"New US Combat Rifle?" Topic

I like the sound of 300% more energy from a bullet, but not the 33% reduction in ammo capacity:

link

It will be interesting to see if they can improve on/over the punch of the anemic 5.56 round, but not reduce the ammo available to the troops so much.

Sounds like a no-brainer in the energy punch arena, especially in open terrain.

A good find – thanks.

If you have to always (or usually) have to use two rounds from a 5.56, then one round that does the job might – in the hands of well trained troops – lead to more effective fire, surely?

John T

The negative aspect of this rifle is that it is heavier (9.7 lbs to 8.74 lbs) and the magazine is larger. So, it seems troops will carry fewer rounds, in spite of the fact that each cartridge is lighter. It will come down to cost.

I'm still a big fan of having a lot of ammo. And at the same time keeping the weapon system light enough not to be ungainly …

I started out as an ROTC Cadet being issued an M14 in '75. And then when we got the M16. There was a noticeable difference.

in the hands of well trained troops

That is IMO always the bottom line. A weapon is only as good as the individual behind it.

My first thought was how are they going to prevent people from putting those rounds in the gun backwards?

I was wondering when the US was going to change from 5.56mm.

I think this is one of the first basic infantry rifles to use the LSAT ammo designs! (which could allow for the retirement of 7.62mm MGs in their entirety, though personally I'd want to replace them with 8.6mm/.338 MGs)

Legion 4,
I had the M-14 for 2 years and M-16 for 1 year. I preferred the M-14 on the range but those M-14 mags were just so big it was a pain to carry them. The smaller M-16 mags could be crammed into almost any area.

I'm not a big fan of the "knock down" power of a round. I've been reading that you need to hit a vital area like spine, heart or brain to instantly incapacitate an enemy. A flesh wound is a flesh wound and most likely would not "knock" you down. Any caliber round smashing your femur or tibia most likely would.

The guys complaining about the 5.56mm not being lethal enough have most likely not compared it to the 7.62mm. The additional energy of this new rifle sounds good but I'm a little doubtful. Besides, in close quarters everyone is firing double taps. Less recoil is better.

The article mentions accuracy at long range but does not define long range nor what sights would be used.

At range quals I shot about the same at 500 yards with the M-16 and M-14 hitting a human torso sized target 10/10 shots. I shoot competitively with my stock Korean War vintage M1 Garand at 600 yards and can hit a 12-inch bulls eye 8/10 slung prone (not bench resting) using Greek Army surplus ammo. That's about a 2 MOA. Sniper rifles are 1 MOA.

I've seen guys with super AR-15's holding a consistent 6 inch group at 600 yards with peep sights. That's what the 5.56mm round is capable of with custom reloads. Even an 18-inch group at 600 yards would be adequate on the battlefield.

Increased accuracy is lost on a poor shooter.

I think any good quality rifle, properly maintained should shoot 2 MOA. The variables are the dope on the sights, optical/peep sights and training, especially range estimating.

The 7.62mm round (lower velocity and heavier bullet) does (in my opinion) have a significant advantage over the 5.56mm round at ranges over 500 yards because of a larger angle of descent. This means that if a bad guy is behind something like a wall more of his body will be targeted. If he is prone an AOD of 20 degrees could potentially hit his entire body by a round that was slightly high missing the vertical target (head/shoulders) but hitting him in the back or legs.

I'd hate to have to reload a mag at night with gloves on in the middle of a firefight.

The ad says caseless, but in the video it does eject the polymer case.

Wolfhag

Legion 4,
I had the M-14 for 2 years and M-16 for 1 year. I preferred the M-14 on the range but those M-14 mags were just so big it was a pain to carry them. The smaller M-16 mags could be crammed into almost any area.

The weight difference does not sound like much. But it is … especially on a forced road march, etc. But I qualified with both the M14 & M16 too … so … my comment, "A weapon is only as good as the individual behind it." Proves my point … at least in my case … And the longest target on the ARMY ranges was 300m. And even at that range it was tiny. But I usually hit it regardless … As did many others. It was not unique …

From my standpoint, the M-16 is a fantastic weapon. I personally never ran into an issue with 'knockdown power,' but if people are worried about that, increasing the 'energy' is a step backward (and I'll admit I may not understand the concept of energy, which I've always equated to muzzle velocity).

