# When is firing full-auto a good tactic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435 "2008-05-24T00:32:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/101 "2016-10-30T10:49:37Z")
It’s also the case in the post-Viet Nam era that lots more “fighter” pilots are really doing the attack role: dropping bombs on folks who can’t really shoot back effectively. As such few or none of your pals get hurt. There are relatively few USAF / USN pilots post-Viet Nam who’ve actually dogfought a real enemy trying to kill them in return. I don’t have an exact number, but I’d WAG it at a couple dozen. Lots of patrolling, a little chasing, and the very, very occasional opportunity to mix it up with somebody not half as good as you are armed with not nearly the equipment. With fairly predictable results. That’s not to denigrate our team or our people. Just that it’s easier to talk about afterwards when it wasn’t a year-long grind of getting shot at most days by bad guys you can’t always find and/or can’t always pursue. Which is a lot closer to the reality of a US infantryman’s life in recent years. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/102 "2016-10-30T17:51:43Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In general dogfight missiles are able to out-G dogfight aircraft. The issue is that what really matters is turn radius & rate. Consider a tail-chase scenario: If the missile is going 3x the speed of the aircraft maneuvering to try to escape, it needs to pull 3x the Gs just to fly the same curve. Great input, just one clarification. If the two objects are flying the exact same course, ie same radius of turn, the one going 3 times as fast is pulling 9 times as many g’s, varies as v^2/r. This also somewhat explains dynamics of planes chasing one another all the way back to WWI. In the guns-only era a rapid attack was generally by a plane approaching faster than its target in the target’s rear hemisphere (in a dive, having throttled up before the target knew a combat was underway, etc) so if the defender could react in time, turning toward the attacker as Oswald Boelcke directed, he tended to have the initial advantage in turning ability because he was going slower. “Fighter Combat” by Robert L Shaw is a good introduction for others interested. It was written by that US naval aviator in the mid 1980’s and concentrates on where things were then, but with good background into earlier fighter tactics also, with diagrams. Since then it’s become common to speak of ‘no escape zones’ of AAM’s/SAM’s v a/c, envelopes within which the target supposedly cannot out run, or out turn the missile despite the missile’s higher speed, regardless of the target’s timing of its evasive maneuver. But as referred to, there’s been relatively little air combat in the period in which NEZ’s have been spoken of to prove that out. And of course since the beginning of air combat, fighter targets have often been hit before their pilots realized they were under attack. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/103 "2016-10-30T18:14:37Z")
Machine guns on full auto can be effective if it is a proper machine gun, not just an m-16 on auto, and you have time to set it up. Those tend to be situations where you are defending. The biggest problem with firing an automatic rifle is that it becomes increasingly difficult to aim the longer you fire for. Especially the weapon will rise as you fire which means you should start below the target. A proper machine gun with a trained operator doesn’t have this problem to the same extreme and can more easily be aimed. Even then the operator will tend to fire short bursts (1-3 seconds). They also have more ammo so they don’t need to make each shot count as much. Also having a target rich environment is helpful. Think of the d-day invasion.if the Germans only had rifles the invaders would have had a much easier time at it. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/104 "2016-10-30T18:48:30Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Machine guns on full auto can be effective > > Also having a target rich environment is helpful. Think of the d-day invasion.if the Germans only had rifles the invaders would have had a much easier time at it. Machine guns were many times as effective as rifles per studies from the WW’s. Speaking of the Germans they probably put the most emphasis on the machine gun as squad level weapon. The German squad concept going into WWII had a belt fed quick change barrel machine gun (the MG34 and later MG42) as main squad weapon. The mainly bolt action carbine equipped remainder of the squad’s principal purpose was to keep the MG fed and protect it from close in attack (though submachine guns became an increasing alternative base of fire in squads as the war developed, and some German riflemen later had semiauto rifles and eventually the first ‘assault rifles’). In other WWII armies particularly the US the firepower of a squad was more diversified among semiauto M1 rifles, considerably superior in firepower to the German Kar98k, and a magazine fed ‘automatic rifle’, the BAR\*, far inferior in firepower to MG34/42. In concept I think it’s fair to say modern armies are of the more diversified form, but the automatic weapon in a squad is more commonly a belt fed machine gun. All this stuff obviously depends on the assumed mix of combat situations. But in many peer to peer warfare situations outside dense urban or forest terrain a squad can probably still deliver effective fire mainly with its machine gun(s), with rifle fire having less effect. And the limiting logistical factor might well be carrying ammo for the machine gun(s). Paraphrasing a period US manual answering the hypothetical question ‘why doesn’t every man carry an automatic rifle?’ ‘it would take an ammo truck following the squad around’. But in some situations you might sit on a big pile of ammo in static defense, or all the way back to WWII some types of infantry might be assumed to have constant access to ammo carrying motor vehicles. For example German motorcycle infantry ‘squads’ were just what would now be called in US parlance a ‘fire team’, only 4 guys with an MG34/42, very heavy in machine guns per man. \*though that was partly due to believing the M1918 was more easily put back in production using the stored WWI tooling, though it turned out mostly having to be replaced, but anyway there wasn’t ready to mass produce alternative, which is the main answer to the often discussed ‘why did the otherwise well equipped WWII US Army have arguably the weakest squad automatic weapon of any army?’ ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/105 "2016-10-30T20:41:15Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > … > “Fighter Combat” by Robert L Shaw is a good introduction for others interested. It was written by that US naval aviator in the mid 1980’s and concentrates on where things were then, but with good background into earlier fighter tactics also, with diagrams. … :smack: Good catch on the Vs vs. Gs. Thanks. Here’s a second endorsement for Shaw’s book. It sits on my shelf as well. Anyone who wants to understand classic jet combat with tail-chase missiles and guns as it was properly done at the end of Viet Nam through the middle 80s should read the book. It’s relatively accessible to non-aviators. Since then the tactical options have increased with the fancier weapons. But lots of air arms don’t have that stuff, or don’t have only that stuff. And so often combat returns to the essential verities of Shaw. ---
**Author:** ![EdelweissPirate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@EdelweissPirate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdelweissPirate)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/106 "2016-10-30T22:47:10Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If the missile is going 3x the speed of the aircraft maneuvering to try to escape, it needs to pull 3x the Gs just to fly the same curve. Oh, it’s worse than that! Centripetal acceleration in a body turning along a constant arc increases with the _square_ of velocity. A missile following a plane turning at a lazy 1 G (roughly a 45-degree bank in otherwise level flight) would be pulling not three Gs but nine Gs if it were moving at 3x the rate of the plane. Here’s the formula: A=(v^2/r), where: A is centripetal acceleration; V is velocity; and r is the radius of the arc. ETA: Ninja’d (and well) by Corry El ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/107 "2016-10-31T02:33:43Z")
The Beretta M93r machine pistol has a full auto select and I think it was primarily useful for breaching and clearing out rooms full of bad guys. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/108 "2016-10-31T03:03:08Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > The Beretta M93r machine pistol has a full auto select and I think it was primarily useful for breaching and clearing out rooms full of bad guys. 3 round burst. The Glock 18 has full fun mode. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/109 "2016-10-31T03:38:07Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > 3 round burst. The Glock 18 has full fun mode. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/_1cFUJEaYrI/hqdefault.jpg "Beretta 93R 32 round Mag Dump!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1cFUJEaYrI) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/110 "2016-10-31T03:49:51Z")
[quote=“Isamu, post:109, topic:450435”] [/QUOTE] I suspect it’s modified. I’ve never heard of a production 93r with full auto. Still, cool video. [93r](http://www.guns.com/2013/02/11/beretta-93r/) > [@](#): > > With a sear capable of full-auto fire, the 93R is a buzz saw that if allowed to run wild could exceed 1100-rounds per minute cyclic. > > Finally, to prohibit the 20-round extended magazine being drained in just 1.11-seconds, the sear is set to provide either single shots or a three-round burst rather than full auto fire. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435/111 "2016-10-31T03:54:54Z")
Being in Japan, I can’t own the real thing. Instead, I have an all-metal airsoft version, with the folding stock. The selector shows only single fire and three round burst, but there is a “hidden” stop in between the two that is full auto. I wonder if the real version is the same? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-firing-full-auto-a-good-tactic/450435.md?page=5)