#gun roast

[once-and-future-alaskan]

please tell me about m14. and also about m590.

Ohhhhh, a Double! Spicy!

So the M14 is a piece of shit, moving along-

Ok no, I’m not actually gonna just say that and walk away, I hate it too much for that. 

So the M14 was a result of military incompetence, much like UCP if you remember my camo wars post from a while back, that was adopted solely because of American Exceptionalism and the US’s obsession with individual marksmanship. The gist of it is that the US after World War 2 went “Hey what if we took the M1 Garand, that we love very very much with all of our hearts, and made it mag-fed and also able to shoot in full auto?” It was a simple enough idea that the US would somehow fuck up so hard it’d take them a full 15 years to accomplish. 

So development began and the newly formed NATO was like “Hey what if we all used the same bullets and guns so we can share ammo in case we have to fight the Soviets together? And what if those bullets were like smaller than out absurdly oversized old bullets, you know, like that German STG thing.” So the US, ODing on nationalism, went “I got just the thing right here, .308!” Now .308 was more or less exactly like .30-06, the US’s mainline cartridge in WW2, except it was in a slightly more compact package meaning you could carry more of it in theory. However, the US was not the only one who had answered the competition of course and countries like Britain had much more compelling ideas like the Britishes not quite intermediate .280 cartridge that they put in the EM-2. 

While all this is happening the US is chugging ahead building the M14 in .308. Now the main argument for why the M14 was such a good idea when things like the FAL existed was simple, the Ordnance Department said they could make it use almost all the same preexisting tooling and production lines as the M1 Garand. If this was true then that would be a huge cost saver and actually a really good reason to go with it. Unfortunately, that’s not how it actually worked out as by the end of it the only compatible parts between the M14 and M1 were insignificant things like swing swivels and butt plates. 

Back on the ammo side the US eventually strongarms a deal with the rest of NATO that says we would adopt the FAL like everyone else had if they adopted .308. So it was agreed and .308 was adopted as 7.62x51mm NATO. The US ordnance department, however, decided it was gonna be cheeky and hold a trial between the M14 and FAL and also there was this weird looking aluminum AR-10 thing there too that got disqualified for a barrel bursting that I’m sure won’t come up again. You can probably guess what happened next. 

So after rigging things and making up a bullshit excuse about arctic trials the US adopted the M14 and felt pretty good about it. The future looked bright for unquestioned doctrine. 

Then Vietnam happened.  

The M14 had a lot of problems. Most obviously was that it was a gun designed with the principles of a rifle from 1940 but with a detachable magazine. In full auto, it was effectively uncontrollable regardless of the skill of the shooter. The magazine is unintuitive and never goes in the right way on the first try. The traditional rifle style stock increased felt recoil and created a natural pivot point that increased muzzle rise. The sights, while excellent for target shooting, weren’t especially well suited to actual combat conditions. The rifles long length and heavyweight made it cumbersome and tiresome to carry. The large 7.62 rounds were bulky and heavy effectively limiting the number of rounds soldiers could carry. And much much more. 

While all of this was happening a 6-pound aluminum and plastic slender little beauty of a rifle called the AR-15 appeared on the scene and started catching the eyes of anyone with half a brain. Ordnance tried to stop the inevitable but eventually, Secretary of Defense Robert Macnamara stepped in and basically forced the military to give the M16 a fair shake and adopt it, leading to the M14 having the shortest service life of any mainline service rifle in US history at only 5 years. 

Speeding things along: The M14 limped along till the 2010s as a marksman rifle in the EBR configuration but it was really only in that role because it was what was available and NOT because of it’s inherent accuracy. The M14 is not particularly accurate for the record, it takes a lot of fine-tuning to get it sniper worthy and requires a lot of maintenance to stay that way and it’s still not as accurate as a relatively low maintenance SR-25 or similar pattern .308 AR. 

So TL;DR: The M14 is shit and anyone who likes it for any reason other than aesthetics is a contrarian and not to be trusted.

In Girls’ Frontline M14 is wildly overhyped 3-star rifle who speaks in the royal we. Her design is pretty good tho.

[once-and-future-alaskan]

OH FUCK I ALMOST FORGOT THE 590, so as @sylvastheicefairy requested:

The Mossberg 590 was introduced in 1960 and is, for the record, identical in every way to the 500 model except for how the shell tube is attached. It’s a perfectly respectable and dependable shotgun and, ever since Remington got bought up by cost-cutting grifters and basically turned the 870 into a complete joke. Has become the only modern production American shotgun that actually works. 

The sorry state of the US firearms industry aside, that’s all I can really say about it, I don’t know much about or have much interest in shotties IRL so I can’t speak much to it’s finer points, so instead, let’s highlight the wackier versions of it that Mossberg makes.

The 590M is a mag fed version of the shotgun that, while a genuinely good idea and afaik is incredibly well-executed, looks so fucking funny to me. It’s just this giant stupid box sticking off the bottom, I love it.  

