What happened to the 6.5 Grendel?

[Catfishman]

5.56 has some advantages when you are attempting to train a 19 year old girl that weighs 90 lbs. It is also much eaier too contol in rapid semi, burst or FA fire. All I've seen so far in your discussion has been ballistic arguments.

I doubt 90 lb girls are the boots on the ground with a rifle in their hands that win wars. I've never been in a war so I'm speculating but it seems unlikely.

In a nut shell, the attraction of the 6.5 Grendel is, in theory, more power, better ballistics and very managable recoil.

To the general public, it seems odd that our military fights it's wars with a varmit round.

 

[M9P]

6.X

Let's look at some of the history& reason these cartridges were devolped.
1. 6.8
Devolped by some US Army. Green Berets with assistance from US Army MTU & Remington to give the Green Berets enhanced lethality from the M4 carbine.This it does very well. There is no free lunch though. The price is a less ideal trajectory & inreased recoil & decreased controllobility. Also there is increase in the weight of the ammo & potential supply problems using. a non std rd. Those are prices some Green Berets are willing to pay.

 

[Sport45]

What happened to the 6.5 Grendel. Wasn't it ballistically superior to the 6.8. Basically it had half the recoil of a .308 and a much better bullet coefficient.

The halls of shooting history are littered with good cartridges that didn't make it for one reason or another. If you do a search for "obsolete cartridges" you'll find a lot of dicussion about rounds that folk wish would make a comeback.

I think Wildalaska nailed it. Poor marketing.

 

[M9P]

I have trained several 90 lb girls with the M16 4 Uncle Sugar. Like it or not they are part of todays Army.

 

[M9P]

What is really difficult is to get 90 lb girl proficent with the M9 pistol (a reguirement if she is a medic or an officer). She can't reach the trigger. The M10 Sig was adopted because of this. Only problem is I've never seen an M10 outside of MTU & MP units. We have to use what we can actually getour hands on literally.

 

[jimbob86]

I have trained several 90 lb girls with the M16 4 Uncle Sugar. Like it or not they are part of todays Army.

....And I have a 14 y.o. daughter that handles a .270 WIN just fine. Would it be easier to teach her to shoot well with a poodleshooter? Yes. I actually started with .22lr 6 YEARS ago. ..... Logistics and Training (read "Overhead" for all you business owners out there!) say that we have umptillion M-16/M-4s and umptillion rounds of 5.56x45 already loaded and paid for, and Basic Training BRM is 3 flippin' DAYS.

Changing the Service Round in the middle of a war and financial crisis AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Period.

Is the Grendel the better round for the Afghanistan Conflict (It ain't a war, cause we're still at the Mall!) than the 5.56? Certainly. We just can't afford the Better Round. Hell, the bullets we have are bought on Credit..... we can't afford THOSE......

 

[M9P]

I understand your concern about fighting wars with a so called varmint cartridge. I'm a big fan of the M14. And for some terrain& purposes it is vastly superior too the M16. But it is totally uncontrollable in F/A& too heavy for general issue. When the germans invented the STG 44 it made every other general issue service rifle obsolete. Like it or not that's a fact. The Russians (who were on the receiving end of it) quickly accepted this fact & adopted their own assault rifle very quickly. We were stuborn& refused to accept this fact. It took us another couple of decades too accept it. Some of us still refuse too accept it. Time too give it up guys. The assault rifle is here too stay. So any new general issue rifle ctg must be controllable in a lightweight selective fire weapon.

PS nitpicking here but 5.56 was devolped as an assault rifle cartridge before it became a varmint rd. I will concede that you are accurate though as the original AR15 prototypes used the triple duece varmint ctg & 5.56 was a slight modification to the triple duece.

 

[M9P]

Can your 14 year old daughter handle the 270 in a 6 or 7 lb carbine on F/A?

 

[M9P]

The 6.5 G is not a superior military cartridge too 5.56 in any terrian in the M16 platform.

