Quote Originally Posted by Raum View Post
Yes. That's why I said there were 'inherent flaws' with using such a measurement. Even so, it's mildly useful for comparing forces with similar functions in the same time frame.

Compare USMC to US Army for example. Though there are flaws even there as I pointed out above.
But is this a reliable correlation? Has anyone graphed this, or is it just a tool that people with small support forces use to sneer at people with large ones? I mean, the Japanese Army in the Pacific had a very low ratio of support to front liners; they often staged amphibious landings with negligible logistics followup. But that didn't make them the most potent army in the theater, and when the logistics-heavy US got into gear, they got pushed back over and over.

Quote Originally Posted by Raum View Post
"In wars that the U.S. have been involved in since the end of World War II; the ratio of U.S. combat troops to combat service support and support have gone from 4 support soldiers to 1 infantryman to 7 support soldiers to 1 infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan." - Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn

So, using the combat to support troop ratio, we're arguably a less efficient fighting force today than in WWII. Probably not very surprising giving all the technological changes. That same ratio can be used to measure efficiency of different forces - assuming you have access to all the numbers. It isn't really cut and dry...special forces units often pull support from regular troops, Marines get support from the Navy, etc. It's just one potential measurement with its own inherent flaws. That's why I said 'better' is largely opinion. It will depend on everything from personal bias to what they're intended to do. As Mike G mentioned, you need the right tool for the job.
The problem I see is that the weight of the spearshaft doesn't necessarily say much about how sharp the point is, as it were.

A fighter-bomber pilot will have a swarm of support crew just to keep his plane flying and armed... but he's probably doing a lot more damage than an equivalent number of riflemen and their support troops. Certainly nearly as much.

So I question the proposition that this can be used as a reliable measure of troop quality, or of the effectiveness of an army of X thousand soldiers (including support troops).

Quote Originally Posted by fusilier View Post
I consider rifles with a "bolt-action" to be bolt-action rifles. This applies to Dreyse Needle Rifles, as much as it does to an SMLE or 1903 Springfield. While I suspect that the original question referred to later magazine bolt-action rifles, the fact that earlier bolt-action rifles were also interpreted as being better employed in defensive actions is valid.

Likewise I don't consider something like a lever-action Winchester (which has a magazine) to be a bolt-action rifle.

By the way these are all "breech-loaders", as are M-16s, AK-47s and Vickers machine guns. I believe you mean "single shot" breech-loader.
...Darnit.

Look, you're right, but I think you're missing the spirit of the question in the name of technical precisionism.