Pentagon Confirms Move to 6.8mm
- Thread starter ed308
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Yep. They tore down their facilities for supporting legacy M2 .30 caliber ammunition to emplace the manufacturing capability of supplying 6.8 Fury.
I am sure 5.56mm will be seen in the National Guard for at least the next decade and there is a huge civilian demand for the cartridges.
Again, the initial procurement of the M16 was only 8500 rifles and a fraction of the money spend on the adoption of 6.8 Fury.
https://www.athlonoutdoors.com/article/next-generation-squad-weapon-winner/?
https://sam.gov/opp/44d479e9fc3f4437bbf017c1f2f61b92/view
That's funny. You should read some of 44 AMP's other posts about 5.56/.223. It would become immediately apparent that he is absolutely not a fan of the 5.56 and is not "hoping" that it will stay the issue round for the U.S. military.
In case you're wondering about my motive, I own one firearm in .223/5.56. It's a single-shot rifle and I have maybe 150 rounds of varmint/match ammo for it. No plans to change that. The U.S. military changing away from 5.56 would have pretty much zero impact on me.
Do you know what M2 .30 caliber ammunition is? Hint, it's not 7.62 NATO. Honestly, the fact that Lake City is going to stop making 30-06 ammo is just about totally irrelevant to this discussion.
Something else for you to read--the article you cited from athlonoutdoors. Here are two quotes from it:
"Of course, there is the question of how will the other branches react. In the past, the Army has steered the gear train for the rest of the DoD. However in recent years, that mindset seems to be changing. The Marine Corps recently spent a significant amount of money to outfit all their infantry with HK416 rifles. The Air Force’s Arming Group A also upgraded their rifles to M4A1s recently."
"Even the Army has publicly said that the new NGSW won’t replace every M4 or M4A1 in its arsenal. Hopefully, the new weapon will allow the Army to offload the last of the M16s that are still in arsenals."
You seem to have a penchant for seeing only what you want to see, and for immediately assuming that if anyone else has a different take or doesn't fully agree with you, it can only be due to ulterior motives.
Considering the M1 Garand and the M1919 could be in the pile test, I better. Do you know what the Pile Test is at SWCS???
So the fact they are replacing a legacy assembly line with a new service ammo assembly line is not applicable.
Is from April 2022.....
You seem to have a penchant for thinking this of anyone who disagrees with your analysis.
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I said the exact same thing:
National Guard is the Army. You seem to think the Army is going to have a "switch your rifle day" and everyone just wake up and carry the new rifle all at once. It does not work that way and units will retain the M4 until they no longer retain the M4 because the Army has a replacement M7 to issue them. That process can take years even a decade or so.
Well, let's see what your position has been.
"The rifle is adopted and will be the replacement for the M4."
"There is no chance of 5.56mm surviving."
" The decision to replace the M4 is a done deal..."
"Keep telling yourself this rifle will not replace the M4."
I just don't see how the fact that Lake City is finally deciding to ditch the ability to produce 30-06 ammo is relevant to that.
Your own sources are contradicting you. Either you aren't reading them or you are ignoring everything in them that you disagree with. I don't see any other way to call it.
But you're still ignoring the fact that your own source indicates that the Marines and the Air Force look like they may not make the switch. That's a lot different from: "There is no chance of 5.56mm surviving."
Look the bottom line no matter how you cut it is this:
1. The 6.8 and the firearms for it are still in testing, they still have experimental designations. SIG is working on some problems discovered in that testing and there's always the possibility more problems will be discovered.
2. Your own sources indicate that it's not a sure thing that if the Army adopts it that other branches will follow suit.
3. Lake City is not abandoning the ability to make 5.56 or 7.62, in fact they have explicitly stated that they are modernizing their capability to support production of those rounds. The only round they seem to be abandoning is .30-06.
Which means that:
- No, the rifle is not adopted yet although it seems that it is quite likely it will be.
- Even if the rifle and cartridge is adopted, there is certainly a chance of the 5.56 surviving, in other branches, and even in the Army.
- The decision to replace the M4 is not a done deal across all of DOD, even the Army has explicitly stated they will be retaining some of theirs.
Taken out of timeline and context to suit your position.
My position years ago at the beginning of the program when claims were being made this was like the ACR rifle concepts of the 1990's. That position is correct as this move is based upon actual combat experience and ARSOF desire for a new rifle as stated years ago.
There is no chance of 5.56mm surviving as the tip of the spear combatant round. It is ineffective against emerging threat body armor and has significant weaknesses on the battlefield.
In that context, I am correct.
It is a done deal at this point. Billions have been allocated and orders placed to replace the warfighter's rifle. You seem to think that the 80% of the Army that is not a warfighter or reserves is somehow relevant to this issue. You also do not seem to understand the purpose of current phase of testing which is about incorporating doctrine, ancillary equipment, and logistics. It is not about choosing which rifle will replace the M4 in the hands of the warfighter.
That is correct and a true statement. You seem to think that someone is saying the Army will throw away millions of M4's. They won't. They will be sold to other nations and retained in the Support, Combat Service Support, and Reserves as long as the Army requires it. The Army has M60 Tanks in the National Guard, that does not mean the type has not been replaced and is no longer in the hands of active duty warfighters.
You should study Army procurement history a little deeper and understand the relationships.
Whatever ARSOF adopts, the Army adopts.
Whatever the Army adopts, the USMC will adopt. Whatever cartridge the US Army adopts, NATO will adopt.
