NDD, You got me. I forgot distance to target and threat to my list of factors. Great points.

TS. Points taken. As stated, the MP-5 is not my first choice and you have brought up about every situation (multiple engagements and distant targets) that push auto fire to its breaking point, ESPECIALLY for the LEOs that do not get the ammuntion or other resources to maintain a high degree of profeciency.

That choice of platform is usually dictated by factors other than "what is the best weapon to kill people" IE: concealability or reduced signature. Preaching......choir, I know, but there are those that read this and wonder "why would he carry that gun if he did not think it was the best gun"?

Sub-guns are a step above pistols when planning to get in a fight. Carbines and Battle rifles reign supreme.

I ALWAYS bring a carbine to Wal-mart (or Haji-mart for that matter). Everyone knows that.:D

Good discussion

IMO LEO's should have assault rifles, they just don't need to employ them in the rock and roll mode.

Sub-guns should be fixed to three shot burst also, access the tgt and repeat if necessary.

Agree, good discussion.......


I'm going after those "double" thirty rd magazine users next.... saw them being employed on "Dallas SWAT", all I have is one question, WHY?:rolleyes:

I couldn't agree more with both of you. I always liked the 5.56 not only inside, but to get there. Of course we have smaller targets.;)

I would not want to take that 300 meter aisle shot with an MP5. A lot of people might be surprised at just how long some shots can be in an urban AO.

Somebody was talking about it not long ago in a newsletter or magazine or something.

Want an eye opener? Check your own environment for distance and cover. You will be surprised at just how little cover there is in your home and how far you might have to shoot.

Excellent discussion.

My thoughts is that this is learning from training experience issue and can the agencies afford it. I think with the military and LE agency training is often cut short. An example would be the burst selector, IMHO, was a short cut. It takes time to teach a person to burst. Bursting is the most effective use of full auto in most case scenarios. A bust selector cuts this training from the program.

In RVN, full auto was consider the only choice when walking point or getting over run. Semi auto + Adeline was sufficient to maintain accurate fire at a maximum rate that did not exhaust one's ammo supply too quickly. Most Marines in time would not generally use full auto. Generally at the range we fought at, sights was not used, we aimed over the barrel and watch our results. (eotec kind of does this) Sighting over allowed for a greater view of what was going on and limited tunnel vision especially with multiple targets shooting back. Most of this came with time in the bush, other words experience. Second tour Marines fought a lot different than cherries and were more effective.

The effectiveness then, I would say, came from actual experience which is nearly impossible to produce in a peace time setting. The other answer to experience, that would also enhance and speed up ones learning from actual experience would be Excellent training which seems to be cost prohibited for many agencies.


Military and LE has similar issues with training. Time and Money. The one local department that I had some close relationship with, time and money was a major handicap. A average officer starting his/her shift had over 8 hours of paper work that needed to be done. Then add the calls during the shift, their work load seem endless and they would never get caught up.

One of the state troopers I talked to was issued a M16, but it was converted back to semi auto, the full auto components were removed. As was mentioned previously legal requirements for LEO is a serious consideration in adopting new weapons, ammo, training, ROE etc.

In Oregon (3 Million people) the needs for most LE department may never approach the needs of the much larger departments in the massive metro areas elsewhere in the USA. Those larger departments may have sufficient resources to to develop ROE and officers while being to provide adequate training for the use of full auto weapons. I think the best example are the SWAT Teams. Only Oregon departments that I know that have them are the larger metro areas. Smaller agencies will borrows a larger agency SWAT is the need arises.

It seems there is more talk now of a need of a LEO that is not SWAT but has more training than a patrol office who is issued a full auto rifle. The major obstacle I see is: 1) cost of training and obtaining experience. 2) legal requirements. 3) actual cost benefit of such a position.

I think the 3rd. point is where I was leading in this discussion. Cost benefits of the new full auto augmented LEO. Can agencies afford the up keep of such a animal, the continuous training to maintain skill levels? Is there sufficient needs for this new position to pull a patrol officer from current duty or to hire a additional officer.

As A LEO I would have loved to been issued a full auto, but practically, outside of a ego boost, what real value would it have been?

One more thought
 

I'll throw in one more thought....

Threat, Tactics and Training.