The Shockwave, on the other hand, is just so fucking dumb and I also love it. Despite the equally stupid chainsaw grip this thing isn’t actually meant for breaching or anything, It specifically exists as a fuck you to firearms regulation by taking advantage of a specific loophole in firearms law that involves the weapons overall length so that, according to the law, this thing is legally not considered a shotgun and is instead an “Any Other Weapon.” Aint firearms regulation neat?

In Girls Frontline M590 is one of the best-designed shotguns in-game with this wonderful contrast to her. She is also, based on the size of her gun in both her art and chibi, fucking tiny. 

[once-and-future-alaskan]

mudrowned replied to your post: GUN ROAST

M16.

What a lovely companion piece to the M14 post! This one's gonna be hard since the M16 is like...unironically amazing. 

I’m assuming you meant the M16/M16A1 anyway. 

The M16 is good. It looks good. It shoots good. It’s light as a feather. And almost impossible to jam. 

So then why the hell do all these boomers keep talking about how it’s an unreliable piece of shit that jams constantly? Well, you can think our good friends at the Ordnance Department for that. 

You see, as demonstrated in the M14 post, the military brass was fucking obsessed with the M14 and wanted to do everything in its power to maintain it’s doctrine regardless of the circumstances on the ground. And the degree of fuckery is actually quite a bit more than just a change in powder everyone claims it to be.

The type of powder the rifle was was speced around was changed in production for cost reasons. I’m unsure if this was ever actually changed back or if the rifles gas system was tweaked accordingly.

The Barrels and chambers were not chrome lined, causing corrosion and rusting from the humid environment of Vietnam. This is often pinned on Macnamara rushing things along and considering Ordnance never made the M16 I can’t disagree. 

The rifles were not issued with cleaning kits. This is honestly the biggest reason in my mind, the gun can’t run if you ignore basic maintenance after all. The reason for this is often pinned on Colt marketing it as self-cleaning, which was in reference to the gas systems internal piston blowing debree away from the action. I, however, don’t think anyone at ordinance was dumb enough to believe that and they were likely just using it as an excuse. 

Because of these factors, early M16s had issues with jamming or general failures that were entirely the fault of poor maintenance. Once those issues were resolved the M16 ran flawlessly and has persisted in service for well over 50 years now in various forms.

Now that we’re past the defense portion, where’s the roast? WELL, THAT’S WHERE THE M16A2 COMES IN!

LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO HER.

Basically, the A2 continues my hatred of the Marine Corps by basically being their fault. The marines are obsessed with marksmanship despite actually being kinda shit marksman so we’ll make the rear iron sight over complicated. The A1s pencil barrel suffered loss of accuracy when it heats up so lets wildly overcompensate and slap a heavy barrel on there. The stock is the exact perfect length for 90% of shooters, so let's make it excessively long and uncomfortable for everyone who isn’t 6 feet tall. Oh uh, lets also get rid of full auto and make it 3 round burst instead since we need to justify that clusterfuck of the SPIW trials somehow. The triangle handguards aren’t all that great so let’s make em round for better- actually, you know what this last one is ok. 

So TL;DR M16A1 is still the single sexiest fucking rifle in existence and every variant that came after it that isn’t the M4 or similar rifles is trash. 

In Girls Frontline M16A1 Is a pretty good looking Rifle who played lots of Metal Gear growing up and is quickly becoming Big Boss. 

[once-and-future-alaskan]

Next Up is MG 3

Uh, stuff happened.

Also, it’s hard to find much wrong with this thing.Germany just has pretty solid small arms all around which is shocking considering the state of their Air Force. But I guess it’s not hard to have the best when you’re basically H&Ks meal ticket.

The MG3 is exactly what it looks like, It’s an Mg42 with a plastic stock chambered in .308. (7.62x51mm if you wanna be pedantic.) So it’s good. 

But it’s not perfect.

The MG3, and by extension MG42, have two critical issues that would make them my second choice behind a PK variant. They cannot easily accommodate optics, as is to be expected from a gun initially designed in the 40s. The other is that it fires entirely too fast.

Like, it’s actually a genuine problem. 

At a rough fire rate of 1200 rounds per minute, which is obscenely fast, it creates logistical issues other guns don’t have to deal with. This may initially seem like a good thing but the MG3 needs more ammo to fire the same amount of time as it’s peers, like the PK or M240. Meaning that it’s users must either carry more ammo and thus more weight or have to make do with less effective supporting fire capability. 

This doesn’t make the gun bad, but it does make it less desirable. 

In GFL MG3 is a 4-star doll with pretty solid art and middling performance. (Apologies if it’s blurry, couldn’t find a better image of just her.)

[once-and-future-alaskan]

scarletlotus182 replied to your post: mudrowned replied to your post: ...

wait, then what about the M16A4

Oh yeah, that. I meant to mention it but the post was getting long so here’s a short one.

