The Army's new rifle

[727Sky]

Coming in at 12 pounds of manly weight, and each round of ammo costing $13 per pew pew what a wet dream weapon for the idiots in Washington procurement.

IMO you start getting a weapon heavier than 10 pounds it almost becomes a crewed weapon for a long march especially with all the other battle rattle crap you have to carry.. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VlbiIxu7H...ture=share

[Ninurta]

12 pounds of rifle is just too much rifle. You've already got around 80 pounds of ruck on your back, and I think most of the vests these days carry around 10 magazines, 30 rounds apiece. I dunno what this 13 dollar round weighs, but 300 of them (plus the 30 already in your rifle) have got to weigh plenty. Hell, the MOLLE rig I have here weighs about 25 pounds all by itself, empty. No need to add extra unnecessary weight to a load like that.

The rifle itself looks to me like a Buck-Rogers-ized AR anyhow. No excuse for that extra weight. What the hell does the average trooper need with a sound suppressor? That's just another pound of useless weight for them to carry. They'll eventually have to give each trooper his own robot too, in order to carry all the useless crap they insist has to be carried.

Personally, I think if they went back to the old M16A1 with a 12 inch rifling twist and M193 ball ammo, they'd be good to go. They've been screwing with the AR platform for 40 years now trying to make it "more lethal", and have only succeeded in making it LESS lethal... so now they have to go with this new crap? Just wait until they get done making it "more lethal" too.

Procurement and testing very often runs a shit-show all it's own. I have an idea - teach troopers to hit their target with whatever they happen to have to hand instead of saddling them with even more junk that they don't need... fanciest gun in the world ain't gonna do you any good at all if you have a habit of shooting over their heads instead of into their heads. On the other hand, a Sears Special will do the trick if you drop some lead in their head from it.

By teach them to hit their target" I mean just that. I think it's around 10% or 15% of soldiers that will actually shoot to kill. The rest just shoot to scare. There is a world of difference between shooting a paper target on the range and shooting at a living, breathing one trying to shoot you right back. People get jittery about that, which IMO is an issue that could be addressed in training.

My Dear Old Dad had a system for training - "Here's five shells. that's all ya get. Either bring back all 5, or enough pieces game to account for the missing shells. if ya don't, next time you only get 3. You ain't wasting all MY ammo!"

.

[727Sky]

The Army's new XM-7 rifle which shoots bullets that cost somewhere between 12 to 15+ dollars per round is actually receiving good feed back from the troops. Good solid Optics and a bullet able to penetrate light armored vehicles and body armor seems to be a win win. Of course the positive feed back is mostly from approved blogs and articles.

[Schmoe]

12 pounds of rifle is just too much rifle. You've already got around 80 pounds of ruck on your back, and I think most of the vests these days carry around 10 magazines, 30 rounds apiece. I dunno what this 13 dollar round weighs, but 300 of them (plus the 30 already in your rifle) have got to weigh plenty. Hell, the MOLLE rig I have here weighs about 25 pounds all by itself, empty. No need to add extra unnecessary weight to a load like that.

The rifle itself looks to me like a Buck-Rogers-ized AR anyhow. No excuse for that extra weight. What the hell does the average trooper need with a sound suppressor? That's just another pound of useless weight for them to carry. They'll eventually have to give each trooper his own robot too, in order to carry all the useless crap they insist has to be carried.

Personally, I think if they went back to the old M16A1 with a 12 inch rifling twist and M193 ball ammo, they'd be good to go. They've been screwing with the AR platform for 40 years now trying to make it "more lethal", and have only succeeded in making it LESS lethal... so now they have to go with this new crap? Just wait until they get done making it "more lethal" too.

Procurement and testing very often runs a shit-show all it's own. I have an idea - teach troopers to hit their target with whatever they happen to have to hand instead of saddling them with even more junk that they don't need... fanciest gun in the world ain't gonna do you any good at all if you have a habit of shooting over their heads instead of into their heads. On the other hand, a Sears Special will do the trick if you drop some lead in their head from it.

By teach them to hit their target" I mean just that. I think it's around 10% or 15% of soldiers that will actually shoot to kill. The rest just shoot to scare. There is a world of difference between shooting a paper target on the range and shooting at a living, breathing one trying to shoot you right back. People get jittery about that, which IMO is an issue that could be addressed in training.

My Dear Old Dad had a system for training - "Here's five shells. that's all ya get. Either bring back all 5, or enough pieces game to account for the missing shells. if ya don't, next time you only get 3. You ain't wasting all MY ammo!"

.

I can understand the suppressor for a small reconnaissance unit, but infantry?  Makes no sense, though knowing the government, they'll say they saved money on hearing protection by simply equipping all rifles with a suppressor.

