Doctrine and why the Grendel has an uphill battle.

[LRRPF52]

The last war we fought and won was WWII?

Even if we toss out Urgent Fury '83 and Just Because '89, Desert Storm was one of the most shocking and overwhelming wins the US military or any military has ever executed against one of the largest armies and air forces in the world, measured in a matter of hours.

When I see a premise formed on statements that ignore probably the most impressive military campaign of the 20th Century and the subject is about warfare, I do have to ask questions about the source of the premise.

Another problematic premise was this:

The venerable .30cal round has been around since forever, and the ballistics table take most any and all guess work out of the round, minus a few planetoid factors and atmospherics if you shoot far enough to make that matter.

I've spent most of my life shooting and spotting .308 on a regular basis, and LR1955 has been doing the same since around the time I was born, all of it in a formal capacity either in competition or running shooting courses where cases of M118LR or M852 are burned through covering weeks on-end. .308 ballistics are one of the most guess work-inducing cartridges I've ever shot, sans the .45-70.

5.56 NATO is a great cartridge for most of the dismounted Infantry and Combat Arms duty positions, and many of them have more gun than they need or will ever use currently.

14.5" 5.56 NATO carbines are too much gun for RTOs, Combat Medics, LTs in many cases, PSGs, Javelin Gunners, Forward Observers, Assistant Machine Gunners, Mortarmen, and Combat Engineers. They all would be better served with something shorter in most cases.

7.62 NATO was too heavy, mandated too large/heavy rifles and machineguns, and doesn't have the ballistic potential it should for its weight. Muzzle blast is such that it's a non-starter right off the bat for CQM.

There's a great podcast on P&S about all of this if you don't want to take my word for it, where the discussion is comprised of senior NCO 11B4P master gunners, former Ranger Regiment/JSOC guys who specialized in machine gunnery, and SMEs with decades of real-world experience with 7.62 NATO.

One guy talked about how when he deployed to his unit who had already been in Afghanistan for a few months, he inherited additional duties as ammo control, and had to inventory everything before signing for it. One of the rooms in their ASP had stacks of thousands upon thousands of M118LR already loaded in 20rd SR and SCAR mags. He asked about it, and they said they tried going all-7.62 NATO mix in the teams and sections, which lasted about 3 weeks before they said, "**** that *****!"

Issues encountered were inability to negotiate common obstacles like walls, excessive weight from a reduced basic load, insane muzzle blast in confined spaces, early need for resupply or relief due to Class V going close to Black, pouches wearing through quickly and damaging feed lips on mags that already had problems running reliably when new, guys trying to match their 5.56 basic load by resorting to storing SR25 2x mag pouches on the backs of their Plate Carriers, guys bringing SR25 mag go-bags for the birds to feed off of, requiring a combat squire approach with another man having to feed mags to them to support their volume of fire sucking through 20rd SR mags.

7.62 NATO was already determined to be a colossal abortion in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the Fort Benning studies, especially when they used captured Warsaw Pact 7.62x39 Weapons in force-on-force experiments to see how tactics actually played out. Short story: Unit with 7.62 NATO albatross with 100rd basic load in 5 mags (standard at the time) were slaughtered wholesale by units that could carry more ammo per soldier, maneuver faster, and run dry less often.

An inherently accurate bullet with rifleman tactics would reduce the need for so many magazines in the first place for one, and two, most units I talked to only carried 26-28 bullets in their chewed up, used up magazines in the first place, unless they bought their own P-mags.

We already have accurate enough ammunition. We don't have realistic or serious training. If you issued Mk.262 to units, it wouldn't help change their qual scores or hit probability in combat because they don't have people in positions that matter that will ever take the time to get their men to the range enough to learn how to be proficient with the weapons. It's a cultural and institutional problem, not an equipment problem.

I could go on about this, but I feel I am wasting my time at this point. I would politely suggest more study. There are a lot of assumptions about what happens in 11B land that are so far off the mark, as to be basically void of any relevant information, especially from within the military in the other career management fields. Most leaders at decision-making levels within 11 series don't know what's going on, and support personnel might as well be civilians looking and guessing.