New rifle and caliber for US Military

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catfish86
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New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by catfish86 »

http://www.businessinsider.com/efforts- ... ess-2017-5

There seems to be a series of articles and press about the Army and Marines who are getting tired of the underpowered M16 and especially the M4. Interestingly there have been 8 million M16s made and over 100 million AK's. That should say a lot. Why we have the amount of expenditures for our military and still have this rifle is astounding. For the cost of a couple of F35s we could replace all of our rifles and ammunition.

As to the 5.56, WHY? In WW I and WW II, we had rifles effective to 800-1,000 yards and now we are pushing it at 400 yards.

Comparison of the M16 and AK47: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... 47_and_M16.

Off the shelf the 6.5 Grendell outperforms the 5.56. As to NATO, we just need to set a new standard and let them live with it. Same with the 9mm v. .40.
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Morne
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by Morne »

No argument. The 6.5 Grendel is a good round but I am not fond of the boltface for it in the AR-15 platform. The .277 Wolverine is an excellent, if rather boutique, round as well for the AR-15 platform that only requires a barrel swap from the .223/5.56x45m configuration.

The real answer is that we don't need to live within the AR-15 platform. We can design a whole new platform with a new cartridge in the .250-.280 caliber range. Should've done that YEARS AGO, honestly. Better late than never, though.

Of course, long term, we should embrace a totally different mode of warfare. We should stop relying on putting humans with rifles out there as the frontline of our force projection. Drones, whether in the air (now quite common), on the land (a bit more rare), or at sea (rarer yet) are the future of armed conflict. Drones do not put our people at risk of death or horrific injury. An expeditionary force that looks more like Skynet's horde of mechanical horrors (minus the part where they have enough autonomy to turn on their masters, naturally) is what I envision us shoving into the face of our enemies in the longterm future. :idea: :twisted:

With a good enough drone force it ALMOST doesn't matter what rifle/cartridge the human operators defend their FOBs with. At that point, the rifle is more of a PDW than anything else.
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by glocksmith »

catfish86 wrote:There seems to be a series of articles and press about the Army and Marines who are getting tired of the underpowered M16 and especially the M4. Interestingly there have been 8 million M16s made and over 100 million AK's. That should say a lot. As to the 5.56, WHY? In WW I and WW II, we had rifles effective to 800-1,000 yards and now we are pushing it at 400 yards.
Oh boy. I'm gonna grab me some popcorn. This threads gonna stir up some stuff among the legions of people who think their AR's with it's "powerful" 5.56 cartridge is the apex of combat weapons. It's a varmint round folks. Was designed as one...always has been...and always will be nothing more than that. :mrgreen:
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by WestonDon »

glocksmith wrote:
catfish86 wrote:There seems to be a series of articles and press about the Army and Marines who are getting tired of the underpowered M16 and especially the M4. Interestingly there have been 8 million M16s made and over 100 million AK's. That should say a lot. As to the 5.56, WHY? In WW I and WW II, we had rifles effective to 800-1,000 yards and now we are pushing it at 400 yards.
Oh boy. I'm gonna grab me some popcorn. This threads gonna stir up some stuff among the legions of people who think their AR's with it's "powerful" 5.56 cartridge is the apex of combat weapons. It's a varmint round folks. Was designed as one...always has been...and always will be nothing more than that. :mrgreen:
It's a "high powered" round. Just ask any gun control "expert".
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by Gramps »

Get shot and die fast or get shot and die slower..... Still gonna die or be out of the fight and I can also carry much more 5.56 ammo.
Not looking for a fire fight with my bolt action .223, just a one shot end within our zone if my family needs defended.
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by Mr. Glock »

Within the requirements, the 5.56 is a fine round. You can carry quite a bit more than 308/30-06, the original loading of the 55 gr bullet in a 1:12/1:14 twist barrel destabilized immediately in flesh (note how the Russians made a 5.45 with nose air gap to do the same thing), and it does the job inside 500 yards.

Note I said "the job", as injury in a military conflict does tie up other non-injured enemy to care for said wounded, so, in some terms, a wounded solider can be worth more in diminished force capability than a dead one. I'm not making a value judgement on this doctrine, just stating it and it obviously does not apply in civilian world.

Now, all that being said, I think a 6mm to 7mm round in an intermediate cartridge would be a great replacement round, keeping at least a 300 meter low-drop trajectory (thus ruling out things like the 300 Blackout). But I've heard about current better results from the 75/77 gr 5.56 than the older lighter weight bullets in the roles the AR platform has morphed into too, and you can hit a lot farther with a 77 gr 223 than pretty much anything else that fits in the original AR-15 BCG/Magazine window with military-level safety margins (i.e. not hogging out the bolt to fit much bigger rims that overstressed the design in full auto).

Or, you can do what the SAS does, just shoot each target with a minimum of a double-tap.
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by catfish86 »

The problem is the ranges of firefights in Afghanistan are much longer than the M4 and the M16 range. I think the main reason that we haven't done away with the 9mm and the 5.56 is the NATO standardization agreements. This enables us to support any ally with munitions at a moments notice and vice-versa. At a certain point the California/NY model applies...if someone big enough decides that is what they are doing, it carries its own momentum.
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Re: New rifle and caliber for US Military

Post by Cloudwraith »

The military has long range calibers, 50BMG, .338 lapua .300 winmag. These are big and heavy rounds and obviously you'll be carrying less of them.

If you're an "operator" you're choosing your own weapon platforms anyway so the real goal is to select a platform that works for the rest of the military. It needs to be cheap, reliable, easy to maintain and effective. I don't know the specific numbers but most engagements these days are said to be around 100m. 5.56 and 7.62 are more than adequate at this distance and are capable of 400-500m easily for most infantry. They are extremely useful for CQB along with shotguns. Additionally, high velocity and small caliber are the ticket against body armor.

The massive change over from today's standard calibers to something new just because it might have slightly better ballistics or roundball stopping power would be insanely expensive. If one shot stopping power is what is required, then drop the Hague convention restrictions (which we never ratified) and use explosive tipped or hollow point ammunition.
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