Proposed New US Service Rifle Cartridges

[briandg]

with a good FMJ design, that would be a seriously deadly round. I'd prefer it in the 300 yard range. if it was created with a very lean ogive, and possibly rear heavy bullet design by a 3 piece core and and/or a jacket with a solid copper point that takes up about 1/3 of the actual length, that thing would destabilize and disintegrate just as well as the .223.

Lightweight nose, steel center core and hard lead base core would leave fragments ripping through whoever is hit that are almost the same mass as an intact .223

That is where my research would be looking. Thin jacket, swaged copper point, long with high bc, then duplex core with either lead and steel or steel and tungsten for fragmentation.

That would be a fine medium range deer round.

 

[BlueTrain]

You people need to get away from designing bullets for combat by way of designing bullets for killing deer. But even Barnes rated cartridges that way so I guess you can, too.

 

[SPEMack618]

Eh, the "deer rounds" in .223 expand, something the Hague Convention denies us with the 5.56mm round.

Something to be said for expansion.

 

[RC20]

There is a great deal of misconception in the whole area of discussion.

The primary thing to keep in mind is that the bureaucratic mind set at its worst (military ) can be insanely closed. Harder to penetrate than a mile of the best concrete the world produces.

What that mind set has determined is that they want a round that penetrates.
You can repeat that a million times because all the other stuff aside, that is the driver (true special ops does not follow that but they are a flexible world unto themselves as they are divorced from the bureaucracy and are results driven to coil a modern term). ]

If the bureaucracy was acutely driven by result, they would ignore any aspect of the Hague convention (those same folks that tap our phones and justify it in the name of national security are pretty good at BS justification !).

So, first and foremost, a ball round is always going to be driven to penetrating armor, barrier etc, regardless of the fact that the opponents we currently face do not have armor vehicle, windows or body armor. It can’t accept that you can have multiple rounds and or even carry mixed loads outs.

Once you accept that the rest becomes moot in bullet selection.

Caliber change selections purely driven by they do not want to give up any of their expensive toys to improve the grunts capability. In other words, they think the grunts end is minor and injury, death and less effective there would distract them from their fancy toys.

Their way of keeping it from happening is to set ridiculous improvement goal (200% better) knowing that can’t be achieved and then saying, oh well, it just isn’t going to work and then have another round of the same thing.

Most of us know its the grunts that win the battle, but its not super high tech fancy stuff that careers are made of and on.

As for the caliber size, the argument can rage until hell freezes over, but what has been shown is that a sub 30 caliber round can be generally effective for the vast majority of the engagements. Ergo it truly is better than a 338 Lapua that you only use its reach once in a hundred engagements.

Why would you carry a 7.62 that can reach 1500 yards (only in the right hands) when you almost always are under 300 yards? Let alone most infantry is not trained to hit something at 400 yards if they had a scope? (Marines and Special Ops excepted of course).

There really are major advantages to the sub 30 caliber rounds, its really a mater of which one would be most effective (unfortunately the Army stumbled into the matter and did not do their due diligence and we are stuck with the result to this day)

My opinion has changed dramatically. I was an early proponent of the 6.8.

I now believe the 6.5 Grendel is the best. Not because 6.8SPC does not work for its intended goal, but that goal was limited by the capabilities and vision of the people who came up with it (and a very worthy effort it was).

What the 6.5G did though, was to take all the advantages of the 6.8, and carry it out to a much longer effective range. While not its intent, the long range nuts that drove that, in effect also by definition had a fully effective round for anything under is 1000 yard goal.

Most infantry can not utilize that (ergo the 6.8) but the beauty of the 6.5 is that is suffers no fault for the longer range, and for those who can (and I expect that will increase as time goes by and the Army adjusts its doctrine) then its there and capable

While only one man in a group of 5 can shoot accurately, it also means that the other 4 can successfully suppress and potentially kill out at that range.

So, the 6.5 of something very close to it would fulfill the sub 30 caliber round that works so well, and at a small loss of how many rounds you can carry be far more effective overall.

It will take someone with vision or congress to force this change, I am not holding my breath.

 

[mehavey]

While only one man in a group of 5 can shoot accurately, it also means that the other 4 can
successfully suppress and potentially kill out at that range. So, the 6.5[G] or something very
close to it would fulfill the sub 30 caliber round that works so well, and at a small loss of how
many rounds you can carry be far more effective overall.