Side note: There is technically an A3 but that just refers to an A2 upper and barrel being mated to an A1 full auto lower receiver. Those were only ever made for special forces types and got phased out by the M4 and later SOPMOD and MK18 rifle programs. 

So the A4 was essentially the US’s go at bringing the A2 into the 21st century and I’d say they did a pretty solid job. I’d say it’s lost a lot of its personality in this configuration but the A2 kinda did that on its own so It’s no fault of this specific rifle. Honestly aside from the still stupidly long stock I only actually have one issue with the A4. 

THE A4 WAS BUILT FOR AND ONLY ISSUED TOO THE MARINE CORPS.

Which honestly kinda taints it for me. While everyone else was switching to the M4 the Marines were still aggressively clinging to a 20-inch barrel while screeching about “Muh precision! Muh Every Marine a Rifleman!” The Marines are fucking obsessed with being special snowflakes to justify their existence and I fucking hate them. When I run for president I’m dissolving the corps, firing their brass, integrating the grunts into the Army or Navy and then telling them all to get fucked. 

[once-and-future-alaskan]

Okay, I slept, time for round two of me getting you to roast every single gun I've ever used. P99 this time around, my current companion.

I mean, you’re German, so how many guns could you have really handled. :P

So this one is gonna be pretty disappointing just because I don’t actually know anything about this gun, but just from looking at it I can give you a pretty solid assessment of it. So while I hate to dunk on your current companion, I have to tell you that she’s a basic bitch. 

The P99 is basically Walthers take on the Glock, it features a Browning style locking system like the Glock. It’s striker-fired, like the Glock. It has a polymer frame, like the Glock. It doesn’t have a manual safety, like the Glock. Etc. 

If this gun was a person she’d go to Starbucks, she’d get excited about pumpkin spice lattes coming into season, She’d drink white wine at home while she browses Pinterest and uses a filter whenever she takes a selfie. She owns a pair of Uggs. She’s basic.   

The only real distinctions I can see between the two besides their general shape is that the P99 has an adjustable backstrap, that black bit on the swell of the grip can be replaced to accommodate different hands. It also uses the objectively superior ambi lever mag release seen on guns like the USP so that’s a plus. It also probably takes down differently than the Glock judging by the sliding bit in front of the trigger. But in the end, these differences are surface level and it’s still just another Not-a-Glock. 

So there isn’t anything wrong with it, it’s just...bland.

In Girls’ Frontline P99 is a for some reason 3-star doll that I’m pretty sure I've never actually fielded. 

[once-and-future-alaskan]

You've roasted all these guns but could you roast.... Ribeyrolles?

I genuinely didn’t expect to get this one but here we goooo

The Ribeyrolles was a one-off French Prototype developed right at the end of World War 1 that as far as we currently know there are no surviving examples of.

Ribey is noteworthy in that it was among the very first rifles to embody the concept of the modern Assault Rifle, that being a select fire shoulder fired weapon chambered in an intermediate cartridge. This concept would not be attempted seriously again until World War 2 when the Germans brought out the STG/MP44 and forced the world to take notice. 

As for Ribey herself, It didn’t go anywhere. She was heavy at roughly 11 pounds and more importantly, was chronically unreliable. In testing, she managed a whopping 50 malfunctions out of 70 shots fired which is an unacceptable failure rate. She really was born on life support, I can’t even joke about it, she’s just sad.

If you’re curious for a bit more info on her including the proper French pronunciation of her name and want what’s here but better relayed, Forgotten Weapons has a brief video on it that I basically parroted.

In Girls Frontline Ribeyrolles is a chronically ill hospital patient who will make you feel like a monster every time you send her into combat. 

[once-and-future-alaskan]

Now talk about my girl ump45 pls

Ah yes, the UMP, that gun I like...

eh heh...heeeeeeh

The UMP was designed as part of HKs brief, post-G11-partum depression where they were both attempting to cut cost and also absolutely obsessed with polymer. You could sort of see it as a match for the USP as they are both pistol caliber guns designed around 40 cal that accommodate 9 and 45 easily and I’ve admitted to loving the USP, so naturally, this should be a favorite, right?

So, you remember how on the Vector post that I said the Vector is the one SMG made post-1990 I genuinely like? That was not a mistake. 

I want to like this gun, I really do. Both as an admitted HK Shill and just liking it aesthetically. It looks like a polymer update to the MP5, it should be a polymer update to the MP5, but it’s not. It’s a closed bolt, straight blowback nothing. It’s just...ok, It’s not utter garbage because it’s an HK but it’s somehow a downgrade to the MP5. It didn’t sell well because no one was gonna swap to it over the MP5s they already had.    

I can’t even make jokes here, I just feel sad when I think about this thing. 

In Girls Frontline UMP appears as these two cute but incredibly depressed sisters as part of Task Force 404 and are objectively the best story characters are also among some of the best girls in the game.