"The M4 Carbine is Here to Stay -" Topic

Despite calls for replacement, the Army's primary weapon isn't going anywhere.

"In the January issue of The Atlantic, retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales slammed the United States Army's M-4 carbine, and called for an entirely new weapon in the hands of the modern American soldier.

Scales describes the 2008 Battle of Wanat—when the Taliban attacked a forward outpost defended by American troops—and his own experiences in Vietnam with faulty M-16 rifles.

In both instances, the M-16 and its descendant, the M-4 carbine, failed in battle and cost American lives…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I hope not, any weapon that uses the crap underpowered 5.56 round is not fit in combat. I'm glad I never need to use it to fight with. As was I broke 4 of the useless things in training.

Don't bet on it. The Army is getting close to replacing their squad automatic weapon. Just a matter if it will be caseless ammo or cased ammo. The same technology will be used for a carbine and a platoon machinegun.

While the Army (and Marines) have been working on the LSAT squad-automatic for a while now, the last I heard it was still a 5.56 weapon. IMO, 5.56 is too light a round. If I was on the LSAT panel, I'd be pushing for something comparable to the 6.5 Grendel (which is also comparable to the Arisaka and Carcano rifles of WW2). Effective out to about 1000m from the SAW, and actually carries more energy than a 7.62mm NATO rifle past 500m.

I'd make the platoon MG in 8.5mm. Yes, .338 Lapua equivalent. Roughly 4x more oomph than 7.62mm NATO, and capable of 1500-1750m effective range (before the bullet drops subsonic and accuracy goes to hell).

They just put out a contract for 7.62 mm ammo from Hextron.

Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse rifles fire?

Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor piercing rounds, why?

That's what we need right there!

I've followed/participated in some semi-regular discussions about small arms and platoon firepower over at TankNet. The two biggest failings of 5.56mm are:

-poor long-range performance
-poor penetration of cover in urban ops

There are several ways to correct these problems at the squad/platoon/company level without tossing the round (and our ammo stockpiles) in the trash.

Firstly, I agree that a .338 Lapua GPMG would be an ideal upgrade over the current 7.62 NATO. General Dynamics already has prototypes ( link ).

I'd also want to improve our HE delivery, preferably by deploying something like China's QLB-06 ( link ). Combine these, 338 MGs, and our existing man-pack 60mm mortars and you have more than enough firepower to create a combined-arms dilemma out to 1000m, organic to an infantry company. For addressing cover in urban ops, increase the use of the Carl Gustav (for the Army) and the SMAW (for the USMC), as well as 40mm UGLs.

5.56mm is adequate for it's primary purpose: enabling your riflemen to accurately engage individuals at short ranges -- close assault-type work. But as they drilled into our heads at TBS/IOC "Suppression is the key infantry task". Something that rifles aren't very good at regardless of caliber (IMO).

Just put gas-piston upper receivers on all the M4s/M16A4s for simplified maintenance and call it a day. Use your riflemen to hump extra munitions for all the crew-served weapons mentioned above, which will be your primary damage dealers and maneuver-enablers for a dismounted infantry formation anyway.

……..speaking as someone not far removed from the pointy end of things:

1. My M4 worked just fine through both deployments. The only reliability problems I encountered was firing blanks, largely due to the 5.56 blank being calibrated to cycle using the longer barreled M16s. Had some bad magazine misfeeds during an LFX once, but I cannot think of a moment it let me down otherwise.

I have no idea how someone would break four of them in training. I saw two get broken, one a tank ran over, and the other got bent when the turret was traversing.

2. The ability of the human body to resist 5.56 is vastly overrated. The ability to control a 7.62 weapon in close quarters, and carry a good basic load for it, vastly overstated.

Re: "Don't bet on it. The Army is getting close to replacing their squad automatic weapon. Just a matter if it will be caseless ammo or cased ammo. The same technology will be used for a carbine and a platoon machinegun."

This is literally the only time I have heard anything about this. The more likely change, if any is moving the M240L (an M240 made with much lightened parts, with no real change in performance) down to replace the SAW,or there's some wizbang 7.62 version of the M249 the SEALs use that might come around.

If the Army hasn't decided if it's using conventional or caseless rounds, I'd say it's pretty far from actually fielding a replacement.

Re: .388

Doubtful. 7.62 still offers good MMG performance, it's available in vast quantities, and all of our BFF countries use it in spades. The more practical problem with infantry carried MMGs remains weight, and that's something the M240L resolves rather nicely.

