Issue with "PDW" as a weapon category

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

Sorry, I forgot Americans don't tend to throw that word around quite as much as we do over here.

I used to be a study abroad student over there, so I knew what you meant.

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

I did it with the XM8 Compact (HK says it's a PDW) and the discussion made me realise the only thing having "PDW" around is good for is confusing people.

I agree. My preference is that we not have a PDW category for this reason. Mazryonh, while I appreciate the thought you put into what defines a PDW, I am still reluctant to include this category. We're over-categorizing enough as-is, and regardless of what criteria you use to define PDWs, the fact is that it's unnecessary because it applies to only a select few firearms which differ from traditional submachine guns in (essentially) minor ways. OK, so they fire ammunition that differs from a traditional SMG - arguing that they deserve an entirely new category for this reason is like saying that the G11 doesn't deserve to be labeled as an "assault rifle" because it fires caseless ammo (maybe it's an "Advanced Combat Rifle"?)

BTW, the fact that people are already using the PDW category on pages for weapons like the HK33 and L85 (which have compact variants) demonstrates their poor grasp of the PDW definition.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

Sorry, I forgot Americans don't tend to throw that word around quite as much as we do over here. "Fancy," then.

I see. I knew about "Port Out, Starboard Home," but aside from that the only exposure to the term I've had was Victoria Beckham's old stage name. But as I said before, it's only "fancy" because the best of the lot hasn't been determined yet. Once that has been done and standardization takes place, more manufacturers will offer them and they'll be as "ho-hum" as the venerable 9x19mm cartridge.

And it's not the first time I've had to clear this up, but I'm not American (or British, for that matter).

Originally Posted by MT2008

OK, so they fire ammunition that differs from a traditional SMG - arguing that they deserve an entirely new category for this reason is like saying that the G11 doesn't deserve to be labeled as an "assault rifle" because it fires caseless ammo (maybe it's an "Advanced Combat Rifle"?)

Actually, don't we already categorize firearms based on their relative barrel lengths and the type of role their cartridge plays? Just to take the G3 design, the basic firearm has been changed from the original battle rifle (the original G3 using 7.62mm NATO), to assault rifle (HK33 using 5.56mm NATO), to compact carbine (the HK53), to submachine gun (MP5 and its variants). Tightening up the PDW designation would allow for another manageable category.

I do not believe that the G11 would be an uncategorizable anomaly. The term "Advanced Combat Rifle" is not a meaningful term--analyzing the G11's cartridge's performance would, however, yield better results. I'm sure someone who knows more about the physics of firearms cartridges and their resulting velocity/energy retention at various ranges would be able to tell us whether the the G11's cartridge comes close enough to the 7.62mm NATO's performance levels to be considered a battle rifle, or if it is instead closer to the 5.56mm NATO's performance levels, which would make it an assault rifle. If or when caseless firearms become more commonplace, giving them an another supercategory labelled "Caseless Firearms" would be appropriate.

Originally Posted by MT2008

BTW, the fact that people are already using the PDW category on pages for weapons like the HK33 and L85 (which have compact variants) demonstrates their poor grasp of the PDW definition.

Why not just copy-and-paste a refined version of the PDW definition I offered to the top of its category telling contributors that "for inclusion to this category, prospective firearms must meet all of the following criteria"? That way, contributors have no excuse for not knowing the rules.

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Why not just copy-and-paste a refined version of the PDW definition I offered to the top of its category telling contributors that "for inclusion to this category, prospective firearms must meet all of the following criteria"? That way, contributors have no excuse for not knowing the rules.

The problem is, that assumes that everyone will actually visit Category:PDW rather than, say, seeing it at the bottom of one page and adding it to another it shouldn't be on thinking they're doing the right thing, or adding something incorrect to the SMG / PDW listing on a page, or suchlike. You wouldn't think to look for rules in Category:Assault Rifle before adding an M16 to a page, now would you?

It's far easier to just not use the term at all, that way people won't encounter it and so won't add it to things accidentally. You'd never put an XM8 compact or Magpul PDR into a category called "submachine gun," after all.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

You wouldn't think to look for rules in Category:Assault Rifle before adding an M16 to a page, now would you?

Actually, as of this post's writing there are now paragraphs attempting to define "Assault Rifle" and "Battle Rifle" in those two categories.

If "type of firearm" categories all-sported definitions which were sufficiently accurate and specific, most disputes over which weapon(s) belong to which categories should be easy to resolve. More knowledgeable users could then correct any erroneous additions to these categories made by the less knowledgeable ones, allowing for a (mostly) self-correcting system.

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

You'd never put an XM8 compact or Magpul PDR into a category called "submachine gun," after all.

It's funny you mentioned that. I remember how Colt themselves once called their CAR-15 Model 607 (featuring a 10-inch barrel) a "Submachine Gun" despite in reality being an ultracompact carbine by virtue of the round it used.

