An Army outgunned, early article pushing the Grendel

[LRRPF52]

As an outsider (but supporter), it is just sad to me to think that an off the shelf Grendel could have been in service for 10yrs already, while the big dogs sit and contemplate what next. And as we all know, by that time they would have been happy with the "stopgap solution".

At the end of the day, the DoD and US Army don’t give a crap about Joe Tentpeg down in the Line Infantry, nor can they really afford to under all of their budget requirements and limits for the high-dollar/high performance programs.

Army Aviation, Armor, Artillery, Mobility, Long Range Fires, EW, Medical, and UAS are far more effective systems that give significant return on investment, whereas Infantry are a bottom-priority after-thought who only come into focus during Unconventional Warfare.

We yank back and forth between funding the big systems, then our enemies see that, and fire-up a distractive dilemma for us to be sucked into away from their regional focuses, where we actually need competent Light forces that don’t smash everything in their path, who can discreetly place small arms fires next to the civilian population without a lot of collateral damages.

Look at the 1950s build-up towards an all-nuclear force, with everything from strategic bombers down to nuclear recoilless rifles. In that era, they said, “Why waste our time training and equipping Riflemen to hit targets from 500-800yds, when it isn’t going to matter?” They dumbed-down the Army Rifle Marksmanship Training Program as a result, which was actually pretty advanced in the late 1940s post-WWII.

Then we got suckered into Vietnam and small arms became more of a consideration than the Train-Fire program’s emphasis on the Fulda Gap for Europe, and Northwest Corridor for Korea.

They made a major compromise in the 1950s by attempting to go with a single universal infantry cartridge that would be chambered in 3 types of weapons to replace the outgoing following weapons:

* M-2 Carbine in .30 Carbine
* M3A1 .45 ACP SMG
* M-1 Garand in M2 .30 Cal Rifle (.30-06 Springfield by civilian name)
* M-1C/D Garand Sharpshooter Rifle in M2 .30 Cal
* BAR in .30 Cal Rifle
* M1919 Belt-fed Machinegun in .30 Cal Rifle

That’s where the 7.62x51 came from, along with the T44/M-14 and M60 General Purpose Machinegun. It was an emphasis on logistics that wouldn’t be burdened anymore with 3-4 different shoulder-fired weapon cartridges with at least 6 DODICs that filled different roles. They didn’t want to give up the performance of the M2 .30 Cal Rifle cartridge, but wanted it to be smaller for more compact ammunition carrying, hence the reduction in length from 63mm case to 51mm, and pressures increased from 55ksi to over 60ksi. Funny thing is that they assumed the USAF would be happy with Security Forces lugging around M-14s, which didn’t play out with a guy like General Curtis LeMay at the helm, who got what he wanted, from bombers to rifles.

US Army Infantry Center also wanted a Squad-Level Individual Support Weapon, so they shoe-horned that into the M14E2 with a different in-line stock, pistol grip, bipod, and muzzle brake to replace the BAR, but it was still 7.62 NATO, 20rd mag-fed common to the Rifleman’s M-14. Machinegunners would lug around the M60 fed with linked 7.62 NATO, with the help of ammo bearers and an Assistant Gunner, laden with ammo, spare barrel, tripod, and Traversing and Elevating mechanism.

The M-14/M60/7.62 NATO weapons mix proved to be far less than ideal, and the USAF, Army Special Forces, Airborne, and Airmobile Units were all getting AR-15s in the early-mid 1960s, followed by the USMC. USAF contracted for the AR-15 first in 1962.

The weapons that got largely ignored and stop-gapped with less than ideal solutions were the M-1C/D and BAR.

For the BAR, the M14E2 with lightweight barrel just didn’t cut the mustard, and was abandoned quickly, with M16A1s and bipods designated for Automatic Riflemen who would carry extra magazines and fire bursts of full auto fire in support of their Fire Team and Squad during the assault, breach, and react-to-contact battle drills. No quick barrel change and an anemic cartridge at distance meant the M16A1 Auto Rifleman duty position was ill-conceived, and spawned the SAW trials of the 1970s.



For the M-1C/D, they just dropped it after Korea basically, and the Army and USMC had to come up with ad hoc solutions for Snipers and Sharpshooters during Vietnam.

US Army came up with the XM21 Sniper System by 1969, which was a National Match Competition M-14 paired with a Variable power Auto-Ranging Telescope with a mechanically-cammed mount interface with the power ring.
USMC went with a bolt-action 7.62 Sniper Rifle with heavy barrel, fixed 10x Unertyl scope.



US Army also experimented with some in-country light sniper systems based off the AR-15, namely the Colt 655 and 656, which most people have never heard of nor seen.



In the 1970s, the SAW trials saw the XM249 Minimi from Belgium eventually win, which became the M249 and replaced the Automatic Rifleman/M16A1 combo with a belt-fed 5.56 LMG that was too heavy for what it was, but demonstrated better reliability than any of the other submissions in the 1970s. 5.56x45 is not ideal for an LMG, but logisticians didn’t want another DODIC in the system, and the M249 was made with a spare magazine well that could also feed from M16 magazines in emergencies-a total waste of space and added burden on SAW gunners.

They had a good cartridge design for the 6x45 SAW, but it never went anywhere. Would have been great for LMGs and Light Sniper Systems.



All along, the US Army and USMC failed to specify and contract for a much-needed DMR, while fielding the mediocre and heavy M249 LMGs in the Rifle Squad alongside the M16A2 in the 1980s-2000s.

The M4 was a great addition to the Infantryman, replacing the unnecessarily-long M16A2, but we still didn’t get any DMR option focus, though the issuing of ACOGs helped fill that gap both in the Army and USMC.

JSOC-Army side had developed their own DMR Carbines in the Sniper Sections based off the Colt 723 before the M4 was fielded, using free-float tubes and whatever optics were available at the time.
JSOC-Navy saw those and had their armorers build them as well. Then SOCOM Snipers in SF and NSW wanted something similar, which became the SPR program and the Mk.12 Mod 0, Mod 1, and Mod H.

The cartridge still didn’t cut the mustard, so “DoD entities” asked for something that would fit in the M4 receiver set but reach out like 7.62 NATO, without the weight, recoil, ammo, and blast penalties. They tested out 6.5 Grendel and said this is great the way it is, so Hornady then took it and necked it down to 6mm.

In the line, the gaps still exist for an intermediate cartridge LMG and DMR. 6.8x51 is back to 7.62 NATO profile for mags and weight/bulk, which is a non-starter, even though the performance is impressive (135gr at 2900fps from a 13” barrel is smokin’).