Re: Pulse Rifles

It's all fun and games until you're in an Atmospheric Processor, no thanks, game over man.

The M4 is likely around until the Pulse Rifle is a real thing. The 7.62 MMG will likely still exist after most of us have gotten lead poisoning from our miniatures. Only small arms I think might see some change is replacing the M249 with a light 7.62 type weapon, and something like the XM-25 actually reaching serial production.

The M-4 is a lousy weapon and only slighty better than a M-16.

Shoots what is basically a 22 Cal bullet.

And the M14 fires a round smaller than a 9 MM pistol! What are we thinking?

@Mithmee: It might be .22 caliber, but don't mistake a 62gr slug at 3200 feet per second (which will kill a deer if you're a good enough shot) for a 25gr slug at 1200 (which will off a deer).

But while .223/5.56mm is low-recoiling and easily controllable at high rates of fire, the modern US soldier actually has ammo discipline most of the time. In a firefight between Iraqis or Afghans and Americans, the Iraqis/Afghans were firing full-auto, the Americans single shots. Modern war around American soldiers doesn't sound like war. It's all single shots from the rifles and short bursts from LMGs.

And now that the US Army has rediscovered basic marksmanship, you need a round that will actually pierce cover and put a man down.

If the Army hasn't decided if it's using conventional or caseless rounds, I'd say it's pretty far from actually fielding a replacement.

Army wants the LSAT LMG now, which means plastic-cased, case-telescoped ammo. The Marines are resisting the changeover until caseless is sufficiently mature (and I'm assuming to allow time to develop the caseless carbine).

Re: .388

Doubtful. 7.62 still offers good MMG performance, it's available in vast quantities, and all of our BFF countries use it in spades. The more practical problem with infantry carried MMGs remains weight, and that's something the M240L resolves rather nicely.

Except that the Lightweight Medium Machine Gun ( link the existing .338 MMG) is 22lbs, which is a squidge *lighter* than an M240L.

It has the whole action including barrel cycle a short distance, then uses a gas piston to unlock, eject the spent round and feed a fresh round in to reduce recoil. This keeps recoil down to 7.62NATO levels while delivering 4x more energy to the target.

The annoying issue with shifting to .338 ammo is that the ammo itself is heavier (duh, the bullets themselves are close to twice the weight!). A 100rd box of 7.62NATO is ~7lbs, while the 100rd box of .338 is ~9lbs. 800rds of 7.62NATO is 76lbs, while 500rds of .338 is 83lbs (that's one full minute's firing at full cyclic rate for each gun, so it's a valid comparison)

Army wants the LSAT LMG now, which means plastic-cased, case-telescoped ammo. The Marines are resisting the changeover until caseless is sufficiently mature (and I'm assuming to allow time to develop the caseless carbine).

I worked the integration of the M320, M2A1, M240L, and to a lesser extent the M26 (more I was stuck in the same meetings about them because of the first three) for my last unit. The amount of build up, new equipment training, changes to maintenance cycles, supply stock, and all the nitnoid annoying details like proper arms room storage all took a fair amount of time to work out. The actual "you guys are getting new weapons" to "here is your pallet of M320s, please sign here" was significant, even with "There's a war on!" procurement. Worthy of note none of these weapons were "new" in the sense of radically different, firing calibers outside of the Army supply system, etc, etc. The fact I had to wikipedia what LSAT LMG is indicative of how distant it likely is to deployment or procurement. Additionally at a point in history where the Army is cutting something like 10-15% of it's manning, a new small arms system is very doubtful to put it mildly, and given the "success" of weapons systems like the SCAR, XM8, and the floundering of the XM-25 (which is something that really should be in mass service NOW) all point to a caseless LMG and carbine being if not entirely unlikely, very doubtful until we're well into the 2020s.

Same deal with the LMMG, it's a concept that is being demonstrated, but I have not seen any official interest beyond when it's brought to large trade shows. The expense of adding in a new ammunition family, and only replacing what looks like the M240B/G family (as there does not appear to be a plan/need for a M240/C/D etc replacement) does not appear to carry water if you're looking in the practical end of things.

