A question for veterans: When do you use auto fire?

Varulv

Banded Mongoose
I have done military service, but it was a long time ago and I have never heard a shot fired in anger. We used Heckler & Koch G3A3 battle rifle, which can fire in either semi-automatic or fully automatic mode. As far as I can remember we were trained to mainly use semi-automatic mode, and possibly we used burst for suppressive fire. Anyhow, what I remember or not is of less importance since it was a long time ago and I was an army engineer, so we were better at building bridges and blowing stuff up than firing our rifles.

My question to all veterans is: Based upon your experience, in what situations do you use your rifle to fire burst/full auto instead of single shots?
 
Well ... in single player gaming experience ... use full auto when faced with an escaped confrontational dinosaur (or similar). In Traveller rules, more like when strafing is easier than letting go of trigger. As an engineering technologist, never had training beyond air pistol, LOL.
 
The normal use for "full auto" in the military is when you need area fire/suppressive fire. The problem is that Traveller treats that as a separate thing with different rules.

Also, you'd really like to have a proper machine gun when doing that, not half assing it with an assault rifle :P
 
Then I guess "area fire" would cover my situation. Traveller rules allows 6m suppressive fire within one combat round. Is that different to what you expect?
 
The reality is that that most units in the US Army are issued the M4 Carbine, which only has single shot and burst fire. It isn't even capable of autofire. The M4A1 does have autofire, but it is issues for specialized units. Regular infantry would have someone with Squad Automatic Weapon for when you needed area fire.
 
Traveller is a different issue. There's a number of reasons why a sci fi adventurer would use autofire. Ginormous beasts, zergling swarms, panic fire, etc. But, since the guy asked about veterans' experience, the US Army doesn't teach its guys to use autofire from assault rifles in normal circumstances. (Not that I am a veteran, I'm just in a family of them since they weren't too blind to get in, unlike me).
 
Each game system, even real life, has mechanisms that produce desired effects, whether they are optimized or not.

Ideally, one shot, one kill.

You factor in recoil, sights, potential damage, time, and other variables if the target is moving, if you're moving, if the target is protected, if you are protected, if the target has friends, if you have friends, and your innate gun skillz.
 
Sorry if my question was ambiguous. What I meant was in real life, not in Traveller combat (even if my thoughts originated from the game).

Even though the H&K was able to fire full auto, we were trained to use burst (we also had an SMG without a semi-automatic mode, so bursts it was). And of course, a squad level machine gun for suppressive fire. (And the 84 mm Carl Gustaf for more power.)

But, as a rifle man, when do you use bursts instead of single shots? (In real life, not in Traveller.)
 
Real life and Traveller are different things.
Traveller simplifies combat because it doesn't want to get as granular as, say, Twilight 2000.
Autofire in a game setting is used like autofire is used in real life -- to suppress the enemy, make them put their heads down so you can maneuver your own assets into better positions. However, Traveller doesn't really have a satisfactory suppression mechanic. It assumes that Tactics [Military] or Leadership will counteract suppression in almost all cases. And that simply ain't true.
 
Sorry if my question was ambiguous. What I meant was in real life, not in Traveller combat (even if my thoughts originated from the game).

Even though the H&K was able to fire full auto, we were trained to use burst (we also had an SMG without a semi-automatic mode, so bursts it was). And of course, a squad level machine gun for suppressive fire. (And the 84 mm Carl Gustaf for more power.)

But, as a rifle man, when do you use bursts instead of single shots? (In real life, not in Traveller.)
Okay, being more specific then...
In my era we had M-16A1's that still had full auto... what we called 'Rambo fire'. We were specifically trained to fire in the 3-5 round bursts, but some instances demanded all 27 rounds [note: we didn't load the magazines up to the full 30 rnd maximum because it caused feed jams].
Again, suppression was the occasion where you 'fire 'em up', as it were.
I am told that most troops in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely left their piece on burst for the simple logic that one round was not always enough to put the bad guy all-the-way down. For suppression in this situation, a squad would rely on their SAW gunner. I can't say it's 100% true, but this is what guys who were there have told me.
Does that help your question?
 
