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| Purveyor of Death and Destruction  |
Could you guys possibly find more to complain about? This round was developed exactly for this reason below. The M4 couldn't handle the new round. We needed a platform that could.  | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana  |
That's all well and good. The military armorers will be very good at changing barrels and bolts will be considered very much consumable. Which is fine if that's what they want. | |||
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Member |
Lol. Yes, we could. And that’s exactly the point which you don’t grasp. | |||
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Member |
Are you now complaining about a fellow user? All else equal, you are proving your own point. __________________________________ An operator is someone who picks up the phone when I dial 0. | |||
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| Member |
I was looking over the procurement and this is very much a slow roll project. It will be years before this platform is fully rolled out and probably on version A2 or A3 before mass adoption. The initial order is a couple million dollars which buys a couple thousand of these. It's a super flat shooting, very accurate cartridge that has similar performance as 6.5 Creedmore but from a shorter barrel. It's like a 6.8 Magnum. As for the rifle, like every new platform it will have initial problems. That's unavoidable and has been the case for every new gun. But in a few years we'll all have 80,000 psi cartridges and virtually no bullet drop out to 300 yards from a carbine. Sign me up. __________________________________ An operator is someone who picks up the phone when I dial 0. | |||
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| Purveyor of Death and Destruction |
With your reasoning we need to get rid of the M777 howitzer. Barrel life is around 1,700 rounds. Its going to cost money to keep up with technology. The 5.56 worked fine for the last 60 years. Its not going to work going up against troops body armor. Sorry if you don't like that. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
Does a howitzer have a 30 round magazine and a setting for automatic fire? Ridiculous comparison. Pointing out potential flaws in the effort to defeat increasing tech employed by our adversaries doesn't mean that I 'don't like' something. It means that I am pragmatic. There are various ways to get more velocity and better projectiles. Bumping the chamber pressure to 80k PSI has repercussions beyond higher velocity. Sorry if you don't like that. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
I will take that bet..... | |||
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| Purveyor of Death and Destruction |
OK, in all seriousness. What is your solution to defeat level 4 body armor? | |||
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Web Clavin Extraordinaire |
I think the answer to your question is that they said when they developed the Spear that they had to go in and make significant enough upgrades to the MCX design to handle the higher pressures of the new cartridge. Since they couldn't just upscale the MCX to a "large frame" version, they decided to make some modernizations over the legacy AR type features, one of which is a side charging handle. They probably also didn't want to remove the standard AR style charging handle to keep the manual of arms essentially the same for guys who have used M4s their entire career. Probably a best of both worlds opportunity in their minds. You can use one or the other, whichever you find best. ---------------------------- Chuck Norris put the laughter in "manslaughter" Educating the youth of America, one declension at a time. | |||
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| Member |
Where this cartridge makes a lot of sense is as a compact designated marksman rifle. The 16 inch barrel performance is similar to that of a 22 inch Creedmore barreled bolt action gun. Perfect for a light, accurate, flat shooting, compact carbine. This isn't a 1:1 M4 replacement and I don't see 5.56 going away anytime soon. __________________________________ An operator is someone who picks up the phone when I dial 0. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
Mortars. Grenade launchers. Air support. Artillery. | |||
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| Purveyor of Death and Destruction |
OK.....  | |||
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| Freethinker |
Ahem:
► 6.4/93.6 ___________ “We are Americans …. Together we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants.” — George H. W. Bush | |||
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| Freethinker |
An opinion piece from the Army Times. I post it not because I agree completely with the author or even have much more than, “That’s interesting; something to think about,” but I believe it is at least that: ==================================== The Army’s NGSW program aimed for the wrong standards By Allan Orr Apr 21, 02:06 PM The Army's newest rifle and automatic rifle, the Next Generation Squad Weapon, both fire a new, intermediate caliber round, the 6.8mm. (Sig Sauer) The Next Generation Squad Weapons program has been decided, Sig the victor. Ultimately the conventionally minded program selected the most conventional submission, an up-chambered ‘next-generation’ M4. Hundreds of millions of R&D dollars well-spent, the U.S. Army feels. But is it that simple? The NGSW program all-told betrays the Army’s institutional trauma following almost