Furthermore the 900 meter+engagement ranges are simply not common in most fighting. Afghanistan is unique in the long sight-lines it offers on a regular basis, and to that end again, it's better, but is this "we spend millions of dollars to adopt this weapon, put the ammunition in the supply system in quantities to support a MMG" better? And given the money involved, the lack of mission post-Afghanistan, I guess SOF dudes might buy a few of them, but I'm dubious beyond my ability to articulate in text it'll be common issue in the near future.

"Now" being a rather relative term. I figure 5-10 years for plastic-cased, 10-15 for caseless.

Cool. But here's the thing:

What was the US Army doing 10-15 years ago, and is that relevant to what is happening today? And the answer is the farther you get away from program inception to deployment, the more dubious it is that it will actually reach fruition.

When I graduated armor school we were all going to be rolling on FCS based systems in a few years, busting caps with M8 rifles, supported by new ARH helicopters that were going to partly replace the OH-58 and AH-64!

Very little of what comes out as the cool-guy-super-future stuff makes it far. Even when you've got working prototypes and combat test stuff it's still pretty dicey (see SCAR, or the development hell the XM-25 has entered).

So in 5ish years, and we're seeing Delta Force/Rangers dancing around with LSATs and LMMGs? Then I'll start to believe it. But right now they're just as solid as the MBT-70, XM8 (both of them!) and the RAH-66 ever were.

In both instances, the M-16 and its descendant, the M-4 carbine, failed in battle and cost American lives…"

I did not know that ?

My M4 worked just fine

That was my experience with the M16 '79-'90 while on active duty as a Grunt way back then …

Well, I think that the FCS is still a great idea, but the Active Defense Systems were not mature enough at the time.

We could probably build a couple rapid-deployment BCTs worth of them, and see if the Marines are interested in lighter/faster tanks. Be even better if we made an amphibious APC variant with a 13-17 passenger capacity (one ACV per USMC squad).

The Army is (yet again) trying to get a functional light tank (excuse me, they're calling it the Mobile Protected Firepower now :roll: ), and one of the ideas is yet another LAV/Stryker with a 105mm gun in a turret.

FCS was crap. It was the same thinking that put scouts in HMMWVs, that somehow optics and force shields would make up for not being able to survive in a direct fire fight. That and when you get down to it APS and armor beats just APS any day.

Light tank would be best as the AGS revived. Wheels are balls once you leave a road, especially when you make them heavy by adding a gun.

Amphibous APC is a waste of time at this point unless it can go over the horizon, which went away with EFV. Some sort of LAV-PC would be the better option in terms of giving something to move Marines, but they don't really need an IFV, or really armor if we're being honest.

The point of having an amphibious APC that could go over the horizon was to get the 'phibs out of coastal artillery range. And then shorebased antiship missiles started getting 100+km range, which meant that a 'phib couldn't be out of harm's way while EFVs went to the beach. Makes any opposed entry needs a much bigger initial strike to wipe out any shore-based antiship missiles before the 'phibs get in range (or before the shore-based defenses can shoot at the phibs).

And a friend of mine from a Stryker unit doesn't see a point in having any armor over small arms and 155mm splinters. If you're taking antivehicle fire you need to get your ass out of that position!

[me]: If you could design your ideal lightly-armored vehicle (Stryker/Brad/M113 replacement type), what would it be able to do?

Captain, US Army: Well, I think they are fundamentally two different vehicles. Which is our problem. Even in WWII, we decided that going full IFV / AFV was retarded.

So to be a new IFV.. the Bradley is a good basis for a vehicle. It needs to be, however, lighter and larger. So I'd say drop armor protection.. doesn't really work anyway. If it can resist 12.7mm from the sides, around 35-40mm frontally, it should be ok.

It *needs* to fit 9 dismounts, not 4-5.

Keep the TOW and the 25mm; works fine. Upgrade the TOW, but concept is fine.

Biggest thing we need to do is upgrade optics and comms integration.
But honestly, for what we want it to do, the Brad is pretty good.

Now the ICV type vehicle, whole different issue. Keep in mind my perspective is colored by being a Stryker guy.

The requirement should be for a vehicle, in a non armored formation, to provide protection, mobility, and battlefield dominance capabilities to the unit. Battlefield dominance comes in information, mission command /command and control, and firepower.

It should have enough protection to defeat man portable infantry weapons / crew served weapons. So [armored to stop] 12.7mm and RPGs

Its a non armored formation, so our firepower comes from our infantry.. so it needs to carry 9 dismounts along with Javelins / AT Missiles

Needs to have advanced optics, more computer integration, more signal support for information comms.

