posted
Don't diss the AK-47 so lightly. You just haven't held a good one yet. (Or you are a lousy shot ) We have cheap Chinese junk here in Finland (no, not for the navy, I mean junk-quality Kalashnikovs ) for the deep reserves, some average-quality ex-DDR stuff for the regular force, and then these native versions with lighter, hollow plastic stocks and grips and a different flash suppressor. Those handle like a dream at longer ranges (200-400m), compared with the various 5.56 rifles that just can't take crosswinds. (Or then I was just given a particularly shitty M-16 for comparison. Wouldn't surprise me.)
Plus, a Kalashnikov can fire through foliage and snowy undergrowth, whereas you can protect yourself from a M-16 -armed opponent by building a snow fort. An armor-piercing 5.56 round is a joke. And when you hollow out a 5.56 into a tracer, the only thing you can trace with that is local wind patterns. When one hits you, you go "ouch"... When a 7.62 hits, you don't go.
As for alt-history writing, just imagine what fertile ground Finland is for that. WWII books are surefire bestsellers around here to begin with, so guess how the ones where we actually somehow end up *winning* some would sell... Oh, boy.
posted
So what's the general feeling about Harry Turtledive's "Colonisation" trilogy? I ask because I recently bought the three books (�3.99 from a local bookshop because they were damaged - but I can't see how! ), but haven't had a chance to read them yet. Is there anything that would seriously spoil my enjoyment of reading them (other than his attention to detail)?
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
My personal complaint would be that they tend to just go on and on and on. Lots of characters, lots of pages, lots of locations, but in the end I wind up feeling like the payoffs were far less than I deserved for wading through it all. But then, most of my favorite books of the past few months have been as dense as dense can be, so maybe I'm just bouncing off Turtledove's particular style.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
Timo, i'm a good shot, and i've fired a "high quality" yugoslav akm (the type with the double thick receivers, supposedly reducing the flexing that the stamped body ak's are so imfamous for) and it still sucked. the m-16's i've fired (and i've fired a lot going from the orginal Stomer AR-15, to the current M-16A2 and M-4 carbine) are all very accurate and very rugged. the valmet is supposed to be much higher quality than any eastern bloc rifle, so don't use it in M-16 vs. ak-47 debates . i can believe that the 55 grain round from the 60's and 70's couldn't go through foliage or snow, as it was poorly designed and too light to be effective against materiel. the new 62 grain nato round has no problem going through foliage, and will certainly go through snow (though the Norwegians still don't trust the round, and are still using 7.62x51 nato HK G3 rifles as the mainstay of their forces). there is a good article on the balistics of the nato 5.56 round here. in regards to the deadliness of the 7.62x39.5 round, it has approximately the same terminal balistics going through the abdominal cavity that a .38 special has, where a 5.56 tends to spall and twist, and tear up your insides (same thing that the Soviet Bloc 5.45 round did, despite that round not having an effective hollow cavity as had been rumored). case in point, a friend of my family was a navy SEAL in Viet Nam. he was shot twice in the chest from about 50 yards by a vc armed with an ak-47 and survived (pretty nasty wounds, and he lost a lot of blood, but he was able to get out of the hotzone with the assistance of another navy SEAL). in other skirmishes, he had shot several vc in the thoracic cavity from distances of 200 yards or more (with iron sights), and not once did the target fail to cease life with one shot (after all, it's shot placement that counts, and he could do it with a stock M-16A1 at 200 yards and the vc couldn't at 50 with an ak-47). the original 55 grain 5.56 might have sucked going through snow, but it's great at going through people. also, if you think 5.56 AP rounds suck, then try punching through a class 4a ceramic or spectrashield vest with a slow, fat, and lazy 7.62x39.5 round. it ain't gonna happen . i'd say that the 7.62 round you are thinking of that lets itself be known when it hits is the 7.62x51 nato round, because the 7.62x39.5 round doesn't anymore than the 5.56 does.
) We have cheap Chinese junk here in Finland (no, not for the navy, I mean junk-quality Kalashnikovs 
) for the deep reserves, some average-quality ex-DDR stuff for the regular force, and then these native versions with lighter, hollow plastic stocks and grips and a different flash suppressor. Those handle like a dream at longer ranges (200-400m), compared with the various 5.56 rifles that just can't take crosswinds. (Or then I was just given a particularly shitty M-16 for comparison. Wouldn't surprise me.)
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