Muzzle velocity gives greater range and penetration, but it actually impairs 'knockdown power.' The problem when weapons have a high muzzle velocity is that the round goes through a human without transferring much of its energy to the target. The M1911 is widely regarded as having great knockdown power due to its large (.45 cal) round, and they poo-poo the M9 (9mm) for its lack of knockdown power.

I would submit that the 9mm isn't that far off, size-wise, from the .45, the big difference is in muzzle velocity, where the .45 is around 850 feet per second and the 9mm is around 1200 FPS. The 9mm goes right through people at 10m, while the .45 transfers all its energy into the target, putting them on their back with hits that weren't even center mass.

In 1999 I was part of a CQB team and we'd run the course each week with MP-5Ns, hitting metal targets between 7 and 25 yards. When you hit the target it would fall. In '99 we got M-4s in, so after zeroing and qualling with them we took them through our CQB course of fire. This is training and safety is paramount, so being a fire and movement course with live ammo, there's an NCO behind each shooter. As luck would have it, one of my Marines was first up and we got it started.

We moved up, target pops up about 10 yds away. He stays in his shuffle and puts two rounds into it… But it didn't go down. But you're moving and you don't get to go back, you just keep going. So we keep shuffling and up comes the next target, about 15 yds away. I guess he was feeling a bit shaky, he actually halted this time (for which I kicked him in the ass). He puts two more rounds out, same thing, it doesn't fall.

I call a safety stop; I figure we've got an issue with the dope (the settings on the sights. You see it frequently, a guy is shooting at 300 yds but has the sights set on 500 yds) or the zero (guys will screw up and turn the front sight post the wrong way. He was shooting high and needed to lower the strike of the round, but turned it the wrong way and now the round is going even higher over the target). The Lance Corporal is pleading with me to keep going, swearing there's no way he missed. I had him go Condition 4 (weapon on safe on an empty chamber, bolt home, source of ammo removed) and take a knee. I was about to move up to check the second target when I heard the range SNCO call me back to the first target.

"Look at that!" The Marine had a beautiful controlled pair, two little holes dead center, about an inch apart. I was confused, but the Staff Sergeant knew exactly what had happened: the rounds were so high velocity they punched right through the thin steel target plates without knocking them down, no energy from the round was transferred to the target.

Of course I screwed with my Lance Criminal, threatened to make him pay for the two targets he ruined ;)

V/R,
Jack

though personally I'd want to replace them with 8.6mm/.338 MGs)

Agreed. That .338 MMG that General Dynamics has been testing looks pretty nice.

I also feel that as body armor/PPE proliferates, and as more of the world's population lives in heavily built-up areas….the lethality of the individual rifleman at range becomes less important. I prefer infantry organizations that are heavy on HE, with the riflemen basically being ammo bearers, security, and room clearers. As noted, in CQB you're going to be firing Failure to Stop Drills so low recoil matters more than pure power at 15-meter ranges anyway. And in an urban fight, your lethality should come from crew-served weapons and explosives (frags, satchel charges, etc.).

The only downside is the need for a pretty robust log train.

Of course I screwed with my Lance Criminal, threatened to make him pay for the two targets he ruined ;)

Isn't that what Lances are for?

=====

Re-reading the article, a 123 grain 6.5mm slug at 3000fps is not 6.5 Grendel (or 6.5mm Arisaka). That's more like 6.5 Swede or 6.5 Creedmore, which are full-power battle rifle rounds.

I'd be willing to dial down the velocity to reduce recoil. After all, the 6.5 Grendel (123 grain slug at 2600fps) actually hits harder than 7.62mm NATO beyond 500m, which would make it an ideal SAW/LMG round. And since your basic infantry rifle and SAW should share the same ammo…

Ah, the long rocky history of the 5.56mm and alternatives …

Whenever people built an automatic weapon they came to the conclusion that standard military rifle ammo wasn't a good choice. They were too powerful to be practical. That's why the French introduced the short 8mm Ribeyrolle for their eponymous automatic rifle. Fedorov used 6.5mm Arisaka for his design etc. Some chickened out and used pistol calibre ammo, leading to the SMG. Of course the most famous was the German 7.92mm kurz, which in turn lead to the British working out that a short .280 bullet would be far more effective in an automatic weapon than the good old .303.