Who is the target/threat, one home boy with an assault rifle hiding in his mother's house, two bank robbers in a robbery gone bad or 4-6 nut cases who want to take over the city and who have a little training?

The average street cop is not ready for a shoot out with a few half trained nuts involving fire and maneuver. Auto or semi auto.

If the agencies feel the need to issue auto weapons for a larger threat then they need to run basic fire and maneuver courses involving 6-8 street cops and change how they feed reinforcements into the engagement. A car at a time until it's contained and wait for the SRT?

I find a good burst of automatic fire into a window as your buddy moves to his next position a good use of that type of fire.

Pete

I must say the Riverside, CA guys did get the drop on me once. A very quiet "Freeze:eek: , don't move" coming from the dark about 4 feet away. I told them I didn't hear them coming and they said that was the way they responded to all "Officer needs assistance" calls in the barrio. They didn't like to get ambushed when they responded to the call.

OK, that's it for me and I'm going back up on the porch.

What I have seen is that the Partol officer needs to assess the situation, stabilize and contain. During containment additional resources are called up as need to maintain containment until sufficient resources are availbable to remove the threat. It use to be based on the California Emergency Management model of incident responce. There is a new name for it now (forgot the new name, just had a class on it). It was developed to assest the situation and bring up resources necessary to deal with it. It can be a one on one situation or grow as large as neceassary to beable to effectively contain and control the problem.

The resource base covers a large number of agencies, local to state to Federal and is expandable to beable to handle any emergency situtation.

Great points I'm going to try and shut up now. ;)

HOLLiS,

Some agencies already have these types of officers kind of a rolling QRF that only respond as back up or really hot calls. They are a hell of an assest when you need help but not too many agencies can afford them.

That is probably the biggest problem here in Oregon, is affordability. Fortunately we have pretty good agency to agency cooperation.

I'm going after those "double" thirty rd magazine users next.... saw them being employed on "Dallas SWAT", all I have is one question, WHY?


Because it's cool, and they saw Chuck using them in "Missing in Action 1,2, 3, 4 etc.." never liked the taped magazines myself, I always got jams or poorly seated mags.

Pete,

I agree indubitably with yourself and the Team Sergeant on this. Some days I should just learn to stop talking. My only point in making the statement was to show that not all auto-fire has to be "spray and pray". I in no way believed the described feat to be impressive.

As a matter of fact, the only reason I responded to this was that the Team Sergeant queried LEO's. Had he asked for Subject Matter Experts only, you would not have seen my name here. I am just a pup on the porch myself. I learn far more here than I could ever contribute.

Thanks for some thought provoking discussions!!!

Very informative thread indeed.

IMHO (may echo what has already been said)

No real need for fully auto from an assualt rifle, be it LEO or Military.

Innacurate., collateral damage and blatent waste of ammunition. For fully auto in Mil you/we have the SAW/MAG. I cannot imagine a LEO situation that would require fully auto, even in a 'cover' situation, good cover fire could be achieved by consistant and controlled single shots fired rapidly as opposed to just letting loose.

One of the worst scenarios in a military situation i can think of is shooting fully auto whilst trying to cover ground. Probably all your rounds will be high and you'll be too concerned with controlling your rising muzzle than on what is in front of you.ie: the bad guy

IMO, fuly auto does however have a place, on the range for fun, it is fun :-)

My .02

Hoepoe

I have seen many try to justify with incidents such as that former Marine shooting the LEOs at the convenience store. The problem is, they don't understand the problem, IMO.

Man you just got to love that Dallas SWAT show.

Anyways - MAGs and Tape.

Had Guys that taped their 5.56 mags with white tape for the snow. While on the range - they had problems with them.

Bottom line was - no PCC done. From what I saw they never put the mags into their M-4. I painted the bottom half of ours - this way if they fell out onto the snow. You could recover them if you had to.

As TS said Live and Learn

This is what I'm talking about;




http://www.odspec.com/AR15/AR15_redimag.html

Shirt tucked in.........
 

My two TS's required DCU top tucked in, top button open, good reload drills, empties inside the open shirt for later recovery. Practice, practice, practice will generally overcome gadgetry! Ask an Abrams crew?!?!? 6 rounds per minute, no autoloader!:lifter