Questions for combat veterans concerning selective fire rifles.

There are times when unloading a full magazine with one prolonged squeeze can be just the right thing. These times may be very infrequent, but IMHO they do occur.
 
Vietnam Vet, 67' & 68'.
As an infantryman, semi auto was mostly used. When things got hot and our positions were being over run, it was fix bayonets and full auto. Then, .45's and Ka-Bars. In the Central Highlands, the canopy was very thick. Hand to hand was not uncommon.
 
This I do not know for certain (because it has been a while since I was in) but I understand that machine gunners are sometimes trained to fire single shots (on a gun that has no selector switch). Then ordinary rifles and carbines are issued with a burst feature. Is that logical? But on the other hand, both the MG34 and the Bren had selector switches to allow single shots. Was that logical?
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Actually, (at least with belt fed weapons M-60/M-249/m-240) Trying to squeeze off single shots can often lead to a FTF and a manual cycling of the weapon. We were always trained to go for 5-8 round bursts with a couple seconds in between. with that 5-8 round burst you were guarunteed at least 1 tracer, the gun would feed more reliably, and you mitigated over heating your barrel (which is easy to do on guns that run from 550 rounds/minute to 1000 rounds/min)
 
This is something I've talked with my pops about... A Vietnam vet '67-68 who carried an M-14 through basic and in Ple Kue (spellings off sorry) for 13 months. He said it was modified to go full auto used when they were charging at the compound but said he'd use "selective fire" on patrols.

Personally I think full auto could come in handy as an option but with a quick finger semi auto is ok with me.

:)
 
Never been in this situation, but it seems an M-4 set on burst would be a good choice for clearing buildings in an up-close hostile environment.
 
Remember this, the intermediate rounds and most of the weapons chambered for them essentially made submachine guns obsolete. Would you rather have a Thompson or an M4 carbine? Oh, I know, the Thompson looks the part but how about a 9mm submachine gun or a 5.56mm (or 5.45mm) carbine? Did people sit around talking about whether it was a good idea to have full auto submachine guns? I've even read one writer's comment that a Luger with a shoulder stock was "almost as good as a submachine gun." But I know it isn't hard to empty a magazine on semi-auto anyway, so maybe it's a moot point.
 
When I was in the army it transitioning away from the m-16A1 to the A2s(3 burst). The 3 round burst made more practical sense for room clearing plus we had SAWS and M-60s for full auto fire when it was needed. That arrangement has worked to the present day.
 
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