That equals more maintenance too, as suppressors get nice and dirty, quickly.  Along with the rest of the rifle.  Do they also have to use subsonic ammo to even make the suppressor functional?  It's not an integrated suppressor, like the MP5SD.

[SomeJackleg]

12 pounds what the hell is it made of, or is it all the new fancy optics and shit they put on them now days?  and at 13.00 bucks a round, with 10 30rd mags, and say a 200 round bandolier that comes to 6500 bucks worth of ammo combat load per Marine, Seal Trooper.

you know when i was in the Corps and even before i could shoot the gnats off a fleas ass on a dog ass at 200 yards or bust squirrels and rabbits in the head on the run with iron sights with a .22. all for less than 20 bucks.

if they want a more lethal AR just go / stick with the AR 10. and teach soldiers how to shoot with just iron sights. 

but no it's all about fancy and dollar signs now days.

you know i just realized how old i'm getting. you don't hardly see any troops carrying bandoliers anymore like we did.

[Infolurker]

I mean... really? 

Go back to 308 / Nato 7.62 x 51

Is the new stuff THAT much better to justify the obscene x20 cost of the ammunition. Is it 20X better than 308? I bet not.

[Ninurta]

The Army's new XM-7 rifle which shoots bullets that cost somewhere between 12 to 15+ dollars per round is actually receiving good feed back from the troops. Good solid Optics and a bullet able to penetrate light armored vehicles and body armor seems to be a win win. Of course the positive feed back is mostly from approved blogs and articles.

Well that video was just too cute by half! I remember seeing the same claims made about the M16. For example, I recall seeing a demonstration where a cinder block wall was reduced to rubble using only a stock M16A1 and the old M193 ball ammo.

Damn near doubling the weight of your weapon while simultaneously halving the amount of ammo you can carry for it makes me think they might be trying to redefine the phrase "light  infantry".

The weapon itself looks to me like it's just a beefed-up M4 (apparently beefed up to be able to handle this new "monster" round), so I don't really see any significant advantage there, either.

Also, I think it is a really bad mistake for the US to start sourcing it's primary weapons from foreign manufacturers - Sig-Sauer in this case. I can't think of any nation in the history of the world that has survived for long after it started relying on foreign sources to supply it's most basic war fighting needs. Never a good idea to put your life and survival in the hands of a potential adversary, no matter how friendly they might appear to be today.

The video mentions a 3 minute of angle group that the weapon is capable of, which to my way of thinking is pretty dismal for an out of the box weapon. My AR shoots 1 MOA - 3 times more accurate than this overweight beast of a weapon. My bolt action rifle shoots 1/2 MOA. To spread those groups out to 3 MOA is sad... just really sad.... It doesn't matter how many feet steel a bullet can pierce at a billion yards if you can't even hit that steel with the bullet.

The optic is ridonkulous. It appears to be designed to "idiot-proof" the aiming procedure, but what happens when your shit goes dead or just plain breaks, and no one got trained on or has possession of any real sights?

On the positive side, if the military decides to start wasting our tax dollars on this bludgeon of a rifle, then it ought to release several billion rounds of 5.56 ammo into the surplus market as this new 15 dollar a round crap starts filtering in to military procurement channels. No real down side there! Well, except for the poor soldiers that have to carry these bricks around all day...

Another plus is that if everyone thinks this round is going to turn their pretty armor into butter, then maybe more folks will stop wearing those turtle-shells and exponentially increase their own maneuverability.

BUT - the army can do what the hell ever it likes. Every day that goes by, I am more and more glad that I'll not have to deal with the blunders they make now.

No damned wonder they have such a hard-on to take away folks' AR's. They don't want civilians to be better armed than "the world's best military" after they get done painting it pink and sticking a rose up it's ass!

.

[Schmoe]

The Army's new XM-7 rifle which shoots bullets that cost somewhere between 12 to 15+ dollars per round is actually receiving good feed back from the troops. Good solid Optics and a bullet able to penetrate light armored vehicles and body armor seems to be a win win. Of course the positive feed back is mostly from approved blogs and articles.

Well that video was just too cute by half! I remember seeing the same claims made about the M16. For example, I recall seeing a demonstration where a cinder block wall was reduced to rubble using only a stock M16A1 and the old M193 ball ammo.

Damn near doubling the weight of your weapon while simultaneously halving the amount of ammo you can carry for it makes me think they might be trying to redefine the phrase "light  infantry".

The weapon itself looks to me like it's just a beefed-up M4 (apparently beefed up to be able to handle this new "monster" round), so I don't really see any significant advantage there, either.

Also, I think it is a really bad mistake for the US to start sourcing it's primary weapons from foreign manufacturers - Sig-Sauer in this case. I can't think of any nation in the history of the world that has survived for long after it started relying on foreign sources to supply it's most basic war fighting needs. Never a good idea to put your life and survival in the hands of a potential adversary, no matter how friendly they might appear to be today.

