11-15-2011, 08:00 PM
I am talking about Grendel adoption across the military, since SOF uses the same calibers anyway. 6.5 Grendel would be a logistics issue as a rifle/carbine cartridge simply due to shipping weight, when compared with 5.56.
The Grendel was never intended to be, nor designed with the intention of replacing 5.56. It was meant to provide a deer-hunting platform in the AR15 that facilitates heavier projectiles, more retained energy, with less recoil than a .308, and a larger bullet selection for these purposes, and it is doing an excellent job of that.
Since optics are standard on every carbine or rifle in dismounted infantry units, as well as most other combat arms duty positions, but training on how to use optics is lacking, a new caliber doesn't address the problem of training entry-level soldiers, or career soldiers with entry-level marksmanship skills (the real problem), on how to engage targets past 300m, even though the wind factor is addressed in FM23-9 or FM 3-22.9, as are trajectories based on common zero ranges for the M16/M4. It's simply too much to ask of entitlement class soldiers who are there for entirely different reasons than the warrior class, to take interest in their jobs from a battle-focused perspective. Career NCO's who should have been forced out after their 1st enlistment are one of the biggest obstacles in the equation, combined with the influence they have on careerist officers who are risk-aversive and numbers-driven.
When actual war breaks out, they rely on the marginalized warrior class to get the job of combat done, then take the credit for it, and the warriors leave or go to SOF units, where battle-focused training is valued due to the OPTEMPO, regardless of open conflict or not, while the regular Army can get back to the primary focus of area beautification, guard duty, inspections, scraping carbon off weapons, mandatory fun days, equal opportunity training, homosexual rights' awareness, staff duty, CQ, change of command circuses, arms room rack # shuffles, etc.
The Grendel was never intended to be, nor designed with the intention of replacing 5.56. It was meant to provide a deer-hunting platform in the AR15 that facilitates heavier projectiles, more retained energy, with less recoil than a .308, and a larger bullet selection for these purposes, and it is doing an excellent job of that.
Since optics are standard on every carbine or rifle in dismounted infantry units, as well as most other combat arms duty positions, but training on how to use optics is lacking, a new caliber doesn't address the problem of training entry-level soldiers, or career soldiers with entry-level marksmanship skills (the real problem), on how to engage targets past 300m, even though the wind factor is addressed in FM23-9 or FM 3-22.9, as are trajectories based on common zero ranges for the M16/M4. It's simply too much to ask of entitlement class soldiers who are there for entirely different reasons than the warrior class, to take interest in their jobs from a battle-focused perspective. Career NCO's who should have been forced out after their 1st enlistment are one of the biggest obstacles in the equation, combined with the influence they have on careerist officers who are risk-aversive and numbers-driven.
When actual war breaks out, they rely on the marginalized warrior class to get the job of combat done, then take the credit for it, and the warriors leave or go to SOF units, where battle-focused training is valued due to the OPTEMPO, regardless of open conflict or not, while the regular Army can get back to the primary focus of area beautification, guard duty, inspections, scraping carbon off weapons, mandatory fun days, equal opportunity training, homosexual rights' awareness, staff duty, CQ, change of command circuses, arms room rack # shuffles, etc.