• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

NEWS USAF Fighter And Bomber Crews Get Modified M4 Rifles That Fit Under Ejection Seats

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Wink, you're arguing for a scenario that has, thus far in the GWOT, been an extreme outlier. That's all we're saying.
 

Hotdogs

I don’t care if I hurt your feelings
pilot
Wink, you're arguing for a scenario that has, thus far in the GWOT, been an extreme outlier. That's all we're saying.

Based on accuracy, rate of fire, range, reliability, and size of magazines...I’d absolutely take a rifle/carbine than an M9. Id put a solid chunk of change that >95% of Naval Avaitors are absolute dog shit when it comes to employing said M9 on an actual living target that is trying to kill/capture you... oh yeah and it’s probably at night, you didn’t know where you put your other magazine on your survival vest, bother to know how switch it off safe, probably didn’t clean it in the last 4 months either... shit was it condition 1 when I pulled it out of the holster? Fuck, Can’t remember...

I’d rather have an M4...regardless of the extremely low probability or requirement that I’d have to use it. The M4 is like the Nintendo of rifles for the last two generations. Your grandma could pick that thing up, load it, chamber a round, and be accurate at 100m. This is a stupid conversation. The question should be why it took so long for it to happen.
 

Treetop Flyer

Well-Known Member
pilot
Based on accuracy, rate of fire, range, reliability, and size of magazines...I’d absolutely take a rifle/carbine than an M9. Id put a solid chunk of change that >95% of Naval Avaitors are absolute dog shit when it comes to employing said M9 on an actual living target that is trying to kill/capture you... oh yeah and it’s probably at night, you didn’t know where you put your other magazine on your survival vest, bother to know how switch it off safe, probably didn’t clean it in the last 4 months either... shit was it condition 1 when I pulled it out of the holster? Fuck, Can’t remember...

I’d rather have an M4...regardless of the extremely low probability or requirement that I’d have to use it. The M4 is like the Nintendo of rifles for the last two generations. Your grandma could pick that thing up, load it, chamber a round, and be accurate at 100m. This is a stupid conversation. The question should be why it took so long for it to happen.

I agree with most of what you said but I inspected my M9 and chambered a round before every time I flew in combat. I would have preferred a rifle.
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
Of course Durant made it. And the rest? Somehow he was of value but they weren't? I think you hit on it though. The value you may bring as an American airman is the share you draw on evening TV as they behead you. Not the kind of value to the enemy I hope to be.
Durant was the only pilot (or aircrew for that matter) to survive the loss of their helicopter. Wolcott and Briley were killed when Super 61 went down along with the entire aircrew. Ray Frank, the co-pilot of Super 64, and the aircrew all died in the crash.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Of course we don't know all the details. But I am pretty sure if he had tried to fight it out we would have heard about it from Jordanian press accounts lionizing him. But it doesn't matter. I was illustrating a point. And you have not replied on point.

A very speculative point not based on reality, really thin ice for this argument sicne we could come up with countless scenarios of what may or may not have happened. I'm trying to focus on what actually has happened.

The Vietnam study you note is interesting. But it was another time. Everyone expected they would be taken captive. Still I wonder about the fidelity of the study.

It wasn't a study but an interesting note made by the authors of the book, to find details on the RA-5C crewman's adventure is actually pretty hard and the second account I've only seen in that book and even in there it is only an anecdote with no details or name fo the aircrew.

'Everyone' didn't expect they would be taken alive in Vietnam, there were several well-known instances where contact was established with downed aircrew then shortly thereafter lost due to locals or enemy troops killing them after being discovered. That is actually a source of controversy for several aircrew who were originally assumed to be captured based on the contact established after being shot down but later declared KIA. There were several similar instances in WWII and Korea as well, especially when locals were the first to encounter downed aircrew.

And you left out arguably the most dramatic use of armed resistance by Navy aircrew. Ltjg Dieter Dengler conceived and led an escape wherein the guards were disarmed of a variety of M1s, and Chinese rifles. He killed at least three of his captors and escaped.

His was an escape, a completely different scenario than the one we are talking about, unless you can somehow smuggle that M4 into a prison camp.

Is Petty Office Neil Roberts so different than any one of us? Dropped out of a -47. He was alone, out numbered, knew the consequences of capture and fought it out.

Yes, training.
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
PO Neil Roberts probably went out of that -47 with 300 plus rifle rounds. On an average mission in Afghanistan or Iraq I would carry 270 rounds on my body and stash hundreds more in the truck. The 120 rounds offered in the USAF kit isn't a lot of ammunition in a fire fight, even for a very good shooter.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
If only I'd had an M4.

(This statement may have been made under duress)
:D

I still don't understand how one of these can fit in a seat pan, even if they break it down for "some assembly required."

600px-M4_Sherman_tank_-_Flickr_-_Joost_J._Bakker_IJmuiden.jpg
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
There is only one way for a downed aviator to defend himself...with a sidearm.

918CEC06-46A4-4EE7-9A4A-E1F632D1E3A0.jpeg
 
Top