 Editor in Chief Bill   | 09 Jun 2021 6:46 a.m. PST |
The Army is moving quickly toward a replacement for the M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon machine gun, but don't expect those old weapons to head into retirement any time soon… From Military: link |
 Legion 4  | 09 Jun 2021 7:26 a.m. PST |
If it ain't broke … don't fix it … |
| Irish Marine | 09 Jun 2021 9:39 a.m. PST |
The SAW sucks. The Army and the Marine should never have adopted that weapon system. |
| Editor in Chief Bill | 09 Jun 2021 10:40 a.m. PST |
…Army's Next Generation Squad Weapon, or NGSW, effort, designed to begin arming units with a rifle and light machine gun chambered for a specially designed 6.8mm projectile… Should have some stopping power. |
| jsmcc91 | 09 Jun 2021 10:48 a.m. PST |
IM what should they have adopted? I am wondering myself. Thanks! Jay |
 Murphy  | 09 Jun 2021 11:22 a.m. PST |
6.8mm projectile… Of course! Re-invent the wheel… This means…new weapon, (new contracts), new ammo (new contracts), new accessories and cool toys (new contracts), and an increasing budget on a strained economy.
You have stopping power…it's called 7.62 mm. Why not use it as a universal ammo? Saves a lot $$$…. Oh wait….(contracts)…what am I thinking??? |
| Tgerritsen | 09 Jun 2021 1:13 p.m. PST |
Murphy, Because the existing ecosystem is set up for 5.56, not 7.62. The SAW is a 5.56mm weapon. The army did 7.62 and felt that the round wasn't the right bang for the buck. Now they feel the 5.56 is too small a round for the job and decided to go with the 6.8mm, which isn't a new round. The Brits were advocating for it as far back as the 50s. Yeah, it's all money, but the Army can buy a lot of rounds for the cost of, say, a single LCS. I'd rather the Army get the tool they feel they need. They've pissed a lot of money down the 'new rifle' well in the past (remember the G36/XM8 or the OIWCS?). At least it appear like this procurement is being handled by people who are thinking about what the end user gets rather than just building a pie in the sky weapon. |
| Legion 4 | 09 Jun 2021 3:08 p.m. PST |
Should have some stopping power. With modern fire & maneuver/movement tactics, etc. The Fire Tms of the Squad needs to be able lay down suppressive fires. Requiring more ammo … You can carry more 5.56 Assault Rifle rounds than 7.62mm full size Rifle. As the 5.56 rd. is lighter as well as is the M16/M4. One of the goals was to make the Infantryman's load lighter. As the addition of new high tech, e.g. NVGs, etc. added to that load … Plus Infantrymen don't need to kill horses as in previous wars, especially WWI, but WWII as well to a lesser extent. Note the US Army 11 man Rifle Squad back in the late '80s. E.g. in my Mech Co. Each Squad had: 2 M249 SAWs
2 M203 GLs
1 M60 MG
1 M47 MAW
5 M16s Plus a .50 cal on the track/M113 … A lot of firepower. Requiring a lot of ammo … of course … |
| Irish Marine | 09 Jun 2021 3:37 p.m. PST |
jsmcc91. So back in the 80's when the SAW came into the squads in the Marine Corps we were losing the old M-60D for the new M-60E. The SAW weighed in at 22lbs loaded, with belt linked 5.56mm ammo had to have a spare barrel and did not use magazines well at all, all that weight and not a lot of stopping power and took basically a two man crew. Now the M-60E3 weighed 22lbs loaded and fired the 7.62mm. The Corps could have set up the rifle squad to operate like the old German squad of WW2 built around the machine gun. I would have liked to have three full sized MG's spitting out 7.62mm than 5.56mm. |
| arealdeadone | 09 Jun 2021 4:18 p.m. PST |
A few NATO states still haven't adopted 5.56,m and use 7.62mm battle rifles. A lot still maintain 7.62mm LMGs, many which are MG3 versions of the MG42. And ironically souped up M14s in 7.62mm made a comeback in Afghanistan. These days HK sells a very good 7.62 battle rifle/DMR in form of HK417 (alongside 5.56mm HK416). This sold to the US Army as M110A3. --- I suspect as use of narcotics to improve wound resistance increases as well as improvements in body armour, there will be more need for better stopping rounds. |
| Thresher01 | 09 Jun 2021 5:21 p.m. PST |
Yea, a .22 caliber (okay .223 round if you must, for you purists) is great for squirrel hunting, but not really vs. humans, no matter what they try to tell you. I think a 7mm round, if they want to go a bit smaller than the 7.62mm, for rifles and SAWs/MGs would be okay too. A nice, hot round with sufficient power to get the job done, and a bit smaller than the 7.62mm. The AR-10 in 7.62mm would be okay by me too. |
| Murphy | 09 Jun 2021 8:27 p.m. PST |
Tgerritsen:
"The army did 7.62 and felt that the round wasn't the right bang for the buck." Hmmm…but the M240 does the job with 7.62 quite nicely…as did the old pig, (M60)… |
| Legion 4 | 10 Jun 2021 6:05 a.m. PST |
Murphy  I suspect as use of narcotics to improve wound resistance increases as well as improvements in body armour, there will be more need for better stopping rounds. I think that is a good paradigm as well. Troop survivability keeps getting better with tech and med advances … |
| williamb | 10 Jun 2021 8:03 a.m. PST |
Apparently the 5.56 is not effective enough against the latest versions of body armor. This YouTube video by a former infantryman covers the three current contenders for the NHSW and their performance. YouTube link |
| jsmcc91 | 10 Jun 2021 8:17 a.m. PST |
IM, thanks for the information. I would think 7.62 would be a better projectile IMO. It would have been something to have the teams set around 3 "pigs" at 7.62. From what my dad said and another Vietnam vet who was a door gunner, they liked the M60 personally. |
| Legion 4 | 10 Jun 2021 9:44 a.m. PST |