The video mentions a 3 minute of angle group that the weapon is capable of, which to my way of thinking is pretty dismal for an out of the box weapon. My AR shoots 1 MOA - 3 times more accurate than this overweight beast of a weapon. My bolt action rifle shoots 1/2 MOA. To spread those groups out to 3 MOA is sad... just really sad.... It doesn't matter how many feet steel a bullet can pierce at a billion yards if you can't even hit that steel with the bullet.

The optic is ridonkulous. It appears to be designed to "idiot-proof" the aiming procedure, but what happens when your shit goes dead or just plain breaks, and no one got trained on or has possession of any real sights?

On the positive side, if the military decides to start wasting our tax dollars on this bludgeon of a rifle, then it ought to release several billion rounds of 5.56 ammo into the surplus market as this new 15 dollar a round crap starts filtering in to military procurement channels. No real down side there! Well, except for the poor soldiers that have to carry these bricks around all day...

Another plus is that if everyone thinks this round is going to turn their pretty armor into butter, then maybe more folks will stop wearing those turtle-shells and exponentially increase their own maneuverability.

BUT - the army can do what the hell ever it likes. Every day that goes by, I am more and more glad that I'll not have to deal with the blunders they make now.

No damned wonder they have such a hard-on to take away folks' AR's. They don't want civilians to be better armed than "the world's best military" after they get done painting it pink and sticking a rose up it's ass!

.

Haven't you seen the movie Edge of Tomorrow?  DARPA is making super-strength exoskeletons for every soldier, even carrying a minigun like Jesse Ventura in Predator will be a breeze 

[Snarl]

I mean... really? 

Go back to 308 / Nato 7.62 x 51

Is the new stuff THAT much better to justify the obscene x20 cost of the ammunition. Is it 20X better than 308? I bet not.

There will be a lot more weight in that ammo and a lot less of it in any given magazine. Looks like a 20rd mag is standard.

A buddy of mine got a barrel chambered in 6.8 so as to see what all the fuss was about. He double-tapped a deer with it last year. Kills just like a .308.

I've got enough 7.62 and 5.56 ammo to last me the rest of my life and carry my sons for quite a while if necessary. Anyone who doesn't maybe ought'a start stockpiling some for themselves. My guess is the 6.8 was adopted to make the 5.56 obsolete.

[727Sky]

The HK-416 rifle is quietly taking over the world as one of the most widely used primary weapon systems! This all started back In 2007 when Norway was the first country to widely adopt it for their conventional force, grabbing more than 60,000 rifles. Fast forward ten years and In 2016 France began swapping out their FAMAS for the when they placed just a massive Cosco size bulk order of 117,000 rifles. Now they were on a rolls because only A year later in 2017 the entire United States Marine corps switched to the HK416. They’ve since acquired 14,000 of these rifles to their front line combat roles. But you might not have heard about it because they made tiny adjustments to the weapon and renamed it to the M27 IAR, Norway put an N at the end of the name and France tossed an F to throw us all off. If it looks like a duck quacks like a duck and shoots like an HK416 then it's probably an HK416. The rabbit hole gets even deeper as we continue to dig. By 2021 the German military made the call to switch to the HK416 by ordering 118,000 of the rifles. But they named it to the G95A1 but it’s basically the same exact weapon with some minor improvements and upgrades. That’s a grand total of at least 309,000 rifles ordered under one name or another. That's not even including the dozen or so special forces units who run the weapon - which means it's found in at least 30 different countries.

[F2d5thCav]

@ 727Sky

My memories of the Cold War.  The '60 was considered okay and Ma Deuce was already a saint that had equipped the troops since the 1920s.

The M16A1 was still referred to as a "Mattel product" and was considered to have too many parts.  We envied how an AK could be broken down into three large parts for battlefield cleaning.  Soviets understood the battlefield is a dirty, chaotic environment.

The Dragon guided missile was considered a suicide weapon because of its short range and blast signature.  We had little faith in the LAW missiles.  Too small to stop Soviet tanks with typical shot opportunities.

The 40mm grenade launchers worked well.  A talented soldier could drop the grenades at almost any angle.

Cheers

---

One HK seen here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_&_...naires.jpg

Note the name of the operation mentioned.

That is the now never-ending commitment of fully TEN PERCENT of the French Army to "internal security" duties WITHIN France.  Something something about a restless minority there.

The Brits went through that experience during the "Troubles".  A constant grind on the armed forces of a country and that much of the force that isn't available to confront other countries.

Cheers

[SomeJackleg]

i heard that they got a new rifle out their calling it the undocumented. most don't work, and you can't fire them.