Of course this takes us to the Americans and their conclusion that nothing short of a red-blooded, high octane supercharged V-12 of a bullet would do for their GI's. Completely ignoring the opinion of every expert that said the M1 was a superlative rifle, but the recoil was a tad high. And oh surprise, John Garand, the designer intended it to use a .276 bullet, which would have given it a ten round capacity and reduced recoil, but nobody less than "Big Mac" MacArthur was of the opinion that recoil and greater ammo capacity was for sissies and he'd have pushed for a .50 Garand if saner minds hadn't convinced him that was too much of a good thing.

So the 7.62mm nixed the British .280 at a time when the Soviets were happily plinking away with their own intermediate 7.62mm AK47.

The M14 rifle was built like a battleship and felt like shooting one. It wasn't too bad in semi-auto, but full auto was something else. Great for suppressive fire, not so much if you actually tried to hit the proverbial broad side of the barn.

Come yet another designer who understood the principle of using a small, low recoil calibre in an automatic weapon, Eugene Stoner and guess where they told him to stick his rifle ?

The problem was when he said his new rifle would use a .223 bullet. Thirty minutes of side-splitting laughter later one guy managed to blurt out "You want our boys to shoot a varmint round ?"

.223 was dead in the water if it weren't for some clever marketing trickery and one newly minted buzzword "Hydrostatic shock"

The trick went as follows, fill a rigid plastic container with water, shoot it with the high velocity .223 and watch it explode. Then explain that the human body is 70% and that the same thing happens to a person hit by such a bullet. "You hit a commie in the pink and his kidneys explode !"

The more cognizant among you will have noticed something doesn't add up in this story. First of all humans are not water inside a rigid plastic container. We may be 70% water, but the remaining 30% makes a huge difference on how our body deals with high velocity impacts and shockwaves. Humans are elastic and tend not to explode when hit.

But the marketing worked, and the Air Force didn't put so much emphasis on blasting commies with a big-ass bullet, but on things like weight, ease of use and Stoner's design turned out to be quite good in that department.

The army that was always on the lookout for an even bigger-assed bullet than the one they used at the time heard that the new .223 made people explode. So they go on board and the 5.56mm M16 was introduced.

After telling NATO they wouldn't settle for nothing less than 7.62mm, the US now decided that 5.56mm was the way forward.

And this is when people started to notice the rifle didn't work as advertised. Sure it killed enemies, much in the same way that every bullet will do so when properly applied, but it didn't do so consistently and reliably. The bullet had a very high velocity, but little mass and didn't do well with things like foliage and even minor barriers like wood, metal, brick or car windshields.

Some British soldiers were very happy to be issued trial M16's in the Falklands, until they got into firefights with the Argentinians and found that while they could hit them, the 5.56mm didn't incapacitate them. A few noticed 7.62mm hits tended to close the case altogether and they reverted to the trusted SLR.

"But wounding is far more effective than killing." The marketing team retorted. If Ivan gets hit by a 5.56mm he might not die, but two or three of his comrades will be have to drop everything and help deal with the injury. If you wound a soldier, he has to be taken care of and this will drain enemy resources and ruin heir ability to wage war effectively. The 5.56mm wins war one injury at a time !"

Again the more perspicacious among you will have noticed this sounds a lot like those wonderful military theories that look great on paper and get nowhere in the field.

In many cases Ivan was left to deal with his injury himself and many armies (and the even more plentiful irregulars and insurgents) didn't even have a system to overburden with wounded soldiers. Of course the biggest spanner in the theory was the fact that bullet injuries are bottom of the table when it comes to battlefield fatalities. Bombs and artillery are the big killers not the 5.56mm and the extra wounded are statistically irrelevant.

But what about those guys who reported the 5.56mm did very well you ask ?

5.56mm is a very interesting bullet. It's high velocity with low mass, it's not ideal, but it has a very interesting side-effect that the Marketing Team has been pushing as a feature ever since the "Hydrostatic shock" and "wounds > kills" sales pitches.

The 5.56mm is unstable. When it his so much as a leaf in flight it can be knocked off balance. More interestingly, it can tumble if it hits things like soft tissues. And because it's fast, the velocity can exceed the structural integrity of the bullet and cause it to break up on impact.

A 5.56mm that hits in the right spot at the right time can both start to tumble inside the target and fragment, that's a soldier's wet dream and a surgeon's nightmare (and that of the target as well)

Mind you the 5.56mm is not consistent. 50-100 meters (or yards) it will usually make lovely text-book quality impacts in ballistic gelatine, but move to longer ranges and add things like clothing, webbing etc and even a disabling injury becomes a rare thing. This is what happened on the Falklands and is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 5.56mm works best under 300m, a very realistic "average" combat range. Note the use of the word "average" there is no such thing as "Guys, can you come a bit closer ? I need you to be in optimal range for maximum effect."