three-quarters of a century of failed counter-insurgency wars. It is its fears and frustrations in microcosm. ‘If only we had a rifle that could have shot a little farther we could have won’ is the subtext, as much as the lamentation that ‘had we just been able to go over the 17th Parallel’. The program is a reflection of the Army’s neglect by the other services, especially the Air Force, which retains responsibility for providing equally distributed air support across the spectrum of operations, not simply air superiority and transport. The NGSW is a reflection of the now deeply ingrained cultural assumption that Army soldiers will be fighting inadequately supported in the next war. Basically, these guys have become too used to fighting for limited air support and against the necessarily tight rules of engagement particular to counter-insurgency campaigns. Hence the effort to save the Air Force the procurement hassle of a bespoke solution and instead cram an A-10 into a cartridge. In Vietnam, the Army, due the extremely close terrain and high numbers of enemy troops opted for volume over power. They ditched the M14 and cut the weight of their rounds by half in the M16 to effectively double the amount of available rounds. Since the bullets didn’t need to travel as far, they had comparable power at typical target range for a huge reduction in weight. The Army effectively conducted engineering triage here. Post-Afghanistan, the Army had an inverted example at the other end of the spectrum. Mountain-to-mountain warfare had the Army wishing retrospectively that they had more range. Now they are quite happy to trade volume to get there. The practical assumptions the program was based on are now also entirely moot and empirically disproven. Russia has neither issued as standard issue body-armor, NVGs nor even optics under the Ratnik program. Indeed, in Ukraine, Russia couldn’t manage its own tire needs. Any war with Russia moreover was never going to be soldier-to-soldier, it was going to be air- and armor-based. Here, soldiers would only screen armor (don’t tell Russia). In World War III, the only time infantry would go toe-to-toe with opposing infantry is when both were isolated from the main body, a statistical improbability that has taken over procurement policy by being deemed a practical probability — if not certainty. A reasonable analysis would have set the bar at penetrating Level 4 body armor at 100-200 meters rather than 600 meters, as the U.S. Army’s program did at the outset. The dichotomy of conventional and unconventional warfare remains problematic under the program as well. The NGSW has tailored the round 100% to conventional, high-intensity warfare — and nothing else. Collateral damage in more likely counter-insurgency contingencies will be a major issue with this round, as it won’t simply go through the wall, it will cross the street. If you’re fighting platoon-to-platoon with soldiers equipped with the same high tech plates U.S. forces are carrying, bullets are your last resort, not first. You’re in a major war and if you’re not next to a tank or an armored personnel carrier, something has gone very, very wrong. So even if the body armor thesis was validated by Ukraine, the distance of engagement assumption remains invalid. Conservation of ammo would be the order of the day in this scenario, reducing engagement distance, AP rounds or not, to a few hundred meters. So, for now, the Army is not thinking clearly. The NGSW program has been driven by a conflation of so many competing strategic, tactical, political and mechanical demands it’s as though the Army declared war on physics itself. Ultimately, the Army absolutely needs more range and lethality. They’ve been issuing anemic rifles to our soldiers for decades and just for ease (again) kept a rifle literally designed for one end of the spectrum of infantry warfare. How we get to a bell-curve on small-arms remains elusive and one feels the NGSW will be just another chapter on how we, in the end, got there. Dr. Allan Orr is a strategic studies specialist who focuses on asymmetric warfare. His current analytical interests include hostage-rescue, where he developed an interest in small-arms following the Lindt Cafe Siege in Sydney. LINK And a couple of related articles by the same author: https://nationalinterest.org/b...-get-job-done-201901 https://nationalinterest.org/b...-get-job-done-201901 ► 6.4/93.6 ___________ “We are Americans …. Together we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants.” — George H. W. Bush | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
Roll your eyes and tell me what gets the most kills in warfare...... | |||
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| Purveyor of Death and Destruction |
No, I'm done. Its impossible to have a conversation with you. You don't give a shit about anyone else's opinions. | |||
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| Sigless in Indiana |
I politely opined that I anticipate that the army is going to discover that 80k PSI chamber pressure doesn't come without some drawbacks. There ain't no free lunch. | |||
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| Freethinker |
