"Is This the Future of Military Small Arms?" Topic

"Textron's LSAT system reduces ammunition weight, making the soldier's load easier to carry.

A new kind of ammunition could reduce by up to 40 percent the weight that the average soldier or marine carries in combat, which can easily exceed 100 pounds in combat. This "cased telescoped" ammo replaces brass bullet casings with polymer ones to achieve considerable weight savings, making U.S. troops deadlier in the process.

For nearly two hundred years, rifles and pistols have essentially used the same technology: a bullet and gunpowder pushed into a brass shell casing. The technique is simple, cheap, and reliable, which is why it has lasted so long. The downside: while an individual cartridge is relatively light, the weight of brass adds up. Brass casing technology has remained essentially the same since at least World War I, patently refusing to adopt modern materials.

Now that may be about to change. The cased telescope technology developed by Textron Systems, promises to bring small arms ammunition into the 21st Century…"

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Armand

Looking at the rounds I can see that the new rounds will not chamber into a rifle that presently fires the 7.62 or 5.56 NATO standard round. About three decades ago the big talk was about rounds that would consume the case as part of the firing process but it didn't work out. So all present weapons will have to be replaced, all ammunition will have to be replaced and then we find out if our soldiers are "deadlier".

The big problem with the self consuming rounds was obturation – they needed special "O"-rings to stop gas leaking everywhere. And someone forgot to make provision for dud rounds to be extracted without a cleaning rod (Hello 1850's).

From the description, the plastic case is not self consuming, it just replaces the function of a conventional brass case. Hopefully someone involved in the process will remember to include a practical extraction device as ammunition is not always subject to laboratory grade storage.

And we all know that once weight carried is reduced, then soldiers will either add more ammunition, or the brass hats will add more gear!

Yep….just means you carry more ammo!

Sorry. I just couldn't help myself. :)

Dan

Been working on this for a number of years now. I think this is one of the reasons the Army has held off replacing the current M4. If this tech survives testing, would be a nice upgrade.

gamershs, depending on the new cartridge's dimensions, existing M4s could quite possibly be rechambered for it by swapping the barrel, bolt, and possibly magazines. I do not believe that developing an LSAT-based cased-telescoped cartridge compatible with the M4 magazine well would be especially challenging.

Part of the reason for the LSAT was to reduce weight and parts count in squad automatic weapons/LMGs. Then to build an individual rifle in whatever caliber the LSAT LMG ends up in.

I'm kinda hoping for 6.5mm, power levels roughly equivalent to 6.5 Grendel or Arisaka. Which means power level equal to or greater than 7.62NATO from 500-800m, but still in a controllable full-auto rifle.

Yes, the US has just about trained beyond the use of full auto in counter-insurgency warfare. I'm still demanding LMGs that can be fired from the shoulder at full auto.