As with any tech, e.g. body armor, the newer higher tech types will be more effective vs. some smaller rounds, i.e. 5.56. And so it will continue … |
| Tgerritsen | 10 Jun 2021 6:08 p.m. PST |
Murphy, I was referring to the switch from 7.62 to 5.56 (M14 to M16), and from the Army's perspective, not my own. Even the 7.62 round had a lot of critics at the time. The US pushed for that round, but many (especially the UK) felt it was a poor compromise of the 30-06 and actually preferred a British 6.8mm round at the time (in a piece of 'all things come back around' irony). I prefer the 7.62 myself, and my favorite rifle to fire is the M14 (mainly due to nostalgic reasons as I learned on that rifle in the Navy). |
| Tgerritsen | 11 Jun 2021 8:01 a.m. PST |
This is basically an ad, so take it with a large grain of salt, but it does explain a bit why the army went with 6.8mm. It also shows a cheaper way to go to 6.8 without changing existing weapons. YouTube link And this is a deeper dive on the new Army weapons in the running by an ex infantryman- and why (body armor and widespread optics) the Army wants to go to 6.8mm. YouTube link |
| troopwo | 11 Jun 2021 3:34 p.m. PST |
Most armies have reintroduced 7.62mm in the form of a DMR into the section usually as an AR10 or derivitive. It hdes in well with the other AR family of rifles. The ss109 or M855 ammo was designed in the early eighties to be the equivalent of punching ower to the existing 7.62mm ball back then. The improvements in current ammo technology have improved the punching power of 5.56mm significantly. Some ammo in current use has actually caused problems by being too long for the mass of normally used magazines. Other problems caused by the new 5.56mm ammos is that they are actually quite a bit more chamber pressures and known to destroy rifle life quite significantly. But they do work. |
| troopwo | 11 Jun 2021 3:37 p.m. PST |
The widespread re-use of M14s in Afghanistan and Iraq was due to having warehouses of them ready and available imediately. Getting another 7.62mm rifle into service would still be ongoing if thy were not available. As much as some love the M14, a lot of that love is either nostalgia or myth. Try accurizing an M14 and an AR and then drop one from a rifle rack and see which shooter breaks into tears and which shooter just shrugs his shoulders and says 'no big deal'.. |
| troopwo | 11 Jun 2021 3:45 p.m. PST |
Marksmanship improved incredibly with the adoption of the 5.56mm. It is only the widespread introductin of body amour that is starting to worry some staffers. This is even more peculiar due to the adoption of shorter and shorter barrels. The 5.56mm is very dependant upon velocity to work as intended. The reduction from a 20 inch barrel down to a 15.7 or even a fourteen inch barrel reduces that power quite a bt at rangs beyond about 250 yards. One very good reason for the adoption of the 5.56mm in the first place was to reduce the weight of the eelven pound 7.62mm battle rifles and thirty odd pounds of ammo, down to seven or eight pound of rifle and fifteen pounds for the same amount of ammo. If you want to carry a very light carbine with a very short barrel, it has consequences. Strangely enough the Soviet developped 5.54mm was developped to mimic the original M193 5.56mm. It was also devleopped to have a pocket behid the tip. (not a hollow point) So that the punching power as it were is fairly consistant without the requirement to have the long barrel for velocity to make the same hitting power. Short barrels will always affect accuracy once distance opens up beyond the 250 yard mark. |
| troopwo | 11 Jun 2021 3:56 p.m. PST |
AS for the M249 or Minimi, I have my thoughts.
It is a touch heavy, but it is a fire hose. In the day of the 11 or 12 man squad, everyone would groan and complain about everyone having to carry all the spare belts for the M60, MG42, FN MAG, I even have older friends who had the same complaints about running around carryng a fifty cal ammo can full of spare Bren mags. The comparison of the weight of the equivalent number of runds of 5.56 to 7.62 or even .303 and 7.92 is still incredibly significant. Unless you want to issue steroids along with the food, stick with 5.56 for infantry ranges. As an aside, I can say that I have fired 7.62mm MGs to engage targets at 1.600m and 5.56mm MGs at 1,100m. Which are ranges beyond trace burn out! While books and staff weenies will tell me that effective ranges are only half of that. It all depends on your ability to deploy, and view. |
| troopwo | 11 Jun 2021 3:59 p.m. PST |
Why not just re-issue a long twenty inch rifle back out to each fireteam? A far cheaper solution to a problem that may not exist. By the way,,,in case you are wondering, even if you are wearing body armour, a hit by a 5.56 at any range is still going to knock you down, break ribs or have some kind of nasty result. God help you if it hits bone or vital organs. |
| Legion 4 | 12 Jun 2021 11:48 a.m. PST |
Yes, marksmanship did improve … Part of the reason marksmanship improved after WWII/Korea. We learned you don't train soldiers to be marksmen i.e. shooting at round targets. But you train them to shoot at targets that look like humans. And when I got in ROTC and then on active duty that is the way we were trained. LTC Grossman's book "On Killing", goes into detail about this. They don't want marksman … they want man killers … Based on my experience with both the M14 & M16, shooting at the target of the outline of a human. I/We could hit["kill"] this human target with equal efficiency and effectiveness with either weapon. But again … the bottom line is still a weapon is only as good as the troop behind it. |
