Yes, yet another article on the new rifle...

The link has a graphic showing three models.

https://www.armytimes.com/news...fle-in-coming-years/

Only 1 in 4 soldiers likely to see Army’s newest rifle in coming years

Todd South
1 day ago

Over the next five years, the Army plans to buy a mix of more than 120,000 new light machine guns and rifles, built around new ammunition, to replace both the M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon for select soldiers.

Army officials are asking for $111 million to continue prototyping the Next Generation Squad Weapon through the next fiscal year in their recent budget request. The NGSW program was designed to replace the standard rifle and squad machine gun, but only for close-combat units such as infantry, scouts and possibly combat engineers. And the procurement numbers show that only around a quarter of the 485,000 active-duty soldiers might get a chance to carry the weapon.

The three contractors selected last year — Sig Sauer, General Dynamics-OTS and Textron Systems — are expected to deliver 38 prototype rifles and 28 prototype automatic rifles along with 660,000 rounds of ammunition for testing and soldier evaluations next year, according to budget documents.

The Army plans to pick the winner and announce the production award by late 2021, according to budget documents.

At the same time, the service is developing an advanced fire control system for the new 6.8mm rifle and automatic rifle. It’s intended to go far beyond optics currently used by soldiers on their light carbines and rifles.

The Army wants the unit to include a variable-powered optic for short and long range shooting, an integrated range finder, ballistic calculator and digital display capable of providing an adjusted aim point, according to budget documents.

And procurement for those fire control systems give a hint at how quickly the inventory of NGSW will accumulate. They want to buy nearly 4,000 next fiscal year, doubling that number for 2023 and 2024 until by fiscal year 2025 they’ve purchased a total of 121,773.

The price tag for the first 4,000 units is estimated at nearly $36 million, according to budget documents.

That’s just for the active-duty soldiers.

Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers won’t see the new system purchase begin until fiscal year 2023 and will have fewer headed their way.

The Guard is schedule to procure 25,541 through fiscal year 2025. The Reserve is slated for 687 units in the same period.

That’s not a slight to the Guard and Reserve, but instead telling on how the weapon and its optic will field – prioritized to infantry and close-combat forces.

Much the same way that the Soldier Lethality Cross Functional Team has focused initial gear and training at improvements to the close-combat force – infantry, cavalry scouts, engineers and special operations forces.

A big part of the weapon’s development has centered around its ammunition. The 6.8mm decision came after years of evaluation and study, and debate, in small caliber circles. Early efforts also looked at 6.5mm to fill the niche between the existing 7.62mm and 5.56mm currently in the arsenal.

Army officials want a caliber that’s lighter than the 7.62mm currently used in some sniper systems and medium machine guns such as the M240.

But they want it to be as lethal or more at longer ranges to increase squad “overmatch” against peer and violent extremist adversaries, many of which use small arms that outrange the 5.56mm round common to the M4 and M16 used by nearly all soldiers.

Funding in the budget will also go toward continued development of the general purpose 6.8mm round and a reduced range round so that soldiers can practice on existing 5.56mm ranges with the new caliber, that is designed to shoot farther than some of those ranges are designed to accommodate.

The Army is also developing an armor-piercing 6.8mm round but did not request funding for that project in this year’s budget.

The GD model is a bullpup?

Bold play which will end badly IMO.

Good news for my 6.8 love affair

Is it fair to say the Krag was beta-tested in Cuba?

Personally I give myself a 1 in 4 chance of ever seeing this happen.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Good news for my 6.8 love affair

The 6.8mm cartridge in development for the military is almost certainly not the 6.8SPC II. Assuming that's the 6.8 you enjoy shooing.

Recently there were discussions of the Sig 277 Fury, in a hybrid cartridge. Performance is closer to a .270 Win, or maybe even a .270 WSM with a long barrel. This is definitely not a chambering for an AR15 platform.

6.8 what a poor choice!! So many very good 6.5 bullets available.

Exactly. The military's infatuation with 6.8 over 6.5 makes little sense. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented for 6.5 bullets, as there are so many good options already on the market.

Well, yeah, but historically the civilian market has developed the hell out of whatever the military winds up choosing and historically the military's been happy to adopt or adapt those developments that serve its purpose(s).

quote:

Originally posted by SgtGold:
Personally I give myself a 1 in 4 chance of ever seeing this happen.

Right. The last twenty years of projects and proposals have had a pretty low yield.

What’s a combat engineer?

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
Exactly. The military's infatuation with 6.8 over 6.5 makes little sense. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented for 6.5 bullets, as there are so many good options already on the market.

Yeah...I'm with you on that....

so many good options for bullets for so many great chamberings....the 6.5 is extremely versatile.

What your forgetting in making the 6.5 bullets on the market comments...is the Army can make a market on its own. It doesn’t need anything already existing. Look at 5.56 that chambering would not have been popular were it not for the DOD and the M16/M4.

Despite all the “army getting a new rifle” news I also saw on Facebook FN just got a multimillion dollar contract for more M4’s. At this point ( the actual M4’s being produced since the early 90’s) can’t see why we would need so many more unless they are to be provided to allies.

I think the Marines are still transitioning to M4s from M16A4s so that could account for the contract. The Army will likely continue to buy for awhile since the new hotness hasn’t been selected yet much less issued to the 1 in 4 years from now.

The Marines completely transitioned to a piston M4 style gun made by HK and completely ditched the M4A1 last I heard...

I too saw the new FN contract and scratched my head... we bought a ton of them in the past ten years and should have a massive, good supply of M4 and M4A1 rifles. Maybe they are giving them to Iraq or another friend?

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
What’s a combat engineer?

"Engineers have hairy ears,
They lives in caves and ditches.
They scratch their ass with broken glass,
Them dirty sons of bitches."

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
Exactly. The military's infatuation with 6.8 over 6.5 makes little sense. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented for 6.5 bullets, as there are so many good options already on the market.

When this round of discussion about switching calibers came up four to five years ago, I thought for certain the Army would pick the 6.5 bullet.
They did extensive testing of bullets in 5.56, 6.8, .308 and probably others. Not much is known about this new bullet or the case since the final design hasn't been selected. But it's well documented the Army choose the 6.8 as a compromise between the virtues of both the 5.56 and 7.62 rounds. They had concerns 5.56 round was not be strong enough to penetrate body armor expected on future battlefield. The 7.62 has too much mass without enough propellant. The 5.56 doesn't have the mass to penetrate the body armor. The 6.5 bullet would work, but they also considered other factors such as reliable feeding, weight and etc.

We'll see what the final outcome is within the next year or so. Whether it will be a game changer is anybody's guess. But certainly appears to be a huge upgrade in lethality over the 5.56.

quote:

The three contractors selected last year — Sig Sauer, General Dynamics-OTS and Textron Systems

Is this a joke?

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
What’s a combat engineer?

A grunt with a shovel.