Originally Posted by MT2008

The "role" of weapons like the P90 and MP7 is just not very different from that of submachine guns - they're basically CQB weapons that were designed to have slightly better range and penetration than submachine guns.

I was under the impression that the P90 and MP7 were also made to duplicate the armour-piercing abilities of (ultra)compact carbines using assault rifle or battle rifle ammunition, but with much less problematic muzzle flash and blast when used unsuppressed, while in some ways being more compact to allow stowage in vehicles or the like. After all, an FN SCAR-H CQC (a 10-inch barrelled firearm using 7.62mm NATO ammunition) would certainly strain hearing protection more than a FN P90 if both were used unsuppressed at different times.

Originally Posted by MT2008

Exactly. When categories are vague at all, we're inviting these sorts of problems. And I'd rather not deal with them. Mazryonh is expecting people to be a little too much like him - which just does not seem reasonable.

No, I just thought people would see the rules and follow them, knowing that they might have their membership privileges revoked if they make repeated frivolous or incorrect edits. My experiences on other internet wikis has led me to be fairly positive on how things like categories and their entries are self-correcting, when the rules are clearly posted in a form most users cannot change. If this optimism has proven to be unwarranted on this wiki, I'd like to know how.

In any case, it's still the mods' wiki and they can do what they believe is justified. I wanted to make a case for a new category for PDWs, but if they want to remove it, it's their call and I can let this one go, so as long as they apply the new policies evenly across the board, such as removing "Personal Defense Weapon" from the descriptions of compact carbines using battle rifle or assault rifle ammunition, or reclassifying the FN P90, HK MP7, KAC PDW, et. al as "armour-piercing SMGs).

And why the pessimism of there being "so few PDWs" presently? The jury's still out on whether or not the concept will take off, and if it does, we can expect to see more of them using the criteria I developed.

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by MT2008

And anyway, the bigger problem for me is that it seems a little too hard to take PDW seriously as an actual "category" of weapons that is highly distinct from "submachine guns". I know that there is now an article on Wikipedia which treats them as such

It's funny you should mention that, actually: I tried to look up the references they cite, the "Smalls Arms Strategy 2000" document from 1986, "which defines the APDW (Advanced Personal Defense Weapon)." What I found was the only occurrances of this document on the internet are...Sites mirroring Wikipedia's PDW page. Nobody seems to know what it defines the "APDW" as, and it seems the arms industry doesn't really know either. Weird, given you can usually find any publication that isn't massive on scribd (ie anything other than giant helicopter tech manuals that cost $70 a throw) and globalsecurity tends to host things like that if you can hit the stop button before it redirects you. Globalsecurity even has that wonderful US Army urban combat manual where they built the example images in Simcity 3000.

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Actually, as of this post's writing there are now paragraphs attempting to define "Assault Rifle" and "Battle Rifle" in those two categories.

Yes, but did you know that before you checked? Had you ever read them to see if there's some rules there you needed to know?

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

It's funny you mentioned that. I remember how Colt themselves once called their CAR-15 Model 607 (featuring a 10-inch barrel) a "Submachine Gun" despite in reality being an ultracompact carbine by virtue of the round it used.

Yeah, the thing is "fires a pistol round" is part of a very solid and agreed-on definition which was made when submachine guns were first adopted (originally to differentiate them from machine guns, which fired a rifle round). There are a handful of cases of manufacturers not sticking to the "classic" weapon classes (another would be Rocky Mountain Arms with their 5.56mm "pistol" that happened to look exactly like an AR-15 with a really short barrel), while there are thousands of weapons made precisely in line with these classes. For everything that's not quite an SMG, you can rattle off a list of thirty things that fit the classic definition exactly.

This is in no way the same as a class of weapons the industry has no clear definition for and where you are proposing a meaning where I believe roughly than 80% of weapons called PDWs will not actually be such. As MT2008 commented, it isn't worth all the potential confusion just to keep a category around which will currently only have about half a dozen guns in it anyway.

That's the heart of the problem: there is no single, clear definition of what a PDW is within the arms industry, other than "a marketing gimmick name for various smallarms." Us making one up won't solve that issue, it'll just mean there's yet another definition of it floating around confusing people. I know there are some other contentious sub-classes out there (do battle rifles have to be select-fire, when does a machine pistol become a subgun, etc), but none where you'd actually say most weapons said to be in the class are not.

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

And why the pessimism of there being "so few PDWs" presently? The jury's still out on whether or not the concept will take off

Oh come on, the concept's been lurking around since the eighties and we've had, according to your definition, about six of them. This puts them into roughly the same bracket of success as semi-automatic revolvers and sustained pressure pumps.