Whenever I read how ordinary infantrymen need personal weapons capable of defeating something like Soviet helmets or Chinese body armor at 600 or more meters, I’m reminded of the Mauser C96 pistols with their sights calibrated to 1000 yards. At least the latter could conceivably have been of some nuisance value against massed enemy formations in the open, but I am having trouble imagining too many modern enemy soldiers being taken out of the fight because of direct aimed fire with something like the M5 or because they were hit in the helmet with a specifically aimed M855 bullet (at such distances). I will also point out that chamber pressure by itself isn’t all that much of concern if the cartridge case and gun are capable of containing it. What can matter a lot even if the gun and barrel aren’t bothered by a cartridge that drives a relatively heavy bullet at a high velocity is recoil and everything that affects, including marksmanship. I read that the M5 was initially planned to be issued to select units and presumably those men would be better able to deal with that issue, and maybe the system or at least the rifles won’t ever become full replacements for the M4.This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund, ► 6.4/93.6 ___________ “We are Americans …. Together we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants.” — George H. W. Bush | |||
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Domari Nolo |
John Farnam's take: Link Behold, I Make All things New! BY JOHN FARNAM | 1:08 AM 21 Apr 22 New Rifle, New Caliber! Two day ago, the Pentagon officially announced what many have suspected for some time: After over two years (actually, more like fifty years!) of testing and evaluation, the US Army’s new rifle will be SIG’s candidate, an upscaled version of their existing gas-piston MCX Rifle, now designated the “XM5,” chambered for SIG’s version of the new military 6.8mm cartridge, called the 6.8×51. SIG is the only genuine “gun-maker” to actively seek this business. Other candidates were submitted by companies like General Dynamics and Textron. However, SIG’s now-chosen XM5 will have to be eventually manufactured in large numbers (particularly when war breaks-out), and rifles and GPMGs will necessarily be manufactured (under license) by any number of other companies, probably including General Dynamics and Textron! The 6.8×51 round is basically a 308, necked-down to 27-caliber, but this new cartridge has a steel base and a brass forward section, allowing for chamber pressures in the range of 80k psi, all in an effort to get increased range from a short (13″) barrel. It comes-out to a 140gr bullet and 2800f/s. The civilian version is called the “277 Fury,” but it likely will be confined to traditional rifle chamber pressures of 50k psi, more like a 140gr bullet at 2400f/s SIG’s belt-fed GPMG (w/bi-pod and probably a tri-pod), in the same caliber, designated the M250, is also part of the multi-billion dollar deal. Both rifle and GPMG are to be equipped with a sophisticated, but bulky, 1×8 optic, that includes a range-finder, sensors, etc. Both are also to be equipped with muzzle-mounted suppressors, making hearing-protection on training ranges unnecessary. The downside is that suppressors add considerable length, necessitating short barrels, which translate to reduction in muzzle velocity. Additionally, many are skeptical as to whether any kind of suppressor will hold-up under heavy, military use! After sixty-plus years, our existing M4 rifle (5.56×45) actually runs as well as any military weapon ever has, and many of us rely on our M4s every day, in the domestic environment. Yet for military use, the 5.56×45 NATO round (223 Rem) has shown itself to be consistently inadequate in range and penetration, ever since its adoption in the 1960s. Since that time, many different bullet weights and configurations have been introduced in an effort to address range and penetration issues, but none have adequately solved the problem. In the end, the 5.56×45 remains what it has always been, a relatively short-range round that doesn’t penetrate much! Yet, in a police patrol-rifle, and for domestic self-defense, it is close to ideal, but for military use it is sadly inadequate, and we’ve known that since 1960! Of course, this announcement comes with the usual nauseating, self-serving hype, but we all know and understand that any new product, when mass produced, will develop issues, issues that won’t even be identified until many thousands of units are manufactured, issued to troops, trained with, deployed to forward areas, and billions of rounds are fired through it over a number of years. These issues will have to be identified, verified, and honestly confronted and fixed, assuming they can be! Unfortunately, our woke-era star-wearers are far better known for creative cover-up and denial than they are for brutal honesty! In any event, we’ll have a two-tier system, probably for at least the next thirty years. M4s, M240s, and the 5.56×45 round will remain active throughout our entire System for the foreseeable future. New rifles and GPMGs will go to front-line troops first. Troops in rear areas will continue to be served by the older weapons. It all depends on how fast new weapons, new ammunition, and new accouterments/accessories can be produced (along with spare parts, armorer training, etc), issued, trained with, and ultimately deployed, and mostly how many unforeseen issues rear their ugly heads and have to be fixed, on the fly! Ultimately, we should all be glad this long-overdue update is finally going forward! What concerns me is that our current armed forces are one-third the absolute minimum size a so-called “super-power” needs to be in our dangerous world. New war will require an immediate, exponential expansion, much like what we, as a nation, went through in 1941. I’m not at all sure this nation is even capable of that currently! With any luck, that theory will not be tested any time soon! /John | |||
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