Pentagon Confirms Move to 6.8mm

[rickyrick]

I’ve disagreed on this issue before, but seems like they’re pretty urgent and intent in fielding this new weapon system.
Since it’s been a while since completing my lengthy service, I look at myself as an outsider now. If it’s better for the troops I fully support it.
A lot of us are skeptical because we’ve heard this before and doesn’t pan out.

I will stand by my stance that whatever the next cartridge will be will still underperform as a military as a military cartridge when compared with its full potential, as does all military cartridges.

 

[mikejonestkd]

IIRC, 2021 is the deadline to be fielded

I have a feeling that this topic will still be up in the air in 2021, heck, I'd put money on the 5.56 still being the default cartridge for the average troops well into 2030 and beyond.
The gov't just does not move that quickly.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

They may well start putting some in some hands by then, but imagine how long it's going to take to fill the contracts and start replacing old with new at the depot levels ... everywhere.

Well, and whatever they get in the field will not have been tested properly by 2021. It may not even work very well by 2021. They have to design the cartridge yet to go into a gun that isn't designed yet, both of which need to be function checked together and corrections made for firing under good circumstances, and then the extremes testing will need to be conducted. Of course, this isn't just for one platform either.

They may want to make the change, but being able to do so goes way beyond what they want.

 

[44 AMP]

It is now August 2019.

If the Kalahari bushmen bombed Topeka harbor on Aug 7, we wouldn't have a new cartridge design in a new rifle design "fielded" by 2021.

My crystal balls are cloudy... one says if they get even one rifle and a few rounds of ammo in the hands of A troop (which might be a proving ground guard) then someone will claim it's "fielded"....

The other one says we'll stick with the generally recognized definition of "fielded", none will be, the contract will fail to be met, and expire.

Then after securing MORE funding, they begin a completely new round of design, testing, contract negotiations and all the rest, essentially starting from square one all over again.

Which do you think more likely?

 

[RC20]

I think there is movement and it will happen.

When? Crap shoot.

 

[ronl]

I think the military would be much better served if they simply began to teach each soldier real marksmanship. IF they did that, whatever weapon they put in a soldier's hand would be much more effective. The talk of defeating upgraded body armor is the same old diatribe heard for years and it goes the way of all military development. By the time such a weapon is fielded, someone will have come out with a diamond embedded super polymer that will stop a .50 cal at 5 yds. Then, you'll need a 20mm weapon, or just a 5.56 bullet with the ability to hit where the armor isn't.

 

[davidsog]

I think the military would be much better served if they simply began to teach each soldier real marksmanship.

The movement and traction to get rid of 5.56mm came from the premier shooters in the US Government Inventory in SOF.

In the end it is not about shot placement, it is about physics. Yes, a temporary fix was to begin teaching Regular Forces to use CQB shooting techniques such as controlled pairs and double tapping to improve lethality odds.

Make no mistake that training band-aid did not and cannot overcome the basic physics.

 

[ed308]

I think there is movement and it will happen. When? Crap shoot.

I'm of the same opinion. When will it happen? Anybody's guess.

 

[rickyrick]

The US has been in a state of war for 222 years, the 5.56 has been in use for 55 years, 24% of that time and 23% of the time we’ve been a nation.
In these high tech modern times, it will still take s fairytale unicorn round and weapon that does really exist yet to replace it.
It is physics, yes... physics led to its adoption... and it’s physics that has kept it in use for so long. Of course there’s better cartridges, but the 5.56 is basically logistically and economically optimal.
I hope we can get this new system, and I hope even more that it never gets used in another war that America doesn’t want.
Who wouldn’t want game rifle power in a lightweight M4 sized select fire package.


Edit to add:
One thing is for sure, we won’t be able to do it if it’s never tried, so this is a good start.

 

[44 AMP]

In the end it is not about shot placement, it is about physics.

Ok, WHAT, in the end, is not about shot placement, but physics??

Stopping power? Or however you want to phrase it, the ability to put an enemy down and out? Seems to me that shot placement is kind of important, if you don't HIT the enemy, I don't think the physics of the round matter much. (Thermonuclear weapons / high explosives excepted)

The US has been in a state of war for 222 years,

This has me curious, how do you define "a state of war"??

the 5.56 has been in use for 55 years,..