Keep in mind, only the Air Force initially used the M16. The USMC initially rejected the M1 Garand too. Once the Army decided it would use the rifle, the USMC followed suit. Posturing and pontificating will not change that basic reality.
https://www.army.mil/article/264799/army_moving_forward_with_next_generation_squad_weapon_program
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A laughable characterization. I'm simply quoting your own sources and you and making simple statements of fact.
They are statements you made that are false. No amount of context or chronological adjustment can change that.
In some timeframe, I'm sure that's correct. But that's a significantly more qualified statement than the original categorical pronouncement.
They have been looking at a replacement for a long time, so I think we can be certain that they will keep looking. Military equipment is never made with the idea that it will never be replaced. That's not what we are talking about. We are talking about this specific replacement effort, not the generality that eventually all military equipment is replaced. Until the experimental designation is removed and the testing is over and the bugs have been worked out, it's not a done deal. By definition.
No, I don't think that and I haven't said that. I think it's interesting that you can't just comment on what I've actually said and have to make up strawmen to argue against instead while I'm directly quoting you and the sources you've brought to the table.
And this is not just about the Army although you've tried to be much more careful to restrict your statements to only the Army or even only certain parts of the Army since I pointed out your own sources don't agree with your statements.
The statement was not about you at all. It was about the USMC. If you know the history, the USMC postured and pontificated on an erroneous belief a semi-automatic rifle would be unsuited for Infantry warfare by not functioning reliably or maintain accuracy. That is the whole reason Marine Infantry did not receive Garand's but rather soldiered on with M1903 Springfield's.
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,884292,00.html
All the pontificating came down to naught as the M1 became the Infantry Rifle of choice even for the USMC.
In context:
That basic reality being:
A link went into the original post in the middle of a sentence which messed up the post. I edited the post to clear it up. It is hard to have a discussion when the other side personalizes the issue without cause.
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This line actually got a chuckle out of me.
Literally everything the military does, or has done is "based on actual combat experience". That line means about as much as a Hollywood movie "based on a real story", though probably a little closer to reality than a movie "inspired by real events".
Studies are fine things (when done right) they provide data and other things that can be useful. However, conclusions drawn from studies can be quite different, and it is those conclusions and actions taken based on those conclusions that create the history for future studies to look at.
History is chock full of instances where something got studied, and what turned out to be the wrong thing was thought (for a time, at least) to be the right thing, and implemented by those in authority.
That's how we got the M16 and the 5.56mm in the first place. Air Force was looking at it for a niche they needed filled. It would fill that niche quite adequately. Othe people (Pentagon/DOD "experts") studied it, and they concluded it would be the right thing for everyone, and their authority made it so.
And I wonder if the new round and rifle are not just another round of the same kind of mistakes. Different in detail, certainly, but are they going to be the same in overall, or not?
Right now it looks like they are diving in head first, without any idea how deep the water is, or where the rocks are, and spending a ton of money just to get to the water.
Something the US Army hasn't had in a generation until the GWOT. Academic knowledge is not the same as experience. We where a decade into the GWOT before we got our first SGM with combat experience. The senior leadership is just now seeing soldiers who have any actual combat experience. Meanwhile, the rank and file have 3 or more combat deployments as soldiers on the battlefield, not sitting in a TOC, SOTF, or CJSOTF updating a powerpoint listening to a radio or discussing events occurring elsewhere.
You wouldn't know that if you were not there.
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,884292,00.html
The Army, including those of us with experience in modern war...disagree.
I can see 5.56 being inefficient, or even ineffective, against modern body armor. But 8 rounds in the vital (I suppose that's what "in the house" means) to take down a terrorist after 911 is bit surprising. I would expect one or two will do. I actually don't know. Haven't shot any man before.
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All these “Army adopting 6.8” type threads keep devolving into a one sided chest-thumping contest.
Been doing this for the last 5 years on TFL and it’s still not a done deal…
It’s pretty much a given that when it is adopted, there will be problems. The problems might be able to be resolved, or the weapon may get scrapped.
It’s far from over, as many of us have experienced with military equipment.
This is not a miracle pill, as promising as it seems right now.
Been doing this for the last 5 years on TFL and it’s still not a done deal…
It’s pretty much a given that when it is adopted, there will be problems. The problems might be able to be resolved, or the weapon may get scrapped.
It’s far from over, as many of us have experienced with military equipment.
This is not a miracle pill, as promising as it seems right now.
These guys may have had some of that experience to draw on...
They do bring up some interesting points to consider.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mp_kzri8YU
They do bring up some interesting points to consider.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mp_kzri8YU
8 rounds for an immediate stop. That is not the same thing as 8 rounds for a fatal wound. The first one I shot looked at me trying to get his weapon up with two holes about an inch apart center mass of his chest. A bit surprising is an understatement when it occurs in a dirt hut full of bad guys.
One round can be a fatal wound in a vital area but that does mean the target is not going to fight back in there last minutes of life.
1st and 3rd Ranger BN were wiped out at Cisterna Italy on 30 Jan 1944. They were moving up a ditch when a German Sentry blocked the way. Both Battalions waited for the one man who had experience doing a sentry takedown. He successfully slit the sentry's throat fatally wounding him. The blood allowed the sentry to struggle free and he ran off into the camped German Division bivouac site. His thrashing about alerted the Germans and over the next 8 hours they destroyed both Battalions.
A fatal wound is not necessarily an immediate stop. The Regular Army actually changed their training from single shots to making controlled pairs standard because of this issue.
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77 grain worked fine and did not have the penciling issues of 55 grain. 77 grain is inadequate for emerging threat body armor.
We emptied the only Army unit to have 77 grain my first tour...the Army Marksmanship team in Germany were the only ones with it on hand. They gave it all up so we could put bad guys down.
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