Weaponry should be what infantry need to win infantry on infantry fights.

So 50 cal is fine, but I'd look into replacing the MK 19 with a 'new' system, such as a 55mm low velocity gun [to blow up bunkers and other obstacles].

I'm oddly amused that the US seems to have settled into the same model as the Germans did in WW2. We have heavy brigades that have tanks and APCs (Panzerdivision). We have light brigades that have unarmored trucks (Infanteriedivision). And we have Stryker Brigades that are neither fish nor fowl with armored off-road trucks, intended to be able to keep up with the heavy brigades and hold the ground that the heavies take, or to run to where the light brigades are in trouble with vehicles that are tough enough to take any infantry firefight and artillery fire (Panzergrenadierdivision).

Forced entry from the literal sea is over (excluding aviation based attacks). Reasonably speaking unopposed beach landing is about as good as it gets. And making the sort of compromises to make an ocean going APC are not worth it. It can roll off the LCAC with everything else.

I used to work in the armyland. Armor gives you the second chance to get out of the line of fire. Strykers have an unfortunate tendency not to give you a second chance, and their performance in high intensity NTC/JRTCs has been poor. They're good PCs, bad everything else.

Having three flavors of brigades makes sense. You have the Armored Brigades for full spectrum operations. You have the Infantry Brigades for rapid deployment counter-insurgency stuff (and some specialized full spectrum stuff). Strykers do well being the light full spectrum, or heavy contingency operations. For an Army called to do all missions, nearly everywhere, it's pretty much a given you're going to have that sort of heavy-medium-light composition.

FCS wasn't good at any of those. Its too much for rapid deployment, it's way too light to exist in a full spectrum environment, and it was much, much too expensive to simply fail at both.

So wouldn't this depend on who and where we are fighting?

The US military is mainly doing urban and semi-urban fighting, at relatively close quarters, with heavy fire support available, against un-armoured enemies with poor training.

Isn't the M4 style of weapon pretty much the ideal weapon for that role?

So wouldn't this depend on who and where we are fighting?

The US military is mainly doing urban and semi-urban fighting, at relatively close quarters, with heavy fire support available, against un-armoured enemies with poor training.

I think panzerk answered that question …

You have the Armored Brigades for full spectrum operations. You have the Infantry Brigades for rapid deployment counter-insurgency stuff (and some specialized full spectrum stuff). Strykers do well being the light full spectrum, or heavy contingency operations. For an Army called to do all missions, nearly everywhere, it's pretty much a given you're going to have that sort of heavy-medium-light composition.

The US ARMY and USMC task organize and can be quite flexible when dealing with various enemies in different environments especially on a tactical level … Note, an unarmored poorly trained enemy can still kill you …

I hope not, any weapon that uses the crap underpowered 5.56 round is not fit in combat. I'm glad I never need to use it to fight with. As was I broke 4 of the useless things in training.

You break 4 of them, it ain't the weapon, it's the Operator.

I've had the opportunity to have some discussions with former PAVN and Khmer Rhouge soldiers while in SE Asia. They all had a healthy respect for the 5.56. Any bullet that will pierce flesh, do a button-hook and shatter inside the target will instill fear and awe on an opponent used to 7.62 x 39. Influenced me a lot hearing this from former enemies.

I'm not saying that 5.56 is ideal for everything, but it has it's place and does its job. Perhaps the Gubmint should go back to 20" barrels.

Regarding the M16/M4 platform: close to 10 million built IIRC. Still popular worldwide and among civvie shooters. Even the British SAS chose it as their battle weapon.

Just sayin'.

" Even the British SAS chose it as their battle weapon."

TBF, their other option was the hundred-and-seven foot long SLR…

Anyone have experience with the ARX-160 or ARX-100?

Haven't shot since college and am considering getting back into it. A friend recommended the ARX-100 as being low maintenance and noob friendly (e.g. no tools required to disassemble).

Based on the specs and reviews I've read it looks like a "Westernized AK-47".

TBF, their other option was the hundred-and-seven foot long SLR…

Not quite true as the SL80/L85 had been in isuance since the mid-1980's -and disqualified due to reliability issues.

The SAS is an organization that has its own aquisition budget and can source and issue any weapon deemed mission-worthy.

The M16/M4 rifle platform wasn't chosen just because it was "available". Its selection was by undergoing a qualification process where hundreds of thousands of rounds were fired through multiple firearms before a decision was made.