 

[jimbob86]

Can your 14 year old daughter handle the 270 in a 6 or 7 lb carbine on F/A?

She'd be at least as effective as with a .270 boltie at 500 meters (average engagement distance of start of a firefight in Afghnistan) as she would be with an M-4 in 5.56 ..... at leas t if she hit one of the enemy, they'd know it.

In WWII, we armed support troops with M-1 Carbines because they were cheaper than the M-1 honest to God Rifle that we gave our Infantrymen ..... now we arm all our troops with Carbines, because it is too difficult and/or expensive to train all of them to use an Honest to God Rifle .....

and the StG 44 would flop in the open terrain of Afghanistan even worse than the M-4 ..... Sorry, wrong tools for the job.

 

[M9P]

No cost was'nt the reason we built 6 millon M1 & M 2 carbines. It was officer vanity. They thought it was improper to issue low enlisted scum the officers badge ( pistol) . So the carbine was supposed to be issued too the lowly enlisted scum that really needed a pistol. The reason we ended up making so manyof them is the same reason we are making M4 instead of M16. The GIs fell in love with it because of lightweight ergonomecs& controlability in F/ A. The closest thing we had too an assault rifle.

 

[M9P]

The 5.56 may not be the hammer of Thor @500 yds but the enemy knows it when they have been hit solidly. This is why I prefer the M16 over the M4. At 500 yds shut em down now is'nt as important as it is @ 50 yds. An M16 is pretty effective@ 600 yds in cabable hands. It will drill a 22 hole in & out of unarmoured opponeants. How many harmless 22 holes are u volunteering 4?

 

[jimbob86]

The 6.5 G is not a superior military cartridge too 5.56 in any terrian in the M16 platform

Check your premise there....."in the M16 platform" .... they are not issuing M-16 (20" barrel) to the troops.... the issue weapon is the M-4 Carbine, 14.5 inch barrel ...... the M855 round was supposed to be such a vast ballistic improvement over the 55gr M193 .... then they went an chopped 5 1/2 inches off the barrels .....

a 5.56 (M-855) out of an M-4 is dropping more than 5 Feet (200 yard zero) and drifting nearly 4 feet in 10 mph crosswind at 500 meters..... and packing a whopping240 ft/lb of energy to the target, provided the soldier shoots enough to get lucky and hit him- if 500 meters is the Average then the 5.56 in inadequate. The 6.5G is better, but not ideal, especially from a cost consideration.....

[Can your 14 year old daughter handle the 270 in a 6 or 7 lb carbine on F/A? /QUOTE]

You have captured the entire problem within your question: Our Infantrymen ought not be issued 6lb. Carbines, and, outide CQB, ought not be spraying bullets F/A ..... but then again, outside the ad hoc SDM program, they are not training our guys to the marksmanship standards that the were before the advent of the M-16..... suppressive fire is not the province of individual weapons- light machine guns and field artillery do a much better job of that.... oh wait- we don't have enough of that.... this is a "Low Intensity Conflict/ Asymetrical Warfare" or some such other BS ....... we can't afford to expend the resources to win, we can't afford to stay forever ...... When we pull out and call it a "Victory" or "Cease Fire" or "Peace With Honor" or whatever, I'll say I told you so.

America is not at War. Portions of the Military are at War. America is at the Mall.

More people will probably be killed in Black Friday Stampedes than in Afghanistan in combat tomorrow. Certainly more people will die in drunk driving "accidents" in the next 24 hours than in Afghanistan....... think about it.

 

[10mmAuto]

You have captured the entire problem within your question: Our Infantrymen ought not be issued 6lb. Carbines, and, outide CQB, ought not be spraying bullets F/A ..... but then again, outside the ad hoc SDM program, they are not training our guys to the marksmanship standards that the were before the advent of the M-16..... suppressive fire is not the province of individual weapons- light machine guns and field artillery do a much better job of that.... oh wait- we don't have enough of that.... this is a "Low Intensity Conflict/ Asymetrical Warfare" or some such other BS ....... we can't afford to expend the resources to win, we can't afford to stay forever ...... When we pull out and call it a "Victory" or "Cease Fire" or "Peace With Honor" or whatever, I'll say I told you so.