And the .30-06 was in use for 51 years as the service rifle round. We've covered this before. The only thing the length of service tells you is the length of service. It has nothing to do with the actual effectiveness of round A over B when both get the job done to the military's satisfaction.

And that's the big point, The round has to be effective enough to accomplish the mission and be cost effective. AND any new round not only has to do that, it has to do it well enough to justify the COST of replacing the existing round, AND the weapon systems that use it.

This is the lesson you should take away from the failure of the US to adopt the .276 Pedersen. While the .276 was superior to the .30-06 in several ways all of them added together were not enough to convince the powers that be, (at the time) that it was worth replacing the .30-06. For general service use, there is a lot more involved than just new rifles.

You may think the 5.56mm has been in service so long because tis the best thing since sliced bread, canned beer, and girls who smell nice, OR you might think it's been in service so long because the govt is too cheap to buy something better and too obstinate to admit they should have gone with something else in the first place.

My personal opinion, considering how many "upgrades" and modifications we've made to the 5.56 and the M16 over the years, looks to me a lot like "this is what we're stuck with, lets keep trying to make it work better..."

Today, with those people who gave /forced the 5.56 to/on us long retired, their careers and their place in the history books is no longer threatened, so people are beginning to actually look at the fact that there MIGHT be something else, possibly a better alternative.

However, millions and millions of $ worth of inventory has an inertia all its own. Overcoming that takes either a seriously significant performance AND cost improvement, or a top down "Fuehrer Directiv" from the Sec Def or higher.

I don't see either of those on the horizon, ….yet

 

[agtman]

I hope we can get this new system, and I hope even more that it never gets used in another war that America doesn’t want.
Who wouldn’t want game rifle power in a lightweight M4 sized select fire package.

'Game rifle power' generally indicates a .30-cal something chambering.

'In a lightweight M4 size select-fire package,' would generally indicate less than a 30-cal something chambering.

Which do they want?

 

[rickyrick]

Which do they want?

the best of both worlds, that’s why they needed to invent a new weapon with a revolutionary new cartridge.

And that's the big point, The round has to be effective enough to accomplish the mission and be cost effective. AND any new round not only has to do that, it has to do it well enough to justify the COST of replacing the existing round, AND the weapon systems that use it.

I agree 5.56 is not the most effective possible cartridge, it’s the most effective when considering costs and logistics. The same can be said for any individual soldier item.
The army does change equipment when needed, and for the 15 years that I was in, lots of equipment changed including a few iterations of the M16/M4.
One thing didn’t change, (off topic,but) the M2 machine gun.

As to the 222 years, you can look at it in different ways but I’d suspect that if you count military “consulting” that time would be even longer. But the 222 year figure does include some low intensity conflicts, police action and the military’s expulsion of the indigenous population(which accounts for the largest time period)

 

[hot chili powder]

6.8 = .270

If only old "Cactus" Jack O'Connor were alive today to see the 270 caliber become the US military choice for combat!

 

[2damnold4this]

Interesting take on the issue:


link

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Primary and Secondary is a good podcast. There is a lot of truth in Chuck Marsh’s commentary there but I think some of that commentary reflects his experiences and not everyone’s experience. The truth is, you can drill a guy 15 times and depending on SHOT PLACEMENT, he may not immediately go down. The history books are full of walking dead guys who took lots of folks to Valhalla with them. If you don’t hit CNS or get a psychological stop, then the guy has to bleed out and that may be 10 seconds or 10 days depending on a variety of factors.

On a semi-related note, take a look at this article on structured barrels. I’ve got zero experience with it; but if the claims are true it makes the targets for barrel life, rate of fire, and accuracy a lot more realistic.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/07/30/tacomhq-structured-barrels-better-in-every-aspect/

 

[44 AMP]

But the 222 year figure does include some low intensity conflicts, police action and the military’s expulsion of the indigenous population(which accounts for the largest time period)

The United States became the United States with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. So what 8 years were there where by your definition the United States was not "in a state of war"?

