Our military adopting the Grendel?

[stanc]

Pinzgauer did a great job pointing out the differences between two battlefields and the 5.56. My children are like the guys in Iraq, where short range needs trump long range needs. Being able to carry more rounds is more important than being able to reach out. In 'stan, there is certainly a need for longer reach, and the Grendel provides some of that, but I'm not sure the logistical nightmare of introducing another caliber would outweigh the REAL benefits, not the PERCEIVED benefits, of having a longer reaching caliber.

That's why I had been calling for testing all those years.

We have little or no hard data to say that 6.5 Grendel does (or does not) provide REAL improvement. What we have is more in the nature of BELIEF that it does, a belief which I think is based primarily on early (and unrealistic) comparisons of 6.5 w/Scenar match bullet vs 5.56 and 7.62 Ball.

BTW, should testing demonstrate real advantages to use of 6.5 Grendel, I doubt that it would cause a logistical nightmare. Some extra work for the logisticians, certainly, but no nightmare. Back in 1941, they introduced another caliber (.30 Carbine), and the system managed to absorb it quite well. Same with introduction of 7.62x51 in the 1950s, and 5.56x45 in the 1960s.