08-10-2017, 04:41 AM
I agree with Cory and LR. While small arms are effective at incapacitation, they do not win battles or wars in traditional warfare with tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, and aircraft. When you have small unit troops in contact, they need to have enough ammo to sustain until reinforced, resupplied, or until the above are used - unless of course it was a small group of civilian, armed combatants where usually they disappear quickly after they take fire or one of them is killed.
When you are the guy patrolling you want something that is light and effective to the range that you can see what is shooting at you which is usually less than 300 yards but in most circumstances doesn't reach 800-1000. At those longer ranges, MMGs, the 50BMG, and Mark19s allow you return fire and mount up and/ or maneuver.
5.56 is generally effective and you can carry ~200 rounds in a normal combat load with armor and a day or two day pack and can still move quickly. The grendel is definitely superior/ more effective than 5.56 in what I have seen, all aspects, but does have a slight trade off of weight, size, and carrying capacity, however it is still very close to the current combat load. I can only imagine how much more effective a 6.5 grendel green tip with a tungsten penetrator twice the size of M855 would be.
That being said i am not sure if they went with the grendel what grain projectile they would use, maybe a 100-110gr to keep velocity high? Or like Stanc was saying, perhaps slightly elongate the case to use a 120-130 gr projectile with a bit more powder and slightly widen and lengthen the receiver to accommodate the change. It might even be possible to keep the same exterior receiver dimensions and remove some of the inner receiver material (with some other adjustments) to make up for the small difference in size. Either way people that have much more knowledge, experience, and funding will be (have done/ are) doing tons of research and development.
Also, a 338 MMG does make sense because if you have ever seen 240 MMGs shoot past 800 or just look at their ballistic tables, their trajectory and energy fall off quickly. While the 338 would have similar ballistics to a 50BMG with the ability to have differing projectile types. However, I really do not see the 50BMG going anywhere. It always was an anti material cartridge even though it certainly can be used for anti personal purposes.
When you are the guy patrolling you want something that is light and effective to the range that you can see what is shooting at you which is usually less than 300 yards but in most circumstances doesn't reach 800-1000. At those longer ranges, MMGs, the 50BMG, and Mark19s allow you return fire and mount up and/ or maneuver.
5.56 is generally effective and you can carry ~200 rounds in a normal combat load with armor and a day or two day pack and can still move quickly. The grendel is definitely superior/ more effective than 5.56 in what I have seen, all aspects, but does have a slight trade off of weight, size, and carrying capacity, however it is still very close to the current combat load. I can only imagine how much more effective a 6.5 grendel green tip with a tungsten penetrator twice the size of M855 would be.
That being said i am not sure if they went with the grendel what grain projectile they would use, maybe a 100-110gr to keep velocity high? Or like Stanc was saying, perhaps slightly elongate the case to use a 120-130 gr projectile with a bit more powder and slightly widen and lengthen the receiver to accommodate the change. It might even be possible to keep the same exterior receiver dimensions and remove some of the inner receiver material (with some other adjustments) to make up for the small difference in size. Either way people that have much more knowledge, experience, and funding will be (have done/ are) doing tons of research and development.
Also, a 338 MMG does make sense because if you have ever seen 240 MMGs shoot past 800 or just look at their ballistic tables, their trajectory and energy fall off quickly. While the 338 would have similar ballistics to a 50BMG with the ability to have differing projectile types. However, I really do not see the 50BMG going anywhere. It always was an anti material cartridge even though it certainly can be used for anti personal purposes.