Tracers from heavy machine guns used by infantry are visible to many hundred of meters as "fireflies" even in daylight. They leave very little smoke trail because that would be a very bad thing for infantry.
As a grunt and having been a M249 SAW gunner once upon a time in my life. Training at the range, I used tracers. In combat, I remove them. No way I wanted to be seen (traced back to point of origin).
As a grunt and having been a M249 SAW gunner once upon a time in my life. Training at the range, I used tracers. In combat, I kept using them.I mean the dust kicked up whenever I opened up with Clarice already had a big here I am factor. Even had a belt I had made of nothing but tracers. It was hilarious when I shot that one off.
Conversely we also don't have contrails at higher altitudes. Again, visibility of contrails dependant exactly the same as tracers.
Nice, but to all of the above people, did your tracers leave a visible smoke trail? Mine did not - 5.56, 7.62 certainly did not, 0.5 I think not, but dont remember as clearly. It was 20 years ago.
And how much smoke followed the rounds to the target? Or was the only smoke the smoke that you got from the round going off?Thats what I think Dobs is talking about here, not the tracer it self. What we have is a long tail attached to the tracer rounds dragging out behind the round and if the smoke was a different color would look like StarWars lazer fire. I'd like to see the "tail" shortened up alot. It would still give me the tracers to "walk" my rounds in, but wouldn't obscure the target I was trying to hit.