These things are compounded by the widespread use of carbines instead of rifles, the shorter barrel leads to a corresponding loss of velocity, diminished range and less "bang for the buck" so to speak.

One could conclude that if the 7.62mm erred on the high end of the useful power range of ammo, 5.56mm seems to have erred on the lower end of the scale. That's why we're seeing attempts to introduce ammo types that have better ballistics, some actual weight to contribute to the game rather than rely on velocity, and do things better like penetrating barriers and do better when the fight occasionally shifts to longer ranges.

As a final word, Ballistics is the world's biggest crapshoot. People have received "certified hits" and survived. Others took fragments that at best would inconvenience a large mouse and had that sudden unexpected "I think there is a mistake here." discussion with St Peter.

Your ballistics, your tests, your gelatine, your complicated "Take out" formula will only hedge your bet so far. At the end of the day when that bullet leaves the barrel the poor guy at the receiving end may have the luckiest day in his existence or the worst one.

Personally I think the 5.56mm works, I'd hate to run into one, no matter the conditions. Do I think it works reliably ? I don't think so, it has been known to go straight through soft tissue with very little effect, it has even on occasion failed to do significant damage to bone which in my book is the holy grail of hits other than direct fatal organ hits like the brain or heart.

I'm leaning towards the 6.5mm family that have similar dimensions to the standard 5.56mm, but better ballistics, better range when required, will penetrate barriers more reliably and retain all practical aspects of a 5.56mm like weight, size and recoil characteristics. I have serious doubts this will happen, they will continue to tinker with the 5.56mm for quite a while until a real game-changer arrives and renders the 5.56mm obsolete.

Here is an interesting discussion where the author backs a change to the 6.8 round.

link

I also feel that as body armor/PPE proliferates, and as more of the world's population lives in heavily built-up areas….the lethality of the individual rifleman at range becomes less important. I prefer infantry organizations that are heavy on HE, with the riflemen basically being ammo bearers, security, and room clearers.

I do agree to a point, as we see more body armor and more conflicts in urban environments. Of course, as I have said before, I liked the organization of my Mech Squads back in the late '80s.

5 M16s
2 M203 GLs
2 M249 SAWs
1 M60 MG*
1 Dragon M47 MAW*
* I was glad to see the M60 and M47 were replaced with better weapons systems though. But the "firepower" that the organization had was a good mix. Plus LAWs, Hand Grenades, etc., could be issued as needed.

And of course, the M2 .50cal on the track was a nice bit of firepower too …

Whenever people built an automatic weapon they came to the conclusion that standard military rifle ammo wasn't a good choice. They were too powerful to be practical. That's why the French introduced the short 8mm Ribeyrolle for their eponymous automatic rifle. Fedorov used 6.5mm Arisaka for his design etc. Some chickened out and used pistol calibre ammo, leading to the SMG. Of course the most famous was the German 7.92mm kurz, which in turn lead to the British working out that a short .280 bullet would be far more effective in an automatic weapon than the good old .303.

And ironically, the 6.5mm Grendel is just about identical in performance to the 6.5mm Arisaka. Both will throw a 130grain slug at 2600 feet per second.

Here is an interesting discussion where the author backs a change to the 6.8 round.

6.8 SPC is still really only good to about 300m. More specifically, it was intended to have greater KE than the 5.56 within 300m.

6.5 Grendel is good to at least 800m from 20" barrel, and would let M249-weight weapons replace M240s in the squad, allowing for something else in the Weapons Squad (like those .338 MMGs I mentioned, or an autoGL).

Either caliber is a very simple replacement for the M16 and M249: New bolt, barrel, buffer spring (probably), and new magazines/links, all of which are considered wear items or utterly disposable after one use.

The negative aspect of this rifle is that it is heavier (9.7 lbs to 8.74 lbs) and the magazine is larger. So, it seems troops will carry fewer rounds, in spite of the fact that each cartridge is lighter.

That's one disconcerting thing about this design: increased weight (rifle and mags; troops will likely carry the same ammo load regardless of the weight). With the troops already heavily loaded (actually overloaded), adding "just another pound" is not desirable. The Army's medicos have already seen a disturbing rise in musculoskeletal injuries (many leading to disability discharges) due to the weight load that infantry have to carry. And it seems the Army goes through this problem time and time again.

