shift that I've seen of everyone being more interested in first aid. So everyone is carrying basic trauma supplies now, which includes shears.

 

[Baguette Eater]

I think it clicked that you won't always have a medic around, so you better have some mean to stabilize the wounded in a quick and easy way until they can be evacuated to a place with more extensive medical facilities.

Would be fitting for infantry, anyway, since we poke and prod at most other trades without fully committing, so why not add medic in the pile

 

[Orion]

Having a decent grasp on CLS and TCCC can help reduce serious casualties and keep those that remain alive long enough to reach higher levels of care. It's better for everyone if everyone knows the basics at least.

 

[BenKenobi]

Did some shooting with guns I have never tried before, so my drunken impressions:

KRISS Vector: a staple gun that kicks less than an MP5. Weird looks but future is here, I guess.

SMLE No.1 Mk.III: the biggest disappointment of my life. Enfield is internet-hyped to be the end of all bolt actions but this was beneath vz.24 in pretty much everything. This 1915 model was probably badly kept, but cycling the rifle is not smoother than other rifles, sights are subpar, trigger is **** and only fires when fully pressed. Maybe I'm missing something but wouldn't want to take this into battle. Smaller than expected. Uglier than expected. What impressed me, though, is its ability to be loaded by inserting loaded box magazines into it. I frankly didnt know Enfields had detachable magazines and I wonder why they were not issued to the troops. Loaded 10 rounds magazine is much much faster to put into the gun when compared to indiviual rounds or heaven forbid stripper clips. Cool rifle but the hype was stronger.

G36: strange one. Loading handle is weird, red dot is funny as it is burried inside a superstructure that is like 2 football fields wide. I love that it has a hole in folding stock so it can eject cartridges even with folded stock. Not great, not terrible.

1911 pistol: Whoa whoa whoa! 45 ACP is comically large in pistols when compared to 7,62 Tokarev or 9mm Luger. Kicks when fired fast are lovely. Oh yeah!

AUG: stuff the dreams are made of. Vertical foregrip and overall handling is wonderful. Plastic trigger carresses you finger in a way that it feels more like pressing a keyboard key than a trigger. Looks great, shoots great. Great.

Vz.24 Mauser rifle: shot this before so no comments here, BUT! This time, I had all the ammo prepared in stripper clips so an observation: stripper clips ****ing differ. The amount of force needed to push the 5 rounds into the gun is absolutely not constant. Had to manually get two rounds out of one stripper clip and load individually as I couldnt do it any other way because of my weak ass left hand. Interesting.

 

[Seff]

Did you lift the top round to force down the rest, when using stripper clips?

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

I wonder why they were not issued to the troops.

IIRC, weight, manufacturing, and the risk of the plebby edyits losing them.

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

and the risk of the plebby edyits losing them.

as i recall, this to the point where the magazines were literally chained to the gun in some variants.

 

[Baguette Eater]

Went to shoot with my friend, he brought his Garand and Lever Action Rifle, yeehaw, amongst many of his other guns. That's two things I always wanted to try and shoot, and it was a very pleasant experience with both rifles.