How reliable is your primary weapon?
How long can it go til it blows?
What are it's limits?
I see some anons discussing the effectiveness of the AR-15 in combat, often times claiming it's lack thereof.
Many anons have concerns that their rifles would jam or otherwise become inoperable in a theoretical combat situation.
I feel that this is a good opportunity to clarify some differences between cyclical Rof, an effective Rof, and a sustained Rof
The numbers for each of these are as follows:
>cyclical Rof ~700-800rpm
>effective Rof ~45rpm
>sustained Rof ~12-15rpm
As you can see, the difference in dakka is significant. I have linked a video showing what happens to a fun at maximum (cyclical) rpm.
In this video he burns through ~400+ rounds rather quickly, which generally speaking is over the regular combat load for an average soldier, he is also firing non-stop, which almost no average soldier would do.
Some other details to note here are that the rifle he is using is among the cheapest available on the market (at the time of the video). The barrel is a standard mil-spec barrel, I suspect that a heavy barrel would be best. With that he also notes that it is already hot where he is while firing.
With his skinny barrel and high outdoor temps, I feel this is a good example of what many would experience with a run of the mill rifle without optimizations.
The effective rof of 45rpm is what can be expected of a man in heavy combat, meaning that he has a lot of trigger time, this is also fairly unlikely in most combat situations. While this would cause a weapon to overheat eventually, it would still be operation for a fairly long period of time, given that it has time to cool down in between periods of fire.
For a sustained rof, precise and accurate fire, at regular intervals. One could have his weapon operational almost 100% of the time with almost no fear of overheating and subsequently jamming/damaging his weapon.
For the average soldier carrying a load of no less than 210 rounds of ammunition for his weapon, he will have almost no chance of ever going full dakka until he has zip ammo.
If he is in heavy/intense combat against a force that outnumbers him then he may have to use the effective rof, this means fair-poor accuracy but delivering a constant volly. In this situation he would run out of munition before his weapon would fail, forcing him to retreat, giving his weapon a chance to cool in the meantime.
For a soldier in a battle where he is either going to be scouting or dealing with skirmishes or simply sparse combat, he can expect to use a sustained rof, possibly even less. In such a case as this his weapon stands almost no chance to overheat, and would give him a chance for resupply long before exhausting all munitions.
This brings up another important note, regardless of the quality of your weapon, it NEEDS to be well maintained in order to function at any of these levels with optimal efficiency. The better maintained a weapon is, the less chance it will malfunction at any of these levels, or even with random firing. ALL guns need lube, AR's are notorious for being maintenance queens in order to run efficiently.
>tl;dr AR's can be good reliable weapon if you maintain it properly and don' mag dump constantly
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