IIRC it was the Falklands Boca house combat caused a lot of discussion. There were Argentinians hit 4 or 5 times by 5.56 and still shooting.

Somalia saw some short range combats where 5.56 seemed to go straight through enemy who carried on apparently unaffected.

I reckon you want higher stopping power even if that means ineffectiveness over 200m.
Afghanistan firefights were at unusually long range.
Maybe a rifle which you could switch out barrel etc and configure to long range when you're patrolling the mountains or short range higher stopping power otherwise.
That mean two lots of ammo and parts and seems impractical.

Maybe a single dedicated marksman with long range capability + squad mg is sufficient. Picking weapons is a compromise and it seems to me close range combat ought to be prioritised.

This is a long but good article from a corner that has seen many dead from GSW:
link

Here is how I see it. In a short range FTF gun fight you need to stop and drop the bad guy ASAP. Giving him a few seconds after hitting him can mean you are dead too. Based on the coroner's experience there is no round that will give a 100% chance of that with one shot. Placement is most important for immediate effect and that means accurate follow-up shots.

Regarding the Argies getting hit multiple times with 5.56mm rounds and shooting back. How many were shot in the head, spine or heart that fired back? Based on the coroner's experiences I doubt if a 7.62mm would have had a more immediate deadly effect if the hits were flesh wounds or even chest/lung hits. The reason LEO's in the US fire so many rounds at a suspect is because one or two will most likely not have an immediate effect, even center mass.

My conclusion is the "300% more lethality" of this new rifle round does not translate into a 300% more chance to immediately drop a bad guy with one round but is a great marketing gimmick.

My son has been deployed and on a few missions in the mid east. He said that every bad guy he saw double tapped to the head or heart at close range by a 5.56mm M4 carbine did nothing except drop dead. He described a head hit by a .45cal round as a "grape busted open". He described close range as being in the same room. The recon guys he worked with had FN SCAR's with special nickel plated bolts (7.62mm?). They are probably trained well enough to handle the recoil as regular grunts with the 5.56mm

The advantage of the larger caliber is that there is a better chance of hitting a vital organ or blood vessel. The larger round is also better for longer range shooting too. However, it is going to throw your aim off for the follow-up shot which may be the one that does the job.

My feelings are that in a close range or urban environment you want something with max rounds in the magazine and low recoil for the follow-up shots and a carbine would be preferred. The M4 carbine seems to be adequate in the hands of a trained operator (like Legion 4 said). I don't see the new rifle as a big improvement.

The other consideration is the outfitting of the individual soldier and his mag carrying capacity. A larger mag with less rounds means less mags and rounds being carried. How will that impact the current ammo pouch configuration? I wouldn't know as the stuff I had was WWII or VN vintage.

If you are a grunt there is no such thing as having enough ammo!

Another area not mentioned is logistics. Sure, those fancy rounds are great but look at WWII. The 30.06 round was for the Springfield, M1 Garand, M1919 and M1917.

It's always going to be a compromise between close and long range. Personally, I'd like smaller rounds because you can carry more of them and I have a better chance of getting killed in close quarters than in a sustained long range firefight. A sustained long range fight means large ammo expenditure giving the smaller rounds the advantage again. Accuracy at long range 300+ yards is great but I think in reality you are mainly suppressing the target. Also in a long range sustained firefight any hit is going to eventually take the guy out of the fight.

As far as accuracy the M-16 5.56mm can be configured for a designated marksman to be accurate enough to shoot a 2 MOA which is a 24-inch diameter group at 600 yards. I don't see giving an integral member of the squad a different weapon of a different caliber being worth while. Marines in France WWI were nailing Germans at 600 yards with Springfield 30.06 which is a combunation over 100 years old.

Just one more note on lethality. My father-in-law was at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii on Dec 7, 1941. His CPO was John Finn. Chief Petty Officer Finn had suffered more than 20 injuries, including a bullet wound in his left arm; a broken left foot; shrapnel to his chest, stomach, right elbow and thumb; and a laceration on his scalp. He stayed at his MG position until the attack was over. The hospital was full when he got there so he went home and his wife took care of him that night. My father-in-law visited John two days later at the hospital and he was outside on crutches smoking a cigarette.

I'm sure the debate will continue.

Wolfhag