I define the United States being in a "state of war" when Congress declares such a state exists, and at no other time.

This does not mean we are not fighting somewhere, with some portion of our military, but part of our military being at war does not constitute the entire nation being in a state of war.

Simply put, I agree with one of the comments made about our recent combat in "the Sandbox" and "the Rockpile". American troops were at war. AMERICA was at the mall.

We have been in combat, we have been in war, but we have only been in "a state of war" during the declared wars, 1812, the Mexican American war, the Civil War, the Spanish American war, WWI and WWII.

 

[rickyrick]

I’ll rephrase to conflict, then. As far as I know that the Vietnam conflict was not a declared war, but it’s a hard pill to swallow when my dad, with a silver star for valor and two Purple Hearts, lived with the scars and constant pain with the rifle fragments and other shrapnel imbedded in the entire right side of his body. Some of the fragments were still there at his death at 52; they believe that they removed all of the k9 bone fragments that was in him too. I have more than a few uncles and other kin I’ve never met thanks to conflicts. I got out of the army when I found myself to be the sole surviving male in my family. I’ve been to conflict areas, looked an awful lot like war to me as well.

 

[44 AMP]

Viet Nam and Korea are called "police actions" or conflicts in the official documents. It is absolutely war to the guys on the sharp end.

But "a state of war" is a political term, perhaps even a legal one, though I'm not certain about that last part.

FDR asked Congress to declare that a state of war exists between the United States and the Empire of Japan.

A state of war exists between governments, This in no way trivializes or changes the hell that is war when it is not declared between governments, it's just a narrow term with a very specific meaning.

I am a skeptic about the 6.8mm supplanting the 5.56mm in the near term. I think the Pentagon will study the crap out of it, perhaps even let small contracts and maybe even equip specialty forces with them, but the decision to make it, what ever it turns out to be, the standard service rifle round is a political one, and that is something I cannot foresee.

I have heard it said that MacNamara was obsessed with one standardized rifle round (among other things). Here we are now, all these years later, looking for a better "one size fits all", or are we?

Do remember that while one size may fit all, one size fits almost no one perfectly....

 

[rickyrick]

For sure, conflicts and police actions are probably the more accurate terms, those seem to have much stricter rules of engagement than a declared war.

One thing for certain is that we’ve been studying war for much longer than western society has existed. The United States has elevated warfare to near perfection, I mean this with no callousness intended. I know that if the 5.56 had been dreadfully ineffective in the past, it would have been replaced years ago. I haven’t served in years, so I concede that it may have outlived it’s usefulness.
If you look at recent actions (post Vietnam) the one sidedness of our few casualties compared to the opposition is staggering. Stagnation of conflicts and persistence of enemy forces is mainly due to the U.S. forces being hamstrung politically. Most groups that take on our troops head on are totally annihilated. Guerrilla tactics are another thing.

I don’t buy into the notion that there is some nefarious intent by the pentagon or government officials that would keep a substandard weapon system in the inventory. There has not been anything that significantly improves on what we have yet. There’s only so much that can be done within the real estate of an M4 and 30rds of 5.56. The velocity that is achieved with with a small diameter bullet is what makes it work as it does. So that’s why they are trying a completely new type of system. They want to achieve high velocity with a projectile of a larger mass... easy with a larger heavier weapon, without question... we’ve done it in the past. But to do it in a light carbine while still maintaining the same ammo load, keeping a tame shootability can’t be done with conventional cartridges can’t be done and achieve worthwhile performance increases. We can get some improved performance currently, but not enough to ditch what we have.
I forget the stats as I’m sitting here, but the propose weapon requires leaps and bounds improvements in performance.

Where the conversation goes off the rails, so to speak, is when some people can’t divorce their thinking from the 6.8spc: this is not the 6.8 spc, same diameter bullet and that’s where the similarities end.

I think it will be a while before we see this implementation full scale. I think a lot will be learned and the knowledge will be applied on future trials.

 

[davidsog]

Interesting take on the issue:

Never once heard the term "overmatch" uttered. However I do know the guys who wildcat'd the original 6.8mm and built an AR platform to test it in SOCOM.

Again....never heard the term "overmatch" anywhere in that mix.