It will take someone with vision or congress to force this change, I am not holding my breath.

Hmmmmm........

So you are not a fan of the everything's-just-fine school of thought?

 

[BlueTrain]

Is this the same bureaucracy that has provided most soldiers with optical sights? Is this the same bureaucracy that even tolerates "special ops.?" Mixed load outs? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that but machine gun ammunition comes already mixed. There is also something called armor piercing ammo, which is not ball ammo. In any case, if you want bureaucracy in action, get congress involved.

Funny here how long range shooting keeps getting longer; now we're up to 1500 meters. But maybe it's a good trend. Keep the enemy that far away.

 

[briandg]

Something that should be considered is that the extra bullet weight IS WITHOUT A DOUBT SIGNIFICANT.

When a group of men are sent out on patrol, research has shown over and over that they are almost invariably packing more weight than they should be.

I don't know how many rounds an individual on a long patrol will carry, but just the simple fact is that for every 100 rounds of ammunition, the new .308 caliber will weigh a minimum of one extra pound.

If you have a man carrying a couple thousand rounds to supply his squad mates, there is 20 extra pounds that he will be humping.

if the soldier is on a base, in a static location, or only going on short patrols through an urban location, fine.

If that soldier is out scouring the bush, carrying meals, water, first aid equipment, rifle, explosives, etc, every pound of weight that can be cut will be important, and in those cases, it would be a terrible idea to deliberately add an extra pound for every 3 magazines.

The 5.56 should be kept for those soldiers who will be hauling thousands of rounds of ammunition around expecting to be caught in long firefights. ammunition should be standardized among all units. all rifles should use identical ammunition and be interchangeable to avoid problems.

So, there is at least one good argument for throwing this idea down the tubes with prejudice.

 

[mehavey]

The 5.56 should be kept for those soldiers who will be hauling thousands of rounds of ammunition around expecting to be caught in long firefights. ammunition should be standardized among all units. all rifles should use identical ammunition and be interchangeable to avoid problems.

So, there is at least one good argument for throwing this idea down the tubes with prejudice.

In that case, we ought to just go to a variation on the 218 Bee: lighter, smaller, and plenty for 1-200 yard firefights.

As to the groundpounder having to carry a one extra pound/hundred load-out in the mountains of whereever (in return for a potential 50% increase in lethal range) we might ask the fireteam leaders, the platoon leaders, and the company commanders before we tube the idea.

(and Normal load can vary from 210-360 rounds depending on unit and mission)

 

[BlueTrain]

Well, just how much ground pounding do the ground pounders pound these days. I know pounds area important but don't we have trucks (I mean, vehicles) any more? Just as much effort should be to lighten the soldier's load as much as possible. Do you think the enemy tramps around carrying 60 pounds of gear?

On the other hand, with modern lightweight materials and everything, the soldier will be carrying 60 pounds of ultralight gear instead of 60 pounds of old-fashioned heavyweight stuff.

 

[RangerHAAF]

And the dilemma continues. Fortunately for me my devotion to the 7.62x39 cartridge in an AR package has been recently addressed by the Rock River LAR-47 which addresses the Achilles heel deficiency(magazines) of the AR. For me that cartridge is the best all around choice for all of my personal shooting needs.

http://www.rockriverarms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=558

 

[btmj]

Caliber change selections purely driven by they do not want to give up any of their expensive toys to improve the grunts capability. In other words, they think the grunts end is minor and injury, death and less effective there would distract them from their fancy toys.

Their way of keeping it from happening is to set ridiculous improvement goal (200% better) knowing that can’t be achieved and then saying, oh well, it just isn’t going to work and then have another round of the same thing.

Most of us know its the grunts that win the battle, but its not super high tech fancy stuff that careers are made of and on.

This point of view is only valid in the context of the kind of war we have been involved in for the last 10 years. A counter insurgency campaign against an enemy whose primary weapons are (1) terrorizing the local population into submission and (2) booby traps (IEDs) set against the vastly superior friendly forces.

Let's not learn the wrong lesson from the current campaigns... we are fighting an enemy that does not have a single tank, helicopter, or fixed wing aircraft.... when are we ever going to face such an enemy again?

Our future enemies will not only have tanks, helicopters, and combat aircraft, they will also have combat ships, attack submarines, advanced anti-aircraft defenses, satellite intelligence, UAVs, electronic warfare, cyber warfare, and who knows what else.

