M231 Port Firing Weapon

[dragoon500ly]

Any idea if the Army ever looked at the Uzi for a tanker weapon It puts out a good rate of fire and it would be a better crewman/tanker weapon than an M16 for sure

There was a lot of talk in the late 70s about picking up the Uzi, and believe me there was a lot of support, especially with the talk of the Army switching to a 9mm pistol, made sense, one of the best SMGs, with the new pistol, no brainer!

DOD rejected the idea, the current pistol was .45, and did not make sense to add a 9mm. In other words, NOT INVENTED HERE!

When the Beretta was selected, the talk was we would be going with the MP 5, but we now have M16s on the tanks and no longer need SMGs.

DOD truly lives in its private fantasy world!

[CDAT]

I've fired both, given the choice, then M3 would be my choice as well, nice heavy slow moving cartridge, reasonable recoil and clunky enough that you could feather off single shots all day long.

BUT

M3/M3A1 were last manufactured in 1946-47 and only refurbished since then, worn out does not Bevin to describe almost all of the grease guns that I saw or handled. By 1980 or so, you were having problems with worn Sears leading to run always, misfired due to worn firing pins, magazines that wouldn't load, the list was long and growing longer.

When M1 came into service a lot of units were glad to trade grease guns for M16s. And we were promised ground kits for at least the leader's weapon.
And a lot of units kept the grease guns, but after 1982, the decision was made for no more depot rebuilds.

It was also at least for me, very weird when I was first told that to charge the weapon you stick your finger in to the bold and pull back.

[dragoon500ly]

It was also at least for me, very weird when I was first told that to charge the weapon you stick your finger in to the bold and pull back.

It's odd, but it beats that little crank on the side!

[pmulcahy11b]

Don't forget those firing ports were also shot traps. Which is why the M231s were pulled, the firing ports blanked over and the later covered with armor plate.

Except for the two rear ports.

[dragoon500ly]

Except for the two rear ports.

This is true, as the old Arm or saying goes " Never show your ass to a live enemy!"

[swaghauler]

ROF 5 seems a bit low for a weapon with a cyclic rate on par with the MG42 ...

It is. I raise the ROF* to 12 in my game as well as increase the recoil to 6 because it is an open bolt, slam-fire weapon (this also means you cannot put a round in the chamber to get 31 rounds). The Range is 30m due to a short barrel and open bolt operation (which affects accuracy).


* I use a differing system for automatic fire. A weapon's ROF is its Cyclic Rate/100 which represents a burst 6 tenths of a second in length. I allow only ONE BURST per Initiative Step (my other rates of fire are based on a single 1-Second Initiative Step as well). So an M16A1 with a Cyclic Rate of 800rpm would have a ROF of 8. My Recoil is also calculated by the Initiative Step as well so my Recoils are a bit higher since they "reset" with each new Initiative Step.

[swaghauler]

I've fired both, given the choice, then M3 would be my choice as well, nice heavy slow moving cartridge, reasonable recoil and clunky enough that you could feather off single shots all day long.

BUT

M3/M3A1 were last manufactured in 1946-47 and only refurbished since then, worn out does not Bevin to describe almost all of the grease guns that I saw or handled. By 1980 or so, you were having problems with worn Sears leading to run always, misfired due to worn firing pins, magazines that wouldn't load, the list was long and growing longer.

When M1 came into service a lot of units were glad to trade grease guns for M16s. And we were promised ground kits for at least the leader's weapon.
And a lot of units kept the grease guns, but after 1982, the decision was made for no more depot rebuilds.

The M3A1s are a popular NFA weapon because they are on the cheaper end of the NFA price spectrum like Mac-10s (if $6-10K can be called "cheap"). They are popular in competition because of their 8lb weight and 420 to 450 rpm Cyclic Rate makes them easier to control during burst or autofire. My players like their ROF of 4 (see my post above) and DAM of 3D6 over the other SMG common in their region of Africa... the STEN Mk4. The STEN has a ROF 5 and 2D6 DAM but the same Recoil (4) due to its lighter weight and higher velocity cartridge.