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Tactics Tracer Bullets

Tracers and ricochets in RO seem a little slow to me. Having done Night fire in Ft Jackson All the tracers seemed faster and when ricocheted they flew very high into the sky (especially the 249). Although i know they are different weapons involved and i couldn't quote the stats i think the concept should be the same
 
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I'm a USMC vet and have fired the M249 SAW, M240 both B and G, and the M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun both stateside and overseas.

I've never fired, or carried a machine gun without tracer ammunition. As far as I know you can't even get machine gun ammo without tracer rounds loaded on the links (in the modern military obviously). I personally wouldn't want to fire one without the tracers, they help you to see where you are firing, especially at longer ranges and with heavier recoiling guns like the .50 cal. I don't remember exactly what the tracer to ball ratio is but I think that Druidor is correct with the 1:4 ratio. I've never heard of anyone attempting to change the ratio, for one it'd be a pain in the butt. The disintegrating links that keep the rounds together are a pain to break and put back together, and when you're talking about a 200 round belt for the M249 and M240 it would take forever to adjust how many tracer rounds you have and where you put them.

The tracers stay burning for a surprisingly long time (I wish I remember, I think the burn time is around 4 or 5 seconds, I may be wrong though...). Many grass fires have been started at dry machine gun ranges from them. It's not uncommon for "cease-fire" to be called so that range control can send firefighters to put them out during a life fire exercise.

And about ricochets, oh boy do they ever. Off of almost any surface. Most of the time a machine gun is fired from the ground level because of the fact that it's on a bipod, tripod or vehicle (unless you're on a hill obviously). That small angle makes the probability of a bullet ricocheting very high. It's really cool looking to see a target getting hit by many tracer rounds from multiple machine guns and watching the ricochets bouncing off the point of impact and into the air, it's almost mesmerizing. They normally go straight up and just fall and then you see the tracer round laying on the ground where it fell (see grass fires).

The tracers in RO are a little bright during the day, and they seem a little too thick, even in the darker maps. Other than that I think they look good.
 
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Just to add in more detail, the reason why tracers are used for finding where your rounds are going is because after extended periods of firing a machine gun in real life, the vibrations tend to jar your sights off alignment and the tracers help you to determine how far off they're going from where you are aiming, so that you don't spend the entire fire fight missing your targets and you can adjust accordingly.
 
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I think a tweak is more in order, the majority wants them in i belive.

Agreed.. I'd rather leave them in as they are then to have them taken out.... mainly because it's not realistic to not have tracers for the MGs.

That and it levels the playing field against MG's cuz without them, you could end up getting continually mowed down and not figure out where the heck they are, where in real life, you would see the tracers and be able to figure out where the shots are coming from, thus making MG's clue in that they'll have to relocate eventually or face some nasty flanking.
 
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Just to add in more detail, the reason why tracers are used for finding where your rounds are going is because after extended periods of firing a machine gun in real life, the vibrations tend to jar your sights off alignment and the tracers help you to determine how far off they're going from where you are aiming, so that you don't spend the entire fire fight missing your targets and you can adjust accordingly.

Do you really think the MG's the military uses are that poorly made?
 
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"Over long ranges, the stream of tracer rounds and the stream of ordinary rounds will diverge significantly, due to a tracer bullet's mass decreasing over time, because the tracer material in its base burns and vaporizes." - WikiPedia
I've been trying to discover just what change in tracer trajectory would ensue as a result of the progressive loss of their incendiary fuel mass.
Precisely what "divergence in stream" actually occurs, and do soldiers and airmen firing a Ma Deuce need to compensate for this divergence when using the tracers to walk their fire onto the target?
 
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"Over long ranges, the stream of tracer rounds and the stream of ordinary rounds will diverge significantly, due to a tracer bullet's mass decreasing over time, because the tracer material in its base burns and vaporizes." - WikiPedia
I've been trying to discover just what change in tracer trajectory would ensue as a result of the progressive loss of their incendiary fuel mass.
Precisely what "divergence in stream" actually occurs, and do soldiers and airmen firing a Ma Deuce need to compensate for this divergence when using the tracers to walk their fire onto the target?


Never heard of that in my life. I understand the theory behind it and it probably makes sense on paper, but in real life I don't think that the fraction of an oz that burns off will make too much of a difference. At ranges where that would come into a factor you're no longer firing upon a point target you would be firing upon an area target so the divergence isn't too much of a factor.
 
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Do you really think the MG's the military uses are that poorly made?

It's got nothing to do with how poorly made they are, it's physics.... unless you have your sights screwed/bolted in place (Up/Down), it's going to happen.

Even with scoped rifles, after several shots, you should adjust and check your sights.

Here's some education for you:

Tracer Ammunition
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_ammunition[/URL]

Tracer ammunition (tracers) are special bullets that are modified to accept a small pyrotechnic charge in their base. Ignited upon firing, the composition burns very brightly, making the projectile visible to the naked eye. This enables the shooter to follow the bullet trajectory relative to the target in order to make corrections to his aim........

........ Before the development of tracers, gunners relied on seeing their bullet impacts to adjust their aim.........

Thanks for playing.
 
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It's got nothing to do with how poorly made they are, it's physics.... unless you have your sights screwed/bolted in place (Up/Down), it's going to happen.

Even with scoped rifles, after several shots, you should adjust and check your sights.

Here's some education for you:

Tracer Ammunition
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_ammunition"][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracer_ammunition[/URL][/URL]



Thanks for playing.
wiki can be edited by anyone and their mothers so "thanks for playing" also no where in that link did it mention that the sights would rattle loose and lose zero. What they are saying is at different distances the tracers help them identify if they are shooting high or low because you cant zero a firearm to be dead on on all distances.

Again do you think the crew served weapons and squad automatic weapons we field are so poorly made that the sights just rattle free then wiggle all over the place? if so what holds them down in the first place?

With the few rifles I have
Hipoint 9mm carbine $112/ front site is bolted on rear sight is screwed to the receiver

AKM $350/ front sight is screwed into a drum in the front that can be drifted for windage and adjusted for elevation rear sight is wedged in place and held in by a leaf spring.

M44 (Mosin Nagant)$99/ front site is held in place via dovetail, rear sight same as the AKM

these are just cheap semi suto versions(except the m44 of course thats bolt action) but I run them hard and confrim zero often but I have not had to adjust them since the initial sight in even after 1k+ rounds down range calibers are 9x19,7.62x39 and 7.62x54R. I couldnt imagine the military using a firearm of any sort that had sights that wiggled and lost zero after a few hundred or even thousands of rounds.
 
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Just to add in more detail, the reason why tracers are used for finding where your rounds are going is because after extended periods of firing a machine gun in real life, the vibrations tend to jar your sights off alignment and the tracers help you to determine how far off they're going from where you are aiming, so that you don't spend the entire fire fight missing your targets and you can adjust accordingly.

After 16 years in the Army (infantry, infantry scout and I'm deployed again right now) I've never once been taught, instructed anyone to or heard about having to rezero weapon sights because of firing. Not even extended periods. The one exception is with the M24 sniper rifle and it is only rezeroed when you recieve a new lot of ammo because it may be different slightly than the ammo that you originally zeroed with.
 
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