From what I gather from my colleagues and what's reported from Ukraine, it's very situational.

If, statistically, it takes fifty thousand bullets to produce one casualty, it seems rather continuous.
 
Superstition?

What I heard, was that you don't really need three round bursts, just full automatic and a trained soldier with fire discipline.

But Soviet equipment was meant for conscripts.
 
Okay, being more specific then...
In my era we had M-16A1's that still had full auto... what we called 'Rambo fire'. We were specifically trained to fire in the 3-5 round bursts, but some instances demanded all 27 rounds [note: we didn't load the magazines up to the full 30 rnd maximum because it caused feed jams].
Again, suppression was the occasion where you 'fire 'em up', as it were.
I am told that most troops in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely left their piece on burst for the simple logic that one round was not always enough to put the bad guy all-the-way down. For suppression in this situation, a squad would rely on their SAW gunner. I can't say it's 100% true, but this is what guys who were there have told me.
Does that help your question?
Ok, so suppression is one situation.

And, if I understand you correctly, your other example is not to increase the chance for a hit, but rather to make sure the bad guy goes down by hitting him with two or more bullets. Would you do the same if you used 7.62 instead of 5.56? Then of course, with 5.56 you have more rounds in your mag.
 
Sorry if my question was ambiguous. What I meant was in real life, not in Traveller combat (even if my thoughts originated from the game).

Even though the H&K was able to fire full auto, we were trained to use burst (we also had an SMG without a semi-automatic mode, so bursts it was). And of course, a squad level machine gun for suppressive fire. (And the 84 mm Carl Gustaf for more power.)

But, as a rifle man, when do you use bursts instead of single shots? (In real life, not in Traveller.)
The training is to pretty much always use single shots. Burst fire is used in CQC, recon by fire, and similar sorts of situations where either the target is uncertain but you want to fire or firing first is more important than the extra moment to aim.
 
The training is to pretty much always use single shots. Burst fire is used in CQC, recon by fire, and similar sorts of situations where either the target is uncertain but you want to fire or firing first is more important than the extra moment to aim.
So, in CQC the advantage of more bullets in the air outweighs that you have no time to aim, whereas if you used that approach at a longer distance, you wouldn’t hit anything?
 
That's the impression that I have, but I am getting this second hand. Plus, you really want someone who is at close range to stay down, so overkill is worthwhile.

The M4A1 (the version with full auto) was used by special forces because they extensively fought in CQC and because no one was concerned about them panic firing or causing a logistics snarl by wasting even more bullets than normally get expended.
 
Ok, so suppression is one situation.

And, if I understand you correctly, your other example is not to increase the chance for a hit, but rather to make sure the bad guy goes down by hitting him with two or more bullets. Would you do the same if you used 7.62 instead of 5.56? Then of course, with 5.56 you have more rounds in your mag.
The British came up with a phrase: 'double tap'. A phase we used when I was in was 'Two to the chest and one to the head, and that 'mofo' will stay down dead'. To be absolutely blunt about it, unless you saw the bad guy's head explode, you put a couple-three rounds in him just to be sure. You don't want some guy using his dying breath to put a burst into your friend. There is no place for 'fair play' in combat.

Most countries are now using 5.56 weapons as their squad support weapon, and this is the NATO standard. The weapon itself is lighter, handier, and you can carry a lot more ammo. The tradeoff is that 5.56 has less stopping power than 7.62 and you therefore have to use more ammo to get similar effects. Just how much is a matter of considerable debate [and that debate has been going on literally my entire lifetime], but the sheer difference in weight of the bullet means you're putting less mass into the target.
 
Why didn't they just make the magazines hold 33 and put 30 in them?
View attachment 3510
Because it wasn't a matter of the number of rounds in the magazine. It was a matter of the spring in the magazine putting too much pressure on the feeding rounds and therefore trying to feed two rounds into the chamber. Leaving a couple-three rounds out of the mag reduced the compression and avoided the feed problem.
Once a magazine was 'worn in' you didn't have to worry about it so much, but you never know what the armorer is gonna issue you. It isn't like magazines have serial numbers to keep track of them, after all.
 
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