[Yournamehere]

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

Yeah, the thing is "fires a pistol round" is part of a very solid and agreed-on definition which was made when submachine guns were first adopted (originally to differentiate them from machine guns, which fired a rifle round). There are a handful of cases of manufacturers not sticking to the "classic" weapon classes (another would be Rocky Mountain Arms with their 5.56mm "pistol" that happened to look exactly like an AR-15 with a really short barrel), while there are thousands of weapons made precisely in line with these classes. For everything that's not quite an SMG, you can rattle off a list of thirty things that fit the classic definition exactly.

The AR pistol you mention is merely classified as a pistol because of build compliance for American law. It's simpler to sell a gun built to "pistol" specifications according to our specific law set than to build an SBR for sale. I'm just saying that's a poor example of stepping out of weapon classification because there are legal matters in the mix there.

Additionally the qualifications for submachineguns as they were dictated during their inception were, more or less, the gun being a handheld portable automatic weapon, the pistol caliber being partially necessary criteria for definition and partially a necessity due to the build of the early open bolt subguns like the Thompson.

However certain concepts have been around for long enough to where there are a few broad definitions which I think the vast majority of people agree on:

Battle rifle: Any rifle firing a full powered cartridge (7.62x51mm for example).

Assault Rifle: Any rifle firing an intermediate cartridge (5.56mm for example).

Submachinegun: Any handheld automatic weapon firing a pistol caliber catridge (9mm for example).

The PDW hasn't been around as long and with the broadness of the accepted definition of submachineguns, it's hard to separate PDW from SMG. I personally thought that PDWs by definition had to fire a proprietary cartridge capable of better penetration (basically just the P90 and MP7) to be considered a PDW, and that anything else is NOT a PDW, just simply an SMG which may be falsely marketed as a PDW, as you all have said.

As for what Matt said with the role of the round not distinguishing its class, I don't believe that either, because that's about what the difference is between a Battle Rifle, Assault Rifle and SMG are, and so I'd say:

1: If you are going to keep the PDW classification, make the criteria fit with weapons like SMGs that fire a proprietary, non-intermediate round that is more fit for armor penetration and better range, basically just the P90 and MP7 which are as far as I know the only guns that fall into that. Everything else in typical calibers are SMGs, even if marketed as PDWs, plain and simple.

1: Get rid of it altogether and just call the P90 and MP7 SMGs, because they still fall under that criteria as well if you consider 5.7 and 4.6 "pistol" rounds, as they technically are chambered in pistols and aren't powerful enough to be intermediate rounds.

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

Additionally the qualifications for submachineguns as they were dictated during their inception were, more or less, the gun being a handheld portable automatic weapon, the pistol caliber being partially necessary criteria for definition and partially a necessity due to the build of the early open bolt subguns like the Thompson.

Well, it was much simpler: it was World War 1, and there was a hard divide between handgun and rifle bullets which wouldn't really go away until 1938 when the 7.93x33mm Kurz was designed. The sub-machine gun (which is how the term was originally formed) was an even-lighter-than-light machine gun firing a handgun bullet rather than a rifle bullet.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

Battle rifle: Any rifle firing a full powered cartridge (7.62x51mm for example).

In my experience, "battle rifle" is a subset of "rifle" which refers specifically to assault-like rifles that fire full-sized rifle bullets (ie FAL, G3, M14) and have at least a select-fire variant, otherwise it's hard to draw a line between a battle rifle and a DMR. If I remember rightly, the term is actually fairly new, and was coined in the Vietnam era to provide a distinction between the M14 "battle rifle" and the new M16 "assault rifle."

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

As for what Matt said with the role of the round not distinguishing its class, I don't believe that either, because that's about what the difference is between a Battle Rifle, Assault Rifle and SMG are, and so I'd say:

I believe what he means is that what the ammo is for doesn't change the class of the gun. So, for example, loading your M1911 with FMJs instead of hollowpoints doesn't change it from a "light attack pistol" into a "heavy duty pistol" (unless you live inside a videogame, in which case it probably does). Same here, putting AP rounds into what's basically a subgun doesn't really change that it's a subgun, it just addresses why subgun sales started to fall off in favour of compact carbines (the increasing likelihood of encountering bad guys in body armour and the relative crapness of the traditional 9x19mm subgun round against such) so companies could try to lure back their old SMG clients.

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

I was under the impression that the P90 and MP7 were also made to duplicate the armour-piercing abilities of (ultra)compact carbines using assault rifle or battle rifle ammunition, but with much less problematic muzzle flash and blast when used unsuppressed, while in some ways being more compact to allow stowage in vehicles or the like. After all, an FN SCAR-H CQC (a 10-inch barrelled firearm using 7.62mm NATO ammunition) would certainly strain hearing protection more than a FN P90 if both were used unsuppressed at different times.