In this kind of war, the choice of caliber for the infantry is not nearly as important as it seems today, fighting a technologically backward third world guerilla force.

 

[semi_problomatic]

Choice of cartridge for the boots on the ground is always important. No matter what technological terrors you put your faith in.

 

[mehavey]

...future enemies will not only have tanks, helicopters, and combat aircraft, they will also have combat
ships, attack submarines, advanced anti-aircraft defenses, satellite intelligence, UAVs, electronic
warfare, cyber warfare, and who knows what else.

In this kind of war, the choice of caliber for the infantry is not nearly as important....

While I don't disagree w/ the premise, I cannot see it leads to the conclusion. That's akin to saying the bow & arrow, the horse, the canon, the rifled musket, the machine gun, the tank, the airplane, carpet bombing and/or the atomic bomb ended the role of conventional infantry. All of the above merely preps the battlefield for what follows -- boots on the ground (unless, of course, one simply says "I give up") -- and that means Infantry

The mission of the individual infantryman is to close w/ and destroy the enemy in detail. His ability to do that is a function of accurate fire at as much distance as individually possible.

The advent and increasing use of compact/lightweight and very sophisticated aiming devices on the individual rifles need to be matched with the training & tactics to use them, and the cartridge to match them.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

I used to jump on these threads one way or the other on specific calibers.

A little bit more experience and now I agree totally with those talking about re-evaluating training. It doesn't matter what round you are using if it doesn't hit the target, unless your goal is to suppress until fire support come into play, in which case DOD should look at some sort of whistling round. If you are going to go really cheap on marksmanship training you need the easiest to shoot cartridge you can get. Any woman who can pass ANY of the branches PFTs can easily be taught to shoot a 308. The 223 is pretty easy to shoot and anyone can be taught to shoot it faster than they can be taught to shoot a 308. We are literally talking about a few hours on the range with an instructor, but also maybe half the time the non-combat soldiers, who are a majority of the armed forces, spend on the firing line.

 

[btmj]

Mehavey: It is not akin to saying that any weapon advancement ends the role of the infantry. That is not my premise and I am sorry if you got that impression.

As I said in earlier posts, I certainly believe that there is a role for a designated marksman, or some other category of skilled shooter, and that operator should have the appropriate tool... perhaps that tool is 7.62x51, but I think that a 6mm to 7mm projectile coming out of a 308 brass would be a better choice (i.e. 6.5 creedmore, 260 Rem, 243, etc). The AR-10 platform would seem to be a good choice.

But I was specifically responding to the posting by RC20, where he accused pentagon decision makers of neglecting the tools of the infantry in favor of high tech expensive toys. Besides being somewhat offensive and insulting, this statement is also false. Those "toys" are what makes the US military the most powerful in the world. With all due respect to our soldiers and marines, the rifle we use is an insignificant factor in our ability to project force and win wars.

There has been a huge amount of money spent in the last 10 years on improving the effectiveness of the soldiers and marines. Completely new mine-resistant vehicles were designed from the ground up and built in large numbers. Optics, body armor, micro-sized UAVs.

There is always a cost trade-off. Switching the entire DOD from 5.56 to 6.5-whatever would be expensive. If the DOD had unlimited funds, it might be a nice-to-have, but in the real world of tight budgets, there are better things to spend the money on.

 

[RC20]

B

ut I was specifically responding to the posting by RC20, where he accused pentagon decision makers of neglecting the tools of the infantry in favor of high tech expensive toys. Besides being somewhat offensive and insulting, this statement is also false. Those "toys" are what makes the US military the most powerful in the world. With all due respect to our soldiers and marines, the rifle we use is an insignificant factor in our ability to project force and win wars.

Sadly, human nature is what it is and to disregard that is to not only limit your view, but allows the practice to continue.

Please note I am not insulting the men and women who serve in the front lines nor the ones who make sacrifices in their support. This is reserved for the decision makes.

I can write a book about the disgusting practices that the Pentagon engages in. The handling of the remains at Arlington is only one of them.

I will limit this to one of two I have seen personally as I follow the field very closely as well as being a student of history.

Recently a pilot flying an F22 out of Elmendorf AFB (2 miles from where I live) died in a crash. The accident report blamed the pilot (though it went on to discuss equipment deficiencies as well as a secondary contribuer).