Unless you're in the military in some kind of active combat arms unit right now I'd advise you to stop spewing half truths, outright falsehoods and complete misunderstandings of doctrine and training modalities right now and go back to discussing ballistics.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Devolped by some US Army. Green Berets with assistance from US Army MTU & Remington to give the Green Berets enhanced lethality from the M4 carbine.This it does very well. There is no free lunch though. The price is a less ideal trajectory & inreased recoil & decreased controllobility. Also there is increase in the weight of the ammo & potential supply problems using. a non std rd. Those are prices some Green Berets are willing to pay.

No, they're not.

5th SFG(A) did a combat trial of 6.8 Rem SPC on a very limited basis. So limited that when ODAs from 5th Group came to train with guys from the Group I was in, I never managed to find anyone who'd had anything to do with the test.

Based on that field trial, USASOC and SOCOM opted not to pursue fielding of the 6.8 SPC for various reasons. A more effective answer was found to be issuing additional SPRs with Mk 262 plus more SR-25s (and later M110s) to ODAs for long range work. The workhorse weapon/ammo combination remained M4A1s with M855, even for the cool kids.

And quite honestly, most of the team guys I worked with were completely happy with that combo -- even though if you study the internet you will learn that being hit with green tip from a 14.5" barrel actually cures cancer, restores male virility better than Viagra, and may help you win the lottery. In fact, most of those guys for most applications preferred even shorter barreled uppers than 14.5" for gunfighting, backed up by crew served and/or sniper guns for longer range work.

 

[10mmAuto]

And quite honestly, most of the team guys I worked with were completely happy with that combo -- even though if you study the internet you will learn that being hit with green tip from a 14.5" barrel actually cures cancer, restores male virility better than Viagra, and may help you win the lottery. In fact, most of those guys for most applications preferred even shorter barreled uppers than 14.5" for gunfighting, backed up by crew served and/or sniper guns for longer range work.

Since I've been in I've only heard one complaint about 5.56 lethality - from a pog who only shot his weapon once, through a vehicle body, at a vehicle check point.

I'm surprised so many people around here are perpetuating the same old myths.

 

[M9P]

M16 platform

M16 platform includes any weapon u can assemble on a M16 lower. That would include the M4. BTW though u r wrong about they don't still issue M16s. Many support & reserve units still use the M16. The Marines still use the M16. I've seen Air Force perssonel still carting AR15 marked pre M16 rifles. Also don't let your eyes fool you alot of those "M4s" u see on news r really M16A2s that the soldiers have converted with their own cash. When they turn it back in it will be an M16A2 once again.

 

[M9P]

In regards to use of 6.8. Your response is the oft-quoted & 4 the most part true statement. However I think u know as well as I do that some are allowed great leeway in their choice of armament.

 

[M9P]

costing

You have it exactly backwards when u try to blame the reason 4 going to the M4. On cost.
U see the plan was 4 the M16 to be primary issue& the M4 to be a seldom used ancillary weapon. That being the. case the Army bought manufacturing rights 4 the M16 & can let out competitive contracts to anyone too build them. Last I heard FN was the primary contractor& cost was a little over $300. It may have changed latley but the last I knew on the subject was that since the Army never anticipated more than minuscule quantities of M4 they chose not too purchase the manufacuring rights, this left Colt as the single source supplier & while I don't remember the exact fiqure I think they were charging Uncle Sugar well over twice what FN charged for the M16. FN makes good profit selling the M16 to Uncle Sugar for less than$ 400. What does that say about prices civilians pay 4 ARs?

 

[M9P]

The need for a F/A individual weapon started in WW 1. We needed something to suppress the german maxims while we advanced &something to sweep their trenchs when we got there. Hence the pederson device, the BAR& the thompson. All too little too late though 2 of them would see much use in WW2.