You're not telling me anything that I don't know (or didn't already demonstrate that I knew in my previous posts). I am well aware that the P90 and MP7 are intended to fit assault rifles' penetration capabilities into a compact package; you didn't need to write an editorial-length post explaining the differences between PDWs and conventional submachine guns. What you still keep failing to ask yourself is why this ability makes them distinctive enough to deserve an entire category. Contrary to manufacturers' hype (which you seem to be buying into), the fact that PDWs fire such ammunition does not make them revolutionary enough to warrant an entire class of firearms unto themselves.

Also, since the G11 example obviously failed to make my case, let me try this one instead: Think about the evolution of the revolver. First, revolvers evolved from black powder designs into cartridge designs, and then from single-action to double-action. Compared to the submachine gun/PDW distinction, those are some major changes, right? Yet IMFDB still classifies them all as simply "revolvers" - we don't even have sub-categories for "black powder revolver" and "cartridge revolver", or "single-action revolver" and "double-action revolver". Or maybe you think we should do that, too?

But anyway, separating PDWs (which represent a comparatively minor trend in firearm history) from SMGs would be almost as ridiculous as insisting that we come up with three new categories for revolvers. If you wish to argue for that, too, then be my guest.

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

No, I just thought people would see the rules and follow them, knowing that they might have their membership privileges revoked if they make repeated frivolous or incorrect edits.

Um, making incorrect edits is hardly grounds for banning by itself.

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

My experiences on other internet wikis has led me to be fairly positive on how things like categories and their entries are self-correcting, when the rules are clearly posted in a form most users cannot change. If this optimism has proven to be unwarranted on this wiki, I'd like to know how.

Right, but you are trying to add more rules and make things more complicated than they need to be (for the purposes of our site).

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

In any case, it's still the mods' wiki and they can do what they believe is justified.

Which is what we're going to do, though I don't think it's an illegitimate debate to consider the value of a PDW category.

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

And why the pessimism of there being "so few PDWs" presently? The jury's still out on whether or not the concept will take off, and if it does, we can expect to see more of them using the criteria I developed.

As Tim pointed out, PDWs have been around for a while now; the P90's name comes from the year of its introduction - 1990 - which means that it's been around longer than most IMFDB users have been alive. Since that time, it has been compact 5.56mm carbines - not PDWs - that replaced 9mm SMGs in most tactical teams' inventories. Based on this hindsight, I think we can say with certainty in 2011 that the PDW represents a minor trend in firearms that is unworthy of its own special and distinct category.

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

It's funny you should mention that, actually: I tried to look up the references they cite, the "Smalls Arms Strategy 2000" document from 1986, "which defines the APDW (Advanced Personal Defense Weapon)." What I found was the only occurrances of this document on the internet are...Sites mirroring Wikipedia's PDW page. Nobody seems to know what it defines the "APDW" as, and it seems the arms industry doesn't really know either. Weird, given you can usually find any publication that isn't massive on scribd (ie anything other than giant helicopter tech manuals that cost $70 a throw) and globalsecurity tends to host things like that if you can hit the stop button before it redirects you. Globalsecurity even has that wonderful US Army urban combat manual where they built the example images in Simcity 3000.

That's hilarious. I think it also goes to show why you can't always take the industry's own classification seriously. Indeed, I think Mazryonh himself demonstrated this when he pointed out that Colt described their Model 607 as a "submachine gun" (which is also how Daewoo describes the K1/K1A). In the case of PDWs, manufacturers have every reason to try and promote their weapons as some special and revolutionary new class of firearms, even though they're hardly worthy of such hype.

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

Oh come on, the concept's been lurking around since the eighties and we've had, according to your definition, about six of them. This puts them into roughly the same bracket of success as semi-automatic revolvers and sustained pressure pumps.

I think this by itself is a good rule of thumb when we're deciding whether or not to create a new firearms category: If there are THAT few, it probably doesn't constitute a whole new class of small arms requiring their own category.

[MT2008]

In all fairness to Mazryonh, PDW doesn't seem as absurd a category to include as some of the others we seem to have. I had no idea, for instance, that someone made a category for "Multiple Barrel Firearm" and another for "Machine Revolver". Those should go, IMO. A lot of these unnecessary categories can be blamed on Cutaway (someone else who seems to have an obsession with making IMFDB into a firearms Wiki rather than a movie guns Wiki).

[Evil Tim]

I'm going to yank "machine revolver" right now, I've encountered it elsewhere and it doesn't make any sense as a category: you'd never describe a Mateba or Webley-Fosberry as a "machine" anything, because they're semi-autos.

Could you nuke the category, MT? Also, can you nuke "Welrod Pistol?" Ben41 accidentally moved "Welrod pistol" to "Welrod Istol" and created a redirect on "Welrod Pistol" that prevents the article being moved there.