Basically the F22 has an on board oxygen generating system. It failed.
There was no auto shift to the backup system.
The Pilot had to realize it was down, reach down and back, pulling a lanyard device that was hooked into a bracket which it can fall out of, while trying to fly the aircraft.
He had to do this while wearing required winter survival gear, gasping for air and they said it was his fault.

That let the people who made the decisions on this s abomination of a system off the hook.

This was brought to their attention at a congregational hearing and they said "we did not blame the pilot". The report very specifically did. The denial was an outright lie.

They have moved the whole manual activation system so that you can actually activate it.

The system was deemed non mission critical and did not require monitoring or an auto shift to backup. Right.

Basically they blame the guy as low on the totem polel as it gets, so they avoid any "mark" against their record. This goes all the way to the top.

note they also tried to blame a Sargent for an AWACS crash up here when the command was totally culpable (and Congressional focus got the base commandeer canned finally, but their first effort was to blame a grunt who had 17 other job assignment and given no resources to goose control)

Yes, some of the leadership do have integrity, you see them resign from time to time. The ones with no integrity stay on of course.

So, for you to tell me that there is not chicanery, careers made and gold plating involved in the procurement process and that the grunts get the short end of this stick (unless someone like Gates call them on it and forces them to do different) is implausible. 10s of billions are spent and wasted in bad programs and making them work (look at the current history of the F35 which is as atrociously managed with a concurrent production before they actually make it work bust, hmmmm indeed)

I will bow out at this point.

 

[BlueTrain]

There is a certain amount of truth to the assertion that the Pentagon likes expensive toys, only it isn't necessarily the Pentagon that wants them. But that's beside the point. The point is, it isn't a new thing. Ever since this country became concerned enough about a foreign invasion, it has preferred hardware, if you will, over a large army, which was more of the norm in other countries. So right down to the present, large sums have been spent on forms of defense that did not involve a large army. That included all of the seacoast fortifications up and down both coasts, some even built during WWII, to the missile sites around cities during the 1950s. Also during the 1950s there was an increased reliance on atomic weapons in the army, which it was believed reduced the need for conventional forces. Remember the country started out with a distaste of standing armies, preferring to rely on the militia. That didn't always work out right but even now, the equivalent of the militia is serving overseas. That was another idea that someone thought of recently.

 

[bumnote]

The DOD has proposed cutting its budget by $500B over the next few years. The 5.56 isn't going away.
My former next door neighbor was a Marine sniper in Iraq his favorite non-sniper rifle was the M4 and he said they had no problem with the 5.56 and it's performance. I live outside DC and have had many neighbors that are combat vets and all of them liked the AR platform and the 5.56, at least the handful I've asked. I don't ask them about this kind of stuff unless they've brought up a topic where I can ask about their experiences with the rifle and the round. It seems to me that 95% of the folks who complain about the round don't have any experience in the matter. I'm sure a more perfect round could be developed, but what can't be improved? But the economy stinks, budgets are being and will be cut, and new or improved hardware based on recent lessons learned will funded first. The basic inf. round isn't likely to be replaced for a very long time.

 

[Beretta686]

lol. These threads are great! There's nothing like people who've never served in the military, much less done any small-unit tactical training (RLTW!), giving us their opinions on what someone else will carry into battle, while they sit on their asses at home watching Fox News and playing Call-of-Duty on their X-Box.

Anyone who has actually done fire-and-maneuver understands that it's not about the individual round, but rather about achieving fire-superiority through sustained accurate fire (the sustained part being why we have "burst" not "auto" on the M16A2/M4 selector-switch, but you're trained not to use it), which allows your other element freedom-of-maneuver.

For all of 5.56's shortcomings, you can still carry a ton of it and that's what matters in a fire-fight, because most of your rounds aren't being used to shoot someone, they're being used to keep the bad guys' heads down.

Yes, other cartridges/weapons are used as force-multipliers (such as the M-14 pattern weapons now issued at the squad-level as DMRs in Afghanistan), but that's due to the unique nature of that conflict, not an inherent shortcoming of the 5.56 requiring a transition.

These debates are just another example of amateurs wanting to squabble about their pet tactics, when the professionals are thinking logistics for sustaining operations.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, I'm an amateur all right and an old one at that. I got out of the army in 1968. Wasn't nothing going on. And on top of that, my training was artillery. Did you know that our training even included shooting at moving targets? My son also served and he made it Iraq. His favorite small arm was a machine gun. It came with a very strange looking tripod. He was also issued with an M4.

By the way, would you call the enemy amateurs?